Hawking says Browncoats are right! by PaganPaul

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Hawking says Browncoats are right!

POSTED BY: PAGANPAUL
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 14:01
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006 5:31 AM

Stephen Hawking says humans must go into space.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060613/ap_on_sc/stephen_hawking

HONG KONG - The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday.

"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system," added Hawking.

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

We Browncoats have been saying it all along...

Comments?

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流口水的婊子和猴子的笨儿子。
Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tze.
"Stupid son of a drooling whore and a monkey."

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Tuesday, June 13, 2006 6:06 AM

KHYRON

It'll be tough... at the moment most of the world's money is being invested in weaponry so that we can kill each other some more and I don't know if one is really willing to give up on that. I mean, survival of the species and exploring new solar systems seems like a good idea and all, but if we don't have war, then what are the news networks going to report on? How can presidents ensure re-election?

Basically, the idea is flawed because it makes too much sense and it would be the practical thing to do.

Having said all of that, from a scientific standpoint I'm one of those people who thinks it'll be almost impossible to travel to other star systems, not to mention solar systems. It's a nice idea, but I think the only chance of extraterrestial colonisation is on Mars (and the Moon on a limited scale). Hopefully I'll be proved wrong some day.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

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Wednesday, June 14, 2006 5:20 AM

CYBERSNARK

Don't see what the problem is. All we really need is an FTL drive, and Hawking's been "working on that" for almost a decade now. . .

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Monday, July 10, 2006 12:44 PM

CRUITHNE3753

Here's a neat idea to help with the search:-

[url] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5151610.stm

The issue of Nature which contains the paper, has on the cover "Designing a telescope to find our next solar system". I particularly like the use of the word "our".

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Thursday, July 13, 2006 12:51 PM

NANITE1018

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
It'll be tough... at the moment most of the world's money is being invested in weaponry so that we can kill each other some more and I don't know if one is really willing to give up on that. I mean, survival of the species and exploring new solar systems seems like a good idea and all, but if we don't have war, then what are the news networks going to report on? How can presidents ensure re-election?

Basically, the idea is flawed because it makes too much sense and it would be the practical thing to do.

Having said all of that, from a scientific standpoint I'm one of those people who thinks it'll be almost impossible to travel to other star systems, not to mention solar systems. It's a nice idea, but I think the only chance of extraterrestial colonisation is on Mars (and the Moon on a limited scale). Hopefully I'll be proved wrong some day.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

Well Mars for sure. Luna probably only on a limited scale. Then there's Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Titan, and Triton. Those are also relatively good candidates for colonisation, especially Titan. And maybe some small settlements on Mercury. And if terraforming works than Venus would possibly be good, if it can be terraformed. And Titan and Callisto and Ganymede and Europa might be terraformed, although they would probably take too much effort for the benefit.

And then there's O'Neill's old idea of building super-huge rotating cylinder's to house huge colonies that might number in the millions. That's a really good idea. And the Main Asteroid Belt would be a perfect place to get your materials from. Plenty of unused stuff just waiting to be used. It's been estimated that there is enough resources in the solar system, can't remember if it included the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud or not, but it was something like 10 thousand TRILLION people could live comfortably in the solar system! That's amazing! Although i think there might be room for more, if we tear apart the Galilean moons, Earth's Moon, and used Mercury for easy iron and such. Probably enough material for far more people to live. I don't think Lewis (the estimator person) included the tearing apart moons and such. If we did there'd probably be a lot more.

And as to interstellar travel, it's definetely possible. If you can build huge O'Neill colonies that house tens of millions, then you can easily hook some engines to the back and launch it to another star system. It might take awhile, travelling at say 5% of light-speed, which would be possible with fusion power, you could get to Proxima Centauri in about 90 years. The nearest easily terraformable planet and/or livable planet is probably 50 light-years away at most. So you could get there in a thousand years, not too shabby. And of course, it is possible you wouldn't send whole people. Just a huge number of embryos with a relatively small number of people might do. And you might be able to go upwards of 10% of light speed. There might an Earth-like planet as little as 30 light-years from here, and that would only take 150 years at 20% lightspeed, which might be possible if you stretched the limits and used stuff like nanotech and such. That's not undoable at all. And we'll have the resources of a solar system! Plenty of stuff to work with, even if it does use a lot of resources. I think i read that there is enough Helium-3 and deuterium in Uranus to launch billion person colonies to every star in the galaxy at 1% of the speed of light. And since we would probably do say 4 to each star system, and want to go at 10% or 20% of light speed, which certainly wouldn't require more than 1000 times as much stuff, then we could go to 10 million star systems in about 10000 years or less. Not too shabby, and that's moving a billion people, we could do a billion embryos for less than 1% the weight probably. So you could go faster and whatnot.

If we wanted to, we could definetely go to any star in the galaxy, it would just cost a lot more than it's worth in resources. But to nearby star systems, it'd probably be worth it.

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Monday, July 17, 2006 11:38 AM

EVERYTHINGSSHINY2K6

In terms of being able to travel to other star systems there as an interesting article in the new scientist magazine regarding a paper that won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics prize for the best paper in nuclear and future flight category.

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200

It describes the physics behind a machine that could allow travel to a star 11 light years away within 80 days. Apparently the US Air Force is interested in it.

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Sunday, July 30, 2006 5:07 PM

DESTRO12

Well, we dont need FTL, we just need what the Firefly universe earth had. They found a system of like 15 planets and lots of moons and just terraformed the whole place. I mean they didnt do to bad. I think there was something like 15-20 planets at minenmum(sp) in that system plus all those moons.

So long as we had FTL communication, FTL flight isnt as important at tha point :)

but it would be totally kool to have FTL drive, i would so totally go flying around and galavanting across the universe.

And one theory i have thought of/expounded upon is making use of the fact that if you know the absolute speed of an atom you cant know its position and vice versa, we could use that to be everyplace at once by knowing the absolute speed of our ship and then just pick a place in space to be. would be neat

Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?

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Tuesday, August 22, 2006 2:19 AM

JAMAICANBATMAN

Way to go Stephen Hawking!

--------------------------------------------
"Way i hear it, albatross was a ships good luck, 'til some idiot killed it. Yes i've read a poem, try not to faint."

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Tuesday, August 22, 2006 1:37 PM

SEAOTTER

I couldn't get the Hawking link to work --

can anyone else?

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Tuesday, August 22, 2006 2:01 PM

FIZZIX

You're all aware it's not possible till we get past the evil space radiation.
http://discover.com/issues/jun-06/cover/
YYYYYYEAh.... that's what happens when you don't get the most awesome science magazine ever.
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-06/departments/hawkingexit/
Also.

SOOOOOO..... we're stuck on earth till we get adequate sheilding. Unless we wanna have space death.
Space dementia... *giggle*

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May not be smart, and it may not please you, but you're definitely gonna see what I have to say.

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