On the imperative of leaving earth

[AngryAmish]

Many more people that are way smarter than I have commented that for the human race to survive we must leave the earth. I happen to agree with that assessment.

That said, I think putting stuff on top of a rocket and shooting it into orbit is a crazy way to move people to orbit and beyond. Rockets have a few things going for them - including relatively smooth acceleration that don't squish delicate creatures such as ourselves. Teleportation and the like just don't and won't work - complexity problem.

What would I start doing if I were king?

1. Robots will do the exploring. Mine asteroids and the moon (robotically). Solar sails seem fuel efficient.

2. Send out a lot of robots to take pictures and mass spectrography of other worlds in nearby solar systems.

Anyway, the real exploration is not for our lifetimes. But shooting a lot of probes to other solar systems can be done. This should be done.

[UndertheOcean]

1. nah , we don't deserve to survive.

[NoNothing]

2. Speak for yourself, please

[UndertheOcean]

4. I will speak for whomever I damn want , got it ?

If you don't like it you can go pound sand.

[Johonny]

17. I agree he isn't worth surviving, you are hang in there though

:) Some people I guess really don't like themselves and don't want to make it.

[Posteritatis]

8. I've always loved the staggering hypocrisy of these sorts of statements. (nt)

[UndertheOcean]

9. hypocrisy? , I don't get it , explain ?

[Odin2005]

13. Then why don't you go kill yourself?

[tridim]

3. Alpha Centuri is about 85 years away with next-generation technology

With current technology it would take almost 20,000 years. Plus we don't even know if it has planets, let alone habitable planets.

Otherwise I agree, robotic probes everywhere in our solar system, especially the gas giant moons.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I think that humans may have no say in the matter. We will become extinct

due to having made this planet uninhabitable for ourselves. We will perish.

The planet will replenish and survive...without the human race.

[Romulox]

6. Like cosmic cockroaches, we've fouled this nest, and must find another...

Unrec! :hi:

[AngryAmish]

7. I kinda agree

We will survive here. Heck, stone age people lived. live in the artic. But we move on...it is what we do.

[Romulox]

10. We'll build an artificial earth before we find another one in the wild. nt

[RC]

11. We, as a species are too immature and violent to be spreading ourselves around.

We need to learn to get along with ourselves and our environment. Right now we are doing a good job of destroying both.

[Cetacea]

16. I wonder if we'll destroy a 20-40 million year survival record?

[Speck Tater]

12. The empire is already in decline. The days of space exploration are over for good.

Peak oil, peak water, peak rare earth elements for exotic electronics like cell phones and computers. Industrial civilization made possible only by fossil fuels was a brief blip on the radar screen of history. It was a one-shot affair and we've shot our wad. It's all down hill from here, so we are permanently bound to Earth. like it or not.

[Odin2005]

14. The see the misathropes have arrived.

:puke:

[Posteritatis]

15. All curiously alive, despite being evangelical human extinctionists.. (nt)