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JMS had it right: Mary Ann Cramer: I have to ask you the same question people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull

by _sbrk 7y ago

JMS had it right: Mary Ann Cramer: I have to ask you the same question people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back? Forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems at home? Sinclair: No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and all of this…all of this…was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.

mnl 7y ago
Way before that the carbon cycle will stop and most life on Earth will starve. Yet way before that we'd have evolved into different species that will likely go extinct as they all do (I think the average lifetime is 10My). I don't know where this idea that we might still be here until the death of the Sun came from. I'd worry more about making it to the next glaciation without having poisoned ourselves before. I don't think it's accurate thinking about space as a physical place out there you can simply go. It's more like jumping from one gravity well to another and what you have to think about is what part of the system you're aboard can do that by means of conservation of momentum. And that's the main reason why I don't think we have the technology nor the energy budget to think about feasible interstellar trips. It's a bit like telling techno fairy tales to children, only it's adults and we have a lot of other adult problems.
staticman2 7y ago
He has it wrong. The universe will end and it will be for nothing. Going to the stars does not make life meaningful or preserve anything in the end. Life has no meaning other than what we invent.
- kamaal 7y ago
  >>The universe will end and it will be for nothing. Let's solve one problem at a time. The nearest ones are Global warming, war, disease, asteroids etc. Once you go to space, you will have new problems. We'll worry about the universe then.

by _sbrk 7y ago

mnl 7y ago

Way before that the carbon cycle will stop and most life on Earth will starve. Yet way before that we'd have evolved into different species that will likely go extinct as they all do (I think the average lifetime is 10My). I don't know where this idea that we might still be here until the death of the Sun came from. I'd worry more about making it to the next glaciation without having poisoned ourselves before. I don't think it's accurate thinking about space as a physical place out there you can simply go. It's more like jumping from one gravity well to another and what you have to think about is what part of the system you're aboard can do that by means of conservation of momentum. And that's the main reason why I don't think we have the technology nor the energy budget to think about feasible interstellar trips. It's a bit like telling techno fairy tales to children, only it's adults and we have a lot of other adult problems.

staticman2 7y ago

He has it wrong. The universe will end and it will be for nothing. Going to the stars does not make life meaningful or preserve anything in the end. Life has no meaning other than what we invent.

kamaal 7y ago
>>The universe will end and it will be for nothing. Let's solve one problem at a time. The nearest ones are Global warming, war, disease, asteroids etc. Once you go to space, you will have new problems. We'll worry about the universe then.