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Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to

Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to directly image these planets. Show people a picture of another Earth and that will drive a lot of scientific research. When Columbus returned from the New World, the idea that there was another world out there had just as big (or bigger) impact for the first few decades as people actually going there. I'm with Hawking on this. Earth is getting crowded, stale, stagnant, and in some ways unstable. We need a very clear vision that there is somewhere else to go should we put forth the effort.

hugh3 15y ago
Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to directly image these planets. Plausible technology might, in our lifetimes, be able to resolve this planet as a dot. But you'll never get more than that. What is interesting is that it's easier to measure the composition of its atmosphere than to resolve it as a dot. Find me a planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and it starts looking very likely that we might have life there. On your other point, though, I don't think there's much point in having a political will to send people to another star. We're still (at the very least) hundreds of years away from the point where we can even start to think sensibly about how we might want to do it. It's like Columbus wanting to go to the moon.
bh42222 15y ago
Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Let me try and rephrase that: Funding is directly related to politics, which to a large degree is emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to directly image these planets. I would guesstimate that paying a top political consultant (maybe Carl Rowe himself) to sell more science funding is approximately One Thousand times cheaper and easier than imaging a plant over 30 light years away. So the strategy I would propose is a lobby group, which would lobby politicians of both parties at all levels of government, to get more science funding. And if we can't get enough people together to agree and fund this group, then we as a people do not deserve more discovery and exploration.
scott_s 15y ago
Bringing this out again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456 But, even if we magically had the ability to colonize another planet, that wouldn't solve any problems. Did colonization of North American significantly reduce the population of Europe? Not at all. The main benefit to Europe was another trading partner who had different kinds of goods. Which was beneficial to Europe, but it did not solve the kinds of problems people seem to think colonizing another planet will solve.

hugh3 15y ago

Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to directly image these planets. Plausible technology might, in our lifetimes, be able to resolve this planet as a dot. But you'll never get more than that. What is interesting is that it's easier to measure the composition of its atmosphere than to resolve it as a dot. Find me a planet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere and it starts looking very likely that we might have life there. On your other point, though, I don't think there's much point in having a political will to send people to another star. We're still (at the very least) hundreds of years away from the point where we can even start to think sensibly about how we might want to do it. It's like Columbus wanting to go to the moon.

bh42222 15y ago

Investigation and exploration is directly related to imagination and emotion. Let me try and rephrase that: Funding is directly related to politics, which to a large degree is emotion. Because of the great political impact involved, we need to have plans in place to directly image these planets. I would guesstimate that paying a top political consultant (maybe Carl Rowe himself) to sell more science funding is approximately One Thousand times cheaper and easier than imaging a plant over 30 light years away. So the strategy I would propose is a lobby group, which would lobby politicians of both parties at all levels of government, to get more science funding. And if we can't get enough people together to agree and fund this group, then we as a people do not deserve more discovery and exploration.

scott_s 15y ago

Bringing this out again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2639456 But, even if we magically had the ability to colonize another planet, that wouldn't solve any problems. Did colonization of North American significantly reduce the population of Europe? Not at all. The main benefit to Europe was another trading partner who had different kinds of goods. Which was beneficial to Europe, but it did not solve the kinds of problems people seem to think colonizing another planet will solve.