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10/28/2010 3:09:14 PM

Quote :

"Thinking about the first person born on another planet is also fucking crazy."

lol, true

10/28/2010 3:13:27 PM

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1667605413427828064#

10/28/2010 3:19:12 PM

Quote :

"Eventually, overpopulation and scarcity of resources will become more serious problems for our species (well beyond our lifetimes) and the only option will be to colonize another planet."

It's not really the only option. True, we have a finite amount of resources on this planet, and the problems that we're creating for ourselves now will be more urgent as we fail to address them. The real problem is our perception of our freedoms, one of which is to procreate. If we, as humans (billions and billions of us) could somehow step back and realize the ramifications of unlimited growth, we could persist without having to look forward to such a grim future for our kind. But our concept of freedom isn't the only thing that fucks up that ideal...biology/fitness/the meaning of life kinda shits all over it too.

10/28/2010 6:37:48 PM

i would seriously consider this if there is an in-depth plan on how life will be like. i mean, are all the people living there going to be miners/engineers? are they going to need to establish an economy? buying and selling "land"? privatizing resources like water, electricity, and vespeyne gas?

10/28/2010 6:47:46 PM

I wanna colonize Uranus.

10/28/2010 6:48:37 PM

We don't need to send women there guise

we'll just do what they did back in the old days

rape the local women

10/28/2010 7:15:25 PM

They should make a penal colony.

All the world's violent criminals should be forcefully taken and thrown onto the planet... and then let them figure it out!

We might regret it one day in the far far future when Mars attacks us for revenge!

10/28/2010 7:39:40 PM

Quote :

"i would seriously consider this if there is an in-depth plan on how life will be like. i mean, are all the people living there going to be miners/engineers? are they going to need to establish an economy? buying and selling "land"? privatizing resources like water, electricity, and vespeyne gas?"

we could just set up a barracks and get some marines to go and take over someone else's vespeyne. and then we could research firebats

10/28/2010 7:56:18 PM

Quote :

"i would seriously consider this if there is an in-depth plan on how life will be like."

The first generation to permanently take residence should keep life on Earth secret. They should teach all future generations that they were on a ship to Earth that wrecked on their way there, and now they're tasked with keeping themselves alive to hopefully one day make it to their original destination.


Anyhow, not being of great knowledge of the subject of colonizing other planets, would there not be the potential for being able to find any energy source on another planet? Like could they theoretically make a ship fueled by some energy source that is known to exist on the destination planet? This same ship could then theoretically be made to eventually make a second trip once enough fuel had been gathered, albeit that second trip would be as far down the road as it would take the new colony to amass enough of the energy source.

[Edited on October 28, 2010 at 8:32 PM. Reason : ttt]

10/28/2010 8:31:45 PM

like what? how would we find a new source of energy on an alien planet and then make a ship to move through space powered by that energy source when we've been on Earth for as long as we have and aren't able to do that.

this thread is chock full of retard

10/28/2010 8:56:02 PM

Haven't you heard?? Mars is FULL of dilithium crystals!

10/28/2010 8:58:33 PM

Quote :

"You're right. NASA did have plans to go to the moon, then use the experience gained from that to go to Mars with the eventual plans to set up a permanent human presence on both. The President is trying to get rid of that whole thing though (Congress is still debating about it). If you are interested in something like that, write you Congressmen! "

nasa reauthorization already passed. i don't think there's a whole lot that's going to change soon.

also, this article is just referring to a smallish darpa project just to plan what it would take to do a mission like this. darpa does lots of stuff like this that there is little chance of becoming reality any time soon (or ever).


[Edited on October 28, 2010 at 9:39 PM. Reason : .]

10/28/2010 9:37:56 PM

^

10/28/2010 9:38:27 PM

Quote :

"when we've been on Earth for as long as we have and aren't able to do that."

we've been able to get to other planets for a generation now. it just costs money to do so.

if there was some pressing need to get to mars in the next 5-10 years, i have no doubt that we could do it.

10/28/2010 9:41:11 PM

Quote :

"how would we find a new source of energy on an alien planet and then make a ship to move through space powered by that energy source when we've been on Earth for as long as we have and aren't able to do that."

You read me wrong. I said nothing about discovering a new energy source. I'm under the impression that hydrogen fuel is used as our current energy source for jet propulsion (but I may very well be wrong). My question was simply more along the lines of, do things like hydrogen exist on other planets, or whatever else we use as our current energy source for propulsion? I know nothing of the chemical makeup of other planets.

10/28/2010 10:37:56 PM

Or we just leave them a bunch of Mentos and Diet Coke and force them to make a rad spaceship with it.

10/28/2010 10:54:32 PM

Well, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so I'm sure it's on most planets in some form or another.

As for what fuels the space shuttle...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank

Quote :

"A Space Shuttle External Tank (ET) is the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contains the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplies the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the three space shuttle main engines (SSME) in the orbiter. "

So it also requires oxygen, which if you know anything about Mars, is in short supply. This is all excluding the fact that even if both of these were available in abundance on Mars, the energy required to manufacture them into usable fuels for space travel would probably be more than the actual fuel would create, so they'd need a lot more of something else to be able to do this.

10/28/2010 10:59:25 PM

lol at Fox News:

Quote :

"Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship? A NASA official may have made a 35-million-mile slip of the tongue. The director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California casually let slip mention of the 100-Year Starship recently, a new program funded by the super-secret government agency, DARPA. In a talk at San Francisco's Long Conversation conference, Simon “Pete” Worden said DARPA has $1M to spend, plus another $100,000 from NASA itself, for the program, which will initially develop a new kind of propulsion engine that will take us to Mars or beyond. There's only one problem: The astronauts won't come back. The 100-year ship would leave Earth with the intention of colonizing a planet, but it would likely be a one-way trip because of the time it takes to travel 35 million miles. That’s a daunting prospect, partly because of the ethical dilemma, and partly because it may be the only recourse. "What psychological challenges should we anticipate in those who volunteer in good faith and with great courage, yet find themselves confronting misgivings or loneliness or feelings of rage or beset with mental illness?" asked Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. ....."

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/29/nasa-cover-up-hundred-year-starship/?test=faces

10/31/2010 12:28:04 AM