What if Perseverance finds life?
Nasa's Perseverance rover in 'great shape' after Mars landing
There's a new robot on the surface of Mars. The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero. ... Jezero is thought to have held a giant lake billions of years ago. And where there's been water, there's the possibility there might also have been life.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56119931
There's a new robot on the surface of Mars. The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero. ... Jezero is thought to have held a giant lake billions of years ago. And where there's been water, there's the possibility there might also have been life.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56119931
Comments (51)
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets.
...giving an increased probability there's intelligent life out there. And when we brought it back to Earth it would escape, mutate and turn us all inside out, still walking around, with our organs on the outside! A great day for science!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55885086
The search widens for hot rocks that provide power
Drilling holes into an extinct volcano might sound like an unusual start to an energy project. But that's what J Michael Palin, a senior lecturer at the University of Otago in New Zealand, is planning to do. His project involves drilling two boreholes to a depth of 500m (1,600ft) and monitoring the rock to see if it is suitable to provide geothermal energy.
"You're selling power all the time, so on a levelized basis, geothermal can outcompete all the other options. Once up and running, these projects can go for decades."
I'm inclined to agree. But there's a difference between thinking that life exists elsewhere, and knowing that it does - and it's the difference between looking into the night sky and seeing a lot of floating rocks, and seeing life, wherever the right conditions occur.
What if space exploration is a subtle and blatantly desperate attempt to prove the Abrahamic religions wrong?! Oh!
So you'd be very surprised if life didn't exist elsewhere, but think proving it; knowing for sure is a trivial matter. Is that because you are so confident in your ignorant opinion - that to you, it is as good as certain knowledge? Well, then - look at it this way: you'll get to say I told you so.
If the only reason for space exploration is to prove the Abrahamic religions wrong then they will have served yet another useful purpose!
In terms of costs and solving engineering problems the matter is, of course, tremendous.
But beyond that, what's the point? To find another planet for humans to destroy it?
Rather than make an effort to work things out here on Earth, the solution is to go "business as usual", and consume up another planet, and eventually, what, the whole Universe? Because mankind's appetite knows no bounds nor should any limits be imposed on it?
That's just so pathetic.
That's a somewhat ambitious view; of which our current capabilities fall a very long way short. I think we most certainly should work things out here on earth, because the idea we're going to colonise space is a distant dream - that in any case, is unlikely to save the vast majority of people. Further, if we cannot live in an environment to which we are ideally suited, how can we possibly hope to colonise space where every breath of air, every drop of water, every morsel of food has to be created in a hostile environment?
In short, we are not going to be consuming another planet any time soon. I think we should be planning to catch asteroids, mine them and build in orbit - while looking for ways to travel a lot faster and further than chemical rockets allow.
On another note, resources are a consequence of the energy available to create them, and so, given massive amounts of clean energy from the heat energy in the molten interior of the earth, we can produce limitless clean electricity, capture carbon and bury it, desalinate water to irrigate wastelands - like deserts, and so protect forests and natural water sources from overuse, recycle, farm fish, and have continued prosperity, sustainably, into the long term future. It's only a matter of the energy we have available to spend. Given sufficient energy, there is no limit to resources.
Quoting baker
Is it? So you wanted me to dump on religion because I believe in science? I think that's pathetic; not that I didn't feel that way myself at one time. I was in my twenties when I became disenchanted with religion - and I was very angry about it. But when you think about the role religion has played as the central coordinating mechanism of societies through thousands of years of history - the question of whether it's true or not is about the least interesting and least important thing about it.
I'm agnostic because, as a philosopher interested in science - I think it important to admit what you can, and cannot know. I've got to a place where I accept, I don't know if God exists or not; and emotionally, that's quite comfortable.
The last thing I'll say is probably the most important; and it's that religion made a mistake making an enemy of science. Science could have, and should have been welcomed as the means to know the Creation - rather than been rendered suspect of heresy, true knowledge should have moral worth. Why? Because, as implied above, survival is a matter of the application of the right technologies. We do not have a limited amount of resources we are consuming, and once they're gone, we're done. That's not how it is. We create resources by the application of technology, and have not applied the right technologies because science was made a heresy - rather than valued as true knowledge of Creation.
Humanity and unrestrained science do not mix. The world almost became an irradiated wasteland SEVERAL TIMES now due to NON-WILLED NON-HUMAN NATURAL OCCURRENCES/MALFUNCTIONS. See nuclear false alarm incidents. We create all these germs and mutations in things that have the potential to kill us all, there's so many science fiction movies about this that nevertheless speak from a strong position of scientific fact. Please just honestly stop reading, thinking of a reply, and just think about that for a few minutes.
What is the goal of science? To extend and benefit human life? What do you think that will work out to with enough time. The end of true life, and us all being a series of 1's and 0's in a simulated machine. There is no other outcome. We must turn back. And now.
It’s the natural human instinct to explore, but I also think it is sometimes the sublimated longing for Heaven.
I think the main argument against the idea of colonising space is that it’s impossible. The distances are far too great - astronomical! - and the energy requirements unfeasible. We have precisely one vessel which can carry billions of people for millions of years, and that’s Spaceship Earth, which is dangerously overheating and under immense resources stress. We ought to recognise that and act accordingly.
You do not understand my argument. No offence. It takes a bit of effort to see. What I'm saying is, because the Church made an enemy of science, science was used as a tool - but ignored as an understanding of reality. Had we recognised science as an understanding of reality, and applied technology as suggested by a scientific understanding of reality - we would not have created nuclear and biological weapons. Instead, however, science was made a heresy to protect religious, political and economic ideologies, even while science was used as a tool for industrial and military power. We used the tools but didn't read the instructions. That's why we have nuclear and biological weapons, and that's why we have climate change. And that's why making science a heresy was a mistake.
Why would we create small guns, then larger guns, then just stop all of a sudden. Someone makes a gun, you make a bigger gun. It goes back to the same dynamic "if you don't do it, somebody else will" or "you snooze, you lose".
To your point though. I'm not sure if "the Church" is some single malevolent organization disingenuously masquerading as an envoy of a greater power to lull those who believe in the possibility into conformity and submission to you or just those who believe there is something greater and chooses to live in accordance to that or not, if we take the scientific approach you admire we still have the drawbacks and potential doomsday possibilities as a result now that we did not have before. That's fact, whereas your quoted theory remains exactly that, a theory.
This isn't the 16th century where the Church was part of government and heliocentrists were locked away. Nearly all professors, scientists, and men of position are not theists. This occurred long before even the hydrogen bomb. Back then, I think explosive barrels on catapults were the maximum damage potential available via science.
Science is the process of observing and testing hypothesis in the natural world in order to gain some benefit. The hijacked definition of science is that because of this, there is no room for religion, faith, spirituality, etc. You continue to push this dynamic of opposite and opposing forces ie. the ultimatum of one or the other. I humbly reject this, along with many other people.
Quoting Outlander
You still do not understand my argument. No offence. It was the 17th century - as in 1633, that Galileo was put on trial for proving heliocentrism using scientific method, and found grievously suspect of heresy, such that science as an understanding of reality was disgraced, even as science as a tool drove the Industrial Revolution. Ask yourself what might have followed instead, had science been welcomed as the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, and so accorded sacred moral worth? If you won't see it you can't. That's okay. If instead, you continue to insist we must TURN BACK NOW - maybe you can explain how we put the genie back in the bottle???
Well, sure; why not? The technology involved in the placement of Perseverance on Mars is pretty impressive, much more refined than the also successful technology used in Lunar landings.
QUESTION: How are people pronouncing the thing? per-SEV-er-ance or per-se-VER-ance? I vote for per-SEV-er-ance. Let us hope it does persevere.
Quoting counterpunch
The alleged war between science and religion is greatly exaggerated in the telling. My guess is that now most of the offensive maneuvering is from the science side rather than the religion side (except for the lunatic fundamentalists). As for providing a system of reality, even some deep-fat-fried-fundamentalists rely on science when push comes to shove (like the reality that that big lump might kill them).
The role that many religious people assign to science is 'understanding how the divinely created universe works'. This approach doesn't look for magic or miracles in the cosmos, apart from the event of creation. A second approach is to operate two systems of reality side by side and separate. There is the reality of science and the reality of God (or Gods). One may earnestly pray to God for healing, comfort, and health, at the same time one seeks competent medical treatment. Where the science reality touches the God reality varies from person to person, situation to situation.
A third approach is to earnestly accept scientific reality and to nominally accept religious reality. This is probably the most common approach. Nominal religion doesn't confer many advantages, apart from 'cover'. Of course there are some people who nominally accept science; quacks, for instance.
As for life on Mars, maybe we'll find evidence, maybe not. It has not been a hospitable place for life for a long time, and the discovery of life-evidence is probably a matter of improbable luck. Maybe there are microbes or monsters deep under Mars surface, but so far no big drilling rigs have been designed, sent, landed, and operated to find out.
Our expectation/hope/fear that life arose not only on earth does not depend on Mars, one way or the other. Earth is one speck in the cosmos; life on Mars would make 2 specks. Not a big deal.
We should most anxiously worry about whether we will survive long enough to solve our problems here.
I do I just think it's wrong. Lol.
Eh idk. Maybe you're right. So, to clarify, your assertion is the following:
Because some body described by an arbitrary term you've yet to define ("the Church") said something, people used the process that created the ability to make and defend themselves on par or if not greater than others, as they always did... but suddenly would have stopped, again doing what they always did, randomly, for no purpose whatsoever, other than/because of "the Church", again which has yet to be defined.
Science, a tool by definition, rather a process of discovery, would not have been used as a tool if this group of indeterminate definition ("the Church") did not say that it was bad. Can we substitute "the Church" for "mainstream/majority belief of the time" or no? If so then at least that finally defines every term or variable in the argument, thus allowing proper analysis.
"[Religion prevented us from having] recognized science as an understanding of reality"- my point was that reality is what we make it, we either have controlled demolition or collapse in the contexts of villages or nation-states, progress/innovation/inventions that result in no more fatalities than a village/small society OR uncontrolled obliteration in the context of the entire planet from nuclear holocausts, germ warfare run amok, etc. as nearly occurred several times since, inevitable due to human nature.
I still wish to pinpoint any logic or rationale in words and ideas you deem me as having missed. To circle back, if religion (the idea or absolute existence even of a supreme being or afterlife) was non-existent, we would have overcame our biological inclinations toward survival, groups of similar appearance, genetics and familiarity, disinclination toward the unfamiliar, and just all held hands and sung kumbaya, which again never occurred due to the two realities of limited resources colliding with the human ego. We would have never created weapons to defend ourselves, no people would have ever committed a grave or unforgivable crime against another people warranting retribution or justice (with the understanding that there is only one life to live and someone permanently ruined or destroyed it), and we would have all just created Utopian cities where peace and understanding was prevalent and strife and discord was rarer than a total eclipse?
Is that your argument? Help show me the light here.
I disagree. I think the rift between science and religion is deep, but largely misunderstood. Maybe it requires a good appreciation of what science is, both as a method of investigation, and as a picture of reality, to understand why the trial of Galileo meant we applied the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons. It's not just some bickering about evolution - that's surface stuff.
Think about it this way. Humankind evolved from animal ignorance and only slowly came into human knowledge about the world. For generation after generation our ancestors struggled on in ignorance - plagued by disease, drought and crop failure, and invented religion to give themselves some illusion of control. They struggled on and on - burning offerings and reading entrails, then Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, trying to understand generation after generation - and on and on, and then they discovered scientific method, and the Church declared it a heresy. What if they hadn't declared it a heresy? What if they'd embraced it instead? Our natural evolution would have unfolded. This isn't our natural course. We are not "who we were meant to be."
We were sent down the wrong road, applied the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons, and so now we're looking at a climate and ecological crisis that threatens civilisation and thereby human existence. It's cause and effect. It's evolution. Organisms have to be correct to reality or are destined to become extinct. We're wrong, and unless we address this problem, soon we'll be gone. That's how deep this issue is. It's of existential import.
I'm not interested in engaging with your sarcastic childish bullshit. Offence intended!
I truly believe there's a valid point in your argument I might have missed. The possibility, at least. Even so, there's always the explicit logical counterarguments you could engage with. The only thing I was expecting of you to do. If you would choose to do so that is. Still, I suppose the point we're now debating "religion stigmatizing science as evil resulting in the creation of weapons of mass destruction", or were at least, is a far cry from the original premise stated in your OP as "what if there is life on Mars". My mistake, undoubtedly.
Let's get back to that then, shall we? Or, anyone else who wishes to continue in your place.
I mentioned the possibility of microorganisms as having little prominence in my opinion, if not from the fact that microorganisms were inevitably brought there via not only this probe but those before it. Between the actions of the instruments of the previous craft introducing them and the possibility of solar wind and lack of atmosphere spreading them and perhaps cosmic radiation mutating them into forms now unrecognizable or.. alien :grin:, I'd suggest there's still little cause for a "eureka!" moment.
So. What if it's beyond that of a microorganism. Say a "space algae" of a sort. I'd still default toward the belief this is hardly a game-changer. Now.. something with a nervous system and full-fledged brain on the other hand.. would be a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. Though still nothing outside of the realm of scientific possibility.
Murican.
Quoting Outlander
NASA go to extreme lengths to sterilize spacecraft - so the introduction of microorganisms from earth is unlikely. The spontaneous formation of RNA and DNA are where Intelligent Design advocates defend against a physical explanation of life. If RNA or DNA could be proven to have occurred on another planet - it would be a big deal. It's thought that, to get from RNA and DNA to microorganisms took about 1.5 billion years on earth. Being able to show evolution had advanced that far before conditions on Mars became inhospitable would be a very big deal.
Quoting Outlander
Perhaps you've been conditioned to expect three breasted aliens and million year old machines that create an oxygen atmosphere when plugged in. But realistically, we are looking for the remains of very primitive life that became extinct over 4 billion years ago. Mars was only warm and wet for around 600 million years after the planet formed. It's overwhelmingly likely they will find nothing conclusive, if they find anything at all.
When did the Church declare 'scientific method' to be heretical?
True, Galileo was found to hold a heretical heliocentric belief. However, Copernicus came up with the heliocentric theory a century earlier in 1533, and it wasn't kept a secret from the then-current pope:
Further, Copernicus' book on the heliocentric system was published around 1543 or so, about the time Copernicus died at age 70 from the effects of a stroke. Maybe Galileo just rubbed his current pope, Urban VIII, the wrong way.
But why blame the church for everything? One Claudius Ptolemy is responsible for the long-running geocentric model of 'the universe'. Why don't you blame this Roman Egyptian for setting science back--a millennia and a half!?
In any event, the earth continued to orbit the sun, and science continued getting done without a whole lot of interference from Holy Mother Church. (Of course there was some interference in all sorts of activities: The Pope and his minions, and the Protestant big wigs too, all had their fingers in numerous pies all over the place.
Quoting counterpunch
Yes, I totally agree. We are in the unappealing position of needing to wonder how long our species will be around. It might not be for long.
Quoting counterpunch
This might be where your train goes off the rails. Holy Mother Church was never in charge of whatever constitutes the "scientific establishment". Science marched on, whether the pope thought it was heretical or not. Our "natural evolution" had unfolded long before Jesus, Mary, and Joseph came along.
Human beings have been a damned, doomed species from the get go. Our Original Sin occurred when we emotional volatile apes added intelligence, curiosity, and blind ambition to our species. After that it was only a matter of time before we would get our hands on clubs, arrows, bullets, and atomic weapons, and gas ourselves with CO2.
Sure, much that happened in western culture after the Renaissance (and the Enlightenment) contributed to the situation we are in. Everything from double-entry bookkeeping, the expansion of credit, harnessing steam, global exploration, capitalism, the French Revolution--it all figures in. The history of cultures just can't be reduced to some simplistic explanation like the pope deciding that Galileo's theory was heretical.
Galileo was hauled before the Papal Court of the Inquisition, and so the threat was clear - particularly given the Church was burning people alive for heresy right through to 1792.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Galileo was tried for the heresy of proving the earth orbits the sun; emphasis on PROVING the earth orbits the sun, using scientific method. Copernicus constructed a heliocentric model, but did he build a telescope and prove it with reference to observation? No, but Galileo did!
Quoting Bitter Crank
Are you suggesting Ptolemy knew the earth orbits the sun, and chose to remain ignorant?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Are you a Catholic by any chance? Is it that you're offended on behalf of mother Church - that she could possibly have made an error? Sticking with the infallibility thing, huh? For what it's worth, I think it was probably an honest mistake - a mistake made in faith, with no idea of the long term implications.
Quoting Bitter Crank
So you don't see an epistemological evolution of humankind over time; no progress of knowledge from "less and worse" toward "more and better" - that the Church interfered in? Because for me, it seems like they dumped a huge boulder in the epistemological stream in an attempt to block it, but only succeeded in diverting an irresistible force.
Quoting Bitter Crank
So your argument then, is that the trial of Galileo had no effect on the subsequent development of philosophy or science? Declaring Galileo grievously suspect of heresy had no effect on how science was used - even as it was used to create 70,000 nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War? While the technologies we have applied are over-used to the point where the planet is literally bursting into flames, you take to twitter, via your iphone, to deny climate change is real, and you think there's nothing in that that requires explanation? Our relationship to science is as it should be? Science is just gadgets - and no truth, and that's how it should be? Then make sure to yell hallelujah as we fall into the abyss!
Or a kind of job security: If you set out to explore something as vast as space, you'll always have something to do, your life will always be directed toward a goal, you'll always have something to be passionate about and to look forward to.
Earthly tasks are never so promising.
If you look at the lives of the four great astronomers who followed Galileo, it would seem that his heresy trial did not bring astronomy to a screeching halt.
Bear in mind as well that other things were going on that could interfere with the development of science. There were political upheavals going on among the many fractious kings and princes of Europe. There was the reformation, among other things. (Luther didn't know much about astronomy, and heard only hearsay about Copernicus, who he thought a fool.).
Quoting counterpunch
I am not now, nor have I ever been Catholic. I'm somewhere between agnostic and atheist. As for infallibility, the pope didn't become 'infallible' until 1869-70, when Vatican I decreed that the pope was infallible when he spoke “ex Cathedra” – or from the papal throne – on matters of faith and morals. What the pope had in the 16th century was quite substantial secular power behind the ecclesiastical curtain.
Quoting counterpunch
Of course there was epistemological progress over time. And revolutionary change (in whatever field, in whatever time) often meets with stiff resistance until the revolution becomes the new establishment. What Galileo proposed was "contrary to [what appeared to be] common sense". It wasn't just the pope who found the idea of the earth whirling through space unacceptable.
Religion has been tried and found wanting on many fronts, continuing up to the present, whenever religious leaders become custodians of sacred ancient viewpoints. Galileo demonstrated that we were not the center of the universe. Darwin explained how we evolved from primitive primates (and worse). Freud revealed that we aren't even in charge of our own minds. Etc. These demotions in status meet with resistance.
If you want to blame nuclear proliferation on the 17th century pope Urban VIII, fine. Or blame all the popes from Peter to Francis if you want. But it would be a good idea to demonstrate HOW Pope Urban and successive popes managed to control and direct scientific and technical developments in immensely complicated fields.
No, I spelled it correctly.
So your argument then, is that the trial of Galileo had no effect on the subsequent development of philosophy or science?
— counterpunch
Quoting Bitter Crank
I suppose not. But then Kepler confirmed Galileo's observations, and Cassini confirmed Kepler - so what would be the point in continuing to object to heliocentrism? The cat was out of the bag. Looking into this, I'm struck by the fact that astronomical knowledge was a big concern at the time, and coming from all quarters. What would it have benefitted the Church to continue to point out the disparity by hauling astronomers into court one after another? That they didn't, doesn't mean the inclination went away.
According to Barker and Goldstein: "Kepler was motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason."
This is the line the Church should have taken, but didn't, and it's here Descartes method of sceptical doubt, as a means to establish subjectivism - as the only certain knowledge, stands out like a sore thumb. Given the success of scientific method - how could any philosopher consider Descartes argument epistemically robust? How could it have become such a mainstay of philosophy unless it served a religious purpose? That is, to de-emphasize the material, and so promote the spiritual. And the subjectivists are still going strong today; such that they claim reality is subjectively constructed, that truth is relative and decry material explanations of anything as reductionist.
If you consider the fact Newton had to hide his religious views to advance in his academic career, and the troubles Darwin ran into - there's a clear antipathy between religion and science, that didn't stop science dead in its tracks. No, but that has never been my contention. Rather, the philosophical implications of science as an understanding of reality have been undermined with reference to arguments based on Cartesian subjectivism - such that science was used as a tool - but ignored as true knowledge of reality.
Quoting Bitter Crank
No, I'm sorry - that may be true, but it is not explanatory, because - however you look at it, religious and political power was based on a divine conception of reality, challenged by science, and science lost. They didn't accept Kepler's argument that: "God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason" for that would imply that science would have been authoritative, as true knowledge of Creation.
Power remained in the hands of religion and European monarchies, justified with reference to God and the Divine Rights of Kings, even as science continued in service to industrial and military power - but somewhat disdained by polite society. The ideological architecture was not reformed in relation to science as truth. Science was not afforded authority as a valid conception of reality. Instead, science was used as a tool to further empower these religiously justified ideological architectures - and otherwise ignored. And we see this playing out everywhere, from nuclear proliferation to climate change denial, and in a thousand other ways; technology - developed and applied with no regard to science as a true understanding of reality, to further ideological ends - and that's why we have a climate and ecological crisis.
Now for the good news. Flip that over, and we have a rationale to tackle the climate and ecological crisis. Give science authority, and apply technology accordingly. Put the science out front as a guiding star, and just follow along in the usual capitalist way, creating industries, revenues and jobs, and saving the world in the process. There's an implicit assumption that environmentally beneficial action must necessarily be sacrificial - that it's swimming against the tide, but that's not scientifically true. The tide is purely ideological. If science is made authoritative, and we all follow in the course of that rationale, we can have a long, prosperous and sustainable future.
That would be a "reset" button. The end of life as we know it, but hardly the end of life. Who is to say that it has not happened before? We could be the result of microbes that were brought back and then nuked long ago. Likely over a coffee dispute.
I would be horrified to have it confirmed that this is the only planet with life, that no where out there is someone doing it better. Just depressing as hell.
I've been thinking about how to overcome the time lag. Do you know how much further Saturn 9.58 AU is than Jupiter 5.2 AU? That's almost twice as far.
Some untethered, autonomous smart bot - has considerable drawbacks, like it would require a lot of processing power in its own right, which means it requires more energy, and is more complicated and so more prone to breakdowns. And what then? To keep the bot simple means spreading its brain across space, and so I think what we need is a distributed network in space, of communications servers, i.e. an internet in space.
There would be a constant two way stream of data. From earth we would upload conditional commands, if A then B, if C then D, if E then F, and so on - covering the range of possible actions, that are then processed in a hierarchical fashion - with inappropriate suggestions filtered out as outgoing data and incoming data passed by en route, informed by constant input from earth, on the basis of information coming in about what had transpired. Only commands appropriate to the situation would be acted on at the other end, by a relatively simple, and hence, more disposable robot. Once this system was in place, it could run hundreds of simple robots at the same time - all over the place.
Thankfully, due to the one-way nature of black holes- we, here, would never know for sure. How delightful, is it not? :grin:
Materials science is very interesting. I've been looking at whether carbon nanotubes are strong and light enough to dangle a tether from an asteroid in orbit, as a space elevator. If the tether could span the 100 miles from an asteroid in a low geosynchronous orbit, to the upper atmosphere, we could lift cargo from earth with balloons - catch the tether, and take the elevator the rest of the way. If we can do that, we can build in orbit, and mine space - and our resources would become effectively infinite.
Thank heavens it's not possible to prove an absolute negative, heh.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
And from older posts (btw, the links don't bite):
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
I was in grade school when the Apollo program was moth-balled and then later we space nerds were pacified with the Space Shuttle program to low earth orbit; by the late 1970s it became clear that manned space flight was dead for the foreseeable future, and lower-cost remote-controlled robotic space probes landers & rovers were the future. It wasn't until I was an engineering student in the early 1980s – as well as reading more hard science fiction than "space opera" – that I began to fully comprehend the physics, and thereby economics, of vehicular space exploration and became an advocate of unmanned (and eventually AI-controlled) space missions. Decades later when President Obama (also a child of the Apollo program) officially transitioned NASA to unmanned space exploration, I welcomed the realism of NASA's new focus.
As for the future – a century or more hence – I imagine we will be "terraforming" the interiors of hollowed-out, spun @0.6-1g, asteroids for sustainable space habitats rather than dead, irradiated planets.
Why recreate the techno-economic problems of ingress-egress from gravity wells?
In the name of not 'keeping all human eggs in one terrestrial basket' any longer than necessary, why try to "colonize" large populations down deep gravity wells on extinction-event (e.g. impacts from comets, asteroids, solar flares) attractors with uncontrollable orbits (like Mars & Venus) when hundreds or thousands of manueverable asteroids (networked throughout the (inner) solar system) can be engineered to house small-medium size city populations instead – and in only decades rather than centuries or millennia (will we survive that long)?
Humans (i.e. nano/genetic-augmented not "baseline") will become extraterrestrials, I imagine, once our machines have both sufficient intelligence and technological capability to mega-engineer heavily shielded, solar & fusion-powered (O'Neill / McKendree cylinder) space habitats from space-based resources & raw materials. Maybe (conservatively guesstimating) sometime during the latter half of the 22nd century. :nerd:
The Bioshock paradox.
1. It would be shocking if life existed only on Earth
2. It would also be shocking to find life somewhere other than Earth
UK Royal Astronomer, Sir Martin Rees and I seem to be on the same page (more or less):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/30/space-billionaires-cosmic-earth-elon-musk-jeff-bezos
Man that gives me the chills. The idea of man becoming his own creator, altering the genetic code so as to 'survive'. I think it's a really dangerous delusion. Here's the one myth that makes sense: Spaceship Earth. We have a vehicle that could potentially support billions of people for perhaps tens of millions of years. It's dangerously over-heated and facing severe resource depletion. Preserving it is the only form of interstellar survival worth betting on in my view. Rees' idea is science fiction.
What about life needs supporting anyways? We haven’t even figured that out and you rush to the assumption we should. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness? Mowing the lawn? Brushing your teeth? Shoving food in mouth? Reading about philosophy? Support all the sum activities of the circular logic of what we do?
Just because you can't see any reason for existence doesn't mean that there isn't one.
:up:
I've always been drawn to that idea. I even went so far as to conjecture that we're going to rendezvous with a habitable planet in (say) another 10k to 20k years if all goes well. Unfortunately, there seems to be no evidence for my conjecture - the solar system seems to be adrift in the void with no particular travel plan deducible from its trajectory.
Remember how the Voyager spaceship was launched when a special planetary alignment was happening (every 176 years). We need to do the same but this time with a star that has an earth-like, habitable planet in orbit around it.
:mask: