Anything that an astronaut is capable of, a machine can do also. There's no reason to risk human life for extra-terrestrial exploration, especially given the high probability of fatal accidents. There are all kinds of reasons to explore our solar system, and further. None of them currently require a human presence. Terraforming is a long way off.
Maybe if we work towards the singularity and the transfer of the mind, we could live as a cluster intelligence, or directly experience other planets and have very long lifespans for exploration. That's the other solution I could think of.
In the Tranquility base picture the flag appears to be blowing in the wind... BUT THERE IS NO WIND ON THE MOON CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!!
Insurance of the species? The dinosaurs were rocking and rolling until one really, really shitty day. My guess is, after some type of eye-opener happens ,whether it be in the form of wide-spread disease, a la the plague, or a near-miss w/ an asteroid, (or a hit w/ an asteroid that merely kills a couple of million people) then we could see some type of policy shift.
And I LOLed even harder. Just why do you think more hydrogen than found in JUPITER would be needed on Venus? That makes no sense at all.
because people at NASA calculated it. stop embarrasing yourself, please. do you have even the slightest notion of chemistry?
It has a pole holding the X-axis straight and the flag is curved in that way. There is gravitational pull and basic forces.
Like NASA never made a mistake? And I'd rather like a link before assuming that your statement is even true. A friend of mine in college (University of Houston) was an intern at NASA's Houston complex, so I know the kind of crazies they had working for them. Clearly more than you. I took it in college... did you ever take more than Jr High physical science? You seem to think that dumping incredibly massive amounts of hydrogen into the Venus atmosphere is what it would take to precipitate out carbon dioxide. So that's your solution to global warming? Tons of hydrogen?
Yeah it was sarcasm. A few years ago that was the big conspiracy amongst the muslims at school. Nowadays its the ILLUMINATI
High School Diplom, Chemistry specialization. or however it's called in english. attended some specialization at the university too.
Only thing I'm sure of is that we might find signs of life in mars before we can send humans there. I think we need at least 50 years to come up with technology to send humans there in one piece and colonize it, but maybe have them stay there for the rest of their lives... Also, Mars has no magnetic field, so it can't hold onto an atmosphere because the planet is pretty much a solid, dead rock - a picture of what Earth will be in about a billion years...
Is this planet really beyond recovery? If within the next 10-30 years could we not push nuclear energy to be the standard? I've said a few times my idea for alternative energy sources in areas nuclear could be dangerous. Or is the reason for us wanting to find habitable planets another reason other than just the energy crisis and the obligatory search for other life forms?
There's no proof that the Earth is doomed before the sun goes Red Giant (in about 5 billion years, I believe). It's in habitants? Another story.
Yeah, we're all getting worked up over things that won't ever have the slightest effect on any of our lives. It's an observation I've noticed - tell a man he's almost out of gas and he'll shrug and keep driving until the engine is sputtering; tell him the sun will run out of "fuel" in 4 billion years and he'll lie awake at night worrying.
The idea is that these things should have some type of effect on our lives. I said it earlier in this thread: The dinosaurs were rockin' the house until one shitty day. While we stand a far better chance of averting the same fate, there is not definitive proof that we would if it happened right now. As such, becoming a 2-planet species is the best hedge for the survival of the species. That should start, in some form, as soon as possible. One of the few things Michio Kaku said that made sense in his recent alarmist tirades against Japan in the nuclear crisis (I'll admit, TEPCO fucked up, but I will still group him as part of the problem) was that most people suffer from "Not in my Lifetime" syndrome. It would be nice if our descendants could look back and see visionaries for their lives... not just ours.
''It has to start some place, It has to start some time. What better place than here? What better time than now?''
