Yes, we have most of the tech needed to do this. We can do fantastic things with our sciences. We have plans for inflatable moonbases, geodesic martian cities, and there's even a floating venusian city in the concept stage. We can probably tow in asteroids and create living spaces in them. However…

Humanity still isn't ready. I don't think we're “mature” enough to go out into space without really messing things up. We're still fighting wars over religion, two bit dictators and other such governments keep people under their heel/thumb, and… well… there's all that space junk we left up in the atmosphere that we haven't tried to clean up yet.

What do you think of all this?
Oh.. and if this thread doesn't belong here, please move it. :)

Can't say that I fully agree with us being able to leave Earth and colonize like crazy, just like that.

There's one thing that's still inhibiting us, technologically. The trouble of overcoming Earth's gravity. We need to spend huge amounts of fuel, just to get few kilos into orbit. Most of the weight that the rockets and those shuttles start with is just the fuel they need to burn to get up there. We're having a hard time, just building that ISS space station and that's years behind schedule.

If we can build an space elevator, then things would rapidly change. We could send up larger payloads, more frequently and at a much cheaper cost. We could construct orbital dry docks and build spaceships in orbit that would never need to land.

Second factor is time. It can take months to travel to Mars alone. Going further then that could easily be a year long trip. If something comes up, then help would be far away. Early established colonies, like those that have been hypothesized on Mars would need a large quantity of supplies to maintain themselves at first, depending on the amount of people that would be living there.

Naturally if a space elevator could be built on Earth than a similar elevator could be built on the moon and on Mars for the fraction of the cost (due to the lower gravity on those planets). That would mean that supplies could be taken cared of with 2-3 ships that are traveling between the stations that are anchored to those elevators.

I always envisioned that if a successful Mars colony would ever constructed, it would probably declare independence from Earth the moment it becomes fully self sufficient.

Lonnehart
I don't think we're “mature” enough to go out into space without really messing things up.

You're not going to mars until you've tidied your rooms and that's final.

]We're still fighting wars over religion, two bit dictators and other such governments keep people under their heel/thumb, and... well[/quote
Don't forget, if it wasn't for that kind of immature nonesense, we wouldn't have had the space race and we wouldn't have set foot on the moon in the first place.

If we have the capability to set out into space, then we're ready. Will we mess up space? Of course we will, even if we wait a thousand years. One day the cosmos will be an infinity of burger bars and timeshare apartments, but we have a duty to go because there's probably nobody else out there and if something happens to earth tomorrow, then it's all just wasted potential and cold dead space.

We don't need a moon elevator by the way - it doesn't take much to break free of the moons gravitational pull, which is what makes it the perfect staging post for our space exploration. If they can find any water up there, we're off!

Ironscarf
We don't need a moon elevator by the way - it doesn't take much to break free of the moons gravitational pull, which is what makes it the perfect staging post for our space exploration.

True. I just mentioned it because I remember them talking about making an el-cheapo one one the moon, if they ever perfect the technology and build one for Earth. Then they could just design a moon ferry that would never need to land.

if doing something was based on maturity, more than likely i'd still be living with my mother, who would be living with her mother. who wasn't living with her mother because she's dead.

i think maturity comes thru experience. if people think they can act a certain way, as long as they get away with it, they will continue to act that way. we wont change until change is forced upon us.

IN THE YEAR AFTER COLONY 199

should we go into space and expand….Yes Yes Yes Yes!!! most definitely that's just what our planet needs right now, hope for the future.

If we have a safe practical means to colonize the moon or mars, I say go for it. Not like anyone else is using them. “A person is smart. People are stupid” and they always will be, so like Ironscarf said, if we can go up there we should. Might as well screw up now so we can try to fix it sooner.

I wish it was. I would LOVE to go and colonise Mars or something. I would just jump at the idea of exploring other worlds. But I think we have a ways to go yet.

I don't think we should fuck with the moon, it controls so many subtle things about our planet and even ourselves and animals that it should be a crime to crap it up.

Of course the earth controls even more about ourselves and most people still treat it like a perpetual toilet. :/ We should be spending those theoretical gazillions on making some giant vacuum/filter to suck up pollution and trash into a giant ball to launch into space.
That's just about as crazy as colonizing on mars i guess lol!

Skullbie
I don't think we should fuck with the moon, it controls so many subtle things about our planet and even ourselves and animals that it should be a crime to crap it up.

lol@ the moon ? it's just a big rock , it provides gravity for the tides and light for some animals that like to hunt at night . i dont know how we could realisticaly make a noticeable change to those things the moon provides unless we really mined the hell out of it or just blew it up . it seems infinitly less of a crime to damage a big dead rock than this rock we live on that has life on every square centimeter and tons of stuff we haven't even discovered yet

———-
wut people should really be reserching is how to use the quantum physics to tunnel into the fourth dimension so we can fold space and travel without moving , then we could creat whole alternate 3 dimensional universes to colonize and be the gods of those universes, maybe even meet the freeks that built our universe ! now wut abut thta ?

We don't really have the tech for this at all. I mean, theoretically, we can make a moon base… something like the ISS only bigger and… on the moon, but how the hell can we explore other planets effectively when our methods of travel are still rocket-propulsion based and our methods of communication electromagnetic?

A Mars mission would take years and would be so ridiculously risky.

lothar
———-
wut people should really be reserching is how to use the quantum physics to tunnel into the fourth dimension so we can fold space and travel without moving , then we could creat whole alternate 3 dimensional universes to colonize and be the gods of those universes, maybe even meet the freeks that built our universe ! now wut abut thta ?

we have a current theory on that. it involves converting the entire planet of jupiter into pure energy.

we then put a bubble around us and have space move around us.

however that's just 1 trip. 1 direction, for who knows how far? and apparently according to someone elses theory on the same subject, actually using that much energy would open a black hole right in the middle of the solar system.

so you better put dna and cloning machines on the ship, because you dont wanna risk the entire human race on either end of the travel….

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080813-tw-warp-speed.html

Let's see how solar sail technology turns out first before we start talking about colonizing deep space. Then again, people say that solar sails would likely only work in theory so….yeah, we're not ready.
(edit: Hmmm, just read up, and it seems solar sails would be best used for near earth missions.)

Interestingly enough, I almost made an entire comic strip that dealt with this very issue. I didn't though, as I ran into a fundamental flaw in my story: There's currently no need to travel such a ridiculous distance and start a new civilization and have it work with earth, or to visit deep space.

Someone
lol@ the moon ? it's just a big rock , it provides gravity for the tides and light for some animals that like to hunt at night . i dont know how we could realisticaly make a noticeable change to those things the moon provides unless we really mined the hell out of it or just blew it up

Blowing up the moon sounds like a great idea~!



To clear up a few things:

It's the moon's orbit and spin that effects elemental changes and weather on earth. Mining on the moon, or indeed colonizing it would not be harmful. There would have to be a sudden and drastic change that causes it's course to alter in order to effect anything major on Earth.

Likewise, if you were to blow the moon up, or even blow a big enough cunk up, the resulting storms would murder millions :)

EDIT: I should note I'm not a fuckin' astrologist and that I'm only assuming this is how things work, although it makes sense that it's corse and mass > evironmental changes.

When I have a moon base I will let all of you guys come up and hang out. Maybe.

There is no way I would live in outer space. It's full of all kinds of horrible monsters waiting to eat me.

When the time comes that tourism starts to become a viable option in space, they should build a base around the appolo 11 landing site just to piss of all the old geezers who claimed that the moon landing was a fake, as they were trolling all the forums in their youth.

Product Placement
When the time comes that tourism starts to become a viable option in space, they should build a base around the appolo 11 landing site just to piss of all the old geezers who claimed that the moon landing was a fake, as they were trolling all the forums in their youth.

they wont have to build around it if theres nothing there

skoolmunkee
There is no way I would live in outer space. It's full of all kinds of horrible monsters waiting to eat me.

Space people probably say the same thing about earth, what with all our tigers and lions and stuff.

lefarce
vid

WHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy???!!! O_O

the moon… :(

I used to love that show. My fave episode was ablot the two rival strakers. It was a parody of that cycle competition move with Jeff Bridges (I think). The streak version was much better. :)
————
The moon has a role to play in tides and the light affect nocturnal animals yeah. The tides aren't directly related to the moon though… The sun also has a pull on them, but the thing is that while the sun and the moon pull a bit here and there, what really moves the water is all that other mass of it all around the rest of the planet that isn't being similarly tugged a bit at the time. So while the sun and the moon have a small affect on the water it's magnified by the nature of the water itself and the way it coats the globe of the earth :)

You could mine up there without changing too much, but you'd probably be better off mining the asteroids and using the moon as a base to process them before sending them back to earth.

Eirikr
There's currently no need to travel such a ridiculous distance and start a new civilization and have it work with earth, or to visit deep space.

No need eh? why don't you just take a look at this informative video right here?

Where's the money? Mining? We'll go when there's money to be made. Until then, it's only explorers out in a vast ocean looking for something to make others want to follow.

When the rest of us start getting to whatever or wherevever, we will do quite a lot of damage.

skoolmunkee
There is no way I would live in outer space. It's full of all kinds of horrible monsters waiting to eat me.

Darnit! I guess I'll just have to skip lunch…

We need to play Spore to develop an understanding as a unity and grow up. We may be the smartest species on Earth, but that isn't saying a lot when you look at certain things. I think in time (maybe even before 2100 comes) we'll be able to move on farther into Space and act responsible to everything else. We haven't been very good to mother Earth, but we're improving!

Getting off this rock just might make this species grow up. The high def pictures of the Apollo sites will be showing up soon. The Mars mission is in the planning stages.

Besides we've had a base on the moon since 1980. It's run by SHADO (Supereme Headquarters Alien Defence Organization) But then the aliens warned us off because the moon belongs to them… we're still fighting. If this was true do you think they'd tell anyone about it?

Kyupol (and Gerry Anderson) can tell you all about it. ;)

Zephrem Cochrane is in high school now and already well along in his design of easy warp drive. ;)

bravo1102
Kyupol (and Gerry Anderson) can tell you all about it. ;)

Oh, I can't wait for kyupol to get involved in this one.

Also, remember the dangers of going into space:



An important lesson for us all…

We are not even close to colonising other planets. Right now astronauts who return from space dont live long on earth because they have very big issues with health, that werent solved yet. After spending years with no gravity, their blood system becomes very sensitive to pressure, years of being exposed to sun radiation dont do good either.
We dont have enough technology to cure canser and thats what were gonna get after spending our lifes making green whats grey.
Moreover there is always some asshole who thinks he can rule the world, and start a war over resources of the new planet.
If that doesnt sound convincing enough than think of all the different countries that will try to get an advantage of this situation. Id say were not ready.
Pardon my english.

DefaultNick
We are not even close to colonising other planets. Right now astronauts who return from space dont live long on earth because they have very big issues with health, that werent solved yet. After spending years with no gravity, their blood system becomes very sensitive to pressure, years of being exposed to sun radiation dont do good either.

no offense, but i'm calling BS

list of Astronauts ever.

ones with dates are dead. except a couple who i guess it was important to mark that they were born in the '30s

most who are dead died by accident. ie: shuttle exploded, crashed their car/motorcycle/plane. etc.

seventy2
list of Astronauts ever.

It's interesting that they specifically label the astronauts who are female.