There is another good reason to develop our technologies as a species,
think how we are looking at the planets and celestial bodies as vast
resources. Imagine if something else came through and strip mined the
resources we would need to develop into a spacefaring species, that
would suck big time. Like a tribe of humans moving through and picking
all the nuts we squirrels need, or worse, deciding we were in the way of
those resources, think what we have done in those situations.. I know
it's unlikely considering the vast resources out there, but something
might have it's eye on our pale blue dot too, working faster than us at
making the leap.
On 5/18/2011 8:37 PM, Chuck Bowling wrote:
I think right now the technology will only allow us to tell if a
planet is rocky or a gas giant. And even then only if it is a
relatively massive planet. The last time I read anything on the
subject the smallest planet found was something like 3 times the size
of the Earth.
IMO, the analogy with Columbus doesn't hold. 17th century technology
allowed humans to travel anywhere on the Earth - albeit slow and
wrought with hazard. If the analogy is that a neighboring star is like
a new continent then we are more like cavemen discovering that a log
can float. At the rate we're going it might be a thousand years before
we can actually mount an expedition to another star.
I think the primary reason we are so far from actually exploring other
stars is mainly political rather than technological. But, I think you
are right. It is a project worth attaching too. Now if we could just
make the damn politicians see it that way... ;)
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:58 PM, archytas <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I'm not sure how accurate they can be in revealing planets enough like
ours to offer possibilities of a new promised land. They claim there
is one 20 light years away, or 300,000 years at current space travel
speeds. One can feel that this at least puts us somewhere near the
position of 'Columbus'. Our current 'tin-foil' technology won't do,
but at this kind of distance we are talking about something other than
worm-holes, 'relativity flight' or the kind of physics in which
distance is an illusion.
For someone like me who can't take god-stories seriously and quite
likes the idea of a human future (or at least the idea of evolution
not just ending through catastrophe), there is an opportunity to
believe in something distant in time and a need for us to direct
ourselves towards it. A time, perhaps in which a form of conscious
life can live very differently from now, and a project worth attaching
to - perhaps a reason for spirituality. Comments on this or the
technology welcome.
