NASA: All hope is gone, were f*cked

[psychocat]

All scientific advances made in the last 100 years have been the result of the work of people from allover the world.
Unless mankind goes completely schizo and destroys itself (I believe that is going to happen) then we will continue to advance technologicaly , the possibilities are only limited by our current knowledge.

500 years ago nobody in the so called civilised world knew of America.

psychocat Reviewed by psychocat on 08-26-2008. NASA: All hope is gone, were f*cked Rocket Scientists Say We'll Never Reach the Stars Many believe that humanity's destiny lies with the stars. Sadly for us, rocket propulsion experts now say we may never even get out of the Solar System. At a recent conference, rocket scientists from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and academia doused humanity's interstellar dreams in cold reality. The scientists, presenting at the Joint Propulsion Conference in Hartford, Connecticut, analyzed many of the designs for advanced propulsion that Rating: 5

[dragonrider]

The article said that reaching another STAR within a human LIFETIME is virtually impossible. That is not really big news. The distances involved are so enormous!

However, that does not mean that we do not have a future in space. We do not need to reach another star within one human lifetime in order to have a future in space. It's essential for good science fiction, but not for a future in space.

I believe our future is in space. I think that within my own lifetime there will be people living on bases on the moon and possibly Mars and some asteroids. Eventually we will learn to use resources in space, and those outposts will become self-sustaining colonies. Once we learn to live in space in a self-sustaining way, our future in space is secured. There so much ROOM and so many RESOURCES in our own solar system that we may never need to leave it in order to survive into the far far distant future. The earth can only support so many peoiple, and we may have already passed that number, but our solar system could support hundreds of times as many people if necessary.

The solar system is vast, and astronomers are finding more and more very large planet-like objects far out beyond the orbit of pluto --- they are distant members of our solar system, not planets around other stars. But this cloud of objects may extend halfway to the nearest stars for all we know. It may be that we eventually reach distant stars not by flying there in one super-fast rocket all in one shot, but by successive colonization of ever more distant objects out into the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud over hundreds or thousands of generations.

Or we may develop super-advanced propulsion systems based on technologies that aren't even theortical yet. We went from sailing ships to nuclear submarines in less than 100 years.

It's fine for scientists to say we don't know how to do something now, or even theoritically how we would accomplish it in the future, but it would be stupid to say we will never know how to do something.

As for the take-care-of-earth versus the go-to-the-stars debate --- it is a false choice. I feel we absolutely must take care of our earth. We have a moral responsibility to ourselves, future generations and the other species that share our planet to preserve this world. But we also have the same moral responsibility to ourselves, future generations and the other species of earth to press forward into the void. We can't leave all our eggs in one basket. We need to take care of the basket, but also find other baskets and hide a few eggs in other places too. The danger to earth is not just that we humans might destroy it (which is about a 50-50 shot), but that a comet or asteroid or other cosmic calamity will destroy it. And we know for certain that eventually the sun will become so hot that it will vaporize this world, so at some point we will have to be a long way away if we want to survive.

[silkyblue]

Good info but all hope isnt gone

we 'arent equipt' to find centauri or the 'galaxy alley walls'
the fuel alone they would need for 50,000 years would spew burst of more poison to fall on us

the big bang

gravity the secret is in gravity


some things we will never know
NASA needs to accept that



spend the space research money to rid Americas poverty problems

and legalise medicinal herbs

[Coelho]

Eventually we will learn to use resources in space, and those outposts will become self-sustaining colonies. Once we learn to live in space in a self-sustaining way, our future in space is secured.

Yes... but first we need to learn how to live in this Earth in a self-sustaining way. If until now we werent able to do this here, with all the needed resources so much more easily obtainable, how can we hope to live this way in the space, where the things will be FAR harder?

[MadSativa]

500 years ago nobody in the so called civilised world knew of America.

Are you sure about that. Seems to me 2,000 years ago people were more advanced than 500 years ago. and the fact ramains that cocain was found in Egyptian tombs. I wouldnt be supprised if sooner or later we find a 1,000,000 year old airplane. And at some point someone has to question how we came from monkeys when monkeys are still around. Personlay I think the Monkeys and other apes are pissed at us cause we said we were distant cousines.

"god-dam dirty apes"

[dragonrider]

Yes... but first we need to learn how to live in this Earth in a self-sustaining way. If until now we werent able to do this here, with all the needed resources so much more easily obtainable, how can we hope to live this way in the space, where the things will be FAR harder?

The earth is a closed system --- all of our pollution remains on the earth and poisions the ecosystems we need to survive. There are only a limited amount of resources and we further destroy the environment to extract them.

It is different in space. Space is not a closed system. Pollution does not need to pile up to poisonous concentrations. Solar energy falls on onbjects in orbit 24 hours a day, not just during daylight hours. Some asteroids are composed on nearly pure metal --- no mining, just saw off a chunk. The ecosystems we bring along can be very simple and artificial.

I'm sure it will be very diffcult to learn to live in space, but the advantage of being outside a closed system will be huge once we learn how to do so. I'm confident that if we do not kill ourselves off in the next 100 years, we will live in space.