Colonise Space or Perish

[Octane (Humayun)]

Paul,

Depends -- would Livinia be on? ; )

H

Originally Posted by PCH

Imagine being the one to go. You go all that way, - spend all that time, - and when you get there, they have "Hey Hey it's frigging Saturday" on TV.

How peeved would you be

[jeff65 (Jeff)]

Remember Biosphere 2?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

The logistics of space travel and distances are the least of our worries. At our present level of understanding we'll starve soon after the stored food supply is exhausted. I think the necessary understanding of biology presents a much greater challenge than the physics of space travel.

[shelltree (Shelley)]

Let's just grow some green algae on mars to create makeshift oxygen and colonise there

[luigi]

Scenario: Alien ship arrives and warns out about earth destruction for reason "X", they recommend evacuation to planet "Z", not as nice as earth but better than nothing.

Do you evacuate or not?

Maybe I need to write a sci-fi short story

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by luigi

Scenario: Alien ship arrives and warns out about earth destruction for reason "X".

Alien Ship- Vogon's
Reason X - build a hyperspace bypass.

Plausible

Hicthhikers guide to the galaxy -

[psyche101]

Originally Posted by luigi

Scenario: Alien ship arrives and warns out about earth destruction for reason "X", they recommend evacuation to planet "Z", not as nice as earth but better than nothing.

Do you evacuate or not?

Maybe I need to write a sci-fi short story

What a very interesting premise, get your pen out! Intergalactic con men!

Do you believe them, when your sun looks just fine? Maybe they sell you back the planet!!

[ManOnTheMoon (Matt)]

I read the other day that the viewable distance of our universe ( as far as out telescopes can see anyway from out vantage point on Earth) is a wopping 46 billion light years distance in any direction and space still goes on further than that! Yet the universe is only 13.7 billion years old. Its expanding faster than what light can tranverse it!

[psyche101]

You might find this an interesting Read Man in the Moon

Universe Measured: We're 156 Billion Light-years Wide!

The universe is about 13.7 billion years old. Light reaching us from the earliest known galaxies has been travelling, therefore, for more than 13 billion years. So one might assume that the radius of the universe is 13.7 billion light-years and that the whole shebang is double that, or 27.4 billion light-years wide.

But the universe has been expanding ever since the beginning of time, when theorists believe it all sprang forth from an infinitely dense point in a Big Bang.

"All the distance covered by the light in the early universe gets increased by the expansion of the universe," explains Neil Cornish, an astrophysicist at Montana State University. "Think of it like compound interest."

Need a visual? Imagine the universe just a million years after it was born, Cornish suggests. A batch of light travels for a year, covering one light-year. "At that time, the universe was about 1,000 times smaller than it is today," he said. "Thus, that one light-year has now stretched to become 1,000 light-years."

All the pieces add up to 78 billion-light-years. The light has not traveled that far, but "the starting point of a photon reaching us today after travelling for 13.7 billion years is now 78 billion light-years away," Cornish said. That would be the radius of the universe, and twice that -- 156 billion light-years -- is the diameter. That's based on a view going 90 percent of the way back in time, so it might be slightly larger.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ay_040524.html

[shelltree (Shelley)]

The phenomenal things you read and the photographs you see concerning the universe just blow me away. The enormity of it all is just...wow.

"If the universe was finite, and had a size of about 4 billion to 5 billion light-years, then light would be able to wrap around the universe, and with a big enough telescope we could view the Earth just after it solidified and when the first life formed," Cornish said. "Unfortunately, our results rule out this tantalizing possibility."

[renormalised (Carl)]

All the pieces add up to 78 billion-light-years. The light has not traveled that far, but "the starting point of a photon reaching us today after travelling for 13.7 billion years is now 78 billion light-years away," Cornish said. That would be the radius of the universe, and twice that -- 156 billion light-years -- is the diameter. That's based on a view going 90 percent of the way back in time, so it might be slightly larger.

And to think, that's only a very small part of the overall Universe. That 156 billion light years is only what we can see within our small bubble of space. The geometry of our space is flat to within 1/10^6 of a %. How big might that make the whole universe??....probably 100's or 1000's of times larger than that still. Could even be infinite in size, we just don't know.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Could even be infinite in size, we just don't know.

Now you are getting the picture. While ever we give the universe a finite size there is always going to be the question "what is outside this". We don't conceive infinity but we must accept it before we can progress.

We now believe that all the heavy elements are created by a supernova. It is conceivable that what we refer to as DNA is created similarly, perhaps at a "big bang". It then requires a suitable environment (egg) to generate the form of life that answers the code, and like the unstable elements above 92, is there an unstable advanced DNA that could evolve into the God that is part of our culture? Think!

Every question without answer creates more questions!


Barry

[renormalised (Carl)]

I had the picture, Barry, a very long time ago

[mbo (Pat and Kirk)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

We now believe that all the heavy elements are created by a supernova. It is conceivable that what we refer to as DNA is created similarly, perhaps at a "big bang".
Barry

I don't think complex organic molecules and supernovas get along very well , DNA melts around 100 degrees and we use relatively low level UV radiation to kill microorganisms.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by mbo

I don't think complex organic molecules and supernovas get along very well , DNA melts around 100 degrees and we use relatively low level UV radiation to kill microorganisms.

That may be so but I don't want to get into an argument about evolution. Nothing has solid form at the temperature of super novae or big bangs. It is what condenses out it that is the matter we know. DNA has no life till it has the right environment to develop life. It is just a complex key. I am just posing the questions and asking you to think of an answer.

Sherlock Holmes said " Remove the impossible then what remains is the answer no matter how improbable it seems"

Getting back to the original subject. We, as we exist will not colonise space. We only exist here because the environment we survive in is what it is. Our technology will advance and give us means to explore the local environment and probably "mine" it if we do not destroy ourselves before hand. But "Time" will stop anything greater. However we may launch an "ark'' into space that will carry the seeds of life to travel for countless aeons and maybe crash on a suitable environment where life will again develop and flourish.

Once again just think of the possibilities.

Barry

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

Now you are getting the picture. While ever we give the universe a finite size there is always going to be the question "what is outside this". We don't conceive infinity but we must accept it before we can progress.

I have a theory about infinity.
*Disclaimer

I reckon the infinitely small and the infinitely big are the same and loop somehow somewhere. We just can't see one way or the other. So there's no infinity. Everything goes round and round and round... like this . There's no place like home right here right now

[avandonk]

It is true that people once thought there was an edge to the world. The so called flat earth theory. If you sailed your ship past this barrier you would fall off the earth!

We know far better now. There is an edge outside the boundary of the biosphere where we need machines to survive and support from Earth to do this for any length of time.

In my humble opinion the Universe is teeming with life and fortunately it will be a very long time before we get anywhere near them to really stuff it up as we have here. It is all too far away.

Humanity is headed for not a big bang but a pathetic whimper as the last human ponders why his I-thingy no longer works.

Bert

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

It is true that people once thought there was an edge to the world. The so called flat earth theory. If you sailed your ship past this barrier you would fall off the earth!

Bert

Unfortunately some still do subscribe to this, in its various incarnations.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by avandonk

In my humble opinion the Universe is teeming with life and fortunately it will be a very long time before we get anywhere near them to really stuff it up as we have here. It is all too far away.
Bert

and because infinity means infinity there must be an infinite number of people like us out there thinking the same things. Funny thing though if there is only 1 in 1000000 possible places to support life there must be 1000000 infinities

Barry

[CraigS]

Not wanting to disrupt the flow of this thread (too much), we may have already colonised space unknowingly !:

NASA study will help stop stowaways to Mars
http://www.physorg.com/news107608651.html

The article talks about NASA's clean-room procedures, used when preparing interplanetary probes..

"it is extremely difficult to eliminate all dust particles and microbes without damaging the electronic instruments the process is intended to protect."
....
"Clean rooms are considered extreme environments for microbes because water and nutrients are in extremely short supply. Nevertheless, some bacteria are able to survive on what little moisture the low-humidity air provides and on trace elements in the wall paint, residue of cleaning solvents, and in the spacecraft materials, themselves."

So far, we've deposited heaps of probes throughout our solar system. One day, we might be staring into a set of green eyes we accidentally plonked on another planet !!

Cheers
PS: Sorry for the change in tack .. I'm done .. cheers.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

and because infinity means infinity there must be an infinite number of people like us out there thinking the same things. Funny thing though if there is only 1 in 1000000 possible places to support life there must be 1000000 infinities

Barry

Actually, no. Even if there were only 1/1000000 places that supported life, the fact that there are an infinity of them still makes that number an infinity. The infinite subset of an infinite number is still an infinite number. They're practically the same size, no matter how much you care to divide them