(OT) Possible extra-solar planet

[Mistwell]

Commercial interest is the likeliest way to increase space awareness, or at least activity. It's not glamorous, but civilian projects are definitely getting there; there are prizes on the line for the first person to take tourists into orbit and stuff like that. Having studied aviation, I know that similar prizes were the incentive for things like flying across the English Channel.

In fact, John Carmack, the lead programmer at ID (who did Doom, Quake and, um, other games with Doom and Quake in the titles), recently said that, for less money than he'd spent on Ferrarris in the 1990s, he could be running a space program.

But besides the gee-whiz factor, cold hard cash is actually pretty attractive. I believe that a mile-long asteroid towed into Earth orbit would provide a boost to the planetary economy on an order of trillions of US dollars, no matter whether it was metallic or 'slushy'.

However, while the US still leads the world in governmental space flight, other nations and alliances are catching up. Europe, Japan, and China are all putting rockets into space, and Russia is quite a contender (in fact, look at their successful tourist policy). This competition will probably see rivalry pushing off a new space race sometime in the next fifty years. (I hear NASA wants a man on Mars by 2030...)

Looking further ahead, in 50 years the planetary population will be approaching 20 thousand million (12 billion by 2030). One of my favourite scenarios is the creation of terraformed exodus planets connected to Earth by quantum wormhole gateways... but that's a little more advanced. Anyway, in fifty years humans will be clamouring for a new place to live. Will we see war, or expansion? All very useful things to consider.

Plus it creates an interesting paradigm for near-future campaign settings. We will have laser guns in 2050 (heck, look at the contemporary American humvee-mounted Zeus laser system and British tank-mounted energy armour systems), but I suspect most people will still be using tech out of d20 Modern...

I agree with you that it will most likely be commercial exploration of space that will reinvigorate interest in space travel.

Personally, I think it is going to be this company that does it:

www.xcor.com

Now, admittedly, I am very biased, since I represent XCOR as legal counsel. That said, I really think they are going to do it. Space tourism is, in my opinion, going to become a full blown industry not decades from now, but this decade.

 

[Crothian]

Re: AGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

(Head Realing from Math Phobia and Sudden Age Recall Moment):

AGGGHHHHH! I was already in the army when the shuttles were a big deal (CIRCA 1985). Thanks for the reality check Crothian.

I think I'll have to sit and reflect for a moment....

You are so very welcome.

 

[tarchon]

L'Extra-solar Planets Catalog

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I don't think the stop of growth in Europe is due to lack of food, and I guarantee you that the declining Italian population isn't dying of starvation.

I, and most people I know of my age, simply have no interest whatsoever in having children in the foreseeable future, and actually many think about it as something to avoid at all costs. I could find a thousand reasons for this, but whichever the correct one is, it serves nicely for population control.

That's because we can afford not to have children - we have other ways of being supported in old age.

People from poor nations don't have this option. Thus, they will continue to have lots and lots of children until their poverty is relieved in some way...

 

[Avarice]

Re: AGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

(Head Realing from Math Phobia and Sudden Age Recall Moment):

AGGGHHHHH! I was already in the army when the shuttles were a big deal (CIRCA 1985). Thanks for the reality check Crothian.

I think I'll have to sit and reflect for a moment....

No, the true reality check comes when you realize that a few of the people who post around here only know about 1985 from what they've read in the history books.

God, I feel old.

 

[Aloïsius]

Of some interest to NASA and space explorers is Europa

I'm not sure there is an intelligent form of life in Europe, nor on the rest of this planet

That's because we can afford not to have children - we have other ways of being supported in old age.

People from poor nations don't have this option. Thus, they will continue to have lots and lots of children until their poverty is relieved in some way...

In fact the demographic transition is happening, everywhere in the world. I think China fertility rate is now under the 2.1 limit, and I know that in the Maghreb (not the richest place around...) it has has started to plummet. Anyway, nothing is never definitive : in France we have had a little baby boom in the last five years.

And, of course, by then we'll probably have seen the Rise Of The Machines(tm), and who knows what will happen then?

In all likelihood, the first people to see an extrasolar world will be artificial intelligences, whether humanity has been hunted to extinction by their own creations or not...

Right now, I'm looking at my vacuum cleaner. I don't feel so endangered, and when I consider my PC (Windows Xp), which is not able to recognize that it has a modem if I don't turn it on before booting...May be the machine will cause our destruction, but it will be by accident (Blue Screen of Death in the mega nuclear power plant by example), and they won't survive us for long...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

But that's if nobody realises this and tries something to fix it with space travel... which is, of course, prohibitively expensive, unless someone comes up with spectacular new technology. And, of course, by then we'll probably have seen the Rise Of The Machines(tm), and who knows what will happen then?

Transhuman Space!

 

[LightPhoenix]

If there is microbiological life on Mars, and if it is lying dormant in a deep-freeze, and if this life is brought back to Earth and revived, nothing on this world has any immunity to it.
After all, nothing on this world has been exposed to it, to gain any immunity, since it has sat on another world for hundreds of millions of years.

This is true for any attempt to colonize Mars.
The colonists have no immunity to any of the native microbes, should they be exposed.

The reverse applies, as well.

Nothing on Mars that yet lives has any immunity to Terran microbes.
Thus, we pollute the world of Mars with our bacteria and viruses, when we set down on the planet and begin colonizing it.

Bacteria don't necessarily have to be able to infect humans at first - most human diseases actually have their origins from animals. Ironically, the only true simian disease I can think of off the top of my head is AIDS, which only recently became a problem.

Anyway, assuming that there is no common ancestor, more important than whether bacteria could infect us is how exactly they work - it's highly unlikely that Martian bacteria would be built like Terran bacteria, unless they have a common ancestor.

Of course, Mars is so cold that normal bacterial processes are impossible, except during the day in the summer, if then.
The thin atmosphere of Mars renders normal breathing impossible, and Mars lacks a magnetosphere, so it is exposed full on to the Solar Wind. Space suits are a requirement on Mars.
So, under current conditions perhaps Mars is not in much danger of Terran contamination.
However, here on Earth it is warm, there is an atmosphere, and there is a magnetosphere.
Methinks that if it was once active on Mars, said microscopic life will unfreeze and resume normal activities here, on this planet.

Temperature and atmospheric pressure are non-issues - presumably if life exists on Mars it is suited to the atmosphere. Hell, there are bacteria on Earth now that could easily survive in Martian temperatures, and oxygen isn't a requirement for anaerobic bacteria - many of which are found in extremely cold conditions in the first place.

It's also a fallacy to assume that on exposure to an Earth-like environment, bacteria from Mars would flourish. Proteins, specifically enzymes, are very temperature specific (among several specificities). It's entirely possible, and even probable, that moving a bacterium suited to Martian conditions to Earth would cause the enzymes inside to denature and the bacterium to die.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I think it will take a much bigger thing then discovering an Earth like world to get people focused on Space again.

Economics.

If there is an economic reason for humans to colonize space, then humans will colonize space. Space travel is just not cost-effective enough if there isn't a good economic reason to colonize another planet.

Tourism would work, if the tourists could get there in a decent amount of time. (Not gonna happen without faster than light travel.)

Mining won't cut it, because it is more cost-effective to mine here and then recycle.

It's not exactly like forcing the Puritans to leave England. It is far easier for a human to move to a new country than a new planet.
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I'm guessing the only realistic reason that humans would develop functional space travel is with the threat of drastic overpopulation. We are talking trillions of people here, since, using skyscapers, the current entire population of the world could comfortably fit inside the state of Texas.

Further developments could (and will) expand the "limit" of the world's population that the Earth could feasably support. Without the scientific progress of the past few thousand years, the Earth could not support 6 billion people.

I contend that the trend will continue, and that future developments will expand the threshold further. It will not be until the Earth has trillions of people that space travel will be the focus for human expansion.

In the next hundred years, humans will be able to traverse the solar system, but a mass-exodus from Earth will not begin until the Earth is completely overrun with people. Because people, like water, follow the path of least resistance.
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Oh yeah, BTW, this is all WAY speculative. No way can a single man (me) determine the far future. I am not that arrogant.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Tourism would work, if the tourists could get there in a decent amount of time. (Not gonna happen without faster than light travel.)

I dunno - with increasing life spans, more and more people might be willing to take a "Sabbatical year" off...

And as for near-Earth holidays... well, not all people have the measly two weeks of annual vacation time that Americans seem to have - over here in Germany, the standard is five to six weeks.

More than enough time for staying in orbit, or even on the moon for a holiday...