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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Number47" data-source="post: 449648" data-attributes="member: 84">Before we got married, I made my wife promise that when there was a moon colony, we could move there. I think it would be a great retirement spot. With 1/6 gravity, some of the problems of the elderly will be alleviated. The biggest problem with a moon colony is the fact that after you've spent a certain amount of time there, you cannot go back to Earth. Your heart would no longer be able to stand the gravity. This is probably not true of Mars, though. Mars has 1/2 gravity of Earth, so coming back may make you very weak but probably shouldn't kill you.As for genetic manipulation, you aren't going to find answers to withstanding cosmic radiation or breathing methane there. What radiation does to living things is it actually smashes into them at high speed. Where it hits DNA, it cuts and scatters it, which is why radiation causes cellular mutations (cancer). If DNA were capable of withstanding even the amount of radiation Mars is exposed to, there would probably be some very simple life there.I'm afraid that, rather then genetic mutation, cyborgs are more likely to be our explorers. A human that spends most of their time in a mechanical apparatus is already a good part of the way to becoming a cyborg. There may need to be genetic manipulation involved to get man and machine to work together, but I still think this is more probable than mutation alone.Don't even get me started on extrasolar exploration. That will only ever be done robotically, period. Unless our entire understanding of physics is completely wrong, faster than light travel is completely impossible. Now, it is possible for particles, sure. But there is no way to do it with a ship. So without ftl, it would take something along the order of 30 years to get to even the closest star. Okay, you say, what about using cryogenics? Well, that may become technically feasible. But with the risks involved, the enormous weight/fuel costs for transporting humans compared to sending robotic probes, why would we? Certainly not for colonisation. Any planet we could reach that would be habitable would have to have life of its' own that we can eat. Anything with life we can eat is too dangerous for colonisation. I suppose terraforming is a possibility, but is any government or corporation going to send a ship 30 years to a planet to spend 100 years terraforming it? Where is the payoff?Face it, we're stuck in our solar system until our life spans increase so much that 30 years will not be too much sacrifice. I am not even sure it's feasible for humans to live 300 years.</blockquote>

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