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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5556988" data-attributes="member: 177">I think you're dead wrong there.At current levels of funding and research, you're not going to reach other stars in under 30 years, no.&nbsp; But if the planet, is going to be destroyed, and all its resources with it, there is no good reason not to throw all of them (and I do mean *all* of them) at the problem.&nbsp; Grow food, dig energy, build spacecraft, and protect the systems and infrastructure required for those activities.&nbsp; Do that with the entire willing population (and maybe some of the unwilling, too), and you'd be surprised what you can do in 20+ years.Remember, you're talking about a scenario where we can throw out a whole lot of concerns:&nbsp; Ecological protection?&nbsp; Who cares? The ecology's going to be obliterated!&nbsp; Human lives?&nbsp; Dude, you're going to lose billions of them - ALL of them - in a generation, losing a few due to poor work conditions isn't really a blocker any more.Under those conditions, getting large numbers of people to Mars is probably possible.&nbsp; Under these conditions, we can get by with a lot of brute force, rather than technological advancement.&nbsp; It wouldn't be fun.&nbsp; The cost would be terrible.&nbsp; But the cost of not doing it is... literally everything.This is part of why media usually gives a very short timescale for world destruction.&nbsp; If you give us any time at all, you have to deal with what *billions* of people can do if they set their mind to it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 5556988, member: 177"] I think you're dead wrong there. At current levels of funding and research, you're not going to reach other stars in under 30 years, no. But if the planet, is going to be destroyed, and all its resources with it, there is no good reason not to throw all of them (and I do mean *all* of them) at the problem. Grow food, dig energy, build spacecraft, and protect the systems and infrastructure required for those activities. Do that with the entire willing population (and maybe some of the unwilling, too), and you'd be surprised what you can do in 20+ years. Remember, you're talking about a scenario where we can throw out a whole lot of concerns: Ecological protection? Who cares? The ecology's going to be obliterated! Human lives? Dude, you're going to lose billions of them - ALL of them - in a generation, losing a few due to poor work conditions isn't really a blocker any more. Under those conditions, getting large numbers of people to Mars is probably possible. Under these conditions, we can get by with a lot of brute force, rather than technological advancement. It wouldn't be fun. The cost would be terrible. But the cost of not doing it is... literally everything. This is part of why media usually gives a very short timescale for world destruction. If you give us any time at all, you have to deal with what *billions* of people can do if they set their mind to it. [/QUOTE]

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