US Spaceflight for the future [update]
- Thread starter Goshin
- Start date
Its not that we're not thinking hard enough, or that we don't have the technology yet, or that we haven't invented some new wonder engine that runs on rainbows.
Its the sheer size of the universe. Most people have no idea just how fucking big it all is. They just look up at night and think, oh, that shit can't be much farther away than the moon, and we've BEEN there.
The universe is too big. Astronomy will forever be about observing stars, not visiting them. Deal with it.
So Triple is a Luddite technophobe?
Things that were once thought to be impossible but are now commonplace off the top of my head:
-Surviving more than three months with AIDS
-Heavier than air flight
-Flying from New York to Japan non-stop
-Running a 4 minute mile
-Supporting 7 billions humans with existing farmland
-Sequencing the human genome
-Restoring erectile function in men with ED
-Giving birth past 50
-Resuscitating someone after a heart attack
-Going more than 35 miles per hour
-Walking on the moon
-Talking to someone in real time who was far away from you
-Having sex without the risk of pregnancy
-Surviving most infections used to be a death sentence now it's a simple prescription
And the list of course could go on and on. But... alas... I'm sure we are done innovating and there will never be another scientific advancement from this day forward. In 10 years all the technology around you will be mostly the same, maybe even worse!
Things that were once thought to be impossible but are now commonplace off the top of my head:
-Surviving more than three months with AIDS
-Heavier than air flight
-Flying from New York to Japan non-stop
-Running a 4 minute mile
-Supporting 7 billions humans with existing farmland
-Sequencing the human genome
-Restoring erectile function in men with ED
-Giving birth past 50
-Resuscitating someone after a heart attack
-Going more than 35 miles per hour
-Walking on the moon
-Talking to someone in real time who was far away from you
-Having sex without the risk of pregnancy
-Surviving most infections used to be a death sentence now it's a simple prescription
And the list of course could go on and on. But... alas... I'm sure we are done innovating and there will never be another scientific advancement from this day forward. In 10 years all the technology around you will be mostly the same, maybe even worse!
I remember last time you made a prediction about something, you said you'd leave the forums if you were wrong.
so you ended up being wrong twice.
sigh. THIS IS NOT ON THE SAME LEVEL AS CURING THE COMMON COLD OR VISITING THE MOON OR FLIGHT ITSELF.
Flight was.. easy. We knew birds fly. We just had to figure out how, and that was air flowing over a curved surface. Basically.
The moon was hard, but its still not even a baby step in the terms of the SCALE of what im talking about here.
You might as well say "well building a ladder to heaven is only impossible because we don't have the technology." Its just not possible or realistic.
Flight was.. easy. We knew birds fly. We just had to figure out how, and that was air flowing over a curved surface. Basically.
The moon was hard, but its still not even a baby step in the terms of the SCALE of what im talking about here.
You might as well say "well building a ladder to heaven is only impossible because we don't have the technology." Its just not possible or realistic.
There are bounds placed on innovation by the laws of physics.
Saying we'll have faster than light travel is like saying we'll have a machine that outputs more energy than is input or that we'll create a system that reaches absolute zero.
go read the popsci archives, you'll find a dozen more things in every issue that were considered outlandish and science-fictiony when the issues were published, that kids learn about in history books nowadays.
I'm not saying we will or we will not, Just that given our history it's impossible to know what we might eventually accomplish.
ok, lesson on scale, now.
Earth to Moon = 248,294 miles (longest manned spaceflight)
Earth to Sun = 92,280,000 miles (371 trips to the moon)
Earth to Nearest Star = 24,800,000,000,000 miles (99,881,591 trips to the moon)
Oh yea, easy. For every MILE between us and the sun, imagine having to go to the moon instead, every MILE. And that's just for the CLOSEST star.
Earth to Moon = 248,294 miles (longest manned spaceflight)
Earth to Sun = 92,280,000 miles (371 trips to the moon)
Earth to Nearest Star = 24,800,000,000,000 miles (99,881,591 trips to the moon)
Oh yea, easy. For every MILE between us and the sun, imagine having to go to the moon instead, every MILE. And that's just for the CLOSEST star.
ok.
hi.
I don't think you quite grasp what i'm getting at.
you're saying "it's gonna be really really really hard" and i'm saying "yes. it's gonna be really really really hard."
and you're saying "That means the same thing as impossible" and i'm saying "no. it means it's gonna be really really really hard."
so we won't be making any trips to extra-solar planets any time soon, that doesn't mean a human or human-descendant will never set foot on an extra-solar body.
I'm with you Triple, it's a long way and it's a bit silly to be thinking of making the trip at our current technological levels. But our great grand kids may one day read these posts and laugh at our childlike discussions on the topic.
100 years is an eternity considering how far we have come in just the last 20. The pace of change has even been shown to be accelerating exponentially in many areas of technological advancement. We are on the edge here, if we are talking timescales of 100 years.
I'm getting sick of people who view the future as "the same with better gadgets" we have come a LONG way and it makes where we've come from and where we are going sound cheap and meaningless when people have the view that "everything sucks and it's always the same and nothing ever changes and the world is going to end and blah blah blah..."
100 years is an eternity considering how far we have come in just the last 20. The pace of change has even been shown to be accelerating exponentially in many areas of technological advancement. We are on the edge here, if we are talking timescales of 100 years.
I'm getting sick of people who view the future as "the same with better gadgets" we have come a LONG way and it makes where we've come from and where we are going sound cheap and meaningless when people have the view that "everything sucks and it's always the same and nothing ever changes and the world is going to end and blah blah blah..."
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If given infinite resources and time, and maybe a longer lifespan on the order of 100,000 years/person, we might be able to do it.
But we don't.
Really really hard and impossible are the same thing if it's just too hard.
The major point of contention is just our puny lifespans. 70 years? Well that's 50 years of travel if we leave at age 20.. someone wanna work out how fast we need to go to travel to say, sirius in our lifetimes to get there before we die?
Anyone know someone who's willing to spend their entire life in a solitary tube just to visit an uninhabited star system?
Yea, impossible.
But we don't.
Really really hard and impossible are the same thing if it's just too hard.
The major point of contention is just our puny lifespans. 70 years? Well that's 50 years of travel if we leave at age 20.. someone wanna work out how fast we need to go to travel to say, sirius in our lifetimes to get there before we die?
Anyone know someone who's willing to spend their entire life in a solitary tube just to visit an uninhabited star system?
Yea, impossible.
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is that why you're so fat? losing weight is just [strike]too hard[/strike] physically impossible?
descendants. if you set out on a ship and your ancestors are the ones arriving, you're going WAAAAAY too fast.
also, I don't really think stasis or cryogenic technology is entirely impossible.
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What do you think the average projected lifespan of a newborn will be in the year 2110? 70 years still? Less? More?
Keep in mind, that's 100 years of new innovations in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, organ replacements, artificial limb advancements, and other related fields.
Also, before you answer, consider what a person in the year 1910 might say when asked this question about people in the year 2010.
er ya, whoops
agreed on stasis
hard right now to do without causing cell death from freeze
but someday sooner or later we'll get it right
there's also the fun idea that a ship that left 17k years ago is arriving soon to a planet, and that it's already been colonized by a ship that left 15k years ago with much improved technology
agreed on stasis
hard right now to do without causing cell death from freeze
but someday sooner or later we'll get it right
there's also the fun idea that a ship that left 17k years ago is arriving soon to a planet, and that it's already been colonized by a ship that left 15k years ago with much improved technology
We would be dicks not to fly out to them and give them a ride down the the planet in style at the 16k mark
"Hey everybody, good news!"