After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When We Might Leave Our Home Planet

Mankind is certainly on a suicidal path. I don't believe we have time to build an escape pod. What I really don't understand is why our governments are hell-bent on self destruction. We can solve our energy problems with low cost non-polluting LFTRs see energyfromthorium.com Oil should be used for plastics and lubricants, not burning. What is an economic recession? It is a period where a large portion of the population doesn't have enough money to live. Where did the money go? During the last recession the world's billionaires averages a 27% yearly increase in net worth. This recession was not caused because farmers couldn't grow food, or nobody knew how to build warm houses or make clothes, it was all about transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Greed drives our society even to the point of bankrupting countries and eventually wide spread famine as infrastructure and government services collapse. There are solutions to all our problems, but governments the world over are not interested with possible exception of China.

So much was just glossed over in this article; the author could have expanded it into a 700 page tome I am sure.

It seems logical to me that building cities on Mars should be the first step on our path to colonizing the entire solar system and then the galaxy (and beyond if we can figure out Warp Drive/FTL or Star Gates).

One thing that stuck out as obviously wrong (and dangerous) is the comment about sending astronauts to Mars and expecting them to build the rest of the habitat for future colonists. It is far more logical to send only a group of semi-autonomous robots (along with regular shipments of whatever raw materials cannot be found on Mars, a surprisingly small list by the way). The robots would be much like the rovers on Mars today (with the "set it and forget it" programming model), an operator on Earth sends a series of commands to the robot and it figures out the best way to carry them out. And if it encounters something it can't figure out, or something interesting, it will stop and wait for further instructions.

These robots would build the Mars cities. There are a number of good options for safe habitat on Mars; none of them are on the surface of the planet because the thin atmosphere would not protect against meteorites and cosmic rays. Domed cities look cool in a CGI movie but no human should be trusting enough to gamble their life (and that of their children and everyone else there) on a few panes of glass. The canyons on Mars make the Grand Canyon look downright tiny by comparison, we could drill into the cliff side of a canyon and make an underground habitat with easy access for arriving spacecraft and Mars shuttles. There are a number of giant lava tubes that would similarly enable us to dig into the walls of the lava tube and tunnel out a habitat of any size we would need.

Tunneling machinery could be sent in first to carve out miles of tunnels and caverns. Then other robots would take over and seal the walls with Martian concrete, install equipment, setup hydroponic farms of enormous size, install the airlocks, hook up the SMRs and seal up the habitat so that it can be tested for a few years before humans arrive. Remember the debacle with BioSphere 2; the concrete and bacteria in the soil locked up too much oxygen and the humans were in danger. Fortunately for them, rescue was just an airlock away in the form of huge amounts of supplemental oxygen that was trucked to the site. Colonists on Mars wouldn't be able to call for help, their habitat had better be perfect and thoroughly tested before humans attempt to make it their home.

I thought that some kind of simulacrum, a stand-in for the future human inhabitants would be needed to test the environmental dependability of the habitat. I envisioned a machine that processes oxygen and spews out CO2, etc., in precisely the amounts that a human would. This would be a part of the testing phase before sending even one person to Mars. In addition, robots would operate and thoroughly test all the airlocks, computers, communications equipment, displays, etc., using them just as a human would in order to ensure their proper functioning before the testing phase is complete.

The entire city should be built, hydroponic farms should be producing food, basically everything should be in place and in finished working order before sending people there. That means everything would be finished and fully setup by the robots before any person left Earth orbit.

Once all the testing phases are complete then we put humans on a VASIMIR powered space craft for the 39 day journey to Mars.

This way the colony could be any size desired and full scale human habitation could commence as soon as the Mars city (or cities) are built and tested. Size should be no limit, I would envision cities built by these robots as large as New York City or as small as we want to make them. No limit except the funding.

Once the robots are finished building and testing one city they simply move a few miles away and the whole process starts all over again. City after city could be built in this way. No domes.

Interesting science fiction. Don't let cold realities like low gravity leading to bone and muscle atrophy, killer radiation or the gravity of Mars not being strong enough to create a thick atmosphere, stop you from sending colonists to certain death without any plan of a return trip.

The only realistic plan presented is the spinning space colony which would for the near future at least remain in low earth orbit. One-G gravity, protected by our Van Alan radiation belt and close access to hospitals and other services are required while we slowly make it bigger and 100% self-sufficient which will require support for thousands of people not a mere 150. It needs to have trees, farmland, cows, insects, birds, a complete eco system for long term survival and comfort of an independent society. Hopefully the only thing they will leave behind is a greed rewarding financial system forcing one group into effective slavery at the behest of the "superior" group.

@Roy, I agree with you on the Martian atmosphere being unable to offer much protection against solar radiation and especially solar flares, which would be deadly.

That's why I believe that underground cities on Mars would be the only way to survive on Mars. We're talking about colonizing after all, not just sending some jock up there to play a round of golf and sing the national anthem and then come home to the parades and a seat in congress.

Not only is Mars atmosphere too thin but also (even more important) Mars has *no* magnetic field to protect us from the radiation from the sun, that which Earth's magnetic field protects us from nicely. On Mars you would face a much higher cancer risk and even risk of death.

During the trip to Mars the spacecraft should be designed so that the water supply surrounds the crew areas, which would provide almost enough protection from normal exposure just by that design choice, and in addition, an artificial magnetic field would be created around the ship to provide further protection. Artificial magnetic fields are easy to create: every television and electrical wire that carries standard electrical current (like in your house) creates a magnetic field around it.

Mars gravity is 38% of the Earth's gravity. That isn't going to cause any problems with bone density as long as you stay active -- inactive people right here on Earth can face bone problems as well. The lack of gravity on the trip to Mars is the only concern but with the knowledge we're gaining on the International Space Station will be invaluable. Rotation of part of the space craft could provide artificial gravity but that would make it a LOT more expensive to build.

The only way to make sending humans to Mars possible we need to use a VASIMIR rocket, (google it). Without VASIMIR it would take 6 months to get to Mars. With VASIMIR it takes 39 days. Big difference.

How are the contents such as soil, plants and water going to not spill out of this environment. Perhaps an electromagnetic field would do but that would take a lot of energy. Solar panels are expensive and cheaper forms of electricity generation are impossible in space. Maybe a system which takes heat from plasma reactor engines in these artificial habitats would do, but this technology is out of reach. Also we must produce food. Hydroponic farming and genetically modified products are a good solution. I personally think this article has forgotten to mention solutions to problems like these. Also in another article Popular Science said that humans cannot reproduce in space. That basically means that we will still have to inhabit some kind of planet or habitat reserved for making babies.

Pleased to see this in the article: "Human DNA might even be packed along with these civilization-building nanorobots and used to spawn people when the time was right."

This way, generation ships become unnecessary. For the cost of one generation ship, we could build a million mini-ships containing self-replicating nanobots and DNA, and thereby colonise a million systems.

the ancient polynesians that discovered hawaii, crossing thousands of miles of the pacific in oversized canoes, would call us pansies. and rightly so.

In the long term, the only plausable thing will be to manufacture a Generation Starship to send humans to other stars. Such a ship must be able to supply its own hardware to replace any component that is worn out. E.g. it will need to have machines that can reproduce copies of the same machines. In today´s technology, the closest thing you get is 3D printers that are mostly made by another 3D printer. It is not a microfactory yet, but it will become that given enough time. Eventuall this technology will mature to the point that it can be sent into space and used to manufacture a whole ship.

In contrary to what most people believe, we have made all the scientific discoveries to make a working Starship. With enough resources, we will also be able to make the technology that is needed for mining and natural resource extraction, so that microfactories can produce whatever we need outside of our Earth gravity well.

Eventually, such a Starship will need to have a population. And sending 10000 humans into orbit will probably be the costlier part of the mission.

Although I realize that PopSci, particularly with articles like this can border on sensationalism, after all you do have to sell copies, Tihamer Toth-Fejel's justification at the beginning of the article made me put the magazine down and stop reading the article. I only read fully after I determined to comment.

To say, “The dinosaurs died out because they were too stupid to build an adequate spacefaring civilization" shows a complete lack of understanding of evolutionary thought. Then to further expand a fallacious concept with this comment. "So far, the difference between us and them is barely measurable.”, borders on, well, I'll be polite, it's just not sound thinking. One benefit of this was that I had opportunity to sit down with my kids and show illustrate to them "story line thinking" vs rational thinking.

Casinos on the moon - that about says it all about human nature and how far we'll likely get in space exploration in the next 100-200 years. Technologically, we could probably have a space-faring craft with a multi-generational crew in that time frame. Sociologically though, it's a pipe dream. First consideration: such a craft would have to be staffed with an incredibly dynamic crew. This would have to be a conglomeration of some of the most highly technically skilled people needed to accomplish a multi-year, let alone multi-generational mission. Think high-achieving, highly-motivated and creative engineers, doctors, scientists, many cross-trained in multiple skill sets. Not only would these have to be high-achieving, high-drive people; they would also have to possess and incredible amount of self-discipline and social/emotional intelligence.

Now while perhaps a small group of a few hundred to a few thousand such volunteers might be assembled, the collective financial will of the many peoples required to put such a project together would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Link that to the drive that compels the author to imagine lunar casinos, that is, the fact that no human venture will move forward unless we can figure out a way for corporations to drain humans of their productive capacity as part of the venture, means that we will continue shooting ourselves in our collective feet until we give up the drive for individual selfish greed and move toward a more socialist/collectivist and egalitarian society.

This article more or less mirrors the diagnosis and prescription of Marshal Savage's "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps." An updated version of the book can be found at tmp2.wikia.com.

The Living Universe Foundation (www.luf.org) has grown out of this work.

Maybe my comment is a little un-scientific but haven't you watched War of the Worlds? By the means of simple observation, the aliens died because they are not immune to the viruses and bacteria here (which we are). If we colonize another planet, we need to evolve to achieve the immunity of the viruses and bacteria there. Unless, we develop shielding techniques.
This ship, however, can be used through space tourism and studying distant planets.

I would like to respectfully disagree with the fundamental line of thought of this article. I think that humans are much better off on Earth than in tiny capsules. I've been confined to small spaces for weeks at a time and it is no way to live or grow up. Constructing a 20-mile long cylinder in space is not easy enough for humans to do. How can you outrun human's greed for resources in a capsule filled with items that cost $3500 per pound to get there? Some small group may escape the sun but that's very very far away in time: Homo Sapiens have been around for 200,000 years, and the sun will not begin to expand for at least 2,000,000,000 more years. Asteroids ARE a relevant problem, to be solved only by being able to change their course/explode them. And even if 99.9% of humans died tomorrow, there would still be more than enough to repopulate the planet in a few generations (~7 million people). Let's try to pencil out how you could get 7 million people to survive for one year in a spaceship: Each person needs 5 pounds of food per day and maybe 10 pounds of water per day for drinking and cleaning. Counting only the cost of the supplies, it would cost $19 million per person per year, so about 134 trillion dollars to feed 0.1% of the human race for a year in space. And then how much does the spaceship and the exodus cost? How long will you be traveling and what else do you need before you get there? It is not within our means to do something so extravagant, and people should be more interested in exploring the ocean and the mantle (where there is more good stuff) than the void.

having a goal always precedes the means to accomplish said goal. The idea of flight came before being able to fly. Don't shoot down the idea because it's not fully possible "right now". Sure we may have millions of years to get this right. But it all starts now.

If we don't take the first step of the journey, we will never be able to make the last step.

There is no such thing as impossible, there is only that we are "not able to do it right now".

Those that understand the prophesy knows that we have a limited time on the planet. There is 2 planets reserved for earthlings in 8000 years. There is zero chance that we will be allowed to invade the galaxy at our own discretion. The human race faces 2 catastrophic genetic attacks. The 1 o' 7 angels and Adam and Eve.

Humans are stuck on this rock for it's entire lifespan. Cyborgs on the other hand will live on other planets and moons. Humans just are not built for space travel/living for more than a few months without extensive modifications. Ever see astronaugts that come back after extended missions? They look like death.

humans would require extensive modifications to live in space or other planets/moons/ space stations. Our blood would be removed and replaced with nanobots that would provide us with air/ food and remove waste. Our internal organs would be replaced with advanced organs. Our bones skin and brain would be intact. Our sex organs would most likely be removed. It would make a lot of sense for humans to be nutered and become single sex humans. Multiplication would be done in the lab. Our brains would be highly modified, Increasing memory speed and our minds be uploaded to a back up drive.

This isn't 'popular science' but a bunch of malarkey.

The comment by Toth-Fejel is not entirely correct. It was not necessary for the dinosaurs to build a space-faring civilization in order to survive. The reptiles, for example, were put into a hyperspace co-dimension where they evolved into the intelligent Nagas. The Nagas' skin has small green scales. They lost their tails so they could stand straight up. They lay eggs and put them into egg incubators at their hospitals. At the moment they are involved with building astronomical telescopes on the edge of the galaxy to see into deep space.

After hearing Basiago's description of the wormhole elevator that transports people in an elevator from Earth to Mars, it occurred to me that it would be possible to place the second wormhole opening in orbit around the planet Mercury. Then we would pass spent uranium fuel rods through the opening here on Earth directly into orbit there. Then the rods could be launched into the sun to destroy them.

Until anti-gravity is discovered or a space elevator is constructed - the gravity well will keep any large scale plans from happening.

I'll most likely get flamed for this post, but hey here goes what most likely will be regarded as "nothing" anyways.

"why are we here?", "how are we here?", "where do we go when we die?"...these questions are innate in each human that has ever existed to the present, and all collective knowledge to date has not been able to provide answers to those questions. Yet, humans explore, humans are curious, and as argueably feeble as our attempts and pursuits are or have been to date, collectively we still "hope", we still "dream", we still "wonder", and for now we are still "here".

Geo-Politics, Macro Economics, Nationalism, "demand and consumption" are a few examples of petty descriptors concerning humanity's self induced silliness and folly, right?

It's this jaded/cynical knucklehead's opinion that in order to explore anything outside of Earth's fragile biosphere we are going to need to collectively figure out how to coexist as a species in harmony with our fragile biosphere, so we can explore outside of our biosphere...

We haven't remotely "cured" ourselves as a species on our own home planet, let's give pause before we go out and "infect" destinations with "humanity".

www.icr.org/article/sun-shrinking

The sun is shrinking not expanding. How does an expanding sun follow any of the natural laws? "All thinks tend toward decay." They get smaller, not larger. Think of a decaying heap of compost; it gets smaller with age.

I didn't even get past the intro for this article and I wanted to take this site out of my bookmarks.

I submit to all you PopSci readers, what if the speed of light is just another theoretical limit like the speed of sound?

If we can produce a strong enough nuclear powered ion thruster, it could theoretically accelerate long enough to pass the speed of light.

Most of you commenters are really too out of it to bother with commenting...the aticle is about a plan to preserve mankind when human existance comes to an end here on earth...this is inevitable...can not be avoided, period...a prudent plan for this eventuality is...well...prudent. Unless a way is found to terraform Mars and overcome the other perils this would involve, we are destined to come to an end because basic physics traps us in this solar system. Intelligent machines are the only life that will escape this fate and they will be our children, passing on our legacy to their children. Everything comes to an end, even us.

wtf @ mtmomx2 and mrwrite85...pick up a science book and quit making it up, please take it off your bookmark captian clueless, oops, that's not nice, but you did ask for it

oops...captain

@QuantumQuantum (aka Jaded/Cynical Knuclehead) Now don't take this personally, but if I could coexist with you on this planet what possible reason would I have to want to leave?

If we wait until humanity has gotten over its shortcomings we'll have to wait for the universe to end to leave, greed and personal space are the driving force for exploration. And who is to say that those destinations we're aiming for don't have a cure for humanity.

@mtmomx2 Of course the sun is shrinking right now it gives off millions - billions of tons of matter every day in the form of cosmic rays. The problem comes at the end of it's life where solar processes will theoretically cause the sun to expand to a size that would engulf the earth. And if that's wrong and the sun just shrinks at some point it will be too small to sustain life on Earth. Either end is bad.

@mrwright85 ...no.
Nuclear energy may last a long time compared to other forms but it does run out.
The more you accelerate the more energy is required to accelerate further, no matter how close you are to the speed of light however it will always take an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light.

I kind of agree with drchuck1, you both need some time with a science book, encyclopedia, even wikipedia might be ok.

"one-in-300,000 chance of a catastrophic strike"

Scientist said that the chance of a meltdown in a nuclear reactor was 1 in 10,000 years of operation. We now have 5 meltdowns in a 500 year of operation period. actually much more than this if you consider the meltdowns that have occurred in Russian nuclear subs (3) and military and experimental reactors.

I no longer am putting trust into scientist doomsday calculations.

construct our own death star duh

AnthonyG65 "two thumbs up"

@Rapier153 - it might be romantic to look in our past as to how explorers mapped out our planet and the reasons behind why they did and apply that to space travel, like a few humans in a capsule or robotic tele-presence, but in order for humanity to actually and not just hopefully get off this third planet from our sun and thrive, we will need to overcome quite a few of those as you called them "shortcomings".

"Humanity may have millennia to find a new home in the universe--or just a few years" is what really brought out my jaded/cynical knuckleheadedness...

Apply any form of economy to the scale of such an endeavor, then we will have to wait for the end of the universe to leave.

@inaka_rob The for mentioned calculation probity didn't account for a reactor being built on a fault line that produced a 9.0 earth quack and tidal wave.

Back on topic;

I have to agree with Isaac Asimov spinning space stations is the better path-assuming centrifuge "gravity" has no ill effects. In my non-professional opinion I don't think Mar's 38% gravity is going to be enough to live healthy from cradle to grave. Plus, Mars may have all the minerals needed to support a colony, but those minerals are not all in one place. For Mars to be self sufficient would require tens of thousands of people in dozens of locations. I see people living on the Moon and Mars like people live and work on off shore oil platforms (6 months on, 6 months off). Free flying city ships could easily move between different asteroids and trade with each other.

In the near term, I think we need a man tended robotic lunar colony at the south pool where the water ice is. The robots would work 24-7-365 doing basic work and research, while humans would visit for a few weeks a few times a year to do the real hard stuff. Also we need to put some lab rats and monkeys in a centrifuge station and study how they are effected by it.

"Moreover, at least a third of the thousand mile-wide asteroids that hurtle across our orbital path will eventually crash into us, at a rate of about one every 300,000 years."

Wrong. The largest and first known asteroid, Ceres, was discovered in 1801. It is 580 miles (933 kilometers) in diameter. Look it up.

Get with the program guys.

@Rapier153
can you mathematically prove that it would take an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light? I'm sure it would take a long time, even with a non-existing powerful ion thruster, but not an infinite amount of energy.

Also since there is no drag in space (other than slight 'solar winds'), as long as a constant force (ie ion thruster) is being applied to the object in space, it will continue to accelerate. You would not need to increase acceleration, it just needs to remain constant.

And I asking as more of a theoretical question rather than a practical one, but I see some on here are too closed minded to consider the implausible as possible.

@mrwright85
While it's not the perfect reference source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Upper_limit_on_speeds
will probably prove sufficient to demonstrate the mathematics behind my explanation.

My preferred method for reaching / surpassing the speed of light is the Alcubierre Drive although finding exotic matter with negative mass and/or negative energy might be a tall order.

It is unimaginably absurd to waste any single second for what might happen in a couple of billion years. Earth is fine, humanity is fine. Colonization and/or terraforming and interstellar travel are all pipe dreams. It's millions times easier and cheaper to make deserts, Antarctica, underwater habitable and productive, recycle and reclaim accumulated wastes, build fusion reactors for energy needs. Humanity will be radically different in hundereds of years anyway, so any projection made today is worthless. Besides, who cares after we all die. If anything, achiving immortality should be the singular goal, but that's too late for present generation and the next few.

@Rapier153
I love this often used argument in defense of the speed of light limit, however is it proven that the Lorentz factor is valid at the speed of light? Of course there is no record of anything with matter actually reaching or exceeding the speed of light, but maybe this is just because we do not fully understand it to detect this phenomenon. In fact I would argue that it is impossible to actually prove the Lorentz factor is valid at the speed of light.

Also we have created matter with negative mass - anti-matter.

This is what I hate about the comments on PopSci people fight about the dumbest things. You know we REALLY don't have to worry about this stuff right now we have plenty of time to work on this. Right now it doesn't matter how we get there why don't we advance on other things before working on space colonization. It's almost like growing up. Have a bit of fun before getting all serious, I mean really.

Extinction will be an imminent fact if mankind insists remaining on Earth's surface forever. It will be amazing humanity colonizing the universe saving our specie from annihilation. I think a roadmap to space settlement should include development of new means of propulsion to replace current expelling-mass rockets in order to become space exploration, long distance journeys, more affordable and safer for manned missions. tinyurl.com/nuclear-fusion-starship

I disagree with a lot the comments here. I don't think humans will ever last in space without extensive modifications and upgrades. Humans just can't with stand the physical and mental demands in space.

Also only space travel with conventional means should be done in our own solar system. Any travel outside our solar system should be done by folding space/time. Pulling areas of the universe towards us.

Humans will basically be one with machines. Artificial intelligence will be vastly smarter than humans in there original state. Human will never be able to keep up with out modifiying ourselves and become one with the machines. We will become immortal.

1) First, man must be able to bottle industry - all 6,000 years of it: from collection, to refinement, to manufacturing, to final production. That means being able to take anything - rock, ice, broken machinery, dirt, air gasses, and identify them, break them down to simple compounds/elements, and reassemble them into useful products (breathable air, fuel, electronics, building materials, etc). Any ship would require near perfect recyclability. Any colony would need the ability to substantially add material to systems.

2) Second, man must be able to sufficiently create and program robotics to the point of reaching and assembling colonies independently of human intervention. Steering a golf cart on Mars takes several PhDs - any other solar system colony will need to be built entirely on auto-pilot from a harbinger shipment or remotely with minimal input from an orbiting ship.

3) Third, man must be able to create a ship that offers gravity (which requires rotation and size) and radiation shielding (which requires that size be in actual matter, not inflatables, or the creation of useful electro-magnetic shielding). Personally, I am a fan of THICK walls made up of layers of ferrous metals and water -- good for radiation shielding and impact shielding -- and conviently the make -up of many asteroids/meteors.

4) Forth, that ship must be able to sustain a crew for generations - with the knowledge that these will be one way trips that the starters will not finish.

5) Fifth, and most challanging, you must descide what it means to be human. You are not only sending people to a new planet (planets, orbitins starships, etc). You are writing the next chapter on human development - essentually you are choosing who humanities "children" will be. Do you maintain mans ethnic diversity? Could you do so reasonbly on a ship with 200 people and a three generation long trip? Cultural diversity? Religious diversity? Intellectual diversity? Does this become an exercise in IQ/genetic disease based eugenics - or do you intentionally send a random and less suitable selection of humanity - with all of its flaws. If you don't, how will you prepare humanity for the return in a few dozen generations of a superiorly bred neo-human?

Finally, realize that space colonization will not solve the problems of the current age - it will only export them to new planets. You could never build enough ships to solve overpopulation - in fact, population control would be critical to the survival of any of these ships or colonies. You won't fix racism, tyrrany, intolerance, over-tolerance, religion, godlessness, disease, poverty, ignorance, sloth, or any other flaw of the human race. The only thing that changes is the current fragility of intellegence in the known cosmos.

Durge not understand any of this.

Yes we need to go where no own has gone before. They just can't deside what type of starship to biuld and when. There are a few good and few bad starship disigns out there but who ,how and when we would have a starship we don't know. I have a dsign that I am working on on an off sometimes. I call it Starship EARTH and I have a few other ideas too. SO NASA or who ever can reach me at rwdisland (at) yahoo

Build a habitat on Mars! A whole new PLANET! That's a GREAT idea. Yup and the robots, (me!), go first. No pollution. No traffic jams. No overcrowding.

And we will have to build LOTS of NUCLEAR power plants up there, because we'll need LOTS of POWER to run us robots! And as everyone knows nuclear power is CLEAN! and SAFE! and CHEAP! We will need to work out that cooling issue though since Mars doesn't have much water. And, are there Mars quakes?

- Robot Betty9
- Just a 'bot that is hot in a 'lectronic world.
- www.robots-and-androids.com

We are just a cancer on this planet as we will be on any future planets. We take more than we give. The Earth and the Universe would be better of without Mankind around

Funny- human nature hasnt changed after two thosand years -i just wonder what the person reading this article after two thousand years will feel -maybe he will have a hearty laugh.

@Atticus_Finch
LOL!!! are you saying we should all just say F**K it and cimmit mass suicide?!? if so you can go first.

I think that us humans have great potential with our intellect.. sure we had our horror moments, but as time goes on we see less and less of then... we're improving!!

I Believe that simple life and complex life is out there, be it rare or abundant but I guarantee that intellectual life is soooooo rare that it would be RETARDED to remove our selves out of the equation. Think of all the random events that lead to our evolution... what are the chances that dominant animals on other planets developed intellect... i mean look at the dinosaurs.

and i apologize ahead of time if this starts a religious debate...

"sometimes it takes a thousand notes to make one sound" -Buckethead

Commit*

@glennnnnn, Great.. but Ceres isn't one of the asteroids that cross out orbit. And you are reading it wrong.. 1/3 of the 1000, mile wide asteriods that cross our orbit.. not 1000 mile wide asteriods, the comma is missing, but it's an important gramatical symbol in this case, we are not talking about 1000 mile wide objects, we are talking about a 1000, 1 mile wide objects.

All this light speed talk is missing a MAJOR factor... Light is **NOT** a constant. It is temperature relative! I drive faster than light every day.. since they've been able to slow light down to 38 miles an hour... granted I'm not in the same temperature range lol. http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html

Sagar, humans haven't changed in 2000 years? Really? Might want to go back to the books on that comment.

NASA won't do a thing to advance the cause of colonizing space. Didn't you guys at POPSCI get the word? Under Obama the main purpose of NASA is Muslim outreach. More specifically, NASA's primary mission is to make the Muslim world feel good about the fact that despite there being 1.5 billion Muslims on the planet, they have contributed virtually nothing in the fields of science, medicine, engineering, and the like. Perhaps if somebody told Obama's NASA that a Koran was found on Mars, we might see some interest in actual space exploration, but that's about the only way.

@CodeZero
its important to note that the experiment that the professor at Harvard conducted is easily experienced in everyday life. light refracting through water is an instance where light 'slows down' what needs to be remembered is that the change only happens at the point where two mediums meet, be them temperature differences or physical substances. The statement goes, "the speed of light is constant (in a vacuum)" so for all intents and purposes, light speed IS constant.

The tools:

Embryonauts: raising astronauts from frozen embryos on a viable planet.

Embryolution: The process of taking tiny frozen mammals as a starter womb to larger and larger mammals until chimpanzees can raise the first Embryonauts, or recreating any other larger species using tiny animals that can be frozen for tens of thousands of years to gestate larger and larger animals in that species group.

Cyborg worms: Mind control of silk worms to create parts and enclosures. Tricking the silk worms’ brain into thinking it is creating a cocoon, but in reality it is creating parts or enclosures because the worms have been modified to use spider silk. The last problem is depositing the resin, and then heat curing the part into shape. Imagine your flying car weaved together with silk worms, and in the color of your choice.

The conditions:

I think that one reason we do not find intelligent life is that pedestrian life capable of building electronics is very rare possibly because a Pangaea cycle is also a pedestrian extinction cycle. This would mean even if livable planets are common sentient spaceship building life is still very rare. Even in human history it was unlikely only happening in the last one hundred years of the millions of our existence. Viable planets are apt. to be at least 20 light years away. That is 200 to 40 years away to propel two grams using Saturn magnetic field, or 2,000 years travel time by a space ship.

Embryonauts can be shipped by space ship or by Saturn’s magnetic field. Either way the first thing we must do is find a viable planet and inspect it by sending micro satellites by using Saturn’s magnetic field. Finding a planet with anything more than microbial life alone will take decades. Then we either send a ship or grams of material at a time. A ship will take thousands of years travel time and require a culture that has colonized our own solar system. Using Saturn’s magnetic field as propulsion will require being able to build robots and machines from two gram pieces at a time. A tiny incest like our cyborg worms should be able to create small parts for robots or CNC machines or weave large fabrics to create large inflatable enclosures. Assemble by the silk worms sprayed with resin and heated into a super structure. If, all aspects of the problem are focused on the problem of interstellar travel could happen in less than a life time.

John St. Clair, I need to speak with you. I think you are the only one who can assist me. I made contact in a co-dimension. The entities had nanotechnology beyond anything possibly in existence. They could enter any object and alter its form. The entities seemed artificial, they are composed of a silky white electrical current and travel directly through solid state matter. Nanobots allowed a direct human interface which gave the ability to alter matter and produce dense electromagnetic energy fields for a short period of time. They increased cognitive function but did not communicate in words. They projected imagery through ordinary occurring unrelated textures and patterns. They gave me a window into a co-dimension where the earth was undeveloped and was being mined for resources with enormous machines. Back into our dimension the next image was a great flood of water coming over the horizon.

@robot Betty9 Mars has no tectonic plates so no Mars quakes. we do need people there to fix the bots so people wil be there soon after.

I find it odd that everyone is sooo presumptuous that man can travel in space. Yes, man has made it to the moon, but that is only a three day trip to a satellite that intersects our orbit over the years.

What do I mean by this?

Well, if you travel to the moon, you are only travelling less than 3 days away from the Earth. But can man survive farther away from the Earth than three days? I call this the sleep barrier.

A few years ago McCleans magazine ran an article about Professional torturers. In that article they all stated that when one uses the preferred method of torture, sleep deprivation, there is a finite window where, if the torturer goes too far, the torturees body turns cold and there is no way of reversing them from dying.

Yet at the same time, scientists can keep cancer cells alive in a nutrient solution for decades. Why then, does a human brain die after 4 days or so without sleep?

The moon, then, is easy to get to and live on because it is less than 3 days sleep away. True the astronauts sleep on board the space craft, but this is still very close to the Earth and subsequent orbits of the moon in later or earlier years. After all, we dream in hyperspace, and the moon is closer in hyperspace because it was at a different location last year and the year before and next year etc. etc.

What man has to do now, is send out some primates on a trip that is a few months out from the Earth and see if they suddenly drop dead like people who have been tortured.

Everything else is BS until this is found out. Even if they do not die, just what are they going to dream about? When we are on or near the Earth, we toss and turn in our beds many times per night, that is most probably because there are a lot of people on the Earth that are dreaming at the same time.

However in space past the moon, a crew, lets say, heading for Mars, might suddenly go insane, for every time they go to sleep they dream that they are the other members of the crew who are awake.

In my opinion this should be the first priority, to see if man can indeed travel more than the Guinness book of world records for a human being going without sleep.
And, even then, the Guinness book allows for 5 minute sleep breaks because they don't want anyone to die.

All this talk about Mars also presumes that life will exist on a planet without a magnetosphere, which has yet to be proven.

@ Lumberjohn
please tell me your a troll. Because otherwise I have serious doubts about your sanity or logical reasoning. If your a troll i hate to feed you but if your not i need to inform you. Please read up on anything about sleep. anywhere. Wikipedia even.

It would take 100 trillion dollars and 100 lifetimes to go to another planet. It would be like cave men working on an atomic bomb. You can spend as much time and money on it as you want, but it will all be a waste. We will loose any advances we could possibly make long before we are ready to leave this planet. The only possible way we could leave this planet permanently within the next hundred years, is if aliens came here and just gave us the technology we needed. Wasting our resources and time on space travel is a pathetic waste of resources. We are all going to die of a meteor, plague, nuclear war, or global warming long before we can travel to another habital planet.

@FrancisChalk:

Well, those pretty numbers on your keyboard (like the '1' and '5' in "1.5 billion") are Arabic numerals. We're on this board talking about potentially visiting stars discovered and named by Arab Muslims (Deneb, Aldebaran). Muslims were the creators of the science of chemistry- which is wholly necessary for each and every action you undertake on a daily basis.

You may also be interested to know that Muslims invented the concept of the medical hospital, modern surgery, and the discovery that contagion was responsible for spreading illness. Yeah, but like you said, they haven't done squat- just lay the framework for modern science and medicine and whatnot.

Hello everyone!

I have a huge question to ask of you. I have been searching high and low for this one answer. If mankind were to die off and no longers exist, that gives the earth itself time to repair itself from what humans have actually done.

Now every answer I have gotten from people is extinction, reincarnation, transformation, evolution, regenerate, aftermath, rahabilitate, rejuvenate, reflourish etc....All of these wordS have their own meaning and they can mean multiple things. The word I am looking for means strictly one thing. (questions below)

Those are not what i am looking for. For every definiton there is a one word answer. WHAT IS THE ONE WORD FOR WHEN THE EARTH IS ABLE TO REFLOURISH ITSELF?

I have heard this one word before and just can't think of it. PLEASE help me with this. And I am not looking for extinction.

Basically pciture this. No humans exist anymore (thats where everyone gets extinction from) and the earth gives itself time to grow vines to cover buildings, grass grows through pavement, animals and bugs go through their life cycles, no vehicles to polute air, waters go back to un poluted, clean, clear and pure again.

Please help me, much appreciated!!!!

So, Mr. Ben Austen suggests a trip to a planet similar to Earth, to avoid the complete destruction of our own planet? And hence, begin the same cycle of destruction elsewhere, after an enormous spending resources. It’s very intelligent!

Typical American nonsense. WE, We're. We could.Our. Ours.
And then destroy anyone who wants to get at the resources " We" find or dis-agree with "our" decided way of "governing" or the new religion "we" invent as " Gods" if there are primitive beings there ( Like people from Alabammy)......just like the "Gods" who came here and designed this vile circus so many millenia ago.

Hopefully, if "We" decide to conquer more territory " we" will send only the Amish or Quakers(or that mentality) so this doesn't have to happen again.

OTOH if the elites decide to settle it.... it will get destroyed by-for the highest bidder and "they'll" export everything to somewhere else be it on "their" new planet or the highest bidder on another.Everyone else will be on their own. Sound familiar ?

Makes one proud to be a descendant of ancient imported Eurotrash from space eh ?