[Marko]

I would like to discuss in this thread our visions for the future of mankind.

Can we terraform the "Red planet"?

Can we reach other stars, like Alfa Centauri, Barnard star, Epsilon Eridani?

When our Sun dies, can we find another star with appropriate planet?

Can we make starships like the Orion, Daedalus and Bussard fusion ramjet?

Will we replace religions with the deep philosophy and ecology?

How much can be done in the genetics?

Is there a safe way to hibernate people?

Can we avoid new world war?

These and any other questions and ideas important for the future of the mankind are open for discussion.

Every idea is welcome!

regards!

Marko

[baudrunner]

Can we terraform the "Red planet"?

Yes. Will we ever? Probably not.

Can we reach other stars, like Alfa Centauri, Barnard star, Epsilon Eridani?

Yes. Will we ever? Probably not.

When our Sun dies, can we find another star with appropriate planet?

Not unless we already know where we are going. And do you see this scenario happening in the foreseeable future? Because if so, no.

Can we make starships like the Orion, Daedalus and Bussard fusion ramjet?

Yes, but will we? No. The only way to travel as far as we need in order to get to the next habitable planet is by riding the shockwave of a stellar explosion.

Will we replace religions with the deep philosophy and ecology?

Some people already have, but there will always be institutions like religion so long as there are people who want them, and there will always be people who want them.

How much can be done in the genetics?

Everything you can think of can be done. However, as to whether they will be done is another story.

Is there a safe way to hibernate people?

There will always be somebody there to take your money after convincing you that it is doable. However, the only way that it can be done is to die and then re-incarnate into the future. Of course, you would have a hard time convincing the estate lawyers who you are.

Can we avoid new world war?

Only if we have a pure non-egalitarian non-oligarchial type of universal governance, otherwise no.

It was easy to answer these questions. But we would really like to read what you have to say about these questions, Marko.

[Mohan.C]

It all depends on the circumstances

[harmonygirl]

Marko, all great questions, but political, economic and social reality must intervene. Even if we can do all the stuff you talk about, they will be turned into power centralizing or money making ventures. Unfortunately, there will always be people who make religions out of philosophy, ecology, math, science. My definition of religion is where beliefs are defended which have no basis in reality (in otherwords a closed system). I think this happens because people don't want to apply critical analysis to stuff (like media, but don't get me started!). I think a lot can be done with genetics (wasn't the Third Reicht working on this?) but once again, it will be put to nefarious uses and not used to benefit womankind. I don't know about hibernation of people but see previous answers. I think it is unlikely that we can avoid further wars, because the current political, economic and social reality dictate that they exist. They are the best way to co-op resources and expropriate capital. This continues to happen, despite valiant attempts to derail it. The machinery is very well-oiled now. What restores my faith is that the opposition to war is also becoming more sophisticated and wider spread. I think that as long as the current governing economic and social structures continue to be accepted, further wars will take place.

[Mr. Nobody]

The bigger question is:
Does nature care? Is mankind essential to the evolution of matter, the unfolding of maximum order to oppose maximum disorder? I think not and therefore subscribe to the pragmatic view, that we will become extinct, mired in poverty with forgotten technology and wasted potential, cursed to repeat mistakes until we have exhausted all resources of Mother Earth. Who will follow us? Perhaps nobody on this planet. Perhaps sentient machines. Evolution will keep on spinning. Biology might only be a another forgotten step. How many times has this cycle of birth, life and death been repeated somewhere else? No one knows and all of us keep thinking that we are the pinnacle of evolution, hoping for everlasting life through the survival of our species into eternity.

[Marko]

Originally Posted by baudrunner It was easy to answer these questions. But we would really like to read what you have to say about these questions, Marko.

Well, for a lot of this and any other similar questions the key factor is the level of our self-awareness. When there will be at lest 60-70% of the society in the deep philosophy and ecology phase – things will surely be different. Of course there will always be religions, traditions – but I think that there will be a „critical mass“ of the people in the future who will „believe“ in deep philosophy and ecology. This seems to me like a answer on the war question – I think it will be avoidable, there will be much less real wars, and more „verbal wars“. At least I hope.
Unfortunately, I think that today only 10% of the society is in this deep philosophy and ecology phase.


I think that terraformation of the „Red planet“ is reality, but in 20000-30000 years.
We have to know that terraforming is extremely hard work, there are many ways how to do it, but I think that the best way is to send the probes with freon gases on the Mars, it is possible to install little freon factories on the surface on the Mars – and in a very slow process we could make Mars atmosphere more like Earth“s. And this is continued by implementation of the Earth“s bacteria, algae and then with more complexed plants on the Mars surface.
As I said, I think there is a 20000 years of hard work before some results.


About the other stars – well, I think that first we have to do all we can from Earth.
And this means that we have to develop our telescopes to the maximum.
And we can do this, by increasing the telescopes capacity – either increasing the „mirrors“ size, combining them to get more power...
In the very near future, let say 10-15 years – we should be able to detect the first Earth-like planet around the other star.
And then we will be able – if the telescope is powerfull enough – to „see“ the chemistry of this planets. This seems pretty important to me.

So surely – if we will ever leave our Earth in search for the better planet- when our Sun becomes red giant – we will know where is some acceptable planet.

About the starships – first we need to develop small and quick probes –without human crew.
Nanotehnology is the key, I think that this really small probes – are our future.

And some hydrogen fusion starships (Orion, Dedaelus) are reallity, the question is – how fast they can go?
And how safe they will be ?
If we want to reach the stars, at least 1/10 c is necessary.


And hibernation and genetics seems related, if we want to perform the hibernating process, we will have to know every detail and every pattern of how our body works. And this is where genetics comes in.
I think genetics will help us a lot - illnesses will be cured faster, people will surely live longer...cloning?


All in all, I think some form of hibernation might be possible-but surely it will be very expensive, as the majority of the genetics inovations.
But it could be used in the spaceflights - if we cant make some fast starship that would take us to the other stars.


Baud, this is something for the start, if you have any more thoughts I am here to discuss it!
regards!

[baudrunner]

The most interesting and provocative querie concerns the settlement and possible terraforming of Mars. We have to put starships out of our minds for now, because it seems we have at this time no way to communicate with ships that escape the solar system. There is a peculiar phenomenon just outside the reaches of the solar system and it is comprised of an unusually dense cloud of gas and dust particles called the Oort Cloud. Both Voyager and Pioneer are lost in or beyond this cloud. All contact is impossible because at this distance the sun doesn't generate enough energy to power solar cells, and I'm not sure if nuclear batteries can generate enough power for that long for us to be receiving any communication from that far away. Even stars only give us a small amount of information, the nearest one is only a pinpoint of light and a spacecraft's communication module is embarrasingly insignificant by comparison.

But there are possibilities for Mars. We know that oil is the waste product of the digestion of the ferrite substrata in the Earth's mantle by a bacterial fungal mold in that oxygen-free environment, in an anaerobic process. It's been happening for billions of years and continues to happen and is probably representative of the very first life cycle to evolve on this planet, long before oxygen occurred in the atmosphere, and there is no reason to believe that it couldn't be happening in the iron-rich mantle of Mars, especially if, as I believe, that the fungal mold spores that caused this natural miracle arrived here freely floating in from space. I really believe that there is a high probability that oil exists in Mars as well and that would be a great boon for future Mars settlements because almost everything can be made from oil, from building materials to fuel to whipped dessert topping.

No doubt many here have seen the series Starhunter on TV. It is one of the most realistic future scenarios ever devised for television because the premise of the show is based on the acknowledgement that interstellar travel is pretty much science fiction without some new kind of science to make it possible, such as hyper-space travel, which no-one from our solar system had yet mastered. The show was not without its interesting concepts, for there is indeed a lot of exploration and discovery to be done in our own solar system, planets and moons to inhabit and conquer, space colonies to orbit the giant gas balls etc. etc. not to mention the extraplanetary politics and sociology. There is yet so much to be done that I am not the least disturbed by the idea of turning our backs on interstellar exploration.

For further information on the subject of realistic and "practical" intra- and inter-stellar space travel you would do well to pick up a copy of the book Entering Space, by Robert Zubrin, former senior engineer at Lockheed Martin, founder of Pioneer Astronautics, and founder of The Mars Society. There is even a modicum of math, concerning the calculations for the fuel load requirements for various hypothetical space journeys.

[baudrunner]

I must inject a correction here - Robert Zubrin is actually the president of the Mars society and not actually its sole founder, I think a body of principals founded the society and the information I provided may have been misleading.

[mkirkpatrick]

The future of mankind is bright,very bright indeed,however,he will have to go
to the depths of darkness to find it!When the nations of the world unite in one goal,and that is a long way off!Then there will be great leaps of progress
and understanding of each others needs.Man will indeed reach out into the
cosmos,and will live on the moon.as well as mars.Some of the moons around
Jupiter as well,may very well be used as basis.But before this happens there
is a greater need here on Earth,to deal with,hunger,disease,poverty,warring
factions,terrorism,the list goes on.As we move deeper into this "new age" it
is hoped that mankind will begin to contact the inner reality of human expres-
sion,that of the "soul",when this becomes more widespread andit will in due
course,we will all begin to understand that we are all related,and interconn-ected to each other,when this reality finally sinks in,then there will "hopefully
be a measure of peace and"goodwill" and then our future will become brighter!
kind regards michael.