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Thread: Stephen Hawking says we won't last a thousand years.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Guiseppe View Post
    Colonising another planet is pure, unadulterated science fiction.

    Consider how many people would be needed to have a reasonable gene pool - ultimately they would all finish up being inbred anyway.

    How many "spaceships" would be needed to transport these people and all the equipment and supplies they would need until they became self sufficient?

    "We" have been playing around on the ISS for how many years and how far has that got us?
    I remember a time when sending a rocket to the moon & building a space station were considered "pure, unadulterated science fiction."

    They eventually got it done.

    I agree that the amount of equipment needed to colonise an inhospitable planet may be difficult. I don't doubt the tenacity of the people involved to come up with a solution to that if they haven't already.

    As far as people & gene pools go, rather than take too many people, the gene pool can be solved by growing people from a carefully selected sperm & egg bank taken from earth donors. It's a long term challenge to have people fostering a complete new generation of humans. It is possible though.

    I doubt I'll see it happen in my life time.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiny View Post

    As far as people & gene pools go, rather than take too many people, the gene pool can be solved by growing people from a carefully selected sperm & egg bank taken from earth donors.
    Obviously avoiding Cranbourne and the Apex Gang in Victoria.
    Having said that, Labor would draft a law to include them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Guiseppe View Post
    ~ How many "spaceships" would be needed to transport these people and all the equipment and supplies they would need until they became self sufficient? ~
    Actually, the most difficult part is just getting anything off this planet and into Earth's orbit. Once in space, it doesn't matter how much gear you strap together with whatever propulsion unit is needed, wind resistance is not so important in space!

    The biggest scientific breakthrough yet to come (and it's long overdue IMO) is anti-gravity, if we can overcome the "pull" of the Earth, we can launch an infinite amount of equipment into orbit and even have a good percentage of the scientific community living (and more importantly working) in orbit. To my mind, the best place to research and develop technology needed for crossing vast distances in space would be better conducted in space?

    Not to mention that anti-gravity technology itself could well be the propulsion we need to get around in space, think of being able to "push off" away from Earth or attract yourself toward another celestial body, remember Snub's Magnet Car...



    Getting back to something like the Mars mission... the initial part of the trip (as above) notwithstanding, the most difficult thing to transport to Mars is people, everything else could be sent in advance in unmanned payloads, any amount of infrastructure could be landed and even assembled remotely, stockpiles of supplies could be ready and waiting, satellites could already be in orbit for GPS navigation, surveillance, mapping, communication, etc., you could basically have everything needed setup and waiting for people to arrive, but again, we really need to find a much better solution for getting things off this planet first!

    Andrew

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigfella237 View Post
    Getting back to something like the Mars mission... the initial part of the trip (as above) notwithstanding, the most difficult thing to transport to Mars is people, everything else could be sent in advance in unmanned payloads, any amount of infrastructure could be landed and even assembled remotely, stockpiles of supplies could be ready and waiting, satellites could already be in orbit for GPS navigation, surveillance, mapping, communication, etc., you could basically have everything needed setup and waiting for people to arrive, but again, we really need to find a much better solution for getting things off this planet first!

    Andrew
    There is a fictional documentary (crap that's an oxymoron & a half), that is now on National Geographic channel, called Mars, topic being colonising Mars, it's a little dramatised but not bad. Second episode tonight.
    It's reasonably well produced & acted.

    You can catch up with it at
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    Mars has always been our target, but much new speculation focuses on Titan, a moon of Saturn.

    Beyond Earth - Our path to a new home in the planets (2016)

    PDF here if you are interested...

    The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Guiseppe View Post
    Colonising another planet is pure, unadulterated science fiction.


    Consider how many people would be needed to have a reasonable gene pool - ultimately they would all finish up being inbred anyway.


    How many "spaceships" would be needed to transport these people and all the equipment and supplies they would need until they became self sufficient?


    "We" have been playing around on the ISS for how many years and how far has that got us?

    As far as the available funds could reach.


    I am yet to be convinced if it is actually worth it to infest the universe with the deplorables human race in it's current form, maybe with exception
    of those "Uncontacted Peoples" I mentioned above, who would actually have a chance with their admirable ability to totally sustain themselves without pathetic
    politicians, greedy money makers and leeches.

    We have to think for a moment, what do we want to survive us? Our gene pool? ...or the "Best of Human Knowledge" (without the war bits).
    I am for the latter!

    If we want some 'being' to accompany this human knowledge so it can be passed on, then we have yet to create it.
    Genetically modified to withstand the harsh conditions that is expected on the target planet and an Artificial Intelligence to teach the new human beings who will be created AFTER the ship has successfully landed.

    Yes, I am sending a spaceship without any humans on board.
    This would be the quickest way to achieve the goal with a reasonable chance of success.

    The A.I (with plenty of redundancy) manages the Replicator that combines the frozen sperm and eggs and supplies the nutrients for the embryos to
    develop.
    At some stage it starts teaching, even at embryo/fetus stage and releases the new humans only after they have been conditioned to look after themselves by going to feeders and cleaning chambers(first clean, then feed) and can communicate with the A.I. (obviously their mother) to learn further until they can source food from the planet.
    The A.I will have learned all that itself from probes and robots.
    Teaching and learning never stops and goes both ways when the new humans also give feedback to the A.I what they have experienced on the planet.
    The A.I. will be the governor.
    The New Humans are conditioned to accept that.

    That way it would probably take many generations before they start questioning that and have created enough survivable new beings before they start figuring out that they can 'replicate' and teach themselves and decide they don't need the A.I. and start behaving like crappy human beings again. Hopefully enough of the GOOD human knowledge is passed on to stop them from behaving too badly.

    Who knows, we too may have started somehow like that, millions of years ago ...or less.
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 20-11-16 at 06:27 PM.
    Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
    Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
    Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...

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    Ah you lot provide me with some entertainment sometimes. (Your god is pleased)

    Ha, anyhow. I like the idea of the one way mission to Mars. Not that I like the mission itself but rather I like the ability to test this concept here on earth.
    The proposal is to find some volunteers and send them on a one way mission to the Atacama desert or Antartica. There's no need to simulate the details of atmospheric conditions.
    that's just expensive and complexity which doesn't need to be proven or tested for this exercise. The purpose is to test the one way ticket concept.
    We're sending you to these remote places to simulate Mars without the atmospheric restricitons. You're going to die of natural causes or you'll crack and quit, or the experiment will crack and quit because the simulated long term costs will fail the experiment realising the projected costs on Mars.


    ----


    Quote Originally Posted by cmangle View Post
    There's that new "warp/plasma engine" that would significantly cut the Mars travel time down!

    >cough<

    Let me just get my umbrella here. Ok, I've got it open because I'm predicting some rain on this parade !
    Lets start with the technical assumption that this EM drive (electromagnetic drive) actually works.
    So far the testing suggests it does. It is possible that they have made a mistake or perpetrating a fraud, but for this example we'll assume it works fine.

    So what are the results of those tests?
    The thrust of the motor is 1.2mN/kW.












    I hope the long pause gave you time to think about what this means.
    Yes, 1.2 milli-Newtons of thrust. That's not enough to lift a very small grain of salt of a table.

    Lets put it into a more prctical perspective. It allows you to accelerate 1g at 1ms^-2 but that is going to cost you 1kW of electricity.
    To accelerate a 1kg cubesat at 1 metre per second is going to cost you 1MW of power.

    Ok.... lets ignore that disappointing perspective and compare it with a real spacecraft.
    The Dawn spacecraft has 90mN ion motors. It has 10kW of solar panels, but they are only 10% efficient out in the asteroid belt.
    It runs on about 1.3kW and weighs about 1 tonne.

    So in that perspective, a big enough EM drive to compare to the Xenon ion motor requires about 100kW to propel the same mass probe.

    Ok, think hard... where are you going to find 100kW to run a satellite? A 100KVA diesel generator isn't going to fit into a 1 tonne spacecraft.
    There's only one thing that is going to provide this much power in such a restricted space. A nuclear reactor.
    And it just happens that NASA has one of these on the shelf. The SAFE-400. 400kW thermal and 100kW electric. It's small. It could fit into the boot of a small car. It only weighs 500kg, so there goes half of your space craft in power and fuel. Not including the weight of the motor and the payload.
    Bad news is of course, you're still going to run out of fuel !

    So for the time being, this isn't a very practical method of propulsion.
    If efficiency can be improved, then maybe it has a future.
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    mr spock, back to impulse, trash has trashed the warp drive!

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    Quote Originally Posted by nomeat View Post
    As far as the available funds could reach..
    ..... and "we" are going to colonise a planet!!!
    If Australia is a democracy why, then, is voting compulsory?

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    "Wearing leg irons is now not required."

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    Mars.... Start a new Colony.
    Pfft, not if the Greenies have anything to do with it.
    It will be a National Park and Protected.
    And if Earth is anything to go by, then so it should be!
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    If the Greenies had anything to do with it we wouldnt need to colonise another planet

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    Why are we stuffing around with colonising Mars, the Moon is far closer......
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by lsemmens View Post
    Why are we stuffing around with colonising Mars, the Moon is far closer......
    Hasn't Putin already announced that.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dishtrackted View Post
    If the Greenies had anything to do with it we wouldnt need to colonise another planet
    Oh? They have a plan to limit population growth then.....
    The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.

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    Do I have to solve all the world's problems ?
    Quote Originally Posted by Dishtrackted View Post
    If the Greenies had anything to do with it we wouldnt need to colonise another planet
    If I had anything to do with it, I'd send the greenies to colonise it!

    Trash greens the red planet. Or was it Greens trash the red planet?


    Quote Originally Posted by cmangle View Post
    mr spock, back to impulse, trash has trashed the warp drive!
    I of course worked out how to build such an engine.
    Well that's quite easy. Each Nacelle contains two psychics.
    Their conflicting warped realities can propel anything without exhaustion.

    I call it the "warped reality drive". It might also exist in the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy universe as the "ultimate bullshit drive".
    The mere suggestion of something stupid can be used to disperse it throughout the universe extremely quickly.

    The only thing that can travel faster than light of course is a rumour.
    At first this seems impossible because information cannot travel faster than the sped of light.
    But a rumour contains no useful information, so this explains why such a thing can occur. There is no violation of classic physics in this case.
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    Ah the good old "Infinite Improbability Drive", I was wondering when someone was gonna bring that up!

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    It would be great if the above mentioned drive were true. But Stephen Hawking also mentioned the spread of antibiotic resistant diseases, that could be a possibility though it seems pretty far fetched.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bill78 View Post
    It would be great if the above mentioned drive were true. But Stephen Hawking also mentioned the spread of antibiotic resistant diseases, that could be a possibility though it seems pretty far fetched.
    While we still have some way to go before get this bad but you would be surprised just how many virus' still exist and are alive and well even though dormant.
    Over the last few years Penicillin, the 'Wonder drug of the Century' has been waging an up hill battle against certain virus' it once blocked like Hospital Strep or Golden Staph which causes Hospitals to close down the operating theaters.
    A number of diseases like the Black Death/Plague have never gone away but lie dormant waiting to reoccur.
    It was Touch and Go with that recent outbreak of the Ebola disease in parts of Africa and it was as much Isolation and top Nursing of those with it that finally broke the cycle but it hasnt gone away but it too is lurking ready to pounce.
    Chicken Pox, Measles, Mumps and Whooping Cough are all still out there and are being controlled by immunisation which doesnt kill the virus but prevents it spreading to infect others.

    If we humans ever do really do make it possible to leave this planet, for us to survive evolution has some mighty big steps to take for us to do so.
    Last edited by gordon_s1942; 10-01-17 at 03:45 PM.
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    yep i agree i think a virus will take us down , year on year more and more antibiotics are dispensed
    for minor aliments that in the past we would not go to a doctor for. So by more and more drugs being used the bacteria
    evolves to fight the drugs to the point we wont beat it.
    dont say linux if i wanted it id install it

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    It's interesting diavalo to guess when a major population collapse will happen and what the cause might be and how big the collapse.

    The Zombie apocalypse is of course the favourite thought experiment of the virologist.
    World War Z is a bit of an extreme. Those zombies are FAST! The fvckers can tirelessly outrun most vehicles and the contagion symptoms develop in a very unrealistic time of just a few seconds.
    The slow moving zombies are a bit more realistic.

    How contagious they are is the next factor. Can zombies infect you by looking at you, touch you, spit on you or do they need to bite you?
    Can the disease spread by airbourne means, surface contact or does it need a specific vector.

    Slow moving biting zombies would seem a bit to easy to control. Everybody has access to a shotgun.
    Surface contact is a nice way to spread a nasty zombie virus. If the dirty sweating zombies touch something and you touch it ... you da zombie!

    The time to live for the virus is important. How long after the zombie touches your front door knob is it safe before you can touch it.

    What's the incubation period? How long before you become infectious? You could spread the zombie virus before you officially become a member of the undead.

    The last is how long you want your zombies to survive. Once you lose control of your faculties and start uncontrollably biting people. How long are you expected to survive?
    Will the virus kill you or can you recover? Is it possible to survive as a zombie eating the flesh of other humans or even zombies?
    Can zombies sustain an omnivorous scavenging diet while mindlessly searching for new hosts?

    Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

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