Replies

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  Roaring Lovely January 19, 2017 at 6:21am

  Thing that we know is that life, as it is now, cannot go on on earth indefinitely. However, it is fortunate that the cosmos has given us enough time to try to master space. But we can choose to keep postponding it till it is too late. The time to start the steps towards being interstellar power is NOW, considering how much it involves!!
  
  So it goes this way: we have the farmers, botanists, zoologists, etc to take care of problems of starvation etc. Similarly, architects, engineers etc can take care of housing problems. We should, nevertheless, leave some few people, as in astronomers to study and explore the universe.
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    Luke > Roaring Lovely January 19, 2017 at 1:24pm

    For sure, I'm not disputing that and you are right, everyone carves out their own niche in life, Astronomers included and we can be grateful to them that they chose that "career move" for our benifit. I just feel its vital for people to be at least aware of the problems on Earth and to do what they can to help alleviate and reduce the suffering of others in the best way they can, and to make that a priority.

    Bill Hicks nailed it.

    “The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”
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  Luke January 18, 2017 at 5:53pm

  Of course, they have their focus on all the wrong things, and this is all bullshit, who gives a fück about a lump of metal in space when there are millions of people on Earth without homes, without 2 pennies to rub together, people starving and abused, animals abused and slaughtered.. peoples priorities out of sync, like NASAs priorities for example, the real revolution is loving ourselves, first. Screw the lump of metal in space and concentrate on fixing the problems on Earth!
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  Roaring Lovely January 18, 2017 at 7:22am

  I think the best way is to master the Von-Neumann Probes technology. This mean computer science will play a very big role. We must program such a 'clever' robot that it will work there on its own. It will use the metals there to buld copies of itself. This will make some economic sense as there is no input of resourses from earth to space. These robots will the bring resourses back to earth in small bits.
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    AlternateEarth > Roaring Lovely January 18, 2017 at 1:40pm

    yes robots and to the caves and domes of mars after gravity i mastered
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  Roaring Lovely January 17, 2017 at 1:54pm

  Problem is that it is still dubious if such is economically sensible. Even here on earth, lots of work have to be done near the mining site. The whole process involving purifying, etc has to be done there so that huge factories has to be built near the mining site. It is even recommendable to build factories that use the metal there, eg car manufacture.
  
  But now think of mining an asteroid somewhere near jupiter! The rocket do get small and yet it must transport heavy load. When it enters the earth's atmosphere, it must be left for free fall! Such heavy stuff will be like a meteorite. So it doesn't even seem to make technical sense, let alone economic.
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    AlternateEarth > Roaring Lovely January 18, 2017 at 4:56am

    I think the objective is for 100 years or so transporting equip to the asteroid mining and trans porting to Mars in small amounts-gravity and protection from solar radiation must be mastered first before any real colonization can occur-and a million other things