[Bulaba Khan Jones]

It's a misnomer money was "wasted"- it denotes it being of an exhaustible supply. It isn't- see MMT. However, yes, NASA is doing amazing things w/ .5% of the Federal budget; I'd like to see what they could do w/ 5%.

I meant that we wasted funds, resources, manpower, lives on trivial wars in the Middle East when we could've used those same resources and manpower for a project to put man permanently beyond this planet, which needs to happen eventually, and the sooner the better. This is of course how the world operates, but it is still a shame nonetheless.

Thank you, it'd be nice if we had more people thinking this way. The most extraordinary vision we see today is to reach Mars in 20-25 years... We can do better than that.

I don't believe the whole solar system is viable yet, but certainly the inner solar system is easy pickings. Setting up bases in the right place will certainly help us extend our focus outward.

Since the colonization of space is an inevitability for our species, it should be our top priority. I know I've repeated that statement perhaps twice already, but I feel like I can't really stress it enough. This, however, seems to be the prevailing attitude:



It is within our technical prowess to conduct a manned expedition to Mars in 10 years, but we simply need a government with the willingness to do so. I believe this was reported elsewhere here, but there is at least growing interest in establishing a permanent human presence on the moon, which is at least a good first step.

I don't believe that'll happen, but I believe we did discuss gene-culture coevolution. We won't genetically engineer ourselves to be perfect Martians, but we'll terraform planets to the best of our ability and evolve as a result of both space travel and the pressures of living in new environments. Not everyone is fit to get off this planet; they're not inteligent or productive enough for more advanced technology, they can't handle a broad enough spectrum of g's, their body atrophies quicker, they can't handle high pressure or low oxygen atmospheres, etc. Future humanity will, naturally, be the decedents of astronauts.

I don't agree with you on bioengineering for a few reasons. While I don't expect vast numbers of people to undergo genetic alterations on themselves and their progeny or grow wings and hollow bones for personal flight, terraforming planets is far more costly, resource-intensive, technologically demanding, and time-consuming than applying medical and scientific advances to the human genome to volunteers, explorers, and people willing to diversify the human race. We probably will attempt to introduce an Earth-like atmosphere to Mars, but it will be a time-consuming venture that probably will take centuries, if not longer. If a very thin oxygen atmosphere can be established early on, and human habitation is simultaneously a fact of life on Mars, don't you think that Martians will have a need and a reason to accept genetic alterations to adapt to a low oxygen atmosphere that even the hardiest humans could never survive in? If other environments throughout the solar system can be established, but where an adaptability towards survival in a hot/cold environment would be critical, some might choose to adapt to those conditions as well. Certainly on worlds with atmospheres different from Earth's, like Venus or Titan, it would be beneficial for colonists to adapt their physiology to breathe the native air.

After all, terraforming, establishing artificial satellites, creating magnetospheres, and interstellar travel is just as if not actually more complex than genetic engineering; genetic engineering/bioengineering is just as realistic, and seems far more efficient in the long run. The history of Earth includes a vast amount of evolutionary divergence, with explosions of diversity helping to create a more vibrant, rich biosphere. There have accordingly been multiple species of humans. For hundreds of thousands of years, the human race has more or less been largely the game from a physiological standpoint with some notable differences. For tens of thousands of years, there has essentially been only one human species, and the rest have gone extinct. What I think the future holds will be an explosion of life and evolutionary divergence. It will not just be the colonization of the galaxy, spreading ourselves across planets, asteroids, moons, comets, and all the empty places between the stars, but a radical diversity of the human race. Many humans, strange and different, will populate the galaxy should we survive long enough to establish ourselves off this planet. A thousand years, let alone a million years, of scientific progress and mastering our genetics is a long time. I think that as some reshape planets to mirror Earth, others will see that as a stagnation. There are many people I think would be willing to undergo radical changes to propagate humanity throughout the stars, despite how strange and unique that human life might look like.

Someone once said that billions of years from now, when our sun grows cold and dies, the creatures living on Earth staring up at the dying sun won't be human by any measurable standards. Our future in space, colonizing distant and remote places will give rise to countless wonderful and strange forms of life that may still see each other as brothers and sisters, but no longer the same recognizable humans in such a vast, adapting mass of humanity.

[Someone5]

I don't agree with you on bioengineering for a few reasons. While I don't expect vast numbers of people to undergo genetic alterations on themselves and their progeny or grow wings and hollow bones for personal flight, terraforming planets is far more costly, resource-intensive, technologically demanding, and time-consuming than applying medical and scientific advances to the human genome to volunteers, explorers, and people willing to diversify the human race. We probably will attempt to introduce an Earth-like atmosphere to Mars, but it will be a time-consuming venture that probably will take centuries, if not longer. If a very thin oxygen atmosphere can be established early on, and human habitation is simultaneously a fact of life on Mars, don't you think that Martians will have a need and a reason to accept genetic alterations to adapt to a low oxygen atmosphere that even the hardiest humans could never survive in? If other environments throughout the solar system can be established, but where an adaptability towards survival in a hot/cold environment would be critical, some might choose to adapt to those conditions as well. Certainly on worlds with atmospheres different from Earth's, like Venus or Titan, it would be beneficial for colonists to adapt their physiology to breathe the native air.

There is a world of difference in the level of genetic tinkering required to keep your body from eating itself in micro-gravity and converting your cells from cellular respiration to photosynthesis (I.E. "breathing" CO2) as a basis for their metabolism. The first is probably achievable, the second is almost certainly not going to work.

After all, terraforming, establishing artificial satellites, creating magnetospheres, and interstellar travel is just as if not actually more complex than genetic engineering; genetic engineering/bioengineering is just as realistic, and seems far more efficient in the long run.

And cannot actually solve all problems. It's not actually magic. It's one thing to say "hey, maybe we can trick the body into not reducing muscle mass in zero gravity" and quite another to say "maybe we can engineer ourselves with insane resistance to radiation." The first is probably possible--it's just telling the body not to do something it would normally do. The second is probably not possible--that involves inventing something more radiation resistant than DNA to hold genetic information. Let me put it another way; why not just use robots to deal with hard radiation?

The history of Earth includes a vast amount of evolutionary divergence, with explosions of diversity helping to create a more vibrant, rich biosphere. There have accordingly been multiple species of humans. For hundreds of thousands of years, the human race has more or less been largely the game from a physiological standpoint with some notable differences. For tens of thousands of years, there has essentially been only one human species, and the rest have gone extinct. What I think the future holds will be an explosion of life and evolutionary divergence.

Sure, if humans die off. Otherwise we will crowd out and eat everything that's not strictly required for our own survival.

It will not just be the colonization of the galaxy, spreading ourselves across planets, asteroids, moons, comets, and all the empty places between the stars, but a radical diversity of the human race. Many humans, strange and different, will populate the galaxy should we survive long enough to establish ourselves off this planet. A thousand years, let alone a million years, of scientific progress and mastering our genetics is a long time. I think that as some reshape planets to mirror Earth, others will see that as a stagnation. There are many people I think would be willing to undergo radical changes to propagate humanity throughout the stars, despite how strange and unique that human life might look like.

I think you're giving people too much credit there.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

photosynthesis

I didn't mention the word photosynthesis.

It's not actually magic. It's one thing to say "hey, maybe we can trick the body into not reducing muscle mass in zero gravity" and quite another to say "maybe we can engineer ourselves with insane resistance to radiation."

I also didn't talk about radiation.

etc

0.5/5 I liked the part where there was no punchline to your trolling. Boring, yawn.

[Figlio di Moros]

It doesn't matter much if you said it, you said we'd engineer ourselves for new environments. Specifically, you mentioned Venus; this would require engineering ourselves for an oxygenless, waterless, highless acidic environment and more than likely high pressure and heat that would melt lead. The challenges of terraforming it are far less excessive and prohibitive than turning ourselves into a highly specific extremophiles, and more in tune to our biological imperative as well.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

It doesn't matter much if you said it, you said we'd engineer ourselves for new environments. Specifically, you mentioned Venus; this would require engineering ourselves for an oxygenless, waterless, highless acidic environment and more than likely high pressure and heat that would melt lead. The challenges of terraforming it are far less excessive and prohibitive than turning ourselves into a highly specific extremophiles, and more in tune to our biological imperative as well.

I did mention the atmosphere of Venus, but nothing about living on the surface. The surface of Venus is over 500 degrees Celsius, with a surface gravity consisting of factors of Earth pressure (if not a full factor of measurement, something close to it, as far as I recall) beyond the tolerance of plant and animal life on this planet, to my knowledge. There's been speculation on establishing high-orbit stations around Venus, 50 miles above the surface, in an area of the atmosphere that is, temperature-wise, similar to Earth. So, I can understand the confusion, although I never spoke about combating radioactive environments or adapting to photosynthesis (though neither would be out of reach in perhaps thousands, or tens of thousands of years of scientific and medical progress).

While I can see people throughout a colonized solar system, the one we live in, researching and applying subtle genetic adaptations, similar to how some people in northern Italy appear to be largely immune to heart disease, and some northern Europeans can properly digest lactose, minor adaptations would probably be acceptable in the near future here. However, if people left Earth in the near-distant future for other stars and planets outside this solar system, I can foresee many people willing to undergo more radical bioengineering if terraforming would be inadequate.

Certainly in a million years, no matter whether we terraform every planet to be a copy, more or less, of Earth, humans throughout a colonized galaxy would not look human to us. There are many cultural attitudes opposed to a concept like radical bioengineering, but there are enough people who would be willing to accept change. It seems more evolutionarily advantageous to inspire diversity and genetic divergence, as well as adapting to conditions of the environment one lives in. This of course is all science fiction at the present, but certainly in ten thousand years absolutely well within the reach of possibility. I simply find it more interesting to think about how we can adapt to the universe than make the universe adapt to us.

[slybaldguy]

I think you guys should seriously consider getting psychological treatment for your aversion to mortality. The human race will go the same way as the 99.9% of species that have gone extinct and that is no bad thing.

[Igor Antunov]

If we have the ability to eventually swat asteroids away and engineer our own biology, why would we go extinct?

[Figlio di Moros]

Certainly in a million years, no matter whether we terraform every planet to be a copy, more or less, of Earth, humans throughout a colonized galaxy would not look human to us. There are many cultural attitudes opposed to a concept like radical bioengineering, but there are enough people who would be willing to accept change. It seems more evolutionarily advantageous to inspire diversity and genetic divergence, as well as adapting to conditions of the environment one lives in. This of course is all science fiction at the present, but certainly in ten thousand years absolutely well within the reach of possibility. I simply find it more interesting to think about how we can adapt to the universe than make the universe adapt to us.

Of course not, Modern humans are less than a million years old; constantly changing niches and, particularly, high populations/allele (trans-)mutations would do this naturally. People will continue to evolve, the only way not to is to be perfectly adapted to your environment. The point, though, is that we won't radically re-engineer man overnight; it'll be a long, slow process as with all evolution. I would concede that such evolution would take place at an unprecedented speed, however; the radical alteration of the environment, in tune w/ man's ability to alter his genes (to a reasonable extent, of course), will naturally select for much more highly adaptive physiology.

[Ummon]

Tou're forgetting Venus is tidally locked. Some of the moons in the solar system would be much better candidates for colonization.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Tou're forgetting Venus is tidally locked. Some of the moons in the solar system would be much better candidates for colonization.

If we go by current speculation on the topic of colonizing Venus, if any terraforming is to be done in the future, the first steps at colonization will most likely consist of high-orbit settlement structures, since settlement on the surface would be too dangerous and unfeasible at first. If so, I doubt guiding the orbital location of such floating stations would be a problem.

Seemingly, people in the space community have a tendency to push the boundaries of thought about all the possibilities that await us in the universe. Case in point: Geoffrey Landis. Landis is a scientist at NASA’s Glenn Research Center who writes science fiction in his spare time. Last week Landis shared with us his ideas for using a solar powered airplane to study Venus. This week, Landis goes a step farther (actually, several steps farther) with his ideas about colonizing Venus. Yes, Venus, our hot, greenhouse-effect-gone-mad neighboring planet with a crushing surface pressure that has doomed the few spacecraft that have attempted to reach the planet’s mysterious landscape. Landis knows Venus’ surface itself is pretty much out of the question for human habitation. But up about 50 kilometers above the surface, Landis says the atmosphere of Venus is the most Earth-like environment, other than Earth itself, in the solar system. What Landis proposes is creating floating cities on Venus where people could live and work, as well as study the planet below.

“There’s been a lot of people who have been proposing space colonies, such as colonies that are in free space, separate from any planet,” said Landis. “And I said, well, if you’re thinking that far into the future why don’t we think of some more groundbreaking, or perhaps we should say atmosphere-breaking possibilities.”

50 km above the surface, Venus has air pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0°C-50°C range, a quite comfortable environment for humans. Humans wouldn’t require pressurized suits when outside, but it wouldn’t quite be a shirtsleeves environment. We’d need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.

In looking at Venus, the fact that struck Landis the most is that Earth’s atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen would actually float in Venus’ atmosphere of carbon dioxide. “Because the atmosphere of Venus is CO2, the gases that we live in all the time, nitrogen and oxygen, would be a lifting gas,” he said. “On Earth, we know to get something to lift, you need something lighter than air. Well, on Venus, guess what? Our air is lighter than air, or at least lighter than the Venus atmosphere.”

So, create a bubble, fill it with Earth-like atmosphere, and it would float on Venus. “If you could just take the room you’re sitting in and replace the walls with something thinner, the room would float on Venus,” said Landis.

The biggest challenge would be using a substance resistant to sulfuric acid to form the outer layer of the bubble; ceramics or metal sulfates could possibly serve in this role, but of course, you’d want to be able to see outside, as well. “Just think of the great pictures you could get,” said Landis.

Asked if he has ever thought about terraforming Venus, Landis said, “Oh, yes, of course! That’s one of the reasons I started thinking about the floating cities on Venus. The more you look at Venus, the more you say, ‘oh my goodness, terraforming would be a really hard project.’”

Back in about 1962 when Carl Sagan first talked about the concept of terraforming Venus, it wasn’t known what a challenge Venus would be. “They didn’t quite know how difficult Venus is, they didn’t know how thick the atmosphere was on Venus and how hot it was,” said Landis. “They knew it had a greenhouse effect, but they didn’t know how bad. But the more we look at the problems, the more we say, goodness, terraforming is a very difficult proposition.”

But Landis thinks Venus already has a very nice environment. “What I like to say, the problem with Venus is if you define sea level as the place in the atmosphere where it’s the same as Earth, the place of “sea level” on Venus is just too far above the ground.”

While Landis’ plans for a solar powered airplane are a true possibility for an upcoming mission to Venus, his ideas about colonizing that planet are a little more speculative. “This is really just a thought exercise,” said Landis, “an exercise in imagination rather than something we’re likely to do in the near term. I don’t expect people will be building cities on Venus, at least probably not in this century.”

Anyone having visions of Bespin and Lando Calrissian from “The Empire Strikes Back”?

Maybe that should be “Landis” Calrissian.

[Figlio di Moros]

Tou're forgetting Venus is tidally locked. Some of the moons in the solar system would be much better candidates for colonization.

I've not heard that about Venus, but I doubt it'd make as big of a problem as we anticipate. For comparison, it's the only other planet w/ a gravitational pull relative to ours or w/ as much carbon or thick of an atmosphere; Mars has only 40% our gravity, and every other planet/moon/asteroid is either much smaller or much larger. Tidally locked or not, we have as much going for us in a terraformed Venus as we will anywhere else. It's unlikely, for instance, we'd even be able to terraform Celeste or Europa, and any long-term settlement would require figuring out an array of health, supply, etc. issues.

[TechnocracyTNAT]

"WILL THERE BE ANY CHANCE OF ANY COUNTRY GETTING COMPLETE CONTROL OF OUTER SPACE?

No doubt many of you have heard broadcasts and read articles in the press—of course, Lyndon Johnson made the big proposition that we should move for immediate control of outer space so as to prevent the other countries from moving into the control of space. Dr. Werner von Braun was on TV some weeks ago, and they kept nagging him as to what they'd find on the moon when the first rocketship got there, and he said, "Russians." Now here you have all kinds of people in the United States that want to escape the reality in which they are in. Well, of course, they used to take a bottle of liquor and get a souse on or some other equally nonsensical endeavor. Now, of course, it has become really absurd. Now you want to escape from the reality of this globe into outer space.

The atmosphere on the moon, ladies and gentlemen -- is there atmosphere on the moon? Check up on it, please. I think that you will find that the so-called atmospheric condition on the moon is nearer a more absolute vacuum than we have ever been able to obtain on this earth. Do you want to go there? Do you want to go there? Do you want to go to outer space? You want to go to Venus with a surface temperature of 386 degrees? I mean, have some sense. True, there are probable billions of bodies in the various galactic systems, but let's learn to run one little speck in the universe before we try taking on all the others. We don't even know how to run our own part of the continent, let alone the rest of tbe world, and yet we want to take on all space. Who's dizzy?"

- HOWARD SCOTT, MASONIC TEMPLE, CLEVELAND 3-22-58
archive.org/details/TheWordsAndWisdomOfHowardScott

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein ... Buddy Holly, Aristophanes, and all of this. All of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."

If we stay Earth-bound, waiting for the human race to perfect itself, we will become an extinct race either through natural or artificial disasters. The sooner we venture into space and establish ourselves elsewhere, the sooner we ensure the longevity of humanity.

[TechnocracyTNAT]

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers.

"They disagree as politicians, but not as engineers. We are not trying to organize them, however, into a society to debate something but into an alliance which will discover the facts. Engineers do not disagree on facts. They all know which direction a stone will drop. They all know that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. If there is anything else they want to know as engineers, they find it out; and when they find it out, there isn't the slightest disagreement. Engineers are not radical or conservative. As engineers, they are no more radical than a yardstick and no more conservative than so many degrees Fahrenheit."

- THE BIRTH OF THE TECHNICAL ALLIANCE NEW YORK WORLD INTERVIEW 2-20-21
archive.org/details/TheWordsAndWisdomOfHowardScott