Hawking: Humanity Must Colonize Space within 1000 years to Survive

Upthread you talked of studying history, how about studying the multitude of massive and very deadly Soviet failures that happened in the race to the moon. We didnt have to fake it to beat them, they literally killed themselves trying to beat us - much came out in the record dump after the USSR failed. We could have taken our sweet time and still been there first.

Of course there were failures but given their success with Sputnik and the fact we didn't know how much trouble they were actually having, you can see how we would have viewed it back then. For all we knew, they were doing just fine and were about to get to the moon. As you stated, we didn't know until the what was happening there until the Soviet Union actually failed.

This all goes back to where I said it was important to study the mood of the country at that time. The Cold War was still in force, Vietnam was wrenching the country apart, Civil Rights were at the forefront of every political discussion, communism was spreading throughout central and south america, at least the threat of it was.....it was paranoia everywhere.

reply to post by Hopechest


Sorry if I've come on strong - I take umbrage with the "faked" moon landing folks. I did live through the times and that decade was as real for me as yesterday was for you. Better than ten years, billions upon billions spent, thousands and thousands involved plus the morals of the time which are almost foreign in todays world. Even my schooling was far superior to whats now given because of that program - it infused into everthing and was rightly promoted as our future.

IMHO that future was stolen by those who were "social" but had no true vision, only a need for the wrong kind of attention - and we all know where we have arrived at today because of it.

I think if the "vision" was kept then we'd be far far ahead both technically and socially - just my opinion.

To be corny, a vision based on real "hope" not the kind bandied about nowadays.

reply to post by Phoenix


Well I would certainly agree with your assessment there.

Nice discussion overall.

I think hawking has crossed over. Super intellect is just a step away from insanity. There is no planet within reach that mankind can colonize successfully at this time. Science would like us to give them all our money and be slaves to the society that supports their desires. .

Originally posted by Hopechest

Upthread you talked of studying history, how about studying the multitude of massive and very deadly Soviet failures that happened in the race to the moon. We didnt have to fake it to beat them, they literally killed themselves trying to beat us - much came out in the record dump after the USSR failed. We could have taken our sweet time and still been there first.

Of course there were failures but given their success with Sputnik and the fact we didn't know how much trouble they were actually having, you can see how we would have viewed it back then. For all we knew, they were doing just fine and were about to get to the moon. As you stated, we didn't know until the what was happening there until the Soviet Union actually failed.

This all goes back to where I said it was important to study the mood of the country at that time. The Cold War was still in force, Vietnam was wrenching the country apart, Civil Rights were at the forefront of every political discussion, communism was spreading throughout central and south america, at least the threat of it was.....it was paranoia everywhere.

I know, I know,

Publically we did not know of the true nature of their progress on rocketry but our government knew from its intelligence sources exactly where the Soviets were in their rocketry thus the real conspiracy called the "missile gap" which did not exist at all and was what Eisenhower warned of when talking about the dangers of the "military/industrial complex"

Yes we were hoodwinked on the need for more and more missiles, bombers and naval battle groups as well as ballistic missile submarines as each branch competed for more resources.

Yes a threat existed but not quite to the extent we were told.

The arms race also took resouces from a "good" program which was NASA, the moon program and planned follow-on programs to colonize the moon and explore mars.

The actual "paranoia" lived each day was due to some small conflagration turning into full fledged war of the nuclear kind by misunderstanding or accident. In reality nothing has changed its just more hidden and economic ties have complicated matters to an extent that pulling a trigger may mean pulling it on oneself.

Originally posted by canucks555

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Wouldn't it be cheaper and more realistic to colonize the ocean floor?

edit on 13-4-2013 by canucks555 because: (no reason given)

Keeping with the actual thread topic:

The idea is to have outposts of humanity off of the planet.

While a underwater colony would help humans survive certain global catastrophies, it would not ensure the survival of all of them.

On the other hand, space colonies could suffer their own catastrophic disasters that wipe them out.

But the principle is to spread our race out from this single planet, that way we know (or I should say hope) that we will still be around.

Just like the fire ant nests in my yard. I can take out one nest, but if they are spread out enough, I never get them all.

Why would we want to save humanity? If we destroy ourselves, then we deserve to die.

reply to post by eriktheawful


The dangers of space travel far exceed those of underwater coloniesl. And the oceans floor would support more people.. remember we're talking 1000years. There's no where to go. (including Mars)
Where's Phage?

reply to post by rickymouse


Well this is the thing.
Even he (Hawkins) knows it,,
We cannot achieve the speed of light.

Originally posted by rickymouse
I think hawking has crossed over. Super intellect is just a step away from insanity. There is no planet within reach that mankind can colonize successfully at this time. Science would like us to give them all our money and be slaves to the society that supports their desires. .

To be fair, he did say the next 1000 years, not right now.

I think he is still in full control of his thoughts, and probably right too.

Originally posted by pacifier2012
Supplied with oxygen,water and food from where exactly????

Does he forget that the problems humans have will just be transferred to space?

Not an intelligent idea from a supposed intelligent guy

edit on 13-4-2013 by pacifier2012 because: (no reason given)

So far on ats I have seen some quite dumbfounding posts... But yours had me scratching my head the most

Just exactly how do you come to the conclusion that the idea of colonizing space is unintelligent??

Can you not see that we have no alternative other than to build a number of off world colonies?? Does it not strike you as the logical progression of our species??

IMHO I think we will have colonized at leat two places within our own solar system within the next 150 years, beyond that it is off to other stars in large ark type mother ships, leaving a trail of smaller colonies until we get to earth 2 and 3 etc etc.

This is my vision of how things will play out, I believe fully that this is the way things will be.

Korg.

He's right, although putting a number of 1000 years on it seems pretty random.

There are only 2 possible human futures in the long term. A spacefaring colonising future, or an extinct future.

If we stay on one planet as a technological civilisation we will eventually exhaust its resources. If our response to this is regression to some form of low tech hippy civilisation we will be rendered extinct by natural extra terrestrial threats (much like the dinosaurs).

We explore and expand or we perish. Its that simple.

Colonising the ocean floor will occur but offers little survival advantage long term. It would only happen when we run out of space to live on the surface and thats a very long way off (despite the nonsense that the anti-human, population control favouring folks would try and sell you).

reply to post by justwokeup


I think 1000 years has been a cross between random and other factors, such as war, natural disasters and the rate technology has been progressing. The 1000 year point was probably a rounded off figure based on those calculations.

Originally posted by Hopechest

Originally posted by canucks555
reply to post by Hopechest

 

Do you really think they faked it Hopey? Just askin, I respect your opinion

Although you will usually find me trying my hardest to debunk most conspiracies, I do indeed believe they faked the moon landing.

right on hopechest. it is just plain ignorant of anyone here (on the webs top conspiracy site?)
to continue to believe that the footage we were shown from the apollo 'missions'
was anything but faked. of course an important aspect to any and all of these faked/staged events
is the emplacement of shills and trolls within discussion centers to push the official lie and divide
the participants.
(www.cluesforum.info exposes media fakery events (of which there are very many) better than
any other site).

there are alot of questions and suspicions surrounding the character and work of hawkins also,
but i do agree with him that there is a war ongoing against white people.

10 years ago where i live in ireland, there was a tiny minority of foreigners. now they are
in the majority. i am not rascist in the least and try to treat all people with the same respect,
but there is an agenda being played out here, and it is not an agenda for our good, imo.

Originally posted by pacifier2012
Supplied with oxygen,water and food from where exactly????

Does he forget that the problems humans have will just be transferred to space?

Not an intelligent idea from a supposed intelligent guy

The rings of Saturn have ice, (solid water) which can be melted for water, then the water atoms H2O can be split for oxygen, the moon and Mars both have water ice, so do comets, Hydrogen and Oxygen can be combined to make water. As for living space, 'space odyssey' type space stations, built from ore extracted from the moon, mars, the asteroid belt. food grown in hydroponic baths, or actual soil, under domes on the moon, Mars, Titan, etc.

Originally posted by canucks555
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

The dangers of space travel far exceed those of underwater coloniesl. And the oceans floor would support more people.. remember we're talking 1000years. There's no where to go. (including Mars)
Where's Phage?

edit on 13-4-2013 by canucks555 because: (no reason given)

You are right in that if we just build a ship and go to Mars we can't walk out on to it' surface in a casual dress (T shirt and jeans), nor could we do that with Venus (even with the best space suits we have right now).

But I also would not belittle the dangers of a undersea colony either. There are all sorts of things that could go horribly wrong for them, and if they are deep enough, they might as well be on the moon or Mars.

I think having colonies under the sea would be awesome and also good practice for establishing colonies elsewhere (on the moon, Mars, etc).

As for the 1000 years.....think about what things were like here 1000 years ago: 1013. Living conditions, technology and compare them with today. Think of how they were just 500 years ago in 1513.

Now think about what it might be like 500 years from now.

Humans have always expanded. And even if we did colonize the seas, eventually that would be filled up too. After that, there really is only one place to go: space.

I would be forced to surrender my nerd badge if I passed up this splendid opportunity to make a reference to one of the greatest and most relevant subjects of our time...considering the topic, at least.

reply to post by canucks555


I agree with Hawking and have been saying that we need to colonize. My reasoning is a little different however. I believe that we need to colonize due to the increasing population on the planet and the fact that resources are in fact finite not infinite as so much of the population would like to believe. Just to give people an idea of what I am saying here are some numbers that we will use as a starting point, 360,000 and 151,600. These are among the lowest numbers that I found for births and deaths globally on a daily basis. So, if we use these numbers then that means that we add 208,400 people to the world each day. Keep in mind that these are low numbers compared to some of the other numbers that I found. However, please keep in mind that there is no actual way to account for every single birth and death globally on a daily basis, just a rough figure. Using these numbers means that in a 30 day period, there are roughly 6,252,000 new people on the planet. Those people need to eat, breathe, and so on. Just give it some thought. Although, not being here if an asteroid were to strike is also a good reason to colonize. :-)

reply to post by Infernalis




Second Line.

reply to post by Phoenix


I remember my dad holding an 8mm camera and recording the broadcast. We were all riveted to the screen. I had a whole scrapbook of news clippings and pictures.

It was real. People who think it was fake irritate the hell out of me.
I will never, ever forget that day, as long as I live. I also will never ever forget the Challenger disaster in 1986. I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing. It made me as sick as 9/11.

star for you, Phoenix