Space Colonies very soon

Look at this: www.virtuallystrange.net...

Stephen Hawking says that in very very soon we should be able to have colonies in space. Quote:

"Humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a
colony on Mars in the next 40 years, the British scientist told
a news conference."

We would probably have to travel to another soloar system tho But the light is at the end of the tunnel.

In my opinion that still isn't ambitious enough. If the government gave NASA the funding the military/war departments get, we could probably be on the Moon, Mars, and mining the asteroids in less than five years... But after all, it is more important to kill each other rather than do something for the betterment of mankind.

[edit on 6/26/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

good point. hopefully we get there soon or china will blow up with ppl

I agree with Stephen but, think he should stick with Physics.
His main point behind colonization was that if the Earth was destroyed humanity would still survive.

But would that teach humans a lesson on preventing worldwide catastrophy?
Or how to better go about it?

There is a thread on this subject in Fragile Earth. But for the time being until this is locked.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
If the government gave NASA the funding the military/war departments get, we could probably be on the Moon, Mars, and mining the asteroids in less than five years

Throwing money at the situation isn't going to solve the problem (though this is exactly opposite what the government thinks). NASA recieves about $4 billion each year to fund its manned missions, yet in the last three years there has been a total of one manned mission. Pending the latest launch, $12 billion has been spent in three years with only one manned mission. I have to say I disagree with you.

[edit on 26-6-2006 by enaught]

[edit on 27-6-2006 by enaught]

Originally posted by Jaychael
But would that teach humans a lesson on preventing worldwide catastrophy?
Or how to better go about it?

Both, I think... Just like almost every other invention in time.

All we hope (i hope all of us) for is a new galaxy to travel to. When the sun explodes, we will have to leave the solar system. Therefore I say instead of discovering mars, we should be look for other galaxies.

We do have several billion years before the Sun will die (not exploding, it's not massive enough to go nova) so we'll have plenty of time to move on to other solar systems. In the mean time, the Moon, Mars, and then the asteroid belt would be a good starting point.

True. When you think about it, tech has advanced more in the last 20 years then it has in the last 6 billion years. We might be on to something.

you see it wouldn't take 20 or 40 yeasrs to go to the moon or mars, 5 years for the moon, 10 years for mars, and in 12-15 years, after we colonize mars we can be mining the asteroid belt, i don't think it's that hard, and i know NASA and other space agencies around the world have the technology to do this, Budget cuts and maybe laziness, and the ill-motivation of the people in the world is what keeps us from doing this.

Ah the fun with going to Mars. The orbital solutions themselves are mindboggling. Just to get there, you'd probably need a way to generate artificial gravity. This is of course done by a large spinning section on the ship like in all the bad movies. That of course true if none of the artificial gravity conspiracy stuff is true. At any rate, you need a way to keep reusing/remaking the oxygen. This would probably be plants, they provide food, oxygen and something to talk to if you get bored. You then need a vehicle to get to the martian surface, then get back. Mars has enough gravity to make this problematic. All in all this would probably need to be a project labeled, "Some assembly required." You're not going to lift this in one go from earth, you'd want to establish some sort of base in intermediate earth orbit and assemble this over a given time period. It's outside the Van Allen belts and you have a lower station keeping cost.

Now earth (or Lagranian, let's not go with moon orbiting) orbiting space colonies are very, VERY possible, but same deal with stuff you need and assembly. Needless to say, it's hella expensive to put this stuff in space. It is possible, is it likely to happen? More than likely no.

I think when we have been to Mars and realise there may not be anything of interest there, the excitement will die off and it will be a good few years before any sort of base is established there.

I wish there was a way to be able to see how the planet has changed in the next 500 years.. at best I've got about 80 yrs left

Here, figure these out?

Im very excited by the idea of Space colonies and i do feel its something that the governments of Earth should work towards. Its the next stop for our planet and if we are to "keep going" as a race, we need to move out of our crib and on to much larger things

Originally posted by infinite
Im very excited by the idea of Space colonies and i do feel its something that the governments of Earth should work towards. Its the next stop for our planet and if we are to "keep going" as a race, we need to move out of our crib and on to much larger things

The whole of the post I had made was from thing's that have "BEEN" for a very long, long time.
Space colonies aren't up to us, they are up to our "GOVRERMENT!!" they have been there for a long , long time. "Okay?"

Originally posted by Allred5923

Originally posted by infinite
Im very excited by the idea of Space colonies and i do feel its something that the governments of Earth should work towards. Its the next stop for our planet and if we are to "keep going" as a race, we need to move out of our crib and on to much larger things

The whole of the post I had made was from thing's that have "BEEN" for a very long, long time.
Space colonies aren't up to us, they are up to our "GOVRERMENT!!" they have been there for a long , long time. "Okay?"

So your saying that we have had colonies on the moon for years?????

...i must of missed those colonies

The greys probably helped us build them, along with shape shifting nazi's

Ok, square craters are just screwy. All I can say is, "Square asteroids?" Trenches are a little easier to explain away. Have you ever seen an arrow enter the dirt at low angle. It'll dig a little mound and low enough angles. Now when you enter lunar orbit (get pretty close to the moon so it's the main gravitational force). Now if you enter at a certain angle, velocity, and some other stuff you can get a hyperbolic trajectory around the moon. At the "top" of the orbit the object is moving tangent to the surface of the moon, now if you back up a couple degrees from perilune (closest approach where it's tangent to the moon's surface) you're pretty close and a small enough object could hit and not make the characteristic craters possibly. Usually they'll go in at a pretty high flight path angle. If someone needs a crash course in orbital mechanics I can give lessons . At any rate it may be possible to dig the trenches at very low flight path angles.

Well I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that we have colonies on the moon now, but we certainly could start colonizing Earth orbit and the moon now if we wanted to. We have the technology already, we're just not willing to make the significant investments necessary. Give NASA 25% of the DoD budget and we could start tomorrow.

Originally posted by enaught
There is a thread on this subject in Fragile Earth. But for the time being until this is locked.

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
If the government gave NASA the funding the military/war departments get, we could probably be on the Moon, Mars, and mining the asteroids in less than five years

Throwing money at the situation isn't going to solve the problem (though this is exactly opposite what the government thinks). NASA recieves about $4 billion each year to fund its manned missions, yet in the last three years there has been a total of one manned mission. Pending the latest launch, $12 billion has been spent in three years with only one manned mission. I have to say I disagree with you.

[edit on 26-6-2006 by enaught]

[edit on 27-6-2006 by enaught]

12 billion is nothing. throw some real money at it, and actually MANAGE the project instead of the typical management mindset. pay for the best and get the best.