Kepler-22b

[pmcd9]

This is good news for those of us that want to abandon this planet.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Yeah, they need to get started on the giant self-sustaining pod spaceships right away, so we can go fuck up that planet too.

[greenkoolayd]

no one is going anywhere 

[Asherdan]

That is the face I wear anytime someone questions the need for space travel.

I agree with The Mayor, by the way. We manage to land somewhere else and Mistakes Will Be Made.

Thing is, humans haven't learned how to get along in a static state, it's either expansion or contraction and the dustbin of history.

I'm just selgiraffe enough to want to keep expanding for a while yet.

[pmcd9]

Thank you Ash.  We ARE going to space, and the sooner the better. 

[pmcd9]

Here's a good article on NPR.

[Doc]

If we do not destroy ourselves we will, one day, venture to the stars.

Y'know, unless it looks like it might actually cost some money or something and interfere with the re-election of another mediocre halfwit.

[pmcd9]

Y'know, unless it looks like it might actually cost some money or something and interfere with the re-election of another mediocre halfwit.

It's not going to be a government that takes us to the stars, it'll be private enterprise that gets the job done. 

[Doc]

It's not going to be a government that takes us to the stars, it'll be private enterprise that gets the job done. 

Yeah, I reckon. Well either Richard Branson or China.

[AugustWest]

Government got us to the moon.

Government won World War II.

Government built the Interstate Highway system.

Government is just another way human beings organize themselves into groups to get things done.  It can do whatever we decide it can.  If you think government has a monopoly on bureaucratic inefficiency, I'd say you're sadly naive.

I read great article by one of my favorite writers, Neal Stephenson, yesterday.  He is lamenting the absence of a "great project" like the space program today.  "We can't Facebook our way out of the current economic status quo."

I think what we need is inspiration.  I think we need a "Great Project" to unite us and to give us purpose.

What scares me is that historically, as often as not, such purpose-providing projects have been wars.  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to unite behind something that's actually constructive for once?

[Asherdan]

Amen.

If that great project is throwing our monkey selves to the stars and we commit like a mother to it, the absolute worst possible outcome is we fail but make enough science/medical/etc. type discoveries to fuel innovation for the next half century or so.

(then we can try again)

(plus, I want to use Mars like Australia, all starting a penal-terraforming project over there)

[littlefallsmets]

On this topic, I am torn between my desire to explore and achieve and see what's out there that we never could've guessed and... the fear that we're basically an infection that will only manage to fuck things up on a grander scale if we manage to ever get off this rock in a meaningful and consistent fashion.

It is probably childish or whatever to feel torn about this, it might even be a projection of my own mixed feelings about myself onto the entire race, but this is my honest difficulty with the issue.

Man, look at how much there is out there to see. Man, look at our fuck*ng track record.

[Asherdan]

Remember, man, no matter how much we go out there and cack it up, the universe will eventually squash our ass and it'll be like we never existed. If we don't go out there and just cack it along here we'll get the same result so we might as well have some fun along the way to extinction.

[pmcd9]

On this topic, I am torn between my desire to explore and achieve and see what's out there that we never could've guessed and... the fear that we're basically an infection that will only manage to fuck things up on a grander scale if we manage to ever get off this rock in a meaningful and consistent fashion.

Reminded me of this.

[jaydub]

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with us being an infection.  Do you think salmonella gets all weepy about giving its host the Hershey squirts?  Now screwing up our current, only source of life support is just stupid, but if we can get a sustainable colony going on Mars, Proxima Centauri, or Kepler 22b at the cost of some terraforming and take a pass because "its not natural" or whatever - then we deserve extinction.  If we come across something sentient/self aware that's a different matter.