Ok..now I understand your concerns better.

What about the Earth's moon? even though its not considered a planet, it will be pretty good altogether.

That's very possible now, but the Moon will probably not be able to support an atmosphere containing oxygen at a temperature comfortable to us.

I dont see why we shouldnt do so,as curiousity is a human nature that cause us to explore to other planets.

If we could transport the resource from Mars to Earth,i dont see why we cant actually send someone there.

Do you mean someone actually manage to generate antimatter? How do they do that?

Isnt it some sort of theoretical material?

To be honest,we are talking about science,not those fantasy-like kind of science from games.

Most,if not all of them doesnt make any sense.

IIRC, if you create matter out of pure energy, anti matter will appear, since they're like twins of each other, evil one that is.

Nuclear fission produces a tiny amount of anti-matter too but it's so little that, bgeh's mentioned 'nanogram' sounds like a few megatons in perspective

Space exploration is possible if we can achieve a self-sustained ecosystem on the ship or so. Energy will be important as everything solid can be recycled into their original state with the proper amount of energy. Can't rely on solar, no sun no juice. Fusion is good but there aren't proper working generator and it also require fuel.

You will also need to have enough material in cycle to sustain life. If say an entire ship will depend on grain as food, you'll need to have enough of grain to feed the human while newer grain grow and so on.

After all that, you have to handle the ravage human instinct. Munity is just too stupid if you're on a mission to save human race.

Headache

Yes we 'make' antimatter everyday really, in particle accelerators pretty much everywhere. Heck there are 'natural' sources of antimatter emitters (positrons to be exact, or beta+ particles), and I believe they're used in medicine (google positron emission tomography)

I think in one of those proton colliders if I remember correctly. Got one that just open in Europe? One of the largest spanning kilometres underground. Some people are worried they might generate tiny blackholes
Of course it only exists for a short span of time being being consumed in the same process or something like that, can't remember.

I think human instinct would still be the biggest problem,unless you could put them on a long temporary coma state or something.If im not wrong,the russians actually did some tests on confining human beings in a space.The results arent good at all.

I do agree we cant rely on solar and solar sail is out then.

That's a different concept. We've been producing antimatter regularly for say, 30+ years now, and they're stored using magnetic 'bottles' to separate them from matter.

Black holes being produced at the LHC are an entirely different matter though.

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 11:38 PM

I still think those who say the LHC will destroy the world is bullshit.

I guess i have to study a bit on all these quantum physics then.

I cant really understand some of the terms here.

antimatter is used in PETscans. and no the LHC will not create a blackhole... i wish it would tho.. i wanna see one up close.

Your concern is the most acceptable and most of all, Logical. As of course, we can't bear to just stay in the space ship without our basic human necessities. So, most important issue to be solved is to design a self-sustainable environment within a ship.
If we can like convert every of human waste(yes even feces I am talking about) to useful material again. Then, we can solve huge amount of problem, including problem of waste management on our Planet. Secondly, If we can harness antimatter energy it would be very useful too. Maybe we can bring soil in the ship and bring along farmers to grow grains on the deck? And next thing we're talking we can use waste solids to generate energy.

Oh ya, we can even forget of building the ship on earth as it would take huge amount of cost just to propel it to outer space. So, my idea is build the ship in the outer space. Then again, transporting materials from earth to space is already huge problem

Propulsion...I don't think nuclear explosion can even reach light speed don't they? Even if we can reach light speed it'll take years because space distance is Lightyears. Only if we can use something called "hyperspace", allows us to jump to far distances. Anyway this thread is about shipbuilding and colonizing other planets.

This post has been edited by Winston LYN: Jun 16 2009, 01:10 PM

I think it's still cheaper to build in on earth and propelling to space, than to build in space itself because apart from propelling the materials, you have to use resources to propel the transporters and the workers back and forth. Then you need to think of outerspace lodging and food for the workers.

There are several advantage building in space.

Building in space meaning the ship do not have to cope with gravity, only the force of the ship's acceleration/deceleration, thus saving material.

Modular configuration, the world's most expensive lego set. Like the ISS

Design doesn't need to be aerodynamic since there aren't air resistance, sure there's space dust but that's a small amount unless you're zooming across space really fast.

Ya true, I think the way of building the ship should be this: We design the ship here on Earth, then build small sets just like lego to be attached altogether later on Space. Then, those Materials are transported from here to the Space Station. Those stuffs, of course assembled on Space.

So, build and design on Earth, diassemble and take to space to be reassembled.

I recently found myself reading the classic novel Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, and I was struck by how absurd and improbable its vision of the 22nd century looks from a transhumanist perspective. The interplanetary civilization envisioned in the book, like so many futures in classic science fiction, essentially takes 20th century human beings and projects them forward a century or two without human modification — no advanced AI’s, no genetic engineering, no cybernetic enhancements. This results in the kind of "monkeys in space" fantasy that has plagued the popular consciousness, from Buck Rogers to Star Trek. With all due respect to Mr. Clarke, whom I revere as one of the 20th century’s great scientific visionaries, the future almost certainly won’t look anything like the "United Planets" of Rendezvous With Rama.

Our current biological substrates are products of millions of years of evolution on only one planet: Earth. To think that this is the biological form that will colonize the solar system and beyond is short sighted and naïve. Almost by definition, human beings aren’t designed for space travel or life on other planets. The costs and risks of attempting to do so are not only excessive but unnecessary. Without some overwhelming motivation (imminent extinction, discovery of extraterrestrial life, vast wealth potential, etc.), it is difficult to imagine human primates in their current form colonizing other planets in a serious way.

When it comes to interstellar exploration, the situation is even bleaker for homo sapiens. The energy requirements for getting any spacecraft to the nearest stars are enormous, particularly if the craft is constrained by the needs of fragile human passengers. Barring revolutionary breakthroughs in physics, we’re looking at either multi-millenial missions or energy requirements in excess of total current global energy output. Neither option seems very feasible for obvious biological, economic and philosophical reasons.

Given these limitations, I would suggest that the best hope for making the physical exploration and colonization of space a reality (while awaiting breakthroughs in physics) is to focus our collective resources on modifying human beings themselves, and on abstracting and increasing our intelligence into more flexible forms. My guess is that the first earthlings to visit the outer solar system, and certainly the nearby stars, will not be humans at all but artificially intelligent probes capable of totally autonomous, adaptive behavior.

Speculating further into the future, even if the energy can be found and suitable propulsion systems designed to send spacecraft to the stars in a reasonable period of time, it’s not clear that they would be necessary for long. Since the most efficient means of information transfer on astronomical scales is electromagnetic energy travelling at the speed of light, it’s conceivable that space travel will be replaced by the transmission of consciousness itself as pure information. If intelligence is ultimately reducible to patterns of information, as most AI theorists believe, then it isn’t difficult to envision a network of "consciousness transceivers" being established by advanced probes across interstellar space. These transceivers would "download" minds directly into some kind of robotic bodies established at various locations of interest, allowing light speed "teleportation" of human minds across the galaxy. Obviously this is all highly speculative, but to my way of thinking it is much more believable than the thought of glorified chimpanzees rocketing across the galaxy in giant tin cans.

The Earth is round and is not the center of the universe, just get over it

This post has been edited by transhumanist92: Jun 18 2009, 04:23 PM

I think just fix our own planet first lah...we want stay in moon also cannot dy.. apatah lagi nak build colonies on outer space... summore how can we tahan the solar radiation woh..

when i'm playing a web based game and flashback of an anime that i've watched before not long ago.

but then, something came in my mind, combine with the other information that i've get from other sources, including TV, books and other...

here is some problem.
1. human health problem, we cant live in space for a long time without the presence of gravity, our muscle will start to swell, until now, astronauts only can stay in ISS for half a year and they have to went back to earth, they have to do exercise regularly while in space to keep their muscle working and prevent swelling, this is what i heard from discovery channel some time ago

2. so we might need the presence of gravity in order to survive, so how do we get gravity in a colony ship? artificial gravity?

3. plants and organism need sunlight, when we were in deep space, how do we get sunlight?

4. oxygen, water, temperature, and food, without sunlight there will be no plants, even if there is, the plant will withered or very weak due to lack of sunlights, the water will surely run out no matter how we save it and recycled it.

5. political, racism, and religious issues, i doubt we will have a peaceful life in the colony ship, unless every human beings has the same mindset.

6. death rate, birth rate and education, how can we control the death rate and birth rate? and every adults and children need education, we need a totally new and unify education, but how can we unite people with different believe and mindset?

the fastest way to travel from A to B in space is by wormhole, with wormhole, you can travel from earth to the other planet far way in just a very short time without reaching the speed of light.

the another method is by our conventional propulsion drive, or maybe some more advance propulsion drive like the impulse drive in star trek?

furthermore, i dont think we are able to travel faster than light, imagine you are cruising at a speed faster than light where you overtake the speed of light, no light can reach you, what can you see?

make sense?

1,2 rotating drums would provide enough artificial gravity
3,4 hibernation would be a popular solution. geospheres with artificial sunlight has been suggested
5,6 the source of many sci-fi dramas - again hibernation is a easy way out

ftl speed would break many many paradox. but even a significant %age of light speed would be a great achievement in interstellar exploration. although i am pessimistic about any interstellar travels (even to alpha centauri) in at least 10 generations or more.

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Added on June 22, 2009, 2:43 ambreaking technological barriers (like terraforming hostile environment/radioactive protection) is a piece of cake compared to breaking moral barriers.

This post has been edited by lin00b: Jun 22 2009, 02:43 AM

hibernate? so you are going to say that everyone will be in hibernate mode during the whole journey?