a 100 years ago it was illegal to tech the theory of evolution in school

I believe habitable planets are more common than modern scientist believe. One reason is our current method detection relies on the mass of object, meaning that smaller planets and other stellar objects would be invisible to our current means of observation. The second is that our definition for life is rather limited, and while planets similar to ours may be rare within our galaxy, other worlds could suit life. Its vary narrow minded of some people to assume that entire universe conforms to our set of rules. There simply to much chaos for their not to be some exceptions.

As I've read this thread I've noticed one commonality that gets my goat, people saying it is impossible to travel faster than light. As a correction it is impossible or, in my opinion, damn hard to accelerate faster than light. Accelerating to said speed would require not just huge amount of power but a huge burst of power, a slow acceleration is not feasible as it would be cheaper to build a generation ship.

FTL communication is a different story. There is a theoretical particle called a Tachyon that travels constantly faster than light. There has also been strong evidence that from the big bang to an unknown point in universal creation that the universe expanded faster than light as well. Anyways, if one could essentially "catch" a tachyon and redirect it so it travels in a loop the tachyon could be seeded with a message and directed towards another receiver etc.

And on to space colonization, this is the future of humankind our survival ultimately depends on it. Not only are there unlimited resources in space but unlimited commercial options and the ability to spread out our species as well.
There is a whole universe of factors that could spell our doom if we remain a single planet species, not just planet killer objects.Alien attack, famine, massive tectonic movements, and loss of the atmosphere to name a few of the possibilities.
And according to one of the laws of quantum physics nothing is impossible, we could all turn into massive poop sculptures tomorrow, some are just VERY unlikely.

The commercial aspect is one of great interest to me and many others, Imagine a world where gold is commonplace, as Astronomers spotted an asteroid made of nearly solid gold, and metals are pefectly blended. In this world steel could be harder than diamond, though I cringe a the amount of pressure and heat needed to achieve a 10 on the moh's scale, and radioactive waste is easily dealt with, lauching it into the sun detonating it in deep space etcetera, a plethora of wealth awaits us in space.

In order for any object to archive light speed, one very important thing must be archived, the object MUST be massless, that is, it must have absolutely no mass.



Hold your horses, tachyon, as you said, are a theorical particle, thus basicly we know nothing about it, we are not even sure it exist.



Three hundred years ago, people though the timber (wood) in North America's forests was unlimited......... and have you heard about petroleum and codfish?

I'm no scientist, but I believe part of Quantum Physics is based on probabilities. An event might have a probability of 1e-853 of happening. Who would call such a thing possible?



For one who just mentioned Quantum Physics, you really don't understand what physics is. The same physics that apply here on Earth will apply anywhere and everywhere in the known universe. Atoms will behave in the same way, energy will never be destroyed or produced, magnetict objects will always be bipolar never monopolar, mass will never be destroyed or produced, for any force applied there will always be an equal and opposite reaction, gravity will exist, and time will always move forward.

What we call steel is physically unable to be stronger to what we call diamond. Such a strong molecular structure is not possible with steel's molecules.

basically farther and farther up the periodic table you go the harder it is to find stuff naturally. stars, especially older stars, produce these heavier elements through fusion but not nearly in the volume that lighter elements are created. this is not an artificial rarity.

also consider if there was a asteroid made of solid gold, and that asteroid was easily minable, the market would instantly tumble as supply/demand would likely be thrown out of whack.

Then why have scientists found some particles that are moving faster than the speed of light. Don't remember the name of the particles sorry.

anything over iron requires a super nova explosion to be made.

the answer is they haven't. massless particles move at the speed of light - the only thing that can break c is quantum effects on two entangled particles

ya there called Tachyon particles and they move faster then the speed of light but unstable

When did I say estimate? I said calculate. And I would say that the universe, despite its immensity, is still limited to the rule of one naturally habitable planet per galaxy, at the very most. It is far more likely that one planet in a few hundred galaxies will be able to support complex life, and furthermore, as I said, we are not guaranteed that life arises on every planet capable of supporting it. Once again, the probability is not favorable; it has been calculated that it would take a blind man 1.7 trillion years to solve a rubik's cube, and that is far longer than the life-span of a star. Furthermore, a blind man isn't going to know he's solved the thing, and will very likely continue changing it until it is out of order again. And again, we're not asking a blind man to solve a rubik's cube: we're asking the wind and rain to solve two-hundred twelve rubik's cubes (that's the number and approximate complexity of the proteins contained in even a prokaryotic cell), and we need it to happen before the star our planet is circling dies. We also need it to happen at the same place, and at the same time, so that, as I said before, our blind man doesn't keep changing it after he's solved it. Now it is unquestionable that this happened on Earth, but I'd say the probability is VERY much against it happening anywhere else in the universe.

WELL GUYS THE COMPLEXITY OF A BACTERIUM IS ROUGHLY EQUAL TO _FOUR MILLION_ MEN ON UNICYCLES THROWING DONUTS IN THE AIR AND ATTEMPTING TO CATCH THEM IN THEIR MOUTHS

you're pulling all of these figures out of your ass just stop

No; I'm not; these figures are very much correct and they come from mainstream science publications.

And as far as the idea of our detection methods being faulty or our definition of life being narrow, what I, or anyone else, for that matter, has said has absolutely nothing to do with detecting planets; even if we assume that every star in the galaxy has eight planets, we still are left with the probability of one life-supporting planet for every few hundred galaxies. Our definition of life is perhaps narrow, but it is not by any means narrow-minded; it is chemically quite impossible for life to arise based on any element other than carbon, and carbon, in its turn, has its own set of demands that must be met if life is to arise. Thus leading us to our dillemma of the multitude of requirements for a planet to support life.

Those are purely fictional.

I always find these debates funny because at this point of time we cannot do such things and like clockwork you will get someone that basically says "It will never happen". Right now it is incredible ignorant to say that the possibilities of human expansion into the galaxy is impossible. Two hundred years ago if you told a "learned" individual or a scientist that we would be flying in Air planes and have landed on the moon the individual would have thought you were the dumbest man alive...

The human expansion will be as all things slow (yet fast in tech development), ugly, and a lot of people will die. The colonization of the solar system will rise to planets declaring independence from their former patrons and from their to some messy wars. The funny part is when we colonize the planets will earth be united or will it be divided? As such events will probably lead to a united earth when say the populace of Mars declares independence from their patron. What will be interesting is to see what type of political structures and societies could emerge from such movements.

The worst part of the exodus and a more solar system wide colonization will be the wars that will brew. The Earth is running out of resources and in the such a situation we might find that by that time the main resource if that this planet could use for any type of trade is food and water. Both sides now will be far more aggressive with eachother because the mindset will be different. Whatever happens it will definately be interesting times. What we might see is Neo-Fuedalism and onething i can see is whoever is foolish enough to be the colonists of say Mars will probably live like dogs.

If there is an alien civilization out there we better hope they aren't more powerful then us. Humanity might fool itself into the ideals that we are civilized and "Benificent" but in a war between two different species the idea that the life is equal will be thrown out the window. We better hope that they aren't really powerful as they may view us like we view an infestation of Roaches....

Sources please, or we assume you're pulling them out of your ass.

The majority of my figures come from the publications of various universities such as Princeton, MIT, Cambridge, etc.

And as far as Heritor goes, that is preposterous; the idea of flight was absurd to the natural philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century because it was just that: absurd. The idea was not mathematically impossible, simply technologically. As it is, we have twenty billion years left to get two and two to make seven...

Granted colleges don't like wikipedia used as a reference since the information can be unreliable but I found this to be fair. Tachyons are not FACT but it can not fully be said they don't exist.

WWW Link

Used in sci-fi a lot because it allows writers to have a plausible explanation to do the impossible(or simply the improbable).
So tachyons can be a believable but fictional way to travel the speed of light in like how platitudes are believable but empty used to get liberals elected.

"Furthermore, an extremely conservative estimate of the probability of life-supporting planets coming into being comes out to be one over a one with fifteen zeroes behind it."

There's when you said "estimate", PraetorFenix.

Thank you for clarifying, but as I said, that is an extremely low estimate, and it is most likely far less common than that!

I hate to come off as gruff, but I'm still not 100% convinced. I just think that the nature of the unverse should be discovered by exploration and experimentation, not formulas and equations.

Like in the world of Halo, there might are various faction that want to be free and have there own type of government like the communist and fascist in Halo. Plus by the time we start colonizing other worlds it will occur because, Earth as become over populated. Like now there are 6 billion us they say in the next 10 years there will be close to 10 bilion, so if your a Halo fan you know the story

Well, since exploration and experimentation ain't happening, the best we can do is calculate.

The question of space wars and future politicsd will depend on if earth and its nations or unitfied Earth that founded the colonies either in our own solar system on moons mars and the astroid belt try to exert control over the colonies like england did with the 13 colonies during the 1700's. If it does then a nuclear appocalys, not sure how to spell it, will likely rain down on earth unless and defense shield, not nessearily an energy one, is in place. If a defense shield is in place a blood war will ensue and in the end much will be lost but the farther away the colony is the more likely it will be free is. In short history will repaet its self on a grander scale than ever before.

If we get that far. There will be another layer of government.one per planetary system. IE earth/moon. One for the whole system.

The planetary one covers the planet and moons. The solar system one would cover the solar system and not care about the planets. Sort of like the us system of government.


Remember there will free floating bases as well. Don't know if these will be a single unit or multiple or a combination of the two.