Yesterday, physicist Stephen Hawking rode the Zero Gravity Corp airplane and experienced weightlessness for about 3 minutes total by my calculations (25 seconds per 8 passes). For a while, he was free of this planet and from his physical chains. Said Hawking, "Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons. First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."
…and that thought has nagged me for years…what are our options? What if the collective “we” destroy this planet? What then?
Two days ago we heard that European scientists had discovered a potentially habitable planet 20.5 light years away in the constellation Libra.
Now this is only about 120,509,246,957,068 miles away. So let’s see, with conventional rocketry we’d need to achieve 36,500 miles per hour to escape the solar orbit. I believe the fastest we’ve been able to go so far is 40,000 mph with the Apollo capsule…but that’s a bit cramped for a trip that would then take you 474 years to complete. Oh, we’d need fuel too.
So maybe we should set our sights on terraforming Mars, instead.
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote an astounding account of how we might actually transform Mars into a place where humans might live and prosper. Considered to be the finest living “hard” science fiction author, his Mars trilogy is a fascinating read.
Hard science fiction, by the by, is characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.
The colonization of other planets is scientifically and economically feasible. Being an optimist, I like to think that some day our Earth-bound hatreds may subside enough to let us look beyond our National borders and see something grander to achieve.
And if that makes you sad, which it should not, you can always look at this.
3 comments:
You know its gonna happen. It happened to the dinosaurs and all it took was a pretty good sized rock to fall out the sky.
We have more than enough technology and oodles of mad men and hatred in high places in the world today.
We sure need to get moving on terraforming, space stations, transport for that long trek if the human race wants to survice. Don't think there will be anywhere to hide here on this planet.
Scott Adams (the guy who writes Dilbert) on the name of this new planet.
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/04/cool_new_planet.html
that was cute...i do indeed like his names much more
the link to the "hyperdrive" article was pretty interesting, too. I certainly can't follow most of it, especially the part about 8 dimensions, but hope that some physicists can sort through the stuff to make an experiment or two.
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