I always thought nuclear propulsion was pretty interesting. There were several working nuclear thermal propulsion rockets tested from the 50s and 70s. They have pretty high specific impulse (rocket efficiency), but tend to have problems with the nuclear pile eroding as the hot fuel interacts with it... Over the years, several novel designs to limit the thermal stress have been designed, but afaik, never built. In any case, the thermal stress, erosion, and material degradation from exposure to neutron radiation might be a big problem on a very long voyage.... sigh....

Just as you suggest, the best nuclear solution would probably be to use a reactor to generate electrical energy for an ion engine, which would have a basically "unlimited" specific impulse.

Let me quote Ben Rich who headed up Lockheed Skunk Works. Before his death he said "We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity" he also went on to say "anything you can imagine we already know how to do." From the book "Exempt From Disclosure"/Collins. Ben Rich died in 1995, 15 years ago.

Lockheed Skunk Works is heavily involved at Area 51. Many things we see as UFO's are quite possibly our own military operating secret aircraft. There is plenty of information out there concerning UFO phenomena, but what is real or fake nobody will know unless our goverment discloses the facts.

President Eisenhower quotes from his farewell address in 1961, "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

.

"and it would be younger when it came back."

Even traveling at 1/2 the speed of light time still passes for the object that is traveling that fast. so, It would not be younger when it came back. Less time would have passed for the ship and the crew but the way you (nwmike) phrased it makes it sounds like the ship and it's crew would be younger (than when they left) when they came back.

You've got a set of twins, one went on the ship and one stayed behind, the one who went would indeed be younger than the one who stayed but the one who went would not be younger than he was when he left.

I'm pretty sure that's what you meant nwmike, so I'm sorry to argue semantics. I just thought that needed some clarification.

More importantly, ion thrusters cannot attain exhaust velocities anywhere near 1/2 c.

Even more importantly, do you know how much food you'd have to pack for a 20-year trip? And just imagine the laundry that needs to be done!

We have the technical ability to make vehicles that can travel to the stars and back. It may take decades, or even centuries, to do so, but we can do it now. The problem is how to keep people alive that long. People need things machines don't. Like food. And water. And air. It takes a lot of that even for one person to live 20+ years, and way more if you're transporting an entire colony ship.

There are so many details that we will need to work out before we went on this trip that it would blow your mind. Materials to build the ship that could take the stress.
Shilding to protect the ship from physical damage. (Think a grain of sand hitting you at 1/2 lightspeed)
Food storage and/or production.
Fuel storage and/or production.
The psycological problems of being locked in a can with limited space and people for years.
Air and water recycling for years if not decades.

We are nowhere near ready.

I think it's not so much a matter of engineering a better faster rocket engine... but of mastering the laws of physics, and perhaps finding ways to skirt them...

Bending spacetime (one word) so that traveling from A to B isn't just going really fast in a straight line... but maybe B comes closer to you, and A moves away from you, while you stay still... maybe.

I didn't mean human cargo..of course not! You send miniature robots ! In 100 years

quantum computing will be common place and cybernetics or more human -like robotics

will be too. Is it possible to send communications over a vast distance? Would such a craft

be powerful enough to send information about Alpha C back?

No, no, no.

You are on Earth. Someone takes off at the speed of light. From your vantage point on Earth, the person in the ship isn't aging.

You are on a ship traveling from Earth at the speed of light. The person you left on Earth appears to not be aging.

It's not that someone traveling at light speed ages less, it is that they appear to be aging less due to your relative position. A person in the spaceship does not see the Earth born person suddenly grow old and die, they see time stand still for them as the person on Earth sees time stand still for the ship born person.

Too much science fiction.

Actually, the laws of physics do allow for spacetime to be bent around events at velocities nearing the speed of light. The real explanation is too complex for a mere comment reply, but in essence moving that fast causes time to physically slow for those at the speed.

Besides, nothing but light can move at the speed of light. Anything else that tried would find space warping in such a way that they appear to move faster than light, but in theoretical reality the distance from A to B just got really, really short.

Read some Hawking once in a while.

Yep, artificial gravity has only been held back by lazy engineers and physicists.

They have been eating doughnuts rather than working on teleportation too.

Sheesh...

A VASIMR driven craft would take thousands of years to reach the Alpha Centauri system. The VASIMR rocket is stated as having a maximum exhaust velocity of 300 km/s (which is roughly 1/1000th the speed of light.)

Nuclear pulse propulsion is the only viable existing technology we have for such a mission:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

The speed of the craft is not limited to the speed of the exhaust.

You can get a decent idea of "constant acceleration" and relativity, here, where they assume that the rocket converts matter to light at 100% efficiency and uses the light as the "exhaust gas" of the rocket.

Assuming the type of payload ratios that we have now with rockets (i.e. payload is 10% of the total mass), you could take a trip to the nearest star in 7.6 years, accelerating at 1/2 g for 3.8 years and decelerating at 1/2 g for 3.8 years.... not to bad....

now if we could just make that kind of engine!

And not worry about running into anything at that speed and tearing apart the whole mission.

True, but propulsive efficiency decreases more and more at speeds greater than exhaust velocity. Spacecraft can generally attain about twice their exhaust velocity as a rough rule of thumb. Propellant volume and mass being the limiting factors (see "rocket equation").

Main point being, current VASIMR technology is not suitable for interstellar mission concepts at this time. Nuclear pulse is the only existing tech that would be worth considering.

Ben Birdsey

The speed of the craft is not limited to the speed of the exhaust.

You are not limited at all by your exhaust velocity (other than the obvious limit of the speed of light). Your ultimate limit has to do with what is the fraction of mass that you are going to use as propellant, AND your specific impulse. You can always trade one for the other.

As far as it goes, there is no current technology which has a high enough Isp/c to make achieving a significant fraction of c practicable. The only real hope we have in the short term would be a controlled fusion reaction, so maybe thremonuclear pulse.

I guess the other option would be to find an antimatter mine....

A screen is only important if you're traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. In a generation ship, it may not be important at all.

With space travel it really makes you wonder what the future will be like. We will find ways to survive in space. we will find ways to manage interstellar travel within a human lifetime. And so as these things develop we inevitably will have technological overlaps like the one wychdoctor George has described (the first ship is met by subsequent ships). So it's not hard to imagine a universe where there are people living and working along side other people from different time periods (even if it's only a decade or two difference). What an exciting time to be alive!

George, you are absolutely correct. I'm glad someone was thinking along those lines. Perhaps the second crew should pick up the first. And then, the third crew.... well, you get idea...

Wouldn't you want a beacon on the ship so that if you invent better technology you could find them, catch up to them and give them a little boost?

I hate to sound pessimistic, but if we assume that later projects will be faster and beat the early launch to it's destination, why bother with the first project at all?

Genetic modification of humans is still considered a moral no-go zone, but GM plants are already in supermarkets, and GM animal experiments have progressed quite a bit.

As to the cyclical need for such a program, I still advocate the first step of human space achievement as permanent orbital colonies. This will give us a basis to develop and refine both GM humans for deep-space survival and ecosystem recycling for prolonged food, water, and air.

If we genetically modify humans to be able to live in space, odds are it would significantly reduce their ability to live on a planet's surface. They may fight for independence, and stupid politicians may make a war over it, but fighting for Earth is unlikely.

KHAN!!!!!!!!!

the problem (one of the problems) with your idea of building the shell first and waiting for the rockets at the end is that the shell needs to be designed FOR the rockets. You can build a structure to withstand forces unless you know what forces it will need to withstand. So if you build this bigass ship and then design rockets that are game-changing and can do things that we can't even fathom right now you are screwed. You'd have to over design the ship and that would be a waste of resources when it all comes down to it. It's not quite as simple as predicting "rockets have gotten this much better, stronger, faster in the last 20 years so 20 years from now they will be (x) more powerful." You really need to design the ship as a unit, certain things can be allowed for in the piecemeal fashion but I don't feel that the propulsion system is one of the things that can be put off until the last second.

But why are we not building ships and sending people out to swing around Jupiter and return to Earth? That would give us a lot of practical experience living in deep space.

Until we can get to the planets in our system we probably shouldn't be talking about stars.

The government does not care if it comes off as arrogant.

Just because you can't fathom such a thing does NOT make it nonsense. These people are not alone in building these kinds of plans. groups of people come together and decide the best path for this kind of thing. They design these plans and programs to have options for change built in. The kinds of things you are talking about that a person or group could not project with reliability are then built into the program so that when the new necessary information is gathered it can be aligned with the program and the program aligned with it.

They do think about the short and long term benefits. A skyscraper does indeed need a great foundation to build a strong long lasting building on. And any engineer worth anything asks himself whether or not he even has a right to design a building (or anything for that matter) that will outlive him. As a faithful steward of the welfare and safety of the public engineers make efforts to think about all outcomes and scenarios when designing any project. These scientists and engineers involved in this "100 years" ship study thing are only studying it. It's an effort to understand what foundation is necessary. $100,000 dollars of tax money has gone to this program and if you have a problem with that then you have bigger problems to worry about. NASA puts larger sums into a lot of things I would guess you'd have a big problem with. but I'll let you state your opinions on those things.

If you don't understand why Congress is in on this then you'd clearly be flabbergasted by many other things they do...

The Panama Canal was recently turned over to the Panamanian government after 100 years of control by the U.S. Was that a ridiculous program?? No.

There are very smart people thinking about these things. At this point in the program all they do is sit around and think about different scenarios and how they need to handle those scenarios.

Oh, and in honor of those who lost their lives in the senseless attacks of 9/11 ask yourselves one question. How many structural steel buildings have collapsed due to fire? the answer is only 3. All of them on 9/11/2001. I will let you draw your own conclusions from that, but I would add that Building 7 was no hit by an airplane. I am a structural drafter for an architectural firm. I do not fall into the category of conspiracy theorist, but the first three structural steel buildings in history to collapse due to sustained fire were the 3 world trade center buildings that collapsed on 9/11. The official story (the 9/11 commission report) doesn't hold water in my opinion. I'm only a drafter. I'm not an engineer. That's my two cents. Out of respect for those who died and dealt with 9/11 I just want everyone to know the facts. Those buildings collapsed due to fire (according to the 9/11 commission). http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf and they are the ONLY 3 buildings in history made with structural steel to collapse due to fire. And Larry Silverstein himself went and said they made the decision to "pull" building 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100 which flies in the face of the 9/11 commission.

911 truthers argue that because the towers dropped straight down, it is proof that this was a controlled demolition. Apparently, they expected the buildings to fall over like a tree because they were hit on the side. Or that burning jet fuel is not hot enough to melt steel.

Taking the last point first, they are correct. It's not hot enough, but steel becomes quite bendable well below it's melting point. You can bend steel quite easily with just a common propane torch, and that's all it took.

Regarding the first point, the buildings fell down not because of controlled demolition, but because of gravity. While the building is massive, it's mostly empty space. Try this experiment. Ballance on one foot on an empty soda can. Note that the can isn't much thicker than paper, but can support 200 pounds if you step on carefully. That's much like a building. Very resistant to powerful gravity. Now have a friend touch the side of the can, pushing it in. What happens? You and the can go down. Straight down. Doesn't matter that the deformation started on the side of the can. You don't fall over like a tree, you go straight down because the gravity pulls the massive weight, and that force is much larger than the lateral effect from the deformation on the side of the can. Simply, you go down because that's the only way you can go.

Oaktree - "Space exploration should follow the time proven and logical scientific model, small verifiable increments."

Your stepping-stone approach is old 20th century thinking. Time proven? Just look at the pace we had back in the 60's, and then how space science languished the next 4 decades! Conservative thinking is the dead weight science has fought against for centuries.

Also, only bold, difficult goals will produce technology jumps that can bump our economy upwards.

I do like your idea of a massive particle accelerator in space - not only for basic research - for an antimatter factory!

Okay, I am not arguing any of that stuff. I didn't say anything about the direction the building fell or the systemic nature of the collapse. I only mentioned the cause of the collapse. And you missed that point entirely, jbunn. You're experiment is fine. there is nothing wrong with the comments you have made. But MY point was that these are steel structures that suffered completed pancake collapse due to fire. These 3 building are the ONLY buildings in history that collapsed due to fire. Only two of the buildings had fires caused by jet fuel. And both WTC1 & 2 burned for less than 2 hours total. There have been a plethora of other buildings throughout history built with steel that have had massive fires and NONE of them collapsed.

It is possible to bend steel fairly easily under the right conditions. I am not going to argue that point. What I would argue is the nature of the structural system and the area in which the temperatures got hot enough to let deformation propagate. I don't know enough about the specific circumstances on each floor to make an expert argument here but I would say that the chances of enough of the structural frame deforming enough to cause the systemic failure that we all witnessed are very not very likely. Some structural members probably did get hot enough to bend or deform under the pressure but there is other structure and redundancy built in to all high rise building to account for this.

The fact of the matter is the buildings fell and there was a major tragedy. I simply don't agree with the official reports assessment that the steel structure failed because of sustained fire. There were other things present that may have played bigger factors in the collapse. But I won't speculate on those things as I only have professional experience with structural steel.

Regrettably this subject has taken me quite off topic. I (as well as others) feel strongly about the events of that day and I definitely don't mean to upset anyone by going on and on about 9/11.

I'll go back to talking about the 100 years ship now.

The sentence "These 3 building are the ONLY buildings in history that collapsed due to fire." should read "These 3 buildings are the ONLY steel structure buildings in history that collapsed due to fire."

Why the talk about Congress funding....?
I thought this guy said he wants to hit up billionaires for funding?

And Mob_Barley... I'm with you on the structural argument... I'm not saying inside job or conspiracy or anything like that... I'm just saying the 9/11 commission report on the most significant US event of the millenium was done like a very half-assed book report, and needs to be revisited at some point.

Thank you V. I think if more people would read it they would have a different opinion of it. But not many people read anything that is more than 500 pages.

anywho...

NASA only kicked down $100grand for this 100 years ship thing so I don't see the big hubbub about money. Of course, even if it were a larger sum I still wouldn't care. I love the fact that my tax dollars are being spent on the space program! I would vote to spend more if there was a vote on it.

Markus,

Sorry but I have to disagree with all your points.

1. "The first silicon transistor was produced by Texas Instruments in 1954. This was the work of Gordon Teal, an expert in growing crystals of high purity, who had previously worked at Bell Labs. The first MOS transistor actually built was by Kahng and Atalla at Bell Labs in 1960."

This was the predominate reason for the accelerated advance of technologies since the 50's and subsequentl with the progress of storage capacity. Nothing to do with the space program.

2. "One gram of antimatter annihilating with one gram of matter produces 180 terajoules, the equivalent of 42.96 kilotons of TNT (approximately 3 times the bomb dropped on Hiroshima)"

Yes, antimatter maybe the mother of all energy harnessing (transformation) methods but I would never trust our pathetic species with that kind of fire power! lol

3. Bold thinking? Well, we did not get to Higgs Field from Newton's apple over night.

As far as the 9/11 talk, I am sorry I brought the subject up. I was making the point, if those building were built with more insight of undetermined consequences then more lives would have been saved.

This rush to the stars maybe lead us to more grave consequences. All we need to do is take our lessons from Mother Nature with all her grandness and impeccable integrity.

Planes crashed into buildings. Crash damage. Explosions of engines and fuel. Explosive damage. Fire. Fire damage. First building collapsed. Shaking and foundation damage that weekened the other building.

And as for those who point out that the second building hit was the first to fall, look at where it was hit, much lower, than the first building, meaning more weight above the impact zone.

No, I have not read the report. I'm just commenting on my own observations. Not fire alone that caused damage.

Oaktree - You really don't acknowledge the tech advances made during our Apollo program?

Regardless, we are living on borrowed time. Thanks to conservatives our planet is already dying, and I submit that we don't have TIME for small, incremental baby steps if we intend for any of humankind to survive Earth's demise.

As for antimatter I believe we would be foolish indeed to ignore its potential simply because it can be used as a weapon. Should we abandon any plans to develop NEO asteroid diversion technologies simply because one could be used as a kinetic weapon? I say not...and those whose lives were saved would doubtless agree with me. I think you also agree, or else I misread that lol you added at the end?

I must say that, although not an engineer, I'd assumed a much larger energy yield than you'd figured, but my whining is always about policy, not detailed specifics.

A good day have You!

I like your idea DCE. I think we are closer to having the robots that can pull that all off than we are to having the ability to freeze and thaw fetus' so readily. Also, I would worry about the newborns learning from the machines. That would indeed need to be a quite advanced system of AI for any chance of success. But, I'm with you. I feel these things are possible, and we should look into the giant leaps that will need to be taken in truly colonizing space.

I think that AI will advance at an incredible pace, once someone develops a proper theory of how to model consciousness. Some people , such as Jeff Hawkins, the invented the Palm Pilot, are investing a lot of research into develop AI systems (see his book, "On Intelligence"). This is a difficult problem, figuring out how human beings think!

In my opinion, AI will happen. And I think it may create problems in our society, with robots competing for jobs done by humans, just like the book and movie "I, Robot". I also think that there is the possibility that robots may become superior to in our intelligence - which is a scary thought.

This would present many interesting philosophical issues. Humans would be the creators of the robots. The robots would go into space, for the purpose of seeding human life.

Sounds like a cool movie to me. Wish I had the money to produce it.

It would indeed be a cool movie. You should develop a screenplay and then sell it. Then use that money to develop an even better screenplay and produce that movie yourself.

I have often thought about it and I'm of the mind that believed we shouldn't try to copy the human mind when it comes to developing AI. I think there are a lot of things the human brain does that a machine wouldn't need. For instance, I don't see a purpose for pain in a machine. One could make a case that all emotions should be avoided by I don't think that way. There are lots of applications where AI would do well to have emotions, especially the "positive" emotions. But I see no reason for a robot, android, or computer to ever feel pain. I think sensing danger is a good thing for AI. Sensors that can pick up damage to the unit is a good thing. But people react poorly to pain and I think all efforts to create AI would be better off to streamline how much of the human brain is copied.

Very interesting ideas mob.

I'm an engineer, and I'm so swamped with work, so I don't have much time to write! Of course writers need talent, too! Rod Sterling had so many really cool ideas about robots in his "Twilight Zone" scripts. Perhaps, subconciously, I'm ripping off one of those old Twilight Zone ideas.

Robots without pain? I don't know. I'm of the other mindset that "the way to go" is to develop AI that actually experiences life. That means pain must be included. You seem to agree with Jeff Hawkins' approach, that AI does not require conscienceness. I don't agree with Hawkins.

I think that, basically, consciousness is sort of an inner newreel of one's life: "I am walking. I am talking. I am doing this. I am a doctor. You are a patient..." We are constantly analyzing who we are and where we are, and we are writing an internal script, weighing our options. That's about it: We are script writers, writing scripts about ourselves. As Shakespeare wrote, life is but a stage and we are merely players.

"Intenal script writing" is basically the algorythm that I believe that somebody will discover how to implement in AI. Engineers will need to understand psychology - even Freudian ideas about "ego" and "id" - to make this work. Although I'm not in that field, I've had a big interest in this topic for a long time.

But if a machine actually experiences things, it will need to experience pain. Ever see that Star Trek episode, "The Empath"? Very cool. A beautiful mute woman learning how to experience pain. I love it.

Well, I was just using pain as an example of one emotion that robots could do without. But I believe I have expressed my thoughts in a way that does not convey my actual intent. To clarify what I was trying to get at it would be more accurate to say that the robot should recognize pain and realize pain but not in the way humans do. I am of a different mindset than most in this field. You and others want to create a true artificial intelligence in that it's purpose is to experience life. I believe this is our purpose for being. To experience life from birth to death with all the triumphs and tragedy that goes along with it. But when I think about creating a robot or android or even a system of control over something such as a ship for instance I think it would do a disservice to the function of that creation if I imbued it with the distraction that pain can cause. By all means the AI I would create would know that it's components are being harmed in some way. It would have the equivalent of nerve endings that would send signals to the brain or cpu alerting the intelligence of something we would call "pain", but that is where the change would be in my Artificial Intelligence. If an appendage was severed from my robot I don't want it to writhe on the floor in agony. Likewise I don't want the appendage to suffer such trauma that it becomes utterly useless. The function of the robot is not to experience life therefore the way it handles pain would be vastly different to the way you and I would experience it.

Artificial intelligence is an amazingly fun thing to think about and I'm an avid movie watcher and sci-fi fan. I was an avid reader when I was younger so I'm behind the crowd on the book from but I'm at in the top percentage of the class on video and television references. I'm 29 years old (as of this October) and have only been reading sci-fi for about 10 years. It all started when I realized that Philip K. Dick was the author of some of my favorite sci-fi movies. So now i've read almost everything he's done. I'm really in the infancy of my sci-fi book collection. (so I'm always appreciative of suggestions). But if it's a movie or a television show the chances are I've seen it.

And almost all of the best movies and shows feature AI in some form or another. One of my personal favorites is from the British sitcom 'Red Dwarf' with Kryton (an android that the main character spends a lot of time breaking his programming) and Holly (the ships computer - who is about as smart as a glass of water but is supposed to have an IQ of 6000). Great show.

Since this is a day later, you may not read this, therefore I won't put a lot of effort into my reply. Just want to say that, mob, you have some great ideas! Yes, I understand where you are coming from about pain, because I read one of your comments that muscle and joint pain is an issue in your life. I'm sorry to here this. You certainly have great ideas.

I am not an avid reader of science fiction. I can count all the science fiction books that I like on one hand. "Dune" is one of the better ones. However, I want to mention one book that I think you would enjoy: "Einstein's Bridge". That was a very, very cool book!

Thanks for the compliment, I sure enjoyed your ideas as well. Collaborative thinking is a great thing. Thanks for recommending some more books to read. I've not read Dune or Einstein's bridge, but now they are on my list. Actually Dune has been on the list for a while. lol

Philip K. Dick is a great sci-fi writer and he has one short story in particular (it was also made into a novel) that deals with robot soldier that fight a war for the humans after they basically ruin the planet and have to go underground. I won't ruin the story for you, but it's called 'the Defenders'. I highly recommend any of the many Philip K. Dick short stories. They are all great. and his novels are wonderful too.

OK, enjoying they talk, and I'm a bit behind on reading and watching, but did either of you see the series "Space: Above and Beyond"? Only about 2 seasons, but explored AI as well as artificially grown humans.

Good series. Wish it had kept going.

Mob,

if you haven't checked 'em out already, there's none better than Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and Niven.

Speaking of Clarke, as in Arthur C., he pretty much wrote the best engineering plan I've heard of in terms of how to accomplish the interstellar trip in his book Rendezvous With Rama. In it, Rama is a giant spaceship which shows up in our solar system from points far off and we go reconnoitre (sp?).

The thing is a giant spinning cylinder, with acres of living space on the inside surface, with artificial gravity created by the spin. The whole thing is full of breathable air created by the living plants and other organisms in the carefully controlled ecosystem populating the inner surface. In the story, the object's creators have disappeared, which is a bit of a letdown to the reader, and rather anticlimactic, but I think Clarke just wanted to explore the engineering ideas as he wrote.

I don't recall the propulsion system employed, but it wouldn't be high yield. Low and constant thrust is the way to go.

I also read Clarke's "Rama" and "2001: A Space Odyssey", his Clarke's masterpiece. Both are excellent.

I prefer sci-fi movies to books. I've wasted a lot of time of sci-fi books that I end up hating. Like Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles". What a waste of time.

I'm sure they'll find many planets BETTER than Earth. If they ever get out there.

I'd be curious as to the many forms of DNA analogues we eventually run across.

Growing up, and what I see as my biggest failure as a person/abandonment of my dreams, was to be an astronaut.

Personally, I wouldn't mind spending my life on a star ship, exploring space. But, I suppose that's just me.

Some people will want to do this; some will want to settle on Mars, or L5 habitats, or Jovian mining colonies...and others will want to stay on terra firma.

Looking back at human history, for every explorer, there were probably 15 people who stayed put and made it possible for that 1 person to explore...and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

I'm right there with Mr. Atoz. I too wanted to be an astronaut, one of the guys sent away from Earth never to return. And it's got nothing to do with the conditions here on Earth. It's not like I want to "get away" from Earth. It's not like I think this place is a dump. Some people feel that way about Earth but I personally think this place and it's people are great. with all the hardships and crap happening I still think Earth is wonderful, but I have always dreamed of living and working in space. I have always wanted to see many planets and find new life forms and study things no one on Earth has seen or done. Earth is great but the Universe is Greater. Sadly, physical problems have prevented me from being an astronaut. I have lousy bone structure here on Earth so I wouldn't do well up in space. This is another reason I hope NASA and the world's space agencies develop ways of preventing bone and muscle loss. Those things could help millions here on Earth!

You've probably read the classic, "Space Cadet" by Robert Heinlein. That book spurred the imaginations of many science fiction writers. Gene Roddenberry was a big fan of Heinlein, going on to make Star Trek (TOS), my personal favorite.

The problem of traveling in space is that it will take sooooo-daaaaarrrrrn-loooooonnnng to get from place to place. Unless somebody can invent "warp drive", the time element is going to be a problem!

The Universe is so amazing! Billions and billions of galaxies. It blows my mind.

I actually have not read Space Cadet. I keep a list of suggestions people make of good sci-fi to read. I wasn't an avid reader when I was younger so I have a lot of catching up to do. For instance, I am in the middle of reading Fahrenheit 451 currently. Yeah, I know. lol So, thanks for the suggestion. My list of "to-read"s is already very long but I keep adding to it.

Wonderful comment Ed! Just the other day I read an article about how China has developed the faster supercomputer ever built. The team that built the previous fastest computer (in the U.S.) feels we can retake the title. Ray Kurtzweil is a futurist who makes some extraordinary claims about what will be possible in just 30 years time thanks to computing power. This is a crucial point in the history of mankind and I for one am glad to be alive.

lol, who wants to go to New Jersey?

I'm just kidding, I've never been to New Jersey so I shouldn't talk.

The people who can't stomach the idea of gentech are just going to have to get over it. It's going to happen. It's just like the argument over working with stem cells. The payoffs are just too great. The risks are also very great. But I for one am Pro-Gen-Tech.

The book was Man Plus. I think the author was Frederich Pohl ...

First time would almost certainly be a one way trip. When it becomes actually feasable, I'm sure there will be no lack of volunteers.

Nice post Bob. You've successfully integrated Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Excellent.

You honestly think everything hinges on the use of oil? You honestly have no faith in human ingenuity? Go sit in your dark room and waste away and take YOUR ignorance and pessimism with you. You think prior to the discovery oil humanity was "impotent"?? REALLY?

We don't use petroleum to lift to LEO. Adjusting our infrastructure to renewables will take time, but is totally do-able.

The problem I see is that our planet may not support life-as-we-know-it for much longer, so I actually DO agree with your pessimism, just for different reasons.

Oil and natural gas WILL eventually run out, but there's oodles of energy available every day, direct from the sun. It can be easily utilized to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, with which, one can power just about anything.

There is also nuclear fission, a technology which keeps getting better and better, as well as the long term possibility of eventually mastering hydrogen fusion. When we get that one figured out, the rest is cake.

One of the currently most-used "can'ts" is the huge expense.

Hello, Gates foundation! May I help you?

Yes, we have an interesting grant proposal we would like you to consider...