Stephen Hawking: Human Race Should GTFO or Die

[Rhyis.]

But it makes you sound deep... Which gets you chicks. And isn't that what the universe is really about?

[Kuya]

The universe is about fucking hot chicks.

[BerenTebogo]

That is the only truth that matters.

[SephYuyX]

I bet hawking believes in global warming.

[Zeh]

What really blows my mind is how we view the past, different eras etc. but if you look at the universe as a whole nothing has happened, just some shit on a random marble. That sort of thinking just makes my life feel worthless, but, eh. Back to the grind tomorrow!

[Mayareira]

We should do the Universe a favor and fade out of existence here.

Go ahead man we'll follow you.

[Max™]

Everything interesting that will ever happen in the Universe, already happened within the first three seconds or so.

All the rest of history has been a slow winding down, the best days of the Universe are long behind it, lost somewhere back there in the afterglow of the singularity unfurling.

Spoiler: show

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithab...e-universe.gif

http://dsc.discovery.com/space/top-1...ng-625x450.jpg

http://kisd.de/~krystian/starmap/ <=fucking holy shit wtfamazingly badass, the 32 nearby stars (within 14 light years) in a 3D map you can move with the mouse (click/drag) or zoom in/out, with mouseover data of the stars, and links to the wiki regarding them.

We may see people visiting some of these in our lifetime, we will probably see automated probes at least launched towards them.

Voyager 1 and 2 haven't crossed a distance visible on the scale of this map from the sun, all of the planets are lost in the glare of Sol at this scale.

[archibaldcrane]

the 32 nearby stars (within 14 light years) in a 3D map you can move with the mouse (click/drag) or zoom in/out, with mouseover data of the stars, and links to the wiki regarding them.

We may see people visiting some of these in our lifetime

lolno

[Draylo]

Reminds me of that movie where they send that ship out to colonize a planet that was similar to earth and it had the people living through generations to make it there.

[Rhinox]

lolno

hahahahahaha

Unceremoniously and very effective.


well done.

[Tsuko_Asura]

.

wtf@ your sig

[Max™]

lolno

Put enough lasers in orbit around the sun, point them all at the sail on a ship, dump energy at it. Using technology that isn't really a great leap from what we have today, you could push a sail ship out to Proxima in a matter of decades assuming you maintained thrust long enough.

Assuming we figure out how to produce decent quantities of antimatter, such a drive could push a ship up to the 1 G for sustained periods needed to reach local stars within decades as well.

It isn't as far out there as you might think, the hard part is keeping thrust up long enough to reach the required velocities. We could do this, it just takes motivation to get out there and do it, compare the technology we used to slap together the Apollo program to what we have today.

Extrapolate modern tech 10 to 15 years further ahead, assuming a motivated effort to push out into space, and you could have programs started within the next 30 to 50 years that could put a human in orbit of another star within another 30 to 50 years. Barring accident or disease, and allowing for medicine to continue at just it's current pace, living to 90 shouldn't be that out of the ordinary, I'd be 90 in 2070.



Hell, toss lumps of asteroid at a ship with a catcher mechanism (picture someone juggling fast enough to hold someone catching the juggled items up with the stream), no need to carry propellant, spend all the energy moving the shit at home, to send thrust elsewhere? Awesome.

Warning: all of these methods of space travel would make better weapons than transportation.


Note: I do NOT consider NASA doing any of this realistic, as I said, NASA will not do anything to help the citizens of the nation it works for leave the jurisdiction of said nation.

NASA sending a laser sail probe to another star? Sure, people? No way, never fucking happen, that isn't what NASA does.

[Obev]

Well, the past 100 years were a great leap, and the 100 years before that was a big leap, so it would only seem logical to assume that this 100 years is going to be just as great - that is assuming that we don't kill ourself, of course.

iPads are the technological singularity.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Put enough lasers in orbit around the sun, point them all at the sail on a ship, dump energy at it. Using technology that isn't really a great leap from what we have today, you could push a sail ship out to Proxima in a matter of decades assuming you maintained thrust long enough.

Assuming we figure out how to produce decent quantities of antimatter, such a drive could push a ship up to the 1 G for sustained periods needed to reach local stars within decades as well.

It isn't as far out there as you might think, the hard part is keeping thrust up long enough to reach the required velocities. We could do this, it just takes motivation to get out there and do it, compare the technology we used to slap together the Apollo program to what we have today.

Extrapolate modern tech 10 to 15 years further ahead, assuming a motivated effort to push out into space, and you could have programs started within the next 30 to 50 years that could put a human in orbit of another star within another 30 to 50 years. Barring accident or disease, and allowing for medicine to continue at just it's current pace, living to 90 shouldn't be that out of the ordinary, I'd be 90 in 2070.



Hell, toss lumps of asteroid at a ship with a catcher mechanism (picture someone juggling fast enough to hold someone catching the juggled items up with the stream), no need to carry propellant, spend all the energy moving the shit at home, to send thrust elsewhere? Awesome.

Warning: all of these methods of space travel would make better weapons than transportation.


Note: I do NOT consider NASA doing any of this realistic, as I said, NASA will not do anything to help the citizens of the nation it works for leave the jurisdiction of said nation.

NASA sending a laser sail probe to another star? Sure, people? No way, never fucking happen, that isn't what NASA does.

It's a rare condition, this day and age,
to read any good science on the wikipedia page.
Love and tradition of the grand design,
some people say it's even harder to find.

Well then there must be some mathmatic clue inside these tearful walls
Cause all I see is a tower of dreams
real tries burstin' out of every seam.

As days go by,
we're gonna fill our house with happiness.
The moon may cry,
we're gonna smother the threads with science fiction.

When days go by,
there's room for you,
room for me,
for gentle hearts an opportunity.

As days go by,
it's the internet autism love of BG

[Zieara]

Man, you guys are easy. Only took one sentence to set you off. Let's see what 3 do.

[Mizango]

[Takedown3]

page 2 and max is already on his tare about mining the belt again

i dont doubt just a bit funny is all

[Max™]

Technically Hawking is on a tear about mining the belt, that is a precursor step to any serious off world colonization activities.

Not that I've ever given serious thought to the subject, I'm just parroting what I find on wikipedia, after all.

[Effluo]

I feel the first step to any real large scale space exploration/colonization is building zero gravity manufacturing. It has been show many materials manufactured on Earth are very different when made in a zero G/micro G environment. We've got private industry working to get commercial passengers into space and I hope it isn't long before those flights become routine and possibly in something the size of a 787. Once we can reliably get a large workforce into space, I look forward to when we can actually put them to work.

[Max™]

http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI116.HTM
http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI1161.GIF

LAUNCH LOOP


A closed loop made of laminated iron ribbon is continuously launched to space by an asynchronous linear motor. The motor consists of high-frequency electromagnets producing an undulating magnetic field. The field moves at 14 km/s -- only slightly faster than the loop. The loop returns to the Earth at a place 2600 km away from the motor, to be accelerated by another motor and deflected by a magnet back to outer space. A sheath surrounding the loop eliminates aerodynamic drag. Cargo is transported by maglev trains riding on the loop. The launch loop may be damaged by wind, lightning, and icing. A large hole in the sheath results in a spectacular display of fireworks, but most of the sheath remains intact and descends on parachutes. The minimum mass (for 1-ton cargo) is 104 tons. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Keith H. Lofstrom, "The launch loop -- a low cost Earth-to-high orbit launch system," AIAA Paper 85-1368, 1985 (PDF file, 260 kB).

http://www.orionsarm.com/im_store/spacefountain.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ntain-v1.1.png

This is the first step, rockets are a HORRIBLE way to get out of the gravity well, and a space elevator requires material science far more advanced than we have now.

The upside is, this could be used to propel ships as well.

You could use a system like this to push waystations out, to send blocks of reaction mass out, whatnot.

Picture manufacturing fuel for a rocket in the asteroid belt, building one of these on a large asteroid, and funneling momentum to a craft with a system like this, accelerate the craft by tossing fuel to it/laser sails/calculate how long you need to do this for a deceleration/return trip to be feasible. Send the fuel out after the ship is already en route, as it slows down, the reaction material catches up, refuels it, and lets you use the wasteful stage to get home, rather than trying to bring all the material with you/having to move it using material carried on board the ship.

Space isn't a perfect vacuum, but it's close enough to make something like this viable, and the worst case is you will get some fuel/momentum carrying packages deflected/lost.

You could use something like this to send out/maintain laser relays further out into space to boost journeys easier.

Bootstrap our way out into the galaxy bit by bit.


You're totally right though, this is all sci fi, it isn't like we have the technology to throw rocks long distances or anything...

http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/catapult.gif

FORSOOTH, WHAT MANNER OF WIZARDRY IS THIS?