Re: An interesting question for IP?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: John Levine [johnl () iecc com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 10:56 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: John Kemp
Subject: Re: [IP] An interesting question for IP?

> Why are we not trying harder to colonize the rest of the universe? Or
> are we trying hard enough, and if so, what exactly are we doing?

The short, snarky answer is "because Star Trek is science fiction, not
science."  Sending people to other planets isn't like putting them on
a boat and shipping them to Australia.

There are reasons to do space exploration, but moving people to other
planets is not one of them.  The only other place in the solar system
that is even vaguely earth-like is Mars, and it is far more hostile to
human life than the earth will be under even the most pessimistic
earthly global warming scenarios.  Then there's Venus, the worst case
of global warming -- if we could do anything there, it'd be a snap to
fix the earth.  Just getting a few people to Mars is

Beyond the solar system, the distances are impossibly large.  The laws
of relativity remain in effect, so there's no way to get to even the
nearest stars, none of which appear to have hospitable planets, in a
plausible time frame.  Ten thousand year voyages make fun sci-fi, but
absurd engineering problems.

So unless you think the earth is doomed to end before we can do anything
about it, it behooves us to deal with the problems we have here.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl () iecc com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.




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