Will humans one day venture to the stars?

[EvanB]

Hey guys! This is just my fifth post here on SDC, and am already lovin' it!

Well, lets get right to it: Will humans one day venture to the stars? This is the topic of my research paper for AP English III.
Simply, yes or no? If you could support your answer with a little bit of reasoning, I would highly appreciate it. This isn't me asking you to give me everything I need for the paper, I am sincerely interested and fascinated by what you guys have to say.

Thanks a lot!

"The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars." -Carl Sagan

 

[bdewoody]

If we manage to survive a few more centuries without blowing ourselves to kingdom come then yes I believe we will eventually try to go to other star systems. Probably at first in generation pilgrim ships with little or no hope of ever returning to earth or even ever having contact with the home planet.

As far as star travel as depicted in SciFi movies goes I have my doubts but deep down inside I hold forth some hope that some means of side stepping the speed of light speed limit can be found and engineered. If it can be done we will find a way to do it.

 

[amshak]

If you ask me , yes.
One day we are going to reach the stars. there is Centaury System Just 4.5 Light years away. then there is Goldilocks-
For the first time, astronomers have spotted a cosy alien planet that might be hospitable to life. The planet is not much bigger than the Earth, and it enjoys balmy temperatures of about 20° C (68° F) as well as spectacular scarlet sunsets. It orbits a small, dim "red dwarf" star called Gliese 581, which lies 20.5 light years away, This may be our star to visit. So ones we manage to find a light speed travelling technology , Its a piese of cake. But 20 years of travelling may be too long, But we can manage. I am just 15 years , but I am trying to implimenting such technology. I had made my own researh. and according to my researh Production of electricity is piece of cake.
Dont worry EvanB I'll make your dreams possible.

 

[crazyeddie]

Well, lets get right to it: Will humans one day venture to the stars? This is the topic of my research paper for AP English III.
Simply, yes or no? If you could support your answer with a little bit of reasoning, I would highly appreciate it.

Well, there's nothing impossible about interstellar travel. We could build an Orion-class starship right now, but it would only be able to achieve a few percent of lightspeed, so it would be a very long journey, even to the nearest star. I'm sure that in a few centuries, propulsion technology will be able to do better than that, but any way you look at it, interstellar travel will be very, very expensive and time-consuming. That makes it possible, but not yet practical. But someday, after our technology improves and we expand the human presence to other worlds in our solar system, it will be practical to consider an interstellar voyage, so my answer is "yes". It won't happen in our lifetimes, though, or even in our grandchildren's.

 

[Couerl]

No, we're not going anywhere.

 

[nimbus]

Because we're all 40-some years old and too le-tired.

 

[amshak]

The prenent problem to make an intersteller travel delayes because we cannot provide suffisient energy For the Space Ships to travell Faster. But we can impliment it in the future. Some research on Electromagnetism Like Cosmic rays, or any other means we may achive this in the Future . We have made to Moon And soon to Mars, and so can we do Interstellar travels

 

[kelvinzero]

If we do not make ourselves extinct, I expect we would certainly be doing this within the next thousand years, possibly much much sooner.

one question though is will we still be human?

There are a range of technologies we are likely to perfect well in advance of interstellar travel that may challenge our definitions of human.

We may be immortal
We may be genetically engineered to fit our environment.
We may be so confident in our ability to regrow organs that we elect to travel as little more than brains in bottle.
We may have mastered the ability to move our conciousness into virtual environments.
Our methods of communication between individuals may have advanced to the point where we have a sort of networked hive conciousness.
We may have mastered artificial bodies that are far superior to human, especially in space.
We may have created AI that are exponentially smarter than humans.

...and so on. Although I think interstellar travel is certainly possible, what will we look like after facing all these choices?

In the mean time, there is plenty to explore right here in this solar system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_So ... ts_by_size

 

[amshak]

We may be immortal
We may be genetically engineered to fit our environment.

I dont see how in future we will become immortal . In the future , we should not even attempt to devolop a technology to live more than 90 years . And if we succeded It becomes worse . The result is over populated Earth . [but it already happened a little bit now]
But first If we have to venture to stars we have to Devolop a technology to resist the calamities , may be the astroyeds , Commets etc.

 

[Couerl]

we should not even attempt to devolop a technology to live more than 90 years .

Whenever someone tells me "we shouldn't" do something it makes me want to do it even more. :geek:

 

[neilsox]

There is a large and profitable market for good health at age 90. This is happening and living longer will be the result, even if it leads to over population of Earth. We don't need to be immortal, but a few thousand years average life span would be a big help for traveling to the stars. We are not even close to interstellar travel at present. Technology may continue rapid advance long term, making even the unimaginable within our grasp. Possibly 1969 was the pinnacle of human success and it is down hill from here on. Some of the resent trends are frightening/discouraging. Neil