The age of technology - where are we going?

[Workingman]

A few things have cropped up over the past few years that have got me asking questions. They appear unrelated, at first glance, but what if they are not?

I will start with the Hubble telescope and its successor, the Kepler telescope. Hubble was to allow us to see as far back in time as we could. Kepler is tasked with finding planets in the "goldilocks" zone, where liquid water can exist.

A manned mission to Mars. It has long been on the cards as Mars has fascinated us for eons. It is part of our psyche.

A Moonbase, or two. China and the ESA are at work getting these projects up and running.

Landing spacecraft on comets and asteroids. This has already been done.

The Large Hadron Collider at Cern trying to discover new particles and ultimately solving the Big Bang.

The latest discovery that gravitational waves in spacetime exist, proving that black holes are not what we originally thought. Wormhole theory will be getting a new look because of this - the implications are massive.

All of these things working independently give us really good science, but what if they are not independent?

Take Kepler. It has discovered over a thousand planets and a few could be Earth Mk2, but so what? They are hundreds or thousands of light-years away. We can never get to them....

A Mars mission. It would prove that we can get to Mars and set up a colony, but then what?

Same with a Moonbase, or is it? The Moon's gravity is 1/6 that of Earth's so things can accelerate away six times faster or be six times the mass for the same propulsion. A Moonbase ties in well with mining comets and asteroids.

Cern's particle physics works well with gravitational waves as we look into the very small and the Universally big. Together they might lead to proving or disproving Wormhole theory. If it is proved then Kepler's mission to find habitable planets becomes a lot more than academic, as do the building of colonies and deep-space mining.

Are we being told the whole truth?

[Aggers]

I do think that these astral scientists talk a lot of rubbish.

This 'Big Bang' nonsense for instant, when they claim that 'it all began'.
Not one of them can answer the simple and, to anyone but an idiot,
obvious question, "What was there before this so-called Big Bang?
I think it is disgraceful that so much money is wasted on this subject.

[Workingman]

The Big Bang question is in the same league as the God question with regards to what came before. Both cannot be logically answered.

What I am wondering is why we are putting so much time, effort and resources into all things space when we have much bigger problems right here, right now. Apart from academic knowledge what good can it do to know that there is another "Earth" out there when we can never get to it?

Or can we?

Are there good reasons to think that all of this expensive research and hardware is leading us somewhere? There were reports some time back that NASA with its EmDrive might have accidentally broken the speed of light - apparently impossible. There is a fair chance of a misreading but even so the LHC at Cern is already accelerating particles to only 7mph short of the speed of light. Wormholes might really exist, the theory is very solid. Combine everything and Star Trek might not be as Sci-Fi as we think.

[Suff]

WM you did miss the point that a space elevator from the moon, with our current level of technology, is not only possible but relatively easy. Which changes the pattern again.

I, personally, think that the blue sky thinkers have already written off planet earth as a habitation for the future of the species. Simply put, we have proven in the last 3 decades that we are too stupid to inherit the earth. We know that our current path is likely to wipe out the species, not just from sea level rises and droughts and fires and inundation by incredible rainstorms. But from the inevitable wars driven by a public who don't want to understand they just want to have everything and for everything to keep on as they are. Naturally both are impossible but try telling the general public. Add to the public insanity unscrupulous power mongers willing to use any means to foment war and thus gain power and the picture is complete.

I don't believe we are being told the whole truth. But then neither are the scientists and that wouldn't be the first time would it? I know a scientist who worked at CERN on the previous collider before the LHR. They fully believed that they were working ONLY on knowledge to drive science. Whether the powers paying for this have ever believed that is, in my opinion, highly unlikely.

However, whatever they do, they are going to have to have a reactionless drive to achieve what they want and that is simply not there. Fusion and Fusion drive may be possible if they ever get there, but I'm betting reactionless. That way they don't need to carry fuel, just store and use power.

Interesting subject though.

[Aggers]

I, personally, think that the blue sky thinkers have already written off planet earth as a habitation for the future of the species. Simply put, we have proven in the last 3 decades that we are too stupid to inherit the earth. We know that our current path is likely to wipe out the species.

Now, that does make sense, Suff.

[Workingman]

WM you did miss the point that a space elevator from the moon, with our current level of technology, is not only possible but relatively easy. Which changes the pattern again.

I sort of hinted at it when I mentioned lunar gravity and our ability to build things six times the mass for the same propulsion. If an elevator can be tethered out to micro-gravity we can build what we like in flat-pack form, hence a Moonbase or three.

I think that I might see the start of a Moonbase being built.

[Suff]

Me too. For all the talk about poor economic Times, vast sums are being poured into this.

I know that Japan has had to turn to the sea for mineral resources denied them by China.