Possible caves found on *Mars*!

[laptop]

Interestingly, New Scientist ran a piece on why "we" must go into space and all the letters they've run are vehemently opposed...

 

[Belushi]

Interestingly, New Scientist ran a piece on why "we" must go into space and all the letters they've run are vehemently opposed...

we should send robots first

 

[Yossarian]

Hmmm, try reading that back to yourself and actually thinking about it.

That is, admittedly, assuming that my dock-jeering self 500 years was aware that the Vikings and others (not least the people who were actually living there at the time) had already 'discovered' the Americas long before.

 

[Belushi]

That is, admittedly, assuming that my dock-jeering self 500 years was aware that the Vikings and others (not least the people who were actually living there at the time) had already 'discovered' the Americas long before.

Why have you got theis bee in your bonnet about 'discovering' America?

You do understand why Columbus is important dont you?

 

[Gromit]

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, but still they come! Doodaloo doodaloo bah bah barh!

 

[Yossarian]

You do understand why Columbus is important dont you?

Sure - he led a mission looking for a sea route to Asia, blundered into the Caribbean instead, and was ultimately responsible for the launch of a campaign of exploitation and genocidal extermination that makes the Nazis look like amateurs.

I don't think he's a good example of an explorer who *didn't* deserve to be jeered at...

 

[Jonti]

Interestingly, New Scientist ran a piece on why "we" must go into space and all the letters they've run are vehemently opposed...

But ... but ... we're *already* in space. That's where the Earth is, and no mistake. Milky Way Galaxy, unfashionable Western Spiral Arm, about 30,000 light years from Galactic Central Point.

I think NS should be told!!

 

[editor]

Nothing wrong with expanding knowledge, etc - I just think anyone who believes that the future of the human race is going to be dependent on a lot of mining on Mars, travelling to new stars to colonise new planets, etc, has probably been watching a bit too much science fiction!

Right. So the future is a growing population endlessly quarrelling over our little strips of land on Earth while busily burning ups its non renewable resources and trashing our little ecosphere until its totally fucked?

Doesn't look too much of a future to me.

 

[editor]

Sure - he led a mission looking for a sea route to Asia, blundered into the Caribbean instead, and was ultimately responsible for the launch of a campaign of exploitation and genocidal extermination that makes the Nazis look like amateurs. .

By that convultuted argument, Adam and Eve would be the globe's biggest killahs evah!

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

It's an absolute crying shame that NASA's budget isn't 800 billion, instead of 8.

though if they could find a military application then it would be...

I wonder if there's anything still alive and if it could live on earth...

Though i guess tp would want a mars pet instantly...

 

[laptop]

But ... but ... we're *already* in space. That's where the Earth is, and no mistake. Milky Way Galaxy, unfashionable Western Spiral Arm, about 30,000 light years from Galactic Central Point.

I think NS should be told!!

[email protected]

 

[Yossarian]

By that convultuted argument, Adam and Eve would be the globe's biggest killahs evah!

He went there, claimed the land to Spain, returned and reported to Spain, and led missions back there with Spanish settlers and soldiers, and was directly, personally, responsible for atrocities against the natives on the island of Hispaniola during his time as governor there - I don't think it's particularly convoluted logic to blame him for getting the ball rolling for Spanish atrocities against the native people of the New World!

 

[Yossarian]

Right. So the future is a growing population endlessly quarrelling over our little strips of land on Earth while busily burning ups its non renewable resources and trashing our little ecosphere until its totally fucked?

Doesn't look too much of a future to me.

That's what's happening today, and will be happening next week, next year, and next decade so of course its future.

People getting into gigantic interstellar spacecraft and going off to settle some new Earth somewhere sounds more than a little fanciful to me, but I suppose an extremely remote possibility exists that it *might* be the future.

I definitely wouldn't consider packing tens of millions of, say, landless Indian peasants into some yet-to-be invented spacecraft and sending them off to some yet-to-be discovered planet a realistic solution to things like population growth and resource shortage, particularly since we're many decades away from even getting *one* person as far as Mars!

Even if some credulity-stretching scientific breakthroughs were to happen before the planet was fucked beyond repair and colonisation of other planets by the human race was to happen, if they couldn't look after their own planet successfully, wouldn't they rapidly make just as big a mess of whatever other planet they went to?

I don't think the future of the human race is going to lie anywhere but on Earth. This planet is ideally suited to the needs of humanity in every way and humanity couldn't ask for a better one - it's the one people evolved on, after all. The only thing actually *wrong* with it is the complete inability of the people living on it to properly take care of it and to live with each other in harmony, and I don't see how terraforming Mercury, movng on mass to Alpha Centauri, or whatever it was you had in mind is going to make those problems disappear.