Space, the final frontier!

There seems to be a lot of doom and gloom on ATS lately. So With the upcoming Mars rover landing, sparked some thinking on my part that I would love to share with the ATS community.

There is a lot of problems with the world today, a global recession looming and unemployment on the rise. There are not very many workable solutions being fielded these days that make any sense for me (maybe most people).
This got me thinking about how we as a people could band together like never before, Improve our world and solve some of the problems that we as a species are facing.

Space it really is the last unknown, as our technology increases our world gets smaller and smaller. Unemployment is on the rise and the threat of a global money meltdown is looking more and more like a real possibility. The best way to combat this is two fold, create the infrastructure needed to support a massive never before seen global effort to colonize as well as commercialize space.

This will create millions of jobs in a relatively short time. The next thing we would need to do is start training the people to go up, and I'm not talking about sending up college stiffs or only a select few. I'm talking about sending up every one that would be needed for such a massive undertaking. From the miners to the janitors needed for day to day space operations.

This would be a start of a world unity the likes of which have never been seen. Bring together people from all walks of life, all religions, regardless of age, sex, sexual preference, race or creed. Mankind working together for the betterment of our lives and to enrich them at the same time.

This would end problems we are facing on a massive scale, from overpopulation to resource scarcity The jobs this would create alone would be worth looking at it. The lives enriched, the unknown explored. It is only a matter of time, before this stops being optional and starts being mandatory as economic and populations problems become almost insurmountable to accomplish.

I'm aware of the many problems this would temporally create, but the risk vs gain that we would get in the long run would be more than worth it.

There are people from all walks of life here on ATS, I threw my ideal out there, hoping for the interaction, exchange of ideals, the hope that the right person/persons can read this and send it up the chain of command. to brighten up the doom and gloom here on ATS and give us some thing to strive and hope for in the future.

If I posted this in the wrong section/forum let me know and move it. Which ever is preferable to the mods.

Thank you for allowing me to share with you, my hope for the future.

As always
The Grim Reaper..

To paraphrase the Bard... the solution lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.

I don't see space as the final frontier no more than I see the ocean as the entirety of what it contains.\

We're still finding things on our earth that boggle the imagination.

Space, is like looking over the ocean. Who knows what we could find under it's surface. Every planet, as devoid of life as it is, has a story.

the only time we find the final frontier, is when we die.

reply to post by BlueMule


Oh yeah...

THis might just be the most epic quote I've ever read:

Ambassador: What are you doing, Mr. Spock?
Spock: Practicing a peculiar variety of diplomacy, sir. [Fires phaser]

Kirk: Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided.

Kirk: Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on.

Kirk: [War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill - today!

Spock: Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.
Kirk: Why, Mr Spock! You almost make me believe in miracles!

From:
"A Taste of Armageddon"
Star Trek: The Original Series

en.wikiquote.org...:_The_Original_Series#A_Taste_of_Armageddon

The majority of the planet is ocean and man has yet to touch foot on the bottom. Let's finish exploring this planet before we go looking for a new one. Who knows what lies in the depths of the ocean, i for one would like too.

I think that before we look to the stars we should first go to the depths.

If we can conquer the extreme mechanical obstacles of building craft and equipment that can withstand crush depths of over 10000 feet and more, then there is very little in the heavens that should give us pause, engineering wise.

Besides, we know for certain there are creatures in the depths we have yet to see and could hardly imagine.

I'm all for going to space. I love to see rockets launch and men circling the world in zero gravity. But I would rather we started investing heavily into deep sea research and come to a greater understanding and appreciation of our own planet before we start 'boldy going' into the cosmos.

Originally posted by lokdog
The majority of the planet is ocean and man has yet to touch foot on the bottom. Let's finish exploring this planet before we go looking for a new one. Who knows what lies in the depths of the ocean, i for one would like too.

I for one think this ocean exploration excuse is used way too much. Every time someone says, hey space is right up there and were still not really doing much with it, someone says "The oceans are only a fraction of the way explored!"

This is completely true, and I'm sure that there are some very interesting fish and micro organisms/bacteria ect that manage to live very deep down in the hot vents and all of that, but honestly, none of that is gonna help us explore space. Sure, once we land on Mars or Titan and look for evidence of life, we can use that information, but what makes more sense:

Sit on our butts and explore the ocean for a couple more decades, let's say we make break through discoveries and by 2030 we know so much more about micro life and such. Then we decide to start improving our presence in space, which may take another few decades.

Or...

Start building up our space infrastructure NOW, so that when we do make these breakthrough discoveries on our own planet, in a more feasible amount of time, we are ready to go explore the oceans of Titan in 2035, instead of 2065.

Originally posted by brendanj207

Originally posted by lokdog
The majority of the planet is ocean and man has yet to touch foot on the bottom. Let's finish exploring this planet before we go looking for a new one. Who knows what lies in the depths of the ocean, i for one would like too.

I for one think this ocean exploration excuse is used way too much. Every time someone says, hey space is right up there and were still not really doing much with it, someone says "The oceans are only a fraction of the way explored!"

This is completely true, and I'm sure that there are some very interesting fish and micro organisms/bacteria ect that manage to live very deep down in the hot vents and all of that, but honestly, none of that is gonna help us explore space. Sure, once we land on Mars or Titan and look for evidence of life, we can use that information, but what makes more sense:

Sit on our butts and explore the ocean for a couple more decades, let's say we make break through discoveries and by 2030 we know so much more about micro life and such. Then we decide to start improving our presence in space, which may take another few decades.

Or...

Start building up our space infrastructure NOW, so that when we do make these breakthrough discoveries on our own planet, in a more feasible amount of time, we are ready to go explore the oceans of Titan in 2035, instead of 2065.

I fully agree with this one here. I do believe we are making steps forward in doing that. A project known as Mars One has plans to colonize Mars by 2023 and every two years after that expand Mars One's population.

Mars One

Mission Blueprint:
2011 - Suppliers contacted for required mission components.
2013 - Astronaut selection and training begin.
2014 - First Mars communication satellite begins construction.
2016, January - Supply mission launched.
2016, October - Supply ship lands on Mars surface
2018 - Mars One rover deployed.
2021 - All components for settlement reach destination.
2022 - Mars One colony atmosphere ready to accept colonists.
2022, September 14 - Astronauts launched.
2023 - First human beings on Mars.
2025, June - Second group of colonists land, colony area expanded.

I feel space can only be really conquered with an extremely fast travel machine. On the star trek theme like the transporter.
We need to be looking at habitable planets. Not because I think we need to but it seems pointless to be there just mining for this world.

On another thought I feel VR offers another way for us to evolve. That's probably better for a thread on that though.

VR is closest but less desirable to me directly. Transporters of some type will take a leap of technology still.