Star Tours And Space Travel How close is science fiction to reality?

[unicornrose 0]

We all or at least heard of Star Wars and Star Trek. If you have been to Disneyland you have probably been on the ride "Star Tours" Its a fun little ride that in theory you were going to tour around the moons and things but you end up in a star wars fight and going through some comets and all kinds of other neat stuff. Its a fantasy adventure in a ride. There are many other books and stories out there about this universe out there that is so darn big and beyond us. Look at Sci-Fi Channel's Stargate Series'. You can also see them on local tv. Its about round gates that can help you travel to other planets in your galaxy and other galaxies' planets. In addition to that there are also space ships. I honestly think we are alot closer to space travel than it may seem. Yes there is alot of danger involved but I think the progress is being made. Look at the space station for example. That is common place now. That happened in my lifetime. When I was little that did not exist at all. We have rovers on Mars and satalites that are traveling our own tiny universe and discovering things all the time. There is talk of another manned trip to the moon in the near future. In in the much futher future a manned trip to Mars. Its absolutely amazing to me that we are making such advances. There are many private as well as governmently funded scientists and technicians working on the problems and science behind pleasure as well as regular space exploration vessels. There is talk of a Space Holel that is to be built many years in the future. There is even talk of finding a way to colonize the moon. Colonizing the moon would be the first step in getting us off this planet and considering visiting and trying to colonize other planets. Science fiction talks about things like hyperdrive and light speed. These things are not in our reality yet. However I am sure there is some secret technicians out there trying to figure out a way to make it work. As soon as it has been figured out Man will find a way to become more knowledgable about the infinate universe. We will finally learn just how tiny we are in this great big universe. Imagine the possibilities. Thinkin of all the things that you can imagine. Tell me and everyone here about your thoughts.

[rlineker 0]

i cant wait for space travel and living on mars! atleast then we can move to a different planet, we need ligth travel first though

[amhso 0]

i think all we gotta do is make a fuel that's strong but abundant and we can go anywhere....just pack more fuel.

[Cerebral Stasis 0]

That's the general idea of any fuel, Amhso.Human presence in space will not come about the way Star Trek depicts it. Humanity is just too stingy to throw away money chasing stars (literally) for an indefinate period of time. Eventually, NASA will dry up (unless something like extraterrestrial life is discovered), since there is little or no profit, and very high expenses. On the other hand, space tourism may become the big thing within the next few decades, with the current concepts of Virgin Galatic to the plans for the Space Hotel. However, the only thing that will encourage Humans to move further from Earth than maybe the moon would be potential profit. For example, a fuel that is very rare on Earth, but is abundant elsewhere in the solar system.

[unicornrose 0]

That's the general idea of any fuel, Amhso.
Human presence in space will not come about the way Star Trek depicts it. Humanity is just too stingy to throw away money chasing stars (literally) for an indefinate period of time. Eventually, NASA will dry up (unless something like extraterrestrial life is discovered), since there is little or no profit, and very high expenses. On the other hand, space tourism may become the big thing within the next few decades, with the current concepts of Virgin Galatic to the plans for the Space Hotel. However, the only thing that will encourage Humans to move further from Earth than maybe the moon would be potential profit. For example, a fuel that is very rare on Earth, but is abundant elsewhere in the solar system.

Actually I have to disagree slightly with you. With the rate that the human population is growing and how polluted this earth is getting it will be to the human's advantage to find a way to explore the stars for not only natural resources but other habital planets. This planet will reach its capacity eventually. In the past when the human population became too much things happened to control the population. Like disease and war. Now days with all the modern advances in medicine alot of the diseases are kept in check. Wars are still happening. But the population is still increasing at an alarming rate. There are far more births than deaths. Because of all the things we have done the climate and the earth is experiencing many changes. There are also natural changes that are occuring. It will be prudent for humans to explore the galaxy to find other worlds to explore as well as find out if there are other living sentient species. Maybe even ones that are more advanced than us that will help us along the path of growth.

[shadowx 0]

I think its an interesting thought to be able to to somwhere like the moon and strap on some carbon fiber wings and just jump pout of a plane and glide in the lower gravity back to earth....but then we will all end up about 10 feet tall. On the other hand we could go somewhere like jupiter and all get crushed to ankle height!That would be a big problem. But if we can solve that then maybe it would make more sense but then isnt it kind of selfish? We destroy the planet we live on so we move, you might think thats fair enough but we arent the only things living on the planet and there is no way for every human on earth to move planets, so someone has got to stay behind and suffer the consequences of the rest of man kind along with the all the animals that live on earth. It would make humans the true definition of a virus, we live somewhere, wreck it untill it can no longer support us and then we move to another place and do the same. imagine the planets as cells in the body and we are the virus attacking them...But apart from all that it seems like great fun I also dont think it will be long before we can actually pay to go to the moon on a little trip, isnt there a plan for that already? i know they have the plan that exists the atmosphere and then re-enters again but im not sure about the trip to the moon thing.

[Cerebral Stasis 0]

Shadow, I don't know about "carbon-fiber wings", but people already hangglide and parachute here on Earth... remember?And Unicorn, the problem is that space exploration is expensive, and when I say expensive, I mean expensive as in too costly for any single country to manage it. Overcrowding really isn't as big of a problem as you think. True, in places such as Japan or China, people are crammed together like sardines in a can, but in the rural areas, such as where I live, there are hundreds if not thousands of square miles worth of emtpy grazing land, farm land, pastures, prairies, etc. If overcrowding did become such a problem that the human population could not fit on the land, it would be most efficient to move to the seas, since they not only cover the majority of the planet, but the undersea habitats would not be limited to two planes, it would be much cheaper and easier than space flight, there would be abundant food all around these habitats, etc. Space travel is just too expensive to really be useful, save for business.

[unicornrose 0]

I am very aware how expensive space travel is. it is crazy expensive. As far as overcrowding goes well yeah it does not seem like the earth is overcrowded when you live in a rural area. But seriously if you look at the world's population just 30 years ago when I was a child to what the world's population is now. And you would see that human population is growing at an extremely alarming rate. Yes we are "okay" right now. But I think that in between 50-100 yrs the population is going to be worse. Think about the billions of people that are here now. And quite a few but not all families are having on average two kids each. Think about this most people are living to be at least in their 80s. Some even older. As the population grows the space gets taken up by those people and as that grows so does the demand for food. As we loose more and more space that is more and mroe space that we are loosing for grazing land and land for planting of food. Yes there is a fair amount of deaths but unfortunately the death rate is far lower than the birth rate. Granted I am not really one to be a doomsday person. Its something that I am really passionate and alarmed about. This is where we live. It alarms me that we are slowly destroying it. I kind of like the virus analogy. We are like itty bitty viruses. And some of us are like the white blood cells trying to defend the cell our earth. LOL.Yes Space exploration is expensive and well it will be probably an extremely long time before there are any manned flights or walks on any other planet or space body besides the moon. But I trully believe that ultimately that is the goal of most space programs to get out there and see what this huge galaxy has to offer. As far as the Moon goes there is talk of another manned space flight in the next few years. I think 2008 but I could be wrong. I hope it happens. It would be totally amazing.

[Maou_Tsaou 0]

Granted I am not really one to be a doomsday person. Its something that I am really passionate and alarmed about. This is where we live. It alarms me that we are slowly destroying it. I kind of like the virus analogy. We are like itty bitty viruses. And some of us are like the white blood cells trying to defend the cell our earth. LOL.

What ever gave you the idea that this was something you would/could be responsable for?
I realise you mean well but isn't this atitude a bit arogant?
If "I" get placed in the virus catergory then I've got news.
Any white cell messes with me is in for a fight.
What gave you the right to decide good and evil?
Was it that fruit you picked?
Would you be willing to restore a puppy to life by having a boil on the bottom of your foot?
What about a rat?
It's because one's furry and one's hairy, isn't it?

Maybe Gaia Earth birthed us simply to take care of that BIG salad she ate in the carboniferous period?
You get the idea, She's fealing a little backed up so She makes us to act as a kind of laxative.
So we burn up all that sludgy stuff in Her bowels, She gets a little windy for a quick few Centuries (global warming), and wa-la!
These pipes are clean!
Of course, not needing mankind any longer, Mama Gaia "throws us off like a bad cold", as Carlin would say.

This view dosen't say much for my species, but then again neither does my species.

I think therefore I am only covers me, not you.

In the end that's really all I have too work on.

For what it's worth

Maou
Edited December 18, 2007 by Maou_Tsaou (see edit history)

[dre 0]

Well, to sum up my opinion, I believe that we gotta solve the problems at home before shelling our a couple trillion just to go see the stars. Now I know that touring the Solar System would be sweet, but in my opinion, saving the lives of millions of people quite easily with those same funds would be more worthwhile.

[FLaKes 0]

I saw a documentary in discovery once in which a person is currently working and doing research to have a space elevator before 2020. That was a really awesome documentary about the future and it also talked about how space is going to be used to provide clean energy by having some super solar cells absorbing energy from the sun and well this is just the beginning, I bet that we will be traveling throughout space between 2050 and 2100 if not even before that. It would be really awesome, I really hope it happens in my lifetime.