91–100 of 330 posts
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This comment encapsulates how poorly we humans are at accepting unknowns. For me, that explains a lot of our belief systems. The fact we can’t just take the unknown but instead have to fill in the blanks with what ifs. and create a narrative like we know anything about the unknown thing. It helps us feel like we understand it more. That’s literally how religions and a lot of other things get created, it’s a pattern,…
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We should build a solar lens telescope. By the time we're ready to use it, we'll have a bunch of candidates to point it at.
There's a project that's going well from NASA for this. Still a moonshot but they've progressed through the early stages well so far. https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-s...
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laser propelled solar sails are the only plausible solution at the moment and it is not a given that even that is possible. Lots of engineering challenges there that may not have solutions. other ideas: 1. be way more patient 2. anti matter based propulsion (more out there than solar sails) 3. nuclear bomb based propulsion One issue is as you get to these speed little bits of dust will anhillate the probe, so you nee…
Interstellar travel is probably not ever going to happen. Even if we have antimatter propulsion (which is still probably not practical even under ideal circumstances), we’re still talking hundreds of years of travel time to get to somewhere like this star. This also goes for aliens visiting Earth. Interstellar travel is just so impractical that I don’t think anyone has come on safari to Earth.
Sure, but keep in mind that technically New Jersey is "habitable," so don't get too excited.
Florida is the typical and deserved target.
and blaming Canada.
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Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff.
> Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff. Not really, unless you're obsessed with the idea that great works need to happen within your lifetime. Europe is chock full of cathedrals that took 400-600 years to build, worked on by countless generations who would never live to see them completed.
Unless we have generational ships the size of small countries, I'm not sure the human brain - unaided and non-forcedly evolved to do so - would be able to handle essential incarceration in a series of metal tubes for its own and its descendents existences.
We should build a solar lens telescope. By the time we're ready to use it, we'll have a bunch of candidates to point it at.
There's a project that's going well from NASA for this. Still a moonshot but they've progressed through the early stages well so far. https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-s...
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There's a project that's going well from NASA for this. Still a moonshot but they've progressed through the early stages well so far. https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-s...
What would a 25km resolution of earth look like
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There's a project that's going well from NASA for this. Still a moonshot but they've progressed through the early stages well so far. https://www.nasa.gov/general/direct-multipixel-imaging-and-s...
I wonder about all the extraterrestrial AI swarms that have already imaged earth. Surely it has happened. They must have all spotted our planet millions of years ago and must be watching us with a continuous high-resolution feed. They've seen our dinosaurs. Their interest will really be piqued when they finally see us invent electricity, though that might be some time in the future for them. Perhaps even gravitationa…
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> Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff. Not really, unless you're obsessed with the idea that great works need to happen within your lifetime. Europe is chock full of cathedrals that took 400-600 years to build, worked on by countless generations who would never live to see them completed.
The difference there being that at the end of your day, having spent it masoning, you could leave the cathedral and go back to your family and have a walk in the fields and drink and be merry with people loved and new. The project wasn't the entiriety of your existence, it was merely the means to pay for it. Unless we have generational ships the size of small countries, I'm not sure the human brain - unaided and non-…
Provided the Earthlings that were sent along don't let their incarceration induced insanity infect the youngin's.