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Last Day of Terrestrial Humans
A reader writes: "According to Christian Science Monitor, tomorrow humans will begin their permanent lives off of earth. Starting with the Expedition 1 launch in Kazakhstan at 7:53 GMT, Oct. 31, NASA plans to always have a human on the ISS, which has a projected mission life of 10 to 25 years. So, it is quite possible, that for the rest of history, there will always be humans who are not living on earth. See this ISS Homepage for more information on the mission."
Dude, passage of laws like the DMCA indicate that there is already a measurable segment of humanity who aren't living on this planet.
-Rob
This isn't terribly likely. Life in space is entirely based on life on Earth. Hence, space living, though outside the atmosphere, is subject to whatever political and financial winds are blowing.
Whether it is because of a technical failure that causes evacuation, funding crisis that leaves it unmanned for a time, or political upheaval that removes support, the odds are highly in favor of there being a time with no humans in space within the next 20 years.
What will change this is when life in space is self-sustaining. Then it will no longer be subject to terrestrial issues.
Who I'd like to see live off of earth.
Well, we'd probably have a permanent station on Mars in a year if Al Sharpton would volunteer to go and not come back.
Seriously, this really could be the dawn of a new era. I've always considered the most noticable thing about humanity is our pure, unadulterated wanderlust.
We were hardly up on our hind feet before we started spreading all over the globe. Long before history began we had spread to the far corners of the globe.
Think about that. Not modern man, but man three feet tall with only the tools that he could fashion with his bare hands simply wandered into nearly every corner of globe. Just when, and HOW, did man first reach Australia?
We travel. Tourism is a major activity. We build bypasses so people at point A can get to point B, and vice versa, for no real reason. We go places for no more reason than " we havn't been THERE before."
When a cat gets bored it takes a nap. When a person gets bored * it paces. * It goes for a walk, it * goes SOMEWHERE.*
UP is the only place left to go, and it's about time we got down to it. Not for science, not for population pressure relief, not to 'save the whales', not for financial gain, but because we are human, and that's what humans DO!
If I spend a year on the ISS...do I have to pay taxes for my income that year?
Here is a related but pessimistic prediction: before I die, there will be no living person who has walked on the moon. This seems incredibly sad to me.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.