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Shoemaker-Levy Fragment's Impact Quantified
shotnicam writes: "[Here] is an article about particle G of the recent Shoemaker-Levy comet which slammed into Jupiter with the equivalent of 6,000,000 megatons of energy, more than 600 times the arsenal of the world. Also a bit of commentary on evolution, our progress so far, and what we have left to do." Good thing this hit a few planets over.
I suspect if we can make it off planet and establish viable populations of terrestrial life elsewhere in the solar system we'll have more than enough time to spread far enough to avoid the nasty side effects of Alpha Centauri going BOOM in a few billion years.
As I recall according to theory a supernova within twenty light years would release enough radiation to extinguish most life on Earth.
If we can spread out thirty light years I'd wager we can be around until entropy makes life impossible. Even travelling at the best speeds attainable today the entire galaxy could be explored and settled within half the amount of time that hominids have been around on Earth.
Assuming no major impacts within the next fifty years, no supernovae within the next thousand years, and no Darwinian cul-de-sac lurking in our genes I am pretty certain two million years from now some distantly-related Earthlife creature will look up at a sky full of stars and have a difficult time finding one that has NOT been visited by at least a hominid-originated robotic presence.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
I would like to see the money we are spending on the international space station go to creating an international moon-base. If we create two compartments, one for humans and one for other animals (like Biosphere), we would be able to study how the radiation of space affects living things, what can adapt, and what can't, etc.
The ISS is still a pretty necessary first step. It gives us a place nearby where we can test most of our habitat technology without being out of rescue range, and we can study radiation effects just as easily there as on the moon. It also lets us further study the effects of microgravity, which we'll need to have a very good handle on before attempting a Mars mission (for most craft designs I've heard about, at least).
The ISS is also an excellent launch platform and docking station for lunar-orbit craft. This would let you use ion- or plasma-drive craft that wouldn't be able to land to move easily between earth- and lunar-orbit and back, establish a permanent space station around the _moon_, and in general make the logistics of earth/moon travel and lunar exploration/colonization much easier.
Keeping the ground-to-orbit steps of lunar missions (on both ends) separate from the orbit-to-orbit step makes it a *lot* easier to plan lunar surface missions, gives them a greater chance of success, and makes it easier to recover from catastrophes at most stages.