But your thinking SO short term. Mars is a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and everything beyond.
So what if people from mars some time in the future *look* alien? Do the people in Uganda *look* white? Do we need to drag all of our racism to different planets too?
Who's to say that they would have any reason to come back to earth anyways. By the time we get enough people on mars to establish a safe enough enviornment, so that people will want to have children... the earth will have 10-15 billion people on it and will be fighting for its survival. The only reason to go to earth for a 'Martian' of that time would be tourism.
And your high G scenario is just ignorant. Just think about living on a 2-3 g world. Who is going to be the 1st generation? Certainly nobody living who has grown up in anything less then that g scale. It would be like living while carying someone your weight on your back. You woudn't even be able to sleep properly, never mind spending AT LEAST 8 hours a day helping to terriform this 2-3g planet. So we would have to genetically engineer our children to live in a 2-3g enviornment, and abandon them. Sure we could stay in orbit around the planet and mabye nurture them for a generation or so, but just try and live in 2-3g for more then a week when you've developed on earth or in space. And who wants to live orbiting a world you can never step foot upon for more then a week or two.
And lastly, there's nowhere in this solar system that any high adaptation could be done. Earth is the heaviest of the inner sattelites, and none of the outer are even remotely hospitable. They might have moons that could be terraformed, but good F*cking luck living on any planet outside the asteroid belt.
-Duane
Gregory Benford speculated alond these lines years and years ago in his Galactic Center series of books. Piers Anthony wrote about the only possible means of multi-lightyear communication in his book Macroscope. Isacc Asimov (post humously thanks to Brin, Benford and Bear) shows how AI prepared the galaxy for human colonization.
In the 1st example it's flesh struggling against an obviously superior machine intelligence.
Next comes flesh using machines to communicate with other flesh hundreds, thousands and even millions of years distant. The only concivable way possible until we break the light speed barrier. And last comes flesh inadvertantly using machine to destroy every other form of intelligent life in the galaxy for the further good itself.
THIS ISN'T NEWS! Why does it take someone from NASA or SETI to start serious discussion along these topics when the ideas have been around for years and years and years!!!
Pick up a book you bunch of slack jawed yokels. Science fiction ISN'T FUCKING FANTASY.
Slashdot Mirror
But your thinking SO short term. Mars is a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system and everything beyond. So what if people from mars some time in the future *look* alien? Do the people in Uganda *look* white? Do we need to drag all of our racism to different planets too? Who's to say that they would have any reason to come back to earth anyways. By the time we get enough people on mars to establish a safe enough enviornment, so that people will want to have children... the earth will have 10-15 billion people on it and will be fighting for its survival. The only reason to go to earth for a 'Martian' of that time would be tourism. And your high G scenario is just ignorant. Just think about living on a 2-3 g world. Who is going to be the 1st generation? Certainly nobody living who has grown up in anything less then that g scale. It would be like living while carying someone your weight on your back. You woudn't even be able to sleep properly, never mind spending AT LEAST 8 hours a day helping to terriform this 2-3g planet. So we would have to genetically engineer our children to live in a 2-3g enviornment, and abandon them. Sure we could stay in orbit around the planet and mabye nurture them for a generation or so, but just try and live in 2-3g for more then a week when you've developed on earth or in space. And who wants to live orbiting a world you can never step foot upon for more then a week or two. And lastly, there's nowhere in this solar system that any high adaptation could be done. Earth is the heaviest of the inner sattelites, and none of the outer are even remotely hospitable. They might have moons that could be terraformed, but good F*cking luck living on any planet outside the asteroid belt. -Duane
Gregory Benford speculated alond these lines years and years ago in his Galactic Center series of books. Piers Anthony wrote about the only possible means of multi-lightyear communication in his book Macroscope. Isacc Asimov (post humously thanks to Brin, Benford and Bear) shows how AI prepared the galaxy for human colonization.
In the 1st example it's flesh struggling against an obviously superior machine intelligence. Next comes flesh using machines to communicate with other flesh hundreds, thousands and even millions of years distant. The only concivable way possible until we break the light speed barrier. And last comes flesh inadvertantly using machine to destroy every other form of intelligent life in the galaxy for the further good itself.
THIS ISN'T NEWS! Why does it take someone from NASA or SETI to start serious discussion along these topics when the ideas have been around for years and years and years!!!
Pick up a book you bunch of slack jawed yokels. Science fiction ISN'T FUCKING FANTASY.
-Sandman