I think the estimates are more like five billion years before the sun goes red giant and through another hundred or so million year cycle before in Novas. Even without faster than lights ship we could have seeded overy world in the galaxy and terraformed a truckload more by then. But probobly within the next thousand years we'll have completely re-engineered the human genome extending our life-spans indefinitely, with nanotechnology and microbiomechanical interfaces allwoing our consciousness to merge with an AI comprising the whole knowledge of mankind, and have mastered technologies and sciences we haven't even considered yet. So the suns eventual demise is about as problematic and nihilistic a problem as say, a doctor cutting the embilical cord. Hardly the end of things.
Or mine it? When creating space stations you'll need them to be big so people don't go stir crazy living there, so you can spin them for centrifical force gravty, radiation sheilding, soil for hydroponics, possibly water;all that material costs a gazillion dollars to ship up to space....but if it's already there it just a matter of reorganizing the constituent elements. Some solar panels will provide the power for any proccessing facilities. Every time I hear about one of these comets or rocks dooming the Earth I cringe. It's like hearing someone say, "There's a trainload of gold floating toward the Earth, we're dooomed, we're doomed!"
Not if you stop building redundant weapons systems and spending all of your money killing each other your not-grow up and develop some real space programs. Then the teeming billions currently swarming the Earth will have opportunities again like the teeming masses yearning to breathe free had opening up the frontiers in the Americas. If we were to see a concurrent rise in the quality of life that opening up THAT frontier had, our childrens children won't be fossils in the dust like the dinosaurs, they'll be standing on the mountains of Charon some day pointing outward.
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My thoughts exactly. Like to be on your freinds list. Email me? Archidante@bellsouth.net http://pandoranage.mystarship.com/
I think the estimates are more like five billion years before the sun goes red giant and through another hundred or so million year cycle before in Novas. Even without faster than lights ship we could have seeded overy world in the galaxy and terraformed a truckload more by then. But probobly within the next thousand years we'll have completely re-engineered the human genome extending our life-spans indefinitely, with nanotechnology and microbiomechanical interfaces allwoing our consciousness to merge with an AI comprising the whole knowledge of mankind, and have mastered technologies and sciences we haven't even considered yet. So the suns eventual demise is about as problematic and nihilistic a problem as say, a doctor cutting the embilical cord. Hardly the end of things.
Or mine it? When creating space stations you'll need them to be big so people don't go stir crazy living there, so you can spin them for centrifical force gravty, radiation sheilding, soil for hydroponics, possibly water;all that material costs a gazillion dollars to ship up to space....but if it's already there it just a matter of reorganizing the constituent elements. Some solar panels will provide the power for any proccessing facilities. Every time I hear about one of these comets or rocks dooming the Earth I cringe. It's like hearing someone say, "There's a trainload of gold floating toward the Earth, we're dooomed, we're doomed!" Not if you stop building redundant weapons systems and spending all of your money killing each other your not-grow up and develop some real space programs. Then the teeming billions currently swarming the Earth will have opportunities again like the teeming masses yearning to breathe free had opening up the frontiers in the Americas. If we were to see a concurrent rise in the quality of life that opening up THAT frontier had, our childrens children won't be fossils in the dust like the dinosaurs, they'll be standing on the mountains of Charon some day pointing outward.