I Have Never Been More Amazed

[Stargazer]

at the spectacular image of the other side of the moon! It is even more riveting than the near side image! I wont sleep tonight for excitement !

[naomi24]

Khandro, I know he said that too… and he could be right - but I don’t think he had an inhabited planet in mind for human beings to colonise.

[Rockrose]

If you can think of a few Theland perhaps you would share them

[Theland]

Yes of course. Better insulation, double glazing. Smaller more powerful batteries. Even more efficient solar panels, and energy conservation. Graphene applications. To name a few.

[Khandro]

n. Hawking can't have both ways. There's a famous quote from Star Trek; "It's life Jim, but not life as we know it". There could be forms of life which have developed in completely different environments to ours which we wouldn't even be capable of recognising that could be devastating to humans.
Better stay at home and cultivate our own Jardins.

[jim360]

I think NJ's probably right in practice about our chances of leaving the Solar System, but it's clearly one of those things that you'd rather be wrong about than not. And why should something being impossible stop anyone from trying anyway?

[Spicerack]

Would this be considered a bad time to mention the money we borrow to send to China in foreign aid?

[Khandro]

//And why should something being impossible stop anyone from trying anyway?//
The cost, dear boy! Not to mention the huge wastage of our Earth's resources.

[Theland]

Spicerack- We cover the cost of the space rice.

[ladybirder]

We should clear up the mess we've made of this planet before we start again somewhere else.

[jim360]

It should, in principle, be possible to do both. I suspect that part of the reason it's not is that people are happy to marvel at the achievements of science and engineering only very selectively.

[Spicerack]

I think rice might be tricky in space, theland. They probably have chips.

[Theland]

I bet the Chinese would be better than ailing Grayling at running our trains!

[spathiphyllum]

man in the moon bottom left

https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/151/590x/secondary/China-moon-landing-1669802.jpg?r=1546507478246

[naomi24]

Khandro, //Hawking can't have both ways.//

He wasn’t trying to have it both ways. He never suggested we occupy an already inhabited planet. That would be folly indeed!

[ludwig]

// We should clear up the mess we've made of this planet before we start again somewhere else. //

Too late ladybirder. According to the BBC news website there are 96 packets of human excrement, urine and vomit left up there as well as a lunar rover, lots of cameras and various other junk.

[spathiphyllum]

An alien may think those 'packets' are food supplies.

[Zacs-Master]

There are some species on earth which could use them as food supplies. An ‘alien’ may well do too.

[New Judge]

“Pessimism NJ….”

Not really, OG. Just plain realism. “New Horizons”, the spacecraft that has delivered the images of “Ultima Thule” has been described as having ventured into “deep space”. It’s done nothing of the kind. It is around four billion miles from Earth and has taken 13 years to get there. It has taken over three years to cover the additional 1.5 billion miles from Pluto, which it passed in 2015, to the Kuiper Belt where it now is. Radio signals from it take around ten hours to get back to the Earth.

By contrast the nearest star (our “next door neighbour” in the universe) is around 4.3 light years away. That is some 25,000 billion miles or more than six thousand times as far a New Horizons currently is. Even if we had a spacecraft that could travel at one tenth the speed of light (around 67 million mph) which is most unlikely ever to be achieved it would take 43 years to get there. Radio signals from it would take 4.3 years to reach Earth. And that, of course, is just the nearest star.

I am no pessimist when it comes to new developments or projects. I love learning about new discoveries. And don’t get me wrong, the New Horizons project is a damned fine achievement. But the Solar System, which it has taken so long to reach the outer reaches of, is but a grain of sand in the Sahara that is the Universe.

[youngmafbog]

Yes, lets find a backup planet and wreck that too.

Space is good for tech (only war and Space advance tech due to the high R&D and spin-offs) but I'm really not sure landing on the other side of the moon (unmanned) is progress. The Chinese are only interested in mining precious metals really so looks like we will start to dig up there and pollute there too.

[youngmafbog]

And lets not forget NJ that when we set off thinking a planet is there, by the time we do get there we could find out that we have only been looking at 'historic' light and there is actually Jack there now!