Will space travel eventually bring on new emperors

Hmmh. I disagree. Minotaurus is not a genetic manipulation but rather the personification of astral symbols in human myths.

Now, about the topic at hand: I tend to believe in 'easy' space travel and such - how can we know? Perhaps there is a Stargate that the US control? The general public wouldn't know until I don't know what times...

However, it would seem more logical that the first 'true' ships that move into space with the idea of conquest or exploration are fully armoured military vessels. Another possibility is that the countries on Earth will take the subathmospheric flight into a higher level trying to overwhelm the enemy by extraathmospheric manouvers which couldn't be countered from lower areas therefore rendering the technological development to an area which could be referred to as space... and as we all know.. What military does today, civilans do tomorrow...

Emperors?

First, define "Emperor." Presumably an "Emperor" is a different thing, even subtly, from a "King" or "Baron."

Second, if we simply define "Emperor" as "a particularly grandiose dictator" then yes. there are already individuals who could be called Emperors, as in: Powerful people less than interested in freedom and practicality and more interested in power, supported by a large and complex bureaucracy which claims to act in "the people's" interests. Not to offend anyone's sensibilities, but one of them runs Russia and another runs China, currently. The US hasn't quite reached the point where we could stop being called a republic; but we have an aristocracy, our poor get poorer and our rich get richer (currently), and we have leaders who are quite willing to resort to torture or illegal spying, neither of which generally yields results that would justify it's use. We are no longer the country we still claim to be, whether we like that or not.

My point is that it is human nature to want power. Space, once it becomes a common thing to settle it, might make that easier, and more fluid--a new Frontier, when the earth has had few "wild west" type places for hundreds of years, besides Antarctica and the oceans--the oceans being the notable example: pirates, drug runners (some of whom are rich enough to build small submarines), rushes to exploit new resources. However, Space would not suddenly create something that was not already there. We HAVE individuals who could be called emperors; Space might simply make it easier for such individuals to pursue their designs without fear or punishment. It is, as Douglas Adams said, big.




Edited by TheARRGH - 11-Mar-2008 at 00:13

Machines, mechanical men and Cloning is in Greco-Roman mythology(good example is in the Iliad) and there has been Ancient production of automatons well into the Italian Renaissance and after  .

pinguin, to my knowledge, neither the internet nor genetic engineering were things that people predicted in 1908.

Originally posted by Sun Tzu Well I can't wait to see what happens in 2010 and 2020 when we supposebly are supposed to return to the Moon, build a base and then go to Mars. Whats interesting is that shortly after the Chinese got into space, their has been increased talk of the U.S. building a moon base. Just think about it why would we or China want the Moon??, well it would make a great Nuclear Missile base in which you could control the world at the push of a button.

Originally posted by pinguin Absolutely wrong. Sun Power Satellites are absolutely workable, and beaming the energy to earth works. Calculations has been done since long ago, and NASA is working in some prototypes. The only problem that remain is how to ship and build such a huge structures in space. Laser propulsion has also been tested in small scale models. We just need 1.000 billion dollars to make them work out

Show me the maths!

The way I see it, between geostationary orbit and earth, there is about a 305 dB free space loss at 800MHz. That means if you transmit 1W you will receive 3.16 x 10^-31 W
And it gets worse for higher frequencies.


Edited by Omar al Hashim - 05-Feb-2008 at 22:40

Sure space travel will happen. What will happen in 50-100 years when resources will become scarce (and hence expensive), technology will advance and will become much cheaper, and it will be economically viable to mine metals from other planets? Hopefully the upcoming environmental crisis will not be serious enough to completely destabilize all of civilization until then, though there is some cause to fear this.

We can debate all we want on which technology will actually make it happen, but who would have predicted in 1908 that in 2008 we would have already gone to the moon, that an ordinary person would be able to travel around the world in less than 24 hours (3 hour tour for some astronauts), or that we would have a gigantic globe-spanning network of thinking machines based on circuits whose smallest components are only a few atoms thick? Or that we are able to make copies of complex lifeforms, and create new species to suit our needs?

I think that the methods and reasons for space travel will be dependent upon economic and scientific paradigm shifts. The current paradigm is that space travel is expensive and based on cutting-edge technology, hence only rich and advanced nations attempt it, and it seldom yields economic benefits (aside from satellites). However, inventions could very well be made in the near future which change the paradigm, to one where space travel is relatively cheap, to the point where any resonably developed nation can build its own spaceships, in order to attain economic benefits.

Originally posted by Omar al Hashim ... 2) A space elevator is crazy idea. Imagine the aerodynamics!

I agree with Paul on this one that humanity will not make it to space but then again it could be a possibility depending on how our social conditioning evolves in the next century here on earth. Basically what drove the US to the moon was competition with the Soviet Union but today Nation competition is not so black an white as before. The world is even smaller and nations don't have the ideological convictions they used to have in order to at least justify why they were competing with each other.

I think something extraordinary would have to occur to send us full speed for the stars and forget our problems here. Say the Sun would abnormally start to expand threatening our survival here giving us some time but not too much to build rockets, plan which planet to colonize etc. Finally half the people on earth would believe it impossible and commit suicide, some others being religious would say "Its Gods will" and would stay, while the other half with the stronger will to survive would come up with the technology to make it out.
Of course then the question arises whether there would be enough rockets to accommodate everyone which i doubt. Who would decide who stays and who goes? Would the believers condemn the ones leaving as blasphemers and start attacking them? Details ... details....

Originally posted by Brian J Checco Pinguin, I think you're assuming human-kind will last that long. We've only had the atomic bomb for 63 years, and it's a safe bet that we'll waste ourselves and the planet in the next few hundred...