[dogscoff]

OK, my 0.02.

-I know it's OT, but I believe we will crack FTL sooner or later. Probably much, much later.

-Once we've sent people to Mars and got a few off-Earth settlements within the solar system, colonising other stars isn't going to look that scary any more. The technology isn't really the problem- if you can fly to and colonise Mars/the moon, you've already overcome most of the technical obstacles for flying to and colonising another star system- it's just the scale and the timescale of the project that become prohibitive. With the X-prize and other tech advancements, those scales are going to look less and less daunting.

-There are plenty of stars within a (current) human lifetime's reach, and once the tech/costs become sensible people will go, even if it means a one-way trip. It's part of human nature to explore and to settle new land, and there will always be people with nothing to tie them to the planet of their birth. Look at the way the Americas were colonised (the second time)- by people disaffected with the society they lived in. The way things are going we'll be getting more and more of those in the years to come, I'm sure.

Of course, most people would probably wait until there was some proof that there are actually planets (although Eart-like ones are probably highly unlikely) at the other end of their journey, but advancing telescope tech will answer this question soon enough. As soon as we get proof of any interesting planet around another star, I reckon we'll be sending an unmanned probe. Of course, if telescopes were to pick up signs of a breathable planet around a nearby star, the world would be falling over itself for a closer look.

-I think human lifespans will be getting a LOT longer over the next few hundred years. Apparently the only reason that our cells stop replacing themselves (I.E. the only reason we age) is that our genes tell them to. Learn to switch off that command and we can stay young forever.

-I think cryogenics (for humans, anyway) is probably quite a long way off and I'm not sure it will be the answer anyway. Although obviously more expensive and complex, generation ships would be a more human solution, imho.

-Finally, we're overlooking the other great interstellar colonisation possibility: Sending NON-HUMAN colonists: An AI has a theoretical lifetime of... well... a very long time. And again, that technology is creeping up on us faster than most of us realise.

[ July 20, 2004, 08:43: Message edited by: dogscoff ]