TimeTraveler

I don't think humanity as a whole is all that great either, but aspects of it are and the rest has the potential to be good. Just because this is the way it is does not mean this is how it has to be. Change starts at the individual level. I agree Ophiolite, what is a day on Titan? 16 Earth days or so?

Just as long as they don't watch teletubbies followed by WWF. If you were an alien wouldn't that just freak you out.

You misunderstood me, but it doesn't matter, you see my point as to what I would like to see. Sorry for the confusion.

When I think of ghosts I think of echoes from alternate dimensions. Not saying I believe in this but it is how I would percieve it to be as an explination of ghosts, so in that sense we were talking about the universe. You are totally misinterpreting what I am saying. I do not recall ever saying we are not intelligent? We are just not as intelligent as we like to believe we are. Sorry for the confusion if it was my fault.

And we may very well be the most intelligent creatures in the universe. But that is not my point, my point is the universe is so far beyond our intelligence when there is alot more we do not know than we do know.

By the sounds of it both of you are being closed minded. The trick to being open minded is: believing something but consideration that an alternative is possible. It's amazing how intelligent we think we are when we know so little about the universe.

I appreciate your kind words I think for most of us we take for granted what we have and believe our resources are unlimited but in reality they are not. It is hard to predict the future and resource depletion may be considered the distant future (100 years or so for some, 40-50 years roughly for oil and others). Looking into space is one of three options that I can percieve. And is the best one for maintaining our way of life. Really it is up to us to begin the process of our survival now, if not it may be too late. And it doesn't hurt to get on it as soon as possible and make it less of a problem in the future. Mining and colonizing space will require almost as much resources as they recover at first but in the long run as technologies advance and new, easier and cheaper ways become available we can begin recovering what has been lost. Humans have survival instinct, but we also are procrastinators and if we wait too long our resources might be too far gone. An alternate and near-unlimited source may be discovered one day, but I would rather see us make an effort now in case that does not happen. The Earth is fragile and resources are not unlimited, the first step is just realizing this. As for colonizing or terraforming, Mars is the first logical step of many. Mars is the closest of the planets to the asteroid belt which is going to be a great supply of resources. The moon is also a good place to begin colonizing because it will serve as an outpost between bases, we can take stuff from Earth to the moon in the shortest length of time at the lowest cost. The moon will serve as a great launching and testing site for future missions, it may become a desired colony for human civilians one day, but in the long run Mars will be more desireable to live than the Moon. Mars can be terraformed with our current technology and if we use resources from Mars itself then this would be a logical thing to attempt. Eventually down the road an outpost on one of Jupiters moons seems reasonable, leading us to Titan. Terraforming Titan seems like the ideal thing to do at this point to make it more Earth-like and hospitable. But it will be a long process that will take creativity and alot of resources. By this time resources should be on an inclined state as there are so many available in our solor system. Eventually there will probably colonies throughout our solar system, but they will likely end in the Saturian system. I doubt anything besides mining and research will happen past that point, and a shift to get to other solar systems will become a primary goal. That is my version of the future, but don't tell TIC (Temporal Incursion Commitee) that I told you, the sentence for tamporing with the timeline is execution.

Favorite movie: Black Hawk Down Other movies I like: Chronicles of Ridik Pearl Harbor Armageddon Deep Impact Meet the parents Lord of the rings trilogy Has anyone seen Sut Jhally's documentary - Advertising and the end of the world?

Now, but we are talking about science feats that we would like to see. If you were able to replicate matter, a lot of resource problems would not be. Besides our distribution process currently is doing almost as much harm as good to countries economy, not to mention politics. A new solution is needed, I don't really care what the solution is, if it ends the hunger problem without causing drastic other problems, and I see that in my lifetime, I will die a little happier.

Maybe, maybe not. I will save that debate for another time

Been there done that. ~ I am an idealist if you haven't noticed. If there was a way to replicate or clone food that would be as healthy as the original that would be an amazing feat in science. It would be great to see an end to hunger in my lifetime.

I think he is poking fun. The Cassini orbiter is sending the Huygens probe to Titan a moon of Saturn. Europa is a moon a Jupiter.

See a colony inhabiting another moon or planet. Discover life in the solar system. Find a solution to the Earth's natural resource depletion problem. Watch my daughter lift off into space (she wants to be an astronaut). See the world become more peaceful. Find a way to "replicate matter" to end the worlds hunger problem.

I just hope they don't watch our news. They would always view us as hostile creatures.

Its all hypothetical, but it has been suggested the use of a very large sized reflector array in orbit around titan to reflect solar heat onto the moon would make it warmer. I doubt this would warm it enough though or even be practicle. But I had an idea of my own (which there is very little science behind so feel free to laugh at it). First we would have to crash some larger bodies onto the moon (asteroids, comets or meteors), sized reasonably to an ability to move them (say 1-3 mile radius objects). This in my mind would warm the moon enough for it to start making appropriate atmospheric changes to become more "Earthlike". Then following up with an array of nuclear heating devices placed onto the moon help it sustain its warmth. I think that the atmosphere would hold in alot of the warmth to maybe make this possible. I don't know how much heat can be generated from the core by crashing objects onto the surface, alot of information about Titan is not there. Alot would depend on its geological status. But to answer your question as far as I know, there is no real theories in place for terraforming Titan, just fun to think about it as a possibility.

The idea of a base on Phobos would be inside the moon. What would happen is the moon would be mined for resouces and after the inside would be turned into a structure like base to coordinate Mars missions. There is a very interesting proposal about how to do this and why. I will see if I can dig it up, I like this idea though. Some might ask why not just build a space station around mars instead, but actually this would be cheaper if we converted the mined resources into the project and also being underground in the moon will provide alot of protection from meteorites or cosmic rays.

Terraforming Titan is always a possibility, rather expensive with our resources for it to make sense but still an interesting thought.

I do both, it just depends when I plan on using it next, if it is going to be more than 24 hours then I turn it off, if not I leave it on. But if it has been on for a long period of time I will turn it off.

Your post is brilliant, I could not have said it better! I especially like when you said: Thats classic!

Its a conspiracy, I tried to find it for you but I cannot find it either.

I agree. Chances are there is other life in our solar system, (non intelligent of course)

Temperature is about minus 290 degrees F. Only about 1% of Titan has been mapped so far, frozen water oceans are probably out of the question because the temperature is so cold they would have never formed. There is small amounts of hydrogen and oxygen and it is believed to be alot more frozen under the surface. It is possible it has liquid pools of methane due to the low temp. Life is improbable but possible. After the Huygens probe lands there in Jan '05 we will know alot more.

Well hopefully there is never a need for weapons in space but, one side effect I see from shield #1 is the attraction aspect could pose dangers in attracting large unwanted space debri chunks. Im no expert but it would seem reasonable that the attraction field would have to be fairly powerful to be able to affect rounds at such high speeds, I am not sure how this might affect smaller meteorites and other potential dangerous debris in space. Fun and interesting topic though, thanks for posting it!

I mean best as in, what everyone thinks is best. If its funny, serious, rediculous whatever, it would have to get voted by SFN members to make the list, so... catagory doesn't matter, it would just be what everyone thought deserved to be on the 10 best list. This would be my first choice, posted by Sayonara:

I mentioned this in another thread but, I thought I would bring it here since it is more appropriate. I was thinking we should have a page on the front of the website that displays the 10 best quotes on SFN. There are many options in doing this for example, 10 best quotes of the month, year, or just 10 best of all time. Doing it by month or year, we would need some form of voting and submitting of new quotes during the month/year. 10 best of all time would be the easiest route but I think recycling quotes and having new ones up often would make it more interesting. The quotes of course would have to be original and posted by members of this forum.let me know what ya think