NASA Has already thought they found life ones, ended up as false positive.

Please follow these guidelines if you searching for life outside earth!

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard...en-life-search

Well If I ever get outside Earth for anything...cup of sugar...jug of milk...
I will keep my eyes peeled for you Dave...

Back to Rutland...
RUTLAND!?!?!

38 000 people in a space that is 18 miles by 17 miles???

that is just mad.
too many freakin' people in that small a space for my liking

I lived in a couple cities here...in Canada in my time..some with just about the same population numbers as all of Rutland...

But..
Being a rural country boy...
I grew up with far far less people around....like perhaps less than a dozen in that geographic space...

and most of the towns and hamlets I ever lived in were under 500 people..

hell...
Gabriola Island is bad enough...
has roughly 4 000 people ...
and is an island 9 miles long by 2.6 miles wide ....
all the building code and population is living in an ecologically balanced way as possible with minimal impact ....there are only so many lots for home building upon...and the smallest lots are an acre a piece...the standard is 5 acres (pretty small for a farm boy still )
and a bunch which are much larger.
....businesses and industries must prove their lack of impact on the environment here...
we have all the amenities here without the downside...
we have no "stoplights" ...no convenience stores...no apartment building, ...high rises.....row housing..."cookie-cutter-looking-cancerous-mile-on-mile-subdivisions"......none of the worst of civilization...

4000 people is more than enough here...

Not that I see much of anyone...or hear them for that matter...pretty quiet where I am...
Island's pretty quiet place frankly...

but 38 000 people in a space of 18 x 17 miles....yuck....
can't turn around for bumping into someone!
Can't go for a walk and NOT see people...

I couldn't stand it...
I like not having people around all the time....

God help the space aliens Dave...
when we move in to their neighbourhood...
Of course it makes sense they will invade us...
They won't want us to get off planet and ruin property values in their galaxies!
hahahahahaha

I don't think there is any chance of humans leaving Earth unless the human body can be re engineered to handle being in places with different environmental conditions including atmosphere, radiation, gravitational forces and so forth. We are better off doing all we can to clean up and fix up our own planet. It is incredibly beautifully and unique. In regards to exiting planet, for generations, the best we can probably do is send out a small number of people to explore universe but, besides knowledge, I would not expect a huge return on that.

We can colonize the Universe without any actual human leaving this planet. That would be the most efficient way, both in terms of resources and speed. It has been calculated a number of times that sending a fleet of self-replicating probes would result in the colonization of the entire galaxy in a surprisingly short time - 0.5 to 10 million years, depending on who you ask.

We need to stop thinking in terms of the next general election and start thinking about a more long-term future.

Technically true, but rather pointless exercise unless we became those self-replicating probes, in the sense of full upload and consciousness transfer.
(Actually now that I thought of it, we already are self-replicating probes, just of the wet nanotech type, not the solid-state type...)


Many people do, it just for some reason happens that the so-called decision makers are of the rare breed that has the myopic view
I even think it might be a requirement for the position!

That's what I actually meant! We as humans have to be modified to survive exploration outside the Earth's protective bubble. Otherwise we are stuck here on Earth.

Exactly!

We do not even need to plan for a long distant future. Our ancestors in the primordial warm pond did not either. Nor did the first humans in Africa. They just multiplied and, as they ran out of space and resources in their home land, they moved just over the one more hill. Before you knew it, they colonized the whole planet.

You can say that the existence of New York is pretty pointless for those first humans. And so it is. But it is not so pointless for today's New Yorkers. Had the first humans not moved out of their valley half a million years ago, there would be no New York today.

I agree completely with everything you mentioned mscion.

Odds are though...the re-engineering of the human body most likely will be needed for here in the future...
due to the ruin this place will most likely be.
from all the issues ...and then some ...that you express...
atmospheric radiation...chemical and biological extremes of toxification...
the ability to breathe in an atmosphere that isn't oxygen based....

all that would necessitate changing everything down to the red and white blood cells...extreme invasive change of our dna ...

on top of that...
I would imagine that due to the fact such transformation of the species would need time...and that such planning would have to take in to account that what we "think" the way the planet will change...may not change the way we think it will...most likely the planet will be in a state of flux for some time ...perhaps millions of years...until equilibrium is reached...
Meaning ....that our planning will most likely result in failure..
we design people over time to withstand a heavily laden sulfuric atmosphere...
But the planet decides that it will be something else...
or decides that the atmosphere....for a period of time ...a few years...hundred...thousand years..that it will be sulfuric ...then change...

Then of course there is the issue of how such changes genetically will impact on our dna...

How such impact will affect our brains...
since ...fundamentally...the prime need of our brains is ...after all ....oxygen....
We would need to change that.
also our cell structure...our skin ...
pretty much everything would have to be changed...

and it is a guess ...what exact changes should be done to accommodate an altering environment.

Sure we could do all sorts of things instead...
wild...possibles..
download our brains into robots...
download the entire species into a "matrix" conception.

Still we would have to figure out how to get past the whole "corrosive atmosphere " issue...since all such options would really be negated .

Then of course...
along the road to this "brave new world"...
we would also have to re-engineer the human mind...
to cope with a dead world...
Since ... we are watching ...all the species... here...and now...
take their exit.
And since we are no different than any other species...
in that ..we need to interact with our environment...and the species in it..
we are in for a tough haul...
if we have nothing to interact with...

Not really fun thinking about....
none of it....

So yes mscion...
we need to fix this place...
and we need to start ....the day before tomorrow...

Guys guys guys. Put your self in the head of human living 200 years ago, the things we can do today is pure sci-fi. Go back another 500 years and we would be aliens to them.

Now, the improvements of the human knowledge will speed up the next 200rd years, add another 500 and they would be aliens if we met them, if not semi gods.

Never say never, guys!

http://science.howstuffworks.com/env...-500-years.htm

Hey! Speaking of about 500 years from now. Remember this song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic