Who lives on a planet like this?

[sasguru]

Space exploration is probably one of the most important and exciting activities that can be done. If you believe that the human race is worth saving that is ...

[wendigo100]

The human race is a wonderful thing. It just needs a bit of guidance now and again. Which usually comes in the form of disasters it may or may not have caused.

No-one said it would be easy.

[wendigo100]

Dear old Wernher... he must be spinning in his grave.

Think of all those German sausages that stuck to his pan...

[sasguru]

And just think, by 2020, the Septics might just have got back to the stage they were at in 1969... with something that looks stikingly like a Saturn rocket with an Apollo capsule on top...

Dear old Wernher... he must be spinning in his grave.

Well perhaps we can outsource space exploration to the Indians and Chinese, both of which see the value of it, even though they have serious problems internally

[KathyWoolfe]

Ooh I hate it when people say things like that, do you not want to understand what life is all about? Where we came from, where we are going etc etc? Some things are far more important than just existing.

Of course I want this too, I have the natural curiosity about the world around me and I want to improve things.
What I consider important is improving life here on THIS planet to the degree where we can afford to go exploring elsewhere.

Hopefully we can do this before we HAVE to find somewhere else to live because we've messed this planet up to the point where it can no longer support ANY kind of life.

[gingerjedi]

Almost all the problems we have stem from the fact that the planet is over subscribed, it can't sustain us in food or energy at the current levels and no amount of money or good will can change this.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

[wendigo100]

Of course I want this too, I have the natural curiosity about the world around me and I want to improve things.
What I consider important is improving life here on THIS planet to the degree where we can afford to go exploring elsewhere.

Hopefully we can do this before we HAVE to find somewhere else to live because we've messed this planet up to the point where it can no longer support ANY kind of life.

This debate reminds me of a couple I know who put off having children until everything was just right - nice house, good income, fairly secure job, seen a bit of the world, etc.

They never had kids, and now it is too late for them.

You've got to smell the flowers along the way...

[Board Game Geek]

the planet is over subscribed, it can't sustain us in food or energy at the current levels and no amount of money or good will can change this.

Indeed, and since the prime directive of all species is to survive, then branching out in to space, to colonise and exploit other planets and resouces is a perfectly acceptable and natural thing to do, if such species are capable of it.

I'm only aggrieved that I won't be alive to be part of this new frontier spirit.

Infact, I'm more than aggrieved, I'm seriously peeved off about it.

(Always fancied having my own Millenium Falcon (sp?) and blasting off in to space to explore and have adventures, as opposed to fixing yet another worthless PC)

[wendigo100]

Indeed, and since the prime directive of all species is to survive, then branching out in to space, to colonise and exploit other planets and resouces is a perfectly acceptable and natural thing to do, if such species are capable of it.

I'm only aggrieved that I won't be alive to be part of this new frontier spirit.

Don't give up hope - zeity has managed it. He's a bit stuck on the exploiting bit though, what with his dearth of workable cunning plans.

[OwlHoot]

I doubt if a liquid water laden planet much larger than Earth would have any land to speak of.

The stronger gravity would mean the surface was flatter to start with, with mountains lower and rounder for example. But also there would be more energy in the wind and the waves, which would erode faster what land there was above sea level.

On a planet with 2g, the sea (in a modest wind) would be flatter than on Earth, like a surreal looking giant mill pond, and waves would race across it faster than on Earth and break on the shore like a whipcrack, pulverizing rocks and shingle.

Also, being flat there would be less land to impede the wind and more expanse of water to strengthen hurricanes. So you'd probably get some pretty spectacular two hundred mile an hour winds, and the driving rain would batter away even more at what few granite crags still managed to poke out of the water.

That could all be wrong though. Nature is full of surprises - maybe continental drift and uplift works faster on a larger planet and counteracts the faster erosion.