End of the Universe...?

[Epimetheus]

Never said we were invincible. Hardiness has nothing to do with how far a fall can kill you, at least nobody ever told me this.

I know just how devastating such an event could be. I also know that such a big object in space is very unlikey to be missed heading toward us. That gives us planning. Ya know, that thing the lower species can’t do.

I know how to build a power generator, how to farm (though I am not that great), and I have read many survival skills books, had a rough course in boyscouts and the military, and know quite a few tricks. I am far from above average.

If the astroid hit and threw us all up 6 feet and just so that we would land on our head, and takes us all by surprise… Well, I guess we will all die, huh? You stick with your doomsday prophecy if it makes you feel good in life, I will continue to plan and prepare for a life that doesn’t contain such low odds. I think it is safe to say we have a few million years before we should worry about it though.

[Q.E.D]

Actually with the current budget and resources devoted to searching for earth-crossing objects, missing such a large object is very possible. At the current time, we’ve only examined about 3% of the sky for such objects. There’s a lot of them out there we don’t know about.

[Epimetheus]

That bad eh?

[Q.E.D]

More recently, in 2002, an asteroid larger than a football field (120 meters or approximately 400 feet across) came within 47,000 kilometers (75,000 miles) of the Earth. Scientists speculate that an object this size could destroy a small-to-medium-size nation. The startling aspect of this near-miss is that this asteroid, 2002 MN, went undetected until three days after it had whisked past the Earth at more than 9.7 kilometers per second (6.2 miles per second)

A quarter of the NEOs identified are believed to be larger than one kilometer (almost three-quarters of a mile) across. At the present rate of discovery it would take hundreds of years to catalog the remaining NEOs large enough to qualify as “Global Killers.”

From here.

[Nobody]

*Originally posted by Epimetheus *
**Bingo- Joel hit it on the head. We aren’t like other mammals. You cannot say the apples will be wiped out by the cold, because oranges are. I think our line will continue- as in intelligence that sprang from humankind. Wether this be our biological ancestors, our uploaded intelligences, augmented humans, AI, or what have you. Will we be human? Dunno. Are you the same person you were 10 years ago? 20? How much of the “original you” is left? A few brain cells, fat cells and muscle cells? Just about everything else replaces itself. How about your personality. Probably not. We change- so will we as a species. We adapt.

On a different note- I think a much more viable mode of space travel, baring FTL would be to cargo some sturdy biomass- mold or something. Upload all of the crews personalities, perhaps several times and with many redunancies in the systems, and when you get close to the system or arrive in said system, set the ship to grow a bunch of fresh bodies. This will prevent severe damage to the genes that might occur in a ship without some sort of magical or super technological advanced shielding system. It will also allow the original crew members to be alive upon reaching their destination…

I think given a hundred more years or so will will have sufficent technology to do this.

Personally I- or what could be called epimetheus- plan on being around in 5 billion years. Perhaps just not in this system
Scientists Find What Type Of Genes Affect Longevity <— with this coming up so soon, the next 10-30 years, double my lifespan? I may just be around when the technology for uploading or augmenting myself for longevity is available. I certainly plan for it and look forward to it. (if it takes longer, so be it- I take care of my health and mind so that I can live as long as is genetically possible for myself- 80-100 years perhaps, of course medicine helps that) **

First, thanks for backing me up. Second, uploading our intelligence and traveling to a different planet that way reminds me of a Doctor Who episode (Four to Doomsday) where there was a spaceship that had a population of a few billion all stored on computer chips. Not related to the OP, but I just had to comment on that.

[Nobody]

*Originally posted by manhattan *
**Special or not, every quarter billion years or so a big honkin’ asteroid slams into the planet and wipes out half or more of the species on it, including substantially anything that’s had the opportunity to get big and resource-needy.

If the next one hits before we’ve found a way off this rock, we’re done. Intelligence or no. **

Why get off of this rock? What about going underground?

[Nobody]

*Originally posted by Noodles *
**I would think that if we don’t destroy ourselves in the next few hundred years, we will be able to devise technological solutions to the asteroid problem, and to begin colonizing our solar system and beyond. In fact, there’s probably little in terms of technological problems keeping us from having a rudimentary asteroid/comet shield in place in the next 20 years, if the political will existed for it.

I would suspect that exploring deep space, and even the oceans, will eventually lead to artificial evolution of our bodies to adapt to weightlessness, high pressures, long spans of time, new planets, etc. Much of this may also use or even require cybernetic adaptions. If the more fringe end of sci-fi involving uploading of minds and self-replicating nano technology prove valid, all the more quickly this will happen.

I would expect that in no more than a few hundred years, we may begin creating new evolutionary branches from the homo sapien main trunk. I’d be surprised if any species recognizable as people as we know them were to exist within half a million years or so. If we can live longer, and engineer out insufficenties to the basic homo sapien form, we’d have a pretty different looking animal in general. And there may be some changes made simply for cosmetic, fashion, or other such purposes

I’m sure if some remnant of humanity is still around billions of years from now, there will be plenty of technology for Earth to be spared it’s destruction, if we choose to. Or again, if we don’t hasten such a scenario before then. **

I’ve always wondered, when we start doing genetic engineering on people, would there be a segment of society that would view this as evil or wrong, for religious, or ethical reasons and form a society or societies to stay “pure” So that in the far, far future, you have humans genetically different from now, and people around who are just like us?

[eburacum45]

The unmodified human will still be around, perhaps, just as the wolf is still around together with the domestic dog

http://www.orionsarm.com/clades/baselines.html

[Noodles]

I suspect that if people continue to live in a technologically based society, even if they shun artificial selection, half a million years in such an environment will probably introduce more changes than our ancesters went through. In just the last few thousand years, many peoples that have been living in cities and states, for instance, have sometimes tended to grow larger and live longer lives.

Might greater diversity of lifestyle, beyond that of a hunter gatherer existence accelerate even natural selection? At this time, 160,000 years is as far back as we have evidence of modern humans; only pre-humans have been found to exist earlier.

Regarding killer objects in space, some people feel that there is some chance that if we have enough time, even how we might be able to place some sort of engine on an object that could change it’s course. At least it’s within the realm of the reasonable.

With a serious abservation program, possibly space based, and some real experimentation manipulation a couple of test rocks or comets, within a few decades something could probably be done to protect ourselves. Even a large chunk of matter, if destroyed far enough away, could be rendered at least less harmful.

[Shalmanese]

Just another thing to keep in mind but if we ever manage to lose our technological know-how, theres a very good chance that we will never be able to regain it as all the easy ores and minerals have already been extensively mined and all our fossil fuel is nearly tapped out. We only really have one chance to bootstrap ourselves into a higher technological level which does not rely on such things otherwise we fail forever.