It's almost as if the universe was created to mock us. So much space to explore, but physical law makes it impossible to explore more than the smallest, most insignificant fraction.
I think the problem is the opposite. We evolved on a planet, so we're only (naturally) suitable to live on a planet.
Once we're able to modify ourselves and our DNA and outrun evolutionary constraints, that might change. Once we're a swarm of small, near-immortal devices, I suppose exploring the universe on large scale will make a lot more sense.
But in the short run, it's fun and interesting to explore the solar system in human form, even given the limits of our current technology. And to not worry about what a small, insignificant fraction it is, because it's still a hell of a lot more than we've seen until now.
Humanity is already a swarm. A swarm consists of individual animals that more or less coordinate to go in a certain direction (so this is different from a hive mind).
Also, it is 1000ths (or even millions) of years in the future I was talking about. Why would our current moral standards still hold?
The concept of the light-cone[1] really frustrated my younger self (raised on heady expectations, warp drives and transporters). There might be a sentient race very close to us in time-space that we will never know because the light-cones will never meet.
This is what I like to refer to as the "bias of computing." The idea is that we deal with so much scientific progress in our fields that we tend to think that scientific progress can take us anywhere and no restriction will stand up for long.
However, this is a fallacy that really has no grounding in the laws of physics. What reason do we have for thinking that information can travel faster than the speed of light? Moreover, what evidence do we have that the second law of thermodynamics could be reversed on a macro scale?
The assumption that all barriers will fall as others have seems unreasonable and contradictory to our current evidence.
But if we never dreamed it so, then we never would have tried and never would have broken down those other barriers. Just the fact that we've broken down all those other barriers inspires me to believe.
I think predetermining that faster-than-light information transmission is possible is a bastardization of scientific progress. I don't see physics as a quest to break barriers, I see it as a quest to understand the nature of the universe. If the nature of the universe is that humanity will never colonize another world in a lifetime, then so be it. We simply have to learn to deal with the realities of our existence.
Funny you should try to imply that our fundamental physics are somehow wrong in a serious way that we have a high chance of finding a deeper physics that shows "impossible" things by today's physics are possible (want to take bets on timeframes?), on an article about two space probes that have lasted 34 years out there because of our understanding of the fundamental laws. As for not understanding the "why" of inertia and gravity, we nevertheless have general relativity which is pretty darn good.
Reproduction doesn't address the aging problem at all. To quote Woody Allen, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.". The same thing applies to reproduction: I don't want to achieve "immortality" of some fraction of my genetic code, I want to achieve immortality by not dying. :)
I think we know much of what we need to know (the basics: how to procreate, how to create a craft, etc; plus the steps to take) but the costs are just a little hard to justify for many given existing world problems and a predilection to just fighting everything.
If it is a generation ship or some other from of slow craft (and aren't they all at the scales we are discussing), then it needs to contain a biosphere if it is going to take humans in their current form. We aren't anywhere near good at making those at all.
Unless we are thinking about some form of entirely synthetic food and oxygen production, in which case, we aren't any better at those really.
He looks crazy, with the enormous beard, but his appearance belies an impressive amount of sanity.
I've been really impressed by listening to him. In particular, he's very up-front about what we don't know yet, and the uncertainty involved, and he's very careful not to promise more than he can scientifically justify. This sort of thing does not come through very well in sensationalist mass-media portrayals of him, though.
I think he has a good chance of finding ways to slow down the aging process and buy us some time, just like we've managed to extend lifespans heavily through other advances in medical and related technology. However, I have very low confidence that that direction of research will manage to completely solve the problem. We have far too many ways of breaking down, and not all of them seem solvable by patching. I have somewhat more hope for a solution from the AI camp, personally. I just hope the Uncomfortable Truths Well (http://xkcd.com/568/) doesn't prove correct.
