New telescope is going to revolutionize what we know about our universe

[macmac]

I would pay arm and legs for this, but then what's the point? LOL

Seriously, there are talks about cell regeneration technology and I am all ears and interested in this as well. My only problem is, let's say I do this and have the funds for it, and let's say I don't want to die and decide to live much longer or forever even, how would I be viewed in the eyes of God? For sure I would be Public Enemy #1

What God? You don't see me asking what James Bond thinks about my fashion sense, or if it's ok with Gandalf to make fun of midgets...

[miller-time]

If we can alter our DNA we can speed up evolution...we can create perfect flawless beings

Flawless people could make humanity weaker in some ways. There would be no need for compassion. Our strongest trait is that we have the capacity to care for our weakest members. Remove them and I don't want to see how society turns out. Probably something akin to Nazi Germany. And I'm not being facetious. Not everything we do is genetic, some of it is learnt, and creating a race of perfect clones will probably lead to some type of elitist and unsympathetic alien race.

[Patrick Chewing]

What God? You don't see me asking what James Bond thinks about my fashion sense, or if it's ok with Gandalf to make fun of midgets...

Oh my bad, that's right there is no God. Carry on bruh, let me post about my God, son.

[IamRAMBO24]

Flawless people could make humanity weaker in some ways. There would be no need for compassion. Our strongest trait is that we have the capacity to care for our weakest members. Remove them and I don't want to see how society turns out. Probably something akin to Nazi Germany. And I'm not being facetious. Not everything we do is genetic, some of it is learnt, and creating a race of perfect clones will probably lead to some type of elitist and unsympathetic alien race.

This is true. The more we evolve, the less we will be humane; this is because the Y chromosome is destroying a lot of genetic codes that make us more animalistic. I think humans are inevitably evil because of this process: as we evolve, we will be more intelligent beings and less connected with nature. Why the Y is doing this to our genetic, we have no idea, but it is what makes us human: we don't have fur, flat feet, and many other phenotypes that will keep us as apes.

[-p.tiddy-]

Even with all of our advancement we will never be as effective as nature when it comes to determining what a flawless being is. As the environment changes so too will the need and we will never be able to be as efficient as evolution is in that regard. I rarely deal in absolutes but I am confident in that statement.

If evolution is capitalism then us trying to create flawless beings in communism.

The human race has already screwed over evolution due to medicine and technology...we no longer have alpha males, every male of every type with every flaw is producing children now...so many people are born with issues that would never come up in nature.

In nature, there is no hospital...if you are flawed you die or don't reproduce.

[-p.tiddy-]

Flawless people could make humanity weaker in some ways. There would be no need for compassion. Our strongest trait is that we have the capacity to care for our weakest members. Remove them and I don't want to see how society turns out. Probably something akin to Nazi Germany. And I'm not being facetious. Not everything we do is genetic, some of it is learnt, and creating a race of perfect clones will probably lead to some type of elitist and unsympathetic alien race.

Yeah I wouldnt want humanity to do that. Just extending our lives and removing our major birth defects is fine with me.

[bladefd]

We are not becoming more ape-like; our DNA is destroying those ape genes to make us intelligent beings and we are evolving through intelligence and not any physical means.

Compare a human to an ape as far as intelligence goes: seriously do you think we are in the same ball park at all. An ape's greatest mental accomplishment is pulling ants out of a hole with a twig; dude we are studying dark matter and about to conquer space.

That's the difference. We might be 98% ape DNA, but that small 2% (which resides in the Y chromosome) is making a killing, and guess what, we don't know where it came from since no other species on earth could've of passed it on to us. We are one of a kind.

So a human being with 2% more DNA difference will be making a killing over our current self. With our current self, we have the Hubble telescope, the spaceshuttle, studying dark matter, etc as opposed to chimps being able to use stick tools to pulls ants out of a hole. Imagine a human being with 2% DNA difference from us. What will they be doing?

[IamRAMBO24]

So a human being with 2% more DNA difference will be making a killing over our current self. With our current self, we have the Hubble telescope, the spaceshuttle, studying dark matter, etc as opposed to chimps being able to use stick tools to pulls ants out of a hole. Imagine a human being with 2% DNA difference from us. What will they be doing?

I would hypothesize their brains would be much larger and the body would be much smaller, shorter than the typical human. That 2% is actually destroying phenotype genes that make us ape-like, so if we multiply that capacity by 2X, I'm willing to bet those humans can be capable of consciousness projection (3rd eye), telepathy, and various other spiritual new age voodoo stuff normal humans don't believe in because they can't view it objectively. That's just a guess. That 2% is such a small portion of our genetic makeup, but it is probably responsible for 99% of our human capacity. The 98% ape genes have very little to do with who we are as humans.

[Timmy D for MVP]

The human race has already screwed over evolution due to medicine and technology...we no longer have alpha males, every male of every type with every flaw is producing children now...so many people are born with issues that would never come up in nature.

In nature, there is no hospital...if you are flawed you die or don't reproduce.

We haven't screwed it over because we have changed our environment. So really it's just a part of it, we have evolved through our environment to the point we can change it to suit us. We have extended lives, and even completely wiped out species threatening to us. But when the environment changes on US and we need to adapt we won't be able to create our own changes as well as nature would.

I'm having a hard time saying what I'm thinking. Does that make sense?

[Take Your Lumps]

Eh poor little humans, trying to discover something they obviously can't comprehend.

How about focusing on Earth and how to sustain it and better it for the future instead of wasting all those resources on space programs and irrelevant information we have no use for.

Humans using their telescopes to "guess" what is out there is no different than an curious ant trying to figure out what's that big shoe that stomps them all the time.

tldr; we should retreat back into our caves because things are hard to do.

[-p.tiddy-]

We haven't screwed it over because we have changed our environment. So really it's just a part of it, we have evolved through our environment to the point we can change it to suit us. We have extended lives, and even completely wiped out species threatening to us. But when the environment changes on US and we need to adapt we won't be able to create our own changes as well as nature would.

I'm having a hard time saying what I'm thinking. Does that make sense?

Kind of understand, but if medicine and technology count as part of our evolution then wouldn't DNA modification count as well?

[Take Your Lumps]

No, we should be more focused on the ocean or other uninhabited areas on earth for colonization, not space. The costs are too prohibitive and our technology too primitive to even consider it.

Why not both? Explore everything.

Honestly, cost would have little to do with it if world governments would get their priorities straight. The money has always been there...it's been flushed down the toilet by militarism, financial swindling and corporate welfare.

There aren't things in our oceans coming up trying to kill us on a massive scale...meanwhile we have asteroids blowing up over our heads with absolutely no way to protect the only planet we have. That should chill every human being on Earth to the bone.

We have plenty of plausible plans on paper to deflect these things - with zero funding.

I'm not even talking about colonization yet...I do agree some of the technologies required aren't there yet to do that overnight but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to colonize another planet (or the moon as a trial run) in the next 50 years. Now is the time to continue to do the groundwork required to prepare for colonization and long-range space exploration for future generations.

[Patrick Chewing]

Space is the Final Frontier yo. The Ocean is too deep and scary.

[AlphaWolf24]

cell degeneration is in our DNA...in all animals DNA

nature has us die because that is the only way animals can evolve...

we can remove it from our DNA...it is possible, and many predict it to happen somewhere in the somewhat near future...I think most are guesstimating 40 or so years

as crazy as it sounds...

our cell's regenerate so fast, and as we age we regenerate at a slower pace and the copy of the cell get's corrupted. ( that's what aging is, think about making a copy of a picture on copy machine....you have the original photo>>>the copy is slightly worse>>>>>the 2nd copy is slightly worse then the 1rst copy...and so on and so forth.)

If we can tap into our DNA and make our body grow new cell's as we age....we could live much longer.

the only problem with that idea is....we need to regulate the cell growth also...becuase unregulated cell growth is known as cancer.

[shlver]

Why not both? Explore everything.

Honestly, cost would have little to do with it if world governments would get their priorities straight. The money has always been there...it's been flushed down the toilet by militarism, financial swindling and corporate welfare.

You don't understand the costs when you say something like this. Infrastructure is needed that protects humans from radiation on planets with no earthlike atmosphere/magnetic field, protection from longterm exposure to microgravity, system for breathable air, etc. All of this has to be deployed en masse for a sizable colonization to even call it colonization. None of this is even on the table for nasa. What is on the table for nasa over the next couple of decades is finding a more cost efficient fuel system.
Even then, if we can find an efficient fuel system to transport the raw materials, we have to develop robots to construct in situ.

There aren't things in our oceans coming up trying to kill us on a massive scale...meanwhile we have asteroids blowing up over our heads with absolutely no way to protect the only planet we have. That should chill every human being on Earth to the bone.

We have plenty of plausible plans on paper to deflect these things - with zero funding.

What does this have to do with space colonization?

I'm not even talking about colonization yet...I do agree some of the technologies required aren't there yet to do that overnight but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to colonize another planet (or the moon as a trial run) in the next 50 years. Now is the time to continue to do the groundwork required to prepare for colonization and long-range space exploration for future generations.

No, we're not even close. Where are you getting the idea that we will be able to employ a fully sustainable population and a protective infrastructure as well? The timescale for the next 50 years for nasa is developing more efficient fuel systems to bring the cost per pound down. We are nowhere near the cost efficiency to even consider it.
Resources aren't a reason we should consider space colonization. There are massive sources of untapped resources still on earth. Investing in space colonization now because something will be a problem a couple hundred thousand years from now is not a good idea. Especially when the timescale is several orders of magnitude higher than our existence as a species.
A generous estimate would be 1000 years from now and what I mean by that is a fully sustainable population.