According to this article about Stephen Hawking at
NASA's 50th anniversary, we need to start exploring
the universe with human explorers. He thinks it's
very possible to do this with .25% of the worlds GDP.
I'm in favor of a .25% world tax to further Human
exploration in space. Where each participating
country (same ones that are allowed in the Olympics)
donate .25% of their GDP to this international fund.

I think it's time for us to move past the space
stations and get some exploration started!



Stephen Hawking: Interstellar Exploration - The Possibilities

British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes it’s time to get
out of the dark and invest more in the exploration of outer space:
if there is life out there (which he believes there is), we should
make a long-term goal of finding it, Hawking said at NASA’s 50th
Anniversary.

The professor compared the situation we’re indulging in with the
period before Christopher Columbus’ journey in 1492, when "people
might well have argued it was a waste of money to send Columbus
on a wild goose chase. Yet the discovery of the new world made
profound difference to the old," said Hawking, joking that without
Columbus, "we would not have Big Mac or KFC."

On a more serious note, Hawking said that a journey into space in
the search of extraterrestrial life would have an enormous impact
on our lives, and could even possibly determine the future of the
human race. But in order to accomplish that, we need better
technology and "we should make interstellar travel a long-term
aid," he said. "By long term, I mean over the next 200-500 years."

"Robotic missions are much cheaper and may provide more scientific
information, but they don’t catch the public imagination in the same
way, and they don’t spread the human race into space, which I’m
arguing should be our long-term strategy," Hawkins said. "If the
human race is to continue for another million years, we will have
to boldly go where no one has gone before."

In economic terms, the international space exploration budget would
have to increase 20 times, the equivalent of 0.25 percent of the
world’s GPD. "Isn’t our future worth a quarter of a percent?"
Hawking wondered, arguing it is a small effort for an essential
purpose.

Not only that, but the astrophysicist also offered an explanation
for why no extraterrestrial intelligent life form has been discovered
so far: either life is too rare in the Universe; or primitive life
is common and intelligence is rare; or maybe intelligent life is out
there, but it is also capable of creating weapons that leads to their
self-destruction.

"Personally, I favor the second possibility - that primitive life
is relatively common, but that intelligent life is very rare," said
Hawking, adding: "Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth." However
hard to find it may be, we shouldn’t stop looking, Hawking suggested,
even though that wouldn’t solve any of our immediate problems. But who
knows what perspectives such a discovery may open?

eFluxMedia

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Thanks for this Posting Gloves . . .

Q. so, the Pirate Wedding went good eh ;) Your Lady is quite beautiful too

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Thanks for this Posting Gloves . . .

Q. so, the Pirate Wedding went good eh ;) Your Lady is quite beautiful too

That's right A Pirate Wedding!
60 Pirates, 3 tall ships, swards, cannons and grog!
http://www.glovesandclover.com/wedding/ <-- lots of pictures
Couldn't have gone better.

Thanks for this Posting Gloves . . .

Q. so, the Pirate Wedding went good eh ;) Your Lady is quite beautiful too

That's right A Pirate Wedding!
60 Pirates, 3 tall ships, swards, cannons and grog!
http://www.glovesandclover.com/wedding/ <-- lots of pictures
Couldn't have gone better.

Real 'piracy wedding', as already stated above.
Beautiful pictures , could just be 500+ years back. How time 'flies' .

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