Deep Ocean or Deep Space

[kvnchrist]

If you had a chance to world in deep space or the bottom of the ocean. Which one would you choose and why?

 

I've just seen a fascinating documentary on life forms in the deep ocean and all this talk about Sea World being sued, I've pretty much started leaning towards the ocean, seen it's right here and teaming with life.

 

I've been a sci-fi fan for a long time, and have looked at space as the future of mankind, but lets face it, space is a void. There are planets out there that need explored, which would be great, but how many planets, in one lifetime could one person reach. We have yet to come up with an efficient fast propulsion system that could take us where we wish in our lives.

 

Here on Earth we have an abundance of life that has been compelling since Jacques Cousteau, first appeared on our TV sets. If Oceanography ever had a saint, that man would be the first.

 

It is truly humbling how small we all are on our own planet and it's a shame that so much of a great man had to leave this wold so soon.

[marharth]

The only thing we should be doing in space right now is sending people to the space station and sending drones/rovers to mars.

 

I personally would prefer for people to study the ocean more before trying to get into space. Then again it is harder then you think. Going underwater causes serious pressure buildup. I don't think we can explore the very bottom of the ocean because we don't have a sub that can withstand the pressure. Be reminded that for a person, going down anymore then fifty feet can cause problems. Back when I lived in North Carolina I took lessons to learn how to scuba dive, being far underwater can cause a lot more problems then you might think.

[hoofhearted4]

if we had the means to explore spare efficiently then i would say space hands down.....but why not do both? why not explore our oceans and explore space? isnt that thwat we are doing now?

[marharth]

if we had the means to explore spare efficiently then i would say space hands down.....but why not do both? why not explore our oceans and explore space? isnt that thwat we are doing now?

Ocean exploration doesn't get any serious government funding to my knowledge.

[zegh8578]

both environments are lethal. so both mean a constant confinement inside some measure of pressure- and temperature regulated protection. which would suck, after a while...

any free-roaming activities would happen inside big protective structures, there would be no sunlight, no wind, no natural stimuli whatsoever. depression and madness would surely sneak up on collective populations, causing "space dementia"

 

but choosing between two evils, i would pick the ocean. at least the ocean has weather variations, whereas empty space does not. also, the ocean has a lot of life to be explored, and one could fill ones day with casual research, even at a hobby level.

 

space is only _theoretically_ fascinating, because everything is far away, and unreachable in anybodys lifetime. anybody picking space, hoping to see colorful gas clouds and stuff, would only be sorely dissapointed - for life.

Edited February 8, 2012 by zegh8578

[TheFourthHorse]

Personally, I would like to discover more of the universe. The secret of creation (and I don’t want to discuss this any further than this sentence because of forum rules) maybe somewhere out there in the infinite science of space.

 

If given a choice between the two I would naturally select the grandest in scale but speaking realistically is a whole different matter...

 

 

Realistically, I'd say Deep Space when the economy allows for it and Deep Ocean when the chips are down. We fluctuate so frequently it seems like a viable option to keep both on the table without exhausting resources and interests while still devoting a proper amount of time on both.

 

Deep Space exploration is a far more interesting field but also for more expensive and often has less to show for itself which can turn people off the idea during rough times such as these. It does, however, introduce the far-out idea of off world colonization which is cool.

 

Deep Oceanic research, on the other hand, turns up all sorts of results and new species but is often considered a dead-end which I personally disagree with. The ocean still holds many secrets and plays a pivotal role in life on Earth and seems like something we should never stop researching.

[zegh8578]

Deep Space exploration is a far more interesting field but also for more expensive and often has less to show for itself which can turn people off the idea during rough times such as these. It does, however, introduce the far-out idea of off world colonization which is cool.

 

realistically, the main problem here, is that we can get nowhere. nowhere whatsoever.

our _best_ ideas so far, are unachievable science fiction, such as diving-head first into worm-holes, which, in reality, would be completely suicidal

 

other than that, theres not really a whole lot we can do. we can try to drift from one star to another, taking us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. needless to say, that would get aggravatingly boring.

 

the next best solution is of course generational travel, where entire generations are born on a travelling space station, which creates a new problem: how would these populations be raised on a space ship? how would they relate to space, being creatures made for a world they will never ever experience?

most importantly: how will the next 100, 1000, 10 000 generations keep the task going? how do you maintain a mission objective, throughout thousands of generations, over potentially millions of years?

 

of course, there is the option to just stick to the moon, and mars, and maybe colonize some of the interesting moons in our solar system, but even the more distant ones would pose enormous psychological implications simply coming to travelling there, and how astronauts would cope with the boredom.

bring tons of comic books.

Edited February 8, 2012 by zegh8578

[TheFourthHorse]

I wouldn’t be so quick to draw the lines of human possibilities but it is a relevant point. However, deep space exploration is more than just space shuttles, cryo, and wormholes. The constant vigilance of telescopes, probes, and old fashioned mathematical science have done so much to map the known universe and even give us a practical idea of how we came to be. We even know the maximum life our planet... such things can't be found in the ocean depths.

 

To argue the value of space exploration or human ingenuity to do the impossible is to argue to value of all we’ve come to learn through these very same sciences over the years.

 

Looking at it like that, drawing a line between the two seems foolish :sweat:

[zegh8578]

I wouldn’t be so quick to draw the lines of human possibilities but it is a relevant point. However, deep space exploration is more than just space shuttles, cryo, and wormholes. The constant vigilance of telescopes, probes, and old fashioned mathematical science have done so much to map the known universe and even give us a practical idea of how we came to be. We even know the maximum life our planet... such things can't be found in the ocean depths.

 

To argue the value of space exploration or human ingenuity to do the impossible is to argue to value of all we’ve come to learn through these very same sciences over the years.

 

Looking at it like that, drawing a line between the two seems foolish :sweat:

 

i regard myself a cynical realist :D i appreciate optimism and hope, but space really pisses me off sometimes

^and this coming from someone who wrote 2000 pages of space-opera sci fi :D

but its a frustrating concept really, the nearest star is 4 light years away.

in short: if we managed to travel SO fast, that we would instantly evaporate in a super-energetic, blinding blast (obviously we would never survive)

it would STILL take us... four years... to reach it

 

and then

theres not even anything there. so... we'd only have to turn back again, another 4 years...

so thats 8 years, plus the unfortunate vaporization of our bodies, only to discover nothing in particular.

 

space is trollin us

 

the ocean is still mostly unexplored, and at least has see-through shrimpies and stuff yet to be found. and of course, considering our own planet and how little we really know, i guess there is more than enough to explore within our own solar system, before we begin to dream of distant stars. theyre just so unreachable, we might just as well talk about visiting foreign galaxies or traverse the "multiverse"

Edited February 8, 2012 by zegh8578

[TheFourthHorse]

I wouldn’t be so quick to draw the lines of human possibilities but it is a relevant point. However, deep space exploration is more than just space shuttles, cryo, and wormholes. The constant vigilance of telescopes, probes, and old fashioned mathematical science have done so much to map the known universe and even give us a practical idea of how we came to be. We even know the maximum life our planet... such things can't be found in the ocean depths.

 

To argue the value of space exploration or human ingenuity to do the impossible is to argue to value of all we’ve come to learn through these very same sciences over the years.

 

Looking at it like that, drawing a line between the two seems foolish :sweat:

 

i regard myself a cynical realist :D i appreciate optimism and hope, but space really pisses me off sometimes

^and this coming from someone who wrote 2000 pages of space-opera sci fi :D

but its a frustrating concept really, the nearest star is 4 light years away.

in short: if we managed to travel SO fast, that we would instantly evaporate in a super-energetic, blinding blast (obviously we would never survive)

it would STILL take us... four years... to reach it

 

and then

theres not even anything there. so... we'd only have to turn back again, another 4 years...

so thats 8 years, plus the unfortunate vaporization of our bodies, only to discover nothing in particular.

 

space is trollin us

 

the ocean is still mostly unexplored, and at least has see-through shrimpies and stuff yet to be found. and of course, considering our own planet and how little we really know, i guess there is more than enough to explore within our own solar system, before we begin to dream of distant stars. theyre just so unreachable, we might just as well talk about visiting foreign galaxies or traverse the "multiverse"

 

The Multiverse is real. Jet li and Jason Statham said it was :armscrossed: