(03-21-2015, 02:58 PM)gstanford Wrote: What we really need to focus on is how to eventually move Earth into the orbit currently occupied by Mars if we want to survive once the sun starts getting hotter and becomes a red giant.

Or possibly Move Venus into Mars's orbit and vice avers and see if we can't terraform Venus into a habitable planet.  (pointless doing it in its current orbit - it gets too hot already and the problem will only get worse as the sun ages and its orbit could possibly be swallowed by a red giant sun).

(03-23-2015, 08:47 AM)gstanford Wrote: You don't have much faith in humanity then, do you?

The sun will get much hotter, long, long before it expands to become a red giant.

It will only take another 1 billion years for the sun to become hot enough to vaporise earths oceans, and life for humans and other livings things will become intolerable well before that - as soon as 300 million years from now.

Human induced climate change (global warming) will accelerate the whole process.

(03-23-2015, 05:19 PM)gstanford Wrote: You don't know just how lucky you are to be living at a point in time when technology has changed.  For most of humanities time on the planet technological progress has been sweet F.A.

Just look at the period of time between the collapse of the roman empire and the industrial revolution.  Society mostly went backwards!  Don't count on your kids or their future offspring improving anything.  Odds are they will be living a hunter gatherer neanderthal like lifestyle in the wake of a nuclear war.