Where will the drama of the human future be played out? Will it be out among the stars, or will it be confined to the domains of the solar system? Might we not even get that far and be stuck for the next few thousand years scratching things out here on the Earth's surface?
These were questions I asked last week in a New York Times op-ed piece. My main point was to focus on vast the distances between stars and get real about what they mean for our future. Rapid star-travel via concepts like a "warp drive" remain so deep in science fiction that looking in that direction for hope means wishing for a miracle. The scientific reality of manipulating space-time in any meaningful way would require a kind of technological advancement that would essentially make us demi-gods. For all our remarkable advancements we have never seen anything that gave us leaps in energy control on the scale required for hyperdrive, wormhole manipulation etc.
The author of this piece is obviously suffering from a lack of vision and/or a failure of nerve, IMO. What an idiotic title for an article about such an important topic as this. To be expected from the typical MSM hacks who get this kind of printplay. To read more, click here.