darth tater

Actually it is because the Earth's axis is on a 23.5 degree tilt relative to the plane of it's orbit around the Sun. That is what causes our seasons.

You know, there are many in the US today who feel the same way about abortion.

Looks promising doesn't it?

Alternate energy sources require much in the way of R&D, which require investment capital. At the present time, oil is cheap enough and the potential for profit great enough that not many people are willing to invest their hard earned capital in alternate fuel sources. After oil gets to $100 a BBL., or once we truely start to run out of reserves, perhaps, but not now.

If we don't drill for oil, build refineries, construct nuclear power plants and search for alternate sources of power, how can we feel bad when Gasoline goes up to $4 pr. gallon? Is that what we want? Drilling in ANWR is just one of the necessary things that we need to do to survive. It used to be the nimby principle (Not In My Back Yard). Now it is the BANANA principle (Build Absolutely Nothing Absolutely Nowhere Atall) The Caribou will get used to it.

I guess I have never heard of the BB starting out from a dimensionless point (I have heard of all the material being compressed into a ball of perhaps 15 miles in diameter) but, if that was the case, then how did all the material get to that dimensionless point without some amount of time elapsing to allow for that? And again, if nothing happened to trigger the BB, and nothing could have occured without the time element being in place, then we would still be in that state.

Or more likely to put a skewed face on it?

How would one research something like that? Would you ask the homeless why they are homeless? Would you expect them to be forthcomming as to why they do not house themselves?

I think the reason that most of the homeless are homeless is precisely because they do not consider having a home to be worth the effort and inconvienence of holding a regular job.

But if nothing happened to trigger the event, then the universe would not have been formed. And if something did happen to trigger the event, time must have passed.

Because in order for anything to occure, time must necessarily pass. If the speed of light cannot be exceeded, then there can be no movement without the passage of time.

Well I think that the evidence is in the success ratio in America. Do you know of a society that returns more wealth to the working class than ours does?

People are a little like electricity in that they take the path of least resistance. It is easier to blame someone else than it is to blame the person in the mirror. Looking for a helping hand? Try the ones on the ends of your arms.

My theory about time is that it always existed, even before the BB. If time did not exist before the BB, then the events that caused the BB could not have occured, since if anything happens, it takes time, therefore time had to exist before the BB.

And vice versa.

If time is required for anything to happen, then time exists because much has happen since the BB, or the creation, or whatever other method of initiation the universe went through. How can one wonder if time exists and at the same time accept that light has a finite speed? Or that Earth's orbit has a measurable duration to complete a cycle? If time did not exist, wouldn't we already be at the end of it?

That sounds like a good idea, but how about building a ship in orbit that would remain in orbit once it reached Mars? Such a ship would be a lot easier to build because the stresses of entry into the Martian atmosphere and Martian gravity would require a much more ridgid structure. Shuttles could handle the transport to the surface of personnal and supplies. I agree that money is the biggest hurtle to overcome.

Which probably means solar cells as a source of power. Why not take about 25 years and send all the trappings to mars and then send the people to start the colony? We could send up solar cells, food (dried), material to build shelters and all the other stuff we would need to support a landing party for, say a couple of years, then send the people to set up the equipment and gain a foot-hold. After that, they would be self sustaining and as more and more people arrived, they could graudually develop the capability of manufactureing the things they needed from the resources right there on Mars. In a hundred years, I would bet that there would be a city of several hundred thousand, perhaps more.

I think Mars makes more sense too, except it is a lot farther away if we needed supplies from Earth. The name of the game is for the colony to be self sustaining as soon as possible. This will require much in the way of prior planning. I do think that greenhouses with bubble tops would work, especially if they had some sort of system to limit the sunlight that comes through the thin atmosphere. Mars is, by the way, a little farther from the Sun than Earth being the 4th planet in the system.

If Engineering is not the best place for this, OK, but there would be a lot of engineering problems to be solved in a colonization project on the Moon, or Mars. Wanna discuss it? Is there a source of fuel and water on either or both? Are those sources exploitable? Food? Perhaps subterranian greenhouses?