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Fifty thousand years from now— if all goes according to plan— a bright streak will smudge the sky as a man-made meteor plunges into the Earth’s atmosphere. The burnoff of the object’s thermal layer during re-entry should illuminate the sky with bright artificial auroras, and despite its dramatic entrance, its payload will hopefully survive the rough landing unscathed. The spherical container is a satellite, one which will soon be placed into a leisurely orbit that will allow it to circle the Earth for fifty millennia before finally sinking back into the atmosphere. The project is supported by UNESCO— the science and education arm of the UN— and the European Space Agency. It is called KEO, and it’s certainly one of the more creative and complex efforts to cast a message-in-a-bottle into the sea of time.
The satellite’s design, which lacks any on-board propulsion or communication equipment, was conceived in 1994 by a French scientist and artist named Jean-Marc Philippe. The eighty-centimeter-wide sphere is intended to be outfitted with a pair of long wings which are attached using memory alloys that change their shape according to temperature. This will allow the satellite to automatically spread its wings when exposed to sunlight, and fold them in while in the Earth’s shadow, however the wings serve no useful purpose… they are purely symbolic.
The design of the sphere itself is a bit more practical, with a number of features included to protect KEO’s payload from the harsh environment of space and the brutal beating of atmospheric re-entry. It is protected by a number of nested shields: An outermost layer of aluminum to prevent oxidation, a titanium and tungsten shield to protect against damage from cosmic rays, a layer to protect against micro-meteorites and debris, a thermal shield to prevent the payload from burning up during its fiery descent, and the innermost shield which utilizes metallic sponge material encased in titanium to protect against the shock of landing. The satellite is also designed to be buoyant in the event that it lands in water.
If the satellite survives its launch, its long stay in space, its re-entry, and its landing, AND if there are intelligent inhabitants of this planet who manage to find KEO and open its titanium shell, what they will find inside is a compact but information-rich time capsule. The innermost sphere will hold photographs representing all cultures of people; an artificial diamond which encases a drop of human blood along with tiny samples of sea water, air, and soil; and an astronomical clock based on the positions of nearby pulsars which can be used to determine when the satellite was launched.
Also inside will be something which will likely be strange to the visual organs of its discoverers: a set of specially-made glass DVDs, along with symbol-based instruction on how to build a DVD reader. Upon these DVDs will be encoded a contemporary “Library of Alexandria”— an encyclopedic compendium of current human knowledge— and millions of personalized messages currently being collected from individuals all over the world.
KEO’s makers decided on its transit time based on the fact that it has been 50,000 years since mankind first began drawing on cave walls, which represents the earliest forms of symbolic expression. Sending the time capsule forward an equal number of years seemed fitting to its designers, perhaps because it the nature of the human ego to think of one’s own time as the midpoint of history. If your fancy is tickled by the notion of contributing a message to be included on KEO, the project’s website is collecting submissions until the end of 2006. All
members of humanity are invited to send in their contributions, and though the messages are uncensored, they are limited to 6,000 characters of text. Before KEO is launched in 2007 or 2008 (barring any further delays), all submissions will be anonymized and made available for free online.
It seems that an obscene amount of luck will be necessary to deliver the contents of KEO to future souls who can reach its bounty and understand what they have found, but it’s best to mark your calendars for 52,007 A.D. just in case… if KEO does arrive on schedule, it should be quite a sight.
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Well rats to it, I’m going to add a message anyway.
50,000 years? If history has taught us anything, it’s that the future arrives faster and faster as we become more advanced. It took thousands of years for man to actively start exploring and mapping the world, with nations born, civilizations destroyed, and discoveries made. By 1900, it only took a hundred years for flight to become a reality and mankind started playing golf on the moon and planning trips to Mars.
I’m willing to bet with the advancements in satellite technology and space exploration in the next 100 years, someone is going to be saying, “Get that piece of crap out of the way! We need to build the hyperspace link right where it’s floating.”
I predict the beginning of a new religon in 52007 A.D……”Worship the orb”.
An outermost layer of aluminum to prevent oxidation
Aluminum is going to prevent oxidation. In space. Wherein resides monatomic oxygen.
Okay…
solitas said: “An outermost layer of aluminum to prevent oxidation
Aluminum is going to prevent oxidation. In space. Wherein resides monatomic oxygen.
Okay…”
I would of thought it would prevent oxidation on re-entry.
It flaps its wings? For no purpose? I want to start an “Abuse of science list” for all the pointless little things man does with his vast knowledge.
Anyway, I so want this space ship to crash into the Crypt of Civilisation on it’s re-entry if only for the delicious irony of it all.
Anyway, I so want this space ship to crash into the Crypt of Civilisation on it’s re-entry if only for the delicious irony of it all.”
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard. I don’t think humans will come close to lasting that long. Even if they do, no one will care what we know now. We will be either much farther advanced, and moved on to new planets, or will have reverted to a stone age type existence. At least its European Space Agency’s money, and not NASA’s…
I agree with secretninja, We are going to kill our selfs some how, (nuclear world war III, Global warming, etc) so whats the point. If by some remote x50 chance we survive, do we really need a big ball of space junk just to show off? will the people of 52,007 really give a crap?
> it’s best to mark your calendars for 52,007 A.D. just in case
I’m loving the optimisim – single-year accuracy on a 50,000 year trip. That’s like predicting the arrival time to within three seconds for a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles.
I wonder who’s drop of blood it is.
I would of thought a clever/usefull thing to of done was put some bacteria on it that can lie dormant for 50,000 years. Then if we did wipe out all life on Earth between now and then the bacteria could start the process all over again.
Oh, about the drop of blood. I don’t know about Europe but NASA always seems to use secritarys to do stuff like that. When they launched the rocket to take the first man to the moon a secritary picked which flag to use randomly so that no flag company could claim to be the company with a flag on the moon. With most of these things it’s just who’s there at there at the time, what always amazes me is how impromptu everything is in real life.
P.S.
Marius said: “ROTFLMAO!!!!!”
My first ever ROTFLMAO. *Crys*
P.P.S.
I can’t spell secritary
easy marius, like this -> siekroateaury
:)
AKALucifer said: “I would of thought a clever/usefull thing to of done was put some bacteria on it that can lie dormant for 50,000 years. Then if we did wipe out all life on Earth between now and then the bacteria could start the process all over again.”
Or better still, what if our distant decendants have lost their immunity to the extinct bacteria the probe reintroduces? Space-bird Flu pandemic, anyone?
LOL. Remember the plaques thay put on Voyager and Pioneer? “Hello aliens: here’s where we are, here’s what we look like, here’s what we’re made of. Come and eat us!”
Wh y do I get the feeling that this thing will be worshiped as a god by the next species that takes our place?
Oh wait I forgot, It’ll be robots anyway.
50,ooo years isint that much time. We will probably have evolved very little (if at all) in that time frame let alone have gone extinct (at most we might be completly free of the apendix). Orbits being what they are its prety easy to calculate a fifty thousand year orbit, give or take a few months.
Oh and im really tired of nihilists who all assume that humanity will die so easily. If our race is doomed to join the dustbin of history it will be because of those who refused to fight for their lives for fear that their own prophecies might be false.
Thank you Pascal Leduc! I couldn’t believe how half the comments were negative predictions of our future.
The FAQs for KEO are very interesting, and I love their explanation for the name.
Why not put a rosetta project inside as well?
From the original post: “If your fancy is tickled by the notion of contributing a message to be included on KEO, the project’s website is collecting submissions until the end of 2006. All
members of humanity are invited to send in their contributions, and though the messages are uncensored, they are limited to 6,000 characters of text.”
This may be the most fascinating aspect of KEO. What kinds of messages will make it onto KEO, and will it make any sense whatsoever to whoever reads it 50,000 years from now? Since it’s uncensored, I can just see some people submitting all sorts of scatological jokes. Maybe even trans-epochal spam. I can also see a certain Online Gambling Service That Shall Not Be Named Here (hint: it’s the same one that tried to crash the Olympic closing ceremonies) submitting a message as a publicity stunt. You think they’ll still be around 50 millennia from now?
stephentross said: “Why not put a rosetta project inside as well?”
My thought’s exactly.
Pascal Leduc said: “50,ooo years isint that much time. We will probably have evolved very little (if at all) in that time frame let alone have gone extinct (at most we might be completly free of the apendix). Orbits being what they are its prety easy to calculate a fifty thousand year orbit, give or take a few months.
Oh and im really tired of nihilists who all assume that humanity will die so easily. If our race is doomed to join the dustbin of history it will be because of those who refused to fight for their lives for fear that their own prophecies might be false.”
i agree with pascal in that humans will evolve very little in the next 50000 years, as this is a very small amount of time when put in perspective. another way of looking at it is if you condensed the entire time of the earths life (4.5 billion years) onto a 1 month (31 day) period, humans have only been around for the roughly the last minute of the last day, if that. and it took us little more than an hour of the last day to evolve from chipanzees. so for us to evolve anymore in another 50,000 years, (or about 25 seconds in the condesnsed time frame) is highly unlikely.
i find it interesting however as to wether or not our species will still be around in 50,000. in the last 100 years we have used up over half of the earths reserves in fossil fuels, and we will be depleted of them in 65 to 80 years. if global warming continues, which it will, then oceans will rise aproximately 1 meter for every 1 degree increase in sea temperature due to thermal expansion, not to mention the polar ice caps melting. and there will be a vast amount of toxic gases released from the ice caps as they melt (methane, co2) so it will be interesting to see if we make it that long, not even taking into consideration there will be many more world wars fought over the last remaining energy reserves, as nuclear energy is the next step, but it too wont last forever!! humans are slowly destroying our earth and using up every last energy source we have, and i dont think very many people out there realize how devestating this is going to be to mankind in the next couple thousand years! i would love to be able to stick around and see what happens!!
“Also inside will be something which will likely be strange to the visual organs of its discoverers: a set of specially-made glass DVDs, along with symbol-based instruction on how to build a DVD reader.”
How the hell do you create a symbol-based set of instructions to build a DVD reader???? Whats the symbol for “go to Radio Shack and buy Laser diode”?
Where you see doom, I see only challenges.
The road to our current dominant position is the earths biosphere was frought with perils and dangers and im sure their are plenty more to come.
Fossil fuels will never be completly depleted because as it is used up, what is left is harder and more expensive to extract, eventualy it will be far too expensive to run cars off of it and alternative fuel sources will have to be developed. As for petrol fueled world wars they too are a myth, the reason for that is two prong. First of all as it becomes more and more expensive to produce, petrol will actualy become less and less valuable (its chief advantage over other power sources is its cheapness and convenience), major nations dont fight wars over marginaly important resources. Second of all fossil fuels arent all concentrated in one location, every major nation either have or have an ally that have a major fossil fuel reserve (the second largest reserve of petrol is in Canada and the largest gas field is the northern sea) for one nation to control a majority of the worlds remaining petrol it would have to invade a massive swath of land in multiple theaters and to be honest our army’s suck. Even the USA the most powerfull nation in the world, the only superpower and the largest war invester can hardly even put down a minor third world nation. Like a bunch of kiddy nerds in the school yard, world wars are imppossible purely because no nation is strong enough to beat up the other.
Past this somewhat stressfull point, I see nothing but blue sky’s ahead. Global warming may be comming but if our race survived an ice age we can certanly survive a hot one. And on the horizon ther is Fusion power, an energy source so effective and so efficient that it will revolutionize modern society much the same way the cotton gin changed america forever.
Those that call out for the extinction of man and call us fools for the marks we have left on this planet ignore our manifest destiny as rulers of it. Some of you may decry me as folly-full, that like the dinosaurs of yore who rode over the earth as kings only to be annahilated by a big rock, we too face an ignomious doom, possibly of our own making. But we are not dinosaurs nor reptiles, we are man, we posses mind and spirit, creativity and dexterity, and these are far stronger that any serated claw, strong jaw or fast legs. with these tools we have conquered every continent of earth and extended our reach to the highest orbits and the deepest seabeds, we have built massive machines to shape the earth in our image and saw into the very essence of life. We hold sovereign power over every species of earth and acertained the very workings of the atom. We even killed polio and saved poland. Their is no task to greath, too difficult, too complex for us, and we need but set our minds to succeed.
I am man, hear me roar.
You seem very confident that mankind will survive 50000 years into the future. I would like to be that optimistic, but I can’t ignore the probability of us getting wiped out by an asteroid, or the even greater probability of us blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons. As a wise man once said, “if we fire nukes, everybody else who’s got ’em is gonna fire ’em. Think about it, mass death, conatmination, nuclear winter, no, no, I don’t want to go, it can’t be allowed…”
If i could leave a message on one of those glass DVD’s it would be:
Are there still jews?
8177 I’m assuming you’re referencing the Walt Disney clip in The Stewie Griffin Movie? If so fair play. If not shame on you!
Joshua said: ” What kinds of messages will make it onto KEO, and will it make any sense whatsoever to whoever reads it 50,000 years from now? Since it’s uncensored, I can just see some people submitting all sorts of scatological jokes. Maybe even trans-epochal spam. I can also see a certain Online Gambling Service That Shall Not Be Named Here “
52,007A.D: the nations of the Earth have gathered around a small metal sphere that has recently landed. The sphere is opened and the glass DVDs removed. Over the next few months the finest scientists in the land study the sphere and assemble a working DVD player and finally the moment comes to play the 1st disk. World leaders are gathered and images of the momentous event are broadcast to every person on the globe as the 1st extract begins to display “Penis Enlargement! Add 3inches and extra width with this herbal non-medical proven formula! Apply now and have the penis you’ve always dreamed of today!”
Although physiologically, it’s unlikely for humans to have evolved more than superficially, (Although I wouldn’t mind having purple skin…) the psychological and cultural advancements are sure to put a hamper on things on the interpretation end. Imagine a civilization that speaks in tonals that we are currently incapable of producing or uses non-symbol writing; anything we leave in the capsule will have to be considerably basic just for the out possibilities.
Do you really think that the historical pace of evolution will still apply during this time period? I don’t, and I think it has already been stopped. Evolution of the human species has already undergone a radical change in the last thousand years – in the past, who lived to pass on their genes was determined by physical traits that allowed that person to survive in the environment. This is no longer the case. People these days are living full, productive lives (including having children of their own) with conditions that would not have allowed them to survive birth 100 (or even 10) years ago. People who would have perished from susceptibility to many environmental factors or diseases have been saved by progress in medicine and in environmental control (houses, protective clothing, etc.). In short, what was a Darwinian process of survival in the past no longer applies in the most part to the human species.
The people that get to pass on their genes are now made up from a much larger group of not just who was able to survive, but who we are able to save as well. Then we subtract from this larger group all those that do not fit the following criteria: 1) desires to have children 2) smart, attractive and rich enough to attract someone that desires to have children with them 3) smart enough not to get their children killed in car accidents or by drug abuse and, finally 4) people who live in safer, more advanced coutries/communities.
Next, throw in gene therapy that is being used to combat genetic diseases, and screening to prevent marriages between people with genes for those genetic diseases (i.e. Tay-Sachs). In some countries they actually have to pass laws making it illegal for doctors to tell parents the sex of an unborn baby because the families want male children so bad they will abort the pregnancy if it is going to be a girl. (side note – what would those countries be like in 30 years without those laws? 90% men and 10% women?)
I don’t think the time is really that far off when genetic engineering will be able to allow children to be enhanced at the time of conception so that they will have higher IQs, and have traits such as eye and hair color selected by the parents. And all the genetic factors for many cancers and genetic diseases removed.
Even if this only gets to be utilized by 20% of the world, it will radically change the pace of evolution for the human species to the point where the effects will be visible within the span of a lifetime.
And I don’t need to do more than mention the topic of what will be available with cybernetic enhancements…
When this time capsule lands, they will be laughing at how primitive we were… they might not even have to wait for it to land to read it… they might just read the contents from their living room with a quick sensor scan of the satellite.
it doesn’t matter whether humans will still exist in 50,000 years because in a handful of generations we’ll forget we ever launched this thing and pluck it out of orbit to see what it is, then we’ll really feel like jerks.
Great way (or terrible way) to spend a ton of money on pure optimism.
I suppose but tons of money is spent every day on cynicism so it makes a nice change.
On the subject of humans evolving (It has come up) Can we evolve? Seeing as most people only have children with 1 or 2 different people nowadays can evolution still function?
Chilehead said: “Do you really think that the historical pace of evolution will still apply during this time period? I don’t, and I think it has already been stopped.
You are wrong there, your facts on evolution are distorted.
Every human evolves in his/her lifetime, for example: the maths section of Albert Einstiens brain had grown 20% by the time he died. So you see, it isn’t about survival. 50% of a humans adapted DNA goes into their child.
Over the past 100 years, we have been pushing out brains to the limit, hastening the growth.
For people who think we won’t have evolved much in 50,000 should remember that: it was only 50,000 ago that the human race was nothing more than monkeys with sharpened rocks.
Only a few hundred years ago, the adult human was as short as a modern day child.
semantics though it may be, no proponent of evolution has ever once stated that humans decended from monkeys. it is more accurate to say that it is believed that humans and apes share a common ancestor.
Er… I disagree with the common ancestry thing, if it were true, apes would have been devolved >_>;
Ah, but on to what I intended to say… Although I do not commonly profess myself as the religious type, I have to note that biblical depictions on age date people living in multiples of a thousand years. Although this could be argued as a mismatching of dating systems, if (and yes, this is something highly debated by theologists) it is indeed true, the biblical times ended fairly recently. This means that humanity would have leapt from a major evolutionary slump into a quickening of tremendous porportions.
Evolution would have worked at both an incredibly slow rate and at a greatly er… wide-spread one considering how many children would be had in such a time.
I’m reeeeaaaally meandering from the subject matter here, so I’ll cut it short. If humanity has fluctuated so wildly before, who’s to say it won’t happen again? We could be headed for a genetic brick wall.
i find it interesting however as to wether or not our species will still be around in 50,000. in the last 100 years we have used up over half of the earths reserves in fossil fuels, and we will be depleted of them in 65 to 80 years. if global warming continues, which it will, then oceans will rise aproximately 1 meter for every 1 degree increase in sea temperature due to thermal expansion, not to mention the polar ice caps melting. and there will be a vast amount of toxic gases released from the ice caps as they melt (methane, co2) so it will be interesting to see if we make it that long, not even taking into consideration there will be many more world wars fought over the last remaining energy reserves, as nuclear energy is the next step, but it too wont last forever!! humans are slowly destroying our earth and using up every last energy source we have, and i dont think very many people out there realize how devestating this is going to be to mankind in the next couple thousand years! i would love to be able to stick around and see what happens!!”
Now you know I will always jump in with a scripture or two when I see a comment that can be coupled with the Bible. “In the last 100 years” was key to my wanting to comment. Revelation 11:18b (b means the latter part of the scripture but of course you can read all of verse 18)” …and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” I have always found that scripture interesting because as you know, mankind has never been closer to ruining the earth as we have been within the last 100 years. So according to the prophecy, God will not let his Earth be ruined. Instead bringing to ruin those who are ruining it.
Now, not many of us can say we are not guilty of ruining the Earth. We drive. People smoke. Entire corporations poison waters (Erin Brockovich) and some work at corporations that add to the pollution. I always feel guilty when I buy an aerosole (sp-too lazy to look up) anything; I still buy it.
But aside from that, isn’t it interesting that the Bible stated such a thing. How could the Bible writer EVER know we could get this far.
JW’s are not Judgemental. But God is and prior to our completely ruining the Earth he will step in. : ) Oh, and thanks to whomever it was some time ago not minding my Bible point of view.
Loki said: “Er… I disagree with the common ancestry thing, if it were true, apes would have been devolved >_>;
evolution is not a linear progression from one form to another, it is change itself, therefore there can be no such thing as devolution. it is entirely possible that humans and apes share a common ancestor, and that our respective species have adapted to our different environments. how else might you explain our 99% identical DNA?
JustAnotherName said: lots of stuff that I dont care to have in my comment
But of course we will all be saved from that disaster well before it happens… and we will be young again!!
rp2 said: “But of course we will all be saved from that disaster well before it happens…”
nuh uh! dr. de grey will make us all immortal then we’ll be totally hosed when god comes after us.
Im sure that by 50000 years man would be extinct. If at all a handful do survive, they would care 2 hoots about a mass of metal coming crashing from space.
Stuart Says: “World leaders are gathered and images of the momentous event are broadcast to every person on the globe as the 1st extract begins to display “Penis Enlargement! Add 3inches and extra width with this herbal non-medical proven formula! Apply now and have the penis you’ve always dreamed of today!”
That is too funny! Space Spam, I love it.
——
Maybe this is what the past and forgotten advanced civilizations of Atlantis , Aztecs, or the pyramid builders were thinking when they launched the information filled time capsules we are finding today.
We call them UFO’s and the MiB’s (IE: Governments) are making sure that this generation doesn’t learn the secrets that destroyed our genius minded technologicaly advanced ancestors.
How ever because we have taken a great deal of this information and produced computers and space travel with it, a few evil ones have learnt the secrets of distruction the capsules were left to warn us about.
And so we Again face the same horrific annilation of ourselves that caused our ancient history to basicly vanish. If time is indeed a grid or dimention, then this idea may not be so far fetched. Haven’t we all seen the astronaughts and space man pictures on the Peruvian or Aztec walls? And hows about those Nazca lines, that Alan wrote about? https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=314
Sapient said: “”Also inside will be something which will likely be strange to the visual organs of its discoverers: a set of specially-made glass DVDs, along with symbol-based instruction on how to build a DVD reader.”
How the hell do you create a symbol-based set of instructions to build a DVD reader???? Whats the symbol for “go to Radio Shack and buy Laser diode”?”
LOL Yeah, since when did a guy ever read the instructions first? ;)
Oh, lets leave a message for our grandchildren! For god’s sake, that’s like trying to discover which caveman was MY grandfather!
Interesting…. Anyone here a creationist?
Oh, cruel irony…
Well, where did the common ancestor come from? It wasn’t squirrels, let me tell you…
I’ve gotta say, I agreed with most of what you said after this, but this part is just wrong. You can’t stop evolution unless you have a species of all 100% identical clones. Selection pressures may change from one feature to another, like eyesight not being as important since glasses were invented, but that just means that other traits become more important, like being tall or having big breasts. Humanity would still evolve, though as you later intimated, once genes are better understood we may have nearly unlimited potential for human controlled evolution in quite a short time.
Evolution keeps working as long as the species continues to reproduce. If some individuals have no offspring, or more offspring, or their offspring all get killed off before reproducing, then that will affect the evolution of the species.
Equivocation is dishonest debate. The definition of “evolution” you’re using there is not the definition of “evolution” we are discussing here. We are talking about the gradual change of a species’ DNA over many generations, not about “personal growth.”
Right, but how much a person learned in their lifetime does not affect the DNA that is passed on to their kids. (Which seems to be what you’re implying.)
It’s rather ironic that you had the nerve to accuse someone else of being “wrong” and saying their “facts on evolution are distorted” and then followed it up with that nonsense. No, humans did not evolve from monkeys (they came from an ape ancestor,) modern humans appeared about 200,000 years ago (far longer than 50,000 years ago,) and adult human height in the US hasn’t changed much in over 50 years, mainly because the change in height in recent history is primarily due to improvements in diet and health, not genetics.
Uh… Huh? As orc_jr explained earlier, “devolved” is pretty much a nonsense term in this context. Evolution is a change in the genetic makeup of a species in response to the species’ environment and the available options for evolution. Evolution is not a process with a goal or a fixed “this is a good/bad change” system. A trait that could save a species in one environment could doom it in another. To put it simply, a species can’t “devolve” due to evolution, because that’s a contradiction in terms. Old traits may resurface if they once again become useful to a species, but that would be re-evolution, not de-evolution.
Umm… No.
A) The oldest age of someone listed in the Bible is Methuselah, at 969 years old (Genesis 5:27.) That’s not “multiples of a thousand years.”
B) Archaeological records do not support the claims of the Bible, in that few ancient human remains are aged over 30 years old, which suggests that humans actually had shorter lifespans in the past, not longer ones.
C) The Bible also reports the existence of talking bushes, a boat capable of fitting 2 (or 7) each of several billion species, and that no animal ate meat prior to the flood. Not what I’d call a reliable source.
Easy. It’s a very general prediction that could be interpreted to fit any era that ever has been or ever will be. Simply having the wrong religious groups in charge of most of the planet could be interpreted as “ruining the Earth.” There is nothing in it that line that is specific enough to mean what you are interpreting it to mean, and mean that alone. Part of the trick to being a good prophet is keeping your predictions vague, probable, and/or open to interpretation, and that one does all of the above.
Actually, if you have kids, and your kids have kids, etc… there’s a good chance that in 50,000 years all of humanity will be your ever-so-great-grandchildren! :-)
Now where did you get the idea that either Methane or CO2 are toxic? The poles were free of ice for most of earths history, so all gasses that might be frozen there today were at one time free in the atmosphere. Didn’t bother most lifeforms one bit.
Last energy reserves… Well that depends on how we handle things. Modern countries are able to fill about 20% of their energy needs from renewable sources. Some fields like solar power have great potentials for increased efficieny in the near future. I think it is perfectly possible to raise the quota significantly before fossil and atomic fuels run out.
If they don’t reach 100% by then, it doesn’t mean the end of humanity. Energy will get more expensive. Maybe not everyone will be able to afford his own car or think twice about turning the heating to full power, but that won’t make mankind extinct.
Neither would atomic war. It would kill a jolly lot of people, but mainly in the population centres or strategic targets. There would be plenty of survivors.
People, man evolved from the proconsul, not the monkey. Though it is fanciful to say we evolved from monkeys, and yes, we’re definitely related at some level, we did not evolve from monkeys per se. Though ever since we went ahead and cast God in our image, it feels more and more like it is the monkey that is the higher evolved of the two species.
I for one welcome our new spherical overlord.
to Alex#49:
Yes!
A satellite planned to crash to the earth…will Taco Bell set up a target in the ocean giving away free tacos if it lands there? (Mir)
And if it lands in Australia, will the local government fine the EU for littering? (Skylab)
The sphere should come with a can opener and simple instructions on how to use it in case we should breed ourselves back into the ape!
Almost ten years later and it still hasn’t been launched. Might as well just leave it on the ground and wait 50,000 years for someone to dig it up :(