Old Mr Dangerous said 
 
So far Europa, Encedalus and Pluto show signs of water. We are living in an exciting age.

Indeed we are... But, how much time will pass between the "discovered it" and "did something with that discovery" stages? I mean, sure, we've put a lot of cash into the Mars projects lately, but aside from that isn't NASA terribly under-funded nowadays? Is there another Space Race on the horizon, perhaps? Going back to an earlier discussion, I can't believe that getting off this planet isn't a higher priority than it's shown to be thus far.

You're getting a little too deep for my half-asleep brain at 2:30 AM, in some respects anyhow.

Regarding your horizontal/vertical question... I hope to god I'm misunderstanding you, because you seem more knowledgeable in this stuff than me... But it's fairly obvious that the universe extends away from the Earth on every axis imaginable... It's not, like, a line of planets, asteroids, etc etc just waiting to collide with the planet... Like I said, I hope I misunderstood what you're questioning lol.

In respect to the other stuff you brought up... Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that you can drive yourself batty trying to rationalize or answer definitively. Nobody knows why everything's laid out the way it is, the actual size of it all, or any of that.

I've often just sat and thought about that very statement you made... Basically, the insignificance of us as a life form/species, or even down to the individual level. We have no concept of why the world "works", what holds the fucker together, the reasoning itself behind such concepts as gravity (I know the science behind it, but think about it from a layman's point of view, dumb it down - Why the fuck aren't we falling off?!?), what the overall point of it all... All this stuff, we don't know, can't explain, aaaaaaaaaaand we waste our lives paying for our lives. What the fuck!? That makes even less sense than all that other shit combined. We have ALL these mysteries out there, waiting for answers, but we occupy ourselves in our nine-to-fives, making those above us richer - and it's not even like they're putting that wealth to work to solve this shit, either! They're spending their lives hoarding their wealth just like a squirrel - where, in the grand scheme of things, they're just as insignificant as us, and we're all just as insignificant as the goddamn squirrel!

Uh, yeah, where the hell did that^ rant come from... My bad. Went off on a bit of a tangent.

So anyway, pondering it all... You know, the funny thing is... Y'know how sometimes you'll be thinking about shit, and all of a sudden feel like you're right on the verge of an epiphany... And POOF! It's gone. Pondering the universe, that shit happens to me all the time. Sigh. When that happens, it almost makes me wonder if shit out there is intentionally blocked from our minds, like, we're conditioned to not understand or answer life's great mysteries. When you almost have it, your brain wipes itself to protect you from learning, what? A harmful or dangerous truth? I mean, if that's the case, our brain actively prevents us from figuring this stuff out, why would that be? Hmmm...

I just got done listening to Enders Game yesterday. Great fucking story if you love sci-fi like I do. I love outer space docs and shows but I just feel like a dummy every time I watch one. I cant tell you how many youtube videos ive watched trying to explain the multiple dimensions and still cant grasp the concept. Apparently part of the purpose of the hadron collider is to try to prove these dimensions exist. They slam these atoms together hoping that eventually the mass of the atoms after will be less than before, proving they sent part of them to a dimension that we cant see or measure.

Worm holes and the warp drive theory blows my mind too. They always compare worm holes to a piece of paper. You are on one side and the destination is on the other. The wormhole is essentially like folding the paper over so the two points meet. So you are crossing the galaxy without traveling the distance

What I dont get is even if we could theoretically create the wormhole for warp drive, how could we possibly control where we come out on the other side?

Quantum entanglement is another one I cant grasp. Particles that become entangled so that even if they are separated across the universe and you manipulate one, then the other one responds directly the same at the same time no matter how far away it is.

Sorry if this stuff has already been said, I didnt get around to reading this thread till now and just read the last two pages