My first post: On the nature of humanities future endeavours

It has been impressed upon me recently, by the end of the NASA shuttle program; considered by many to be one of humanities greatest endeavours, that we as a collective species have a peculiar relation to our place in the Universe and our future relation to it. At one time we were remarkably industrious species, constantly looking onto new horizons with the hope that they bore far greater opportunities. It was partly because of this we took up the challenge to boldly go into space, to test the best of our ingenuity and marvel in self gratification at the technological wonders we could develop. For 40 years we explored the possibilities of man in space, from sending a man to the moon, to the collective creation of the international space station. We soon learned however that there were greater barriers to our dreams of travelling to other planets, the technology developed to travel to the moon would not suffice in getting us to Mars, a comparatively short step from our own rocky planet. Despite our best efforts to date we have not yet mastered a technology that would provide the habitable transportation required to travel to distant worlds. For example, the time it would take to travel to the recently discovered "earth like" planet Gliese 581g at our current best would be 250000 years, which begs the question; does the future of humanity lay in the wider universe, in going to and exploring other distant worlds?

Perhaps our future lays in the Digiverse and in exploring the digital frontiers of artificial reality and the worlds which we ourselves create. It does seem that in recent years technology is ever becoming a greater distraction from the pursuit of physical adventure, instead of the facilitator of it. Online fantasy role playing games are becoming far more popular and approachable than real world encounters, connecting a greater number of people from further away, breaking down cultural and language barriers as they grow ever sophisticated. One cannot overlook the increasingly rapid rate at which graphic technology and computer power is growing, further facilitating and increasing the number of player interactions and the reality of those experiences. Would it really be so different to be locked away in an introspective dream world with an infinite number of possibilities, compared to exploring the infinite possibilities of reality. With improving graphic technology and increasingly immersive games it now becomes the question of what happens at the point where there is no discernible difference between fantasy and reality, should we choose the pursuit of breaking down the barriers of technology and discovering the seemingly infinite universe of space or instead choose to explore an introspective universe built from our own creation.