Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Age of the Mitochondria and Space Exploration

It seems, upon some recent science fiction musings, that we have entered an age of the Mitochondria; Refueling space-ships that travel between stars will require a vast amount of fuel; The obvious source of energy for this fuel is the sun, but situated so far from the sun as the earth, that energy is not fully available; Although eventually such energy might be "quantum teleported" into the fuel tank, or back to earth, in what might seem like the near future to the industrial space agencies, the sun might be used like a solar generator for sun-orbiting satellites or local spacecraft, even before exploration moves beyond our solar system.

As it is known, various "capsules" have already traveled the distance of Mars, and I believe one even went to Pluto; A new generation of scientists is currently working on a manned spacecraft to travel to mars---as reported in Popular Science; What this might be called is the age of the Mitochondria, the power generator for individual animal's cell structure;

Suitably, philosophy of this period could become highly advanced, beyond mere "postulations" into an age of "active, dynamic information;" I'm excited, as I feel some of these 'advents' have direct social applications that may appear in cafes or other public areas vis. 'modular citizen' and 'virtual capital'

Also see my comments at Esther Dyson's technology column at http://www.project-syndicate.org recently, "avant-garde information" and in other places, "digital marketing devices" and the correspondence between games and society.