It all depends on what you mean by long term, and how far in space you
plan on colonizing. Considering that we are talking about astronomical
events which happen once every several hundred million years, I would
say that the odds give us a good sized window to get out of harms way.
That technicium levels in molybdenum deposits indicate the existence of
such gamma ray bursters in our own geological past (supposedly the late
cretaceous), or that our sun was once eight times as bright as it is now
at that point in time (not bloody likely) indicates that this is a
phenomenon that we can outrace given sufficient technology. Once we've
expanded past the limit of possible extinction, then any such
catastrophe thereafter is simply a stumble in our march across the
skies. Once it happens, we've got 100-200 million more years to rebuild
and expand further. Besides this, I expect that technology will allow
the development of sheilding sufficient to protect any "Noah's Ark" type
preserves, possibly in the cores of asteroids or dead moons like our
own. Several hundred miles of solid rock in every direction should be
enough sheilding against anything two neutron stars can cook up from
several hundred light years away.
-- TANSTAAFL!!!Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ President retroman@tpk.net Northstar Technologies Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com
Website: http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/ Now Featuring: Mikey's Animatronic Factory http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/animations.htm My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ Transhumanist, Inventor, Webmaster, Ski Guide, Entrepreneur, Artist, Outdoorsman, Libertarian, Arms Exporter-see below. ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}