Space travel cannot be fast!

[jaxtraw]

csmyth3025-

There's a difference between circumstances and intent. Sure, people in the past didn't move about much, but they couldn't and didn't know any better. People born in one set of circumstances today can group up and move to a different one. A generation ship is deliberate imprisonment of your descendents, cut off from the rest of humanity. It's a ghastly thing to do to anyone. Imagine the envy and ennui of being born in this flying prison, stuck there for your life, for people back home who could walk on a beach or in a forest, or just breathe fresh air or sunbathe. No, I don't believe it's morally acceptable. Besides all else, it presumes that your descendents are going to have the same enthusiasm for the project as you. Why would they? My guess is the second generation would devote all their efforts to turning the thing around and getting back home again.

neilsox-

I'm not talking about life extension. I just think it inevitable that we will re-engineer the genome to be immortal. Extending life probably isn't much use as a technology; it's a low bar to aim for, and probably includes negatives like an even longer period of old age. No, that's no use.

I presume it'll be easier to have people born immortal than a retrofit, so there's likely to be a last generation suffering the deeply unpleasant experience of ageing and dying while those born after them stay eternally young. That won't be nice at all.

 

[Andorfiend]

Skipped through the thread and haven't read it all, sorry, but on the points made about "slow ships" taking a long time to get there; generation ships are morally and psychologically implausible, if not impossible. You may want to lock yourself in a flying prison for the rest of your life, but do you have the right to lock your children and your childrens' children in there, and how the heck are they going to feel about it, knowing that back on Earth life in all its glory goes on and they're permanently denied it? I couldn't do that to my kids. I couldn't stand the hatred. There's no reason to think they would have any enthusiasm for this miserable life sentence for some future "greater good" of colonising a planet they'll never see. No, I can't see it ever happening.

Generation ships are iffy, I don't think I've ever read a science fiction story about one where things didn't go south. However the simple isolation and lack of options are in no way different from the pioneers who brought their children with them as the settled North America. It was hard, dangerous, not all of them made it, and the children ended up living in communities tinier than a generation ship would be. And some of them hated it and some of them loved it.

Was it morally wrong for the polynesians who colonized easter island to set out?

Honestly the only thing that makes a world ship different from a world is that a disgruntled teenager cannot commit genocidal sabotage upon Kansas. However much of an improvment that might be.

I'll agree that right now a generation ship is not a sensible proposition, although I don't think I'd agree it was morally wrong so much as risky. However I think a better handle on psychology as a hard science would be enough to go forward. Other enableing technologies exist, or could exist. Imagine for example that everyone of the G-ship was brought up "in the matrix" and only those who are psychologically stable enough, and are interested are ever offered the blue pill. That at least eliminates the threat of lethal sabotage if not of unhappiness. I'll note however that no parent anywhere is ever offered a certainty that their children will be happy. Laura Engles was happy growing up in a tiny community is Kansas, the children of rich urbanites are often miserable.

 

[orionrider]

I think 'immortality', or rather 'life extension', has more credibility in the next 100 years than circumventing Newton's laws of physics, let alone Einstein's.

We will still travel slowly, but long. That means exploring the outer reaches of the solar system and sending century probes to nearby stars.

 

[bdewoody]

For me life extension would be a double edged sword. In my current physical shape I would have second thoughts about living for another 60 or more years unless they could replace or repair everything that isn't working right anymore. And then there is the question of funds, I would have to go back to work for another 30 or 40 years maybe less if I used what I have already learned about finances. Of course if I were on a long term space voyage work would be a different prospect.

I still hold some hope that science will discover some means of bypassing the speed of light as a limit to travelling across the vastness of space between stars.

 

[KhashayarShatti]

I think 'immortality', or rather 'life extension', has more credibility in the next 100 years than circumventing Newton's laws of physics, let alone Einstein's.

We will still travel slowly, but long. That means exploring the outer reaches of the solar system and sending century probes to nearby stars.

In fact repair mechanism of body should be developed to extend to more harsh conditions. It is promised by scientists that it could be so within the next 20 years including DNA repair. I think repair mechanism of spaceships should be developed to function like biocreatures. Everypart gets damaged this mechanism should exist to treat it to full extent.

 

[jaxtraw]

I can't see any point to life extension, myself. It's immortality or nothing as a worthwhile goal.

The current human lifespan is no greater than it was 10,000 years ago. The average survival age has risen due to medicine, and there are improvements in maintenance so that for some people old age is healthier; but most of us still end up meeting a ghastly and frequently degrading end. Putting that off another 50 years will probably take far more effort than it is worth. We might seek instead "youth extension"; maybe we could make the golden age last longer than the 20 or so years it does now (this is particularly acute for women- a hot 18 year old is severely fading in most cases by her late 30s). In our current state, we spend most of our lives "past our best". But on reflection, imagine the horror of being young and beautiful for 80 years, then suddenly tipping over into a rapid slide into senescence. That would be even worse.

So really, the goal is to just avoid the horrific fate of ageing altogether. That is likely to mean two things; switching off whatever hard-coded clocks there are in the genome, and beefing up the repair mechanisms in the body. There's also surely a lot of interesting research to be done into why we age the way we do. Why does fat sag? Why do some people get sagging jowls and others don't? What idiot put the "grow a beer belly regardless of being a teetotaller in your 40s" gene in the genome?

Anyway, I'd rather age and die as I am now than be an old man for 300 years.

 

[bdewoody]

That's basically what I was saying. Plus do you want to do the same job you are doing now for a hundred years?

 

[adrenalynn]

Sure. Given another hundred years, I couldn't even scratch the surface of what I do.

 

[Sycamorefan]

Thousand-year trips are not only a possibility, it will be a necessity! Only, no machine can survive for so long without failure. :?

If no exotic physics comes to change the game, we're stuck in the Solar System, period.

You are correct Onionrider, many of physical laws of the universe are unbendable, even a little!
however; you sadly underestimate human ingenuity! When the wheel itself was a limiting factor to the top speed of trains, we stopped using it and replaced it with opposing magnetic fields! Trust me, if there is money involved in finding a solution to a problem, someone will step up to the challenge! Don't forget, it was impossible to find planets around other stars until 15 years ago and the U.S. Patent office publicly stated in 1900 that manned flight was impossible!
Interstellar travel is possible, possibly even within the span of a human life, it just hasn't been invented yet!

 

[dilligaff01]

I've read through most of the posts and, of course, I have some questions. I apologize in advance ;-)

1. How fast do asteroids travel? Do any of them reach a speed where these collisions become a problem? If they do reach the speed wouldn't that suggest that it may not be as big of a risk as we think? Also, an observation to the people suggesting a probe of some type precede the ship, remember everything in the universe is in motion. I may be wrong but it seems that even at these speeds not all of the hazards would be directly in front of you in this ftl ship.

2. At our current level of technology, if we never made another advancement in propulsion, space travel, etc., it wouldn't really make sense to send live people to another planet. Wouldn't it make more sense to send a ship with a computer capable of cloning once it arrived, especially if it could make "adjustments" in DNA to account for local conditions? If gravity was stronger there then the inhabitants would need to be stronger, if the planet had higher radiation levels then adjust for that. Things like that. So we send "Hal" and abunch of DNA stock and hope for the best. In that scenario our focus would be better spent on some advanced type of AI, cloning and some type of communication system so the beings (they wouldn't really be human at that point) could communicate with us at some point and we could trade information. This isn't a question, more of an observation I guess. I personally prefer the star trek style exploration but if everyone believes it will take 1,000 years to send living people the nearest habitable planet this might be a faster and more realistic option to explore. Smaller ship, no life support, less fuel, etc.

3. Really until we devise a way to reach, or some way around, near light travel it wouldn't make sense to send anything. If we build a ship that takes 1,000 years to get there we would probably advance technology so many times in that 1,000 years that we could pass them up with a 2nd rocket reaching the planet within 500 years of the original rocket taking off. Before that second rocket gets there we might even be able to beam there star trek style in less than 100 years after it took off. Kind of a leap frog effect I guess. I'd be pissed if I was on the first rocket

4. I've read over and over that all speed is relative. In a universe as large as ours I have no doubt that somewhere there are two planets somewhere and each is moving away from the other at 51% or more of the speed of light. That's an opening speed of 102%. Doesn't that count as traveling faster than light? Since all speed is relative can we really say that ftl speed is impossible?

Ultimitaly I find it difficult to believe anyone that says anything is impossible or completely wrong when discussing theories. It wasn't that long ago that liquid water or water ice on the moon or mars was impossible. It couldn't happen due to sublimation. It wasn't long before that that everyone believed the earth was the center of everything and everything revolved around us. People were killed for stating anything different aloud.

The truth is that none of us know what future leaps in understanding and technology will bring. Theories are revised all the time as new information becomes available. The universe is so big it's like we're looking at one grain of sand in a desert and trying to understand the whole thing. I don't mean to suggest something drastic like all our current theories will be proven wrong but I would bet huge sums of money that almost all of them will be modified at some point in the near or distant future. Granted, I believe some things are more likely than others but if you close your mind off completely to something, especially considering our limited "view", you could easily miss something important.

I'm a layman and even I understand that we are only able to really observe a very tiny portion of a mind bogglingly huge universe. Given that much room and untold billions of years who knows what can happen. Not trying to offend anybody, just something to think about

 

[orionrider]

Dilli, most of your remarks are based on the assumption of continuous progress. Do you have any evidence to support the idea that these things here can in fact be invented?:

'a computer capable of cloning'
'the beings could communicate with us' = a device to communicate over lightyears.
'some advanced type of AI'

'there we would probably advance technology so many times in that 1,000 years'

Progress has NOT been so spectacular in the last 100 years. Especially in physics. Since Einstein, nobody has found anything better than the relativity theories (1905 - 1916). Besides, who says progress will continue?

each is moving away at 51% or more of the speed of light. That's an opening speed of 102%. Doesn't that count as traveling faster than light?

Nope, nothing goes faster than c relative to local spacetime. Planet B is simply beyond the observable universe from planet A.

How fast do asteroids travel?

A few tens of km/sec. If you are unlucky the speed of the obstacle adds to your own speed.

Nothing is colder than -273.15°C; you cannot divide by zero; Pi is 3.1415926... and nothing with a mass can go faster than 300.000km/sec.
Easy, right? There is no reason to believe progress will ever change any of these constants. :idea:

 

[secretchimp]

Projects Orion and Daedalus both addressed this issue, I believe, rather well.

These spacecraft both were designed for high sublight velocities using known technologies and concepts. They had shielding that was not particularly exotic either.

 

[dwarflord]

Hello

Most of the coments above refer to "todays science", I have faith in the future.
Remeber, comare the "Wright Brothers" crude attemps at flight, to today's supersonic stealth planes.
That is 100 years scientific evolution.

None of us can say where we will be in say 1000 years and beyond.

We will escape to the stars

 

[MeteorWayne]

Oh nose!! Not a front page SDC link :roll:

 

[orionrider]

Projects Orion and Daedalus both addressed this issue, I believe, rather well.

These spacecraft both were designed for high sublight velocities using known technologies and concepts. They had shielding that was not particularly exotic either.

Daedalus was supposed to mass 54,000 tonnes, propelled by a fusion drive. Orion was less ambitious but still required a ship of at least 100,000 tonnes. :shock: Orion had no forward shields.
That doesn't qualify as 'known technologies and concepts' in my book.