I'm starting this because it seems to be the trend people on the lightspeed discussion were going towards, and as one person said, that discussion is about lightspeed, not anything else.
So I'm leaving this pretty much open for anyone to sprout their ideas about how we can go faster (or slower) then light to get to the stars. Have at it people!
------------------
Life: Terminal, unrecoverable, completely useless phenomonon - Me
I think we now have almost all the necessary technologies which would be required to establish a human colony on a planet of a distant star. This might be attempted by a government at some point in the next two or three centuries, to give us a 'backup' world in case the Sun goes unstable, or a similar catastrophe occurs. 'Simple' events like an asteroid strike on Earth might be mitigated with a moon colony or some very deep bunkers under the Alps, but eventually thoughts will turn to other stars.
I imagine that the first interstellar missions would be by robot probes. A group of scientists formed about 15 years ago, to debate with a brief of getting information back from another star within their lifetimes. Say a scientist will live for a maximum of another sixty years, subtract four years to get a signal at the speed of light from Alpha... you've got fifty-six years left in which to build something and send it across space. Say it takes sixteen years to build this big, fast robot ship (wildly optimistic, but a similar leap of technology as the Apollo Programme)... now you've got 40 years to get your ship to go four light years. It will have to have an initial 'burn', and then coast for almost all of the 40 years, assuming current propulsion. The probe (or parts of it) will have to have another 'burn' once they've arrived, so they don't just shoot past the Alpha system in a matter of days.
If it were possible to 'burn' all the way, the trip might be possible within the time frame. You'd accelerate for the first 20 years, then turn the ship around and decelerate for 20 years. In fact, because the ship would be getting lighter as the fuel was used up, you might be able to accelerate for 24 years, and decelerate for 16. You'd need a HELL of a lot of hydrogen for your NERVA engine, though.
The real manned ship would follow if the probe was successful, revealing a useful environment. (This is unlikely at Alpha.) With current technology, I would probably be forced to take frozen embryos rather than people. Upon arrival at another star, my ship would be able to use solar power again, having been mostly shut down. The human embryos would be grown to term in a synthetic womb (this is the bit we don't yet have), decanted by automatic machinery and raised to young adulthood by a computer system which would teach them the skills necessary to become colonists. I suspect that ensuring these people develop without becoming psychotic would actually be a more difficult task than the engineering of the probe and ship! The lack of human contact during their formative years, and having no human role models could easily have dire consequences.
To develop these million-tonne ships could do one of two things: it would either require such huge advances in technology, cooperation and the like that the human experience is permanently changed for the better, making the world into a utpoia... or. Or it could bankrupt the world government, pollute the biosphere with all the manufacture and space launches required, and put the whole of Earth at risk. Plus all the space hardware would make a fantastic weapon, if it ever fell into the wrong hands before it got sent on its way.
As for faster-than-light (speed of light in a vacuum) travel, I don't see how that could ever be achieved. It'll involve overturning the laws discovered by Einstein. Possible, but consider how long Newtons laws have gone unchallenged.
The future according to Richard Farr / VoinianAmbassador. I look forward to your comments.
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)
hm... Well I think that the baby think could be partailly avoided.
The embryos is okay but I think that a young human escort should be with them at birth and help them (young as in 24 or so when leaving). That way they could have a fatherly type figure who could explain certain things that the computer can't. For instance, their purpose, their life to come, etc. And to make sure that the young man doesn't go crazy either, I suggest one or two others. I would recomend a woman and man plus the embryos wich would have to be both male and female to reproduce. Also, MANY of these ships would have to come, not just the one. If only one came, there would be too many interbreeding too quick, causing possible mutations and complications in further babies. Also, people wouldn't like knowing the same people all their life.
Any agreements or disagreements?
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/jive_320/Feel_the_Jive.html")Feel the Jive(/url)
------------------
The most sure-fire way to avoid death, is to avoid birth.
(url="http://"http://resistance.infiniti-web.com")Resistance Site(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub29.ezboard.com/b20")---20---(/url) | *(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/newsdisplay.cgi?action=topics &number;=20&forum;=EV/EVO+chronicles&DaysPrune;=25&article;=000108&startpoint;=")Renegade Wars(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub51.ezboard.com/bquillz")Quillz(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.anada.net")Anada(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub57.ezboard.com/bcorsairdevelopers")Corsair Developers(/url)
Sex, sex, sex. It's all you ever think about, Jive! 
The trouble with transporting live colonists is keeping them alive and well throughout the flight. We're talking about maybe forty years in something which would seem a lot like a prison, with no guarantee that there's a safe place at the other end.
If the automated ship with the frozen embryos on can't find a suitable site for a colony, it can just shut down, end of story. Nobody suffers (unless you're a right-to-life campaigner)... but sending people? What a frightening job, and what awesome responsibility.
If you and a companion went, alive and awake, on my proposed colony ship (we can't achieve suspended animation for anything except frogs), I'd need to allow about (guess) ten thousand extra tonnes, for food and water, recycling and hydroponics, living space and recreation areas, and power for heat and light throughout the journey... and I'd need to accelerate all that extra mass, and stop it at the other end. If the ship found a dust particle while travelling at high speed, chances are you'd die. It's harder to keep humans alive than it is to keep frozen embryos in storage.
My proposed ship probably wouldn't accelerate hard enough throughout the journey to simulate gravity, so you'd end up with legs like pipecleaners, and a weak heart. You'd be unable to walk on the surface of any planet when you arrived.
If you fell out with your companion, she can't exactly demand to be taken home. If one of you got toothache, tough. And so on. The number of problems which the inclusion of a live mamal adds to the mission led me to try for an alternative. I think a dormant spacecraft which only has to warm up again when it reaches the target system would be a cheaper, more reliable way to go.
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)
Yes, but how would you feel if you were growing up with just a computer as a role model? What if you had a question it couldn't answer? What would happen if you didn't want to become a colonist? It's too risky without a human component. Maybe if you could comunicate with Earth and there would be somone to talk you through it there but...
Also, what if the new colonists couldn't figure out how to forage or hunt? If there is no food on the ship, what happens if they don't survive? Human activists and governmant officials would be all over it. Basically a waste of life and money.
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/jive_320/Feel_the_Jive.html")Feel the Jive(/url)
------------------
The most sure-fire way to avoid death, is to avoid birth.
(url="http://"http://resistance.infiniti-web.com")Resistance Site(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub29.ezboard.com/b20")---20---(/url) | *(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/newsdisplay.cgi?action=topics &number;=20&forum;=EV/EVO+chronicles&DaysPrune;=25&article;=000108&startpoint;=")Renegade Wars(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub51.ezboard.com/bquillz")Quillz(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.anada.net")Anada(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub57.ezboard.com/bcorsairdevelopers")Corsair Developers(/url)
Hehe, a lot of these questions have already been answered. Look at sci-fi literature. However, a popular and probable route would be superhuge multigeneration ships, with enough people (over 200k) to create a viable colony.
------------------
Life: Terminal, unrecoverable, completely useless phenomonon - Me
Quote
Originally posted by Jive 320:
**Maybe if you could comunicate with Earth and there would be somone to talk you through it there but...
**
...but if you asked a question when you're eight years old, the reply would come back when you were sixteen. (Assuming we're talking about the closest other star.) Can you imagine having a conversation on that basis? I'd try to anticipate all likely questions and build suitable responses into the ship's computer.
I agree that a slow colony ship with thousands of colonists on board would provide a more conventional environment in which to bring up children, but I can't see humanity being able to afford the construction of such a ship. The International Space Station weighs a couple of hundred tonnes - the product of 12 launches, each hugely damaging to Earth's ecosystem. The ISS will ultimately have a regular compliment of seven. There is no real provision for people getting sick and being unable to work. The astronauts need to return to Earth for R&R;, and to spend time in normal gravity for health reasons. They are dependent upon regular resupply from Earth, not self-sufficient. Further, the ISS has no interstellar propulsion system, and no equipment for colonising a new world.
And you want to build a ship that will carry 200,000 people? Experience with current technology suggests that you would need a third of a million space missions to build a space station of that size, never mind a ship that could keep the colonists alive and well while they have familes and grow old (and bored) on their way to another star. And I suspect these people would go just a stir-crazy as my test-tube raised babies.
Fortunately, these questions are not something we are likely to have to address during our lifetimes. Our parents' generation made it to the moon; we haven't even been back there, never mind on to Mars or elsewhere. The USA spends more on pizza than it does on NASA nowadays - and the rest of the world spends less than that. The stars are going to have to wait.
-------
May I recommend some reading in this area? Not for science value, but because these books are enjoyable to read, and pose some interesting questions...
Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin - Earth is gone, but people live in a number of huge, roving colony ships and some frontier worlds.
My Father Immortal by Mike Weaver - Six children are placed in seperate escape pods by their mothers, and grow up while on a flight back to a ravaged Earth.
Return from the Stars by Stanislaw Lem - Veterans of a near lightspeed flight to explore nearby stars return to Earth. They are about ten years older, but centuries have gone by on Earth, and it has become almost unrecognisable to the returnees.
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)
(This message has been edited by VoinianAmbassador (edited 06-12-2001).)
I dunno... I still think it's hard for people to grow up without human role models. I think to get the accurate amount idea, an expeirement would have to be done in which we actually send embryos into space (just around Earth) and try to raise them. If they did have a question that couldn't be be answered by the computer, then they could ask easlily. Though we would take note of the question, we would not give them the answer until the apropriate real time... time has passed. They need SOME guidance! even if they don't have actual parents, even just a hologram that looks like a parent instead of just a void screen. Otherwise, how could they raise their own children? Almost every family we know of, people learn to raise their children from their parents. If all they have to learn from is a computer... well that would have to be another test...
any ideas?
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/jive_320/Feel_the_Jive.html")Feel the Jive(/url)
------------------
The most sure-fire way to avoid death, is to avoid birth.
(url="http://"http://resistance.infiniti-web.com")Resistance Site(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub29.ezboard.com/b20")---20---(/url) | *(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/newsdisplay.cgi?action=topics &number;=20&forum;=EV/EVO+chronicles&DaysPrune;=25&article;=000108&startpoint;=")Renegade Wars(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub51.ezboard.com/bquillz")Quillz(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.anada.net")Anada(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub57.ezboard.com/bcorsairdevelopers")Corsair Developers(/url)
Ok, it's true that in the current political setup, a superlarge driftship will never be even conceived of seriously, but that Is a political issue. If enough people decided to support a total space-binge, a driftship would be a tiny thing. Think of how much material is used every Day in the manufacture of cars and trucks etc.. One day's worth of that stuff could build probably around 100 ISS's. Think about it. However, there is still no economical or environmentally friendly way of launching the stuff. On the drawing boards at NASA and other places the answers are being developed though. It could be done, if public opinion changes enough. And if you get the government involved, and I mean TRULY INVOLVED, money is not an issue. Look at the world wars. If America alone put as much energy into the space program as was put into manufacturing during WWII, even half, we'd be at Mars in 5 years, and circling Jupiter before the youngest children today are in high school. Think about it.
------------------
Life: Terminal, unrecoverable, completely useless phenomonon - Me
Quote
Originally posted by Phaedrus De Fang:
**Ok, it's true that in the current political setup, a superlarge driftship will never be even conceived of seriously, but that Is a political issue. If enough people decided to support a total space-binge, a driftship would be a tiny thing. Think of how much material is used every Day in the manufacture of cars and trucks etc.. One day's worth of that stuff could build probably around 100 ISS's. Think about it. However, there is still no economical or environmentally friendly way of launching the stuff. On the drawing boards at NASA and other places the answers are being developed though. It could be done, if public opinion changes enough. And if you get the government involved, and I mean TRULY INVOLVED, money is not an issue. Look at the world wars. If America alone put as much energy into the space program as was put into manufacturing during WWII, even half, we'd be at Mars in 5 years, and circling Jupiter before the youngest children today are in high school. Think about it.
**
Why is it that many people feel that space exploration is unimportant?
------------------
Raptor
~If you find yourself trying to gather your thoughts ask yourself: 'How do you gather chaos...'
Recent research has shown that the biggest work saving device employed today is tomarrow.
Well for one, many people feel that we need to fully understand Earth before we can understand space or other planets. Also, most people don't beleive space is that important because not much comes from it. Yes we made it to the moon... but... that's bout all we've done. As great an achievment that is, it didn't do much for us except politically. So most people don't think it's worth while. I dunno. Unless NASA comes up with a major scientific achievement that sparks interest in the government and the people, they might have a chance. But sadly, that may only be possible if the governmanet and people get involved first :frown:
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/jive_320/Feel_the_Jive.html")Feel the Jive(/url)
------------------
The most sure-fire way to avoid death, is to avoid birth.
(url="http://"http://resistance.infiniti-web.com")Resistance Site(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub29.ezboard.com/b20")---20---(/url) | *(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/ubb/newsdisplay.cgi?action=topics &number;=20&forum;=EV/EVO+chronicles&DaysPrune;=25&article;=000108&startpoint;=")Renegade Wars(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub51.ezboard.com/bquillz")Quillz(/url) | (url="http://"http://www.anada.net")Anada(/url) | (url="http://"http://pub57.ezboard.com/bcorsairdevelopers")Corsair Developers(/url)
Quote
Originally posted by Phaedrus De Fang:
**Look at the world wars. If America alone put as much energy into the space program as was put into manufacturing during WWII, even half, we'd be at Mars in 5 years, and circling Jupiter before the youngest children today are in high school. Think about it.
**
I suspect that the global warming caused by all the launches required would change the Earth's climate hugely. How willing would the USA be to continue with its massive space programme if Florida was under water, lake Michigan was frozen solid, glaciers were threatening Washington and the whole place was innundated with people from a permafrost Canada and a dustbowl central America?
I don't think you could find Americans in orbit around Mars in five years under any circumstances. I don't think you'll find them back on the Moon in that time... though you might, if there was somthing interesting there, like a monolith. There is a huge amount of beauracracy in space exploration, and some very cautious engineering where every aspect of a device must be tested and accredited for a wide variety of circumstances. WWII was an emergency, in which people take the initiative and cut corners. Even Apollo was a wartime programme, the war in question being the Cold War (and it all started as a result of the work at Penemunde by the Nazis). You don't do things like that in peacetime... generally.
------------------
(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/evodude2001/home.html")Old & Unimproved: Cerberus Station!(/url)
Unfortunately, thats very true. But, you didn't notice the other stuff I mentioned. Previously someone mentioned propelling ships with lasers. NASA is working with some group to do that. They've got the shape down (a disk :)), currently they are just refining it. Also, there's the proposal for a cable connecting a space station to the planet. That is however Very far off, at least currently.
Regardless, there Are alternative launching methods being investigated. That is currently the main problem point.
And true, not much has come of the exploration of space. If you look at the sci-fi literature (Don't scoff, that stuff is very thought out), they take into account certain things that haven't really been worked out. We currently cant terraform planets, though that may be changing. If we are able to create environments for large numbers of people to live offplanet, then space will become a Very appealing place. A step towards that is being taken in the X Prize race.
Things are happening, you just have to look for them.
------------------
Life: Terminal, unrecoverable, completely useless phenomonon - Me
I think that the best solution is plasma
But we don't know what the future holds.
If tomorrow some scientist discovers how to do fusion without dangers things will change bigtime.
hydrogen makes up 75% of the visible mass in the universe. With fusion you could make some kind of engine using hydrogen found in space although this is impossible, space is just about empty)
Its like the titanium thing.
It's very expensive to get but a very good material.
Now we can produce it way faster and way cheaper then a while ago.
That while ago, people didn't know titanium would be able to get so cheap and plenty.
Today we don't forsee the use of fusion power (we do but not the next year)
Tomorrow some other scientist can say: look we've found huge piles of ... waiting to be mined on the moon.
And it becomes interesting to go out there.
But today, like you said, everything is low-budget if you compare to other things.
On the other side poeple will say:"you could better spend the spacemoney to solve the thirdworld problems.
And it is possible to freze living tissue without damaging it.
But we can't defrost it without damaging it.
------------------
What do I put in here?
well, I have heard about a new kind of fuel. it uses a kind of mineral found in the ocean(and in large quantities) it is basically a kind of fusion. it uses the mineral in pellets and combines it with another pellet. it makes huge explosions behind the ship,causing propulsion. they plan to do this in something called the Datulus project. You could probably find this in a library.
While that was a very interesting addendum to the topic and could spark a new discussion, i'd like to offer my advice to say that reawakening old topics is a bad idea more often than it is good.
While i don't know anything about that project, i'll be interested to see what response from others you get.
------------------
It is not fear that will destroy you, but the absence of it.
(url="http://"http://www.roostermac.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi")EVEA Webstory Board(/url) -- (url="http://"http://roostermac.net")roostermac.net(/url)
My fave 'THEY' rendering : <rooster> heh, pringles can't make more pornographic RPGs
