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Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

antipope.org

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Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#31

Post by scott_s »

wolfrom wrote: post #28
scott_s wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you didn't actually address his arguments.

Please elaborate. His arguments are related to interstellar travel as an endeavour that is undertaken as a gravity well to gravity well transit. My argument is that planetary colonization and travel from Earth to the close orbit of Proxima Centauri or any other star is not the only method by which humankind will reach beyond this solar system. Does that not address his arguments?

He makes specific arguments regarding the time and energy requirements of interplanetary and interstellar travel. You don't address those. What you do say is too vague for me to figure out exactly what you mean.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#33

Post by waterlesscloud »

scott_s wrote: post #19
hsmyers wrote: post #4

What was that limit on data transmission via copper again? 300baud? Or was it 1400? Nice the way science always ends for idiots like this...

The limits he talks about are fundamental. We would have to be very wrong about much of physics to invalidate his arguments.

It is virtually certain that we are very wrong about much of physics.

Perhaps not in ways that solve these issues. But we're still almost certainly wrong about things we consider very fundamental.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#34

Post by liquids »

While the author makes a good point about how humans will never leave the solar system, there are a few possibilities to continue human legacy. Ethics aside, sending seeded capsules to a habitable exoplanet could one day (millions of years) evolve into an intelligent species. Although not human, a DNA signature or some other artifact could be engineered to validate it as a human colonization.

Additionally you could explore the possibilities of fleets of nano sized probes, which over the course of thousands of years, confirm the habitality of an exoplanet, and build a crude nursery for sperm (which could be sent at a later date). This method makes the energy/momentum problems slightly less impossible.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#35

Post by mmaunder »

I dislike the word "never". As individuals and as a species we are addicted to short term gratification measured in years or decades. We also have a narrow view of the concept of "self" and what constitutes consciousness and experience.

If we could stand building for the future and experiencing by proxy, a few more options become available:

e.g. We could transport a set of human "blanks" or a "blank" creating machine to a distant star at 10% of c. It would take a few hundred years. When it arrives and deploys, we upload our consciousness at the speed of light with no acceleration and deceleration into a "blank" human.

Copies of ourselves could be regularly transported to and from a distant star over a few decades.

A few technological breakthroughs would be required to make this a reality:

* True Artificial Intelligence. A machine that is capable of self-awareness and analysis.

* A complete understanding of the human brain and how to replicate the organism and it's contents.

* A complete understanding of the human body, the life support mechanism for the brain - and how to duplicate it.

* How to turn nuclear fission or fusion into propulsion at a high level of efficiency.

* How to build factories that can stay dormant for a thousand years, wake up and operate as well as the day they were built. This probably will be solved as a result of AI and the ability to create self-repairing and self-improving machines.

Many of these problems are in the CS and Biotech fields. That's what we do. Now get to work!

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#36

Post by jacobolus »

mmaunder wrote: post #35

I dislike the word "never". As individuals and as a species we are addicted to short term gratification measured in years or decades. We also have a narrow view of the concept of "self" and what constitutes consciousness and experience. If we could stand building for the future and experiencing by proxy, a few more options become available: e.g. We could transport a set of human "blanks" or a "blank" creating machine…

Okay. You just wave 5 or 6 magic wands and then it works out. Isn’t that precisely what the essay claimed?

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#37

Post by mitjak »

Game_Ender wrote: post #30
cletus wrote: post #6

That's a good, grounded assessment of the scale of the problem. I too believe that the human colonization of space, even near-space (ie within the orbit of the Moon) is a long way off. The energy costs are simply too high and resources too cheap on the Earth to make it viable (in spite of typical SF fodder of asteroid mining). This is a problem because with 6.5 billion people we're using up resources. Fast. Anyway, I…

I think you make a good point in the foot print area, but isn't 2100 pretty close in human terms? We already have CNC machines, 3D printers, automated semi-conductor factories, etc. I for one would be very impressed if we could make a fully self replicating colony & factory in the next 90 years. Also if you were hitchhiking you would need a massively plentiful source of fuel in the target environment because it doesn…

>I for one would be very impressed if we could make a fully self replicating colony & factory in the next 90 years.

He/she never claimed we will. The claim was that we the entire human knowledge will fit on a mobile device.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#38

Post by guelo »

As impossible as the physics seems I think the social problems are bigger. Scientists are currently unable to convince people to act against the potential catastrophe of global warming. Humans are too stupid to organize a planet wide self preservation effort that requires any significant amount of resources. I think the more likely scenario for humanity over the next 10 thousand years is several cycles of civilization and population collapses with a constant degradation of the environment and fewer and fewer available resources. This century might be the zenith of human achievement. It might take a smarter species a few million years from now to escape this rock.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#39

Post by RomP »

A little over 100 years ago the humanity just learned how to overfly one football field.

In space, today, we're in pre-aviation days: we're still using hot air balloons for transportation. We make them lighter than air (i.e. shoot them up in space) and let the wind (i.e gravity) to carry them places.

Imagine the most educated human 120 years ago is being told about planes heavier than air, air transportation over oceans, jet-powered planes, autopilots and fly-by-wire, not to mention people on the moon. He would say it's impossible, due to energy constraints. Today a daily JFK-NRT flight uses more energy than all the horses which lived two centuries ago would be able to produce in their lifetimes, combined (my math may be off by one order of magnitude: it's late here). Today we're this person. Educated enough to have valid arguments against it, but utterly incorrect.

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