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An extrasolar world covered in water?

nouvelles.umontreal.ca

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Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#21

Post by ryandrake »

prox wrote: post #15
scohesc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be so interesting - could be many a sci-fi stories created on that premise. Some mechanical robot/starship storing frozen embryos for 100 years to be released on a far-away exoplanet, the starship taking care of them while they grow up and learn how to live on this new world - the beginnings of a new civilization - a technological adam and eve of sorts.

We can’t do lightspeed with the best tech available, so it’s more like 300-400 years probably.

Don't have to go light speed, thanks to relativity. If we could achieve and sustain even 1G acceleration, live humans could make the 100LY trip in approx. 9 years (spaceship time). You could leave, visit the planet, and come back only 18 years older and tell the next-next-next-next-next generation all about it.

EDIT: To be fair, 1G over 100LY will result in a maximum speed around 0.9998c so I guess you would have to approximately approach light speed for this trip.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#23

Post by koheripbal »

nekoashide wrote: post #9
Tade0 wrote: post #2

It's around 100 light years away from Earth for anyone interested.

Programming machines to make the trip and then seeding with human life seems to be the best answer to distance.

It is a bit of hubris for us to think that we are the ones to travel the stars and not the AI we create.

The "robots" will have little incentive to seed humans when they get there.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#24

Post by koheripbal »

cstever wrote: post #20
nekoashide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming machines to make the trip and then seeding with human life seems to be the best answer to distance.

I have enjoyed reading "The Songs of Distant Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke which talks about seed ships and the culture rise from that. It's an interesting read.

The seeds of humanity won't be humanity at all, but the AI.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#25

Post by koheripbal »

metalliqaz wrote: post #16
nekoashide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming machines to make the trip and then seeding with human life seems to be the best answer to distance.

I have thought about this a lot. I have said for a long time that human space exploration doesn't make any sense to me. Space is so hostile to our life in general it seems that only purpose-built machines make any sense for the job. But of course for the preservation of our species, we would want to be able to send the "seeds" of our ecosystem to other places. But then, if we have progressed to that level of technolo…

I think the AI will find little reason to take us with them to the stars.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#26

Post by whatshisface »

koheripbal wrote: post #23
nekoashide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming machines to make the trip and then seeding with human life seems to be the best answer to distance.

It is a bit of hubris for us to think that we are the ones to travel the stars and not the AI we create. The "robots" will have little incentive to seed humans when they get there.

Fortunately my blender doesn't need an incentive to grind fruit, only a hundred and twenty volts.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#27

Post by elliekelly »

scohesc wrote: post #10
nekoashide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming machines to make the trip and then seeding with human life seems to be the best answer to distance.

That would be so interesting - could be many a sci-fi stories created on that premise. Some mechanical robot/starship storing frozen embryos for 100 years to be released on a far-away exoplanet, the starship taking care of them while they grow up and learn how to live on this new world - the beginnings of a new civilization - a technological adam and eve of sorts.

You might enjoy the short story collection Children of the New World[1] by Alexander Weinstein. One of the stories, Saying Goodbye to Yang, was recently made into a movie called After Yang[2] staring Colin Farrell. The movie has a super-catchy opening credit sequence.[3]

[1]https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/31cd88d8-d8d3-4414-b38c-...

[2]https://boxd.it/lx5a

[3]https://twitter.com/A24/status/1499114323314151425?ref_src=t...

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#28

Post by znpy »

metalliqaz wrote: post #16
nekoashide wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming machines to make the trip and then seeding with human life seems to be the best answer to distance.

I have thought about this a lot. I have said for a long time that human space exploration doesn't make any sense to me. Space is so hostile to our life in general it seems that only purpose-built machines make any sense for the job. But of course for the preservation of our species, we would want to be able to send the "seeds" of our ecosystem to other places. But then, if we have progressed to that level of technolo…

> But of course for the preservation of our species, we would want to be able to send the "seeds" of our ecosystem to other places.

Or we could, you know, take better care of the planet we’re already on.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#30

Post by bumby »

whatshisface wrote: post #26
koheripbal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit of hubris for us to think that we are the ones to travel the stars and not the AI we create. The "robots" will have little incentive to seed humans when they get there.

Fortunately my blender doesn't need an incentive to grind fruit, only a hundred and twenty volts.

Ah, but what makes you confident humans (or any other animal) isn't likewise acting deterministically with just a veiled illusion of free-will and incentive?
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