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An extrasolar world covered in water?

nouvelles.umontreal.ca

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Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#91

Post by detritus »

barbazoo wrote: post #40
cstever wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Another book along those lines I enjoyed reading was "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Wonderfully written, but for my shame I expected a different storyline and put it down a year or so ago after only reading 60 pages or so and haven't gone back to it. I keep packing it one times away, but... .

One day I might learn how to have a kid AND read books :/

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#92

Post by Melatonic »

ryandrake wrote: post #21
prox wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is this really how time dilation works?

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#93

Post by criddell »

ornornor wrote: post #90

That’s fascinating. > As soon as we can, we will book time on Webb to observe this strange and wonderful world. How does that work? Is there a hotline you call to book time? Is it free or paid? How is the instrument not booked solid for the next few years?

As I understand it, you write a proposal:

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-observing-t...

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#94

Post by svachalek »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #82
anthropodie wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only planet with Life. I sometimes wish people ponder on that for some time. Maybe they will have a new found respect for this planet like I did. Took me a while but when I fully grasped the concept of Life few years back and read and saw all the life less rocks in our solar system it changed the way I look at things. Still amazes me when I think about it.

Only planet with life based on what? We haven't been to other planets.

Only planet known to harbor life. Life, at least single celled life, may be fairly common out there but we can't be sure.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#95

Post by Maultasche »

once_inc wrote: post #84
NoGravitas wrote: post #62

Only 83 days at warp 6.2, the standard cruising speed for an Intrepid-class starship (or 7.13 days at warp 9.975, maximum sustainable speed for the same ship).

I might be able to best that, if Skippy would reprogram a wormhole in the neighborhood.

That may not work. I think the wormhole controller AIs are getting pretty tired of his antics by now.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#96

Post by ben_w »

NoGravitas wrote: post #62

Only 83 days at warp 6.2, the standard cruising speed for an Intrepid-class starship (or 7.13 days at warp 9.975, maximum sustainable speed for the same ship).

I wish the script writers had been more self-consistent.

100 ly in 7.13 days would’ve had them home in 13.6 years even without shenanigans. (The warp speed graph I saw suggested more like 7 years, which is even worse for the fundamental plot contrivance of the show).

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#97

Post by egberts1 »

ryandrake wrote: post #21
prox wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

cut that is half. You have got to decelerate to a near stop, much less zip past by your target.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#98

Post by Melatonic »

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…

We would probably be better off seeding just some basic life first well before humans - give it time to adapt to the local environment and setup shop. Of course this could also backfire (in that it might evolve to be very hostile to human life) but if there is one thing humans are amazing at it is outcompeting other potentially hostile forms of life.

Re: An extrasolar world covered in water?

#100

Post by narrator »

koheripbal wrote: post #24
cstever wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems that there's a very pessimistic trend with regards to estimating the feasibility of engineering human biology for inhabiting outer space. Everyone just wants to let AI do it. I think this is because the progress of biotech has been so glacial. This is largely due to regulation. China will probably change the rules around at some point to allow for more flexibility here, with lots of moral outrage and handwringing in the west, and speed off into the future.
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