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Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

projecthyperion.org

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Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#241

Post by jvanderbot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186
kryogen1c wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> kill their relatives > Rural Americans > high school dropouts Lol HN you really are too much sometimes. Covid went really well in all the intellectual bastions of liberal democracy right? NYC, SF? California famously no downsides from their policy choices at all. And then to top it off, you compare response to China - the government that lied through it's teeth about covid from the beginning, jailed journalists an…

Oh, nobody managed Covid well. The question was capacity to sacrifice for the common good. New York is a bad example to call out since it was one of the first places to get hit, locked down hard after a delay, and yet came out with lower per-capita deaths and a stronger economy than most red states. (Speaking as someone who lives in one of the reddest states in the union.) > jailed journalists and destroyed evidence…

The question is not "Would a randomly selected demographic be a good pool for this mission"

The question is "Could we create a cadre of 400 highly effective people that could sustain a colony on a spaceship.

I argue the answer to the first is "No" for any demographic but the answer to the second is a clear "Yes".

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#243

Post by throwaway290 »

random_is_rando wrote: post #211
throwaway290 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Particles are indistinguishable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(physics) A particle spins on any number of axes > You need something that harvests particles locally and can receive a stream of data with what to print You cannot obtain that data because this spin is impossible to measure)

Spin can be measured but what's the use for that? You can scan a chair and use the data to reassemble. If you get the wrong spins on particles do you not get the same chair? You're looking for a function which arises at higher level.

Measuring spin is impossible without changing the particle.

You assume a human is the same as a chair? seems like a stretch

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#244

Post by cellular »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124
lerp-io wrote: post #123

space is for boomers, just fix earth.

To the extent this philosophy has merit, it’s in the societies that embrace it being virtually guaranteed to become poorer and thus, possibly, lower in population and energy and material intensity compared with their peers who keep technologically advancing.

"Tragedy of the commons" effect.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#245

Post by random_is_rando »

throwaway290 wrote: post #243
random_is_rando wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spin can be measured but what's the use for that? You can scan a chair and use the data to reassemble. If you get the wrong spins on particles do you not get the same chair? You're looking for a function which arises at higher level.

Measuring spin is impossible without changing the particle. You assume a human is the same as a chair? seems like a stretch

I don't understand, what is the purpose of measuring electron spin for your various atoms? Electrons are in a probability cloud, you need to scan/replicate the atomic structure, not measure the electron spin of your atoms. Doesn't really make sense for me, do you have something particular in mind or?

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#246

Post by icetank »

varjag wrote: post #206
jval43 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban Europeans had just as much trouble (speaking as one).

"Europeans" is kinda broad brush. Norwegians around me had little trouble following the safety instructions. Still not sold though that the cohesion in an small, resource constrained, artificial community can hold over a few generations. Huge risks of it degrading into some cult/dictatorship.

I don't see why smaller societies should not be able to thrive. My grandparents said once that back in the day you could identify what rural village someone was from by their accent. Meaning populations inside of villages changed very little. And most of these villages did just fine with populations as low as 200.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#247

Post by judahmeek »

jvanderbot wrote: post #241
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, nobody managed Covid well. The question was capacity to sacrifice for the common good. New York is a bad example to call out since it was one of the first places to get hit, locked down hard after a delay, and yet came out with lower per-capita deaths and a stronger economy than most red states. (Speaking as someone who lives in one of the reddest states in the union.) > jailed journalists and destroyed evidence…

The question is not "Would a randomly selected demographic be a good pool for this mission" The question is "Could we create a cadre of 400 highly effective people that could sustain a colony on a spaceship. I argue the answer to the first is "No" for any demographic but the answer to the second is a clear "Yes".

> The question is "Could we create a cadre of 400 highly effective people that could sustain a colony on a spaceship?"

For a generational ship, the question becomes even more complex because you would have to build a culture of expertise that can sustain itself over multiple generations.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#248

Post by icetank »

jvanderbot wrote: post #241
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, nobody managed Covid well. The question was capacity to sacrifice for the common good. New York is a bad example to call out since it was one of the first places to get hit, locked down hard after a delay, and yet came out with lower per-capita deaths and a stronger economy than most red states. (Speaking as someone who lives in one of the reddest states in the union.) > jailed journalists and destroyed evidence…

The question is not "Would a randomly selected demographic be a good pool for this mission" The question is "Could we create a cadre of 400 highly effective people that could sustain a colony on a spaceship. I argue the answer to the first is "No" for any demographic but the answer to the second is a clear "Yes".

Maybe the issue is that people assume that a randomly selected population would consist of US citizens. What if you picked Japanese? They did well during covid. An they are know for having a strong communal responsibility. Maybe the average US citizen is just a bad choice for a generation ship? Then again given the choice between sending foreign citizen's or sending no generation ship would probably result in no generation ship bring launched.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#249

Post by KineticLensman »

m4rtink wrote: post #232
KineticLensman wrote: post #222

Looking at view #28 in the winning presentation, the system carries 200 shuttles that can each do a one-way trip to the target planet carrying 10 people and delivering 5 tons of cargo. So the overall system can deliver up to 2000 people and 1000 tons -in comparatively small pieces - to the planetary surface. It would be good to see some discussion of how you can bootstrap a colony (let alone a civilisation) under the…

I think this again shows an unhealthy fixation on planets. Sure, they are nice and big and if you are very lucky might be even habitable. But given that you already have a massive mobile self sufficient workstation in space it would IMHO make much more sense to start with setting up some simple in space infrastructure first upon arrival & then using that to run a space to ground transport link. That should give you a…

Yes, exactly. Why not mine a few asteroids, deploy comms and mapping sats, etc.

Building a ground civ from scratch would be hard enough for anyone, let alone a space-adapted population who have spent generations being coddled by AI, and who have exactly zero experience of planet-side ops with hostile terrain and meteorology, with physical tools that they have never used in an operational setting.

Re: Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition

#250

Post by ben_w »

jvanderbot wrote: post #240
ben_w wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your maths is correct. Shame we don't have a way to efficiently convert fuel energy directly into a ship's kinetic energy, and have to go via conservation of momentum… though I suppose magnetic launch of interstellar vehicles would be a neat use for a Dyson shell or Niven ring?: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=0.5+*+1+gee+*+%280.01c%...

Is this the right time to mention the Atomic Rockets website? https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/ It's _full_ of good stuff.

Project Rho is one of my references for the novel I'm trapped in an endless cycle of re-writing :)
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