31–40 of 89 posts
One challenge to relativistic spaceflight is computing. If you put a CPU into a vehicle, which goes close to speed of light, it may not work properly, because the energy pulses in the device will become unsynchronized when going in different directions.
What's the point of these huge generation ships? It's not like there's not enough atoms on other planets. You should send a tiny fast robotic ship, maybe with an uploaded mind if your AI tech isn't good enough. It will mine materials at the destination and build a receiver antenna. Then you can send more uploaded minds by radio, which will arrive at the speed of light with low energy cost. Another reason why you shou…
In the real world, we want to send human bodies because that's what human minds are. Cartesian duality is a religious/philosophical concept for which no scientific basis has yet been found.
TL;DR: Chemical propulsion is a dead end. But, the alternatives require matter/energy of ridiculous scale (hundreds of times the power output of human civilization, launching hundreds of millions of tons of matter into orbit). We're not going anywhere, any time soon.
What's the point of these huge generation ships? It's not like there's not enough atoms on other planets. You should send a tiny fast robotic ship, maybe with an uploaded mind if your AI tech isn't good enough. It will mine materials at the destination and build a receiver antenna. Then you can send more uploaded minds by radio, which will arrive at the speed of light with low energy cost. Another reason why you shou…
TL;DR: Chemical propulsion is a dead end. But, the alternatives require matter/energy of ridiculous scale (hundreds of times the power output of human civilization, launching hundreds of millions of tons of matter into orbit). We're not going anywhere, any time soon.
Not just magnitude but duration. Name one machine that works without major overhaul for more than 100 years. For bonus points, name a machine that's significantly more complex than a clock.
What's the point of these huge generation ships? It's not like there's not enough atoms on other planets. You should send a tiny fast robotic ship, maybe with an uploaded mind if your AI tech isn't good enough. It will mine materials at the destination and build a receiver antenna. Then you can send more uploaded minds by radio, which will arrive at the speed of light with low energy cost. Another reason why you shou…
If we're going to stipulate fantastic concepts like "uploaded minds" then let's just invent a hyperspace engine too and solve all the problems at once. In the real world, we want to send human bodies because that's what human minds are. Cartesian duality is a religious/philosophical concept for which no scientific basis has yet been found.
I am not arguing that uploading minds is any more feasible than a generation ship, but it is at least more plausible than hyperdrive -- based on what we think we know right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not quite valid anymore to say warp drive is flat impossible, given all the theoretical work on the Alcubierre drive. Whether it will ever actually be practical is still a big unknown.
you mean the drive that if it were used it would annihilate your destination in a immense-burst of gamma energy? Not to mention we have no idea how to effectively modify space-time. It is interesting, but the drive is basically "if we had MAGIC, we could do this". FTL is also exactly the same as time-travel. If you could travel 25,000 light-years in an instant, you could turn a BIG telescope back at earth from your s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not quite valid anymore to say warp drive is flat impossible, given all the theoretical work on the Alcubierre drive. Whether it will ever actually be practical is still a big unknown.
you mean the drive that if it were used it would annihilate your destination in a immense-burst of gamma energy? Not to mention we have no idea how to effectively modify space-time. It is interesting, but the drive is basically "if we had MAGIC, we could do this". FTL is also exactly the same as time-travel. If you could travel 25,000 light-years in an instant, you could turn a BIG telescope back at earth from your s…
The way to modify space-time would be to use negative energy, which exists in theory but maybe not in any practical way. We don't know.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we're going to stipulate fantastic concepts like "uploaded minds" then let's just invent a hyperspace engine too and solve all the problems at once. In the real world, we want to send human bodies because that's what human minds are. Cartesian duality is a religious/philosophical concept for which no scientific basis has yet been found.
Uploaded minds is hardly an argument depending on cartesian duality. Arguing that there's something irreproducible about the human brain is quite close to cartesian duality. I am not arguing that uploading minds is any more feasible than a generation ship, but it is at least more plausible than hyperdrive -- based on what we think we know right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (remember technological progress is exponential not linear) No it is not. For example, airliners fly about as fast as they did a generation ago, and if you buy a desktop computer today it won't be noticeably faster than the ~3 year-old one you're using now. Do you really think the next TV you'll buy will be exponentially bigger than the one you have today? Prepare to be disappointed. warp-engine would require FTL t…
How would the ovum develop and be nurtured? Sympathetic alien surrogates? Why not seed more simple lifeforms, such as genetically modified bacteria, upon hundreds of "candidate" planets so that by the time our generation ships arrive there's a good chance some basic terraforming has already occurred.
You could send along artificial wombs and some kind of computer/AI to raise + educate the first generation born.