Whistle blower says non-human bodies recovered from crash

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Becky Chambers - Record of a Spaceborn Few.

And more generally, read everything by Becky Chambers, because she's amazing.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

You are probably using a hollowed out asteroid or comet so you have some radiation shielding already. Of course, the more massive the object the harder it is to get moving, but you could use nuclear or anti-matter propulsion. The biggest danger might be the systems for slowing dsown breaking down over the centuries in the void. What then?

Unfortunately I cannot link you to a source(s), but over the years I have seen (and read) some breakdowns of the numbers for this. They are a serious resource hog and the engineering is not really understood. These things have to run for decades, unless you are restricting oneself to the closest stars and there may not be anything there worth the effort.
It is my opinion that such and undertaking might not be feasible until we have a mature space based industrial infrastructure and by that time we may not consider the expedition worth the resources consumed as space habitation and colonisation of the solar system would be technically feasible.

 

[Umbran]

"Whatever you do, don't go there. You might catch something."

"They're Made Out of Meat", Terry Bisson, 1991.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, I am not signing up to climb inside an asteroid and fly to Barnard's Star until we've sent a hell of a lot more probes there than we have Mars, to let us know what we're in for when we get there.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yeah, I am not signing up to climb inside an asteroid and fly to Barnard's Star until we've sent a hell of a lot more probes there than we have Mars, to let us know what we're in for when we get there.

That and you convince me the damn thing will survive a collision with any chunk of space debris it cannot detect and evade and that lifesupport and its general systems can manage to radiation damage over the lifespan of the mission.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Even if we accept FTL travel as possible, that doesn't imply that terraforming a world is manageable.

It implies it pretty strongly.

Water, atmosphere, acceptable temperatures, ability to dumb simple life into said water. We aren’t talking about making a planet Earthlike, we’re talking about making a planet like mars capable or growing and sustaining specialized life that can be farmed for biochemical products.

And since nothing I posited requires doing so to the entire planet, I’m not interested in a pedantic argument about it.

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, I am not signing up to climb inside an asteroid and fly to Barnard's Star until we've sent a hell of a lot more probes there than we have Mars, to let us know what we're in for when we get there.

Just avoid anything in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.

 

[Ryujin]

"They're Made Out of Meat", Terry Bisson, 1991.

Ah, memories of "Lexx" and Giggerota dining on 'think meat.'

 

[CleverNickName]

Woops, wrong thread.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I wonder what takes longer: finding an alien biome that could support your species, or altering a "close" one to fit.

I’d venture a guess that alteration would be faster barring a very lucky find.

Of course, that's equally true of terraforming a planet without life, since you're effectively establishing and then overwriting successive biomes as you draw incrementally closer to an Earth-like one.

I’m not sure this is a reasonable jump. If you grow moss in a lab, no one calls it genocide when you dispose of it to make room for something else.

That and you convince me the damn thing will survive a collision with any chunk of space debris it cannot detect and evade and that lifesupport and its general systems can manage to radiation damage over the lifespan of the mission.

Yeah honestly orbital habitats are probably easier than making a world suitable for normal living, which is why I have been talking about small (compared to a city or nation) enclosed biomes for growing complex pharmaceuticals and the like in controlled large-scale environments (compared to what you could do on a satellite).