Ryujin
Legend
Because at some point you would inevitably need to trust to human techs, because even the automated systems would need repair. Remember The Starlost.
Generation Ships--- Can we build one now?
Because at some point you would inevitably need to trust to human techs, because even the automated systems would need repair. Remember The Starlost.
Because perpetually-self-maintaining machines are slightly more mythical than generation ships.
And because on a generation ship, you probably want creation of new technologies to meet unforeseen circumstances. Human technology hasn't stayed static on the century timescale since we left the stone age. Don't design your ship expecting it to stall.
Last edited:
MarkB
Legend
The main reason would be to keep them feeling busy and useful. Let's face it, the least plausible part of Wall-E is the idea that those people who'd spent their entire lives for multiple generations living in luxurious passivity would be in any way prepared, equipped or motivated to claim and develop a world at the end of their journey.
Hussar
Legend
And thus, the inherent flaw in generation ships. The human crew is just so much cattle being shuttled to the next destination. Unnecessary by and large. Most of the work that would need human attention would either be extremely specialized, which means only a handful of people would know how to do it or largely pointless busy work just to keep people from going stir crazy.
Unless you are expecting every single person aboard to be an expert at coding thousand year old computer systems, as well as being plumbers, electrical engineers, pilots, botanists, as well as being competent at every other job on the ship. It's just not feasible.
Unless you are expecting every single person aboard to be an expert at coding thousand year old computer systems, as well as being plumbers, electrical engineers, pilots, botanists, as well as being competent at every other job on the ship. It's just not feasible.
MarkB
Legend
Agreed, as a general principle. The engineering challenges in creating a generation ship are great, but I tend to feel that it's the social-engineering challenges that would ultimately defeat it. Hopefully, some form of workable suspended animation would be the way to work around that issue - as you say, there's really only limited use for having a conscious crew aboard the ship during its actual journey.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
I don't believe a generation ship would be fully automated, though.
You have a human crew aboard. Why waste even more resources on complicated robots that also need maintenance if you could juts use the people that are already aboard?
You need to supply the crew with air, food, water and heat already. If you add tons of maintenance robots, you now need spare parts, repair tools for repairing the robots and what not, in addition to the spare parts and repair tools these robots would need to repair the ship itself.
Humans also have the advantage that their ability to self-repair and self-replicate to compensate damage and losses isn't some hypothetical scientific or engineering advancement away- it's what have, right now, and we have had since we exist. Likewise, our abiity to improvise and devise tools to adapt our environment to work for us doesn't require some new AI breakthrough. We can already do that, right now, and we've been doing that for millenia.
There are certainly tasks you will use robots or drones for, but it would be a complete waste of resources to let them do everythig, or even the majority, of tasks aboard the ship. Even the possibility of having robots that could do all that without steady human intervention is hypothetical.
You have a human crew aboard. Why waste even more resources on complicated robots that also need maintenance if you could juts use the people that are already aboard?
You need to supply the crew with air, food, water and heat already. If you add tons of maintenance robots, you now need spare parts, repair tools for repairing the robots and what not, in addition to the spare parts and repair tools these robots would need to repair the ship itself.
Humans also have the advantage that their ability to self-repair and self-replicate to compensate damage and losses isn't some hypothetical scientific or engineering advancement away- it's what have, right now, and we have had since we exist. Likewise, our abiity to improvise and devise tools to adapt our environment to work for us doesn't require some new AI breakthrough. We can already do that, right now, and we've been doing that for millenia.
There are certainly tasks you will use robots or drones for, but it would be a complete waste of resources to let them do everythig, or even the majority, of tasks aboard the ship. Even the possibility of having robots that could do all that without steady human intervention is hypothetical.
Samloyal23
Adventurer
The amount of time planned for the trip, the number of people going, and how homogeneous the population is, are going to vastly change the potential for linguistic drift. I can read novels by Mark Twain with no trouble at all, but cannot understand some modern rap lyrics. Strict, universal, consistent education goes a long way to work against linguistic drift. There is also the fact that you have a captive population. No one is leaving before the ship arrives at its destination. So everyone is going to hear the same language on the street, see the same news media, read the same books and magazines, and rub shoulders with the same group of people throughout their lives. I do not think a journey of less than 200-300 years would lead to any significant linguistic drift.
Another issue I have not seen discussed is what to do with the people who die. Do you go for the navy style burial at sea, launching the coffin into the Void? Compost the dead for use in the garden? Turn them into Soylent Green smoothies for people to slurp down with lunch?
Another issue I have not seen discussed is what to do with the people who die. Do you go for the navy style burial at sea, launching the coffin into the Void? Compost the dead for use in the garden? Turn them into Soylent Green smoothies for people to slurp down with lunch?
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
I am afraid recycling is really the only way to go here. Everything else would be wasteful. However, one probably would want to ensure that the flesh goes a thorough "recycling" process for health reasons. But maybe there would be a proper burial in earth-like ground, actually, and one might be able to afford to wait a decade or so before removing the remains and putting them in direct use for your generation ship farms or soylent green fabricator. The good thing is that most of the stuff we consume in food, water or air we also release regularly, so not that much material would actually be bound. But throwing stuff away into space seems just too wasteful. (And also kinda macabre, if you imagine that one could trace your starship by following the corpses you threw out...)
Legatus Legionis
< BWAH HA Ha ha >
.
Last edited:
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Alkaline hydrolysis - dissolution of corpses in water and lye only takes about 10 to 15 hours depending on the weight of the body and the resulting liquid can be recycled directly through the tree farm
Any left over bone could be mixed into ceramics and reused
Last edited:
Similar Threads
