"Promising hints of life on distant planet"

[Stalker0]

Yes. Exactly. 19 years pass on the ship. 124 years pass on Earth.

yep I'll take the L on this one, I had the right direction of the dilation but messed up the frame of reference. As you say the 124 years is what earth would experience, and the time dilation would adjust to a much shorter time for the ship. so I was wrong before.

 

[Aeson]

Yes.



Well, no.

Imagine you are standing outside a bedroom door. On the floor, there's a dirty sweatsock. Do you figure that, when you open the door, the only think you'll see is dirty sweatsocks? Or do you expect to see the full panoply of stuff you'd see in, say, a teenage boy's bedroom?



No. The presence of this gas in the planet's atmosphere makes folks think of bacteria. But there could be a whole lot of stuff in addition to that bacteria.



No, dude, that "small red sun" is still burning so bright that we can see it 124 light hears away. That star is a little smaller, a little redder, than Earth's, but it is still a star, still an ever-exploding fusion bomb.

I guess I'm thinking it's like Earth in it's early days of life beginning. My thoughts were that other games would be detected if more complex life were present.

Would it be more like a room with a red light bulb? They call it a dark room for some reason. Is it still emitting the full spectrum of light?

 

[Umbran]

I guess I'm thinking it's like Earth in it's early days of life beginning. My thoughts were that other games would be detected if more complex life were present.

Not a great assumption.
When you point a telescope at another planet over a hundred light years away, it isn't like you get a clear and full accounting of everything in that atmosphere.

Mostly, you get starlight. And there's some very small variation in it from the atmosphere absorbing some light. And that data has a lot of noise in it. They happened to be able to peel out of all that some data that strongly suggests the presence of these particular molecules.

That DOES NOT mean there aren't other things present.

Would it be more like a room with a red light bulb?

No.

They call it a dark room for some reason. Is it still emitting the full spectrum of light?

The sun, at a surface temperature of 5778 Kelvin produces "daylight" outside, right? It is the standard for "white light" to our eyes, since we were born under it. A candle, at a temperature of around 1900 Kelvin, produces light that to our eyes looks yellow, maybe a bit orangey, but not red.

The star we are talking about has a surface temp of 3457 Kelvin, between the temp of the candle and the sun. It is also the effective temperature of... most indoor lighting! "Warm whilte" light bulbs produce like as if they were up to 3000 Kelvin. "Natural white" light bulbs are more like 4000 K. So, this star is between those.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not now, of course, but physics doesn't prevent it.

Maybe physics doesn't, but maybe engineering does - what would go into engineering a ship that can be maintained for centuries to millennia of flight, that can protect the life aboard to survive? How big would it need to be, what would it take to get the materials, how long would we need to be building it without giving up on it or revamping our plans?
What about social psychology? Can humanity keep a stable society for that long, without undue, irreperable harm to the ship and its own survivability or it's mission?
The only thing flying through space that so far manages to keep its humans aboard and safe for century is planet Earth. It has a lot of creature comforts, but it's really slow and we can't steer it. Though we are heading towards Andromeda, so that's nice. But we're not sure we'll still be around by then.

 

[Reynard]

Maybe physics doesn't, but maybe engineering does - what would go into engineering a ship that can be maintained for centuries to millennia of flight, that can protect the life aboard to survive? How big would it need to be, what would it take to get the materials, how long would we need to be building it without giving up on it or revamping our plans?
What about social psychology? Can humanity keep a stable society for that long, without undue, irreperable harm to the ship and its own survivability or it's mission?
The only thing flying through space that so far manages to keep its humans aboard and safe for century is planet Earth. It has a lot of creature comforts, but it's really slow and we can't steer it. Though we are heading towards Andromeda, so that's nice. But we're not sure we'll still be around by then.

Like I said upthread, any "generation ship" is much more likely to be asteroid colony sent on a slow ride toward some star. But in general I agree with you -- the amount of time required probably means no self contained vessel could possibly last, even one that is essentially a hollow world.

If there is ever such a thing as an interstellar drive, I think it is going to have to be some form of a warp drive (which while technically possible, the energy requirements make them both unfeasible and really, really dangerous for the area of space you end up in).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The thing is "asteroid colony" is making the assumption that you can fit what you need for a society of generational starship travelers to survive, and the machinery not to break down, before they arrive. But does it? And are there any asteroids that would be the right size, and can we get all that stuff there, and what would it take?

---

I suspect the discovery of sapient alien life would be an exciting event for lots of people, and maybe create some form of upheaval for a while. But unless they are knocking at our doorstep and visiting us regularly (or we can visit them regularly), at the end of the day, we still need to pay our bills, get our food, fall in (and out) of love, and eventually die. So human life wouldn't be fundamentally different than before. But we'd know a tiny bit more about the universe, which I like.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The thing is "asteroid colony" is making the assumption that you can fit what you need for a society of generational starship travelers to survive, and the machinery not to break down, before they arrive. But does it? And are there any asteroids that would be the right size, and can we get all that stuff there, and what would it take?

---

I am optimistic for interstellar travel but admittedly have no basis for that optimism. i am just hoping people more intelligent than me crack the problem and find a way for humans to explore space beyond our solar system. Perhaps it is just a dream, but I think we are a species of dreamers and that is something that has enabled us to go beyond our limitations

I suspect the discovery of sapient alien life would be an exciting event for lots of people, and maybe create some form of upheaval for a while. But unless they are knocking at our doorstep and visiting us regularly (or we can visit them regularly), at the end of the day, we still need to pay our bills, get our food, fall in (and out) of love, and eventually die. So human life wouldn't be fundamentally different than before. But we'd know a tiny bit more about the universe, which I like.

I think this would be huge. To me there is a big difference between living in a world where there is a possibility we are alone or the lone intelligent life and one where we know for sure other intelligent life exists. Life would go on of course, but the dinner table conversation changes a bit when you can talk about other intelligent beings existing out there

You can do both here. You can find space and these discoveries add meaning to your life, while also taking care of your necessities.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Maybe physics doesn't, but maybe engineering does - what would go into engineering a ship that can be maintained for centuries to millennia of flight, that can protect the life aboard to survive? How big would it need to be, what would it take to get the materials, how long would we need to be building it without giving up on it or revamping our plans?

The short answer here is we do not know. I have heard some estimates that a stable generation ship or colony would need a population of a million or so, just to have the range of technical specialists over the time frame. we know even less about keeping a stable ecology over anytime frame.

What about social psychology? Can humanity keep a stable society for that long, without undue, irreperable harm to the ship and its own survivability or it's mission?

This is an interesting one, from my own reading of history I suspect that there is a 250 to 350 year lifespan in any constitutional arrangement. The only polity that seems to defy that was the Serene Republic of Venice, but I do know enough about the details of Venice to make a judgement and as far as I know Venice was never a closed or self-sustaining economy.

The only thing flying through space that so far manages to keep its humans aboard and safe for century is planet Earth. It has a lot of creature comforts, but it's really slow and we can't steer it. Though we are heading towards Andromeda, so that's nice. But we're not sure we'll still be around by then.

In principle we could steer the sun or the planet, an even bigger engineering project.

 

[Ryujin]

I think that,in practical terms, we would be talking about completely hollowing-out something like Ceres, then firing it off into the void.

 

[Umbran]

The thing is "asteroid colony" is making the assumption that you can fit what you need for a society of generational starship travelers to survive, and the machinery not to break down, before they arrive. But does it? And are there any asteroids that would be the right size, and can we get all that stuff there, and what would it take?

The problem isn't getting enough space. Ceres has a volume of about 27% of that of the Moon. And, if that's not enough, if you can move an asteroid to another star, you can move them around here until you had a glob of them that was big enough.

The real problem is that if - how the heck do you move an asteroid to another star?