Alien Life, Interstellar Travel, and Million year Civilizations

[Umbran]

While I agree we should, and would go; we need a realistic way to do it.

At one time, there was no "realistic" way to go around the Earth in 24 hours.

Nobody is saying "launch today". We recognize that there's work to be done. But that work won't be done if everyone says, "There is no realistic way to do it now, so we shouldn't do anything."

 

[Umbran]

I was think more like building small channels that could focus large amounts of energy with precision, enough to generate fusion forces. Basically rather than doing fusion with a shotgun like we do today, it creates a scalpel.

While Star Trek talks about "pure energy", there's no abstract "energy channels" we can create. We have to shine light, or compress with magnetic fields, or something similar. And single-molecule-scale machines can't do that powerfully enough to get two nucleii together so close that they'd fuse. The forces in question would break the chemical bonds in the nanite before they get the nucleii together.

 

[Stalker0]

You can't accelerate continuously for 1000 years (or 500, I suppose). Even at just .33g, it would take less than 3 years to reach .9999c. Which of course you couldn't.

well keep in mind unless your distance is truly ludicrous...you wouldn't have to.

At 1 m/s constant acceleration, you can cross 500 light years in ~44 years (your time, not earth time). Which puts your ending max speed at .9998 c.

 

[Stalker0]

While Star Trek talks about "pure energy", there's no abstract "energy channels" we can create. We have to shine light, or compress with magnetic fields, or something similar. And single-molecule-scale machines can't do that powerfully enough to get two nucleii together so close that they'd fuse. The forces in question would break the chemical bonds in the nanite before they get the nucleii together.

Again you are assuming the nanite is doing the energy focus. I was saying they could construct molecular scale channels to do the work. The nanites construct the channels, not that the nanites themselves are doing the channeling.

Now maybe your right it could not be done at that scale, it might still have to be scaled up to 1000x or 10000x etc. But the idea is that rather than build a massive fusion reactor, perhaps you could temporarily build one at a small enough scale to "keep in a normal sized room for example". You can the precision that your nanites could afford you to greatly reduce the energy costs, and then generate fusion that way.

 

[Ryujin]

I wouldn't be too sure of this. While rotating rings is a common solution in science fiction, the truth is that it doesn't really work as a full time gravity replacement. Dynamic changes in the mass distribution (such as those caused by people moving around) would cause the ring to precess unless the mass of the ring itself was much much greater than the masses of all the things moving on it. Material stresses would be enormous. The better solution is constant linear acceleration, but if you're going outside the galaxy you'll run into limits eventually.

What might be able to do ""easily"" is have artificial gravity sections that people can spend time in each day to exercise.

There are solutions to the unbalance, both extremely technological and relatively simple. The easiest would be a fluid in a ring around the torus, with a series of baffles to limit motion. As weight is redistributed the fluid naturally moves to stabilize the system.

 

[Ryujin]

At one time, there was no "realistic" way to go around the Earth in 24 hours.

Nobody is saying "launch today". We recognize that there's work to be done. But that work won't be done if everyone says, "There is no realistic way to do it now, so we shouldn't do anything."

One way to start would be to eliminate the concept of "lowest bidder" in construction and build with longevity in mind.

 

[dragoner]

At one time, there was no "realistic" way to go around the Earth in 24 hours.

Nobody is saying "launch today". We recognize that there's work to be done. But that work won't be done if everyone says, "There is no realistic way to do it now, so we shouldn't do anything."

I wrote an entire RPG around concepts such as these four main books are near a thousand pages, plus adventures. Not perfect by no means, though I have tried to do my homework and include as much real science as I can. A Purdue physics professor here said it is impressive. Certainly there are questions one has to wrestle with, I mean on a planetary scale we spend 6 trillion plus subsidizing fossil fuels, military spending is also off the hook. Changing these two things would free up resources to begin research into ways to get to other star systems. The will to do the things are the first thing that needs to change. I mean Space X since Tuesday has lost more value that the last 10 years of NASA's budget.

 

[Umbran]

This is a very heavy lift and we don't really have an analogous events in history to look at for answers on how to get it done.

Yep.

But, with that attitude, you will restrict yourself to doing only things that have been done before, and the cool stuff will remain forever outside your reach.

Every achievement ever attained was done for a first time. That first time it was done without anything analogous before it. Doing it for the first time is required to ever do it at all.

 

[Reynard]

As I'm sure all the other things in history were, before they were done. you can't look backward to see what's possible, because we already know that is. Historical trends matter. The next valley over. Across the river. Across the lake. Across the sea. Across the ocean. Into orbit. To The Moon...

How many people have been to the moon? How long did they stay?

My point is, people have left Earth, and plenty of people would do so, given the chance. But that is not the same thing as asking people to get on an Ark.

 

[Reynard]

well keep in mind unless your distance is truly ludicrous...you wouldn't have to.

At 1 m/s constant acceleration, you can cross 500 light years in ~44 years (your time, not earth time). Which puts your ending max speed at .9998 c.

How do you propose to power that acceleration as it becomes ever more energy inefficient?