"Promising hints of life on distant planet"

[UngainlyTitan]

AI needs hardware resources that needs electricity and produces a lot of heat (and cooling is a concern in vacuum), and the components also degrade from radiation. And innately, computers have absolutely no self-repair capabilities. To some extent, you can turn off defective processors or memory, but repairing is its own infrastructure that currently includes humans. If you switch to robots (AI powered or really simple algorithms, it's still computers at the end), you of course also have to think about how to maintain those robots. You will need a lot of spare parts and/or a long chain of machinery that build all the parts you need, including the parts to repair that machinery. You really don't want your nuclear reactor or fusion reactor to break down.

It always boils down that you need some sort of self-sustaining eco-system. Not necessarily self-sustained forever, but for the duration of the travel. If you also want some form of colonization, you also need something to make the place you reach hospitable to whatever "colonizes" it (be it AI and robots, human colonists from a generation ship or whatever.). Even if we detect life on such a planet, there is still the question if we could eat anything we find there, and if the atmosphere has the right composition. (And for the AI and robots, the existence of life isn't a great help, unless it includes friendly aliens that would help repairing and maintaing them.)


Which is part of the machinery that I figure you need to bring aboard - fuel and engines, maneuvering thrusters.

If you read my previous posts you would realise your repeating back at me things I said or implied.

electronics may degrade in the radiation environment of space but not as much as biological cells.

 

[tomBitonti]

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.

…

I’m thinking it’s more complicated than this. Don’t we need to take into account the surface area of the star? Which is a function of the radius. Also, the radius of the planet’s orbit will matter.

TomB

 

[Bedrockgames]

Find a way to make The USS Enterprise happen. That seems like a much cooler future than riding around in a rock.

 

[Stalker0]

AI needs hardware resources that needs electricity and produces a lot of heat (and cooling is a concern in vacuum), and the components also degrade from radiation. And innately, computers have absolutely no self-repair capabilities. To some extent, you can turn off defective processors or memory, but repairing is its own infrastructure that currently includes humans. If you switch to robots (AI powered or really simple algorithms, it's still computers at the end), you of course also have to think about how to maintain those robots. You will need a lot of spare parts and/or a long chain of machinery that build all the parts you need, including the parts to repair that machinery. You really don't want your nuclear reactor or fusion reactor to break down.

It always boils down that you need some sort of self-sustaining eco-system. Not necessarily self-sustained forever, but for the duration of the travel. If you also want some form of colonization, you also need something to make the place you reach hospitable to whatever "colonizes" it (be it AI and robots, human colonists from a generation ship or whatever.). Even if we detect life on such a planet, there is still the question if we could eat anything we find there, and if the atmosphere has the right composition. (And for the AI and robots, the existence of life isn't a great help, unless it includes friendly aliens that would help repairing and maintaing them.)


Which is part of the machinery that I figure you need to bring aboard - fuel and engines, maneuvering thrusters.

If your at the point where interstellar travel is happening nano tech is likely well within reach. You wouldn’t have bulky robots difficult to repair, but robots composed of nano “cells” that can adopt any form and can be repair or recycled continuously.

 

[Reynard]

If your at the point where interstellar travel is happening nano tech is likely well within reach. You wouldn’t have bulky robots difficult to repair, but robots composed of nano “cells” that can adopt any form and can be repair or recycled continuously.

I'm not sure what the connection between the two is.

 

[Ryujin]

Find a way to make The USS Enterprise happen. That seems like a much cooler future than riding around in a rock.

I'm thinking we'd be more likely to get "Hyperdrive" (UK TV series), of my friend Matt Vancil's book "The Fatal Frontier."

 

[Corinnguard]

Human (Singular) - Wisdom 10 (Average)
Human (Swarm) - Wisdom 2

Anyone remember that scene from the first Men In Black movie where Agent K explained to Agent J about how humans fail their Insight check whenever they get together?

 

[Corinnguard]

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

This fact would have to be drummed into the heads of the individuals taking this relativistic trip to any star system beyond Earth. And such a crew would have to be picked from those who don't have any serious attachments back home or to Earth itself. The Earth you left isn't going to be the Earth you would be returning to, if ever.

 

[Reynard]

This fact would have to be drummed into the heads of the individuals taking this relativistic trip to any star system beyond Earth. And such a crew would have to be picked from those who don't have any serious attachments back home or to Earth itself. The Earth you left isn't going to be the Earth you would be returning to, if ever.

Unless you are talking about cryogenic hibernation or similar, I don't think such long journeys would be 2 way.

 

[Dioltach]

Unless you are talking about cryogenic hibernation or similar, I don't think such long journeys would be 2 way.

I dunno. Back in my office employment days, 19 years there and 19 years back was about average for a daily commute.