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Jihadin wrote:KK wait..we went from how to get there with what crew to terrafarming? Did we make it there already?

Thread is pointless if we assume they all die en route.

We must work on the scenario of what happens when the colony ship arrives. This probably involves terraforming.


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Doctadeth wrote:My thoughts on this subject. Get a huge asteroid (ceres size or larger) into Near Earth orbit (Probably Lunar orbit to be honest). hollow it out and plant various biomes and so forth there, populate with animal and plant species. Induce spin using a rocket engine (one time thrust) add water for fish and sea species.

The photosythensis of the trees should produce enough oxygen to sustain the ecosystem of the colony. Add a plasma engine, piloting areas and computer guidance. Plus some point defense turrets for emergencies.

Have a police force, and a token garrison. (probably 200 troops). There would be a mix of people, from scientists to lay people and unskilled workers. have equipment, earthmoving materials and so forth. add storage for nuclear weaponry (for terraforming or emergencies)

Use the waste of the human and animal passengers to fertilize the trees and plants. do everything by HAND (means that people exercise and also adapt) The biomes should balance out precipitation, oxygen consumption should be alright as well.

Set course to the nearest star.

Crude but workable. However I dont recommend a crude approach. You want your colony high tech.

Yes do manual farming, it keeps the colonists occupied on the trip, but dont forget to build smart and high tech. You only have what you take with you. Your colony should be as high up the tech tree as humanly possible and should have all the toys, so that it can be a high tech colony on the other end.

Yes you can fill a hollowed rock with the latest gizmos, but what you imply here is a haphazard almost natural biome. That would work as a colony project staying around earth, it can import technology. However your space colony must have the infrastructure pattern for the new colony, as the colony isn't high tech in its approach the colony on arrival wont be high tech either. That is an unnecessary handicap.

Hollowed asteroids can work, and are very practical long term colony homes, but are overmassive which will cut down speed. This will cost you in longer transit times. In any case keep the interior high tech, do include manual work on farms etc but as a secondary supplement to high efficiency automated farming. So on arrival you can make with the best mix of technology and human agriculture.

Wait, did we answer why we want to spend multi trillions to do this again?

Frazzled wrote:Wait, did we answer why we want to spend multi trillions to do this again?

We don't, I think it best built by a scientific commune. Their reason - to seed space before we feth ourselves to extinction.

I dont actually think this sort of outlay is possible under out political system. From your post it appears you dint either. However a collective of motivated individuals might do where politicians will not.

Either way, there is no getting round its a big multi stage project.

Orlanth wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Wait, did we answer why we want to spend multi trillions to do this again?

We don't, I think it best built by a scientific commune. Their reason - to seed space before we feth ourselves to extinction.

I dont actually think this sort of outlay is possible under out political system. From your post it appears you dint either. However a collective of motivated individuals might do where politicians will not.

Either way, there is no getting round its a big multi stage project.

As it would require a GDP greater than the US, I highly doubt a few interested individuals would be able to do gak.
However, I'm fully fine with not derailing the thread with the efficacy of doing such.

Anyone read Footfall? Its basically hard sci fi about aliens coming here, usually technology not much more advancede than our own, includin atomic propulsion. It might be something to look at in this discussion.

Frazzled wrote:

As it would require a GDP greater than the US, I highly doubt a few interested individuals would be able to do gak.

What it requires is labour and raw materials. The hard part is getting off the ground. First build a reusable shuttle and fuel it. If its built by a commune they only pay for the raw materials and launch site. This will not be cheap, but not billions either. A small rotational habitat in LEO is possible is built by a capable commune of artisans and scientists. From there is gets a lot easier. When in orbit you can make a lunar modeule andv base and start harvesting martierials there. This is all effectively 'free' so long as you have sufficient believers in the program.
Nexct stage is to build a permenant space station preferably at L4 or L5. This allows you to move a small population base offweorld permenantly. for some this could be goal achieved for others a larger space station would be desirable (space stations get more earthlike in environment terms the bigger the rotational habitat gets.
At that point either build a colony ship or add drives to your new larger colony, if you all elect to go.

In fiscal terms only the initial project requires 'funding' as we know it. Space is free, lunar materials are free and easy to transport up 1:6 gravity. Building a seed culture in LEO is the hard bit, after that its almost destiny that people would expand outwards and into bigger habitats, there really isn't anything stopping them.

the once thing I can say is each stage will take time, even with the most optimistic projections this cannot be concluded in our lifetimes. But we can have a seed colony with rotational gravity in our lifetime, if we so desired. Piolitical will can achieve this, but that is unlikely, a scientific commune however has a much better chance.

The first key to this discussion is figuring out where you're actually going.

The star you're headed to is called Proxima Centauri. It is only 25,000,000,000,000 miles away. Assuming this ship is going to match the fastest speed we've obtained for a satellite leaving the solar system (38,400 mph), you're talking about a journey of about ~650,000,000 hours. Or, about 74 years.

Sorry, that was a decimal error. It's 74 THOUSAND years.


So, the people you send on this don't really matter all that much, as they'll be long dead. As will their grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's...

We're simply no where near having the technology to do this. To even discuss what all would be required given current technology is silly. Something like a colony on the moon, or a human trip to Mars is worth discussing. This isn't.

Orlanth wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

As it would require a GDP greater than the US, I highly doubt a few interested individuals would be able to do gak.

What it requires is labour and raw materials. The hard part is getting off the ground. First build a reusable shuttle and fuel it. If its built by a commune they only pay for the raw materials and launch site. This will not be cheap, but not billions either. A small rotational habitat in LEO is possible is built by a capable commune of artisans and scientists. From there is gets a lot easier. When in orbit you can make a lunar modeule andv base and start harvesting martierials there. This is all effectively 'free' so long as you have sufficient believers in the program.
Nexct stage is to build a permenant space station preferably at L4 or L5. This allows you to move a small population base offweorld permenantly. for some this could be goal achieved for others a larger space station would be desirable (space stations get more earthlike in environment terms the bigger the rotational habitat gets.
At that point either build a colony ship or add drives to your new larger colony, if you all elect to go.

In fiscal terms only the initial project requires 'funding' as we know it. Space is free, lunar materials are free and easy to transport up 1:6 gravity. Building a seed culture in LEO is the hard bit, after that its almost destiny that people would expand outwards and into bigger habitats, there really isn't anything stopping them.

the once thing I can say is each stage will take time, even with the most optimistic projections this cannot be concluded in our lifetimes. But we can have a seed colony with rotational gravity in our lifetime, if we so desired. Piolitical will can achieve this, but that is unlikely, a scientific commune however has a much better chance.

Don't kid yourself. That "initial project" is still trillions.

Grakmar wrote:The first key to this discussion is figuring out where you're actually going.

The star you're headed to is called Proxima Centauri. It is only 25,000,000,000,000 miles away. Assuming this ship is going to match the fastest speed we've obtained for a satellite leaving the solar system (38,400 mph), you're talking about a journey of about ~650,000,000 hours. Or, about 74 years.

Sorry, that was a decimal error. It's 74 THOUSAND years.


So, the people you send on this don't really matter all that much, as they'll be long dead. As will their grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's...

We're simply no where near having the technology to do this. To even discuss what all would be required given current technology is silly. Something like a colony on the moon, or a human trip to Mars is worth discussing. This isn't.

Nuclear propulsion is different to a slingshot speed as we got from the Yoyager probes. Voyager sped up by an initial rocket burn plus three slingshots around Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune.
A colony ship has a slow burn acceleration, and travels much faster.

How much faster is open to debate. Some here believe high subluminal to take advantage of time dilation.
I am not so sure of that because of fuel use, which gets harder as you approach c.

Howeever 10% c is doable with slow burn acceleration over years. a fusioon engine can have a aspcieif impulse of 3000, an ion drive 30000. A standard oxygen-kerosene rocket only 450-500. Ion drives offer low thrust, but it can be scaled up and is workable over long time periods, and for interstallar journeys time is something you have a lot of.

Alpha Centauri at 10% c is about 45 years allowing for acceleration time. Assuming the closest star system is not the best candidate one a rough estimate of as 100 year journey can give us a large selection of candidate systems to travel to.




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Frazzled wrote:

Don't kid yourself. That "initial project" is still trillions.

there are low cost space colny projects being looked at even now. and they don't even cost billions, let alone trillions. Take government out of the loop and you take out most of the squander.

Does that include deceleration time as well?

Frazzled wrote:Does that include deceleration time as well?

It would need to. the acceleration and deceleration time are a quick guess.


10% c equals ten times the distance in light years in years. Two years acceleration to reach 10%c , that is an acceleration of 0.47m/sec/sec. A sedate slow burn.

We could increase acceleration time to three to five years to really cut the acceleration rate down and look at ion as the propulsion method.

Even approx ten years acceleration adn deceleration is a relatively short add on to a 40-70 year journey to a candidate star. Ion being preferable because of the extreme fuel efficinecy. A specific impulse of 30000, ten times ther next most efficient fuel (fusion rocket)

We have ion drives now, but they are of a very small scale and power output. The thrust is similar to waving a small piece of paper in front of your face. But even so they already have the drive longevity down ok, a current ion drive will very slowly accelerate a vessel for months on the tiniest amount of fuel. IIRC an ion drive for a probe is the size of a bean tin and can dawdle along around the solar system slowly picking up speed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4527696.stm

I am banking on the hope that ion will scale up just like atomic energy does. After all splitting one atom is not dangerous, its when you split lots of them together you get an interesting result.

Why not map the safest trajectory for the ship, cut out most of the civvies and a good chunk of the military, put everyone on board into the cryogenic stasis, and just fire the ship towards its destination. The ship would only need to carry enough fuel to do a few burns after launch as well as keep the cargo alive, then some extras to help the colonists survive the first few months after they hit ground. Preparing to encounter hostile extraterrestrials wouldn't be worth it; it's far too unlikely to prepare for, besides if we enter their territory, there will be more than enough to take out the ship, assuming that they're out there in the region we are passing through. The ship's size and efficiency can be improved greatly through these things.

Wait has anyone done "cryogen" for real? I don't think it works in real life. Water crystallizing into ice destroys the cell walls or something?

As for troopers aren't we forgetting tech? We're assuming indigineous techmight be equal or better. What if we get there and we're facing stone age level cave men or velociraptors. Man up! We're in it for the species people!

in the words of the immortal bard: Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!

Squidmanlolz wrote:Why not map the safest trajectory for the ship, cut out most of the civvies and a good chunk of the military, put everyone on board into the cryogenic stasis, and just fire the ship towards its destination.

Because there's no such thing as cryogenic stasis.

Squidmanlolz wrote:The ship would only need to carry enough fuel to do a few burns after launch as well as keep the cargo alive, then some extras to help the colonists survive the first few months after they hit ground.

You'd need a lot more than a few months of survival. The planet is almost guaranteed to be uninhabitable. So, you'll need enough supplies to turn the ship around and come home.

Grakmar wrote:

Squidmanlolz wrote:Why not map the safest trajectory for the ship, cut out most of the civvies and a good chunk of the military, put everyone on board into the cryogenic stasis, and just fire the ship towards its destination.

Because there's no such thing as cryogenic stasis.

There is but only for embryos, plant seeds and small primitive creatures.

Grakmar wrote:

Squidmanlolz wrote:The ship would only need to carry enough fuel to do a few burns after launch as well as keep the cargo alive, then some extras to help the colonists survive the first few months after they hit ground.

You'd need a lot more than a few months of survival. The planet is almost guaranteed to be uninhabitable. So, you'll need enough supplies to turn the ship around and come home.

Before you go you look for goldilocks zone planets with a very big telescope. If you can make a colony ship you can make a 500m telescope capable of detecting earth like planets clearly.
noone would make a journey like this blind.

Grakmar wrote:
Agreed. Hostile aliens aren't a concern at all. If they do exist, they'll be much more advanced than we are and our military won't stand a chance at all (imagine fighting a small group of dogs using tanks and you'll be close to understanding the difference in technology). And, if they're close enough to Earth that we randomly stumble across them, humanity as a whole is dead anyway.

Aliens might be friendly, most likely they will be primitive.

Aliens might be friendly, most likely they will be primitive.

As Ripley would say. The only good Alien is a dead Alien.

Orlanth wrote:Aliens might be friendly, most likely they will be primitive.

No. The galaxy is incredibly old, but the Earth is rather young. The Milky Way formed 13 billion years ago, and the Earth just 4.5 billion. So, assuming a steady level of developing life, 66% of life out there is well advanced from us.

And, since humans went from "primitive" (I'm meaning homo habilis, something little more than an ape) to us in 2 million years, the chances of us stumbling into the "primitive" but still intelligent window is almost nil.

This means that the vast majority of aliens out there are billions of years ahead of us in technology, or will just be bacteria.

Grakmar wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Aliens might be friendly, most likely they will be primitive.

No. The galaxy is incredibly old, but the Earth is rather young. The Milky Way formed 13 billion years ago, and the Earth just 4.5 billion. So, assuming a steady level of developing life, 66% of life out there is well advanced from us.

And, since humans went from "primitive" (I'm meaning homo habilis, something little more than an ape) to us in 2 million years, the chances of us stumbling into the "primitive" but still intelligent window is almost nil.

This means that the vast majority of aliens out there are billions of years ahead of us in technology, or will just be bacteria.

And besides, an alien species doesn't have to be technologically advanced to kill us all.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

Grakmar wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Aliens might be friendly, most likely they will be primitive.

No. The galaxy is incredibly old, but the Earth is rather young. The Milky Way formed 13 billion years ago, and the Earth just 4.5 billion. So, assuming a steady level of developing life, 66% of life out there is well advanced from us.

And, since humans went from "primitive" (I'm meaning homo habilis, something little more than an ape) to us in 2 million years, the chances of us stumbling into the "primitive" but still intelligent window is almost nil.

This means that the vast majority of aliens out there are billions of years ahead of us in technology, or will just be bacteria.

And besides, an alien species doesn't have to be technologically advanced to kill us all.

Mother agrees

Microbiology is the main threat and one overlooked by just about everyone in the gernre except HG Wells.

Land on an alien planet, die of alien flu. We would have no built immunities to any of the alien planets viruses or bacteria.

Saying that if we catch a planet in an early stage of development Cambrian equivalent or before we can bug bomb earth microbes and take over. earth microbes are likely more advanced than primitive alien onces.
We don't even call it genocide, we all it terraforming.

Anything beyond that and the ethics of terraforming raise its ugly head. To replace advanced life, even if not sapient is genocide, possibly even terracide. It might be a commonplace reaction, it might give humans a galactic bad rep. It might not ever matter.

Orlanth wrote:Microbiology is the main threat and one overlooked by just about everyone in the gernre except HG Wells.

Land on an alien planet, die of alien flu. We would have no built immunities to any of the alien planets viruses or bacteria.

Saying that if we catch a planet in an early stage of development Cambrian equivalent or before we can bug bomb earth microbes and take over. earth microbes are likely more advanced than primitive alien onces.
We don't even call it genocide, we all it terraforming.

Anything beyond that and the ethics of terraforming raise its ugly head. To replace advanced life, even if not sapient is genocide, possibly even terracide. It might be a commonplace reaction, it might give humans a galactic bad rep. It might not ever matter.

I think we already have precdent though. Death to the Xenos!

Orlanth wrote:Microbiology is the main threat and one overlooked by just about everyone in the gernre except HG Wells.

Land on an alien planet, die of alien flu. We would have no built immunities to any of the alien planets viruses or bacteria.

Saying that if we catch a planet in an early stage of development Cambrian equivalent or before we can bug bomb earth microbes and take over. earth microbes are likely more advanced than primitive alien onces.
We don't even call it genocide, we all it terraforming.

Anything beyond that and the ethics of terraforming raise its ugly head. To replace advanced life, even if not sapient is genocide, possibly even terracide. It might be a commonplace reaction, it might give humans a galactic bad rep. It might not ever matter.

Any species placing that much value on microbes probably isn't going to be friends with us anyway...

Hmm I thimnk you mkisunderstand this,

I am not talking about germ warfare from the alien planet. I am talking about the microbes that naturally live there.

If you go somewhere where you have no resistenace to the local diseases, exxcpect to catch some badly.

Early generations of western travellers to the Americas caught local diseases like Scarlet fever, and decimated local populations with of the common flu.

The average harmless microbe on an alien world could act like a superbug to us. Inhale once, catch a dozen different alien viruses, any or all of which could be fatal.

Some thinkers suggest the only way to terraform is to spam nuke a planet, to weaken the existing environment, wait a few weeks then seed our own tailored earth biome microbes. Then wait a generation for them to spread about and eat the alien viruses.

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Doctadeth wrote:My thoughts on this subject. Get a huge asteroid (ceres size or larger) into Near Earth orbit (Probably Lunar orbit to be honest). hollow it out and plant various biomes and so forth there, populate with animal and plant species. Induce spin using a rocket engine (one time thrust) add water for fish and sea species.

The photosythensis of the trees should produce enough oxygen to sustain the ecosystem of the colony. Add a plasma engine, piloting areas and computer guidance. Plus some point defense turrets for emergencies.

Have a police force, and a token garrison. (probably 200 troops). There would be a mix of people, from scientists to lay people and unskilled workers. have equipment, earthmoving materials and so forth. add storage for nuclear weaponry (for terraforming or emergencies)

Use the waste of the human and animal passengers to fertilize the trees and plants. do everything by HAND (means that people exercise and also adapt) The biomes should balance out precipitation, oxygen consumption should be alright as well.

Set course to the nearest star.

Crude but workable. However I dont recommend a crude approach. You want your colony high tech.

Yes do manual farming, it keeps the colonists occupied on the trip, but dont forget to build smart and high tech. You only have what you take with you. Your colony should be as high up the tech tree as humanly possible and should have all the toys, so that it can be a high tech colony on the other end.

Yes you can fill a hollowed rock with the latest gizmos, but what you imply here is a haphazard almost natural biome. That would work as a colony project staying around earth, it can import technology. However your space colony must have the infrastructure pattern for the new colony, as the colony isn't high tech in its approach the colony on arrival wont be high tech either. That is an unnecessary handicap.

Hollowed asteroids can work, and are very practical long term colony homes, but are overmassive which will cut down speed. This will cost you in longer transit times. In any case keep the interior high tech, do include manual work on farms etc but as a secondary supplement to high efficiency automated farming. So on arrival you can make with the best mix of technology and human agriculture.

Basically, you want enough technology to be able to make things relatively easy, However you also want people to be able to sustain the colony if technology fails. Essentially you want people who know both ends of the technology spectrum. Technology does fail, and fuel is also limited. If you were to travel to another star, you'd better have a cityload of spare parts for computers etc if you are going to use that, and the equivalent of a whole ocean of oil/petrol for fuel. Also, remember that we have not even SEEN a true zero gee environment (all of our spacecraft have still been in gravity wells until they lost communication), so true speed is relatively unknown.

in terms of xenos lifeforms, I think that thats a minimal risk situation. Because quite simply they will see us as we see them. Remember, to them we are the alien lifeforms. And to communicate with them. There's like a 10 percent difference between us and the great apes/bovines. Imagine a HUNDRED percent DNA difference. Thats like trying to communicate with a worm, or a worm trying to communicate with a human. Just doesn't happen.

Frazzled wrote:Wait, did we answer why we want to spend multi trillions to do this again?

You say "why", but I say "why not?"

Globally we spend trillions on creating weapons that could destroy civilisation and send us back to the dark ages. Why not balance it out and have some money going towards a continuation of the human race also?

Some thinkers suggest the only way to terraform is to spam nuke a planet, to weaken the existing environment, wait a few weeks then seed our own tailored earth biome microbes. Then wait a generation for them to spread about and eat the alien viruses.

The alternative would be to alter our own genome to make it suitable to live on the planet. The chances of us being ideally suited to any world, despite what Star Trek teaches us, must be very small. I like the idea that we can ultimately transcend our physical shell, downloading our consciousnesses into bodies which are ideally suited to that environment - although I realise that this is somewhat more sci-fi than fantasy at the moment..

In sort of agreement with DoctaDeth here. Tech is quite a dangerous thing to be taking on massive space voyages.

Yeah we may have the most advanced computer to man on board, but we don't possess a means to produce a near indefinate supply of parts for it then we are doomed.

What we actually need is Robust technology, more than 'the most advanced'.

Think about it, we got to the moon with computers less powerful than your average smartphone, but nowadays we can't make an all-singing-and-dancing laptop with a lifespan of > 3 years. (I understand and appreciate the term 'controlled obsolescence' is at work here as well) , but sometimes simpler and robust is better than advanced and fragile. Imagine what would happen if, say, the ion drives were controlled by a quantum computer and the QPU conks out, unless we have a means on-board the ship to manufacture more QPUs, we're floating aimlessly in space.


Also, on the travel speed point of view. We can probably get a bit of a boost from following gravity channels. There was a n article in New Scientist about this a while back. Essentially, throughout the universe there are twisting 'pathways' of very low gravity caused by the gravity of everything interacting. If we follow these, we might have to travel an overall longer distance, but speed would be greatly increased by not having to fight the gravity of everything we happen to fly past.

And the reason to spend trillions on this? simply because humanity is running out of resources fast. The minerals in our earth have less than two lifetimes to last before the reserves run out, we still haven't achieved even 5 percent recycling, and we are destroying the ecosystem and biosphere of earth.

*If we do not destroy ourselves, one day we will venture to the stars - Carl Sagan*

Orlanth wrote:Hmm I thimnk you mkisunderstand this,

I am not talking about germ warfare from the alien planet. I am talking about the microbes that naturally live there.

If you go somewhere where you have no resistenace to the local diseases, exxcpect to catch some badly.

Early generations of western travellers to the Americas caught local diseases like Scarlet fever, and decimated local populations with of the common flu.

The average harmless microbe on an alien world could act like a superbug to us. Inhale once, catch a dozen different alien viruses, any or all of which could be fatal.

Some thinkers suggest the only way to terraform is to spam nuke a planet, to weaken the existing environment, wait a few weeks then seed our own tailored earth biome microbes. Then wait a generation for them to spread about and eat the alien viruses.

Unless of course the planet has something like the Andromeda Strain on it. Nuking it would be...bad...

Here's the other problem. Its the X factor. What if a planet has a perfect environment. Good air, good water, just absolutely like Earth's view of paradise.
But no salt.

Doctadeth wrote:

In terms of xenos lifeforms, I think that thats a minimal risk situation. Because quite simply they will see us as we see them. Remember, to them we are the alien lifeforms. And to communicate with them. There's like a 10 percent difference between us and the great apes/bovines. Imagine a HUNDRED percent DNA difference. Thats like trying to communicate with a worm, or a worm trying to communicate with a human. Just doesn't happen.

Mathematics. If the alien life is intelligent then we will be able to prove our intelligence by communicating with mathematics. So flash two lights, pause, flash 1 light, pause, flash 3 lights (2+1=3).

Frazzled wrote:
Here's the other problem. Its the X factor. What if a planet has a perfect environment. Good air, good water, just absolutely like Earth's view of paradise.
But no salt.

Salt is just Sodium Chloride right? (or am I getting mixed up with something else? ) Surely, somewhere on the planet you could find sodium and chlorine. Then you just make your own, after all, you would have probably brought a guy with you who knows chemistry

A Town Called Malus wrote:

Doctadeth wrote:

In terms of xenos lifeforms, I think that thats a minimal risk situation. Because quite simply they will see us as we see them. Remember, to them we are the alien lifeforms. And to communicate with them. There's like a 10 percent difference between us and the great apes/bovines. Imagine a HUNDRED percent DNA difference. Thats like trying to communicate with a worm, or a worm trying to communicate with a human. Just doesn't happen.

Mathematics. If the alien life is intelligent then we will be able to prove our intelligence by communicating with mathematics. So flash two lights, pause, flash 1 light, pause, flash 3 lights (2+1=3).

Assuming they perceive the universe like we do...