how do we reach a stellar neighbor by 4,000?
assume we dont become a k1 somehow
How do we reach a stellar neighbor by 4,000?
Ayden Edwards
Asher Morgan
Lol earth wont last another 100 years
Gavin Garcia
solid first steps
Jonathan Parker
sure, ecology will be razed. no telling right now what will be reversible and what kind of resources will be dedicated to LEO utilization before that happens though... so include the ecology factor in your reasoning I guess
Aaron Young
If we don't make Kardashev 1, it's impossible to even effectively travel the solar system effectively, much less interstellar space. We'd need to be K2 to seriously consider it.
The only manned interstellar flights at sub K1 would desperate hail mary throws due to some known extinction event and humanity decided we had nothing to lose by trying. Understanding that even upon arrival of where we sent them, there is only a low probability they'd succeed at establishing a successful colony. Only some desperate we've got nothing to loss no way out of it situation that humanity agreed to would even induce the effort.
Isaac Price
Honest answer: Matter/Antimatter annihilation rocket. This isn't Star Trek; the reaction isn't getting turned into electricity by magic crystals, and the electricity isn't getting turned into FTL by more magic. This is just matter + antimatter = boom, so contain the boom and direct it in the direction opposite the one you want to go.
We can make antimatter in super small amounts right now, but we have no way to trap/collect it and no way to contain it, so double-fucked on that front. But 2000 years is a long time. I think it's reasonable to suggest we can figure that part out.
One reason not to do it: the light from a matter/antimatter annihilation reaction is 1) distinctive and 2) detectable from incomprehensibly large distances and 3) very obviously artificial. So firing up a matter/antimatter rocket would be a big neon sign reading "intelligent life here! If destroying all other life before it can pose a threat to you is your species' standard operating procedure, here's some life that needs killing!
Austin Lewis
Without making k1, we'll never make it out of the solar system. Guaranteed the first government that makes it off of earth will blow the rest to hell and become the planetary government by default. For what it's worth.
Brandon Rodriguez
If by "we" you mean the artificial lifeforms which descended from our hubris, then probably something ro so with string theory or whatever nonsense
Christian Campbell
I disagree with the initial assumption. Suppose we're willing to deploy an Orion for the operation.
you're not going to express velocities in %C, it would be slow but there's a couple thousand years to work with. if you could shuttle material up to the craft using better tech as its developed, you could effectively increase its transit speed by making additions to the ship's particle screen, whatever that is.
though we may not find it materially rewarding a jaunt to a close system could be a fairly relaxed operation with a decent solar infrastructure (300 yeas of dedicated work?)
I could see it happening without being a hail mary but I think desperation would be a factor. we'd be scouting with more than just exploration in mind.
do anticipate our directive and goals may quickly center on the premise of leaving the system after earth becomes a drain to inhabit
Ethan Roberts
i crunched the numbers and we would've had to leave earth yesterday...so cant make it by 4,000.
William Russell
we've already sent vehicles to the very edge of it, so I find your appeal unrealistic.
do the political obstacles matter even if we can erect space elevators and basic infrastructure around our star while being sub-k1? private industry, even?
what if we assume torch ships are a bit easier to build than and private entities can travel quickly around sol using hot, dirty nuclear drives?
Christopher Gomez
>we've already sent vehicles to the very edge of it
Bruh. Bruh. Tell me you're not citing decades of travel by an unmanned probe to reach the heliopause as support for manned interstellar travel.
David Adams
so a pusher system with raw thrust?
god, I hope not. the matter-antimatter annihilation generates so much more energy as radiation which would be wasted making whatever mechanism generates the antimatter highly under-producing.
if we assume the gap is easily bridged to confinement and economic production of antimatter, i think black holes are much more easily on the table.
a black hole drive would offer a lot of advantages over a matter-antimatter jet, including the emission concern.
functionally, no industry would respect concerns of the fermi paradox so I don't think it's a concern for this thought experiment. there's no saying what would happen or on what timelines.
Logan Bennett
no, it's a comment on the rate of transit established by human space vehicles.
the barrier to building good engines for solar and extrasolar use is infrastructure, just as it was for the transit times of the Voyager probes considering their launch vehicle's limitations. so many gravity assists and long transfers, but a few thousand more deltaV and 1AU is much more quickly crossed than it was before
Camden Thomas
Taken without permission from Winchell Chung's Atomic Rocket website, which is fucking glorious:
>...the Voyager 1 space probe is currently the fastest human made object with a rest mass, zipping along at a blazing 17.46 km/s. This means that in the space of an eyeblink the little speed demon travels a whopping eleven miles! That's smokin'. What if it was aimed at Proxima Centauri (it isn't), how long would it take to reach it?
About 74,000 years! Which means that if Neanderthal men had launched something as fast as Voyager 1 to Proxima, it would just barely be arriving right now. And the joke's on them. Neanderthals are extinct so not even their descendants would reap the benefit of any scientific broadcasts from the Proxima probe. A similar argument could be used against any interstellar probes we could launch.
Christopher Perez
awesome website indeed.
this is my first point again though; 17.5km/s is *not* fast for an unmanned probe. earth's escape velocity at sea level is 11 so to entertain this idea think of it as a difference.
you're only dedicating 6.5km/s of the vehicle's velocity to leaving Sol quickly, the rest is for those slingshots and flybys done in-system
Aiden Moore
dyson calculated some hopeful numbers for the Orion drive with tech now considered limited. assume we could do equally, maybe better.
for an unmanned operation you might need thousands of them to ensure success, but these vehicles are cheap and crude by even our standards just politically irrelevant.
Joseph Bailey
so, a 'blink' or 'jump' style warp drive?
sounds scary man, like the sort of thing you only send non-deterministic biological puppets through.
>thinks
>event horizon
Wyatt Green
>like the sort of thing you only send non-deterministic biological puppets through.
So then maybe our future machine overlords Wil have an actual use for us still.
Good to know I guess.
Levi Hughes
> monkeys
> still killing each other with machetes
> talking about their "destiny in the stars"
mfw
Carson Howard
so technological regression always wins? even if it becomes a sole point of agreement?
Cooper Moore
no, not at all.. i just think.. like the cavemen in Dresden Codak's "Cave Man Science Fiction"...
"you grasp exceed you grasp"
i'm reminded of Pynchon remarking in Gravity's Rainbow, "What kind of Wandervögel idiocy is it to run around all night in a marsh calling yourselves the Society for Space Navigation?"
Ryder Allen
so philosophy is the limitation, and by that function, nihilism?
philosophy has that power, if our survival depended on upending that corner of it?
Luke Rodriguez
philosophy is not the limitation. nihilism is not the limitation.
the limitation is that humans are primates, but believe themselves to be something higher. they deny their primate nature and become extremely confused when they lose focus, get angry and do something extremely primate, like kill their partner.
only when humans accept that they are animals will they be able to live in peace with each other, and they shouldn't consider leaving the planet until they can do this.
Christian Harris
primates have already left the planet and didn't resort to blows in anger, exactly the opposite.
you're describing a slow process, respecting nature. who's to say the upper end doesn't begin the next step earlier than the majority and has success?
Colton Morales
you're describing an incredibly narrow and privileged process, where seventeen white men are allowed to visit the moon for a couple of days, leave some plastic bags full of pee, then come back.
meanwhile, millions of people in other parts of the world are either starving to death or killing each other with anything that comes to hand, often over disagreements in the nature of an imagined Biggest Alpha Male they call God. it's no wonder aliens haven't visited us - they look at this and think humans are insane.
Oliver Watson
you're being shortsighted.
the most influential economies have space programs. space is still technically a wholly demilitarized place where people can indeed find a lower barrier to entry with each passing year. it's absolutely privileged, but that's a socioeconmic and political mechanism not an inherent one to the problem.
it's a place we've peeked at but realize is foreign, which is good. tackling it requires lots of resources, as you say.
how can humans get to a point where the issues you're bringing up stop being barriers? solutions exist.
Jack Bailey
...
Luis Hill