General / Off-Topic The terrifying thought that interstellar travel just isn't possible.
- Thread starter Dakron Nova
- Start date
You are thinking of things in a human timeframe. Sooner rather than later humans will enter the transhuman phase where we can augment and eventually replace our bodies- essentially we become living machines and then time becomes meaningless as we can then take trips of hundreds or thousands of years at lower velocities.
We may have not met aliens yet because we are looking for beings like us. Life could be like sentient planets like Solaris, or have evolved beyond the need for bodies at all. Have a read of A.C. Clarke and books like 2001 ASO, Childhoods End and the Rama series for some fun extrapolations.
We may have not met aliens yet because we are looking for beings like us. Life could be like sentient planets like Solaris, or have evolved beyond the need for bodies at all. Have a read of A.C. Clarke and books like 2001 ASO, Childhoods End and the Rama series for some fun extrapolations.
I think it's appropriate to say that we already are nothing more than living machines. Augmentations would be biochemical instead of mechanical. I think everybody can see the danger of that. It takes a long time to brainwash individuals to follow certain ideas and ideals, but with augments, you can breed people like that.
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ciger
Banned
Interstellar travel is definitely possible, even if just at a snail's pace. One thing about the fermi paradox (why don't we see evidence of intelligent life?) is that we almost have the technology in reach to build self replicating drones. Any technologically advanced civilization could send out ships that mine and process materials to replicate. And the time to traverse the galaxy is short compared to galactic timescales. So what if it takes a million years? 
This is either evidence that no intelligent life exists long before us or that they are smarter than we are and wouldn't do such a reckless thing. And maybe have a prime directive.
And for humanity to do this "in person" only requires things like hybernation / cryostasis and maybe frozen embryos.
There is no doubt in my mind we will eventually colonize the galaxy. But without hyperspace travel we will be a disjointed and fractured species with highly diverging cultures, separated by hundreds of years of travel and information exchange. Of course this is equally terrifying
I think the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds is one of the most realistic and plausible science fiction visions for the future. It's absolutely fantastic. Crazy epic stories in a universe that has no faster than light travel.
Personally I expect that we will create artificial intelligence in the next 100 years and who knows what will happen then. Hopefully something good
This is either evidence that no intelligent life exists long before us or that they are smarter than we are and wouldn't do such a reckless thing. And maybe have a prime directive.And for humanity to do this "in person" only requires things like hybernation / cryostasis and maybe frozen embryos.
There is no doubt in my mind we will eventually colonize the galaxy. But without hyperspace travel we will be a disjointed and fractured species with highly diverging cultures, separated by hundreds of years of travel and information exchange. Of course this is equally terrifying
I think the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds is one of the most realistic and plausible science fiction visions for the future. It's absolutely fantastic. Crazy epic stories in a universe that has no faster than light travel.
Personally I expect that we will create artificial intelligence in the next 100 years and who knows what will happen then. Hopefully something good
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There is something I want that I can't get on this planet: actual privacy.
If I could claim a planet for my own, I wouldn't have to worry about all the groups of (wow, I cant believe the forums censored this word) trying to impose their rules, politics, and belief systems on me.
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Hey that's not space time you're squeezing.........-starts turning a deep purple- that's my throat, let go pleaseeee........-passes out and drops the key to the T.A.R.D.I.S-
edit: the problem is not that we don't have the tech, but rather we do and we are trying to leapfrog ahead of ourselves technology wise imo, we cannot just rush the race to interstellar travel and expect everything to go well, and even if we do figure out how to travel between the stars quickly, we still need to refine the miniaturization process for the components that would make up the space vessel, at our current level of miniaturization the resources needed to build a ship would be astronomical thus at this point in time and likely for the next hundred years or so it will not happen, unless we get WW3 and we get the usual technological breakthroughs and developments that come with it, but by then we likely would be living on an applecore of a planet if we survive it.
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Hah, just had a funny thought last night, that in 1 second of supercruise I'll travel further than I ever will in my entire (real) life.
(Also - being about 8 Light Millennia away from Sol - if I could turn a powerful enough telescope back towards Earth, I could see the events of ~5,000 BC, and witness the creation of the key human developments - metallurgy, the wheel, the plough, beer. The key ingredients in drink-driving, oddly..)
(Also - being about 8 Light Millennia away from Sol - if I could turn a powerful enough telescope back towards Earth, I could see the events of ~5,000 BC, and witness the creation of the key human developments - metallurgy, the wheel, the plough, beer. The key ingredients in drink-driving, oddly..)
Yes, that's our tragedy, imposing beliefs passed onto us on the next generation, breeding neurotic individuals. I think it is possible for you to come into your own even in this day and age, though. Rejecting everything that has been programmed into you requires great courage, though.
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The problem isn't just the technology to propel yourself to another star system. We can do that now in theory. The real problems are the logistical details.
1) fighting bacteria and viruses that get strong in space even as our immune system gets weaker in zero g
2) surviving deadly radiation outside the protective bubbles of the magnetosphere of the earth and heliosphere of sun
3) what if something breaks? What are the odds that you could travel for years though interstellar space and have nothing malfunction?
4) what if an engineer or scientist used english instead of metric units (yes this kind of error has cost billions of dollars already), and you end up in the middle of nowhere with not enough fuel to do anything
5) finding a place that is hospitable to human life! (the estimate for ELW in elite are optimistically high, and we have FSD technology)
6) if we find an ELW, then it may very well have existing bacterial life that is hostile or deadly to human tissue, for which we would have no natural defense
7) space debris: we could travel several light years and get obliterated by a high speed pebble in the last 1000km of the journey
8) the incredibly perilous journey of falling through an alien planet's atmosphere faster than the speed of sound
9) not crashing on the planet's surface
10) The unknown: this is probably the most deadly of all the items on the list
1) fighting bacteria and viruses that get strong in space even as our immune system gets weaker in zero g
2) surviving deadly radiation outside the protective bubbles of the magnetosphere of the earth and heliosphere of sun
3) what if something breaks? What are the odds that you could travel for years though interstellar space and have nothing malfunction?
4) what if an engineer or scientist used english instead of metric units (yes this kind of error has cost billions of dollars already), and you end up in the middle of nowhere with not enough fuel to do anything
5) finding a place that is hospitable to human life! (the estimate for ELW in elite are optimistically high, and we have FSD technology)
6) if we find an ELW, then it may very well have existing bacterial life that is hostile or deadly to human tissue, for which we would have no natural defense
7) space debris: we could travel several light years and get obliterated by a high speed pebble in the last 1000km of the journey
8) the incredibly perilous journey of falling through an alien planet's atmosphere faster than the speed of sound
9) not crashing on the planet's surface
10) The unknown: this is probably the most deadly of all the items on the list
If we don't do it, the next alpha species will..
We still have so much to learn about the possibilities of manipulating time and space, nothing can be ruled out at this point.
Just because we haven't detected any communication or evidence of other cultures in the few years we have been looking, doesn't mean there are, or have been, none. The galaxy is huge and has been around for billions of years. Even if a civilization sent out long distance signals constantly for 50,000 years the chances of any of them reaching us in the small time period we have been able to detect them is tiny. As is the chance of our signals reaching anyone else.
Just because we haven't detected any communication or evidence of other cultures in the few years we have been looking, doesn't mean there are, or have been, none. The galaxy is huge and has been around for billions of years. Even if a civilization sent out long distance signals constantly for 50,000 years the chances of any of them reaching us in the small time period we have been able to detect them is tiny. As is the chance of our signals reaching anyone else.
space get conquered with every small steps we had the chance of doing really.
the only thing tho: we cant conquer space without tools, thats for sure.... humans wont be able to fly on their own...
the technology of today is so great that it allows us so many things; just the communication is now instantly with internet networks, and computers (etc etc ).
the matter is that objects in space are so far away. our solar system is pretty much the range we can go for now.
to think of getting to another star, it would takes ages, so its much much beyond human's lifetime....
unless the stars are not so far away that we think they are, but i cannot refute the astronomers who calculated the distances
the only thing tho: we cant conquer space without tools, thats for sure.... humans wont be able to fly on their own...
the technology of today is so great that it allows us so many things; just the communication is now instantly with internet networks, and computers (etc etc ).
the matter is that objects in space are so far away. our solar system is pretty much the range we can go for now.
to think of getting to another star, it would takes ages, so its much much beyond human's lifetime....
unless the stars are not so far away that we think they are, but i cannot refute the astronomers who calculated the distances
Who's to say it hasn't already, if seeding life is done via comets, who's to say that, while interstellar travel within the lifespan of an organism is not possible, then something bacterial in a frozen state can survive billions of years crossing the "great divide". Once we get advanced enough, the easiest way for the species to survive out of the system would be to send frozen embryos alongside the relevant machinery to grow and raise them when the time is right, and a ship like that could survive near-indefinitely in space until it finds somewhere suitable. It takes Time out of the equation.
Plus, in all things, something has to be first. Doesn't mean there aren't space cows or space hamsters living on other worlds. there's life out there, it looks highly likely life (albeit bacterial) used to be on Mars, it may still be there in Europa or Enceladus, but we may be the first "advanced" one.
Plus, in all things, something has to be first. Doesn't mean there aren't space cows or space hamsters living on other worlds. there's life out there, it looks highly likely life (albeit bacterial) used to be on Mars, it may still be there in Europa or Enceladus, but we may be the first "advanced" one.
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Yes, because we're greedy b*stards, and impose family values on everybody. We breed not for necessity, but to comply to the accepted demand of society to have a family.
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