Space travel, and the possibilities of interstellar migration

[KalMart]

So as not to tie up the Atheism thread anymore, it might be best to keep it in a thread specifically dedicated to the subject. I'll try to transplant the conversation over here.....

Theoretically, we could travel to Alpha Centauri now. It would just take a pile of money the size of Mt. Everest and a century (plus a few decades of RnD and construction).

I've read about some new theoretical designs, that could make a starship go up to a decent fraction of the speed of light. More likely though that we'll be sending very advanced, autonomous robots to do that.

I'm fairly confident we'll master "convenient" FTL travel in the next two hundred years. Maybe sooner. Warp drive, manipulating wormholes, etcetera.

Assuming some aliens don't stop by and give us the technology. That would be nice.

Nah, we won't.

To people living in the early 20th century the idea of going to the moon was as farfetched as the idea of us going to another star system is to us today. It's inevitable. It'll just take a century.

We can go to Mars. But we can't use nuclear engines because of various treaties. And... nobody wants to spend the money.

It's not inevitable. There are several very real problems with it. I could think of something maybe, with the advent of quantum computers that could be a neat facsimile though. Otherwise no. Humans are not meant for space and we have problems with traveling through space. Astronauts need tons of rehabilitation after extended space stays of about a week. Then you have the problem of distance, and no you can't pass an event horizon on go near the speed of light since any small particle impact would obliterate you and whatever ship you were using. I suppose hypersleep but for those of us here we'll never see that come to light.

Not meant for space? Are we meant for building computers and conversing on the internet?

We've done crazy **** before. I'd take a colony on Mars over a colony in 16th century Virginia any day.

People with more expertise on the subject have told me it's theoretically possible. And if it's theoretically possible, it's inevitable.

The difference of distance/time to 'another start system' is exponentially more than the advancement we've made in technology and knowledge since then, or what's foreseeable in the near future. In order to even entertain visiting other start systems, we have to start building craft in space and setting up infrastructure for that. Besides being economically unfeasible, we have yet to develop energies/propulsions/faculties more efficient than the 10+ to 1 fuel-to-payload ratio we're still bound by today.

And the idea of wormholes or the like are still only theoretical, and in no way theorized to be a) predictable, b) controllable, or c) traversable. Any sort of interstellar travel that we can imagine within our own sensibilities of earthly time require immense leaps in physical and scientific advancement that are in themselves a huge stretch. Anyway...this stuff belongs in a space/science thread.

Understand this...aside from our own advancements in science and technology there are still physical things about us and what we experience that make it nigh undoable in terms of 'we start here and end up there'. What may have to come into play is a plan that takes several centuries, maybe even millennia...to adapt ourselves to be beings better suited to space travel and living in space vessels. Be it a combination of genetic engineering or other things...the actual humans that take the trip away from a dying planet to another solar system could be very different kids of beings than we are now. We might have to change ourselves into beings that can live in zero-gravity for many generations on the trip over. Then, when we determine where it is we may settle and what those conditions are, spend several more generations adapting to suit that when we arrive. THink of all the energy and resources we would be saving and dedicating towards getting there if we didn't have to worry about maintaining physiologies that are designed for a planet that we'll never be on anymore.

It'll be done. Shame we won't get to see it. Well, we'll get to see some of the steps leading up to it, and maybe some infrastructure (space elevators, mass drivers, etc.). Safe to say we'll see man set foot on Mars though.

The point is, for it to be 'done' is not quite the way you may be imagining it. For example, we may develop a way to travel to another solar system, but we may not be bipedal creatures with hair anymore by the time we make the trip.

 

[KalMart]

It kind of already is. Most people think such distances are impossible for humans to traverse.

Not impossible, but hard enough that we'll likely have to answer the question of what actually caused the Big Bang before we can even begin to understand how to create a way to travel across our universe in short bursts of time.

The way it's looking, unless we do come up with a way to do a 'warp-speed' jump or the like....if we were to migrate at the end of the Earth's time, it'd be at least several generations of humans during a journey to another habitable world. We actually might evolve differently as well along the way and physically become very different beings to inhabit another planet that has its differences from Earth.

True. That's likely how interstellar-space travel will start... people will volunteer to leave earth... forever. And then generations will travel through space. But chances are it will be a scientific mission, and I have doubts we'll do such a thing until we can invent a communications device that will allow them to contact us no matter how many light-years they are away from us. If we could somehow invent a particle with less mass than a photon, we could probably communicate pretty easily with a craft many light-years away. Perhaps this Higs-Boson is the key to such a thing...

That is a long time coming, though...

Theoretically, we could travel to Alpha Centauri now. It would just take a pile of money the size of Mt. Everest and a century (plus a few decades of RnD and construction).

I've read about some new theoretical designs, that could make a starship go up to a decent fraction of the speed of light. More likely though that we'll be sending very advanced, autonomous robots to do that.

I'm fairly confident we'll master "convenient" FTL travel in the next two hundred years. Maybe sooner. Warp drive, manipulating wormholes, etcetera.

Assuming some aliens don't stop by and give us the technology. That would be nice.

No. No we won't. Trust me. It's becoming obvious to most scientists that two ingredients are required to even attempt such travel, and that's dark matter and dark energy... and we know basically nothing about them, and chances are very good that the only way to know what they are is to figure out exactly what caused the Big Bang... the answer to which we are probably not going to see in our lifetimes.

And since we're talking about it, here's another thing we're probably not going to have for a very long time, if ever: teleportation. The only good way to do such a thing right now is not a way you'd appreciate. They'd have to copy every single strand of your DNA, clone you at your destination, then kill the original you. How can we be sure the cloned DNA strands are reassembled perfectly? How can we guard against inevitable deterioration? Copies are never perfect, and I'm pretty sure they can't ever be perfect... entropy doesn't allow it. Human lifespans would actually shrink with such technology... and I imagine psychosis would suddenly become very prevalent...

...

 

[KalMart]

Very much so. We are, after a "social species" who beat out neandrathals by being able to work together. The Internet is exactly something we would create.

That comparison is ******ed.

Theoretically possible is kind a term in science that means "this is hypothetical bullsh**". It's not the same as a hard theory like evolution. It's a surmising of how it might be done if like ten other things were thrown out the window and you only did it on paper anyways. It's still highly, highly improbable.

By that logic you could frame space travel as us trying to be social with potential alien civilizations. You can frame anything with that "logic".

You remind me of that fellow who said that it was impossible to tap into the power of the atom. Hypothetical bull**** indeed.

The point is, for it to be 'done' is not quite the way you may be imagining it. For example, we may develop a way to travel to another solar system, but we may not be bipedal creatures with hair anymore by the time we make the trip.

We went from horses to cars, to flying in planes, to flying through space. In a century. I feel you may be underestimating the pace at which technology advances. It won't happen tomorrow. But in a century? Anybody's guess. Especially when you bring superhuman artificial intelligence into the equation, which we will also probably develop in the not too distant future (though I'll save that for another thread).

And we did that all.....

.....based on the planet's surface, with the intent of ultimately still living and continuing as a race on the planet's surface. To begin with, think practically, not fantastically. I'm not underestimating anything, YOU are underestimating he kinds of physical issues we face that the past achievements you mention pale in comparison to. Everything we are...everything we're made out of, has evolved and become for the sole purpose of living here on Earth, not in space. Therefore, to operate ideally in space for lifetimes upon lifetimes, in addition to the actual vessels, we cannot limit ourselves to thinking, operating, and trying to adapt our surroundings to be as earth-like as possible. Especially if we're actually leaving Earth altogether. Nor can we limit our future to only finding an earth-like destination....which would cut down the chances of finding a new home down significantly.

No matter what we develop technologically and what our achievements have been et al...the laws of physics have been the way are for longer, and we'll be long after we're gone if we no longer exist. Light years are still immense distances, and there will be a cost (not just financially) to embarking on these journeys. Of course, people may always look into the idea of wormholes, etc. But what if it doesn't work out over the next million years? What if the more we find out, the more we realize that no amount of science or technology will help us control or work with it any better than we can control or work with a black hole...what then? We'll need to keep other options open. Slowly moving our species into something that's more physically suited to living in vessels in space conditions, communities that solely do that, the understanding that it could be hundreds of generations over thousands of years of travel while finding a new terrestrial home. THAT's what will take imagination and faith in ourselves, not just 'our ingenuity will find a way' as you're putting it.

If someone really feels that we can 'find a way' to stay like we are now and find a new planet because our science/capability will advance...why not just find a way to keep the sun from dying so we don't have to go anywhere? On the scale of actual feasibility/imaginability, it's about the same. I.e., it's not any more unimaginable to make interstellar travel..and wormhole control and use a reality than, say, being able to harness and control enough nuclear technology to keep 'recharging' the sun so it never burns out all its energy and dies.

The real problem is we've stopped evolving genetically. It get's cold we just put fur on, we want to travel we hop in our various vehicles. Women mate with anyone or rather they mate with what is strong socially. Medication, if anything has made us weaker and the list goes on. None of this is a bad thing in the here and now scheme of things but in terms of us growing wings someday and becoming genetic super people, the buck stops here.

I say this in light of the we're not evolved for space comment. It was a possibility but at this point we're barely evolved for our current environment(see cancer and plastic and all the things that our bodies haven't evolved to deal with).

We should have been able to see in the dark at this point(like that one asian kid).

Although life could exist and time could exist if the universe were alive and pulsed. The dark energy is let off in the pulse, then when the structure gets to large it collapses with an excessive force. Each time depositing dark matter and then perhaps depositing the white matter through a black hole into a new membrane. I feel like my mathematical conjecture holds some value since it would explain how a new singularity would form, not necessarily the same one, perhaps each time the fundamental formula for the forces evolves. I rather amuse myself at the idea of life as a virus in the quantum program which essentially learns its a program and seeks to get out. That certainly mirrors a lot of our thinking, myths, cultural achievements.

Also I think that brings time back into the picture.

We could send robots. A.I. That's what Space Odysessy is, and actually that's pretty compelling. Just a monolith robot.

We're still evolving. Just not drastically, since, we don't need to. Nature doesn't fix what isn't broke.

Humans are an aberration. Fairly soon we will have no need for natural evolution, with cybernetics and genetic engineering, which are getting more advanced every day.

Just look how far prosthetics have come in the last ten years. From a hook, to a hand that can feel.

 

[KalMart]

True. That's likely how interstellar-space travel will start... people will volunteer to leave earth... forever. And then generations will travel through space. But chances are it will be a scientific mission, and I have doubts we'll do such a thing until we can invent a communications device that will allow them to contact us no matter how many light-years they are away from us. If we could somehow invent a particle with less mass than a photon, we could probably communicate pretty easily with a craft many light-years away. Perhaps this Higs-Boson is the key to such a thing...

That is a long time coming, though...

The problem is how do you communicate over light years when it would take any message year to travel each way? With even something like the Higs-Boson, we're not talking making something that's for light years away take a second to get here. Instead of sending out a mission, it will have to be a long, slow progressive 'evolution' into at least local space civilization over maybe the last million years in our sun's lifetime...first making it so that as a species, the conditions of space along with what we can build for support is 'natural'. Kinda' like if it were underwater....we first have to be able to breath and live/move underwater like fish as we start to build civilizations under water.

Then based on that, we would be many generations of space 'nomads'. Always on the search for a place to settle...investigating as far and as well in advance as we can if one is detected, but still with the understanding that we would pass and keep going if determined not to be ideal. Then, if we really did find a place that we'd settle (putting aside the idea of what a brand new, non-terretrial species would do to the ecosystem), we'd probably need a good amount of time to evolve back into a planetary species, which we may do on the way there.

Some have a hard time imagining a trip or endeavor that our started by us but that our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granchildren won't even see finished. But it very well may be a philosophy and common cause that we as a species will have to somehow devote ourselves to if we don't just want to 'go down with the ship' when the sun does its thing. And that's what some have a harder time imagining than anti-matter control over magic wormholes or the like which we can simply beam to other planets with.

 

[KalMart]

Interesting news today.

God particle is 'found': Scientists at Cern expected to announce on Wednesday Higgs boson particle has been discovered

Whew...I think that covers most of it thus far.... t:

 

[Thundercrack85]

I'm really not seeing the issue here. We find an Earth-like planet (send an advanced robot). Send some people there. Preferably after we develop FTL propulsion, but you can do it with STL propulsion if it's close enough.

Course, it's a good ways off. Maybe after World War III. Not sure if we'll get to Mars before or after that one. Could go either way, really. Mars should get the ball rolling for further manned exploration of the outer solar system, which will presumably lead to extrasolar exploration. Hopefully by then we'll have some better theories for quick interstellar travel.

 

[KalMart]

I actually think you may be over-thinking this. Evolution really isn't in the equation for humans anymore. We decide where we will go. Our fate necessarily being tied with Earth went out the window with Yuri Gagarin.

Our understanding of the universe is incredibly limited. So presumably is our understanding of physics. I see this a lot in science, looking at it from a historical perspective. Most scientists in whatever time period they lived in thought they were on the apex of knowledge. Then, of course, someone comes along, and blows their minds (Newton, Einstein, etc).

Is the distance from Earth to a hypothetical extrasolar planet much greater than going to the moon? Obviously. But to people in the 19th century, it was an impossibility. History should teach us that the hypothetical eventually becomes the inevitable.

But again, this 'inevitability' isn't as utopian as you're making it out to be. You're not grasping that.

Granted saying "we'll find a way" isn't very scientific, unless you're a mathematician dealing with odds, but from a historical perspective, it's usually the case.

Or to bring it slightly back on topic, I have faith in technology.

No, I not overthinking this, you're underestimating it based on an overly simplistic account of our recent achievements in the field of science and space. You're not understanding that now that we know better, we're also better equipped ti recognize just how much more difficult it will be beyond what we're capable of discovering.

Yes faith in technology is one thing, but your frame of reference is the stuff of children's stories...a la...humans the way we are now will pick up and be that same way somewhere else. If that's what the motivation is, we'll never achieve successful migration and survival because as much as we can do with ourselves, we can't change the rest of the universe to suit us like that. If we could...we wouldn't need to move because we could just fix the sun.

And we can't just narrow the search to someplace that's exactly like ours, either. So aside from talking abut the possibility of 'growing a planet', which really is something beyond what we can imagine possible in the future by today's thinking...the there are some real physical issues that aren't just solvable by technology, and are beyond any of the challenges that some may hold up as signs of feasibility...like flying or walking on the moon.

As for the last paragraph, humans clearly have a thing for exploration. Call it curiosity. Though I don't see why we can't do both. Keep Earth and colonize other worlds.

We could...until the Earth dies when our sun does...then what? Are you still counting on a simple mass teleportation that will get us from one to the other like hopping a ferry? Call THAT curiosity...and amusement, really.

No one is saying that we won't find a way to migrate. But just as you brought up...we couldn't imagine how we'd walk on the moon a while back. But when we did, it wasn't like stepping out of a bus. It was ridiculously dangerous, we were and still are incredible limited to the time and amount of activity that we can do there, and it's incredibly hard economically. I.e....it's anything but rosy certainly by the sensibilities of the time that had a had time foreseeing it. So think about the harshness of that reality...and times it by a few million in accordance to how much more difficult a cosmic mass exodus is. Sure, we'll probably be able to technically do it, but you have to understand how harsh the realities of it will be.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well that's why I used the Virginia analogy in the other thread. Space travel is extremely risky and dangerous. So will interstellar travel be. A lot of astronauts and cosmonauts (not to mention animals) didn't make it. Having said that, it still got done.

I am being flippant, I admit. But I won't be the guy building the starship. I won't be one of the thousands of pioneers who will die trying to get to an Earth-like planet orbiting Tau Ceti (or wherever our planetary probes will find one). I'm just the guy predicting the future, based on the past.

Also, we'll be long gone by the time the sun eats the Earth. I'd be more worried about an alien invasion than that. At least in regards to humanity's survival.

 

[KalMart]

I'm really not seeing the issue here. We find an Earth-like planet (send an advanced robot). Send some people there.
Preferably after we develop FTL propulsion, but you can do it with STL propulsion if it's close enough.

The issue will be the time it takes to get there. Even with whatever propulsion...do you think it will be easy to travel anywhere near the speed of light in vessels large and complex enough to cary the future of all life on Earth to another planet? Think of what something the size of a screw can do to a satellite or astronaut orbiting the Earth at a mere 17000 mph. Now multiply that by a few thousand. Its going to take many, many years even moving incredibly fast. And since that will make 'scout' missions almost impossible, we'll have to be prepared to keep looking from solar system to solar system, or even star system to star system if we get to a place and we don't find it ideal.

i.e. we can't depend on finding an 'earth-like' planet, since that could be super-rare. We'll have to prepare to be able to settle for something, and adapt ourselves to it.

ICourse, it's a good ways off. Maybe after World War III. Not sure if we'll get to Mars before or after that one. Could go either way, really. Mars should get the ball rolling for further manned exploration of the outer solar system, which will presumably lead to extrasolar exploration. Hopefully by then we'll have some better theories for quick interstellar travel.

Forget Mars...it's like the moon in comparison to actually going to another solar system. The real first step is space infrastructure...a la actual civilizations living and sustaining off planets.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I don't know, reports I have seen seems to imply they may be a lot more common than we were previously led to believe. But the robots will figure that out.

We're not going to travel a zillion miles to colonize an inhospitable planet. If we wanted to do that, we'd stick to Mars.

By the way, I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow. But in the coming centuries.

 

[KalMart]

Well that's why I used the Virginia analogy in the other thread. Space travel is extremely risky and dangerous. So will interstellar travel be. A lot of astronauts and cosmonauts (not to mention animals) didn't make it. Having said that, it still got done.

I am being flippant, I admit. But I won't be the guy building the starship. I won't be one of the thousands of pioneers who will die trying to get to an Earth-like planet orbiting Tau Ceti (or wherever our planetary probes will find one). I'm just the guy predicting the future, based on the past.

Also, we'll be long gone by the time the sun eats the Earth. I'd be more worried about an alien invasion than that. At least in regards to humanity's survival.

Again, this is the assumption that you have to understand could be way too idealistic. The fact that we'd be leaving Earth doesn't mean we have to find another 'Earth'. We may eventually evolve to live on a vey different kind of planet...or even if it's Earth-like, a) the vessels that will take so many generations to get there won't be, and b) we won't be built like we are now if the planet is of a different mass or if just a few things are slightly different than our planet.

The distribution of 'earth-like' planets are already estimated to be incredibly slim just basing on some of the general similarities...like water, climate, distance from sun, etc. And unless we can fully confirm what a place is like before we get there, it's going to have to happen 'on the fly'....meaning we may have to try more than one stop until we find something we like.

 

[KalMart]

I don't know, reports I have seen seems to imply they may be a lot more common than we were previously led to believe. But the robots will figure that out.

Which still makes them a) incredibly rare, mathematically, and b) only theoretical, not actually identified in the parts of the universe we can see.

We're not going to travel a zillion miles to colonize an inhospitable planet. If we wanted to do that, we'd stick to Mars.

HELLO? Are you not understanding that the sun will eventually die and take the solar system with it? Any planet within the solar system will suffer the same fate. We would have to migrate far, far away to avoid it. And after a zillion miles and thousands of years on spacecraft, what we find 'hospitable' may be very different than what we consider now being creatures of this particular planet.

By the way, I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow. But in the coming centuries.

Millennia, more like...and maybe even longer for us to change our physiology. That's your major hurdle here...you have to think in much longer terms of time...because the universe operates on much larger expanses of time and distance, and we can't change that, or adapt it to us. We can only adapt to it....which is what even our greatest of technological abilities will still help us do.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I recall reading a story. Can't remember the name (wasn't in English). But this reminded me of it. It was about a generational starship being sent from Earth to some distant alien Earth-like planet. It took centuries to get there. When they finally arrived they had a shock. They found humans already living there. Turned out that during their centuries-long journey, humans back on Earth had mastered FTL interstellar travel and gotten there first.

Having said that. We really have no way of knowing how many Earth-like planets are near us. We keep discovering more and more, and developing new ways to detect exo-planets. In the last few years they have detected a number of "promising" candidates.

I'm not sure you understand how it works. Humans won't exist for billions of years. We'll be long gone before the Sun goes. Unless we destroy it.

 

[KalMart]

I recall reading a story. Can't remember the name (wasn't in English). But this reminded me of it. It was about a generational starship being sent from Earth to some distant alien Earth-like planet. It took centuries to get there. When they finally arrived they had a shock. They found humans already living there. Turned out that during their centuries-long journey, humans back on Earth had mastered interstellar travel and gotten there first.

Here's anther issue...what if we get to another planet that seems habitable...but it already has a dominant species, and they don't want to share or take us in? They don't want us to negotiate or anything, they just want us to be on our way and leave them alone.

Meanwhile, we've just spent thousands of years trying to keep life going, dreaming for generations that we'd find a new home...and now, they're just saying no?

Now let's say since we're advanced enough for space travel, we also have the capability to eliminate them completely and just take the planet for our own. Would we have earned that right through our struggles? What if it happened to us here on Earth...where an advanced civilization lost their solar system millions of years back and have desperately searched for a new planet. What if we asked them to go away and leave us be...and they felt they had the right to take our home?

Having said that. We really have no way of knowing how many Earth-like planets are near us. We keep discovering more and more, and developing new ways to detect exo-planets. In the last few years they have detected a number of "promising" candidates.

Here's the thing...even if we have 'discovered new earth-like planets', it hasn't made them any easier to get to.

And yet another dilemma.....the only way we have of detecting other planets is through sight or maybe some sort of wave/radio detection...a la, something has to travel many of light years just for us to detect it. Say we see with a high-power telescope or such, a planet a million light years away. So we're seeing the planet how it was...a million years ago from today....and we point our ships towards it and set off. If we're going, say, 3/4 the speed of light...it'll take us another 3 million years to get there. Within that time, as asteroid could have hit it, a world war could have taken out the whole place, an advanced species could have developed more....four million if the planet's years will have passed between the time which we saw and identified to the time we get there and see it for ourselves. And in that time, a lot could have happened to make it not the same place we thought we were heading towards. What then? We just put everything in one basket...all our hopes and energy and existence over countless generations...and it's not the same place we thought it was.

That's why you can't just count on 'Earth-like', and must prepare to adapt/evolve.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Great scenario. But there are a lot of variables. Are the humans armed? Are they explorers, or colonists? How advanced are the natives?

I can't see it ending well for them. Rarely does for other species who come into contact with humans. We have a real talent for violence. We're like the ultimate virus.

 

[KalMart]

Great scenario. But there are a lot of variables. Are the humans armed? Are they explorers, or colonists? How advanced are the natives?

can't see it ending well for them. Rarely does for other species who come into contact with humans. We have a real talent for violence. We're like the ultimate virus.

Morally, what difference does it make? Would Earth being taken over by hostility been any better or worse in the bronze age or the renaissance, than it would be today?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, if the natives aren't advanced. Let's say bronze age. Humans could just go colonize an area the size of Canada and never be seen (assuming the planet is the size of Earth). Or we could just tell them we're gods, and rule them. If they are as advanced as us, we would have to treat with them, which could quickly get complicated.

My speculation is that's why the people flying the UFO's don't come down.

Really the only moral thing would be to extend the hand of friendship. Or just leave them alone.

But obviously if humans can't go back to Earth, it wouldn't be amoral to colonize an uninhabited area.

 

[KalMart]

Well, if the natives aren't advanced. Let's say bronze age. Humans could just go colonize an area the size of Canada and never be seen (assuming the planet is the size of Earth). Or we could just tell them we're gods, and rule them. If they are as advanced as us, we would have to treat with them, which could quickly get complicated.

Riiiight....

...if only European settlers in America had told the native Indians that they were 'Gods'.

My speculation is that's why the people flying the UFO's don't come down.

You're assuming that there are people in UFO's outside of the movies. That's an immense leap.

Really the only moral thing would be to extend the hand of friendship. Or just leave them alone.

After thousands-to-millions of years of travel, putting all the hopes of a species' survival into finding the place, only to do it all again and find somewhere else.

And what if we did 'cohabitate' with them? Would we agree to follow their laws, their set of morals, their religion? Would we play nice even if we were more advanced and could take over their governments and so on?

But obviously if humans can't go back to Earth, it wouldn't be amoral to colonize an uninhabited area.

But that's the thing....you won't know for sure if a place is 'uninhabited' until you get there. And it's not like you could just hop to another place in a few days. You'd be putting all your eggs into one basket for every stop. It'd be like the ultimate blue-b*lls.

If someone picked Earth a million years back, they would have done it based on Earth of two million years ago. And then they'd get here....and whoa, its not just some mammals or apes anymore.

AND...what if we did find an Earth-like planet and we could determine it had an intelligent species...and it's a few million light years closer than any other. Would we automatically just avoid that planet and take our chances with that much more time of travel?

That may be another thing that we'll have to prepare for...in that with all our advancement and intelligence, we'll still have to resort to the basic primordial law of survival of the fittest and take a place over by any means necessary. And if we do that, how can we turn around and morally teach our future not to do that with eachother? Probably much like we do now.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Riiiight....

...if only European settlers in America had told the native Indians that they were 'Gods'.

Worked out pretty well for the Europeans.

You're assuming that there are people in UFO's outside of the movies. That's an immense leap.

True. They may be controlled by artificial intelligence. Still, a lot of reports have claims of beings near them. Maybe a pilot is optional?

After thousands-to-millions of years of travel, putting all the hopes of a species' survival into finding the place, only to do it all again and find somewhere else.

And what if we did 'cohabitate' with them? Would we agree to follow their laws, their set of morals, their religion? Would we play nice even if we were more advanced and could take over their governments and so on?

Well, we're not going to follow the laws of a bunch of cavemen. I suppose it's a balancing act. If aliens showed up with advanced technology, we'd probably treat them with respect, till we got our hands on their technology. I can't see that ending well.

"But that's the thing....you won't know for sure if a place is 'uninhabited' until you get there. And it's not like you could just hop to another place in a few days. You'd be putting all your eggs into one basket for every stop. It'd be like the ultimate blue-b*lls.

If someone picked Earth a million years back, they would have done it based on Earth of two million years ago. And then they'd get here....and whoa, its not just some mammals or apes anymore.

AND...what if we did find an Earth-like planet and we could determine it had an intelligent species...and it's a few million light years closer than any other. Would we automatically just avoid that planet and take our chances with that much more time of travel?

That may be another thing that we'll have to prepare for...in that with all our advancement and intelligence, we'll still have to resort to the basic primordial law of survival of the fittest and take a place over by any means necessary. And if we do that, how can we turn around and morally teach our future not to do that with eachother? Probably much like we do now.

Well no. No one would go in completely blind. The humans just need to park in orbit, send down some scouts (maybe in the shape of flying saucers?) check the place out. Just observe, then pick a nice isolated spot, and land there. Send some small parties to make contact with the leaders...

Of course, part of the problem in this scenario, is that the technology the humans have is terrible. Thousands of years to get there? Even if you find a habitable planet, by the time you get there, the natives could have decimated it in a nuclear war. Or an asteroid could have sterilized it.

So, colonizing a habitable extrasolar world would only work with STL propulsion if it's really close.

 

[KalMart]

Worked out pretty well for the Europeans.

Right, so which community is it that was actually seen as gods...and by whom?

True. They may be controlled by artificial intelligence. Still, a lot of reports have claims of beings near them. Maybe a pilot is optional?

But no UFO has ever been clearly and unmistakably identified/proven as an extraterrestrial spacecraft. So we have yet to prove that UFO's are the vehicles of intelligent space beings, before we can even entertain the idea of 'space men'.

Well, we're not going to follow the laws of a bunch of cavemen. I suppose it's a balancing act. If aliens showed up with advanced technology, we'd probably treat them with respect, till we got our hands on their technology. I can't see that ending well.

How about the laws of, say, a culture like the Mayans? It's still their planet more than a visitor's. Any way you look at it, it wouldn't start well, never mind just ending.

Well no. No one would go in completely blind. The humans just need to park in orbit, send down some scouts (maybe in the shape of flying saucers?) check the place out. Just observe, then pick a nice isolated spot, and land there. Send some small parties to make contact with the leaders...

And what if they say no? And we would be going in blind until we actually arrived close enough to send some 'flying saucers' down. We'd have traveled and survived thousands of years at least...how do you think we'd feel if someone told us 'no vacancy'?

Of course, part of the problem in this scenario, is that the technology the humans have is terrible. Thousands of years to get there? Even if you find a habitable planet, by the time you get there, the natives could have decimated it in a nuclear war. Or an asteroid could have sterilized it.

So, colonizing a habitable extrasolar world would only work with STL propulsion if it's really close.

See, what you're missing is that as advanced as our technology will get, other stars won't be any closer. And although he concept of light-speed travel, wormholes, etc. are all theoretically 'possible', there is no room in there for any sort of practicality of feasibility of human use or control. Just like we can theoretically find a black hole, but it doesn't mean we could survive going through one or control where it puts us. You could dream up all the technology you want, some things will always be bigger and more powerful than what we're capable of. But what is more sensible is very fast but still much slower than light propulsion over many generations of nomadic life on space vessels. All of which would probably be a lot more controllable and safer...but just take a much, much longer time, and everything that comes with that.

With any sort of propulsion, thousands of years to traverse is being extremely generous. So you have to realistically take into account all the dilemmas that could come up along with the difficulties. That's why we can't just confidently believe we'll 'get there' or the like, we'll have to take all these things into account and give ourselves options and the greatest chances....and that will entail being in it for a very, very long haul.

Some find that too disturbing...that we could spend hundreds of generations traveling as squid-like beings or something. But it looks like we'll have to...because we'll have to first prepare/adapt/evolve to become space-traveling beings as there'd be no real reliable ETA.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I meant that the Europeans exploited the natives' beliefs to get the upper hand. At best, humans may entertain some of the aliens' customs.

I actually don't believe that to be the case when it comes to interstellar travel. But for a scenario, it's fun to speculate. We will master FTL travel. Give it time. I'm not a physicist, but there's quite a few out there who think it's doable. Now, will we try the sleeper ship method first? Quite probable.

But I can't really see too many people volunteering to spend thousands of years frozen to get to a planet that might be habitable (provided nothing happens in the interim). So... that would really only work if humans were very desperate.

I believe the extraterrestrial hypothesis to be plausible myself (i.e. that some UFO's may be of extraterrestrial origin). Granted, I have no indisputable evidence (if I did, it wouldn't be a hypothesis). But it is a hypothesis, based on the various civilian, governmental and military reports over the decades.

I admit my view may be biased by the fact that I see nothing controversial about the notion of "quick" interstellar travel or the existence of alien life, since I see both as inevitable. Quick being years or decades, rather than millennia.

 

[KalMart]

I meant that the Europeans exploited the natives' beliefs to get the upper hand. At best, humans may entertain some of the aliens' customs.

Which beliefs...and how long did that last?

And we also can't assume that an intelligent dominant species would be like humans, either.

I actually don't believe that to be the case when it comes to interstellar travel. But for a scenario, it's fun to speculate. We will master FTL travel. Give it time. I'm not a physicist, but there's quite a few out there who think it's doable. Now, will we try the sleeper ship method first? Quite probable.

How? We have yet to even prove that ANYTHING can travel faster than light. And even if we can...in what we can show it with...how do you translate that from a super-microscopic atomic particle...to an immense vehicle that has to safeguard the lives of an entire population?

What is so unappealing about sub-light, multigenerational nomadic travel? The fact that we'll have to look different or wait longer than we can comprehend? Seriously...what's more of a leap?

But I can't really see too many people volunteering to spend thousands of years frozen to get to a planet that might be habitable (provided nothing happens in the interim). So... that would really only work if humans were very desperate.

Yes, they can chose instead to remain on Earth and die with it. The likely harsh reality is that they will be desperate, and many will probably still chose to stay and die.

I believe the extraterrestrial hypothesis to be plausible myself (i.e. that some UFO's may be of extraterrestrial origin). Granted, I have no indisputable evidence (if I did, it wouldn't be a hypothesis). But it is a hypothesis, based on the various civilian, governmental and military reports over the decades.

I admit my view may be biased by the fact that I see nothing controversial about the notion of "quick" interstellar travel or the existence of alien life, since I see both as inevitable. Quick being years or decades, rather than millennia.

The problem is that you're ignoring the complexity...just like in the olden days when people used to envision trips the moon as stepping out of a large bullet and simply operating in the same gravity and air we have here on Earth. The reality is much different and much more complicated...even if we still technically 'get there'. So to is the idea of interstellar space travel, with the fantastic notion of it being 'quick', or of large vessels traveling faster than light.

You have to acknowledge that interstellar migration will very possibly not be something 'nice', or 'cool' or fantastical like the movies. It will be desperate, and it could be bleak and harsh as most survival situations are. Just like the ships that took the first settlers to America wasn't a leisurely little boat ride. We'll already be at the very edge of our envelope of capabilities, and we'll have to deal with our share of suffering and teething problems as we go along. No, there's speculation, and then there's fantasizing....and we need to be able to differentiate the two even in areas that haven't yet been realized, if we are to seriously discuss it. "We didn't think vehicles could fly just over 100 years ago' is not a good enough gauge.

And other than a trip taking place within one lifetime so that a traveler can witness both the start and end, having the trip be 'quick' doesn't really give much benefit, especially if you consider all the risk and extra physical issues that would come with it and have to be addressed....when a slower trip will be safer, more controllable, and give us more time to evolve into more adaptable beings for space travel and the uncertainty ahead. It might not sound as glamourous, but this isn't about glamour, it's survival.

 

[KevanG]

Man these are huge walls of text It's also just the two of you arguing back and forth.

As for the deep space travel/time needed to traverse (decades, centuries, ect.) I think the only reasonable expectation for the near future would be a type of cryogenics and having the ships being 100% automated with minimal crew woken in case or emergencies or repairs. If anyone actually did catch up to the hibernating ship with higher technology later then it would be expected for them to try and modify the ship to match the newer models.

Also as for the human race not being here when the sun goes supernova the only evidence we have on species dying out is based on normal evolutionary patterns where they can't adapt to the environmental changes. We have proven able to adapt to anything. It's like we were built to build things, theological issues aside.

I forget where I read it but someone said that the average lifespan of a species is a few million years before they are wiped out due to environmental changes. We have never had anything like us before on the Earth and could cease to exist in a few months due to a supervirus, meteor or whatever or continue on evolving to meet new things and change forms completely so we look nothing like we do now but we have possibilities that no other species before us could ever have. Which means that we can't learn from out past anymore when dealing with issues like this, besides the obvious things like human nature of course.

We are making our future and not allowing the planet to decide it for us. Mind you I know we need to cut out a whole bunch of crap we've been doing to the planet so we actually have a chance to leave but it's all just a race to leave the planet before we either kill ourselves or the sun takes us out.

 

[KalMart]

Of course it's all assuming that humans are still here and haven't wiped ourselves out....which in itself is a leap. But as for cryogenically freezing, it still presents us with a major problem...in that it still leaves us like we are...built for Earth and only Earth. Meaning that it narrows our search and options down to planets that are not only Earth-like with water, but in the same range of mass/gravity, chemical makeup, etc. Not only that, when we awaken we'll still be 'frozen' from the time we left however long back, rather than taking that time to prepare for new homes and new conditions.

No, I think we'll have to actively prepare ourselves physiologically for a life traveling in space first, and know that there will be another stage of evolution as we find a place to (adapt to and) settle. I think we have to shed the notion of anybody experiencing the whole trip. I think it will also take time for our species to wholly dedicate itself towards that, a goal much farther down than our own lifespans, or those of our grandchildren. That's the real tough pill to swallow, much more difficult to imagine than technological prowess, but likely the kind of philosophical/moral commitment it will require.

And I also think there could be a level of population control...perhaps designed into us genetically for the trip.

 

[Raiden]

I don't know, reports I have seen seems to imply they may be a lot more common than we were previously led to believe. But the robots will figure that out.

We're not going to travel a zillion miles to colonize an inhospitable planet. If we wanted to do that, we'd stick to Mars.

By the way, I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow. But in the coming centuries.

I remember watching a Discovery or History Channel special on Mars, and it is supposedly very similar to Earth but due to lack of vegetation it has insufficient amount of oxygen. We'd have to introduce algae to the planet for it to convert hydrogen to oxygen or something and it'd take about a hundred years to make it hospitable for humans to live there. Oh, and Mars need water, too. Other than that, I think Mars is a possibility for humans to explore and to consider before the world population reaches its peak.