Space travel, and the possibilities of interstellar migration

[KalMart]

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.

Mars also could have ben a precursor to Earth eons earlier...when the sun was hotter and the fourth planet out was actually in the 'comfort zone' like Earth is now being the third one out. But cultivating Mars to be anything like Earth is kind of out of the question now as it's just not in that zone anymore. As a remote/offshore 'station' of some sort, sure. But we're not going to just make it have blue skies, beaches, forests, et al unless we actually make a gigantic greenhouse/terrarium out of it that we constantly maintain and monitor.

 

[NateHevens]

I still think we should have set up scientific bases and a refueling station on the moon. We literally do have the technology to do so right now. Then we colonize Mars with scientific bases and training grounds for space exploration.

I am 100% with KalMart on this. The human species' first interstellar space trip is going to be in a ship that serves as the home for multiple generations of humans. And they will have to be taught to handle disappointment... they will have to be taught to accept it if an intelligent species already lives on the planet, and they don't want them there. Somehow, these humans will have to learn to not put all their eggs into one basket, even if it means finding a suitable planet that is closed to them... they will have to learn to accept that, and move on.

Survival has moral implications, and those will have to be addressed.

And Thundercrack85... please stop underestimating what lightspeed is. The first thing you need to understand is that spacetime warps in order to maintain the speed of light. Defying lightspeed literally means defying the laws of nature and physics. We have never done this. Being able to fly uses the laws of nature and physics. Breaking the sound barrier breaks no laws because faster exists. But the only thing faster than light is spacetime itself, and we are bound by the laws that operate spacetime. Breaking them is no easy task.

Again, we would need to learn what Dark Energy and Dark Matter are and how to control them, and we won't even come close to that until we finally answer the question of what caused the Big Bang. And even then, knowing what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are is not a guarantee that we can harness them, because if they exist in eleven or more dimensions, then they will very likely be forever beyond our reach.

In other words, there's a chance we may never break the lightspeed barrier. It may not even be possible... at least, not for 4-dimensional beings* like us.







*Yeah... we're 4-dimensional beings. We move in length, height, width, and time, which is the fourth dimension. However, we can only perceive three dimensions. In order to perceive time (beyond how we measure it now), we'd have to be 5-dimensional beings.

 

[KalMart]

That may be our greatest test as a species...to have the moral decency not to force our way in when not welcomed, even if we could. That's the question regarding survival beyond just continuing our physical existence...what else needs to survive...our morality, our ideology? Is altruism alone something worth upholding even in the immediate absence of culpability? Or will we never truly 'evolve' away from a primordial 'survival of the fittest' as the one immutable rule?

 

[Dr.]

Even if we master interstellar travel… the odds of running into another intelligent species would be… what’s the word?... astronomical.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Even if we master interstellar travel… the odds of running into another intelligent species would be… what’s the word?... astronomical.

Assuming they're not looking for us. And haven't found us. For all we know, they could have a ship sitting in a nearby star system listening to our transmissions.

 

[Thundercrack85]

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.

The thing is, I really can't see us colonizing other worlds because of population. It's just not time or cost effective.

Terraformation (i.e. turning Mars into a planet more comparable to Earth) would take at least a century. And you would still have a serious gravity problem. It'll probably be colonized anyway though.

A good world war (we're overdue) will take care of the overpopulation problem. And then some.

 

[NateHevens]

The thing is, I really can't see us colonizing other worlds because of population. It's just not time or cost effective.

Terraformation (i.e. turning Mars into a planet more comparable to Earth) would take at least a century. And you would still have a serious gravity problem. It'll probably be colonized anyway though.

Colonizing Mars as a scientific base/refueling point is likely. I want to be alive to see the first scientific expedition to Europa, and maybe even Titan.

A good world war (we're overdue) will take care of the overpopulation problem. And then some.

No. Please no. I would prefer it if the human species avoided such conflicts from now on...

 

[RetrogradeOrbit]

Mars has virtually no magnetic field to speak of, so there is always danger from solar radiation, cosmic rays and so on.

Habitats would have to well shielded and even if Mars can be successfully terraformed (which I doubt) humans would not be able to spend much, if any, time outside unprotected.

 

[Dr.]

Assuming they're not looking for us. And haven't found us. For all we know, they could have a ship sitting in a nearby star system listening to our transmissions.

I’m partial to the Fermi Paradox - if intelligent life is so common, “where is everyone?”

 

[Thundercrack85]

Colonizing Mars as a scientific base/refueling point is likely. I want to be alive to see the first scientific expedition to Europa, and maybe even Titan.



No. Please no. I would prefer it if the human species avoided such conflicts from now on...

Well, I'd say we'll be on Mars in the 2040's or 2050's. When the Chinese plant a red flag on the moon it will wake Americans up. Hopefully revitalize interest in space exploration. That'll happen in the next 20 years. It'll be like the good old days of the space race. And from there, we'll have to see.

The human species likes war a little too much.

 

[NateHevens]

Mars has virtually no magnetic field to speak of, so there is always danger from solar radiation, cosmic rays and so on.

Habitats would have to well shielded and even if Mars can be successfully terraformed (which I doubt) humans would not be able to spend much, if any, time outside unprotected.

Which is why I said it should only be used for science and refueling points. As for supporting a civilization, the Earth is still the only place in the Solar System that can support us... unless we're okay with living inside compounds built underground with very little, if any, possibility of ever going outside. I have a feeling most humans would not be happy with that...

Actually... I wouldn't mind living in Mars under such conditions, even if only temporary, just because it's another world.

But I suspect I'm in the minority on that point.

 

[Optimus_Prime_]

The thing is, I really can't see us colonizing other worlds because of population. It's just not time or cost effective.

Terraformation (i.e. turning Mars into a planet more comparable to Earth) would take at least a century. And you would still have a serious gravity problem. It'll probably be colonized anyway though.

A good world war (we're overdue) will take care of the overpopulation problem. And then some.

Terraforming is not much of a possibility. You should stop taking your bearings from the Discovery channel, as it's mostly bullsh** used for entertainment purposes. You also should be a bit more careful watching them. Frequently people like Michio Kaku will qualify what they say with "if [something], and if we can understand [whatever] then maybe [with time and money not being a factor] accomplish X". They really never think it a definitive thing we will do, in fact they probably believe the opposite, but in science you're really not suppose to discourage an attempt at discourse, which is all they are doing.

A lot of what you're buying into is basically taking a concept, and explaining it scientifically. Just like how Christopher Nolan explains Batman. Nolan tries to "ground" Batman by explaining how one *might* go about doing a Batman-like thing, but the environment Batman lives in kind of *allows* these things to happen without much fuss. Whereas in the real world "pancaking cop cars" simply ends in an arrest and several decades in prison.

So yes, faster than light travel is *conceptually* possible. In other words my brain can conceive lightspeed, then I can conceive something faster but that doesn't mean the conception is possible.

Let's take my mathematical conjecture than infinitely spaced sub atomic particles can in fact all be right next to each other in theory. That's just as one poster put it a conjecture. So I favor kind of this idea of a pulsing universe. That everything is accelerating apart until it reaches a logical limit and snaps back. A rubber band is an example of this, a black hole is *basically* an example of this. Doesn't mean it's true.

I'd have to find whatever it is that will "snap" back.

FTL is just a conjecture. It's not observed, it's not been observed, and 99.999999999% chance it's something physical beings are not capable of doing, even though it may be possible for small particles to do so. You, however, are not a small particle.

Everything you've listed, like planes and electronic communication devices were things that we're based on observeable phenomena. Electricity has been transmitting information in your brain since ever, so a machine ought to be able to do the same thing. Flight is something birds and other flight capable animals do, so it was never out of the question. We spent thousands of years watching other animals do it, and many, much smarter men than I tried designing flight machines that didn't work well (although I still believe LDV invented a lot of things that worked that no one ever wrote about).

 

[Thundercrack85]

I’m partial to the Fermi Paradox - if intelligent life is so common, “where is everyone?”

I could point to the flying saucers. But let's say the whole UFO thing is just weather balloons, and swamp gas.

If you've mastered interstellar travel, odds are that you're not an idiot. So why would you make your presence known to a planet full of warring apes? You can literally see the explosions from space.

Far as any alien would be concerned, we're a primitive, vicious species. Fascinating to watch, but we have nothing to offer them. Not yet anyway.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Terraforming is not much of a possibility. You should stop taking your bearings from the Discovery channel, as it's mostly bullsh** used for entertainment purposes. You also should be a bit more careful watching them. Frequently people like Michio Kaku will qualify what they say with "if [something], and if we can understand [whatever] then maybe [with time and money not being a factor] accomplish X". They really never think it a definitive thing we will do, in fact they probably believe the opposite, but in science you're really not suppose to discourage an attempt at discourse, which is all they are doing.

A lot of what you're buying into is basically taking a concept, and explaining it scientifically. Just like how Christopher Nolan explains Batman. Nolan tries to "ground" Batman by explaining how one *might* go about doing a Batman-like thing, but the environment Batman lives in kind of *allows* these things to happen without much fuss. Whereas in the real world "pancaking cop cars" simply ends in an arrest and several decades in prison.

So yes, faster than light travel is *conceptually* possible. In other words my brain can conceive lightspeed, then I can conceive something faster but that doesn't mean the conception is possible.

Let's take my mathematical conjecture than infinitely spaced sub atomic particles can in fact all be right next to each other in theory. That's just as one poster put it a conjecture. So I favor kind of this idea of a pulsing universe. That everything is accelerating apart until it reaches a logical limit and snaps back. A rubber band is an example of this, a black hole is *basically* an example of this. Doesn't mean it's true.

I'd have to find whatever it is that will "snap" back.

FTL is just a conjecture. It's not observed, it's not been observed, and 99.999999999% chance it's something physical beings are not capable of doing, even though it may be possible for small particles to do so. You, however, are not a small particle.

Everything you've listed, like planes and electronic communication devices were things that we're based on observeable phenomena. Electricity has been transmitting information in your brain since ever, so a machine ought to be able to do the same thing. Flight is something birds and other flight capable animals do, so it was never out of the question. We spent thousands of years watching other animals do it, and many, much smarter men than I tried designing flight machines that didn't work well (although I still believe LDV invented a lot of things that worked that no one ever wrote about).

I've never watched the Discovery Channel.

 

[chamber-music]

I personally don't think anything is impossible for the human race.

Dreaming up ideas is the easy part the hard part is turning them into reality.

There are all kinds of technological advances we didn't believe were possible in the past yet have come to fruition.

Super strong, flexible and durable materials like Graphene and Silicene could revolutionize are technology.

We are working on projects like the Skylon spacecraft which is designed to fly from runway to orbit in a single stage, to be completely reuseable and with no need for a pilot.

The key to the project is an engine designed to operate as both a jet and rocket motor with a specially-designed cooling system.

The proposed Skylon vehicle would operate like an airliner, taking off and landing at a conventional runway.

Its major innovation is the Sabre engine, which can breathe air like a jet at lower speeds but switch to a rocket mode in the high atmosphere.

It would make Space travel far cheaper.

The key to any future space exploration is money and development of technological ideas.

The human race could make far more advances and drive down costs if we worked together and shared ideas like we have done with the large hadron collider but sadly nationalism and ego has stopped us doing this.

 

[Thundercrack85]

If we spent even half the money we spend on defense on the various space programs, we'd already be on Mars, and experimenting with warp drives.

 

[KevanG]

Well, I'd say we'll be on Mars in the 2040's or 2050's. When the Chinese plant a red flag on the moon it will wake Americans up. Hopefully revitalize interest in space exploration. That'll happen in the next 20 years. It'll be like the good old days of the space race. And from there, we'll have to see.

The human species likes war a little too much.

It's not that we like it so much, it's that we're so good at it. No wonder aliens don't want to talk to us. They've seen what we've done to each other just for looking a bit different or religious beliefs, imagine what would happen when a new species that's more advanced than us shows up.

I think that on an even technology scale we could take pretty much anything.

 

[KalMart]

I personally don't think anything is impossible for the human race.

Dreaming up ideas is the easy part the hard part is turning them into reality.

There are all kinds of technological advances we didn't believe were possible in the past yet have come to fruition.

Super strong, flexible and durable materials like Graphene and Silicene could revolutionize are technology.

We are working on projects like the Skylon spacecraft which is designed to fly from runway to orbit in a single stage, to be completely reuseable and with no need for a pilot.

The key to the project is an engine designed to operate as both a jet and rocket motor with a specially-designed cooling system.

The proposed Skylon vehicle would operate like an airliner, taking off and landing at a conventional runway.

Its major innovation is the Sabre engine, which can breathe air like a jet at lower speeds but switch to a rocket mode in the high atmosphere.

It would make Space travel far cheaper.

The key to any future space exploration is money and development of technological ideas.

The human race could make far more advances and drive down costs if we worked together and shared ideas like we have done with the large hadron collider but sadly nationalism and ego has stopped us doing this.

It's not that anything's 'impossible', it's just that we have to be prepared for it not to be as 'rosy' as we make it out to be...it never is. Yes, we can now work in a station that orbits the earth from space...but the deterioration on our muscles and bones being in space is rapid and drastically reduces the feasibility of more off-Earth infrastructure without us adapting our own physiologies. That's just one of many realities beyond just money and energy that we'd have to deal with. One big key towards optimizing our technology for space travel is reducing what's needed to maintain earth-like conditions. That'd be easier if we didn't need them as much.

Ultimately...even with more technology and capability, the biggest thing holding humans back from space travel will be the fact that they're humans....evolved and made to live on Earth. Change that and then the possibilities really open up.

If we spent even half the money we spend on defense on the various space programs, we'd already be on Mars, and experimenting with warp drives.

The money we've spent on defense hasn't made it more difficult o costly to actually get payloads into space. And hard as it may be to swallow, if anything will help us discover an energy/propulsion source more efficient than rockets for achieving orbit...it'll probably com out of military research/tech.

 

[NateHevens]

I’m partial to the Fermi Paradox - if intelligent life is so common, “where is everyone?”

I can give one plausible answer...

If they've created ways to travel over billions of light-years in days or even hours, chances are they've learned everything this universe has to teach them, so they're off exploring other universes.

That said, this does not explain where aliens from other universes might be, aside form the relative rarity.

I imagine that, in our universe, there might be about a billion total civilizations at least as advanced as we are. And I'd say that the majority of them are about as advanced as we are, so there may only be a few million civilizations actually traveling the universe, and even less are doing so faster than the speed of light. Consider the relatively young age of the universe (13.75 billion years; with 1 trillion years being the earliest a universe could die), it may simply be as simple as the civilizations that are traveling the universe started out relatively recent enough in the universe's history that they just haven't reached us yet, and the ones traveling faster than light have left our universe and moved on to others.

Consider that, if there are other universes, our universe is probably a very rare type of universe, which makes the abundance of advanced civilizations even smaller... we simply may not have existed long enough to make contact.

Well, I'd say we'll be on Mars in the 2040's or 2050's. When the Chinese plant a red flag on the moon it will wake Americans up. Hopefully revitalize interest in space exploration. That'll happen in the next 20 years. It'll be like the good old days of the space race. And from there, we'll have to see.

If we aren't stupid, I think we can do it in the next twenty, maybe even ten, years. If the government hadn't cut NASA's already tiny budget (NASA's budget has never been beyond a fraction of a penny of the government's budget... NASA needs more money, not less), we'd be there now.

The fact is, we sent twelve expeditions to the moon to... what... play golf? We should already have a scientific colony on the moon. I think we could build one right now, and use that to put us on Mars in ten years.

The human species likes war a little too much.

Unfortunately. Hopefully we're slowly becoming better than that, however...

 

[Thundercrack85]

That's the thing though. Pretty soon, what will we be able to do that a robot can't? We want to send a person to Mars so we can say, "hey we went to another planet".

Without aliens, visiting an alien world is fairly boring. Unless you're really into geology or golf.

 

[Thundercrack85]

It's not that anything's 'impossible', it's just that we have to be prepared for it not to be as 'rosy' as we make it out to be...it never is. Yes, we can now work in a station that orbits the earth from space...but the deterioration on our muscles and bones being in space is rapid and drastically reduces the feasibility of more off-Earth infrastructure without us adapting our own physiologies. That's just one of many realities beyond just money and energy that we'd have to deal with. One big key towards optimizing our technology for space travel is reducing what's needed to maintain earth-like conditions. That'd be easier if we didn't need them as much.

Ultimately...even with more technology and capability, the biggest thing holding humans back from space travel will be the fact that they're humans....evolved and made to live on Earth. Change that and then the possibilities really open up.


The money we've spent on defense hasn't made it more difficult o costly to actually get payloads into space. And hard as it may be to swallow, if anything will help us discover an energy/propulsion source more efficient than rockets for achieving orbit...it'll probably com out of military research/tech.

But you realize that the main reason we get our advanced tech as byproducts of military research is because that's where most of the money goes, right?

As for payloads, there's mass drivers. Reusable spaceships, etc. But they barely have the funds- correction, they barely had the funds to keep one space shuttle going.

No money, no innovation.

 

[KalMart]

But you realize that the main reason we get our advanced tech as byproducts of military research is because that's where most of the money goes, right?

And the science and brainpower....because there's more incentive. It's unfortunate in some ways but it's how it is. The hope is that what it produces won't end us all before we have a chance to do other things. And even with the monopoly on scientific funds, new technologies still do emerge for it and make their way into other areas.

As for payloads, there's mass drivers. Reusable spaceships, etc. But they barely have the funds- correction, they barely had the funds to keep one space shuttle going.

No money, no innovation.

Money doesn't change the laws of physics, though. Lack of money isn't making harnessing antimatter or nanoenergy more difficult, for example...it's difficult on a quantum physical level. But if we could harness it, it would change everything. Of course, budgets and money matter to everything, but don't make it out as if we could come up with a teleporter or the like in a decade if more money is allocated to it. The big leaps needed are deep in the fields of physics which aren't as 'held back' as some may believe they are.

It could actually be more sensible and efficient to build space 'elevators' or cranes that lift things to outside the atmosphere. But there are obvious structural challenges and dangers to that as well

 

[Dr.]

I imagine that, in our universe, there might be about a billion total civilizations at least as advanced as we are. And I'd say that the majority of them are about as advanced as we are, so there may only be a few million civilizations actually traveling the universe, and even less are doing so faster than the speed of light. Consider the relatively young age of the universe (13.75 billion years; with 1 trillion years being the earliest a universe could die), it may simply be as simple as the civilizations that are traveling the universe started out relatively recent enough in the universe's history that they just haven't reached us yet, and the ones traveling faster than light have left our universe and moved onto others.

Well, you can be even more generous than that. Let’s assume there are 200 billion separate civilizations in the Universe. That’s equal to the number of galaxies. But then... that means that, statistically, we’re the allocation for the Milky Way - no one else in the neighborhood.

The problem isn’t the high possible/plausible number of intelligent species - it’s the sheer size of space.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Money can't change the laws, but without money we wouldn't have atomic weapons and energy. We wouldn't have half the laws we have now, because we wouldn't have been able to study them.

You're right, that some inventions will come about regardless. But some really do need serious cash backing them.

 

[NateHevens]

That's the thing though. Pretty soon, what will we be able to do that a robot can't? We want to send a person to Mars so we can say, "hey we went to another planet".

Without aliens, visiting an alien world is fairly boring. Unless you're really into geology or golf.

Or maybe if you're interested in the origins of life. And Mars may still actually have life... underground. It'd be extremophiles, of course, but still life.

On top of that, if we use the moon as a jumping base to Mars, we can use Mars as a jumping base to the moons of Jupiter. Europa is a fascinating moon because there are indications that it might have a water ocean underneath all the ice, which harbor life... maybe even complex life... maybe even recognizable life... like whale-like, fish-like, and cephalopod-like creatures. Water means oxygen, after all.

From there, we can jump to Saturn's moons, like Titan, which has an atmosphere and liquid. We're not going to survive it without advanced space suits, but who knows... maybe Titan has a weird form of life, recognizable only by being carbon-based, and that's it. And it might not even be carbon-based!

Then we can go on from there.

Honestly, we should be on Mars already, preparing our first jump to the moons of Jupiter. We should have started this back in the 60's, when we first landed on the moon. The fact that we didn't is shameful, quite frankly.