I wanted to attend this symposium so badly. I'm not an engineer or a doctor or anything like that. I'm just a twenty year casino worker with some ideas how to stop people who can't go outside for a walk from going nuts.

I wanna ride on the "B" ark!!!

Well, I suppose nothing's gonna stop them now...

And they will smuggle weed seeds.

Darp darp darp

For some reason, I read that as it would take 100 years to build the starship.

Would mean jobs though.

Practical_Draconian: For some reason, I read that as it would take 100 years to build the starship.

Would mean jobs though.

More like 100 light years.

Wow, I love symposia.

Practical_Draconian: For some reason, I read that as it would take 100 years to build the starship.

No, it would only take a little bit less than 12 parsecs to build it.

Even getting to Proxima Centauri in 100 years would require that we travel at something like 5% of light speed. We won't be able to do that for a long time.

Coelacanth: I wanted to attend this symposium so badly. I'm not an engineer or a doctor or anything like that. I'm just a twenty year casino worker with some ideas how to stop people who can't go outside for a walk from going nuts.

Its all gonna depend on how they travel and how long it takes.
If it has to be a generation ship then simple amusements to pass the time wont do.

At present, a Daedalus or the nuclear Orion would take more than a decade to reach the nearest star. So if DARPA puts some money back into its human hibernation program, its possible the same crew that started could wake up on the far end without feeling much of any time passing.
Of course this would be closer to 2001 than a real sleeper ship. So we're still talking about spending a few years in cramped quarters.

I would even get sick of 'Jane' after a few months.

adm_crunch: Even getting to Proxima Centauri in 100 years would require that we travel at something like 5% of light speed. We won't be able to do that for a long time.

Actually, we could do it now, if we were willing to put up with the expense, and of course it would require amending the Partial Test Ban Treaty to allow "propulsive" nuclear explosions in space. A thermonuclear Orion could achieve something like 8 to 10% of the speed of light, and it would put a mission to Alpha Centuri within a single human lifetime (44 years).

Speaker2Animals

So, they debated what Larry Niven Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote about 40 100 years ago?

/ just sayin'

Relatively Obscure: strangeguitar: I wanna ride on the "B" ark!!!

Hey, everyone who made the trip successfully ended up fabulously wealthy.

Yes, but with infliation, it would take a few forests worth of leaves to buy one Ningi.

way south: Its all gonna depend on how they travel and how long it takes.
If it has to be a generation ship then simple amusements to pass the time wont do.

Actually what I wanted to do was to hit them with Bill Friedman's 13 Design Principles of casino construction and then go on to attention restoration theory.

Actually, as opposed to a generation ship, someone explained a (potentially) more energy-efficient method of seeding humans across the galaxy, alibiet a method we can't use yet, since it requies AI and artificial wombs.

Basically if we ever get AI (or something even CLOSE to AI), what would make the most sense would be to first send out terraforming probes/whatever, then send a colony ship that contains robots, artificial wombs, and frozen human genetic material/embryos (far easier to keep cryostable, I imagine, than a fully grown human). Ship lands, humans gestate in artificial wombs, Robots raise the first generation of humans.

Felgraf: Actually, as opposed to a generation ship, someone explained a (potentially) more energy-efficient method of seeding humans across the galaxy, alibiet a method we can't use yet, since it requies AI and artificial wombs.

Basically if we ever get AI (or something even CLOSE to AI), what would make the most sense would be to first send out terraforming probes/whatever, then send a colony ship that contains robots, artificial wombs, and frozen human genetic material/embryos (far easier to keep cryostable, I imagine, than a fully grown human). Ship lands, humans gestate in artificial wombs, Robots raise the first generation of humans.


Probably the most economical, but I imagine that first generation would be a bunch of psychopaths raised without human love or affection by cold, calculating machines.

And they'd raise another generation the same way (or maybe keep passing that job to the machines).

And eventually they'd come to the logical conclusion that they must wipe out the irrational and emotional humans on earth before we can threaten the dominance of their logically superior civilization.

Well, you can't make an omelet without committing genocide or however that saying goes.

Felgraf: Actually, as opposed to a generation ship, someone explained a (potentially) more energy-efficient method of seeding humans across the galaxy, alibiet a method we can't use yet, since it requies AI and artificial wombs.

Basically if we ever get AI (or something even CLOSE to AI), what would make the most sense would be to first send out terraforming probes/whatever, then send a colony ship that contains robots, artificial wombs, and frozen human genetic material/embryos (far easier to keep cryostable, I imagine, than a fully grown human). Ship lands, humans gestate in artificial wombs, Robots raise the first generation of humans.



The solution is to just switch to Geico

That is until Pandorum sets in.....

/awesome movie

An-Unnecessarily-Long-Name:

That is until Pandorum sets in.....

/awesome movie

Note to self: First thing upon awakening... Look out the farking window.

If it would take 100 years to reach the destination then what would the trade-off be in waiting for a better technology and launching later?

One would think in 20 years, let alone 50 years it would be possible to double the speed. If it was possible to double the speed in 20 years then you could wait 20 years and then reach the destination in 50 years. Total time would only be 70 years. Figuring the time to build either ship to be equal in either scenario.

Lt_Ryan:

If it would take 100 years to reach the destination then what would the trade-off be in waiting for a better technology and launching later?

One would think in 20 years, let alone 50 years it would be possible to double the speed. If it was possible to double the speed in 20 years then you could wait 20 years and then reach the destination in 50 years. Total time would only be 70 years. Figuring the time to build either ship to be equal in either scenario.

So launch an unmanned slow boat full of supplies first.

If you *do* manage to double the speed in 50 years then it arrives when you do, and if you don't then it'll be waiting for you *and* will have had time to analyze your destination so you you're better prepared.

Lt_Ryan: If it would take 100 years to reach the destination then what would the trade-off be in waiting for a better technology and launching later?

Well, if you don't get any real speed increases, then you wasted a lot of time that could have been spent traveling.

dramboxf: watson.t.hamster: And eventually they'd come to the logical conclusion that they must wipe out the irrational and emotional humans on earth before we can threaten the dominance of their logically superior civilization.

Please tell me someone has written a book with this exact, or a very similar, plot?

I mean specifically about robots "building" humans on some future-world.

None that I can think of at the moment. Let me know if you can find any. I'd be interested.

That's DARPA, you farkwit.

dramboxf: watson.t.hamster: And eventually they'd come to the logical conclusion that they must wipe out the irrational and emotional humans on earth before we can threaten the dominance of their logically superior civilization.

Please tell me someone has written a book with this exact, or a very similar, plot?

I mean specifically about robots "building" humans on some future-world.



Kinda, but more as a MacGuffin.

/Wasn't very good.

Hyperion kind of has what you're looking for, especially the Gideon drives in the Endymion part.

I have the series on PDF, under 10 mb, EIP if you want a copy.

/the first 2 books don't convert to Kindle perfectly, but are still mostly readable.

adm_crunch: Even getting to Proxima Centauri in 100 years would require that we travel at something like 5% of light speed. We won't be able to do that for a long time.

FTA First, find an asteroid in an elliptical orbit that passes close to the Sun. Second, put a starship in orbit around the asteroid. If the asteroid could be captured into a new orbit that clings close to the Sun, the starship would be flung on an interstellar trajectory, perhaps up to a tenth of the speed of light.

Not saying it would work. But they clearly considered that, and there's no way of telling what scientific advances will happen 10 or 20 years out.

What, no '39, which is about... a starship that took 100 years to fly to a neighboring star and return? Fail, subby!

/posted this when the thread was at 39 comments. Aww.

dehehn: adm_crunch: Even getting to Proxima Centauri in 100 years would require that we travel at something like 5% of light speed. We won't be able to do that for a long time.

FTA First, find an asteroid in an elliptical orbit that passes close to the Sun. Second, put a starship in orbit around the asteroid. If the asteroid could be captured into a new orbit that clings close to the Sun, the starship would be flung on an interstellar trajectory, perhaps up to a tenth of the speed of light.

Not saying it would work. But they clearly considered that, and there's no way of telling what scientific advances will happen 10 or 20 years out.

Don't need to get that fancy. Just start up Project Orion.