A corpse's guide to the Universe

[Dr. Trintignant]

Sending humans to other star systems is not feasible with current technology. So to imagine it you have to assume some kinds of technical advances.

As others have mentioned, Project Orion provides sufficient propulsion using well-established technology.

I suspect that our planet could fund a small interstellar ark if the will were there. If 20% of Earth GDP could be put toward it for a decade, you would have $100T to spend. That is not a particularly high percentage given how much has been spent on past wars, but is quite a lot of money.

Let's assume that our ark can achieve 1% of C. That's on the low side of theoretical estimates for an interstellar Orion ship, but I want to leave lots of extra delta-V for maneuvering and risk-reduction.

We can recycle water and air with moderate ease today (given sufficient power), but food is a problem. I don't think we can really build a closed system yet. No matter--it just means we need to pack about 2 pounds of food per person, per day. For a journey of 500 years, that works out to ~180 tons of food per person. That sounds like a lot, but the "super" Orion massed 8M tons. A small fraction of that would still provide enough food for thousands.

Of course, keeping a population like that going for 500 years is a problem. By the end, after 25 generations, would they even feel like stopping? They might have developed food recycling systems by then, leaving themselves with a ship that could sustain itself nearly indefinitely. I suppose that power would run out eventually, but presumably the nuclear power plants would have so much redundancy that you could still go for thousands of years.

So I think it's really more of a social problem than technological. Political too, of course--even if faced with a direct threat like catastrophic asteroid impact, I doubt that Earth could pool its resources into a single project (not to mention doing so efficiently). Still, it's fun to speculate...

- Dr. Trintignant

 

[The Grave]

Religion the barrier? Nationalism?

As others have mentioned, Project Orion provides sufficient propulsion using well-established technology.

I suspect that our planet could fund a small interstellar ark if the will were there. If 20% of Earth GDP could be put toward it for a decade, you would have $100T to spend. That is not a particularly high percentage given how much has been spent on past wars, but is quite a lot of money.

Let's assume that our ark can achieve 1% of C. That's on the low side of theoretical estimates for an interstellar Orion ship, but I want to leave lots of extra delta-V for maneuvering and risk-reduction.

We can recycle water and air with moderate ease today (given sufficient power), but food is a problem. I don't think we can really build a closed system yet. No matter--it just means we need to pack about 2 pounds of food per person, per day. For a journey of 500 years, that works out to ~180 tons of food per person. That sounds like a lot, but the "super" Orion massed 8M tons. A small fraction of that would still provide enough food for thousands.

Of course, keeping a population like that going for 500 years is a problem. By the end, after 25 generations, would they even feel like stopping? They might have developed food recycling systems by then, leaving themselves with a ship that could sustain itself nearly indefinitely. I suppose that power would run out eventually, but presumably the nuclear power plants would have so much redundancy that you could still go for thousands of years.

So I think it's really more of a social problem than technological. Political too, of course--even if faced with a direct threat like catastrophic asteroid impact, I doubt that Earth could pool its resources into a single project (not to mention doing so efficiently). Still, it's fun to speculate...

- Dr. Trintignant

Exactly! On, say Star Trek, (no don't groan...I don't watch it) BUT the point is it's portrayed as multi-national/ethnical...

We all need to pull together...

Griff...