Colonizing the galaxy

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Jokergrin

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So am I right in saying that without faster than light travel, its gonna be ridiculously difficult to get around in the galaxy? Let alone to arrive at any habitable planets if they exist?

Suppose that we are only able to achieve near to light speed travel, then we might still be able to colonize the galaxy at those speeds. But it would take years of travel and we would have to build enormous colony ships that could sustain people for a very long term, maybe even multiple generations.

I'm starting to think that we're never gonna get off this rock for good. Unless we discover either a nearly infinite source of energy or we redefine physics and figure out how to go faster than light. Our species wont last unless we can spread ourselves out there.

Hey, if there are such a large number of worlds out there and one of them is bound to have intelligent life, wouldn't they have already found a way to spread themselves throughout the galaxy and wouldn't they have already found our world that sustains life. Doesn't that mean that either were alone or it really is impossible to travel FTL and no one can get anywhere?

Sorry for rambling.
 
We can go faster then light or just take a shortcut. The universe is a very big place. I'd be willing to bet life is out there but the chances of it ever finding us are pretty slim.
 
Well, assuming we get to speeds close to light, it wouldn't take that long for the colonists themselves. Time dilation effects would make the trip much shorter for those on the voyage, which is convenient in terms of needing fewer supplies and all that. It would certainly take a long time for everyone else, though.
 
When I was a kid I read that throwing a comet into Venus would make it awesome because all that ice would cool it down then we could fly there and chill out

MAKE IT HAPPEN
 
wouldn't they have already found a way to spread themselves throughout the galaxy and wouldn't they have already found our world that sustains life.
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If they've done that they're probably following a sort of prime directive. To get to the nearest star system in 8 years you'd have to go just half the speed of light, so it's not inconceivable that over time we'll populate the stars, with or without FTL.
 
As soon as we get Matrix-like in-vitro gestation and VR technology, we can travel lightweight with robotic probes carrying only our genetic information.

When they find an appropriate planet, they can create new human beings from scratch using available organic raw materials, and educate them inside a VR environment until they are ready to colonize the planet.
 
HamPster PamPster said:
When I was a kid I read that throwing a comet into Venus would make it awesome because all that ice would cool it down then we could fly there and chill out

MAKE IT HAPPEN
Click to expand...

Poison gas says "hi", eh, erm, "die."
 
Bananakin said:
Well, assuming we get to speeds close to light, it wouldn't take that long for the colonists themselves. Time dilation effects would make the trip much shorter for those on the voyage, which is convenient in terms of needing fewer supplies and all that. It would certainly take a long time for everyone else, though.
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Yeah, but I think it takes four light years to get to the nearest start doesn't it. Getting to a habitable planet could take a long ass time even taking into consideration the relativistic effects of traveling near lightspeed.
 
What are the chances of hitting space debris on such a flight? It seems that at near light speed it would almost certainly destroy a ship, and that given a long enough trip it's almost unavoidable.
 
I think we will figure out FTL travel sooner or later. If we survive long enough. The answer I have for people who say "Why hasn't E.T. found us yet?" Isn this...

The universe is HUGE! I don't think that people properly appreciate how big the universe is. On top of that we live in the boondocks of out own galaxy. If intelligent life exists in our own galaxy is would ben in the Core. And we live VERY far away from this.

Besides that we have to consider how old the universe is and how long intelligent species survive. We have had the ability to pick up the most primitive of electromagnetic communications for less that a century.... compare that to the age of the universe. Suppose our galaxy was rich with interstaellar communicatiions that we could detect only up to about 200 years ago when they upgraded to something else.... or went extinct? Hell they could have done this 50,000 or even a million years ago and we would have been none the wiser. Besides this an instellar probe could have crash landed on earth in the age of the dinosaurs and 65 millions years later there would be no trace for us to find. Intelligent life is out there. It's all being in the right place and time to see them. And on a universal scale time and place are truly astronomical.
 
when you can travel 0.99c, 10 light years really only mean 10 * 0.141 = 1.4 years. 100 light years just mean 14 years.

1000 years just mean 140 years.

if you can travel 0.999999c, 10 light years really mean 0.04 years. 100 light years mean 0.4 years. 1000 light years mean 4 years. 10,000 light years means only 40 years.

if you can travel 0.999999999c, 1000 light years just mean 0.04 years. 10000 light years just mean 0.4 years. 100,000 light years just means 4 years. 1,000,000 light years just means 40 years.

Get the picture?
 
Considering people took hundreds of years to fully spread out across the earth, I would say it is just as feasible to colonies the other planets. I see it happening more as a planet by planet thing, possibly taking 50 years per planet.
 
nyong said:
What are the chances of hitting space debris on such a flight? It seems that at near light speed it would almost certainly destroy a ship, and that given a long enough trip it's almost unavoidable.
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The one way is to get the space around you to go faster.

Alcubierre drive-
a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. The ship would ride this wave inside a region known as a warp bubble of flat space.

I read this recently were they figure it wouldn't work when quantum mechanics is used.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23292/
 
Another thing to remember is that in all likelyhood, human lifespans will eventually get longer thanks to medical science. If for instance, people begin to live 200, 300, or 400 years (just being conservative, too), then the scale of reality and the universe will begin to change in everyday perception.

For instance, if you have a human being who lives 400 years, plus time dilation factors in interstellar travel, then suddenly the galaxy seems a few times smaller.

If the human race survives, in time, people will eventually spread to other star systems and penetrate deeply into the galaxy - even without discovering a loophole in physics such as wormholes or a form of FTL travel.

And if something like FTL /is/ ever discovered, all bets are off; anything could happen.
 
Kaijima said:
Another thing to remember is that in all likelyhood, human lifespans will eventually get longer thanks to medical science. If for instance, people begin to live 200, 300, or 400 years (just being conservative, too), then the scale of reality and the universe will begin to change in everyday perception.

For instance, if you have a human being who lives 400 years, plus time dilation factors in interstellar travel, then suddenly the galaxy seems a few times smaller.

If the human race survives, in time, people will eventually spread to other star systems and penetrate deeply into the galaxy - even without discovering a loophole in physics such as wormholes or a form of FTL travel.

And if something like FTL /is/ ever discovered, all bets are off; anything could happen.
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according to the Einstein theory of relativity, faster than light travel is not possible, or else you'll have the square root of a negative, which means you're entering imaginery space.

Also, humans living longer than even 100 years suck if we're all old and gringly. instead of giving human the ability to live longer, we shud invest in slowly down cellular growth.

Think of staying in your 20s in physique, form, and shape for like 100 years. It'll be so awesome
 
we might have to define different tiers of light if new research are anything to look at.

They discovered that there are actually light ESCAPING from black holes. Which is impossible because the idea behind black hole is that it's so strong light can't even escape from it.
 
Tideas said:
we might have to define different tiers of light if new research are anything to look at.

They discovered that there are actually light ESCAPING from black holes. Which is impossible because the idea behind black hole is that it's so strong light can't even escape from it.
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Isn't it radiation that is escaping, called hawkingsraditation?

EDIT: Beatan like a dirty dirty whore
 
FTL may be possible you know. Modern science is less that 500 years old. It would be depressinf that so early on we discovered such a frustrating limitation. A lot of the things we took as an unbreakable law in physics often falls apart as a new truth is discovered.

IE. YOu guys do realize that breaking the sound barrier was considered to be impossible within Earth's atsmosphere because engineers and scientists thought it could be done right? Look it up.
 
instead of giving human the ability to live longer, we shud invest in slowly down cellular growth.
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Well same thing really. Any technology that'll let us live longer won't concentrate on prolonging what looks like the fairly depressing bit at the end, but cell and organ revitalization or maybe one day a kind of mind transfer. I imagine the technology that will enable us to live for 200 years will enable us to live for eternity.
 
Cimarron said:
FTL may be possible you know. Modern science is less that 500 years old. It would be depressinf that so early on we discovered such a frustrating limitation. A lot of the things we took as an unbreakable law in physics often falls apart as a new truth is discovered.

IE. YOu guys do realize that breaking the sound barrier was considered to be impossible within Earth's atsmosphere because engineers and scientists thought it could be done right? Look it up.
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1. It'd require a ridiculous amount of energy
2. Time dilation would mean we'd basically have people uprooting their lives just to go anywhere interesting

Sure, I'd like to visit that constellation. Oh, my family will be dead by the time I get there? Fuck that. Wormhole usage would likely only require #1 (As it wouldn't violate the speed of light locally). Sure, we might not go places as quickly, but we'd still be able to maintain lines of communication and supply, and we wouldn't have to sacrifice people to simply travel.
 
Mass drivers. We will build colonies on asteroids and then use move the entire colony out of the solar system with mass drivers. Hopefully the colony doesn't then slam into the face of another planet, killing its extraterrestrial inhabitants. You know how we love breaking stuff. PEACE.

EDIT: Mass drivers use the 3rd(?) law of physics, equal and opposite reactions. If you shoot a stream of matter off in a certain direction, it will propel the mass in the opposite direction. Hence, a mass driver. It's a basic concept that'll use the mass of the asteroid as the fuel for the journey. The drawbacks are incredibly poor acceleration.
 
All this has happened before, and will happen again.

You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace.
 
nyong said:
What are the chances of hitting space debris on such a flight? It seems that at near light speed it would almost certainly destroy a ship, and that given a long enough trip it's almost unavoidable.
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That's what the deflector dish is for.
 
Botolf said:
1. It'd require a ridiculous amount of energy
2. Time dilation would mean we'd basically have people uprooting their lives just to go anywhere interesting

Sure, I'd like to visit that constellation. Oh, my family will be dead by the time I get there? Fuck that. Wormhole usage would likely only require #1 (As it wouldn't violate the speed of light locally). Sure, we might not go places as quickly, but we'd still be able to maintain lines of communication and supply, and we wouldn't have to sacrifice people to simply travel.
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While something like wormholes would be far more convenient, don't rule out the ability of human society to adapt and change. The way we live today and what we consider an acceptable way of life has little bearing on what our ancestors would think 3000 years ago.

I could easily see a nomadic and space-borne humanity evolving in response to the conditions of traveling through the galaxy at slower than light (or lighthugger style, very near the speed of light) speeds. If anything, I'm willing to bet there would be plenty of people even in today's societies who would consider the trade-offs worth it to see the galaxy first hand.

One such scenario might involve a seeding method of exploring the galaxy where a group of people, a sort of pre-packaged cultural group, moves en-masse to one solar system, sets up shop and roots down there, and once a new group of colonists from that planet become numerous enough they in turn take a near-lightspeed ship to the next star in turn, seed that one, etc. There's also the possibility of dedicated travelers who don't stay planet side and are always in motion, effectively living a very long time thanks to time dilation and offering transportation services at each human-inhabited star system they pull into. Their ships would be 20 or however many years out of date at each stop, but part of payment for transportation could even overhauling and upgrading their vehicle's systems.

There's a million ways for such things to work and humanity to adapt.
 
Come to think of it I think allergies and germs would probably be a HUGE deterrent to colonization. Imagine being allergic to AN ENTIRE BIOSPHERE! Or worst yet have our common cold anihilate all life on a freshly disovered planet. That would suck.
 
I'm more skeptical about us going into space in a big way because there aren't many, if any, people in power with the vision to make it happen. Too much of civilization is still fascinated by shiny baubles to much care about soaring the cosmos. The funny thing, though, is that I also think it's just such an endeavor that could act like a swift kick in the butt to us as a species to say to ourselves, "We're capable of so much more, so let's go for it!"

There is technology in development now that has potential, like the Photonic Laser Thrusters in the works at the BAE Institute (really neat stuff). The one thing I'd like to see before I die is an orbital shipyard build for making vessels to travel to other planets in the solar system. Even if it's just for going to the moon, Mars, and maybe the asteroid belt past Mars for starters.

The scientific community would love to go into space in a big way, it's just a matter of convincing everyone else its a good idea, whether by a grass roots movement, showing large corporations it's profitable to go there (I'm not too fond of this possibility), or waiting for a politician to emerge that can get everyone on board for such a thing.
 
We can't even get along on this one world, humanity is not ready for colonizing space.
 
"showing large corporations it's profitable to go there (I'm not too fond of this possibility"

If there is eco-raping to be done I'd rather have Mega-Corp rape the moon than rape the mid-west or a 3rd world country. Yeah it would be a shame to ruin Luna.... but better Luna than Terra I say.
 
What if we go there and see this?

dinoriders.jpg


THEN WHAT??????????????????
 
Cimarron said:
Come to think of it I think allergies and germs would probably be a HUGE deterrent to colonization. Imagine being allergic to AN ENTIRE BIOSPHERE! Or worst yet have our common cold anihilate all life on a freshly disovered planet. That would suck.
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if humans are afraid of doing something because they could die, the New World would have never been colonized.
 
Jokergrin said:
Hey, if there are such a large number of worlds out there and one of them is bound to have intelligent life, wouldn't they have already found a way to spread themselves throughout the galaxy and wouldn't they have already found our world that sustains life. Doesn't that mean that either were alone or it really is impossible to travel FTL and no one can get anywhere?
Click to expand...
We are less then a speck on the universe. I'm all but certain that there exist life out there somewhere that is just as if not more intelligent then us, but earth would not just be "stumbled upon", FTL travel be damned.

And how do we know that life from other planets have not already discovered each other, and earth just happens to be one of the planets that just didn't get lucky enough to meet other beings? Hell, I'm willing to bet that somewhere out there, there is two planets that are next to each other that each had intelligent life, and that eventually, one of the civilizations discovered space flight and ended up contacting the "aliens" from the nearby planet....we just haven't had the luxury (Or the misfortune, depending on how such an encounter would play out) to experience this.
 
If we find ways to extend human lifespans indefinitely, then it'll just take..patience. And I guess some new type of vehicle that could also keep going indefinitely. A nuclear-fuelled vehicle could fit the bill, right?

I dunno why they haven't already tried to send out a ship with a larger group of people who'd just keep reproducing and raising new generations to continue the mission. At least then if we fuck up here at home, we can know we've sent forth some people who might continue humanity's existence. Of course there'd be huge risks with a mission like that and things mightn't go to plan (who knows how children conceived, born and raised in space might fare), but still..

I think people would be more comfortable with the idea of very long term missions if human lifespan could stand up to those periods of time, though. I think people find it hard-ish to see beyond their own generation, or the immediate generation coming up.

It's incredible to think how much out there could be happening, or has happened, or will happen. Countless species may have already risen to remarkable heights with their own culture and achievements and technology etc., and fallen again, and we'll never know about it :|
 
Jokergrin said:
So am I right in saying that without faster than light travel, its gonna be ridiculously difficult to get around in the galaxy? Let alone to arrive at any habitable planets if they exist?
Click to expand...

Your human body dies your soul can go anywhere...including other galaxies. That's how you'll make it.
 
Kaijima said:
While something like wormholes would be far more convenient, don't rule out the ability of human society to adapt and change. The way we live today and what we consider an acceptable way of life has little bearing on what our ancestors would think 3000 years ago.
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It'll be a good while yet until we devise a way to adapt or change the speed limit. If the problem is even solvable, it'll require a seemingly magical solution to it. In conventional thinking, you'd have to use an unattainable amount of energy to put this ship at or past light speed. Any fuel we can think of won't cut it, unless it had some sort of "magical" properties.

In my opinion, we should just aim for wormholes now and keep working at it for a few hundred years and see where that takes us. We'll just need to find/create some exotic matter!
Woops, I guess that's my magic fuel right there :lol
 
I'm actually in the process of writing a screenplay about this kind of stuff, except in the screenplay mankind has already colonized 46 other planets in the galaxy, and takes place during a time when they've just discovered a way to communicate through subspace so that all the colonies could stay connected.

That's a big problem too, I think. Even if we did colonize all over the galaxy with the help of near light speed travel, communication between people hundreds or thousands of light years away would be a real bitch. For all we know, we could be one of many human colonies. We just got forgotten about over the years.
 
God i love these threads. For the past few weeks i've been wathing Carl Sagan's, "The Cosmos". He loved this idea and many of the episodes are great to watch and hear what he has to say about space travel and colonization. Everything comes in to play: speed at which we travel, distance between habitable worlds, resources, etc, etc. There are so many facets that need to be taken into consideration for an endeavor such as this. Very depressing considering I will not see it in my lifetime.

There are just too many galaxies and stars with planets for life not to exist. In my opinion, its a given that there is other intelligent life. Why haven't they found us? Even if another civilization had the ability to traverse the galaxy, what makes us so special? They could have found many other planets with life on it, but its such a low probability that they would choose this small planet in the boondocks of the Milky Way.
 
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