Colonizing the galaxy

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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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Well, if you're travelling the whole universe the chance of encountering debris is probably tiny, and by the time we're able to fly that fast, we would probably be able to clean up debris or stop creating it.
One thing of note however, the next shuttle flight (Atlantis) has a 1 in 180 chance of hitting debris, this is of course helped greatly by that satellite collision a while back.
 
NaughtyCalibur said:
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.
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Even if wormhole travel turns out too dangerous for us, maybe it would be the perfect medium for interstellar communication. I'd assume the signal would be less disrupted by intense gravity than something like the human body.
 
We haven't found a way of simulating gravity in space yet, right?

Imagine if we sent a crew on a multi-generational journey... It would be a bitch to be procreate in a zero-gravity environment. How would babies growing up without gravity turn out? Would they grow correctly? They could never learn to walk.

Plus "Hey son... we come from this planet, the Earth. It's beautiful and there's lots of fun things to do there... but you'll probably never see it. Your sole purpose in life is to pursue our mission. So get learning! You won't get much toys to entertain yourself, either! Oh and get used to eating pills. That's all you'll get for your entire lifetime!"

That's sure to turn out really well!
 
i've had a lot of inebriated conversations about this with a friend of mine. he's a pessimist, says he has no faith humanity can make it that far. i tell him he doesn't understand the exponential leaps technology takes. there's all kinds of shit we don't know currently know about, so who's to say that mars won't be colonized in 500 years, or something of the like.
 
I met these tiny little dudes called the Asgard when one called Loki was experimenting on me. Outside of him I believe they are already assisting us with technology and pretty cool, well not as cool as furlings.
 
FTL not through wormholes, that is a fantasy. Bending the space-time fabric in some kind of warp drive fashion.

We have many many generations to achieve this.
 
Tideas said:
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?
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So we just need to get to 1-(1 x 10^-n) and we will be good?
 
This is one of my favourite topics. I hate the fact that we've got all our eggs in one basket. If I die before man sets foot on Mars I'm going to be very pissed off. I think NASA's last projections for a manned Mars mission was 2039 or some bullshit like that. Where has mankind's balls gone?
 
Scullibundo said:
This is one of my favourite topics. I hate the fact that we've got all our eggs in one basket. If I die before man sets foot on Mars I'm going to be very pissed off. I think NASA's last projections for a manned Mars mission was 2039 or some bullshit like that. Where has mankind's balls gone?
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Ive already accepted this failure and have planned for a solution. About 15 miles north of me in Scottsdale, Arizona there is a cryogenic facility. I need to start saving up...
 
There is no law of physics that says that humans should be able to colonize the universe, because humans are just a result. We're not part of a plan.

So yes, it is likely that it is impossible for mankind to ever leave the solar system, just like it is impossible for a rock to talk.
 
We cannot travel faster than light. There are just too many things in the way.

Even for something like a Warp drive to be invented; warp drive uses space around it to cocoon itself against the gravity of the physical space.

The only alternative here might be wormholes/jumpdrives, where you open a blackhole type of effect into space and is sucked in and spat out another end light years away.

We need to colonize Mars first, then Iio, then Europa and the think of moving beyond. Given that we have done JACK SHIT in terms of innovation since landing on the moon 40 years ago, I think it'll be 100 years before we can have anti-matter engines to propel ships to Mars to colonize.
 
DarkJediKnight said:
We cannot travel faster than light. There are just too many things in the way.

Even for something like a Warp drive to be invented; warp drive uses space around it to cocoon itself against the gravity of the physical space.

The only alternative here might be wormholes/jumpdrives, where you open a blackhole type of effect into space and is sucked in and spat out another end light years away.

We need to colonize Mars first, then Iio, then Europa and the think of moving beyond. Given that we have done JACK SHIT in terms of innovation since landing on the moon 40 years ago, I think it'll be 100 years before we can have anti-matter engines to propel ships to Mars to colonize.
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Fucking this. Kennedy said 'Mankind will be on the moon within 10 years' and they fucking did it. WHERE ARE OUR BALLS? We've been sitting with thumbs up our asses for far too long. What's really annoying is that you know that whilst nobody currently gives a shit about getting to Mars, the second one nation announces their intentions to get there first, the rest will scramble to get their own project off the ground.
 
evil solrac v3.0 said:
we are NEVER suppose to leave the island.
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We did leave the island. Consider this:

What if Humanty was a fluke of chance. Everyhting fell into place and intelligent life was born. There are NONE like us in the universe (or likely not). In the next thousands and millions of years we travel and spread throughout the galaxy and due to the atmosphere and gravity of the planets we colonize, human appearance changes.

And when our future sons from millions of years later breach space and time to visit the ancients (us) in secret, we think of them as aliens....







Did I just open a can of worms? That's just me talking nonsense... :lol
 
DarkJediKnight said:
We did leave the island. Consider this:

What if Humanty was a fluke of chance. Everyhting fell into place and intelligent life was born. There are NONE like us in the universe (or likely not). In the next thousands and millions of years we travel and spread throughout the galaxy and due to the atmosphere and gravity of the planets we colonize, human appearance changes.

And when our future sons from millions of years later breach space and time to visit the ancients (us) in secret, we think of them as aliens....

Did I just open a can of worms? That's just me talking nonsense... :lol
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If we were truly the only living world in the Galaxy then chalk one up for the "higher power" and "God" people. Did I just open up a can of worms? This is also just me talking nonsense.

To the OP. We will discover how to live long, long, long lives way before our solar system dies out. First we have to fix our bodies to become almost immortal. After that, 1,000 of years to get to other colonies won't be a big deal, it will be like a decade or maybe even a year. When we fix our bodies then faster than light travel won't matter. THEN we can move about the galaxy.

That's how I see it, anyways.
 
UraMallas said:
To the OP. We will discover how to live long, long, long lives way before our solar system dies out. First we have to fix our bodies to become almost immortal. After that, 1,000 of years to get to other colonies won't be a big deal, it will be like a decade or maybe even a year. When we fix our bodies then faster than light travel won't matter. THEN we can move about the galaxy.
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That's assuming we survive the sociopolitical upheaval as a result of achieving immortality, and we don't kill each other first with our immortal bodies, and people don't get bored and give up interstellar travel because 1000 years is a fucking long time.
 
UraMallas said:
If we were truly the only living world in the Galaxy then chalk one up for the "higher power" and "God" people. Did I just open up a can of worms? This is also just me talking nonsense.

To the OP. We will discover how to live long, long, long lives way before our solar system dies out. First we have to fix our bodies to become almost immortal. After that, 1,000 of years to get to other colonies won't be a big deal, it will be like a decade or maybe even a year. When we fix our bodies then faster than light travel won't matter. THEN we can move about the galaxy.

That's how I see it, anyways.
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What if we find out that the closest planet that can harbor life is 2 million light years away? I think the extended life theory would not hold up. But hey thats just like, your opinion man, and an interesting one. I personally think the answer is going to be in our speed. If we can get fast enough to have significant relativistic changes, travel (for those traveling) will be short.
 
Halycon said:
That's assuming we survive the sociopolitical upheaval as a result of achieving immortality, and we don't kill each other first with our immortal bodies, and people don't get bored and give up interstellar travel because 1000 years is a fucking long time.
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Well, I was assuming we get past it.
 
Halycon said:
You have a lot of faith in humanity.
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I like to think so. But, really, I was just talking about assuming we make it that far for my particular scenario to pan out. But that's the thing, I think I have less faith than you think because I believe that this is a more likely scenario for true space exploration.
 
DarkJediKnight said:
What if Humanty was a fluke of chance. Everyhting fell into place and intelligent life was born. There are NONE like us in the universe (or likely not).
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If this is the case, we need to start exploring the galaxy so we can fill it with monoliths and stargates and other enigmatic things.
 
Scullibundo said:
Fucking this. Kennedy said 'Mankind will be on the moon within 10 years' and they fucking did it. WHERE ARE OUR BALLS? We've been sitting with thumbs up our asses for far too long. What's really annoying is that you know that whilst nobody currently gives a shit about getting to Mars, the second one nation announces their intentions to get there first, the rest will scramble to get their own project off the ground.
Click to expand...

I think its more likely China will be the new pioneers in space exploration.
 
DarkJediKnight said:
What if Humanty was a fluke of chance. Everyhting fell into place and intelligent life was born. There are NONE like us in the universe (or likely not). In the next thousands and millions of years we travel and spread throughout the galaxy and due to the atmosphere and gravity of the planets we colonize, human appearance changes.
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pretty much i think.
 
The bad news is your grandchildren won't be alive to see it happen. The good news is it'll happen eventually. Unless the world ends in 2012. (Fingers crossed)
 
even if you traveled at the speed of light, it would take 2.5 million years to reach the next galaxy.

In other words, traveling through wormholes are the only option, and that will probably never be possible.

If the earth is still around in 1000 years, maybe some advancement has been made.
 
I was reading something on how long it would take to colonize the entire galaxy, assuming each planet was terraformed and it was something to the effect of millions of years.

It's interesting because I'm writing my first attempt at a sci-fi novel and have been trying to figure out how long it would take to colonize just 4 or 5 in our own galaxy.
 
Well to even begin something as massive as colonizing a galaxy we'd need a shit ton of resources to build such enormous colonies - and I don't think getting it from earth would be the best solution (I'm talking building materials, not just energy sources).

darkwings said:
If the earth is still around in 1000 years, maybe some advancement has been made.
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Mm, u mean the human race right? I haven't heard of a meteor shower/comet scheduled on a crash course with earth in the next 1000 - I have heard of a deadly meteor shower in the next 10k tho.
 
Halycon said:
That's assuming we survive the sociopolitical upheaval as a result of achieving immortality, and we don't kill each other first with our immortal bodies, and people don't get bored and give up interstellar travel because 1000 years is a fucking long time.
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There are plenty of ways that we could mess up and kill ourselves off, or not mess up and still get killed off by nature and chance, but I don't think people living longer is going to do it.

After all, if people achieve true immortality, they wouldn't be able to be killed in the first place. If they only achieve freedom from natural death, it'll still be in their best interests to avoid unnatural death.
 
In all honesty, i'm willing to bet the technology will be given to us before we find out how to create it.

It's all a matter of how we can convince them that we won't go out and fuck shit up.
 
The key is energy. We don't have enough of it. Fusion power and other exotic forms of energy are needed before we can even think about serious space travel.
 
I agree that humans will have immortality technology long before the ability to travel at speeds close to the speed of light.

So I envision huge, plodding ships that take hundreds of years to reach even the nearest stars, but everyone on board is immortal and possible under some kind of suspended animation or drug induced stupor, so the time passes quickly for them.
 
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?
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When you stop thinking of Earth as the only planet that can sustain life, or even one of just a hundred planets that can sustain life, and realize that there might be millions if not billions of habitable planets, if not planets that already have beings living insignificant lives in the big ass infinite-seeming universe, you'll realize how silly that sounds.
 
Tideas said:
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?
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Mass increases too, so you need more energy, more fuel, which in turns makes your ship more heavy, so you need more energy, more fuel.... Get the picture? :P

From what I hear, close-to-light-speed travel is a pain in so many ways, and induce so many problems...

Anyway, I believe we'll eventually build ecosystem ships which will have about a couple hundred people in, and they'll surf space till they find something. I guess the ship has to be built to accommodate a couple thousand people so they can last a couple of generations without having to throw people off...

Edit :

Btw, in today's values (from what I could gather) :

fastest rocket push ever : 0.000061067c (18 km/s)
fastest ship with crew : 0.000036893c (11 km/s)
fastest ship without crew : 0.000235433c (70 km/s)
 
Hey, if you're on one of the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, or any of the gas giants, and you look up into the sky, how much of it is covered by the planet, assuming you are facing the planet

We got any pictures of that?

I think it would cool if instead of seeing a moon you looked up and saw a big freaking planet

Whats in the middle of a gas giant anyway? Is it all gas or is there a center mass?

I want pictures from the center of jupiter ASAP
 
HamPster PamPster said:
Hey, if you're on one of the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, or any of the gas giants, and you look up into the sky, how much of it is covered by the planet, assuming you are facing the planet

We got any pictures of that?

I think it would cool if instead of seeing a moon you looked up and saw a big freaking planet

Whats in the middle of a gas giant anyway? Is it all gas or is there a center mass?

I want pictures from the center of jupiter ASAP
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http://lmgtfy.com/?q=center+of+jupiter

:P

We don't really know
 
Sol.. said:
In all honesty, i'm willing to bet the technology will be given to us before we find out how to create it.
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Interesting theory. If I can take a page out of Babylon 5 universe, jumpgate technology was given to humans. Who created jump gates, it's unknown. Older races have had interstellar flight for 100s of millions of years. Technology was always passed down.


The galaxy is HUGE!!! Even if we can cover light year distances in minutes, it's a long way.

What if, just like us, another race, closer to the galactic core evolved similarly - but about 10,000 years ago. Imagine what we could do in 10,000 years if we don't destroy ourselves.

Heck, just look at what we did in the 20th century and compare our progress from just 100 years ago. Generations will remember us for the leap we made! Regardless of what we do, that can't be taken away.
 
Also, keep in mind that before we reach beyond the solar system, we'll most likely have mining ships. Asteroids/Meteors contain gold, platinum, zinc as well as other precious metals.

The steller Gold Rush generations from now is what will enable us to fund more for further developing engine technologies. Now there's really no need for space travel, other than to learn. When there's 100s of billions to make, the space race will really begin.

The biggest asteroid discovered has more wealth than all the wealth on earth - combined!
 
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