/sci/ - Science & Math

>>6681566
I agree, pic related. The metaphor for interstellar travel is seeds sown on the wind, not ships between continents.

>>6154948
I am an optimist, so yes. First we will flourish and exploit the entire solar system. Then we will construct a fleet of interstellar seed ships and launch them timed with a neighbor star's closest approach. Even a though just a few light years, it would still be a 20,000 year journey. The few ships that survive will map and exploit that system's resources, creating another fleet of ships, some to return to Sol, but most to continue on to the next nearby stars.

The big problems to solve concern deep time. How to keep the probes working after hibernating for millennia, and a surrounding problem, how to keep our society stable for 40,000 years so we can get any use out of the data returned.

My favorite stars are Alpha Centauri and Ross 248, because they are going to be close to us in several thousand years. Thus, they are the best candidates for interstellar travel, if we can get our act together.

We will either explore the galaxy or die trying. But first we need to settle the Moon, then settle the rest of the solar system. The time limit is about half a billion years before the sun starts to heat up, making Earth uninhabitable. Once off the Earth, we get several billion years to take the next steps. Might as well wait for some other star's close approach to make the interstellar journey.

>>4525582
whoa whoa whoa. We have far more pressing problems to resolve first.

How do we survive our violent cultures?
How do we survive climate change?
How do we survive the depletion of our non-renewable resources?

Longer term:

How do we survive the robot uprisings?
How do we survive speciation?
How do we live in space?

Then we worry about the death of our solar system. This guy has good ideas:

>>4526581

btw, long before the death of the sun, there are likely to be close encounters with other stars, closer even than Proxima Centauri. Those would be good times to jump out of the solar system and spread across the galaxy. So we should prepare the tech to allow us to do the jump, well timed 3 light year journeys.