/sci/ - Science & Math

Because it's a waste of my hard-earned taxpayer dollars that I would rather spend killing sandniggers.

I don't think so tim.

presents more problems than it solves, no one wants to pay for it

>>3082894

Or giving to your banking/oil friends.

Also, buying flowers and chocolate for your Royal Saudi Family buttbuddies.

>Why aren't we doing this?

I think you should explain why we should in the first place, OP. So we send some occupants hurtling into space for three generations (assuming that they all survive that long). Then what?

>>3082881
how long would the journey be shipyears?

how/where would orion be built?

how soon would deceleration occur?

...and then you approach Gliese 581 to be disappointed by the fact that you're now on a planet on which you can survive, but where life sucks and you're presented with a world of shit for the next hundred generations.

This is how moses must have felt like.

Why don't we just confirm that Gliese 581g is actually habitable and has life before we actually visit it?

We can probably do it pretty inexpensively with some lenses and mirrors

>>3082881
>billions and billions of stars
>trillions of random rocks
>Wants to spend 200 years on highly speculative data

OK

Just wait for the singularity and rapid increase in intelligence and by proxy lifespan. Then we can colonize the shit out of everything.

>>3082912

>>I think you should explain why we should in the first place, OP. So we send some occupants hurtling into space for three generations (assuming that they all survive that long). Then what?

Then they colonize another planet, and we've taken out permanent insurance against extinction. After we've colonized a few other planets in this fashion I could care less if we give up on space travel altogether. It's about preventing extinction in the long run.

>human occupants
And what the fuck would they do once they get there? The environment will probably be like the Saharra with a pressure like being at the top of Mount Everest or something.

We should send a bunch of extremophile microbes over there.

>>3082881
so, billions and billions of stars; trillions and trillions of planets, 200 years, and all for a speculative chance so meager that by the time they get there, they'll receive a "OMG guiz, we're sorry, it's actually nothing"

>>3082920

>>Why don't we just confirm that Gliese 581g is actually habitable and has life before we actually visit it?

>>3082923

>Wants to spend 200 years on highly speculative data


Looks like you niggers didn't read the OP.

>>"We should obviously wait until we can confirm habitable conditions on one of the planets in question"

>>3082945

The Solar System is vast and full of resources. Don't really get the urge to explore interstellar space like there's no tomorrow.

Some people fail to appreciate the wonders of their own Star System and desperately seek green hot boobed aliens.

>>3082952

See:

>>3082956

Could someone explain to me why we can't build a fucking huge ship (like twice or three times the size of this one) and accelerate to 0.5c? At that point does the energy need increase to undoable amounts?

on an unrelated note, what does one have to study to get into the fields involved in designing this shit?
aerospace engineering?
astrophysicist?
carl sagan studies?

>>3082967
AE definitely

>>3082967
This. I heard that aerospace engineering was not related to either air or space, but that's what SpaceX claims it is looking for on it's website.

How would you keep these people hydrated?

>>3082967
aerospace engineering I think.

>>3082959
What is that supposed to convey? The post that you want him to see came after his. It's not as though he didn't read the thread, because that post wasn't there to begin with.

>>3082945
Alright. So then, want to volunteer for an extremely sucktastic life aboard a cramped spaceship with the only other people you'll ever know, until you inexorably die of old age or some other medical condition or accident?

>>3082967

Most definitely Aerospace Engineering.

What would you need to pack into that ship to keep three generations alive? We don't even have astronaut food that will last longer than 5 years, and that biosphere experiment was a failure even though they had a huge enclosed area to try it in.

>>3082972
how saturated is the AE right now?
i really should be asking my uncle....
he got his AE abroad in sweden, and now works as a paper pusher at the FAA

>>3082967
Politics.

Just bribe some astronomers into claiming that they saw Mosques and oil refineries on Gliese 581d.

>>3083029
If only it were so simple.

But then we'd have Space Muslims, and they're dicks to EVERYONE.

>>3082881

Because it takes 200 years right now, but in 30 years it might only take 50? Because having a moon base would be much more practical, not to mention cooler? Because Gliese 581 hasn't been proven to be habitable yet? Because nobody has ever actually explained to you why, if not a good thing, that having a high military budget is at least useful (I assume you're both a fellow American and about 16, it would make sense given that you know absolutely nothing about anything.)

>try to colonise other world before having built a space elevator
nope.avi

Orions are obsolete. Since they were envisaged, decades were spent designing sealed-reactor nuclear jet and rocket engines which can launch from within Earth's atmosphere and orbit without the release of nuclear material. For deep-space use, nuclear salt-water rockets and fission fragment rockets offer far superior performance and fuel economy.

>any deceleration bomblets would have reached their half lives and become useless over that period
THAT IS NOT HOW FISSILE MATERIALS WORK

(and it wouldn't be hard to produce some tritium for a D-T gas booster: you just get a nuclear fizzle going near some lithium, and it makes tritium for you -- or you can just use a lithium-deuteride booster)

>a VASIMR array would be needed to decelerate instead
If this could provide enough deceleration, then it could provide enough acceleration, so why are you talking about using one type of rocket for acceleration, and another for deceleration?

>a little over 200 years
They'd get passed by a half-dozen better rockets that we spent the next hundred years developing.

Who is going to volunteer to die in tin can in space just so their great, great grandchildren can get mooned by a bunch of punk kid immortal cyborgs who fly past them and get to the star first, and then fly back to Earth and say "Meh, it wasn't anything special." before their great, great, great grandchildren arrive at a barren star system and realize there isn't really anything there one ten-millionth as interesting as a populated world they're never going to get to experience?

>>3083061

>>Because Gliese 581 hasn't been proven to be habitable yet?

See original post: "We should obviously wait until we can confirm habitable conditions on one of the planets in question"

>>Because it takes 200 years right now, but in 30 years it might only take 50

The only way that'll happen is if we master antimatter. Right now, nuclear explosives are as energy dense as it gets.

>>having a high military budget is at least useful

More useful than ensuring the continued survival of the species?

>>(I assume you're both a fellow American and about 16, it would make sense given that you know absolutely nothing about anything.

27, and you've misjudged me. You also didn't correctly read the first post. It isn't that I'm ignorant, it's that you've listed the first objections that struck you without having fully considered the idea or even fully read the proposal.

I refer you to the movie pandorum

>>3083095

>>Orions are obsolete. Since they were envisaged, decades were spent designing sealed-reactor nuclear jet and rocket engines which can launch from within Earth's atmosphere and orbit without the release of nuclear material. For deep-space use, nuclear salt-water rockets and fission fragment rockets offer far superior performance and fuel economy.

Sure, and let's slap a warp drive on there so long as we're talking science fiction. Nuclear rockets were a dead end: NERVA was 40% less efficient in tests than the math predicted. Nuclear lightbulb drives are promising but we don't have the materials to build one yet. That's why Orion was chosen. It'll do the job, with existing materials and technology.

>>THAT IS NOT HOW FISSILE MATERIALS WORK

Oh, so nuclear explosives don't go bad over time? Good news, makes this plan even more feasible.

>>3083111
>More useful than ensuring the continued survival of the species?

so once its launched we dont have to worry about mutually assured destruction anymore and can let the nukes fly?

>>3083111
>More useful than ensuring the continued survival of the species?

Useful in ensuring -your- survival. Assuming you live in the US, though it may have the largest military budget of any nation, it also has the largest military; it has a considerable amount of deterrence at its disposal which keeps backwards nations like North Korea from freely bombing you (or rather, us) to the stone age.

>but only three generations
One generation is roughly 25 years, it would take 8 generations

Does your magic ship carry EIGHT FUCKING GENERATIONS OF FOOD, AIR AND WATER?

>>3082881

because next moment we're now supporting homeless people in the Gliese system as well.

gotta sort out our own problems on earth first brah, its the only responsible thing to do.

>>3082881
wtf bro? marts is right next to us(compare to gliese) and you want to send a 3 generations mission to there so they might colonize it if they have luck?

Hahm. Don't you think that it would be money better spent developing in-system assets OP? We can afford to wait a few more centuries before setting out on colonization efforts. Its not like the sun is going nova or something.

Besides, all of those technologies would be improved or outright repaced by shit we invent just to help us put put around the solar system. So by the 2200's well have some seriously kick ass ideas for interstellar sublight drives. maybe even perfect cryonics and not have to worry about the generational ship thing at all. Plus a highly developed home solar system to boot. Dem asteroids aren't going to mine themselves.

You would spread the virus that is humanity to other star systems?

I mean, seriously?

>>3083127

>>so once its launched we dont have to worry about mutually assured destruction anymore and can let the nukes fly?

No. That's hyperbole. What I am proposing is that the small dip in military spending that it would cost to produce such a vessel would not, as you imply, lead to total nuclear annihilation.

>>3083155

>>wtf bro? marts is right next to us(compare to gliese) and you want to send a 3 generations mission to there so they might colonize it if they have luck?

Mars isn't habitable, and I clearly said in the first post that we should make sure Gliese 581c/d is habitable first.

>>3083111

>27, and you've misjudged me. You also didn't correctly read the first post. It isn't that I'm ignorant, it's that you've listed the first objections that struck you without having fully considered the idea or even fully read the proposal.

I haven't misjudged you even a little bit. You have a reasonable argument on exactly one of my counterpoints, which isn't even relevant to your central point but more to my not having read the least relevant point in your argument.

The basic constraints still exist, nuclear energy is very dense, but an explosion is a terrible way to gain velocity from that density. VASIMIR drives would be better and it could be assumed would only get more efficient over time, moreso than the "shaped charge rocket" you propose.

The additional 'advantage' you brought up (Ensuring the continued survival of the species) isn't actually relevant: It is unable to be determined whether or not launching an Orion vessel will ensure anything, but you merely hope that it will and project outwards. This is ignoring the fact that such a small sample of the human gene pool will ensure inbreeding and in fact will eventually cause the sample to be severely dysfunctional.

>>3083139

>>Does your magic ship carry EIGHT FUCKING GENERATIONS OF FOOD, AIR AND WATER?

Sigh. No, not as stored resources. The ship would include multiple decks of plant life that would exist in symbiosis with the human passengers, providing them with both air and nutrition.

inb4 the passengers on the Orion spacecraft revolt against earth, meet protoss and zergs, and engage in a never-ending war, etc.

>>3083216

That, or they plan a return voyage to earth to find humanity subjugated by a dominant species of chimpanzees.

>>3083216
>>3083233

go back to /b/, faggots

Also, this.

>>3083196

>>The basic constraints still exist, nuclear energy is very dense, but an explosion is a terrible way to gain velocity from that density.

Not if all other alternatives are worse. You seem aware that Orion uses shaped charges. The explosion is bidirectional, focused on the pusher plate in one direction as well as in the opposite direction. This means it's not wasted, shot off in all directions, but is instead devoted to propulsion. That should be taken into consideration when discussing efficiency.

>>VASIMIR drives would be better and it could be assumed would only get more efficient over time, moreso than the "shaped charge rocket" you propose.

It's not a rocket. You're proposing nuclear rockets, not me.

>>The additional 'advantage' you brought up (Ensuring the continued survival of the species) isn't actually relevant: It is unable to be determined whether or not launching an Orion vessel will ensure anything, but you merely hope that it will and project outwards.

I specified in the first post that we'd ensure the planet was habitable first.

>>This is ignoring the fact that such a small sample of the human gene pool will ensure inbreeding and in fact will eventually cause the sample to be severely dysfunctional.

Where did I specify the number of occupants?

What if they get there and the only planet is covered with pink/purple fungus with an alien psychic hivemind?

And they have unreconcileable political and philosophical differences and end up fighting over it?

>>3083241
>we'd ensure the planet was habitable first.
how? our observations from Earth are only rough guesses.

- How do you get a vessel to move that fast without it being destroyed by its own thrust, unless you controlled the rate of nuclear fusion?
- You do realize that the central problem with nuclear fusion is that we can't devise a method where it gives off more energy than it requires, right?
- How are you going to protect a ship moving at 1/10th the speed of light, a speed where even the smallest speck of dust can cause massive damage?

Just some things to think about.

>>3083255

>>how? our observations from Earth are only rough guesses.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/17/6661294-case-builds-for-habitable-alien-planet

"The Gliese system is particularly exciting to us as it's very close to Earth, relatively speaking. So with future generations of telescopes, we'll be able to search for alien life on Gliese 581d directly."

>>3083254
don't worry, war (the tried and true method) will sort things out.

>>3083260

>>- How do you get a vessel to move that fast without it being destroyed by its own thrust, unless you controlled the rate of nuclear fusion?

Fission, not fusion. And it survives via graphite oil and shock absorbers. Go watch George Dyson's TED talk. His father designed the Orion drive.

>>- You do realize that the central problem with nuclear fusion is that we can't devise a method where it gives off more energy than it requires, right?

Fission, not fusion.

>>- How are you going to protect a ship moving at 1/10th the speed of light, a speed where even the smallest speck of dust can cause massive damage?

Thick armor, and electromagnetic deflectors powered by an onboard nuclear reactor can assist in deflecting or decelerating the particles before they hit.

>>3083289
I'm just trying to figure out how many planet busters we should pack for them.

>>3083289
i was always university
i tried to coexist with errybody
always wound up slapping gaiafags, spartans, believers shit

morgan was a bro, lal seemed tame, but yang, would always ally with me to hunt the spartans

>>3083255

If you can build a huge starship, you can also build a huge space telescope. Gliese 581 is near enough to resolve some surface details of its planets with a big enough telescope. If you used the sun as a gravitational lens, you could map the surface of Gl 581 d to about the same resolution as we have mapped Mars from orbit.

>>3083293
thick armor would mean more mass and therefore a greater needed fuel, which means more weight etc..

>>3083293
>Fission, not fusion.
Actually, they're thermonuclear devices: fission/fusion hybrids.

There's no sense in making a fission-only bomb. That just reduces your yield for the same weight/cost.

>>3083299
I don't think you fully understand what the fuck gravitational lensing is, you dumb fuck.

>>3083309

>>thick armor would mean more mass and therefore a greater needed fuel, which means more weight etc..

Orion vessels are unique in this regard. All designs for them are huge, heavy monsters precisely because they use nuclear explosives for propulsion. You can afford to have a massive clunky ship when you're driving it with nukes. If anything it facilitates more efficient absorption of the kinetic energy from the blast.

>>3083309
The best strategies I've seen have involved throwing out shields well in front, and occasionally swapping them and repairing the old ones.

With these dust particles, it's not the momentum you're worried about, it's the energy. Because they're so light, when they hit something well in front of you, even something light and thin, the energy goes POOF in all directions and you don't have to worry about it punching a hole in your hull wall anymore.

Stuff hitting you from the sides is a non-problem, of course.

>>3083293
Wow, you're working with fission? ha. haha. hahahahahahahhaah!

Okay, let's just go through everything you're going to need:
- Something to deflect small particles
- A life support system capable of lasting 300+ years and large enough for a family (because time dilation isn't going to be enough to keep you from needing generations of people to keep this thing going, especially if you only build the spaceship to withstand a low level of acceleration, which will make your trip MUCH longer.)
- A spaceship strong enough to withstand the thrust, whether it be fusion or fission.

Now, accelerating that amount of mass is going to take a LOT of nuclear fuel, and the more fuel you add to the ship, the more it's going to require. Also, I don't think you actually want to attempt to launch such a massive object from the earth's surface, do you? So you're going to need to assemble it in space.

All I can say is that if it were realistic, I think we would have sent manned missions farther than the moon at this point.

>>3083197
Here's the thing I wonder about that though.

Don't plants need to be fed too?
Couldn't all the nutrients they, the soil their grown in, and the resources they're given to grow contain be stored and used more efficiently by the crew any other way?

Someone explain the singularity to me please.

Is it basically just when we stop dying? What the fuck happens if someone wants to have kids?

>>3083353
>launch such a massive object from the earth's surface, do you?
Oh, fuck yeah. WAAAAY too expensive to build it in orbit.

>>3083346
Umm, no. Basic physics dictates that for that dust particle to go rebounding in all directions, it has to bounce off of that flying object first. If you're moving at 1/10th the speed of light, that object is moving at 1/10th the speed of light towards you. In order for the spaceship to remain undamaged, it has to be able to resist the force of that particle moving at 1/10th the speed of light towards it, in that localized area.

>>3083373
Now you have to think about accelerating such a massive object through gravity and air pressure, an even higher energy requirement.

>>3083375
Not just the speed of the particle hitting it at 1/10th the speed at light as well as the shuttle traveling at 1/10th the speed of light in the opposite direction.

>>3083353

>>Now, accelerating that amount of mass is going to take a LOT of nuclear fuel, and the more fuel you add to the ship, the more it's going to require.

That's a design consideration, not a show stopper. Need lots of fuel? Then put lots of fuel onboard.

>>Also, I don't think you actually want to attempt to launch such a massive object from the earth's surface, do you? So you're going to need to assemble it in space.

No, it could be launched from Earth. Again, watch George Dyson's TED talk. It will save me a lot of explanation.

>>All I can say is that if it were realistic, I think we would have sent manned missions farther than the moon at this point.

We were going to. NASA even designed their own Orion vessel for a trip to Jupiter, pic related. The reason we didn't is that partway through the design phase, the Partial test ban treaty was signed with Russia, prohibiting atmospheric nuclear detonations.

Again, watch George Dyson's TED talk. This is all straight from it.

>>3083381

>>Now you have to think about accelerating such a massive object through gravity and air pressure, an even higher energy requirement.

Yes, they were aware of this, and the physics worked out. Watch the TED talk. Here's the link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/george_dyson_on_project_orion.html

>>3083353
>I don't think you actually want to attempt to launch such a massive object from the earth's surface, do you?
Look up the Orion project. People worked this all out. They'd launch it from the ground, and it would go BOING, BOING into space, like a nuclear pogo stick.

Shit is awesome.

Also totally obsolete and silly, but awesome. As previously explained, the modern equivalent is the nuclear salt-water rocket. Basically, this one looks and works like a conventional rocket, only the fuel is water with salts of nuclear fuel dissolved in it. MUCH more efficient, safe, and reliable, just as suitable for launching fuckhuge spacecraft from Earth surface to anywhere up to and including another star system, just as dirty.

Fission fragment rockets are also worth looking up. Not great for providing enough thrust to get off a planet, but godly propellant efficiency. A true interstellar drive.

>>3083360
I mean, feel free to point out what I'm missing, but it just sounds like trying to solve the problem of how to feed all your living things by putting more living things in the ship would be counterproductive.

By the time they get halfway there (100 years or so) wouldn't we have the technology to get there much much faster than 200 years and we would actually pass the ship that is still taking it's 200 year journey? In this case wouldn't it be better to just wait until the technology exceeds future claims/views regardless of if it has been confirmed for life?

>>3083406

>>As previously explained, the modern equivalent is the nuclear salt-water rocket.

Have we built and tested a prototype?

>>3083438
>By the time they get halfway there (100 years or so) wouldn't we have the technology to get there much much faster than 200 years and we would actually pass the ship

Would we? I mean yeah, if we knew that for certain it would immediately be a stupid idea. Otherwise, the idea remains on the table.

>>3083438

>>By the time they get halfway there (100 years or so) wouldn't we have the technology to get there much much faster than 200 years and we would actually pass the ship that is still taking it's 200 year journey?

Maybe if we've mastered antimatter propulsion in that time.

>>In this case wouldn't it be better to just wait until the technology exceeds future claims/views regardless of if it has been confirmed for life?

100 years later:
"Now we can do it in 150 years!"
"Too slow, keep waiting."
150 years later:
"Now we can do it in 100 years!"
"Too slow, keep waiting"
200 years later:
"Now we can do it in 50 years!"
"Too slow, keep waiting"
250 years later:
"Now we can do it in 20 years!"
"Too slow, kee-"
*Asteroid impact wipes out human life*

>>3083438
Not this argument again. That also applies to the ship that passes the one that's still taking the 200 year journey, and the next one, and the next.

Faggot.

>>3083375
Let me educate you on a little thing called the momentum/energy difference:
- momentum is directional, and proportional to the speed of the projectile
- energy is non-directional, and proportional to the SQUARE of the speed of the projectile
(relativistic effects aren't significant at 0.1 c for this kind of thing)

This square of the speed becomes a big problem when the speed gets very large, because its square becomes RIDICULOUSLY large.

The momentum is a very small problem. You can easily handle the momentum of a dust particle , once it's distributed into more mass coming slowly at you, it's no problem. For the energy, you want it spent on things like tearing an ablative shield apart, and spread the impact over time and area.

So a bit of the ablative shield goes POOF and then the cloud of stuff that went flying all directions (including the original mote of dust) makes a spread-out gentle caress on the nose of your spacecraft: same momentum (even some more momentum), less power over more area. If it's a really big POOF, then much of it goes out to the sides and doesn't hit your spacecraft at all. Or a region of your shield might just be melted by the energy, and solidify again after it radiates the energy into space.

Putting space between your hull and the shield helps a lot.

Whether by nuclear pulse, saltwater rocket or whatever, I think it's agreed at least that we have the resources and knowhow to send a generation ship to the Gliese system

IF AND WHEN IT CAN BE CONFIRMED THAT IT CONTAINS HABITABLE WORLDS.

Ahem. Just so there's no more misunderstanding on that matter. But once that's done, can we all agree that sending a generational vessel there is worth roughly a third of what we spent on the Iraq war (Or half, assuming typical NASA bloat)?

>>3083583
>"Or half, assuming typical NASA bloat"
>getting NASA to do this

ha

>>3083583
Probably more like thrice what 'we' spent on the Iraq war: that is, 3 trillion dollars. It's been estimated that it would take $250,000,0000 just to get a small man crew to mars.

>>3083446
>Have we built and tested a prototype?
Not of either of these things. Only solid-core nuclear rockets have been tested.

>>3083612

>>Not of either of these things.

Actually we HAVE tested a scale model Orion drive using C4 explosives, to ensure that stable pulsed flight is possible.

There's video of the test in the TED talk mentioned earlier.

>>3083660
>scale models with c4
>counting as a prototype for a nuke

In other words, no we haven't.

>>3083660
If the Orion model was "tested" by a scale model with chemical explosives, that means the nuclear salt-water rocket was tested and proven by black powder rockets in ancient China.

>>3083678

>>In other words, no we haven't.

We have tested the principle of stable, pulsed propulsion. That must count for something or you're just not being reasonable.

>>3083683

>>If the Orion model was "tested" by a scale model with chemical explosives, that means the nuclear salt-water rocket was tested and proven by black powder rockets in ancient China.

But those did not use liquid reaction mass. If they did, it would be a valid comparison.

>>3083596
>It's been estimated that it would take $250,000,0000 just to get a small man crew to mars.
That's with chemical rockets, though.

There's no comparison to nuclear rockets.

>>3083725
So in your little world, C4 is more like a nuke than gunpowder is like liquid fuel?

What color is the sky?

>>3083742
if they could do it more cheaply with nuclear rockets, they would

>>3083751

>>So in your little world, C4 is more like a nuke than gunpowder is like liquid fuel?

Yes.

>>What color is the sky?

Blue. What about yours?

>>3083756

>>if they could do it more cheaply with nuclear rockets, they would

They can, but the Partial Test Ban Treaty prevents it.

>>3083756
The reasons for not using nuclear rockets have nothing to do with cost-effectiveness.

Environmental concerns, safety concerns, and treaty violations are the main considerations at play here.

>>3083785
Ahh, that's interesting, and a real shame too.

200 years is a fuck long time in terms of modern civilization. Seriously, think back to 200 years ago, 1811. Notice how much shit has changed since then. Humans have a knack for losing/forgetting about a lot of shit in even just a couple decades, never mind centuries. If we launched a space probe to Gliese 581 now we'd be lucky if we still remembered that it exists a century from now.

Can you accelerate in space? How? How do you change direction in space?

>>3083808

>>If we launched a space probe to Gliese 581 now we'd be lucky if we still remembered that it exists a century from now.

Pretty sure that was the plot of the original Battlestar Galactica.

>>3083820
I have thought about this before and wondered why no one else ever talked about it. I guess you just throw shit in the other direction?

>>3083899

When you fire a shot from a rifle, why is there recoil? Hint, not because it occurs within an atmosphere.

/Sci/: Physics 101

>>3083820
>>3083899
>I guess you just throw shit in the other direction?
Yes.

The rotten thing is that, the more shit you throw, the less energy it takes to propel yourself.

If you carry a lot of shit with you to throw, when you throw some of it to propel yourself, you don't go very fast because you're carrying so much shit.

If you use a lot of energy to throw the shit very fast, you don't need as much shit, but you spend way more energy to get the same amount of acceleration.

So you either need ridiculous amounts of energy (nuclear or antimatter rocket), or to start with a ridiculously huge rocket and a tiny payload, preferably a stack of rockets, each ridiculously huger than the last, so you can leave behind part of the rocket and not haul a big mostly-empty fuel tank around (for example the Saturn V rockets they used to go to the moon).

>>3083963
Ass
>>3083981
Helpful

I'm aware of momentum and kinetic energy. Learning about those is when I started to wonder about space propulsion. It just seemed strange to me when I realized that you would have to do it like that.

So, it's much more efficient to accelerate when you still have atmosphere to push against?

There's no overwhelming reason to physically visit Gliese 581, even with an unmanned vehicle. It would be cheaper (and more generally important) to develop better instruments for studying planets from a distance. Think about how much telescopes have improved over the past 200 years. We can gather more data about that planet that's only 20 years out of date, and from all the other nearby planets. Projecting forward 200 years on the basis of available data (which includes: there might be water there, if there is water there; and everything is twice as heavy), just because it's one of the first maybe-Earth-like exoplanets we've discovered, is a little (a lot) premature.

Also, I don't know of a single project in the modern world that has projected 200 years into the future. In the U.S., we can't even figure out what to do about problems we know are going to occur in ten years.

Anyway, once we find an exoplanet that is about 65 degrees, has a breathable atmosphere, and monsters, that's when we should plan an expedition. Not now.

organic interstellar travel is a scifi pipe dream. and really quite a horrifying prospect. by the time we can find a confirmed habitable planet, we will be nearly entirely transitioned to machine consciousness. and if we aren't we need to wait until we are. 'generational seed ships' would NEVER work with apes as the cargo, they would descend into anarchy when the second generation comes into their prime, OR would require so severely damaging the cargo-people (to make the subservient) they wouldn't work out in the new colony anyway.

>>3083775
>He thinks nukes will produce a travelling wave of overpressure in space like conventional chemical explosives do
>laughingwhores.jpg

>Send out a generational ship which maintains a stagnant level of technology
>By the time they reach their destination we're already there due to technological advancements

That would be some fucked up shit huh /sci/?

>>3085281
We couldn't just rendezvous with the ship?

>>3082881
>A small fraction of the annual military budget
How small? And why the military budget? Why not bring up the social programs that do nothing but pay for every senator to have a private jet... for a job that requires NO TRAVEL.

I think you're under-estimating the cost of a generational ship. If you could build a generational ship that cheaply, why not stick to spreading space colonies through this solar system for a little while.

>>3085296
Even if you did you'd then have to try to integrate people with more primitive technologies into a more modern world.

>>3084372
Who let the retarded autistic kid in?

>>3085306
So? We do that now. The entire world isn't at the same tech level, you know. The younger you start, the better. Teenagers and children from the generational ship would probably have an easier time adapting.

In any case, it's better than leaving them to complete their journey the regular way, distancing them even further from modern circumstances.

>>3085308
We try to do that now and it's not exactly succeeding.

Just look at Africa, there's people running about with machine guns mowing down people that hunt with sticks.

Just look at the Abos in Australia.

Just look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

>1/6th the speed of light
I'm pretty sure nobody on board would survive, and I'm not entirely sure it's possible to give birth in space.

>>3085310
It's not succeeding because the proper approach is not being taken. As I said, it works best with the young. It is far easier to integrate a child than an adult. It has been done in the past with Aborigines. It can be done again.

What would happen to the crew of the generational ship depends on circumstances we can't predict, but the adults might not be able to fully adapt. The crew might form a sort of immigrant culture in their new society, if steps were not taken to prevent this. Whether or not those steps are desirable depends. That said, reeducation and gradual introduction goes a long way.

I've often wondered if it is even ethical to create a "generational" ship.

It would condemn those born upon it to spend their entire lives on a potentially dangerous and obviously extremely restrictive mission that they may not even want to participate in.

Duty itself likely could not be completely optional and it is possible that people would have to take on tasks against their will simply to ensure their own survival and that of the rest of the crew.

I know its a small point to make, but I believe it is something that would have to be seriously considered.

>>3085321
>I'm pretty sure nobody on board would survive

Why?

>I'm not entirely sure it's possible to give birth in space

Microgravity affects reproduction in interesting ways. Fortunately, if you're building a ship that's meant to travel to other star systems, you shouldn't have any trouble outfitting the hab sections to provide artificial gravity through rotation.

>>3082881
why the fuck would we do this? we have nothing to gain. even if we could reach gliese we could not communicate back to earth (well it would take 20 years to communicate each way) we really need to figure out how to communicate faster than the speed of light before such a trip becomes feasible or wantable. inb4 FTL information transmission is impossible obviously never heard of quantum entanglement. once quantum computing gets of the ground its only a matter of time till we quantum entangle particles and have FTL information.

>>3085326
In most areas of the world, you must work to survive, regardless of where you're born. If you have the good (or mis-) fortune to be born aboard a generational ship, it is exactly the same, only far more lives may depend on you doing your job.

>>3085326
>>3085326
I don't think that objection holds up. It would be like asking if it is unethical for poor people to have babies because it condemns them to a live in poverty (talking about places like africa, India etc.)

>>3085310
the ship probably wont have missionaries subverting their culture and western powers arming despots for debt to be applied against their resources or simply to subsidize domestic arms markets, or settlers disrupting their cultures with war and disease and liquor, or having their entire civilizations altared at the whim of colonialists, or having their food sources disrupted by forced curtailing of migratory traditions and the encroachment of foreign agriculture and husbandry.

But other then that and the many other things I didnt bother mentioning, spot on analogy, well done sir.

Lets work on mining the asteroid belt until we've got an enormous space station to house our space civilization first.

>>3085330
>we have nothing to gain

We have plenty to gain. Whether a mission like this would be worth it is another question.

>even if we could reach gliese we could not communicate back to earth (well it would take 20 years to communicate each way)

And?

>we really need to figure out how to communicate faster than the speed of light before such a trip becomes feasible or wantable

It's feasible now, but very impractical. Many don't want it, though. The time lag in communications is a relatively small nitpick, compared to the vast issues inherent in sending a crew of people, all of whom will die in transit, to a system that might not even contain habitable planets, aboard a ship that has just enough fuel to reach its destination and come to rest, which makes the mission one-way-only.

>once quantum computing gets of the ground its only a matter of time till we quantum entangle particles and have FTL information

According to current theories, quantum entanglement cannot transfer information faster than light.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=612

>>3085332
>>3085334
Except that in those situations, the humans are at the very least potentially physically able to change their circumstances, even if that is only a technicality.

Personally I have no opinion either way but if I did it would probably lean towards the "gotta crack a few eggs to make an omlette" school of thought.

But its something I've always wondered, if the ethics of making such a decision would be reconciled in a public arena or not.

At the very least I'd think that there would be people willing to create work for themselves debating this issue.

>>3085351
Potentially, yes. But I'd consider a person born to an island tribe that has no writing, no wheel, and no contact with the outside world besides the occasional contrail sighting to be almost as trapped as one born to a crew member on a generational ship.

I'm sure objections like the ones you raised will be repeated when interstellar vessels begin being built in earnest. As in other times in human history, the vessels will still be built, regardless.

Of course, if we have functional immortality or working cryogenic hibernation by then, it won't matter.

>>3085346
>We have plenty to gain. Whether a mission like this would be worth it is another question.

I think he meant it wouldn't be possible to reap the rewards of such a mission.

Unless of course you're willing to have exchanges in 200 year gaps.

>>3085382
The whole point of a manned mission is to establish a colony. Even if I could never physically visit such a colony, I would consider its construction to be a gain.

>>3085397
So basically seeding the galaxy with humans to allow for parallel advancement?

>>3085401
Even without any advancement at all, spreading our species to other star systems would increase our chances of survival.

>>3085328
>Regarding birth

Rats have given birth in space; their offspring were noticeably weaker and the mother lost more than 1/4th of her body weight.

A human has yet to give birth in space, and without the protection from radiation that we have on earth it's improbable that a baby can be properly born and raised in that kind of an environment.

>Regarding survival

There isn't a way you can hold water for ~20 humans over the course of 200 years - and that's not including the children they may have.

>>3085330
Except I have heard of quantum entanglement, and I know it does not necessarily mean faster than light communications.

The people who first proposed that faster than light communications were impossible had also heard of quantum entanglement. That didn't change their conclusions.

>>3085408

thats if you believe human beings as they are now are more evolved then robots will be.

>>3085425
>Rats have given birth in space; their offspring were noticeably weaker and the mother lost more than 1/4th of her body weight

That's in microgravity. I notice that you ignored the solution to that particular problem.

>and without the protection from radiation that we have on earth

Any material can provide adequate radiation shielding if you have enough of it. An easy way to protect the ship would be to build it inside a comet. There are many other solutions, of course.

>There isn't a way you can hold water for ~20 humans over the course of 200 years - and that's not including the children they may have

Yes there is.

>>3085430
It does seem like a hole in Einstein's speed limit of information, until you see where he and others show that no actual information is sent by the determined orientation of particles due to entanglement.

>>3085433
More evolved? What does that even mean?

That aside, the more star systems we occupy, the greater our chances of survival. Whether we happen to have meat bodies or metal bodies does not change this.

>>3085438
>Regarding birth

You're right, I didn't take that into consideration.

>Regarding water

How?

>>3085438
Are you still the same person who insists we launch it from Earth?

Cause building it inside a comet AND launching from Earth's surface sounds pretty messy.

>>3085446
Adequate supplies and recycling.

>>3085449
No. There's no reason to launch it from the surface of anything. It should be built in space.

>>3085450
I don't think recycling for a 200 year span is possible. I'm going to look into it though and comeback with my findings.

>>3085408
That isn't inherently beneficial on the whole and has no benefit at all to the people back home.

>>3085492
Yes, it is inherently beneficial, because it increases the probability of our species' survival. There is little direct benefit to the people who do not directly interact with the colony, though, no.

>>3085463 I'm back
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081111210838.htm
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/269746,space-station-crew-has-first-sip-of-recycled-wate
r.html
>"If we were going to Mars tomorrow, this is the water treatment system astronauts might well use," Flynn said. He is developing it in cooperation with Water Reuse Technology, Inc., Garden Valley, Calif. "This unit can enable a six- person crew to shower, wash clothes and dishes, drink water and flush toilets over three years without resupply," Flynn said.

You can definitely recycle water in space. I guess the next question is can we recycle food!

>>3085492
>survival isn't beneficial

We need to master local space before generational voyages like that. I get the sentiment but trying to do dumbshit like that first serious attempt out is only going to set us back + with the way the world is now you can't spend billions of dollars to send humans 200 years away without a reasonable time table on some sort of return for the investment.

We should start as close to earth as possible, we need practice in self sustaining habitats in space and work our way outwards. Why go so far at 1/10 of the speed of light, when we can colonize our solar system and go at 4/10th the speed of light if we start small and get around to a project like that 100 years later.

Shit even Mars doesn't make sense right now (Venus is a more feasible planet for colonization) . We need to make our initial space colonizations small scale and profitable. There is no reason to think that we can colonize other solar systems if we haven't colonized our own.

>>3085541
>can we recycle food

"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people."
-Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"

>>3085559
I'm not a very deep person - can you explain that quote?

>>3085564

It's from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Yang was referring to sending people to the recycling tanks so they would turn to food.

Space Soylent Green.

>>3085569
Oh alright, thanks.

i'd like to see you pilot through the oort cloud.

>>3086479
Considering the immense distance between objects in space...