Interstellar travel?

[Thorgalaeg]

It would be much more practical to send a few millions of frozen embryos, plus an AI system that would take care of everything along the centuries or millennia long voyage. The AI would begin growing some 10s of embryos about 30 years before arriving, educating and training the resulting men\women to do all the colonization work and building stuff once there, the rest of embryos would be activated as needed.

Ship would be called Ulysses, and the computer Shirka, obviously.

 

[red_elk]

The idea is that you have this giant reflective surface used to accelerate the probe and you could use that to direct a laser beam back at earth. Photon detectors can be made extremely sensitive, so as long as you manage to direct a few photons a second towards earth, there would be a detectable signal which could be used to transfer data. Of course this means that you need to cram a fairly good laser with good optics into the microscopic probe. I suppose with an on-chip laser and optics this could be done and I suspect that the controls required to point the whole thing back at earth might end up heavier than the optics system. Nevertheless, this somewhat hints at the problem with this proposal: It barely works if you put in the best numbers ever achieved for every component with little margin for suboptimal performance. Putting this all together in a tiny package without making any compromises would be one hell of an engineering challenge.

As I said above, if you make this a multi-century mission, you could make everything a bit bigger and heavier. With these relaxed conditions, the chance for success would be much higher. But then there would be the risk that if we wait 50 years, we might be able to engineer a probe that overtakes the multi-century mission, which would then be next to useless.

So the bandwidth will be a few kilobytes/hour at best and more realistically, by an order of magnitude less. A single picture will take days to transfer. Assuming the probe where every milligram counts will be able to carry camera and make pictures.

IMO the design of a (relatively) heavy automatic drone is more feasible. Something like an upgraded and faster version of Voyager, also sent on one-way mission.

 

[red_elk]

It would be much more practical to send a few millions of frozen embryos, plus an AI system that would take care of everything along the centuries or millennia long voyage. The AI would begin growing some 10s of embryos about 30 years before arriving, educating and training the resulting men\women to do all the colonization work and building stuff once there, the rest of embryos would be activated as needed.

Reminds me of "Beetle in the Anthill" novel, where a deep space expedition found a "sarcophagus" with human embryos left by unknown civilization. After a few days embryos begun to develop.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Reminds me of "Beetle in the Anthill" novel, where a deep space expedition found a "sarcophagus" with human embryos left by unknown civilization. After a few days embryos begun to develop.

I mostly took it from Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth.

 

[warpus]

My suspicion about the Fermi paradox

See, what I think is going on is this.. IMO There are 4 types of species of intelligent life out there:

A. Those species who don't manage to survive long enough to colonize their solar system or beyond, so we never see any evidence of them
B. Those species who become technologically advanced but don't feel the need to colonize anything, so we never see any evidence of them
C. Those species who have colonized their solar system and possibly beyond, but they are smart and mask their presence as best as they can, so we never see any evidence of them
D. Those species who have colonized their solar system and possibly beyond but aren't as smart as C.

So basically we are only looking for civilizations of type D. I suspect most civilizations are simply not stupid enough to do that, so they hide. So we're looking around hoping to find space morons, while most of the smartie civs are staying hidden from view

Unfortunately we are one of the "space moron" type civilizations for now. Hopefully that will change as we start colonizing our solar system.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I've thought on it a lot, and I feel that any successful mission to colonize another world has to start with 10s of 1000s of colonists on the first ship. This would, of course, be prohibitively expensive. So I don't see it happening.

DNA and reconstitute them when you get there.

 

[Broken_Erika]

So, essentially we are looking for these guys?

 

[Berzerker]

reminds me of building the spaceship in civ, first launch doesn't mean first to arrive... We could launch a ship and later discover a faster means of getting there and still beat the first ship

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moving bodies across the universe is way too difficult. Entanglement is the best path. Move our minds quickly and easily. We just have to work on the science to do that.

 

[Berzerker]

we just need to eat the spice melange

 

[timtofly]

There's probably aliens out there who live to be millions of years old, who can easily travel the distance between the stars without having to worry about building generational ships.

I bet there's also ways to travel through parts of space-time we haven't discovered yet

Who would come here to watch us though? Would you fly to Africa to watch an anthill for a couple hours, then go home? If they came here, they came here for other reasons, and we just happen to be here

I am thinking, why would ants in Africa decide to visit warpus in Canada? I am sure some have contemplated it. Seriously though, the comparison is probably easier for the ants to accomplish than current humans doing interstellar travel.

 

[warpus]

That's the point, ants in Africa can't think on such a level, their thinking is limited to parameters far less complex than our own thought processes. If somebody flies here to our solar system from another solar system, they're going to be a lot more advanced than we are, we can't pretend to know what the hell they're going to be after. For all we know they're just here on vacation, someplace quiet

 

[red_elk]

That's the point, ants in Africa can't think on such a level, their thinking is limited to parameters far less complex than our own thought processes. If somebody flies here to our solar system from another solar system, they're going to be a lot more advanced than we are, we can't pretend to know what the hell they're going to be after. For all we know they're just here on vacation, someplace quiet

If there are aliens with much more advanced thinking, so that we are on the level of ants comparing to them, it means we would most likely never know about their existence even if they are right here watching us. Just like ants have no idea that it's a supreme being capable of space travel who is pouring molten aluminium in their anthill.

On the other hand, if aliens visit us, they won't necessary be much more intellectually advanced than us. Technologically yes, but the humans who invented the wheel had the same brain and intelligence as we do.

 

[Cutlass]

DNA and reconstitute them when you get there.

Then they aren't useful until they grow up and get trained. You need enough survivors of the first wave to grow the food and overcome all the deathtraps to make that an option.

 

[Hrothbern]

On the other hand, if aliens visit us, they won't necessary be much more intellectually advanced than us. Technologically yes, but the humans who invented the wheel had the same brain and intelligence as we do.

With Dune in my head, I am not that sure about that.

Consider the popularity of all these movies where people are upgraded like already the 6-million dollar man and upgraded to high strenght fighting machines up to higher intelligence and even disabling conscience (Jason Bourne).
Split that up and you get AI drones for simple functions as fighting machines and on the other track for a small niche, mentat like entities, be it AI or bio-engineered humans, for extreme IQ and data processing.

Against the time our tech advancement is enabling interstellar, I think that governments will have developed both of these kinds of specialists to increase tech development and as mentats to the managers, that can pick from high level brains at need.
Bio-engineered meddling in brain DNA and brain development will for sure generate many freaks that are not or less productive, but that will, I think, not stop that development.

Brought to a more extreme control:
I guess that such governments are not really interested in having uncontrolled IQ's of more than 110-130 among the population, enough to satisfy normal tasks needed in a steady state society.
But having their own controlled niche stock of 160-200+ will be a game changer in their competitive and controlling power.

 

[red_elk]

It's possible that they genetically engineer themselves into having 200+ IQ or develop strong AI or whatever. I only mean they not necessary have to be god-like creatures so that we are like ants comparing to them. Native Americans comparing to European colonists sounds more likely.

 

[gozpel]

There you go, Good Sarmatian, you set the bar!

Your ideas is almost never heard of, but I have seen some of those thoughts, and while I don't understand, some people do.

We have no Einstein or Tesla in this group, but way abound theories is what we need, it is called brainstorming.

I take your idea as serious. I take any good idea as serious and also the fails. If you can't prove it, it is possible.

 

[Zardnaar]

For aliens I wonder if the timelines don't match up. In theory there would be a lot of earlike planets. But.

The earth is 4 billion years old.
The universe is 13 bilion years old.

As a species we are a few hundred years old, using radios just over 100 years.

So you would need 2 civilisations with something like radio telescopes being within 20-50 light years to communicate with each other that have evolved in roughly the same amount of time in that region of time and space. Assuming you had another earth like planets somewhere in the universe that evolved at the same rate as we did the 1st sentient life evolved around 9 billion years ago.

Maybe they had a better shot than we did and did not get hit by an asteroid or whatever and shaved 200 million years off that timescale. Even if such a sentient race did not destroy themselves with nukes, climate change etc they could naturally evolve, devolve or die out due to whatever reason.

Its not just intelligent life its getting two species being in the same narrow time frame that give or take 200 years one of them would be completely oblivious to the other. For example maybe we have some humans on a different planet 200 years behind us, we can't detect them and they can't detect our radio telescopes maybe in 150 years they develop the means to communicate and if they are 20 light years away we might hear from them 170 years from now, send a reply and hear back from them 40 years after that.

In the galactic timescale though I think that is kind of a remote possibility.

 

[Hrothbern]

It's possible that they genetically engineer themselves into having 200+ IQ or develop strong AI or whatever. I only mean they not necessary have to be god-like creatures so that we are like ants comparing to them. Native Americans comparing to European colonists sounds more likely.

Fully agree that it is not necessary.
And in the clashes to come not even likely that the alien natives will see them. Just like the European colonists clashing with the native Americans were ordinary, mostly low educated lower class, people
And the ruling class, certainly the operational part, in whatever political or power system will I guess be quite normal.
Perhaps some social IQ tinkering if heritage or upper class cast systems are in place.

But it sounds as almost inevitable to happen that these specialised brain pets are developed.
And I guess, I am afraid, not really god-like.
More modern versions of Vulcanus than Zeus.
Dune describes an I think effective way to separate these freak specialists from the bulk of society:
The Guild Navigators were addicted to spice and could only live in their tanks.

EDIT
and thinking that concept of separation through.
In Dune the Sardaukar are the privileged enforcers of the imperial throne, but also completely separated from the people because of their raising on their home planet. Generating a max in-group Code and loyalty to the throne.

Sardaukar were trained from infancy on the atomics-devastated world of Salusa Secundus. Salusa was supposedly a prison-planet, but was also home to their secret military training facility. Here they underwent the most brutal and rigorous training schemes imaginable, whilst they simultaneously struggled to stay alive on Salusa's devastated surface. Only six out of thirteen individuals were said to survive past the age of eleven, and those that did began to show traits of cruelty and soullessness. This training paralleled that of Spartan Warriors, who were indoctrinated cruelly in order give them a sense of "unit", an "edge" and a mythos that defeated their enemies before battle was even enjoined. Chances are that Sociopathic personal traits were cultivated in order to build "soulless killers" who obeyed orders without question but who were still dependent upon "Chain of Command".

After all
Social cohesion of a people as a whole is always dangerous to an elite state.
The only social cohesion you want as an elite state is within the groups you fully control and keep separated from each other and the masses.
The masses need to be kept at the minimal lowest sustainable level of social cohesion.
High enough at family scale and absent at the granular levels of governing.
Only competitive chaufinism allowed to a low level degree as safety valve and monitoring window. Sports being perfect.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

For aliens I wonder if the timelines don't match up. In theory there would be a lot of earlike planets. But.

The earth is 4 billion years old.
The universe is 13 bilion years old.

As a species we are a few hundred years old, using radios just over 100 years.

So you would need 2 civilisations with something like radio telescopes being within 20-50 light years to communicate with each other that have evolved in roughly the same amount of time in that region of time and space. Assuming you had another earth like planets somewhere in the universe that evolved at the same rate as we did the 1st sentient life evolved around 9 billion years ago.

Maybe they had a better shot than we did and did not get hit by an asteroid or whatever and shaved 200 million years off that timescale. Even if such a sentient race did not destroy themselves with nukes, climate change etc they could naturally evolve, devolve or die out due to whatever reason.

Its not just intelligent life its getting two species being in the same narrow time frame that give or take 200 years one of them would be completely oblivious to the other. For example maybe we have some humans on a different planet 200 years behind us, we can't detect them and they can't detect our radio telescopes maybe in 150 years they develop the means to communicate and if they are 20 light years away we might hear from them 170 years from now, send a reply and hear back from them 40 years after that.

In the galactic timescale though I think that is kind of a remote possibility.

Exactly. Universe is huge in the 4 dimensions we know. We living things are tiny in the 4 dimensions and must coincide in space and time, which is highly unlikely, even if there are many of us. What if the the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs delayed evolution by 60 millions years and the galactic civilization boom already happened long ago and now we are late to the party.