Interstellar travel?

[Thorgalaeg]

Lol. First one was a obvious case of operator being to lazy to deploy the stabilizer legs, second one goes beyond human understanding.

 

[red_elk]

Cranes are still designed for lifting things, not moving them large distances. 1500 tons is far beyond capacity of conventional haul trucks.

Max payload is 450 tons

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm still far from convinced of a good reason to positively believe there is any other life in the universe anywhere at all. But even if life is reasonably abundant (however you define that), it's still more than possible that we are the only species to have ever reached this level of intelligence/civilisation. It doesn't seem to be a particularly safe long term survival strategy, bringing with it as it does the not insignificant risks of completely destroying the ecosphere by one of various methods.

 

[Akka]

Even given all these limitations, there should still be a whole bunch of space-faring civilizations out there, given how insanely huge the universe is.

There is literally hundred of billions galaxies in the universe, each one separated by millions of light-years. Even if the universe has always been teeming with billions of space-faring species at any time, there is still only an infinitesimal chance that we can see any of them, cf the space-time window earlier in the thread.

I'm still far from convinced of a good reason to positively believe there is any other life in the universe anywhere at all.

Life elsewhere in the universe is a certainty. The universe is just far too big for this to not happen millions over millions of times.
INTELLIGENT life is a whole another matter, and space-faring life... that's the big question.

But even if life is reasonably abundant (however you define that), it's still more than possible that we are the only species to have ever reached this level of intelligence/civilisation. It doesn't seem to be a particularly safe long term survival strategy, bringing with it as it does the not insignificant risks of completely destroying the ecosphere by one of various methods.

Yep, that's where the Great Filter has most chances to come from.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Life elsewhere in the universe is a certainty. The universe is just far too big for this to not happen millions over millions of times.

I think this statement is wrong, but we* went over this ad nauseam in another thread so I wasn't wanting to get into it again here.

*not necessarily me and you, but me and other people. I don't remember who.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

From most realistic to unrealistic:

1. Generation ships. ← achievable now
2. Seed ships.
3. Suspended animation. ← plausible
4. Remotely operated drones or organisms.
5. The speed of light is not the maximum. ← a challange to the present dogmas
6. Wormholes, teleportation, magic and everything else. ← unreal

Not sure where to put #4 + mind copying.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Cranes are still designed for lifting things, not moving them large distances. 1500 tons is far beyond capacity of conventional haul trucks.

Max payload is 450 tons

You are using the wrong equipment there. For moving ultraheavy loads there are self-propelled modular transporters (SPMT) that can carry almost any weight. Even whole ships of 10000 or 20000 tons.

 

[red_elk]

A decent chance remains that there is extraterrestrial life somewhere in Solar system.
As for intelligent life, whether it exists on Earth is still an open question.

 

[Lillefix]

You are using the wrong equipment there. For moving ultraheavy loads there are self-propelled modular transporters (SPMT) that can carry almost any weight. Even whole ships of 10000 or 20000 tons.

How would you lift something like that on the transport in the first place?

 

[Thorgalaeg]

How would you lift something like that on the transport in the first place?

Move the ship into a dry dock, place a special platform under it, pour off the water, then drive the SPMT under it and drop the ship. I have seen it in first person. The whole process takes several days.

And if the thing to move cant float you can always use one of these which can lift +20,000 tons.

 

[warpus]

There is literally hundred of billions galaxies in the universe, each one separated by millions of light-years. Even if the universe has always been teeming with billions of space-faring species at any time, there is still only an infinitesimal chance that we can see any of them, cf the space-time window earlier in the thread.

Sure, but if there's so many sparefaring civilizations out there, they must be all dying out or stopping their expansion.. or hiding. Or there aren't so many space faring civilizations out there

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I mean... it's all very interesting to speculate upon and everything, but it doesn't feel as though it's actually necessary to come up with reasons for why we can't see something that we've essentially made up in the first place.

 

[warpus]

I mean... it's all very interesting to speculate upon and everything, but it doesn't feel as though it's actually necessary to come up with reasons for why we can't see something that we've essentially made up in the first place.

We didn't make up life, life definitely exists and is capable of evolving into things like us.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

We definitely made up spacefaring alien civilisations. Which doesn't mean they don't actually exist of course, we've "made up" plenty of things which have later actually been discovered, but it does mean that there's no real requirement to explain why we haven't seen them yet.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Perhaps space aliens are made of dark matter.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

This is the crazy space exploration thread, where even speculation about speculation is ok. For finicky facts lovers there is the space cadets thread.

 

[warpus]

We definitely made up spacefaring alien civilisations. Which doesn't mean they don't actually exist of course, we've "made up" plenty of things which have later actually been discovered, but it does mean that there's no real requirement to explain why we haven't seen them yet.

If we haven't detected any yet because they simply don't exist, then yeah, that's a valid solution to the Fermi Paradox alright. Just a highly improbable one

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If we haven't detected any yet because they simply don't exist, then yeah, that's a valid solution to the Fermi Paradox alright. Just a highly improbable one

Well, as already covered, I disagree strongly with this statement.

 

[warpus]

Well, as already covered, I disagree strongly with this statement.

IMO it's a bit crazy to assume we are the only living things in this universe. What makes you think we are so special?

We used to think we're the centre of the universe.. we used to think our sun was the only star in the universe.. then we used to think our solar system was the only one in existence.. then we used to think our galaxy was the only one in existence..

 

[Manfred Belheim]

IMO it's a bit crazy to assume we are the only living things in this universe. What makes you think we are so special?

This isn't an accurate representation of what I think or anything I've said. But like I said, we went through all this before and I don't want to do it all again in this thread.