The thread for space cadets!

[warpus]

Ahh.. If it was only antimatter then I'd be somewhat excited, but this sort of makes the proposal very "magical fairy land" like

 

[SouthernKing]

Meh, the Alcubierre isn't possible without exotic matter either. And I have serious doubts about exotic matter being possible to create at all. Nothing really new here.

 

[Crezth]

I don't mean to be flippant, but there is a lot of wishful thinking on the part of theorists in this area. I have no problem with this. I just wish the media would stop reporting the research like it's around the corner.

The media does far worse with much more; aka you're preaching to the choir.

I also wouldn't go so far as to call exotic matter probable, but will cede this point to an expert.

Perhaps that's why we have theoretical physicists hammering the issue out, not mere rocketeers.

Unless we're a freak of Nature, the Galaxy must have at least dozens of other intelligent species existing in parallel to us. Depending on which variables you fill in the equation, the number will range between dozens and millions of civilizations. If each developed a warp drive relatively quickly after first achieving spaceflight (let's say 200 years), they'd spread across the galaxy in a matter of a few thousand years.

Still making assumptions, such as that intelligence is inevitable nevermind common, and that we aren't a freak of nature. It's worth pointing out that, of every countless species and mutations on this planet, only a very small branch of a very specific family of apes developed into sapient creatures. There's nothing to suggest that intelligence is the absolute destiny of life on a planet. Maybe a distinct and growing possibility as time goes on, sure, but we only have a sample of one to work with.

But, you got your Goldilocks planets that probably have plenty of carbon and nitrogen and water or whatever. Life can start there, I buy that; I mean let's assume life is not terribly uncommon so as to be effectively rare, and that civilizations pop up 3 billion years after First Gestation. Bam. The notion that we'd have been crisscrossed dozens of times over by civilizations having discovered the warp drive if it were - what's your objection? That it's "right around the corner" or something? Well, hell, landing on the moon is "right around the corner" from cuneiform in a cosmic sense. Why would it matter if warp drive was 50 years from now or 1000 years from now by this objection?

Now your other points are a capable argument against this, simply from an ex nihilo standpoint, but I don't think it's as conclusive a refutation as you like. For starters, there's a lot of stuff in the galaxy. Even assuming short travel times with warp tech, let's say 8 weeks to 4 light years, and assuming a standard galactic density such that the average distance between stars is 3.5 light years, for 300 billion stars that roughs up to about 600 billion weeks, or 11.5 billion years (11,500,862,564 to be exact). Holy Moses, son. The universe has barely been around that long. So, yeah. Not exactly seeing these interstellar criss-crossers here, there, and everywhere, even if they were warping space and time to break parity with light.

I don't know if the warp drive is possible. That's above my pay grade. But I do know that, if it were possible and we had it tomorrow, we'd still have a lot of exploring ahead of us.

Now I realize that these assumption may be completely false, but since we don't have anything better, I prefer to go with them.

Not true! Scientists much better educated than I have had a go at this issue in all respects - from the biological rarity of life in the universe, to the logistical limitations of any rare species managing to comb all 300 billion stars in the galaxy, to the viability of the warp drive. Yeah, some of it is rather crackpot stuff, but to assert there's "nothing better" only to make wild assumptions is totally bonkers!

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, antimatter might as well be exotic matter given our utter inability to produce more than nanoscopic amounts of it

I think if you charted our progress in making it, it would be a geometric series! I fully expect to someday be using anti-matter. Not anytime soon, of course, but someday.

So, in addition to joining the ISEC, to provide grassroots support, I also like the Planetary Society. They've used their donations to do actual experiments regarding space, so it's a way of leveraging our own dollars into progress. More useful than buying soda!

 

[Winner]

Still making assumptions, such as that intelligence is inevitable nevermind common, and that we aren't a freak of nature. It's worth pointing out that, of every countless species and mutations on this planet, only a very small branch of a very specific family of apes developed into sapient creatures. There's nothing to suggest that intelligence is the absolute destiny of life on a planet. Maybe a distinct and growing possibility as time goes on, sure, but we only have a sample of one to work with.

We are not the only sapient species on this planet. There are other species with pretty advanced intelligence that could evolve into a civilized species. Given that it only took about 5 million years to evolve humans from something very close to chimps to a species capable of sending automated probes to the edge of the solar system, I think it's pretty safe to assume that intelligence is bound to evolve in any reasonably diverse biosphere. Earth's is still pretty young, only about 500 million years of the good stuff (multicellular, complex, and eventually land-dwelling life). Earth will probably be able to sustain it for another 500-1000 million years. If our sun wasn't so short-lived, it could last for billions of years. Plenty of time to evolve successions of sapient lifeforms.

But, you got your Goldilocks planets that probably have plenty of carbon and nitrogen and water or whatever. Life can start there, I buy that; I mean let's assume life is not terribly uncommon so as to be effectively rare, and that civilizations pop up 3 billion years after First Gestation. Bam. The notion that we'd have been crisscrossed dozens of times over by civilizations having discovered the warp drive if it were - what's your objection? That it's "right around the corner" or something? Well, hell, landing on the moon is "right around the corner" from cuneiform in a cosmic sense. Why would it matter if warp drive was 50 years from now or 1000 years from now by this objection?

I'll re-phrase it again.

Assuming no FTL travel, a civilization achieving interstellar flight capability would need hundreds of thousands or millions of years to reach every corner of our Galaxy, depending on which fraction of c is practical for travel. So, even without warp drive, we should have been colonized by now if intelligent life is common. Why haven't we?

Well, my explanation for this is that as civilization proceeds to the god-like levels of technology, their need, will, or psychological drive to physically colonize other planets recedes (wild speculation, I know). Thus, any such civilization probably loses interest in colonization long before it reaches every corner of our Galaxy.

Now, if warp drives were easy, civilizations not that far from us in terms of technological, social, and spiritual development would have the opportunity to reach every corner of our Galaxy in a matter of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of years (depending on how "fast" such a warp drive were - if you could go 1000c, you'd traverse the Galaxy in 100 years). We would literally have to bump into guys who'd be only "slightly" (let's say, 100 or 200 years ahead of us), and still very much interested in physical colonization and exploitation of Galactic resources.

Yet we have no record that that has ever occurred. No big black monoliths on the Moon, no trash dumps there, no remnants of outposts, no signs of terraforming/habitation on Mars, no alien artifacts on Earth or signs that something has meddled with the natural flow of evolution on this planet.

So, either the aliens were all very peaceful, careful, and they tidied up very thoroughly after their visits, or they simply weren't to our Solar System. Occam's razor tells me I should go with the latter.

To me, this is an indication (not proof!) that FTL is either impossible, or there are severe limitations to who and when can develop and utilize it.

Now your other points are a capable argument against this, simply from an ex nihilo standpoint, but I don't think it's as conclusive a refutation as you like. For starters, there's a lot of stuff in the galaxy. Even assuming short travel times with warp tech, let's say 8 weeks to 4 light years, and assuming a standard galactic density such that the average distance between stars is 3.5 light years, for 300 billion stars that roughs up to about 600 billion weeks, or 11.5 billion years (11,500,862,564 to be exact). Holy Moses, son. The universe has barely been around that long. So, yeah. Not exactly seeing these interstellar criss-crossers here, there, and everywhere, even if they were warping space and time to break parity with light.

I think your calculation is based on (a couple of) wrong assumptions

Not true! Scientists much better educated than I have had a go at this issue in all respects - from the biological rarity of life in the universe, to the logistical limitations of any rare species managing to comb all 300 billion stars in the galaxy, to the viability of the warp drive. Yeah, some of it is rather crackpot stuff, but to assert there's "nothing better" only to make wild assumptions is totally bonkers!

I am speaking about *evidence*. We have no evidence of past or present extraterrestrial presence in this Solar System, period.

I think if you charted our progress in making it, it would be a geometric series! I fully expect to someday be using anti-matter. Not anytime soon, of course, but someday.

Geometric series' only work in maths and microbiology. To make anti-matter in the quantities we need to do fun stuff in space (kilos and tonnes of the stuff), we'd need far more energy that our whole civilization produces in a year. That assuming we'd be able to store it, which is a wholly different matter

So, in addition to joining the ISEC, to provide grassroots support, I also like the Planetary Society. They've used their donations to do actual experiments regarding space, so it's a way of leveraging our own dollars into progress. More useful than buying soda!

I agree, the Planetary Society is awesome

 

[Crezth]

We are not the only sapient species on this planet. There are other species with pretty advanced intelligence that could evolve into a civilized species. Given that it only took about 5 million years to evolve humans from something very close to chimps to a species capable of sending automated probes to the edge of the solar system, I think it's pretty safe to assume that intelligence is bound to evolve in any reasonably diverse biosphere. Earth's is still pretty young, only about 500 million years of the good stuff (multicellular, complex, and eventually land-dwelling life). Earth will probably be able to sustain it for another 500-1000 million years. If our sun wasn't so short-lived, it could last for billions of years. Plenty of time to evolve successions of sapient lifeforms.

I disagree. I don't think we have enough evidence to work with (first of all) and there are many other successful species on our own planet that show no particular inclination to wanting or needing sapience.

Anyway, there are no other sapient species on the planet. Currently. There have been in the past - the neanderthals and what have you - but they're long gone now. Point being that there is still only one successful case study of a species that developed sapience. Even that might be a bit presumptuous because every nuclear weapon is still armed and pointed on a hair-trigger.

I'll re-phrase it again.

Assuming no FTL travel, a civilization achieving interstellar flight capability would need hundreds of thousands or millions of years to reach every corner of our Galaxy, depending on which fraction of c is practical for travel. So, even without warp drive, we should have been colonized by now if intelligent life is common. Why haven't we?

I expand upon this further, but the short answer is there's no time. Let's say they go to the bother of colonizing even if they travel absurdly fast. I doubt it's something that occurs in the same fraction of time as the coming or going voyage; in fact it'd likely take weeks to months to invest in any such operation in a significant way. The same goes for if you're just scanning. I might top it out at days or weeks at that point, but that adds up fast with 300 billion stars.

Now, if warp drives were easy, civilizations not that far from us in terms of technological, social, and spiritual development would have the opportunity to reach every corner of our Galaxy in a matter of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of years (depending on how "fast" such a warp drive were - if you could go 1000c, you'd traverse the Galaxy in 100 years). We would literally have to bump into guys who'd be only "slightly" (let's say, 100 or 200 years ahead of us), and still very much interested in physical colonization and exploitation of Galactic resources.

I want to reiterate that the raw speed of the warp drive is not the most important part. Scientists currently suppose that you can get about 2 weeks to the light year (my guess based on their inexact estimates, so take it how you will), which is pretty good but still nowhere near good enough for galactic exploration.

Let alone, as stated, colonization. It's a time-costly endeavor and not something I would ever expect given how truly massive the galaxy is.

Yet we have no record that that has ever occurred. No big black monoliths on the Moon, no trash dumps there, no remnants of outposts, no signs of terraforming/habitation on Mars, no alien artifacts on Earth or signs that something has meddled with the natural flow of evolution on this planet.

So, either the aliens were all very peaceful, careful, and they tidied up very thoroughly after their visits, or they simply weren't to our Solar System. Occam's razor tells me I should go with the latter.

The latter is most probably the case (IMO), however

To me, this is an indication (not proof!) that FTL is either impossible, or there are severe limitations to who and when can develop and utilize it.

you have limited explanations for this phenomenon to just the one that "obviously FTL is impossible or effectively impossible." (Paraphrasing). I think one cannot reject FTL offhand on this basis alone (on other basises (sp?), sure; I mean how would you preserve causality? This is the tack I think you guys should be taking), and that other equally sensible assumptions are that the universe is too big to effectively scan or that life/sapient life is too rare for cross-pollination to be an assumption.

I think your calculation is based on (a couple of) wrong assumptions

The quoted speed is an assumption based on an article (said give it weeks or months for a 4 ly trip, which I rounded to 8 weeks - you can make it 6 or 4 or 10 and still not get an answer that approximates feasibility), and the quoted galactic density is the number of stars in the galaxy divided by the galaxy's volume.

Yeah, it is speculation. But it's not at all unreasonable to use it as a case study to point out how ludicrous an assumption it is to guess that we should already have been visited by now. By what standards? What civilization has had the time to do any of this? I mean even if you want to reduce the travel time to some unthinkably small amount, any meaningful amount of scanning or combing of a star system is going to run you a nontrivial amount of time, to say nothing of the logistics of tossing black monoliths on every planet you visit. There's simply no reason to assume that alien civilizations in their long or short tenure should have visited us times over (if there is warp drive) just because it's fast. Yeah, it's fast, and the galaxy is freakin' big. It makes no difference.

I am speaking about *evidence*. We have no evidence of past or present extraterrestrial presence in this Solar System, period.

You said you prefer to go with your assumptions as opposed (I inferred) to expert supposition. Hence my objection on those grounds. We can make some rather educated guesses about the fate of civilization and the quality of extraterrestrial life.

 

[El_Machinae]

Geometric series' only work in maths and microbiology. To make anti-matter in the quantities we need to do fun stuff in space (kilos and tonnes of the stuff), we'd need far more energy that our whole civilization produces in a year. That assuming we'd be able to store it, which is a wholly different matter

Geometric series have also occurred in computing power, solar power efficiency, genetic sequencing technology. It remains to be seen if humanity's energy production is really a geometric trend

Once we expand into space, there's a lot of potential for increased growth.
Like I said, I don't expect it anytime soon.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@ET

There is also the possibility that we were visited and left alone, prime directive style. Can't rule that out.

Also, a species must not only be sentient, they must have a means of manipulating the environment to advance. That adds to the odds that there aren't a lot of ET civs out there. I would hesitate to call dolphins non-sentient, but since they don't have hands or tentacles they aren't ever going to advance.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

@ET

There is also the possibility that we were visited and left alone, prime directive style. Can't rule that out.

Also, a species must not only be sentient, they must have a means of manipulating the environment to advance. That adds to the odds that there aren't a lot of ET civs out there. I would hesitate to call dolphins non-sentient, but since they don't have hands or tentacles they aren't ever going to advance.

Maybe they just need time?

Maybe say, a few dozen millions of years?

If we don't kill them off, anyway.

 

[SouthernKing]

Nitpicking: A warp drive only refers to a certain type of FTL, that works by warping the space around it. The terms are not interchangable, as are also other types of FTL.

@FTL:

Some wikipedia browsing ended up with me seeing this. Similar to wormholes, it circumnavigates causality problems by only moving FTL to an outside frame of reference.

Speaking of wormholes - it may not be possible for us, but a sufficiently advanced civilization could be able to construct a transport network of them. Then again, problems with "is FTL possible at all?" ensue.

@stuff about colonization:

Simply put, with current data, there is no possible way to accurately estimate the number of candidate species that have developed intelligence. Even Francis Drake, who came up with the equation to try and calculate this, couldn't come up with a single number. You could get anywhere from zero to hundreds of billions, depending on what values you input. And the fact is, half of the necessary values are unknown.

We can't predict the behavior of alien species either - the only sources are science fiction and our imaginations. We can hypothesize, but we won't know until we actually find out. It's not something we can predict.

But while colonization of the galaxy is nigh impossible, colonization of local space is quite within reach, and any sufficiently advanced civilization (unless said civilization WMDs itself into oblivion if it's anything like humanity) could pull it off. But unless FTL is possible and convenient, each star system would pretty much be isolated from the rest. Even if sublight travel and speeds close to light was possible, you run into all sorts of problems with time dilation. In such cases, if there was any overarching authority at all it would be decentralized to an extreme. Perhaps this is part of the solution to the Fermi paradox?

As for humans, there are a descent number of exploration-worthy star systems within reach. Gliese 581 (22 light years away) comes to mind.

On another tangent...

Perhaps we have been contacted already? Disregarding anything to do with UFOs, there are at least two candidate signals (the first one is probably better) that have been picked up by SETI. Neither came from a known star, and both had frequencies of about 1420 MHz. (That last part is important)

Of course, either could be a human signal that was accidentally detected. But that particular wavelength is reserved for astronomical/scientific use, probably because it is the wavelength of the hydrogen line (the frequency emitted by a change in the energy state of a hydrogen atom), which has been fingered as a possible hint that the source is intelligent, since the wavelength of the hydrogen line is a universal value.

If that wasn't enough, consider that the Wow signal was detected at two different wavelengths both an equal distance from the hydrogen line.

If you don't want to read wiki, here's a good article about it.

@ET

There is also the possibility that we were visited and left alone, prime directive style. Can't rule that out.

You're referring to what is known as the zoo hypothesis. While it sounds dumb and basically made for the sole purpose of science fiction, there could be some truth to this. The Sun is currently passing through an interstellar cloud, a denser than average region of space. The effects this has on, say, a ship passing through at sublight speeds, are unknown, but an interstellar cloud could end up causing problems for travel, especially if FTL does not exist or the species in question is not advanced enough yet. In that case, avoiding the interstellar cloud would be an obvious course of action.

Also, a species must not only be sentient, they must have a means of manipulating the environment to advance. That adds to the odds that there aren't a lot of ET civs out there. I would hesitate to call dolphins non-sentient, but since they don't have hands or tentacles they aren't ever going to advance.

Quite. Chances are that somewhere an aquatic or avian creature will end up developing sapience. But at least on Earth, there is no real ecological niche that allows manipulation of the environment for anyone other than humans (with the exception of chimpanzees and maybe a few others I'm not thinking of), and that is on land. In other places, there is even less of a need for the capability to manipulate the environment.

As an example, there was a theory back in the 80s (I don't know if it's still around today) that life could develop deep in the atmosphere of a gas giant, where temperatures would be more congenial for life to develop, and requisite chemicals could exist. But as Clarke described it, it is an "evolutionary cul-de-sac," even if life there did develop intelligence it couldn't even reach the Stone Age. Similar problems occur when you come to avian and aquatic life, even on terrestrial worlds, simply because there isn't a need for such mechanisms there.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Octopi have tentacles and are very smart. It isn't inconceivable that they could have taken a different evolutionary path and achieved sapience. Thus, I don't discount aquatic intelligent ET's as you seem to do. Correct me if I'm wrong on my reading of your last couple of paragraphs.
Tentacles are great manipulators, trunks do ok as well. I'm sure there are otherd. Prehensile tails, tongues?

 

[SouthernKing]

Octopi have tentacles and are very smart. It isn't inconceivable that they could have taken a different evolutionary path and achieved sapience. Thus, I don't discount aquatic intelligent ET's as you seem to do. Correct me if I'm wrong on my reading of your last couple of paragraphs.

No, you read it right

Tentacles are still not as useful as opposable thumbs AFAIK though. I could see octopi being somewhat successful, but not as much as humans.
Even harder is actively trying to build much of anything on the seabed.

 

[Winner]

No, you read it right

Tentacles are still not as useful as opposable thumbs AFAIK though. I could see octopi being somewhat successful, but not as much as humans.
Even harder is actively trying to build much of anything on the seabed.

If a species like this achieved full sapience, it is conceivable its technological evolution would take a longer time - millions of years as opposed to thousands for humans. Natural selection would go hand in hand (tentacle in tentacle, you know what I mean) with technological evolution and eventually they would evolve their bodies to better manipulate the physical world.

We shouldn't be too wedded to the idea that the shape of our limbs is a prerequisite for the development of advanced technology.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, the biggest limitation is the lack of fire, really.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well, the biggest limitation is the lack of fire, really.

Maybe, but there is all kinds of interesting chemistry done in water. In fact, probably most of our chemistry is done in or with lots of water. So I wouldn't say they would be handicapped by lack of fire.

But yeah to Winner's point, other manipulators besides hands would work just as well. And tentacles really are outstanding as hand substitutes, better in some ways even.

 

[Winner]

So, I just read that the US will have spent over $320 billion when the development and procurement of the F-35 jet is (finally) concluded.

If we go with a reasonable cost estimate of a manned Mars mission at $50 billion (including development over a 10 year period), the US alone could have sent 6 crews to Mars. Since each subsequent mission would cost less than the first one, the real figure is probably close to 20. It would perhaps be enough to found a colony there

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I know, right!

Everyone who says colonization or even just a manned mission is too expensive don't know what they're talking about. The US and other nations could easily* do it. It's all about priorities.

*from a budgetary perspective

These reality TV show producers think they can get to a Mars colony with $30B:
http://www.space.com/16300-mars-one-reality-show-colony.html

Dutch company aims to land humans on Mars by 2023 as the first step toward establishing a permanent colony on the Red Planet.

The project, called Mars One, plans to drop four astronauts on Mars in April 2023. New members of the nascent colony will arive every two years after that, and none of the Red Planet pioneers will ever return to Earth.

To pay for all of this, Mars One says it will stage a media spectacle the likes of which the world has never seen — a sort of interplanetary reality show a la "Big Brother."

"This project seems to be the only way to fulfill humanity's dream to explore outer space," theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Gerard 't Hooft, an ambassador for Mars One, said in an introductory video posted on the company's website. "It is going to be an exciting experiment. Let's get started." [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

The plan

Mars One hopes to launch a communications satellite and a supply mission to Mars in 2016, then send a large rover to the Red Planet in 2018, according to the video.

This rover will scout out suitable sites for the new Mars colony. The company will then launch settlement components — such as habitat units, life-support equipment and another rover — in 2020. The two rovers will prepare the settlement for the arrival of the first humans in 2023.

Mars One officials say they've talked to a variety of private spaceflight companies around the world and have secured at least one potential supplier for each colony component.

They plan to launch many components on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, for example, which is expected to be the world's most powerful launch vehicle when it starts flying. The Falcon Heavy is still in development, and SpaceX officials have said the rocket's first test flight could come as early as next year.

A media spectacle

Mars One estimates that it will cost about $6 billion to put the first four astronauts on Mars. While this may seem like a daunting sum for a non-governmental entity, the company is confident it can raise the needed funds by selling corporate sponsorships.

"We will finance this mission by creating the biggest media event ever around it," Mars One co-founder Bas Landorp said in the video. "Everybody in the world can see everything that will happen in the preparations and on Mars."

If all goes according to Mars One's plans, companies looking to advertise will pay big bucks for that exposure.

"This is going to be a media spectacle; 'Big Brother' will pale in comparison," 't Hooft said. "The whole world will be watching and experience this journey."

Mars One will begin selecting its first group of astronauts in 2013, according to its website. Though the company just made its plans public in the last few weeks, it's been developing them in secret since January 2011, officials said.

Mars One isn't the only organization with its eyes on putting boots on Mars. President Barack Obama directed NASA to work on getting astronauts to the vicinity of the Red Planet by the mid-2030s, and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said his company hopes to fly people to Mars within the next 10 or 20 years.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So any current/past space programs you wonderful people want to talk about?
I love this thread!

 

[warpus]

Once China's manned space program is a bit more.. comprehensive, the U.S. might putting more emphasis on their space program.

If it wasn't for the Soviet space program, we wouldn't have had a man on the moon yet. The Americans just need somebody to compete against.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

True story. They are going about it slow and methodically, so it's taking time to come to fruition. But their will soon come a point where they are knocking down milestones fast and surpassing our capabilities as we have let our program lapse in some ways.