3 ms·
Technology is one thing, and the article has basically assume 2 order of magnitude better than anything that is currently somewhat achievable. But really, Earth
by gutnor 10y ago
Technology is one thing, and the article has basically assume 2 order of magnitude better than anything that is currently somewhat achievable. But really, Earth has still millions of years of habitability, so really the limitation is not spending 200 years to send a probe and a few thousands in a space ship.
The key limitation here is obviously political stability, and in that area progress are counted in hundreds of years. We need something that fit within a tiny fraction of a single human life, because any plan longer than that is highly improbable, not because of physic, because of human.
- cstross 10y agoBingo. See also: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/institutional_longevity.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/07/institut...
- radu_floricica 10y ago> We need something that fit within a tiny fraction of a single human life This can be worked on from two directions. I'd be shocked if we didn't manage to make any progress into slowing down old age. With a 120 year old lifespan and the perspective finding things even better when you come back, people may be willing to invest 50 year into this.
- bhickey 10y ago> Earth has still millions of years of habitability The lower bound is probably 600m to 1bn years. By then the sun's luminosity will have increased enough to eventually boil off the oceans. To get over this hump we'd need to sequester or condense atmospheric water vapor. That'd push our planetary survival time out to about 3bn years.
- iwwr 10y agoWe would think that by such time people would have figured out artificial solar shading to keep the planet at a nice stable temperature for a long time. This could even be decades-away technology.