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NASA launches 100-year quest to send humans to the stars
- ghotli 15y agoThis should reside under the foundation of the long now. Funded by wealthy visionaries backed by corporations instead of governments.
- ghotli 15y agoDownvotes? Care to explain?
- thebooktocome 15y agoPrediction: funding runs dry after five years. I think only a few religious/academic institutions have managed to have ambitious projects in the 100-year range.
- wladimir 15y agoI also have my hopes on commercial spaceflight these days, I don't think NASA is going anywhere anymore.
- Flenser 15y agoI think only a few religious/academic institutions have managed to have ambitious projects in the 100-year range. I'd be genuinely interested to hear if you could name any.
- arethuza 15y agoConstruction of cathedrals often takes a long time - look at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, started in 1883 and still being worked on (although it has been consecrated): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
- groby_b 15y agoMeh. That's not even 200 years. Short by Cathedral standards. Cologne Cathedral: 1248-1880 My favorite example to bring up when my boss complains about schedule overrun :)
- phunel 15y agoI second Arethuza, if you count construction projects there are some impressive long term projects. Some, such as Chichen Itza (400yrs) or Stonehenge (1,600yrs), have direct scientific significance as well.
- theclay 15y agoThe first edition of the OED took about 70 years (starting in the mid 1800's) if I recall. Newer editions are still being edited.
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoDutch water projects have lasted for decades?
- Flenser 15y agofunny coincidence, I caught part of a documentary about that last night.
- nathanmarz 15y agoThe Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is a good example. One of the most fascinating things about this cathedral was that they had no idea how they were going to build the dome when they started building it (the construction techniques weren't advanced enough at the time). They had faith that someone in a later generation would figure it out. That person turned out to be Filippo Brunelleschi, one of the greatest engineers of that time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral
- simonsarris 15y agoSome people have already said a few, but I can add: Great wall from 400BC - 1600AD Angkor Wat 800AD - 1200AD Chichen Itza 600AD - 1000AD York Minster Cathedral 1220 - 1472AD
- synnik 15y ago... and that is exactly how funding would have to work -- tied to an ongoing organization's operations. Academia has their endowments and perma-fundraising. Religions have donations and tithing. This effort would need an analogous long term funding source. My first thought is that if 1% of all renewable energy revenue was sent to this effort, it would provide potentially massive funding as renewable energy grows. I don't know how to convince the greedy energy folk to give up 1%, but it sure sounds nice.
- bdunbar 15y agoThis effort would need an analogous long term funding source. No need to re-invent the wheel: turn the problem over to the religious. The Roman Catholics has a long organizational history, millions of adherents, a large and functional bureaucracy, familiarity with generations-long projects. Also, they speak Latin which will jazz things up. I suppose Rome needs a reason _why_ to pursue this. - Long-term people will be in space. They'll need ministry. - If you're looking for the ultimate in isolation from wordly concerns for your religious, you can't beat the Oort Cloud.
- alanfalcon 15y agoRoman Catholics, outside of Gene Roddenberry's religion-free vision of the future, often seem to end up in space. In the Speaker for the Dead series, they were attempting to convert a whole other species. In Altered Carbon, they were still on spaceships trying to catch up to the distant stars since they weren't allowed to use subspace transmission (needlecasting) to transfer their consciousness (because of issues with their souls). In either scenario, you could make the case that they'd have a vested interest in being the first or best at creating interstellar space travel.
- bdunbar 15y agothey'd have a vested interest in being the first or best at creating interstellar space travel. I've privately thought the Church needs to only aim a little lower: develop cheap access to space, then terraform Mars. One billion and change, tithing a modest 1% of their income per year can put a lot of money in the kitty.
- jeffool 15y agoAs great as it is in theory, even agreeing with thebooktocom that it'll likely not happen... It hurts a bit knowing we'll never settle another planet in my lifetime.
- arethuza 15y ago"in my lifetime" First invent (effective) immortality then travel to the stars.
- weavejester 15y agoI was about to suggest the same approach. Immortality seems an easier problem to solve than building a starship, and travelling between stars becomes a lot easier if we're not bothered about bringing our organic bodies along.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago> Immortality seems an easier problem to solve than building a starship Why do you think so?
- weavejester 15y agoImmortality is essentially a question of understanding a collection of cells well enough to transfer their state to a more robust medium. Performing experiments on cells is relatively cheap, and medical research is generally very well funded. On the other hand, a viable starship would require a considerable amount of energy. We'd need to be comfortable travelling within our own solar system, because we're not going to get the amount of energy required from Earth. The best option so far is probably to park some 100km wide solar panels close to the Sun, store up energy for a year, and then use some rather large laser beams to convert that energy into a million ton blackhole. We'd then have a portable generator powerful enough to get us to another star. So my guess is that we'll figure our immortality long before we can seriously think about building a starship.
- helwr 15y agoThe trough is too long: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/576530/kickstarter/u_shape_full.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/576530/kickstarter/u_shape_full.png See "Kickstarter: Shorter project durations lead to higher funding rates": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684511 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2684511 They'd be better off investing in nuclear propulsion R&D on a 5-10 year scale (Project Rover, phase IV): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Rover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Rover
- rbanffy 15y agoIf civilian nuclear power gets replaced by other forms of power generation, we'd have a surplus of rocket fuel. If present sentiment continues, investing in nuclear-thermal propulsion could result in something interesting. Maybe I should start lobbying against nuclear power ;-) However, before we start, we should have some clear, economically viable, destinations. An NTR is worthless for launching stuff to orbit and that is 99.999% of what current rockets do. Where it shines is in Earth-Moon ferries and in planetary exploration.
- juiceandjuice 15y agoI did a rough guesstimate, and in order to get a space ship the size of the Space Shuttle to Alpha Centauri in under 100 years and stop it, you need probably about 20x10^18 J of energy, assuming roughly 1% efficiency of mass to kinetic energy propulsion and with minimal effects due to relativity. I don't think this number is off by more than two orders of magnitude, but it's probably still much too conservative. That's a lot of energy, about 10 times more than all nuclear explosions ever. Close to half your mass would be fuel at 1% efficiency.
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- rbanffy 15y agoI assume NASA is saying they want a launch in less than 100 years, not getting there in 100 years. Getting there in less than a 100 years is woefully unrealistic. Anyway, we would gain so much just by having better propulsion capabilities, I am in, even if we don't launch an interstellar probe in 100 years. I'll be happy with a soccer-field-sized optical telescope in space.
- thrillgore 15y agoSadly the Space Core's ability to add (and maybe subtract) was removed at manufacturing. This would set him up for the fall as NASA's first non-human, albeit humanly insane administrator.
- waratuman 15y agoThis isn't NASA launching a quest, this is NASA / DARPA asking some else to take up the quest.
- DonnyV 15y agoI would say spend the money on teleportation using entanglement. That would probably produce results faster then trying to move a large mass from one side of the universe to the other.
- wunderfool 15y agoare you volunteering to be the first human test subject?
- weavejester 15y agoQuantum teleportation doesn't solve the problem of having to send mass across the universe.
- DonnyV 15y agoReally...whats cheaper and easier to build. A ship to keep people alive for 50yrs or tiny cargo ship to send the other side of the teleporter?
- bellaire 15y agoBuild me a quantum teleporter, then we can compare masses.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoI guess we'll find out when we build one of each. Until then, it's like asking what's easier to build, a heavier-than-air flying vessel, or a magic carpet?
- weavejester 15y agoIt would be a lot less work to convert the people into software, and then transmit them via a normal laser beam to a receiving station.
- Joakal 15y agoRelevant, Project Icarus (A Joint Tau Zero Foundation & British Interplanetary Society Initiative): http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/ http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/
- wunderfool 15y agonasa is trying to stay relevant, but the truth is they themselves are turning to unmanned probes to explore our near neighborhood. indeed unmanned expeditions now appear to be their most fruitful humans are not leaving this planet. we have co-evolved with the earth and we cannot survive without it. all of our manned excursions into space have taught us the same lesson over and over: man cannot survive in space. i find it amusing that people believe that humans can prosper on a planet circling another star yet we routinely see people dying just from the impact of traveling to another continent. humans can't even survive long term on this planet unless a temperature remains in a narrow band...how do you expect to pick some planet out in space based on spectral analysis and expect you would not die nearly-instantly upon arriving? we're fragile. we were not built for space travel, and we aren't going to evolve to prosper in space, earth itself will become inhospitable in the time that would take and humanity will likely vanish. i often hear the refrain that man once thought that crossing the oceans was impossible too...but this has been beaten to death: scale matters. travelling to another star is not comparable to crossing the ocean, even modulo technology. something from this planet might one day land on another planet, but it will be a robot. just as it is a sign of maturity to accept one's own mortality, it is a sign of species maturity to recognize that we as a species will have a finite span
- perfunctory 15y agoWhen I was a kid I was promised that in the 21st century we would have flying cars, hotels on Mars and space scouts exploring the galaxy back and forth. I am in the 21st century now and what do I get ... facebook? They've stolen my future. I want my future back. Cold war was fun.
- jerf 15y agoIt's 2011. Don't you think "where's my flying car" is getting a bit played out? It's in middle school.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago> Cold war was fun. On your side of the curtain, maybe.
- perfunctory 15y agoI just meant that human progress seems to be driven by warfare more than by anything else.
- wlievens 15y agoYeah technologoy has made zero progress since 1991. Sent from my iPhone
- jamesshamenski 15y agoThe citizens equivalent would be to offer a $500,000 dollar prize for the best idea to figure out how to turn myself into a quadrillionaire.
- indrax 15y agoThe interesting thing is that they're not asking for innovative ideas about spaceflight, which you might expect from DARPA. They're asking for ideas on optimal management and alternative funding for big long term projects. Spaceflight is just a widget example.
- bugsy 15y agoYou know, $500,000 is less than it costs a developer to buy a decent medium sized duplex house within reasonable commuting distance to a tech job in San Jose. I don't really see $500k as an indication of any serious interest at all. It might as well be a grant for $37 plus whatever change, lint and gumdrops the proposal author happened to have in his pocket that day.