15 ms·
> before the advent of instant communication. But! Instant communication is not possible. :) This sounds like a nitpicking but this might become important if w
by krisoft 4y ago
> before the advent of instant communication.
But! Instant communication is not possible. :) This sounds like a nitpicking but this might become important if we spread out in space: We still have the light speed limit on communication.
Which of course means that our communication is practically instantaneous around all of earth. (at least when measured against human reaction times.) But if we would spread ourselves to let's say the Oort cloud you would see very serious lag in communication. Not just between Earth and the cloud, but between points on the Oort cloud.
Could the whole cloud ever be controlled by a single empire? Or would it break into a Voronoi diagram of "1 light month" large cells around points of interest?
- swagasaurus-rex 4y agoIs there enough matter for a serious political faction to subsist off of? The total mass of the asteroid belt is calculated to be 3% that of the Moon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt We only use a small fraction of matter on the Earth, so maybe a good sized comet can host habitation. But the solid planets and moons are where humanity could thrive. The gas giants have too a gravity well, we'd need some seriously advanced propulsion to make it off, but there's 317x more matter on Jupiter than Earth.