3 ms·

> Doesn't this breakdown at napkin math levels? Only in terms of cost; there's nothing that seems to be fundamentally unobtanium here. The question is whether

by mlyle 2y ago

> Doesn't this breakdown at napkin math levels? Only in terms of cost; there's nothing that seems to be fundamentally unobtanium here. The question is whether it can be come cheap enough to be viable.

dmbche 2y ago
I think the gram class probes with gram class sails that are a meter wide are outside the scope of feasibility today and would require unobtanium. Shielding too.
somenameforme 2y ago
> there's nothing that seems to be fundamentally unobtanium here Don't you think this is begging the question? The entire history of humanity is a lengthy series of discoveries that people of times past would have little reason to think possible, and in some cases are revolutionary enough that it would likely have been all but impossible for people of times past to even think of them. Then there's just the boring things, like aspirin. If not for the willow tree, it would not exist today. Ancient medicine dating back 2400+ years recommended chewing on willow bark to treat fever or pain, and indeed they were right. Of course we can now easily synthesize it, but that's not always a given for every compound or 'thing' imaginable, to say the least. For an obvious example, see: uranium. And now factor in how extremely negligible our knowledge of anything outside of our own planet is. We've been sending probes and rovers to Mars since 1962. We only discovered the soil on Mars was relatively moist (2% water by weight) in 2013! 50+ years to figure out there's water in the soil. And the latest drills can only go a couple of inches deep and are scarcely used in any case, because they tend to break. It's impossible to know what you don't know, but I see every reason to think that it's probably quite extensive. [1] - https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover.html https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-r...
- mlyle 2y ago
  ?? I think you've misread my post. I'm saying that the fundamental things required in order to launch gram-scale interstellar probes don't seem out of reach; that largely something close to the requirements could be made at great cost today, and making a mission practical is mostly about cost optimization and economies of scale. I think largely whether we do it in 50 years comes down to whether we've wiped out a lot of our economic output by then with strife, and whether we still consider exploration worthwhile to spend a lot of money and reources on.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    Haha, yeah I absolutely did. Reading his post and then your response it seemed to me to be a claim that there's nothing out there to discover, as opposed to there being nothing in the way of this means of exploration.

by mlyle 2y ago

dmbche 2y ago

I think the gram class probes with gram class sails that are a meter wide are outside the scope of feasibility today and would require unobtanium. Shielding too.

somenameforme 2y ago

> there's nothing that seems to be fundamentally unobtanium here Don't you think this is begging the question? The entire history of humanity is a lengthy series of discoveries that people of times past would have little reason to think possible, and in some cases are revolutionary enough that it would likely have been all but impossible for people of times past to even think of them. Then there's just the boring things, like aspirin. If not for the willow tree, it would not exist today. Ancient medicine dating back 2400+ years recommended chewing on willow bark to treat fever or pain, and indeed they were right. Of course we can now easily synthesize it, but that's not always a given for every compound or 'thing' imaginable, to say the least. For an obvious example, see: uranium. And now factor in how extremely negligible our knowledge of anything outside of our own planet is. We've been sending probes and rovers to Mars since 1962. We only discovered the soil on Mars was relatively moist (2% water by weight) in 2013! 50+ years to figure out there's water in the soil. And the latest drills can only go a couple of inches deep and are scarcely used in any case, because they tend to break. It's impossible to know what you don't know, but I see every reason to think that it's probably quite extensive. [1] - https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover.html https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-r...

mlyle 2y ago
?? I think you've misread my post. I'm saying that the fundamental things required in order to launch gram-scale interstellar probes don't seem out of reach; that largely something close to the requirements could be made at great cost today, and making a mission practical is mostly about cost optimization and economies of scale. I think largely whether we do it in 50 years comes down to whether we've wiped out a lot of our economic output by then with strife, and whether we still consider exploration worthwhile to spend a lot of money and reources on.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Haha, yeah I absolutely did. Reading his post and then your response it seemed to me to be a claim that there's nothing out there to discover, as opposed to there being nothing in the way of this means of exploration.