4 ms·
Probably more likely that we work out how to fold spacetime than we get there in anything like a high enough percentage of the speed of light - the fastest obje
by andy_ppp 3mo ago
Probably more likely that we work out how to fold spacetime than we get there in anything like a high enough percentage of the speed of light - the fastest object we ever made travelled at something like ~0.064% * C so we are looking at ~750 years with current technology and presumably we'd need to switch on the probe in 3/4 of a millennium and figure out how to slow it down and get it into some sort of orbit around the planet.
750 years is hard for me to get excited about even as a vampire.
- buildbot 3mo agoHonestly a near millennia long expedition would be very cool, and doesn’t seem too long on the scale of space stuff.
- detritus 3mo agoPerhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff.
- andrewflnr 3mo agoYep. We haven't really figured out how to do a good government that lasts more than 200 years. Maybe unless you think monarchy is good, in which case I still don't want to share a spaceship with you.
- dingaling 3mo agoTynwald, the Isle of Man's parliament, has operated continuously for over 1000 years
- cadamsdotcom 3mo agoHow's their space program coming along ;p pretty spacious place, ach!
- andrewflnr 3mo agoHow much of that time did it spend fully sovereign over its territory? I'd love to learn otherwise, but my impression is that it has mostly been under the shadow of England, and the pressures of a government under those circumstances are not comparable to those for, frankly, one that's more responsible for its destiny as a starship crew would be. I bet you can find lots of long-running tiny local governments with very little power, both dominated and protected by a string of larger, more powerful, but more volatile governments.
- notahacker 3mo agoThe Tynwald evolved from a jury into a legislature, didn't admit its first elected member until 1866, its first few hundred years of existence are assumed rather than documented, and actual power resided with a mixture of kings (most of whom were also kings of other places or answered to kings in other places) for most of its existence. So not an ideal example :)
- detritus 3mo agoI have no doubt that even the most republican of cultures launched from Earth would end up thoroughly monarchistic by the time the generation ships arrived at their destination. At best monarchistic - who knows what savage new forms of society could evolve in that sort of context?
- oceanplexian 3mo agoThere is a lot of precedent for this. Even on Earth, in 2026, international maritime law states that there is no such thing as a vessel with "democracy" and that a captain always has supreme command. Ships, airplanes, etc are all in a category that operate as strict autocracies.
- detritus 3mo agoSure. How long's the longest voyage these days? Mutinies aren't so common nowadays, but they were when ocean voyages were measured in months and years.
- andrewflnr 3mo agoMore optimistically, you might see some kind of "choosing a chief by consensus" type of situations that you see in some small hunter-gatherer societies (being careful with the word "savage", which is... usually misleading). It'll depend a lot on the size of the crew.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- dopidopHN2 3mo agoPlenty of countries are currenyly a 1000 year old.
- oceanplexian 3mo ago> Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff. Not really, unless you're obsessed with the idea that great works need to happen within your lifetime. Europe is chock full of cathedrals that took 400-600 years to build, worked on by countless generations who would never live to see them completed.
- detritus 3mo agoThe difference there being that at the end of your day, having spent it masoning, you could leave the cathedral and go back to your family and have a walk in the fields and drink and be merry with people loved and new. The project wasn't the entiriety of your existence, it was merely the means to pay for it. Unless we have generational ships the size of small countries, I'm not sure the human brain - unaided and non-forcedly evolved to do so - would be able to handle essential incarceration in a series of metal tubes for its own and its descendents existences.
- forgotaccount3 3mo agoKnowing the variety of lives lived on earth as we speak, I'm fairly certain the first space born generation would adapt to it. Provided the Earthlings that were sent along don't let their incarceration induced insanity infect the youngin's.
- detritus 3mo agoMaybe I'm over-thinking things. It seems like a lot of people's existences essentially revolve around a pocket-sized glowing rectangle. Future AI and a database of all of humanity's experience before launch might be enough to keep the generational populace amused and distracted for the entiriety of their meagre, trapped existence... .
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- allannienhuis 3mo ago
- wongarsu 3mo agoWith variations on nuclear propulsion we could plausibly get to up to around 12% the speed of light. At least that's the number quoted for Project Daedalus [1], which is using nuclear fusion for the first stage and nuclear-powered ion engines for the second stage. With the cruder but more realistically achievable right now Project Orion design (riding the shockwaves of nuclear bombs) you could still get to ~3% the speed of light But even at 0.12c, we are looking at 400 years to get there. And we'd be zooming by at 12% the speed of light. If we want to slow down a bit that'd add hundreds of billions to the cost. It might be worth waiting another century to see if we can come up with a faster design in that time. Not like closer targets like Alpha Centauri, where the thing stopping us is mostly just the absurd cost
- ghm2199 3mo agoI think the only way political will can fund nasa to realize these 1960 design ideas is an infinite capacity arch rival that threatens/render irrelavent either the dollar's supremacy or american power (and just those two, because apparently these days there is no "threat"/need to defend a higher cause, like the neo-liberal rules based system or democratic or human right values). Also that arch-rival that is probably/likely not china(practically speaking)
- exitb 3mo ago> But even at 0.12c, we are looking at 400 years to get there. And we'd be zooming by at 12% the speed of light. If we want to slow down a bit that'd add hundreds of billions to the cost. That’s the really hard part. If it’s almost science fiction to accelerate to 0.12c, it’s certainly much more difficult to slow down. At that speed we’d travel and pass this small system in mere minutes.
- NoGravitas 3mo agoYou just turn around halfway and use your main drive to decelerate. Yes, that does double the travel time, but it's the only way to do it. The hard part is then finding ways to get to a faster speed at turnaround time.
- myrmidon 3mo agoAdding to this: Those 190km/s of the Parker solar probe were, crucially, periapsis speed. This is a bit like bouncing a rubber ball from a building, measuring its speed at ground level and then going: "Given our fastest achieved speed, we expect to hit the cloud level in <10s". ~200km/s sustained speed is already insanely optimistic for anything we could realistically build in the next half century, so your position is even more ironclad than it looks at first glance.
- fellowmartian 3mo agoIt’s highly unlikely we’re ever getting FTL. We should become comfortable with that and let go our fantasies. Let theoretical physicists chug away at this, we should get underway with projects that are possible with known science.
- isodev 3mo agoIt would help if our science wasn’t distracted by things like global warming and nazi governments though. There are definitely ways we can help the process * right now *
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 3mo agoYeah, let's ignore current issues and instead focus on remote stars.
- panagathon 3mo agoScientists and engineers with an interest in such things would have an easier time working on it, if the broader economic and civic context they work in wasn't being messed with by demagogues. They shouldn't be drafted to resolve the rise of petty tyrants. It's a waste of their time.
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 3mo ago[flagged]
- luckydata 3mo agothe message you replied to implied the exact opposite.
- parasti 3mo agoGood luck doing anything on any other planet if you can't even handle your own that's perfectly suited for your kind of life form.
- Archelaos 3mo agoWe are looking at 75,000 years. You forgot the %.
- forinti 3mo agoUniverse #23: keep solar systems far enough that they can't make war on each other.