Consider the Elon Musk Mars Fantasy

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#445
Not so very slow actually, Moondog55.

Earth orbits around the Sun at a speed of 30 km/s

Sun and Earth are orbiting around the centre of our galaxy at 200 km/s.

The Milky Way is rushing towards our neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, at 112 km/s.
 
#446
kevinahcc20 said:
Well, the only thing that actually moves at C are photons, which have zero rest mass. We have all experienced being hit by photons moving at C and it can be quite pleasant. But when you start planning on capturing non-zero rest mass particles like hydrogen molecules while you are moving forward at your imaginary C velocity, the physics are anything but pleasant. 119 years ago, Einstein revealed the very non-intuitive (to we non-Einsteins) principles of Special Relativity, and a few years later he expanded the perspective into General Relativity. Since then, no observation has refuted Einstein. So, if you want to do thought experiments about a hypothetical vehicle moving through the Universe at C and "catching" hydrogen molecules along the journey, you had best be prepared to confront Special and General Relativity.

The best available perspective is "we ain't gonna travel about at C or any respectable fraction of C because...physics!." We're waiting for the cogent perspective that offers an end-around on relativity and, so far, bupkus!
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It’ll have to be an Alcuberrie drive then!
kevinahcc20 said:
Generation ships...condemning your offspring to living and dying confined on an insane mission that they had no choice about. Yep, that sounds like a real winner!
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Sounds about right for what one generation had always done to the next
 
#447
The alternative to generation ships is suspended animation. However, SF can make that a bumpy ride!

In The Legacy of Heorot, 200 colonists arrive on the 4th planet of Tau Ceti, having made the 105 year journey from Earth in suspended animation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_L...egacy of Heorot is a science fiction novel by

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The colonists make the terrible discovery that the suspended animation has damaged their intellect and reasoning skills.

While some are only mildly afflicted, others have serious intellectual disabilities.

Then there's the Grendels to contend with!

1727371680165.png
 
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#448
Bonsai said:
Once you’re travelling at close to c, the opportunity to scoop up matter to use as fuel increases dramatically. There’s about 2-3 hydrogen atoms per m^3 In interstellar space. If you were able to scoop say 1000 m^3 at a time (that’s a cube with 33 m sides, so not so big), multiplied by distance travelled at c gives 3000 hydrogen atoms * 300 million metered travelled. I get about 130k joules from a 100% E=mc^2 matter to energy conversion process. That’s not really possible, but let’s say it’s 70% efficient (a thermonuclear devices is about 10% IIRC so there’s work to do here on improving things), that’s 100k joules.

In intergalactic space, free hydrogen atoms drop to .2 to .3 per m^3, so there’s not so much fuel available.
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Who says nuclear power is the only source of power? For all we know, we'll discover strong force power that is orders of magnitude more powerful.

Or put us into an eight dimension wormhole subspace so that distances are different. Perhaps Alfa Centauri is only 10 minutes away?

It might explain quantum entanglement.
 
#449
Galu said:
The alternative to generation ships is suspended animation. However, SF can make that a bumpy ride!

In The Legacy of Heorot, 200 colonists arrive on the 4th planet of Tau Ceti, having made the 105 year journey from Earth in suspended animation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legacy_of_Heorot#:~:text=The Legacy of Heorot is a science fiction novel by

View attachment 1360831

The colonists make the terrible discovery that the suspended animation has damaged their intellect and reasoning skills.

While some are only mildly afflicted, others have serious intellectual disabilities.

Then there's the Grendels to contend with!

View attachment 1360845
Click to expand...

SPOILER ALERT!!

NO... NO... now I can't unread it.
 
#450
I see your Legacy Of Herot and raise with Brian Aldiss: Non Stop

Question. How many people do you need to start self sustaining colony on a planet that can only be reached with travel times measured in decades or more.

Anyone read Brian Stableford's Daedelus Mission series of novels? Visiting colony planets that've been long abandoned and gone silent. What can go wrong will go wrong. I really like Stableford's work.
 
#459
jan.didden said:
Yes, a ringworld is technically much simpler than a Dyson Sphere.
And by smart positioning/orbiting you can cause an articifical day/night rhythm just like we have today but without seasons. A small price for survival.

Jan
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The Dyson sphere has many problems with gravity. Living at the inside of the equator would have gravity, but the poles would have none.

The Ringworld is a far more plausible solution.
 
#460
Mars likely will never be permanently habitable. It’s certainly no escape pod for the climate alarmist. The sun will continue to expand as all stars do. Someday the Earth will suffer the same fate as Venus (which likely could have supported life in the distant past and, now, due to the Suns unrelenting expansion the average surface temperature is 800 degrees) and there’s not a damn thing any of us can do about it. In fact, earth will likely be much hotter as its active plate tectonics supported carbon cycle and much much larger molten iron core will enable our atmosphere to retain water vapor, the ultimate greenhouse gas, far longer than Venus did. Temperature here is likely to be well over 1000°C. All this is before the final collapse of the sun where this planet will be engulfed. Not that this matters—we are way overdue for a 26 million year mass extinction event cycle and humanity will highly unlikely be around to see any of this. Don’t overestimate yourself importance. We are an insignificant gnat on the *** of this planet soon to be swatted out of existence. Enjoy it while you can. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t visit mars though. That’s what humans do.
 
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