starship to escape destruction of mankind

[jilola]

I'd sign up. http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

Although the bit about reading the potential crew's mind may not be such a good idea.
It could potentially undermine the necessary trust between crewmembers.
At least the fact that the crew were probed would ahve to remain in absolute secrecy from the crew.

2cent & L&L

jouni

[Tom]

If you haven't read "The Truth Machine" and "The First Immortal" by James L. Halperin, I'd suggest it. The issues of secrets and privacy are dealt with extensively. Books like these changed my mind on these subjects.

Ayn Rand has a few things to say about people working together even without mind reading or more conventional tools. "Atlas Shrugged". It is about an end to life of earth as we know it and a new beginning.

Any thoughts on where such as ship should go and on how things like spare parts for mechanical breakdown can be found? There is no way that everything could be brought aboard which would be needed before the end. Space is full of atoms, ions, and small molecules, but they are not close together.

[jilola]

Why go anywhere. Just orbit the ships near the asteroid belt. Or better yet, earth's solar orbit. Digging an installation on the moon would be even better with the added benefit of having raw materials for the taking.

2cents & L&L

jouni

[Hephaestus]

A starship being built today would not be capable to colonize a planet, it would require a mass amount of technology and resources to even begin the process.
A starship could be built now, it would take decades but its lack of global  policy on space technology development and financing that is preventing it, the next step in space exploration will be corporate, large corporations fighting against each other to produce more advanced space flight to commercialize it and make money.
The besy bet would be to build habitats into asteoids as already mentioned but if you really would prefer a ship at least keep it within the Earth star system, resources wont last long enough to even get a crew of humans to the nearest star Proxima Centauari, staying within the solar system means plenty of resources to obtain.

[Tom]

Can you tell me again why we need our physical bodies? I don't like the idea of getting a large group of people together to live off of the energy from living beings as ghosts, exactly, but can a mechanical substitute be found? I seem to recall something about a box made with layers of metal and wood to gather and collect energy.

[Anonymous]

Actually, we wouldn't be living off the energies of spirits. And the reason for going out of the solar system is that someday the sun will explode and destroy all the planets. So I figured it would be better to start colonies on planets similar to earth and find a way to NOT exploit the planets. I think even if this starship thing was possible, there's no way today's politics would allow it to happen (legally). We'd be taking a rather large chunk of earth's resources with us and we'd have to find a way to replace them. And who's to say the world would allow us to take these resources? And as for the mind-reading of the crew, well, yeah it would be secret but we'd also have the psychics probe each other so that nobody has too much power. Corporate/capitalist mentality is not the best thing to have for this sort of thing. And I think it would be a nightmare if corporations got that involved in space. They're already out of hand on earth.

I definitely have to disagree with Hephaestus on the idea that it's not possible to build a capable colony starship to spawn human colonies across the universe. I believe it is possible (provided we get all the resources required, and there are a lot of them), but it will take forever to build it. I admit it would be EXTREMELY difficult to do. My friend and I have thought about the fueling systems, electrical systems, water, heating, and everything else and are coming up with ways to do it. We've also been thinking about ecologies and lifeforms on earth that can work together to create some sort of "natural" environment where we can grow food without having to bring stuff from outside to resupply the plants and animals with food and other things.

The other main concern I had was that mankind has a spiritual bond with earth, and I don't want that bond to be lost. We'd be taking just about every species with us on the starship, seawater, and many other things. But the plants and animals may also have a spiritual bond with earth, which means they'd probably die after awhile. The journey would have to be taken in stages. First, we get off the planet, set something up on the moon, do more research, modify the starship, get to Mars, where we can do more resaerch. Then we spread out to the asteroids after researching how to avoid collisions with other asteroids while we're there, then from there we start a network of science labs and experimental colonies. After that, when we're finally ready, we can start the journey into space, and all the while we keep the colonies we have started. We don't want corporations too involved in this.

The ship would be made of lots of small units which could be fitted together, similar to LEGOs or something. It's sort of hard to explain but each unit would contain part of the heating, electric, water, waste systems, etc. Most of the research for the starship will go into these units, as they must last us until we can find a way to easily modify and replace the units and the starship. The point of designing the ship this way is that we can add-on to it later very easily. As for air-tightness, a shell will be placed on the ship. The ship will have small factories on board where we can replace any of the units. We can land and pick up all the resources we need if we come across any asteroids if we are not near a solar system. We would not leave the galaxy for a long time so we don't need to worry too much about not running into asteroids. We do this when we have used up a certain percentage of the materials on board. We would recycle everything we could.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. It's really too complex a thing for just one or two people to design. We'd need scientists, lots of them. And they'd need to have corresponding views and morals to the crew and passengers.

There's so much to talk about here.

"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

[Anonymous]

By the way, Tom, this box thing you mentioned sounds interesting. You do not know what it is called? I'd like to know more about it. Where did you hear about it?

"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

[Anonymous]

one other thing I forgot to mention- Has anyone ever heard of tachyon antennae? They are supposed to be beneficial to your health but I only saw one article about them, I believe on Spirit Web. The box thing that Tom mentioned and the tachyon antennae could be very useful if we can determine that they do in fact work.

"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

[Tom]

Since you asked, I looked up the box. The "orgone accumulator" by Wilheim Reich. He refers to energy as orgone.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa031497.htm

I want in on the project.

[Hephaestus]

I dont know anything about this Tachyon Antenna but I can tell you that Tachyons are theoretical and have never been detected so there is no proof to their existance.

[Hephaestus]

quote:Originally posted by EnderWiggin:
I definitely have to disagree with Hephaestus on the idea that it's not possible to build a capable colony starship to spawn human colonies across the universe. I believe it is possible (provided we get all the resources required, and there are a lot of them), but it will take forever to build it. I admit it would be EXTREMELY difficult to do. My friend and I have thought about the fueling systems, electrical systems, water, heating, and everything else and are coming up with ways to do it. We've also been thinking about ecologies and lifeforms on earth that can work together to create some sort of "natural" environment where we can grow food without having to bring stuff from outside to resupply the plants and animals with food and other things.

Colonising a planet via building habitats to live in would be possible, in my post  I was refering to terraforming a planet for human colonisation, I wasnt sure which one you meant, whether you meant building habitats or terraforming.

[jilola]

Avoidijg hitting asteroids is fairly easy. Just fly to the north or south of solar system. Most asteroids etc. orbit along or near the plane (drat can't recall the term). Also steering away form large bodies would reduce the probability of a hit as gravitation tends to cluster bodies together. Thus leaving the gaalaxy might actually reduce the chance of getting hit.

Saving the invention of faster than light travel th ebest option for colonizing th estarts is the seed ship described by A.C Clarke in the book "Songs of a Distant Earth."
Sending and maintaining living human beings is too complex to be sustained in isolation for several centuries that any meaningful travle to the stars would require. The more complex the ship becomes the more likely something failing becomes. Essentially the probability of a fatal malfunction or calamity approaches certainty very quickly.

Now how would such a seed ship grow functioning humans from the stored embryos or genetic material. Education? Psychological sustenance?

2cents & L&L

jouni

[lifebreath]

Well ... I prefer to stay here and do what little I can in the space of time I have.

But ... please do send a post card!

The Schema Exists in All, and In the Schema, I Am

[General-Army]

We will probably have the technology in a few hundred years from now, before the 1900s there werent even cars, now we are in space before the turn of the century, maybe we will get this to work, but, we would have to have the colony huge, about the size of a few football fields or more. Half of it would be dedicated to completely farming and raising animals to eat later. I would think the colony would have to be the size of a town, but a few football fields the smallest. We would have to have the technology to have a shield, or something that could block Gamma rays.

Now you COULD jump off a building, but.... youd die.

[Risu no Kairu]

Well,  I don't think we should build ships and leave for other planets. We should just built giant colonies in space, close to earth, capable of supporting life, then move there. Then, like, we could build mobile suits made out of Luna Titanium or Gundanium, as it is also called.

We could develop some sort of microtechnology, make that into a suit, which would copy all the moves of the pilot, or mobile fighter.

Every four years there could be tournament, or Gundam Fight to decide who would all of space for the next four years!

That sounds cool.

So I stabbed him in the face with a muffin.

Je suis tombé dans le puits.

[Ides315]

Hmmm.

Will compasses still point north or south out of the solar system? ;-0

I am in as soon as someone figures out how to get past the Van Goetton (spelling?) radiation shield.

As far as the corporations, just show them how to make money, and they will be on it. Maybe throw in tax expemption for a couple of hundred years.

Don't think we will go in a nuke though, more like we will get thinned out to about .0001 percent of the population. (You know, didn't make it, try again).So if we could build a big enough spaceship, we could just remove the excess people, and save everyone a lot of heartache. That would allow us to colonize a lot of places without overloading the population. Now if we could just remember the lessons.....

LOL you think we can escape our own making that easy MUHAHAHAH (walks off stage to dreary organ music)

[Anonymous]

Ok- Here's the deal: The faster we go, the less resources we need. We just need the resources to build the ship and sustain us throughout the journey to.... wherever it is we end up.  It's too bad aliens won't give us their technology. It could make things a few million times easier. Why don't they just GIVE us one of their starships? Then again do you think they really want us out there?

"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

-Douglass Adams

"Shaolin men and women NEVER give up!"

[jilola]

Perhaps you mean the Van Allen belt? No worries. Just fly through. Only the ship needs to have shielding from solar radiation.

Planetary evacuation?
First we'd need to recude global population growth rate to zero or less. We breed too quickly. Cart one load off planet and two new loads have been born
The figure out how to maintain livable environment on a huge scale in an ark ship thingy.
Find aplace to set up shop ie. are we going  to Mars? Europa? Moon? a. Centauri?

With the way us humans are doing business at the moment I, were I an alien, would make damn sure mankind stays nicely put on planet Terra. I can just imagine what would happpen if mankind got mixed with all sorts of aliens. We can't even get along with other humans if they aren't exactly like us.
Now if an alien race were dumb enough to give us technology to allow interstellar travel I'd be wary of getting on such a ship. That'd be just too nice a way to get rid of the homo sapiens infestation in these parts.

Here's what I suggest mankind do.
Learn to get along with our own kind first. There are resources and knowledge on this world to protect us from most natural threats, even asteroids if we so shoose.
Provide an environment on earth that maximizes every individuals potential for growth, physical, mental and spiritual.
If we are still here, think about how to spread what we have accomplished to the stars or whatever.

But I'd still sign up on enders Lego space cruiser. Always wanted to go into space http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

2cents & L&L

jouni

[Anonymous]

Has anyone ever heard of carbon-60? It's a very remarkable substance. It's a substance that can be made into a nanotube, super-strong cable, and it could also do a very nice job as a shield against many things, including radiation. Look up "Buckyballs" and you'll see what I mean. I think this substance could go on the outermost layer of the starship. If I could save up all of the conversations my friend and I had, you'd see how far we've come. The idea was to have the ship be a tube-like shape, rotating to produce artificial gravity. The center of the ship would be the main power/utility facilities, where we can work easily to fix things in a weightless environment. The weapons systems would be the thing closest to the center. It would consist of long tubes running just about the lenght of the ship. From these tubes, we would launch  large, accelerating iron balls to great speeds through the use of electromagnets. The balls would have a magnetized rod in the center, and the electromagnets would pull the balls up through the tubes, and then they would be launched to destroy anything in their path, such as meteors or hostile enemy ships. We would also need great philosophers/thinkers to be our defense against more intelligent species, so we could convince them not to attack us.

One thing about getting people on the ship- We want as many different kinds of people as we can get, but we want to make sure they can handle the differences of others, while not allowing themselves to be manipulated into some sort of evil scheme.This is going to be hard to do. There are few great people in the world. I am likely not one of them. But I'm not among the worst, either. I'm right in the middle, like most people.

By the way, Tom- Of course you're in on the project. I want one of those Orgone Accumulators. Or at least the knowledge of how to make one. I read the article you posted. That's another reason I want to get off the planet. Too much politics. Esp. in the U.S. This country is no longer free. It is run by corporations and businesses and money, and the government has ways of checking into our computers, which, in my opinion, is a direct violation of our right to privacy. Speaking of computers, another thing we are going to need is a bunch of really good hackers to get all the information we can from the Internet. We should have a very good main supercomputer on board to store every last bit of information from the Internet in existence. This way, we can supply ourselves with knowledge for a very long time. We should also find a way to update the system every month or so to keep up with the world and what's going on.

As far as getting people on the starship, I think we should take a very small population and continue to breed. This way, we can ensure that the population will survive. But we should go with a self-replacement policy- No more than two children per couple. We will establish colonies/research outposts in the following order: The moon. Mars. The Asteroid Belt. Europa. Alpha Centauri (much later, when we have discovered how to make our ship travel at interstellar speeds). Basically whatever's closest is where we head next.

"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

-Douglass Adams

"Shaolin men and women NEVER give up!"

[jilola]

I'd lose the railgun type weapons. If that's the best we can put on the ship it's better to have none at all.
Any shrapnell from an oncoming asteroid hit by this weapon would still mostly come right at th eship and I'd go by the assumption thhat any aliens encountered would have something way beyond kinetic weaponry and in any case be able to manoeuvre around our shells. Best to be harmless.

To avoid getting trashed you'd want to be useful and/or entertaining. Reasoning and diplomacy requires some common ground that would be next to impossible to discover in time to prevent an attack.

Outer skin? Sodes could be any subtance capable of withstanding reasonable stress. Nose would ahve to be capable of taking hits from small particles at high speed, maybe ice as per Mr. Clarke's suggestion? Replacable, cheap and you can use it to produce water&oxygen if needed.
I doubt carbon's capablities as a radiation shield as the primary property of such a material is density. Cadmiun and lead sheets would be better. But since we're buildig the ship to take us to the start how about a magnetic shield? Divert radiation altogether?

As for population. I'd make the ship run itself and send cave men, so to speak. People who can carve out a living form basic materials and items at hand. With a library on the ship acccessible to them when the current level of technology can utilize the knowledge our level of technology could be regained form first principles in a matter of a few generation at most.

I'd prohibit breeding of living individuals, unless the population is large and well screened for recessive genetic faults, and utilize in vitro fertilization with some genetic material from either living partner and some from a sufficiently large gene bank to avoid inreeding and the resulting genetic problems.

Go in waves. First wave to set up shop on moon. Second to buld bulk, third to go to Mars, fourth to replenish moonbase, fifth to build bulk on Mars etc. Basic mountaineering campaign really.
Also for the really long hauls, send several independent ships. There is no way of telling how one crew will function together. Some will fail, some may succeed. Only sufficient redundancy will quarantee succes of the mission.

Given contact with a sufficiently advanced alien race, do anything at all to hitch a ride and /or form an alliance, even master/slave.

2cents & L&L

jouni

[Anonymous]

One absolutely major issue about the ship... Funding. How are we going to get the money to make this happen? Unless we sign an agreement saying we'll replace all the materials we take with us from earth, we need a way to get the materials.

"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

-Douglass Adams

"Shaolin men and women NEVER give up!"

[Risu no Kairu]

Well, I don't want to live in a future where we live in space if we don't have Gundams.

So I stabbed him in the face with a muffin.

Je suis tombé dans le puits.

[Qui-Gon Jinn]

quote:I think that would require the help of psychics who can read peoples' minds. They'd have to read everyone's mind who was trying to board the ship.

What human beings would need to develop is a sharp auric ability, then picking our leaders would be an easy task!´ Heck, even someone as untalented as me have learned to see them to some extent, learning it myself...  imagine children learning themselves seeing and reading auras at a young age, at school through a trained pedagogic teacher - but god forbid, they might really learn something worth knowing - horrid thought for the rulers, they might grow and challenge the "movie" we are living in created by the rulers via media....  No one as far as I understand can "mask" their aura.

quote:...resources wont last long enough to even get a crew of humans to the nearest star Proxima Centauari

Hmmm... you are accepting the limitation of nothing can travel faster than speed of light I reckon´? IF that limitation was real we likely would never had been visited here on earth...  You know you can bend the space/time paradigm and through this exceed the lightbarrier with, well unlimited times - there is really no "speed" limitation once you understand the "physics" of the universe, as far as I understand. So when the right knowledge is posessed one might go from Earth to Proxima in 7 secs, I think resources would last that long don´t you?

quote:It's too bad aliens won't give us their technology. It could make things a few million times easier. Why don't they just GIVE us one of their starships? Then again do you think they really want us out there?

If aliens would hand us their technology, and give us one of their starships - they would give us a ticking bomb, it´s like them saying: - "Here you go, I wonder how much faster it will take you to blast yourself into oblivion now, seems the nuclear toy- weapons takes a few more years to do the job....", because it would be like giving a a child a loaded gun would it not.
With the present human mindset, we would immediately start figuring out how this advanced propulsion system operates and all that goes with it, and once it is understood we would transform this hard to imagine power into a brand new weapon system, the most terrible one ever found on this little round ball of ours - making our nuclear monsters look like unharmful toys...  and if they would like us to meet such a faith, they would already had blast us up a long long time ago!!´  But no, they are not like us, they have a Real with a capital R, understanding of the universe and how everything is connected....  they know what brotherhood means, and why blast their brothers and sisters on earth up because they are currently running completely mad!?  They know why we are mad, I am sure...  they understand we being cut out of the truth is the reason, and the way we are being programmed by the invisible rulers of this world (humans, yea, not aliens)....  2 and a ½ cents
  Be well my friends, Qui-Gon

- Your focus determines your reality -

[Anonymous]

A friend brought this to my attention which is why I say if we are going to act, we better act now. First thing's first. Let's worry about the funding.

http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-09-06.asp



"Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you."

-Douglass Adams

"Shaolin men and women NEVER give up!"

[Tom]

How is the project to build at least one ship being organized? It would not do well to have experts on financial matters and laws working on designing an engine or working on fuel conservation. It would also not work well to have everyone working on more interesting matters and finish the project with no toilets. And, just to throw it in, what would the legal status of recreational drugs be when all the nations of the world and their laws are left behind? A few decades in space can get boring.

Artificial gravity through spinning is not a bad idea, but while the engines are running it is redundant. The gravity we are accustomed to is an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second. It does not matter how fast the ship goes. If the speed is increasing at 9.8 meters per second per second then we have our fake gravity already at normal strength. We might even be able to adjust to higher levels of gravity (acceleration) to allow faster speeds. It would only be while maintaining a constant speed or unusually low acceleration that spinning might be necessary to some extent.