Interstellar Voyage Planning Live Stream

This may be of interest to many here:

Could a human one day travel through space, past the confines of our solar system?

Anthropologist Cameron Smith thinks so. But first, humans will have to figure out how to make the necessary cultural and biological changes that long-distance space travel would require.

Smith, a professor at Portland State University, is speaking about these issues at the Waterloo, Ont., Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics on Wednesday night, in a talk called "Interstellar Voyaging: An Evolutionary Transition."

Perimeter Institute - Interstellar Voyaging: An Evolutionary Transition


Edit: Just ended but it should be playable at that link above in 20 minutes.


See also: CBC News - How to make interstellar voyages possible for humans

indeed. but if this is the one someone posted the link to at NASA advanced concepts forums earlier tonight the blurbs were mostly about societal changes needed to make such missions happened. which honestly; are fluff. there will be no societal changes of the sort that particular speaker thinks we need. but despite that we will indeed go to the stars anyway. we don't need warp drive. we only need thrid or 4rth generation fusion engines. and the first generation engines are about to happen within this decade.

in addition to fusion engines beamed power might do it or even ion power. space based 3d printing and asteroid/moon mining will give us ships of the requisite size to keep explorers healthy and happy for the long trip instead of psychosis inducing sardine cans.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Oh yeah for sure and tha trillion dollar debt to select individuals who rule our lives with an iron fist even tho we didn't vote them in are for sure going to aid us in our mission right?

I mean these people depend upon profit. So maybe this one time they will forget about profit. Set their differences aside. And shell their life savings over so these lucky individuals can explore space instead of them.

LOL.

Yeah not on this planet. Not well individuals can own and control organizations expecially the profits and incentives.
This will never happen.

Society will ripe itself apart through franchise wars before this even sees the light of day.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
indeed. but if this is the one someone posted the link to at NASA advanced concepts forums earlier tonight the blurbs were mostly about societal changes needed to make such missions happened. which honestly; are fluff. there will be no societal changes of the sort that particular speaker thinks we need.

I disagree.

Most of the changes he suggested of course are things which would take place on a long 1,000 year voyage so he may be right. Length of journey will be the biggest factor first but even still, if the planet at the other end is similar to Earth but slightly different, higher or lower gravity, surface pressure, IR/UV flux difference etc then humanity on that planet WILL evolve to be slightly different than humanity on Earth not to mention the cultural changes that no doubt will take place on a planet disconnected by light years from Earth.

Just look at the cultural differences that developed between the US and UK and we're only an ocean apart.

a reply to: JadeStar

Yeah and the planet has to have very similar electromagnetic frequencies otherwise. Your heart could pump off beat. Leading to health problems quickly and possibly even dying from lack of oxygen flow.

Since our heart beat is triggered by the rythmic pulsing from the Earth. If that Rythm were to change frequencies to sharply it would mess with all life on Earth including us.

So once they develop some sort of electromagnetic mimic device they could use to mimic the electro magnetic frequencies from Earth on the space craft that will be traveling beyond earths rings of protection.

Without any electromagnetic feild to simulate Earth. There is a very good chance that our bodies won't beable to sleep. The heart would also fail to function properly. As well as chemicals in our body ect.
It would enduce a type of space insanity followed by Death.

This issue will persist on other planets unless humans are genetically modified to suit those planets. Just like we were genetically modified to suit Earth.

You can't just haul a bunch of the same species all over the universe and expect that to work because it won't.

All humans are locked in this galaxy. If we want to escape we need to become non physical, because even tho the interior of the galaxy itself is deadly to us. Once we venture outside the galaxy that danger is magnified several times. Because the galaxy sheilds us from even more deadly rays/feilds/intergalatic events.

Space travel is not easy. And expecially not suited for things like us fleshies trying to cross galaxies lol.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
indeed. but if this is the one someone posted the link to at NASA advanced concepts forums earlier tonight the blurbs were mostly about societal changes needed to make such missions happened. which honestly; are fluff. there will be no societal changes of the sort that particular speaker thinks we need. but despite that we will indeed go to the stars anyway. we don't need warp drive. we only need thrid or 4rth generation fusion engines. and the first generation engines are about to happen within this decade.

in addition to fusion engines beamed power might do it or even ion power. space based 3d printing and asteroid/moon mining will give us ships of the requisite size to keep explorers healthy and happy for the long trip instead of psychosis inducing sardine cans.

it would be nice if there was a competition to produce propulsion schemes that give prizes to the person or team that produces the engine that gets closest to 1 percent c or any speed above that. not on paper. not speculation or pseudo science but they must produce working hardware that performs as intended.

the percent c initiative or some such title. funding by wealthy billionaires or crowd funding or something like that.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
indeed. but if this is the one someone posted the link to at NASA advanced concepts forums earlier tonight the blurbs were mostly about societal changes needed to make such missions happened. which honestly; are fluff. there will be no societal changes of the sort that particular speaker thinks we need.

I disagree.

Most of the changes he suggested of course are things which would take place on a long 1,000 year voyage so he may be right. Length of journey will be the biggest factor first but even still, if the planet at the other end is similar to Earth but slightly different, higher or lower gravity, surface pressure, IR/UV flux difference etc then humanity on that planet WILL evolve to be slightly different than humanity on Earth not to mention the cultural changes that no doubt will take place on a planet disconnected by light years from Earth.

Just look at the cultural differences that developed between the US and UK and we're only an ocean apart.

1000's of years presumes we cannot come up with logical extensions of our current technological level such as fusion engines or magnetic/plasma sails. if we can get 10 percent c we can get to alpha proxima in somewhat more than 42.6 years allowing for acceleration and deacceleration.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
indeed. but if this is the one someone posted the link to at NASA advanced concepts forums earlier tonight the blurbs were mostly about societal changes needed to make such missions happened. which honestly; are fluff. there will be no societal changes of the sort that particular speaker thinks we need. but despite that we will indeed go to the stars anyway. we don't need warp drive. we only need thrid or 4rth generation fusion engines. and the first generation engines are about to happen within this decade.

in addition to fusion engines beamed power might do it or even ion power. space based 3d printing and asteroid/moon mining will give us ships of the requisite size to keep explorers healthy and happy for the long trip instead of psychosis inducing sardine cans.

it would be nice if there was a competition to produce propulsion schemes that give prizes to the person or team that produces the engine that gets closest to 1 percent c or any speed above that. not on paper. not speculation or pseudo science but they must produce working hardware that performs as intended.

the percent c initiative or some such title. funding by wealthy billionaires or crowd funding or something like that.

It would not shock me if the X-Prize Foundation eventually creates such a prize.

It's early days of course. Right now it is enough just to work out the engineering. Icarus Interstellar seems to be leading the way as far as that goes.

By the way, Marc Millis of Icarus Interstellar used to work for NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program.

a reply to: JadeStar

Sounds very cool, but there should be some serious delay bouncing the video back to earth that far.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: stormbringer1701
indeed. but if this is the one someone posted the link to at NASA advanced concepts forums earlier tonight the blurbs were mostly about societal changes needed to make such missions happened. which honestly; are fluff. there will be no societal changes of the sort that particular speaker thinks we need. but despite that we will indeed go to the stars anyway. we don't need warp drive. we only need thrid or 4rth generation fusion engines. and the first generation engines are about to happen within this decade.

in addition to fusion engines beamed power might do it or even ion power. space based 3d printing and asteroid/moon mining will give us ships of the requisite size to keep explorers healthy and happy for the long trip instead of psychosis inducing sardine cans.

it would be nice if there was a competition to produce propulsion schemes that give prizes to the person or team that produces the engine that gets closest to 1 percent c or any speed above that. not on paper. not speculation or pseudo science but they must produce working hardware that performs as intended.

the percent c initiative or some such title. funding by wealthy billionaires or crowd funding or something like that.

It would not shock me if the X-Prize Foundation eventually creates such a prize.

It's early days of course. Right now it is enough just to work out the engineering. Icarus Interstellar seems to be leading the way as far as that goes.

By the way, Marc Millis of Icarus Interstellar used to work for NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program.

very cool and yup i go to that site frequently too

originally posted by: Royal76
a reply to: JadeStar

Sounds very cool, but there should be some serious delay bouncing the video back to earth that far.

Of course, A little over 4 years for the nearest star.

i would like to see Dr Chang Diaz, Dr WingLee and a couple of the fusion guys have a race in space.

hitachi mini fission reactor powered VASIMR, WingLee's M2P2, and the two fusion projects that have side propulsion projects in a race.

maybe they could race to see who can lap voyager first. voyager is 17 light hours away. so ten percent c would take 170 hours. mars would take 1 hour and 40 minutes. you get the idea. speeds could be tracked by reaching the goal, way points and measuring dopler shift of a communications signal.

I still like this idea:

Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

if for no other reason than to see something extremely distructive that we invented used for a much more peaceful purpose.

originally posted by: eriktheawful
I still like this idea:

Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)

if for no other reason than to see something extremely distructive that we invented used for a much more peaceful purpose.

for rather pragmatic reasons it is unlikely any nuclear power would sanction a system that requires tens of thousands of ultra-miniaturized nukes. but things have progressed.

now you can have an orion/daedalus without the nukes. instead you use laser iginition of deuterium fuel pellets. you get the fusion explosion without the proliferation, terrorism and accident hazards. same if not more power and it's more safe.

timing of multiple laser beams and pellet ejection and positioning needs prototyping. but designs for such engines have been drafted in studies.

a reply to: JadeStar

Thanks for this thread, Jade. S n F! I hope we get to travel among the stars in my lifetime and once we get politics out of the Spacegame it becomes possible in my opinion.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Launch and Assemble all the components in orbit conventionally and only after reaching a determined safe distance from Earth start popping the nukes.



Get er done.

a reply to: JadeStar

This is all good and fascinating.

But I sincerely hope all this is not just for a handful of elite.

If something as big is to be done, it has to include the people of the World.

I will not applause an elite fleeing away from Earth with fancy tech and maroon the rest of the peoples on Earth until they die from overpopulation-caused starvation. Whatever is done, it has to benefit all of us, as a specie, not as political territories.

Hi Jade. Great topic.

As a side note, I like that the second graphic in your OP looks like an "Okudagram" :


The name "okudagram" comes from Michael Okuda, a technical adviser for Star Trek: TNG, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine. This style of graphic interface was designed by Mr. Okuda, and can often be seen on those TV shows.

Miku Hatsune escapes earth in an alien starship's escape pod. It's amateur animation.



same theme. different animation