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 100 Year Starship Study
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 01/12/2012 :  08:13:45  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The 100 Year Starship Study has been set up by DARPA and NASA as a private think-tank foundation. The newly announced head of 100YSS is former US astronaut, Mae Jemison.

To me, the most vital thing the 100YSS contributors can do is work on propulsion systems. Unless breakthrough new systems of propulsion are developed, even a minimal-mass robotic fly-by of Centaurus system would take centuries to send back its data. The size, nature, and cost of interstellar travel depend primarily upon the matter of propulsion. No serious effort can begin until new technology is developed.

I'm glad something to do with interstellar flight is being "officially" begun.

Now, I once met Stuart Brand, and I respect the man. However, I worry a bit about the "track" he chairs:
Philosophical and Religious Considerations – Why go to the stars, moral and ethical issues, implications of finding hospitably worlds; implications of finding life elsewhere, implications of being left behind

Track Chair: Stewart Brand
Are they inviting priests, mullahs, rabbis and pastors to join the design team? I don't know, but I get mental visions of obstruction and science-baiting. I do doubt the religious will have anything useful to add that is not being considered by others, but I'll try to remain open-minded.

What do you people think of 100YSS as a whole?

[Please excuse me if I have double-posted this. I did try a search for the topic first.]

Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.

Edited by - HalfMooner on 01/12/2012 08:15:39

the_ignored
SFN Addict

2562 Posts

Posted - 01/12/2012 :  20:30:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send the_ignored a Private Message  Reply with Quote
It sounds like a good idea, but I admit that that one track that guy chairs can only be trouble.

>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.

What brought that on? this. Original posting here.

Another example of this guy's lunacy here.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict

USA
2437 Posts

Posted - 01/12/2012 :  22:01:53   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send bngbuck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
It appears to be a commendable undertaking but -- why 100 years? The implication is that it will take 100 years of research, together with 100 years of technological progress to develop a propusion system capable of near-light speed. Or more.

To me, considering the advances in technology based on discoveries in the physical sciences that have taken place in the last 100 years, it is a pretty pessimistic prediction. One study of the knowledge doubling phenomenon states:
"The totality of human knowledge is increasing exponentially. Estimates of
the doubling time vary, with some people suggesting a doubling of knowledge
every 5 years, and some suggesting an even shorter doubling time."
-- The Future of Information Technology in Education
<http://www.uoregon.edu/~moursund/FuturesBook1997/Chapter3.html>
If one gives credulity to this estimate it would suggest that in 100 years mankind would have over one million times the collective human knowledge that it does today. (Practically, the exponential progress curve being asymptotic, a condition of infinite knowledge would not be closely approached because that concept defines God - and Man as God has never seemed reasonable to me. Also, it appears to me that not even the collective cognition of all mankind could not absorb and process a near-infinite body of knowledge.

Such angelic pin-dancing aside, I do feel that someday long before 100 more years pass, the energy problems attendant to near-light speed propulsion will be solved. And possibly, even the sacrosanct principles of Einsteinian physics may be amended - in a déjà vu glimpse of poor old Newton.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  06:46:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by bngbuck

Such angelic pin-dancing aside, I do feel that someday long before 100 more years pass, the energy problems attendant to near-light speed propulsion will be solved.
Of course, there has been no progress towards that end within the last 100 years or so...

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  08:10:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I think the "100 Years" title is a very good idea. The book I'm now reading, Centauri Dreams, (2004) by Paul Gilster, makes the same point: Not only are the technological challenges enormous and presently so beyond our grasp as to make it impossible for us to predict a timeline, there's also travel time, which looks to require many decades itself.

Gilster suggests that we think in terms of much greater time spans, if we wish to reach the stars, even with an instrumented fly-by mission. Much as I'd like to see us launch a human mission to the Centaurus system tomorrow I agree.

If we are to go to the stars, we have no choice. We have to think in deeper time than we do with most modern projects. It this point, we don't even have a "Way forward." The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages took hundreds of years to complete, and those who build them had a good idea when they began that even their grandchildren would not survive to see them complete.

In an analogy from modern times, we've striven for controlled nuclear fusion for 66 years, and still have now gotten to a break-even point. (It's been "just around the corner" for almost my whole life! Maybe these fusion efforts should have been collectively called the 100 Year Fusion Study?)

Unless a remarkable breakthrough in starship propulsion comes along, I think we need to buckle down for the long haul.

Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  08:18:06   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by HalfMooner

If we are to go to the stars, we have no choice.
If intelligent life survives on this planet for another five billion years (max), we will have no choice but to go to the stars. A red giant will ruin the neighborhood.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  08:26:17   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by HalfMooner

If we are to go to the stars, we have no choice.
If intelligent life survives on this planet for another five billion years (max), we will have no choice but to go to the stars. A red giant will ruin the neighborhood.
I've already reserved my berth for when Sol becomes the Big Red One.

Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict

USA
2437 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  12:58:26   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send bngbuck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Dave.....

Of course, there has been no progress towards that end within the last 100 years or so...
Well, I certainly would not presume to argue from analogy with you, but it is hopeful to consider the time span between the first Chinese kite (roughly 200 BCE) and man's first airbourne experiences (gliding) about 1200 years later; and to compare that time span to the one describing the period from the achievements of the Montpeliers in 1783. About 800 years. Then on to Felix du Temple's successful unmanned metal airplane in 1874 -- 91 years. Finally, the French and English experiments of the 1890's followed by the almost-there experiments of Langeley immediately prior to the epochal flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

FRom 1903 to the launch of the Vostok in 1961 measures a mere 58 years.

So, in incremental steps over centuries of time - 1200 years, 800, 90, 60.....from the kite to powered flight.....I would speculate that the shape of the learning curve (expansion of knowledge) roughly approximates the shape of the achievement-of-flight curve. Which gives a dreamer like me a tiny spark of joy.

I certainly recognize that the largely mechanical problems of the development of flying machines are quantitatively, and possibly qualitatively, different than the essential mysteries of particle physics and quantuum mechanics that have to be understood before molecular acceleration approaching or even exceeding c is achieved. Perhaps, maybe probably, the Special Relativitist theorists' mathematics are unassailable, and the speed of light is indeed an absolute in the fullest sense of the word.

Although the phenomena of particle entanglement and the Hartmam Effect appear to offer hope to the >c enthusiuasts, a little fact checking shows such encouragement to be ephemeral. Waiting in the wings is the final verdict on the OPERA experiment at Cern in 2011. However, we folks of faith will continue to grasp at straws such as these strange events until we succeed in building a man that will probably prove to be as fantastical as Dorothy's friend in OZ was.

And there are always those pesky UFO's!
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  13:12:50   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by HalfMooner

If we are to go to the stars, we have no choice.
If intelligent life survives on this planet for another five billion years (max), we will have no choice but to go to the stars. A red giant will ruin the neighborhood.
It will be less than a billion years before the sun's increased power output have turned Earth into the same climate as Venus. But by then, Mars will start looking not-so-frigid. But you're right, it's not for another 4-5 billion years we need to leave the solar system.


One of my sci-fi-authoring ideas which I never got around to develope more involved a colonization starship having a minimal crew compliment consisting of a pilot, a small engineering team, and a small medical team with a general physician and one IVF-specialist and a cryo-chamber with 10-20'000 genetically sound embryos which were filtered for all known deceases: and a complete program with genealogies calculated for maximum genetic diversity.
A large contingent of robots for construction of settlement, and farming, maintained by the engineering team, have no requirements for life support during the interstallar flight, thus ship's bulky life support system can be kept to a minimum.
Once the ship make landfall, all females get embryos implanted to start populate the settlement. After second generation, the genealogy program will decide if a couple will be allowed to have "their own" genetic child, or if they will be assigned an embryo from the bank, in order to keep the population from inbreeding. At least 6 of the 10 original crew members will be female, selected specifically for their desire to have many children in order to get the new settlement a running start.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict

USA
2437 Posts

Posted - 01/13/2012 :  16:19:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send bngbuck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Mabuse.....

How would the starship's navigation system decide exactly where it was headed?
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 01/14/2012 :  08:32:59   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by bngbuck

Well, I certainly would not presume to argue from analogy with you, but it is hopeful to consider the time span between the first Chinese kite (roughly 200 BCE) and man's first airbourne experiences (gliding) about 1200 years later; and to compare that time span to the one describing the period from the achievements of the Montpeliers in 1783. About 800 years. Then on to Felix du Temple's successful unmanned metal airplane in 1874 -- 91 years. Finally, the French and English experiments of the 1890's followed by the almost-there experiments of Langeley immediately prior to the epochal flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

FRom 1903 to the launch of the Vostok in 1961 measures a mere 58 years.

So, in incremental steps over centuries of time - 1200 years, 800, 90, 60.....from the kite to powered flight.....I would speculate that the shape of the learning curve (expansion of knowledge) roughly approximates the shape of the achievement-of-flight curve. Which gives a dreamer like me a tiny spark of joy.
Well, thinking about it that way, our spacecraft have gone from 17,600 mph in 1961 to 36,373 mph in 2006, so to get to the speed of light, we only need another 1.6 million years of technological advancement.

That's a linear extrapolation, of course. I don't have the time right now to go find more data points and do some curve fitting. But we need a 18409x speed improvement in the next 100 years after getting a 2x improvement in the last 45 years. I'm not hopeful that any exponential curve based on real data will provide such a nearly vertical uptick.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict

USA
2437 Posts

Posted - 01/15/2012 :  22:27:02   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send bngbuck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Dave.....

I guess it may be in the way you think about it. You say:
we need a 18409x speed improvement in the next 100 years after getting a 2x improvement in the last 45 years.
I have no doubt that this is true, but it assumes that the improvement effort has been exclusively exercised within the context of combustion propulsion and will continue to be so focused.

Perhaps some consideration should be given to FTL theorization - admittedly speculative - however a small but impressive effort consisting of astrophysical spinning of established hard physics "facts".
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light

To me, there is no particularly compelling logic to the position that the evolution of the Chinese war rockets of 1232 is the only possible path to interstellar, much less, lengthy planetary travel.For no other reason than to celebrate the occasional triumph of human imagination over the deadly dullness of statistical extrapolation.




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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2012 :  08:21:39   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by bngbuck

Dave.....

I guess it may be in the way you think about it. You say:
we need a 18409x speed improvement in the next 100 years after getting a 2x improvement in the last 45 years.
I have no doubt that this is true, but it assumes that the improvement effort has been exclusively exercised within the context of combustion propulsion and will continue to be so focused.
Of course!

The analogy was absurd. Intentionally. Perhaps the sarcasm didn't come through my text.

The modern jet engine isn't just a different arrangement of cylinders and propellers from a 1920s biplane. The rocket that launched New Horizon wasn't just a different mix of chemicals from a 13th-century war rocket. Technological advancement occurs in unpredictable jumps, making any attempt at curve-fitting from prior performance ridiculous.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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