Other Methods of Star Travel
Here's the complete list (so far) of "other" responses from question 10 of our space survey, considerably expanded from the earlier edition. The question is:
"What technology will drive the first starship?"
At first I regretted including so few choices in the original multiple-choice question, but now I'm really enjoying reading all the different ideas that folks are suggesting.
Answers follow.
- Not yet developed or concieved
- as yet undiscovered technology
- Nuclear Fusion
- daedalus
- Unknowable.
- Antimatter
- Mass driver.
- Fusion Torch
- Who knows?
- A hybrid system. Acceleration outbound is provided by a trajectory that takes advantage of gravity assists and laser powered sails.
Decelleration is provided by ion drive powered by a thermoelectric power source. High impulse low but continuous thrust. Few moving parts. Some decelleration also accomplished by gravity assists. The destination will be well-mapped out by the time the starship arrives. It'll take centuries, but will be in the lifetime of whatever life is on board.
Overall acceleration will be very modest with peak speeds up to 1% of the speed of light.
- While a solar sail will be the first propulsion system likely used by robotic craft, a human piloted craft probably wouldn't use it (too many holes after awhile I'm guessing). My prediction is that FTL travel will be possible by manipulating gravity.
- something else
- Physics not yet known
- Neutral particle beams that can be ionized and reacted against may be more efficient means of transferring momentum than using lasers for a laser sail.
Rockets can't get things going fast enough without some ridiculous energy density to your matter, such as pure matter/anti-matter anhilation.
- Advanced anti-gravity or warp type drive. Anything else would be too slow.
- fusion torch
- anti-gravity warp drive - of course.
- Ion Rocket
- Technology using as-yet undiscovered principals of physics.
- We're just beginning to discover the connection betwenn the EM spectrum and gravity. I think within a hundred years we'll have a practical "gravity drive" of some sort, and that will take us to the stars.
- Good question
- generation ship
- Very low thrust, high specific impulse plasma or ion drive.
- Fusion, perhaps assisted in the collection of fuel with some varient of the Bussard Ramscoop
- Laser Sail/Fusion with Magsail to brake at destination star system.
- wormhole
- fusion/antimatter or new physics
- a propulsion technology not develloped yet (but not like warp or someting exotic like that, just something we haven't thought of seriously yet)
- Question is poorly formed; not amenable to an exclusive multiple-choice format; STL generation ship will use multiple means including all the above, while FTL ship's propulsion is probably post-Singularity and therefore unpredictable.
- When rich full sensory virtual reality becomes possible (2020-2030 according to Kurzweil) Telepresence in very accurate virtual environments may be very satisfying and more acceptable than long seperation from a humanity entering a technological singularity.
- Heim space drive!
- Ion Thruster
- nuclear
- Undiscovered Technology
- Warp Drive (albequere) Not the Star Trek one
- New technology will be needed to make flights to another solar system feasible. The new technology need not necessarily be propulsion. Radical life extension could increase the probability for Ark-like missions to colonize a new world. (Mostly likely, that kind of commitment would require finding an Earthlike world in a relatively near area.)
- Warp engines.
Comments
i think the telepresence argument is the most compelling, as it involves the least risk and cost for the human traveller and is easy to accomplish. i do not think full fledged virtual reality is prerequisite, however. why not go the other way around and use existing reality and insert "probes"? if you have sufficiently broadband wireless connections, you could easily transfer the whole spectrum of sensory experience from a robotic probe to a human "traveller" without the need of leaving your armchair. i think of this as generally being the holy grail of communications engineering, and it is already under way, though in a somewhat crude manner: think of webcams used in voip telephony as projecting you sense of sight into a remote location. interpolate this only a few years into the future, and you might have a mobile unit in every household with a full sensoric array which is able to serve as sensual extension of a caller. why not use the same principle for space exploration? i'm envisioning an outpost on, say, mars, operated solely by robots which can serve as shells for human operators. it would also allow many more than a handful of scientists to conduct experiments on mars, simply by implementing a time slot scheme. inherent disadvantage: timelag due to com signals only travelling at light speed, so this would be a solution for non-realtime situations or rather short distances (say, the moon) only.
Posted by: eisendorn![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 29, 2006 05:18 AM
Good points, eisendorn. Let's face it: MOSHes (Mostly Original Substrate Humans) are expensive to move and even more expensive to maintain. I tend to think that any serious stellar travel and settlement will be carried out by much more compact versions of us. I like the idea of a probe roughly the size of a can of Pringles containing several thousand daring travellers (copies of people who remain behind) propelled up to anywhere between 0.5 and 0.8 C. by an intensely focused solar beam. In addition to the settlers, the can contains replication technology and patterns for building housing and other macro-structures for use by the settlers when they "wake up." Included, of course, would be the blueprint for building more cans and solar magnifiers, so that new probes can be sent out.
When a probe arrives at a star system, it first creates structures for carrying out a thorough investigation as to what life is already there. The default setting is one in which the system is devoid of life and settlement begins. If there's life, the probe sets up non-intrusive permanent observation and sends itself out to the next system. If there's civilized life, the probe makes a call as to whether it's appropriate to interact, and some select members of the crew are brought out for a diplomatic mission. If it's not appropriate to interact, we just head on out to the next star system.
Posted by: Phil Bowermaster![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blog.speculist.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 29, 2006 07:15 AM