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Forum: General Talk
08-14-2015, 04:17 PM
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Rupert, why is that squirrel without a space helmet?
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Forum: General Talk
08-12-2015, 06:35 PM
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I'd think that the ion drive they used on a pre-existing craft would work better than the sails. Don't remember which thing they sent up into space uses it, but it was pretty big news at the time.
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Forum: General Talk
07-31-2015, 03:28 PM
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Glad you're enjoying the read. As for it continuing, it's starting to look doubtful since people seem to want to claim impossibility or some up with snappy one liners rather than to give the topic serious thought as a future possibility, rather than just daydreaming.
But here's a joke for you:
What's the difference between a politician and an astronaut?
While the politician is busy promising you the stars in order to get elected, an astronaut strives to reach them.
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Forum: General Talk
07-29-2015, 08:17 PM
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Something tells me you might like watching a japanese anime series called Planetes. While not centered around interstellar travel it does cover a very wide range of potential issues in a very realistic way. For something set around near future times and more mundane space topics (such as trash in space damaging passenger ships, etc...) it does present things in a plausible and realistic way.
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Forum: General Talk
07-29-2015, 07:40 PM
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I do know that our current materials for radiation shielding are insufficient for being in space. The cosmic radiation just seems to penetrate everything we take up there. First and foremost this problem will have to be severely reduced/eliminated before any long distance travel is feasible. Other top priority hurdles are oxygen replenishment, sustainable food, and potable water and reclamation methods for said water. I don't think that interstellar space flight is impossible within one's lifetime, it's just highly improbable with the multitude of factors needing to go into the solution. Add to that fact that even if it were possible, governments, corporations, and most people refuse to look that far ahead and focus more on short-term projects with near term military and monetary returns. Remember that there was a time when the notion of going up into space, let alone reaching the moon didn't seem possible in one's lifetime.
While the people who leave out on the interstellar travel and those waiting for news back home might never see the result, future generations will, barring a catastrophe that prevents completion of the mission. Some people will say "why don't you try to fix the problems already present on earth before you try to leave it?", well the problems will never go away. Fix one and new ones pop up. Maybe it's a sign of the times, but in the past people used to look to science for answers to the seemingly impossible, these days just about all you can interest people in is which kardashian's marriage is on the rocks this week. There are a multitude of problems on earth right now that are growing every day that may in the future be solved by interstellar travel. One such problem that is growing is the ever so increasing overpopulation problem. Without going out to find new habitable spaces, we will in time (as long as it takes), eventually run out of space, resources, and capacity to feed everyone. We really do need to start thinking of things further out as a species. If 50 years isn't enough time to solve a problem, perhaps it can be solved within 100 years, but if we do nothing then we start at square one when we should be at least on square 3 or 4 in that time.
Sorry for rambling.
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Forum: General Talk
07-28-2015, 12:01 PM
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Read about that earlier this week on a diff. site. Probably what set me off thinking of this stuff again.
On another note:
People... a little humor isn't a bad thing, but please STICK WITH THE TOPIC. Noelpolar, your comment was way off of the discussion point and as such cannot be found to have merit towards the topic. As an aside, I have ZERO INTEREST IN THE FULL FRAME, so it matters not to me whether lenses are FF compatible, and I would much rather think about ways to potentially solve a future hurdle of mankind. Interstellar space travel is most definitely more interesting than planning out a future career or other such things here on earth.
That said, future attempts to derail or shut down the thread will be reported to the moderators. Please keep on topic and try to put honest effort into the discussion.
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Forum: General Talk
07-28-2015, 02:26 AM
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From time to time I always seem to revisit this topic in my head. I may not be able to work out mathematical or logistical details for things I come up with for this topic, but I sure don't seem to run out of things to add to the list. Anyway, seeing how I think about this somewhat frequently, I thought it would be fun to see what others have to think on the subject. I think this can become a rather interesting topic of lengthy discussion. What do you think is needed, what are the potential failure points, how do you work around said failure points, etc...
For starters you definitely need a ship... that is a given. This brings us to several points that need to be addressed: Design, materials, fuel, powering the ship, oxygen, food, and water. Obviously, when designing a ship for interstellar travel, you have to think VERY LARGE, a ship large enough to make the trip with enough crew, supplies, etc... is going to take massive amounts of resources to build. To obtain the materials, you would most likely have to obtain them from several planets in the solar system. Utilizing that many resources from a single planet might run the risk of upsetting the orbit or gravitational field (if you reduce weight from something and don't replace it obviously you're going to have consequences). The design of the ship will have to take into consideration housing, recreation/fitness, supply storage, energy production, waste processing, redundant systems for any mission critical aspects, etc...
The ship will need a crew. Interstellar travel will take quite a long time since we don't have FTL drives or drives that remotely approach those speeds. Since a single generation of crewmembers stands well... ZERO chance of making it to the destination, the best plan would be for multi-generational crew. The original crewmembers would basically be living all aspects of life planetside in addition to their duties. This means having kids, and then teaching those children the ins and outs of the crew positions so that things can continue to run smoothly (hopefully). It will most likely take several generations to reach the intended destination.
Food. As glorious as it would be to have warehouses upon warehouses of bacon and similar foodstuffs, well... it's not feasible, the food would run out and the crew would be SOL. This means that crew will have to grow, raise, and process most of their food. This means that the ship will need all elements necessary to do so.
Energy... every aspect of life on the ship will require some form of the stuff. The biggest question related to this is "how to power the ship"? Fuel is too bulky to store and is finite... and usually pretty volatile as well. This pretty much leaves nuclear and solar, unless other sources become available. One of the problems with solar is that solar panels are remarkably inefficient. The problem with nuclear is how to dispose of the waste. Physical to electrical energy conversion can help but only to an extent (putting dynamos on the stationary fitness bikes, for example).
These are just some of the necessities and some of the problems that will have to be discussed and overcome to achieve success. As it is now 5:30am and I've had about 3 hrs of sleep in the last 24hr period I'll have to cut myself short. Please continue the discussion with more ideas, the problems that will need to be faced for those ideas, and possible solutions.
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