Debunking Interstellar Travel: Separating Fact from Fiction

[sophiecentaur]

It would need a really, really good reason not to leave.

I totally disagree. You would need to be totally backs to the wall to swap living on Earth for the Risk and the boredom of a long (years and years or even generations) space voyage with no certainty of a good destination.
There is a saying, used by all sea-going boat owners. "You should never consider stepping down into your life raft. i.e. only when your boat is actually sinking should you contemplate actually getting into the raft. It is the same as with the glamourised stellar exploration. Only when you can supply yourself with a 'life raft' that's as comfortable as Earth would you want to leave Earth. No little spaceship would ever be a good alternative. Any craft that's big enough and earth-like enough would involve more cost than actually sorting out a bad situation on Earth.
The potential 'Spacers' on this thread seem to think that providing an near enough Earthlike existence at the destination would somehow be easier than sorting out the Earth. So far, the only 'improvement' needed for improving Earth that this thread has suggested has been to use Solar energy sources. That is clearly nothing like enough. At least, on Earth, we have a vast number of systems involving the established flora and fauna which are doing a significant job of maintaining Earth's environment. On the 'target' planet, there would be nothing that could be relied on to do the same for us. The native life (if there were any) could as likely be totally hostile as 'on our side'. So, would we just blast it all flat and start again?? Get real.

I loved that Scientific American article - the enthusiasts really should read it and factor it into their opinions.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Interstellar travel is a certainty if we do not vanishes as a specie.

What sort of magic law says that we should not expect to vanish at some point? The same sort of reasoning that makes some people believe in everlasting (personal) life, I guess. Very comforting for those who need it but a totally groundless assumption.

 

[mfb]

I think they would have to be because of the extreme commitment of resources / money for either. The priority would clearly be in favour of an Earth Repair project - for the whole population, rather than a project which would benefit only the crew. I am assuming that any useful final destination would be too far for useful communications (bandwidth limited) and certainly for any useful trade or importing of materials. It is far too short sighted to talk in terms of life support on a ship of some kind. It would be essential to think in terms of a long term living environment on a suitable planet. All the technology for maintaining Earth's ecosystems would be needed PLUS the (over trivialised) terraforming that would be needed.
There is far more involved than just getting a number of people to some destination hundreds of light years away. Why is that task the only one that is considered by the enthusiasts?

It is never about having the money - it is about the will to spend it. Anyway, as I mentioned before: a lot of research would help both the Earth and a future spacecraft , and a lot of research for a spacecraft would help people on Earth as well. Research on terraforming (which is optional) has applications in the solar system as well.

Yes, for a space telescope. The point is that we have no idea about any planets that would support a landing via suitable gravity, surface, and atmosphere, much less habitable planets.

The planet around Proxima Centauri has a suitable gravity. We can probably work with its surface. It does not need to have a great atmosphere. The spacecraft which arrives there is nearly self-sufficient. Every planet with a solid or liquid surface and reasonable gravity is better than the working spacecraft . We know already that the planet around Proxima Centauri has this.

What "extreme money" are you talking about? Solar doubles every 2.5 years. Even if this trend slows down, in 20-30 years, more than half of all generation will be solar. And most importantly, solar *no longer needs subsidies* - solar power stations are competitive with other generation even today, and will get even better with economies of scale. From now on, it will grow "automatically", without special efforts, by virtue of being a good investment. In fact, I have hard time imagining how anyone can possibly stop it now.

I like your optimism, but (a) it only doubles 2-3 years in countries with a small fraction of solar power, (b) increasing the fraction above ~15% will lead to huge stability issues with the power grid as (c) we don't have an affordable large-scale storage solution yet (you still need power when it is cloudy, for example). Which also means "no longer needs subsidies" is misleading: it needs regulations giving it priority over conventional power plants, which increases their price in times when the sun does not shine - we pay for it, just at different places. And even with this huge advantage of not caring about the time of production, it is not yet competitive in many places where power is needed. Germany for example pays several billion dollars of direct subsidies every year for its ~10% solar energy share, estimates about the total subsidies (spent plus future commitments) are ~250 billions.

Nuclear is not competitive with coal

It is much better than coal if you include the costs induced by the exhaust of coal power plants. And then there is still the CO2 which leads to huge indirect costs.

will stop dousing us with Cs-137

Oh come on. Coal power plants emit more activity than nuclear power plants. Which is completely irrelevant compared to other damages done anyway.

But I think this is getting off-topic.

 

[nikkkom]

I totally disagree. You would need to be totally backs to the wall to swap living on Earth for the Risk and the boredom of a long (years and years or even generations) space voyage with no certainty of a good destination.

A lot of people on Earth find their life very boring. Work,home,work,home,work,home...

The potential 'Spacers' on this thread seem to think that providing an near enough Earthlike existence at the destination would somehow be easier than sorting out the Earth.

I think we do not need to "sort out the Earth" as it is. Our biggest problem is that most of Earth population is still living under tyrannical and/or kleptocratic governments, and thus have poor, dangerous and miserable lives. The West's efforts to improve the situation are half-hearted and often ineffective. However, I digress.

You completely miss the point if you see interstellar travel as "escape from a sinking boat". People would want to fly to other stars even if Earth and Solar System is in perfect shape and life there is okay.

Somehow you cannot fathom the fact that if _you_ don't find it interesting to go onto an interstellar expedition, _others_ will find it worthwhile.

Finally. Another repeating thought here is that "interstellar expedition must find an Earth-like planet at the destination". Not at all. If people on this expedition already had in their past history Mars colonies, bases on Callisto and asteroids, they don't need an Earth-like planet.

 

[nikkkom]

>> Nuclear is not competitive with coal

It is much better than coal if you include the costs induced by the exhaust of coal power plants. And then there is still the CO2 which leads to huge indirect costs.

I disagree about "much better", but "better" was not even the metric I used. "Nuclear is not competitive with coal" - this means that an investor who decided to invest in building a powerplant would choose coal (or something else) over nuclear.

This is supported by numbers. Since 1996, only four new units are being built (at Vogtle and V.C.Summer). Watts Bar 2 was 80% complete in 1990 but finished only this year; half-completed Bellefonte was scrapped. Levy County project is put on hold before construction is started (switching to natural gas plant). Meanwhile, operational units are being closed (San Onofre, Crystal River, Kewaunee, Vermont Yankee, Fort Calhoun).

 

[mfb]

"Nuclear is not competitive with coal" - this means that an investor who decided to invest in building a powerplant would choose coal (or something else) over nuclear.

Yes, because coal power plant operators don't have to pay for the massive environmental damage they cause.

Anyway, my last post about this topic because it is not relevant to interstellar travel. No interstellar spacecraft will run with coal power plants.

 

[DrStupid]

You would need to be totally backs to the wall to swap living on Earth for the Risk and the boredom of a long (years and years or even generations) space voyage with no certainty of a good destination.

Somebody who already live in the Oort cloud for generations need to be totally backs to the wall to swap living in his space station for a life on a planet in the densely populated inner soar system. You must not infer the motivations of such a person from your personal preferences.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It is never about having the money - it is about the will to spend it.

Are you saying that there is no limit to resources? Money is equal to resources and too much extra spending would, as usual, lead to the less privileged having even worse lives. The US and the Soviets (now the Russians) have spent what they have on Space exploration at the expense of the poor of their countries. (I forgot to mention North Korea, which is only an extreme version of a poor population supporting a well fed elite). I know that the Keynsian view of economics tells us that spending and investment makes life 'better' for all but that only applies to a degree and to those who are already well off.

People would want to fly to other stars even if Earth and Solar System is in perfect shape and life there is okay.

There are already some nutty people who are falling over themselves to volunteer for a one way trip to Mars. They are not representative of the people who would be funding such a venture although there would be governments that would exploit such foolishness in the interests of scoring corporate points. Trips like that are not Scientific - they are ego trips. They are certainly not made for the benefit of our (or even their) descendants.

A lot of people on Earth find their life very boring. Work,home,work,home,work,home...

A lot of people, with boring existences, take holidays in places where they get a good dose of Earth - sea, sun and sand. OTOH, there are a lot of people whose lives are much worse than 'boring'. They don't have the chance of any relief from poverty and work work work (if lucky) or poverty with no work. They clearly don't count in any of the 'equations' that are drawn up to justify massive expense on Space exploration.
The passengers / crew of space journeys, lasting many years, would be little better than long term prisoners. The only way to deal with that sort of problem would be to spend the long years immersed in diversionary games or chemically induced oblivion.

Somebody who already live in the Oort cloud for generations need to be totally backs to the wall to swap living in his space station for a life on a planet in the densely populated inner soar system. You must not infer the motivations of such a person from your personal preferences.

They say you can get used to anything. I have a suspicion that you imagine that life in the Oort Cloud (on some large enough piece of rock) could somehow be made to suit a human who evolved over billions of years, to be suited to life on Earth. I do not understand why the whole exercise manages to attract people, once they have considered the whole possible scenario.
If Homo Sapiens could evolve into a different species - one with a body that could exist viably at very low gravity and would not tolerate the conditions on Earth and manage to provide itself with an environment consisting of similar living food sources then you could possibly have a workable system. But this would require even better management than 'just' terraforming a suitable host planet.

I think we do not need to "sort out the Earth" as it is. Our biggest problem is that most of Earth population is still living under tyrannical and/or kleptocratic governments, and thus have poor, dangerous and miserable lives. The West's efforts to improve the situation are half-hearted and often ineffective. However, I digress.

I really don't think you are digressing. Blaming "tyrannical governments" is a bit simplistic and reminds me of supporters of the second amendment. States with 'small government' are just as likely to be damaging the Earth due to Corporate greed. I really can't imagine how anyone who takes notice of the News, every day can think that we don't need to do any sorting out. Pollution (totally ignored in this thread, so far) is a worse problem than Energy shortages. Why would things be any different on a distant colony in that respect?

Edit: All the above issues were dealt with more than fifty years ago inc SciFi from Azimof, Olafson and AC Clarke but in stories in which it was assumed that time is not a problem - either in traveling or the development of societies.

 

[PeterDonis]

Thread closed for moderation.