What WOULD be adequate proof of alien visitation to Earth?

[PeroK]

I think you've misread my posts.

Okay, we're saying that:

a) An uncrewed interstellar craft is still potentially far in the future, but is plausible. Especially if a trip to Alpha Centauri that takes a hundred years is acceptable.

b) A crewed mission to Alpha Centauri presents an additional order of magnitude of difficulty. And, rather than be an overall help to a mission, a human crew would make the mission an order of magnitude harder to achieve.

What are you saying?

 

[russ_watters]

All of the early prototypes involved things like pulsed nuclear propulsion, which would get the crafts up to something like .1c to .4c. Over long distances, damage would accumulate to the shields from dust, and the shields would need to be repaired. I'll look for the references in a bit when I have time. You can look up Daedalus and follow the links.

Here is one paper on dust damage.

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1525731

That paper doesn't say the damage would need to be repaired.

 

[russ_watters]

Okay, we're saying that:

a) An uncrewed interstellar craft is still potentially far in the future, but is plausible. Especially if a trip to Alpha Centauri that takes a hundred years is acceptable.

b) A crewed mission to Alpha Centauri presents an additional order of magnitude of difficulty. And, rather than be an overall help to a mission, a human crew would make the mission an order of magnitude harder to achieve.

c) Neither "AI" nor general purpose robots are required either.

 

[Jarvis323]

That paper doesn't say the damage would need to be repaired.

I said that the prototype missions I know of included autonomous robots that would repair damage accumulating from dust.

 

[russ_watters]

I said that the prototype missions I know of included autonomous robots that would repair damage accumulating from dust.

Yes, and I said I'd like to see references for that. In response, you referenced a paper that appears to directly contradict your claim that repairs are needed.

 

[Jarvis323]

Okay, we're saying that:

a) An uncrewed interstellar craft is still potentially far in the future, but is plausible. Especially if a trip to Alpha Centauri that takes a hundred years is acceptable.

b) A crewed mission to Alpha Centauri presents an additional order of magnitude of difficulty. And, rather than be an overall help to a mission, a human crew would make the mission an order of magnitude harder to achieve.

What are you saying?

It seems you are trying to read between the lines in what I am saying or something. What I am saying is exactly what I said, taken literally. Some of what I have said can be almost summarized as an argument that (b) isn't necessarily true and might well be false. Except that (b) seems to be based on a misrepresentation of my previous arguments, which were that biological entities that have been genetically enhanced and augmented with technology might end up being the state of the art for maintaining and carrying out interstellar missions before classical robots with AI are. I never said humans, except when I said it could be possible that our descendants or creations may fit this category at some point.

I haven't said anything about (a) except to imply that 100 years isn't a long time in the grand scheme of things, and that all of the proposed missions I've seen identify automatons as being necessary in order to repair damage. I just got free, so I'll post the links to those proposals.

 

[BWV]

Presumably any advanced civilization would want to outlive the star around which it originated, maybe not with a galactic empire, but at least spreading to a few nearby systems. Perhaps no civilization in our galaxy has yet reached the point where they had to start thinking about the issue.

 

[DennisN]

"What WOULD be adequate proof of alien visitation to Earth?"

I haven't read the other answers in this thread yet, but here's my answer:
Something physical we can all see (and maybe touch and feel), i.e. physical evidence.

 

[chemisttree]

"What WOULD be adequate proof of alien visitation to Earth?"

I haven't read the other answers in this thread yet, but here's my answer:
Something physical we can all see (and maybe touch and feel), i.e. physical evidence.

We might be able to see them with these glasses!

 

[Jarvis323]

Yes, and I said I'd like to see references for that. In response, you referenced a paper that appears to directly contradict your claim that repairs are needed.

I disagree that the paper contradicts my claim that repairs are needed. I posted that link in response mainly to Perok's skepticism emoji that presumably expressed skepticism that interstellar dust could cause damage.

I'm having trouble finding copies of the original documents that source the things I've read about repairs being needed. But maybe this will do for now (last 4 pages).

https://kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/systems/presentations/garrett.pdf

 

[russ_watters]

I disagree that the paper contradicts my claim that repairs are needed. I posted that link in response mainly to Perok's skepticism emoji that presumably expressed skepticism that interstellar dust could cause damage.

I'm having trouble finding copies of the original documents that source the things I've read about repairs being needed. But maybe this will do for now (last 4 pages).

https://kiss.caltech.edu/workshops/systems/presentations/garrett.pdf

Thanks, but page 18 says that at 20% C, for a 6 LY mission, the erosion would equal 1 cm of aluminum. That seems pretty manageable to me.

These papers at least strongly imply that the solution to the problem is better shielding, not in-flight repair.
[edit]
But I hadn't gotten to page 20 yet. It does indeed say it needs robots capable of in-flight repair. I don't think they've demonstrated the need since it is listed in the conclusions even though I don't see it being discussed in the report, but fair enough, it's in there.

 

[BWV]

The autonomous probes would be self -replicating, and with the ability to harness solar energy to convert asteroids or other stellar material into millions or billions of new probes at each new system. Would not care about the attrition rate from dust or mechanical failure, numbers would solve all that. The probes likely would be small as possible to minimize the energy needed to accelerate to reasonable speeds - so maybe they are here now, but too small and dark to see. This model, which could have covered the whole galaxy within a few million years, is most applicable to the Fermi Paradox

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1111.6131.pdf

 

[Evo]

I believe we have exhausted any allowable answers without going down the wacky hole. There is no answer we can prove without an obvious alien presence, I don't mean actual aliens, but indisputable proof, all else is currently speculation. Not saying that there isn't already proof, we just can't verify it, like in court "beyond a reasonable doubt".