dystopic dystopic

bussard ramjets, cryonic stasis, and exoplanetary colonization

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bussard ramjets, cryonic stasis, and exoplanetary colonization

what will it take?

from GalCiv2 Forums
hello everyone,

i'm a bit of a writer, and i can't help but feel drawn to science fiction. that shouldn't be surprising.

lately i've been reading up a great deal on theoretical physics, exobiological speculation, and all that. i was dismayed at first to learn that the chances of faster-than-light travel being physically possible are slim. it was also pretty discouraging when i sat down and looked at the actual speeds that'd be required to traverse sizable parts of the galaxy in a single conscious lifetime. it was a kick when i was down to learn about how difficult terraforming probably would be. but the more i've been learning, the more i've been excited about telling a different kind of science fiction story.

to draw an analogue to our world, the thing that made both the european colonial age and the modern process of globalization have been technology. it's not that we couldn't go to various places around the world before, it just cost too damn much to make anything worth it. i got my BA in sociology, and these sorts of things interest me.

if FTL travel isn't possible, then more than likely it'll be too damn costly to ever colonize beyond our own solar system as the way it's been envisioned in most of the celebrated scifi universes. But there are examples such as Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of a Distant Earth or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri where humans colonize to escape destruction on earth.

recently i had the chance to meet both Kim Stanley Robinson and Geoff Ryman. Robinson is a hard scifi writer after my own heart; the Mars Trilogy is a really interesting look at our first attempts to colonize within our own star system. Ryman was actually more interesting to talk to, though. maybe because few people have ever heard of him (i was only there because i work at UCSD where he was being hosted). but i actually got to talk to him. he said he thinks we probably won't ever leave our galactic neighborhood.

i'm interested in writing a hard scifi story (or series) myself. i'm interested from a sociological point of view: what would drive us to colonize space? from a writer's point of view, i want to keep the earth around, so i'm not interested in a flight from disaster. what would societies be like after colonies were established? trade would be difficult, but not impossible. same goes for war.

while i'm certainly interested in contributions along those lines, i'm also interested in learning more about the hard science and engineering behind interstellar travel. i've got a lot of questions i haven't been able to answer through wikipedia and google alone. but i'm not about to list them all here.

it seems like a discussion about real ("real") colonization and space travel could use a place on these boards.

i'll kick it off. i've been reading up on propultion especially, and bussard ramjets seem like the most economically feasible option since they gather their fuel as they go - perhaps especially if it could be hybridized with another form such as antimatter-catalyzed fusion. the wikipedia article on bussard ramjets describe that they'd probably need what is essentially a magnetic funnel or ramscoop to gather interstellar hydrogen as propellant.

The mass of the ion ram scoop must be minimized on an interstellar ramjet. The size of the scoop is large enough that the scoop cannot be solid. This is best accomplished by using an electromagnetic field, or alternatively using an electrostatic field to build the ion ram scoop. Such an ion scoop will use electromagnetic funnels, or electrostatic fields to collect ionized hydrogen gas from space for use as propellant by ramjet propulsion systems (since much of the hydrogen is not ionized, some versions of a scoop propose ionizing the hydrogen, perhaps with a laser, ahead of the ship.) An electric field can electrostatically attract the positive ions, and thus draw them inside a ramjet engine. The electromagnetic funnel would bend the ions into helical spirals around the magnetic field lines to scoop up the ions via the starship's motion through space. Ionized particles moving in spirals produce an energy loss, and hence drag; the scoop must be designed to both minimize the circular motion of the particles and simultaneously maximize the collection. Likewise, if the hydrogen is heated during collection, thermal radiation will represent an energy loss, and hence also drag; so an effective scoop must collect and compress the hydrogen without significant heating.


talk about kick-butt imagery! spirals of heated gas careening towards a ship only to be fused and expelled in a jet plume? sweet.

anyway, i've written enough, and i hope it hasn't put anyone off. some of the the community here has proven to be very well read with regard to these kinds of science, so i thought it'd make a great topic for discussion: all things related to space exploration and colonization with reasonable extrapolations of current technology.

my biggest point of curiostiy was with respect to ramjets, so i'll take the kickoff: could the spiral motion of the inbound gas somehow be harnessed to artficially generate gravity by rotating the ship, instead of producing drag?

any volunteers?

final words: i hope no one minds my double-motive. i won't try to steer any dicussion, though if things quiet down i might pose more general questions to keep it going; i encourage anyone interested to pose your own!
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436,411 views 930 replies
Reply #476 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i think your confusing wimps with poor people who had no other options but to settle wild lands.


ok if you say so
Reply #477 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your history= fail.



the puritans were the first Europeans to come here to stay. they were the dredge of English society.

the non wimps that came were the explores. the wimps were the ones that came here to build towns and stay here. they were not going to go home. and i think that when we colonize mars it will be the same way more or less.


Actually, the first Europeans to stay here to stay were soldiers from Columbus' expedition, followed by even more soldiers in both North and South America LONG before the Jamestown settlement (no Puritans there), which was the first permanent British settlement. Those people came to get rich, and did rather well at it. Since it was a money making voyage, they didn't send the "dredges", they sent those they thought could survive and thrive.

The Puritans came later, and were by no means the bottom of English society, they were those who disagreed with the established religious order, nothing more or less.



as for your family i meant no disrespect. i don't know when they came over. but in the wild wild west it was the non wimps that cleared the land of hazards except for themselves of course. and it was the wimps that built it.


Ha!

Actually, the whole cowboy image of the rest (as well as the "clearing" of it) came long after the west had begun to be settled. American colonies in Texas existed sixty years before the true cowboy age, settlements in Idaho, Utah and Arizona about 30-40 years before, etc.

Here's a bit of logic to chew on, why were they called cowboys? Because they dealt with cows. Now, cows by them selves have little value beyond the meat you can eat and milk you can drink, it's only when you can sell them do they gain value. Why were there cowboys? Because there were established towns to sell the cows in! Prior to the "wimps" showing up to build towns, the west consisted of Indians and a few mountain men (who didn't "clear" the land for anyone).

Try reading a history book. It gives you a lot of insight into the subject.
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #478 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, the first Europeans to stay here to stay were soldiers from Columbus' expedition, followed by even more soldiers in both North and South America LONG before the Jamestown settlement (no Puritans there), which was the first permanent British settlement. Those people came to get rich, and did rather well at it. Since it was a money making voyage, they didn't send the "dredges", they sent those they thought could survive and thrive.




they came and stayed but their idea was to come and get rich. then go home.

the puritans came here to make themselves a home.
Reply #479 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To add to the list of exceptions: ...


I think that the point he was making was that most of the feats their "technology" performed are physically possible, though our devices may work differently, are inefficient, or still in the theoretical phase.

nope, missed a couple points.


Ah, I saw those. To rephrase: "the only long term trade off between the fountain and a traditional elevator is higher energy costs vs. necessitating ultra strong materials". I overlooked construction/location issues, but you are correct; the fountain would be easier to build and more widely deployable, and is therefore more likely to be built than an elevator. Still, in the long run, I would think that the constant energy drain would "outweigh" the initial ease of operating a space fountain.

the only trade off between the fountain and a traditional elevator is higher energy costs vs. necessitating ultra strong materials


Ah, if only. Our water is composed primarily of protium, meaning its hydrogen atoms have only one proton, and no neutrons. While gifting water with some of its many life-giving properties, it is unfortunately useless for fusion, which is the domain of protium's rarer brothers, deuterium and tritium. As an indicator of how rare the heavy isotopes are, look at hydrogen's atomic mass: 1.0078 u, which is an average of the occurrences of the three isotopes (protium weighs 1 u).
Reply #480 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Puritans came later, and were by no means the bottom of English society, they were those who disagreed with the established religious order, nothing more or less.


they also didn't have enough money to pay for the trip.
Reply #481 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
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Reply #482 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Bah, danielost posted too soon. My last quote should read:

we've got plenty of hydrogen for fuel (in the form of water, which can be easily converted to molecular hydrogen and oxygen with current technology).


Reply #483 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


they also didn't have enough money to pay for the trip.


That tends to happen when the government seizes your assets for failure to believe in what you consider a false religion.


Reply #484 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That tends to happen when the government seizes your assets for failure to believe in what you consider a false religion.


true but it also puts you in the dredges of society catagory sorry.
Reply #485 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
which was the first permanent British settlement


i didn't say anything about permanent settlements. you have groups of people coming and going of course your settlements/towns will be permanent but the people living in them don't plan to be.
Reply #486 from GalCiv2 Forums Top



true but it also puts you in the dredges of society catagory sorry.


If anything it puts them solidly in the refugee category. In any case, it doesn't change the fact that you said ridiculously inaccurate statements about groups of people while completely ignoring the wonderful thing that we like to call recorded history.

Reply #487 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ok what ever i am not going to fight with you over this.
Reply #488 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Too late! We already have!
Reply #489 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Too late! We already have!


whatever
Reply #490 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that the point he was making was that most of the feats their "technology" performed are physically possible, though our devices may work differently, are inefficient, or still in the theoretical phase.


yeah, many of the federation's technologies could be physically possible, but, there's plenty of other pseudo-science. just think about all the anomolies they run into ('macro viruses', borg transwarp conduits, subspace, 'the nexus', non-pardoxical time travel), not to mention all the unexplained types of radiation and all of the 'energy creatures' they run into ('pure energy' is only physically possible for something moving at the speed of light).

and just for one extra bonus, on an ep of voyager where they went into the past, they were hacking a computer and had to 'translate from binary', meaning there's an entirely new and unspecified model of computation.

true but it also puts you in the dredges of society catagory sorry


being a wimp and being on the lower strata of the socio-economic order are two different things, as well. in general, the working class are actually stronger and more phsyically capable. just look at blue blood among the european royalty, and think about who form the main rank and file of any given army. generally it's sitting around on your back side working with numbers and words (accountants, lawyers, magistrates, tax collectors, kings) rather than your hands (farmers, laborers) that leaves you being wimpy.

colonists, like immigrants, are usually looking for something they can't get in their homeland. economic opportunity, political freedom, escape from war and hardship, superior education. sometimes the idea is to gain something and go home, but not money usually. earning a high income can happen in a lifetime, but generally it take generations to build up wealth ('wealth' in the sociologal since is money you don't work for - inheretance, assests, interest).

but when it comes to colonizing space, i'm not sure these models will totally hold true. i think population restriction is going to be a major factor. as we start to use many of the resources in this system, it's not going to be possible to have unlimited population growth. having a child will be something you'll need to apply for, and many won't qualify (and familys authorized to have more than 2 kids will be rare indeed). add to that the near-future probability that human life will be extended significantly, and i think you've got a major driving force for colonization (people who want a family, who don't want life on a space station for thier family, and a government more than happy to get rid of a few extra billion people).

but regardless of that, generalizing so flatly about that many people across so many colonizations and immigrations makes for poor reasoning and poorer writing. people aren't homogeneous, and motivations for things like population movement vary greatly from person to person and epic to epic.
Reply #491 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not so sure about the human life being extended too significantly or indefinitely. Wihle I won't contest the concept of suspended animation, I'd like to point out that from a philosophical sense, those people aren't alive in the sense that they have the same freedoms or abilities as a normal person.

But to the point of extending the human life. We've made incredible progress in extending the average life span of a person in some countries. In some places the life span has been increased for individuals as much as 20-40 years and only in the time span of a century or two. However there are many more factors to this than just medical science. Alot of it has to do with economics and environment. Using America as an example, in the past, diseases stemming from malnoursihment were more common as people couldn't afford more nutritious (or enough) food. Also the use of child labor during the industrial revolution and the hazardous materials used also effected the life span. The anceint Roman for example, have records of people living well into their 60's and 70's, despite less medical knowledge than the America of the 1880's where the life span was significantly less.

Another factor is lifestyle. While our medical technology is getting better, Americans are getting fatter. The rate of which we increase our lifespan is getting smaller. In 50 years, I don't expect people to be living 5-10 years longer than now on average.

Lastly human cells have mortality built into them. After so long and so many divisions, they die. We can remove the mortality from the cells and make them immortal. We do that for research all the time (stem cells are one prominent example). However, the immortal cells are unstable and tend to mutate or accumulate DNA damage or just do weird things that aren't easily explained. Essentially , Cancer cells are natural examples of what happens when Human cells become immortal and start growing out of control.

I think our next big hurtle to increasing lifespan is to find an efective way to treat cancer permanetly. We have a pretty good grasp on how to treat heart disease both in terms of lifestyle and medicine (Just a lot of people aren't into the whole lifestyle thing), so I see with some work, heart disease while still being deadly, will become less deadly compared to cancer.
Reply #492 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Lastly human cells have mortality built into them. After so long and so many divisions, they die. We can remove the mortality from the cells and make them immortal. We do that for research all the time (stem cells are one prominent example). However, the immortal cells are unstable and tend to mutate or accumulate DNA damage or just do weird things that aren't easily explained. Essentially , Cancer cells are natural examples of what happens when Human cells become immortal and start growing out of control.


this was what i specifically had in mind: isolating and directly interventing with the molecular causes of aging. it wouldn't just require genetic manipulation; there's also 'junk' that builds up in and around cell membranes (to name just one other factor), but given sufficiently advanced science (and lots of money) it's theoretically possible to extend the life of a human body indefinately. psychology is another issue entirely. to be sure, i don't envision 'immortality' (or even millenial lifespans) to be common or affordable, but i could see it being exceedingly appealing to the uppermost economic classes. i mean, what's the reason for inheritance laws in the first place? nepotism: to keep money and resources closer to yourself (via your kids and community), and buying your own immortality has got to be the most extreme form of it i can imagine. if it's theoretically possible then to live indefinately or even for several dozen generations, why even bother having kids of your own?

also, i remember reading a scientific article that said if lifestyles were totally optimized and living conditions perfectly controlled, human beings could have an upper age limit of about 135--however, i personally think if anything, at the points where resources are becomming exceedingly scarce, living conditions will deteriorate more than improve compared to the present state.
Reply #493 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
, i remember reading a scientific article that said if lifestyles were totally optimized and living conditions perfectly controlled, human beings could have an upper age limit of about 135-


it is 120
Reply #494 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
wikipedia puts it at 122.5 without a calorie restriction diet.

i don't remember the name of the article i was reading, but it clearly said 135 - of course, that could be a minority opinion.
Reply #495 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While I uderstand that you could perfectly optimize conditions and and human lifestyle to extend the human life, you gotta think about what exactly you are doing. Essentially you are putting a person into a test tube where everything is controlled. By having stress (of say running an economic empire), or any other such event, you would be cutting down the lifespan. Those people would essentially have no freedom.

It is true that aging is much more than genetics. The scientific community still doesn't totally understand (or agree on) the process to be honest and there are many many variables that seem tied to age, but we are not sure how/why they are. Mortality of cells merely explains the lifespan of a cell line. Some cell lines in our body sxpire prior to birth, others last for many years. We know that some facets of aging are genetic, but beyond that, there is a lot of speculation.

For example, there is a protein that reveres the DNA damage casued by UV radiation, stopping skin cells from turning into cancer. We all have it. But as you get older, the activity of this protein decreases. We have no idea why. We actually have a fairly complex anti cancer system in our bodies - Perhaps its random like winning the lottery, after stoppin 1 million cancer cells over 60+ years, one happens to slip through and develop into a tumor, who knows - Molecular biology is insanely complex. Not to say that we won't be able to extend a human life significantly, but indefinitely, I think that's on the extreme end of plausibility, maybe in a Star Trek episode

Unfortunately, unlike physics, there are no hard equations or laws that can really bind us one way or another nor any definite biological proof or one over the other, so it is really up to opinion on whether or not one's life can be extended indefinitely or not. I think scientifically, its just not possible; at least anytime in the near future.
Reply #496 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While it still isn't technically "immortality", what about converting yourself into a robot? Assuming we had a strong enough background in prosthetics and other related disciplines, wouldn't we be able to replace everything in the body with more durable, synthetic parts? We could even substitute totally inhuman appendages to "improve" the human form (like the Borg). The only real challenge that I can see is the brain; not only being a very complex machine, if we merely "replaced" the brain, questions arise as to whether the robot is the same person as the old. In any case, this would significantly expand lifespan (if you can call it life at this point).
Reply #497 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Unfortunately, unlike physics, there are no hard equations or laws that can really bind us one way or another nor any definite biological proof or one over the other


so true--even more so in the social sciences.

Not to say that we won't be able to extend a human life significantly, but indefinitely, I think that's on the extreme end of plausibility


shhh! you're giving away my first story!  

so after some evaluation of this as a writing project, i think what i'm going to do is aim for the novelette length (according to the Nebula awards, 7,500-17,500 words) to start. they're easier to publish than longer stories (novellas are about 17,500-40,000), but still allow for great depth, especially when there are several taking place in the same world setting.

the first one i have in mind, at least the thoughts i've put into it so far, would take place during pre-launch (or just after launch) of the first interstellar colony ship. unlike most science fiction, it wouldn't be primarily an event-based story. character study is my greatest strength, and i see no reason to break with that.

the story will center around the 100% owner of a corporation dedicated to founding colonies on other stars. she'll be old, really old (i'm thinking at least a thousand years). this is partly how she's managed to aquire the resources necessary to build a colony ship capable of holding billions of people in suspended animation for the long years it will take to journey to new stars. but the story itself will revolve around her attempts to indoctrinate a successor, because as old as she's managed to live, she knows all the resources in the world can't put death off her eventual death. if it sounds a little bland right now, it's still in a very natal state.

as i've said in more or less clarity before, my interest in science fiction is, well, sort of to be anti- Star Trek. the authors of the federation had at their disposal immense technological and economic possibilites, centuries of history, and dozens of worlds and alien species. yet, humans in that future seemed... well, kind of stuck int he 1950s-90s. the idealism, the human mores, the society itself seemed remarkalby unremarkable. this isn't to condemn Star Trek and the volumes of other scifi bearing similar marks at all. they're wonderful stories, and like the vast majority of scifi, teach us many things about ourselves. i think the success of the Star Trek franchise points to the fact that people still cherish the egalitarian idealism it contained.

i suppose my interest lies more in exploring the relationship between self, society and environment (in the wide sense). undoubtedly a person who lived 1,000+ years would have a very different outlook. a society living in habitation bubbles and quarters 10 times more cramped than modern Japan... it'd bring about changes we can't immediately sympathize with. much like the history and social conditions of early Islam and the modern middle east can make it hard to immediately allow those of us raised in a traditionally Christian west to feel connected with such different people. but in a speculative future just as much as the real present, deeper connections are possible--and to me, they seem vital. so i guess as a writer here, i'm interested in seeing how far and how successfully i can push the limits of superficial alien-ness and still end up with tales that are unerringly human.

heh, sorry to hijack the topic. i hadn't realized this was my deepest attraction to the idea of 'petri dish humanity', but now that i have i think i'm at the point where it's time to sit down and start writing.
Reply #498 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
what about converting yourself into a robot?


That is an interesting concept. As you pointed out, The sticking point would be the brain and spinal cord, as you'd have to convince the brain that the rest of the body existed by simulating nervous impluses, blood, hormones, etc. I'm no doctor, but I do know that we do have a wide array of devices that can take over the primary function of a lot of organs and systems. I would guess these devices would only get better over time. I could see people living a long time with surgically implanted dialysis machines, etc.

shhh! you're giving away my first story


Sorry, Didn't mean to spoil or anything I really like the concept and your take on focusing on the individual. I think one major drawback of SF, is that some writers get too tied up trying to "explain" all the science and technology and lose focus on the story (or it starts sounding like an Encyclopedia). I really enjoy the good character driven stories and approaches that focus on the stories, not on how many things a deflector dish can do, lol
Reply #499 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
what about converting yourself into a robot?


and putting a little mouse in your body, to control your body via tiny mouse controls?



  

of course then the issue becomes celluar decay for the brain and nervous system. we can already manage some degenerative neurological diseases, and i think the future looks promising for many others. but in the end, i think this would merely skirt around a few problems but not do much to address others (with respect to prolonging human life). now, if it were possible to download one's consciousness into a computer core, that'd be another issue.

there's one simple problem with this: our brains aren't binary. to an extent our peripherial nervous system is, but cerebral neurons work with many more types of signal, some mirror analog signals, and others mirroring something akin to 'multi-nary' computation. ultimately the effect on a particular neuron is one of either excitation or inhibition, but the myriad sources telling a particular neuron what to do are, well, myriad. moreover, a particular neuron doesn't just send a 0 or 1 signal; many contain pockets of various neurotransmitters, so a particular neuron might be excited enough in a particular way to release its dopamine, but not its seratonin or norephinephrine. finally, signals sent via neurotransmitter aren't linear, proceeding from one neuron to the next: when a neurotransmitter is released, it floods the neighboring neurons and reinforces is own signal (when it's disposed to doing so).

long story short, mirroring a real brain on a computer would take many more circuits than the brain itself has, unless we develop a model of computation other than binary. this isn't to say it couldn't be done, just that i don't see any reason to think it'd be any than managing cellular decay to put off aging.

Sorry, Didn't mean to spoil or anything


lol i was just kidding of course. to be honest, these days i don't enjoy stories for the events that happen. in many novels and most movies, i can predict pretty accurately what'll happen. it's just a factor of understanding story. i enjoy reading and film when a story, even if it's predictable, is executed with style, thoughtfulness, attention to detail, and compulsion (that is, characters and settings that evoke strong feelings).

i agree with you about SF, especially hard SF, though sometimes unravelling a sceintific mystery can be a really exciting part of a plot (why is this planet's gravity so low? how did this particular species end up the way it is? why is this star so dim? etc.).

though to be clear, i don't have the intent of focusing on one single character, as it stands in my mind, the focus will actually be on the relationship between "the mother of all colonies", so to speak, and her successor, who i'm thinking will be a stow-away discovered just before launch. this provides me with two exemplars of very different segments of the society (a member of the upper class and a member of the lower class). i've no intention to idealize either side, and in some ways this story won't have much of a villain as such; the tension will be built around conflicts within and between the two main characters, each, hopefully, coming to grips with new kinds of understanding of self and Other. this is a really abstract description; i've got pieces of ideas but the whole picture will only work itself out after i've put more work into it (so far i've jotted a few scenes that seem particularly memorable to me, and the rest of my work has been brainstorming setting and characterization).
Reply #500 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
the story will center around...


This all sounds very interesting. I can't wait to read your story (by the way, are you still planning on getting a website for the book?).

mirroring a real brain on a computer would take many more circuits than the brain itself has


True, the resulting hardware would probably be too large to fit in a normal human cranium. But, once we learn more about the brain, it should be relatively easy to code it into a computer. Essentially like software emulation of the brain.

unless we develop a model of computation other than binary.


Quantum computing is on the rise, it might just give us the edge we need to map the brain.

just that i don't see any reason to think it'd be any ****** than managing cellular decay to put off aging.


Asterisks mine; did you mean to put "easier" there?

While it may not be the easiest solution to staving off aging, I would think that it is a more permanent solution. I would imagine that managing a complex, not to mention sensitive, biological system like the brain would be difficult to maintain, whereas a construct of modern plastics and metals would require little if any maintenance, not to mention invulnerability to biological pathogens. The only new hazards are things like exposure to strong magnetic radiation, however, I believe we already have relatively simple ways to counter these things.

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