Check Out Space: The Longest Goodbye on the PBS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT-pV48XBI4
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In the far future we may have advanced propulsion technologies like matter-antimatter engines and compact fusion drives that allow humans to travel to other stars on timescales shorter than their own lives. But what if those technologies never materialize? Are we imprisoned by the vastness of space—doomed to remain in the solar system of our origin? Perhaps not. A possible path to a contemporary cosmic dream may just be to build a ship which can support human life for several generations; a so-called generation ship.
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Hey Space Timers! If you enjoy thinking about the realities of human space travel, then check out the documentary Space: The Longest Goodbye. And if you head over, let them know (politely) that Space Time sent you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT-pV48XBI4&t=0s&ab_channel=PBS UPDATE: Currently the YT Link is only accessible in the US. We're working to see if we can get full international access.
Generational ships similar to British writer Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.
This sounds depressing 🙃Can we explore possible field propulsion systems – something that accelerates and stops instantly or makes 90 degrees turns while moving with high speeds. Basically what some UFOs/UAPs are observed doing 🙂
What about using frozen males and females gametes with ready available artificial wombs to deliver specific number of genetically diverse offerings instead of starting with large number of people to sustain, with the large number of delivered offsprings to be shortly before reaching the destination, and another solution for food supply what about the bodies of deciesed ones, can they be recycled again to the food chain?
How about we just get robots to explore the cosmos and livestream it back to Earth so we can all watch in realtime
Send robots
The answer to genetic diversity is easy, just take a few 100,000 veals of frozen sperm with you.
We are literally all on a generational ship with immense resources and life support systems, floating through space… and yet we seem to be fascinated with spending decades living in an artificial environment to get to other planets that are generally hostile to life… Its all a bit ironic
The Biosphere projects fell apart rapidly even when they could open the windows for fresh air. By the end the participants hated each other. Imagine how the Taliban or drug gangs would play out in space. Imagine greed and inequality in space. That or just one guy with a battle axe who is really good at killing people who says “Call me your Space Lord”. Science nerds are awesome but they aren’t really equipped to tackle many human problems.
Pretty sure that quote was born from the race war meme, lol
What about heat dissipation?
It's one of the hardest challenges for our current relatively simple satellites (no need to sustain a large population of humans and working life support machines).
Given that the timeline is 50% more than the time between today and Sargon of Akkad, I’d say any sort of social structure planning is a wishful dream.
Something I would find interesting is if there are consequences crossing areas of space with very few gravitational bodies where your ship is pretty my the centre of gravity. would it affect living systems. equally is this a bar to interstellar travel? or conversely could it aide said travel?
I expect if we were a really horrible species we could put VR goggles on babies or children from an early age so it will look very natural to them ready for them to go into space. I almost wonder if AI VR and internet culture is a way of preparing for space travel.
Can you imagine the ethical implications of a generational ship? You would be dooming your children and their children to and maybe even their children to a cramped and dangerous life in deep space with no hope of ever choosing what they want to do with their life or even feeling sun and land on their bodies. If the mission is the result of an existential threat to our survival then that does provide a more palatable ethical basis for action, but even still the implications are massive.
Generation ships 😂
A culture that stable for that long in those conditions is more sci-fi than ftl.
Time for everyone to grow up and wrap their heads around the truth that there is not, nor will there ever be, a good reason to colonize another solar system.
If humanity can even hold things together long enough to start working in local space we will swiftly realize that the rest of the universe has nothing useful that we don't have in abundance in our own solar system.
Quick question: if the ship is spinning to simulate gravity, wouldn't that require the use of more fuel? How could we experience the constant force of simulated gravity without the constant use of more energy?
PBS Spacetime encroaching on Isaac Arthur's territory
@Matt, love this video. However, it is too idealistic. With the enormous economic cost involved and the uncertainty of our pending destruction, I believe our fate is sealed by extinction. I also strongly feel that the only possible way for humans(and many other Earth species) to survive long term is to colonize space before other planets.
This is the realm of science fiction! We will never explore the galaxy not even in a billion years! If there is a comet coming we will just deflect it!
a small village living in isolation for 63,000 years would be a completely different society and maybe even species by that time. it may be a better solution to have AI fly a ship full of embryos that they can "hatch" and raise them to adulthood using automated systems before they land. they would probably end up being closer to the humans that we are now.
You are going to want to send frozen sperm and eggs to give you the diversity you need. You can't get the genetic diversity you want from the adults you can fit on a ship. On the other hand, if you can figure out how to live in space for generations – why bother with planets at all ? FYI the TV show Ascension is a good science fiction look at this idea!
It seems as though Matt saw the longest farewell and wondered, "What if this, but longer?" And it is a complement, I hope.
I’m not optimistic that the darker side of human nature wont turn us against each other in just the first couple of decades. Much less than the 6300 year travel time. I think humans are doomed .
I imagine that sending AGI/SGI systems and robots rather than humans should soon become much more feasible, as it obviates huge support requirements, as well as the shortcomings and instability of human nature. Either way, except for a tiny sample of humanity, it's not 'us' who would be going. If it's considered essential to populate the destination with humans then, given a suitable environment at the landing site, perhaps the machines could generate humans from DNA blueprints, and construct suitable habitation. Hey, someone please write the novel, it sounds like fun 🙂
The longer you talk the worse I feel about this mission. That said, everyone check out "Analogue: A Hate Story" if you're interested in fiction about generation ships.
This is pure quackery. The lack of nutritional knowledge is astounding…
Another issue, especially with the 6000-year trip: The first generation or so will have attachments to Earth and the motivation and training to keep things going. A few generations into it and it'll be, "What's Earth?", "The heck with future generations, what about my needs?", and "Dad, I don't want to be an engineer, I'm an artist." Chaos Theory and Murphy's Law are undefeated.
6300 years exceeds recorded history on earth right now. There’s nothing human built right now that can survive 6300 years of use. Not to mention 6300 years of technological and cultural stagnation on the journey.
I like mealworms, crickets and garden snails. I didn't enjoy scorpion though. So choose wisely. The former three can be fed on scraps too, so that could be handy.
It is astonishing that scientists at all can speculate in such thing as a human space travelling by technical means.
The human life – and everything else – is Sun- and Earth depended with is electromagnetic collaboration and it will NEVER succeed for humans to live outside the Earth.
Forget that Science Fiction desert mirage.
Wouldn't it be smarter to freeze fertilized embryos and use AI and robotics to grow the humans on the target world? No live human on board the ship is necessary if freezing a full human is still not possible (even though that's not as mass efficient). Thousands of these ships could be sent across the galaxy. Also, we are probably close to understanding genetics enough for the AI to use some genetic engineering to modify the genome of the embryos using CRIPSR technology so that they are "designed" for the target biome?
But, my current thinking about galactic colonization is that it's an animal level goal. As we approach the science to fully understand the universe, we'll look at this colonization idea the way we see ants looking for a new hole to dig. And that's why it's not common enough for any encounters between civilizations.
Not much time ago we had no clue how to manipulate electromagnetic waves, and here we are with tech indistinguishable from magic. Finding timespace properties and looking beyond may open things unimaginable right now.
It doesn't seem wise to head toward Proxima Centauri in an attempt to flee the tri-solarians.
The biggest assumption is that we’ll have time.