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The vast gulfs between stars may take decades or even centuries to travel, requiring enormous generation ships carrying families and whole ecosystems with them. What will life be like on board such arks?
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Credits:
Life on an Interstellar Ark Ship
Episode 436; February 29, 2024
Produced, Written & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
Graphics:
Fishy Tree
Jeremy Jozwik
Legiontech Studios
Music Courtesy of
Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator
Stellardrone, “Red Giant”, “Ultra Deep Field”
Sergey Cheremisinov, “Labyrinth”, “Forgotten Stars”
Taras Harkavyi, “Alpha and …”
Miguel Johnson, “So Many Stars”
Lombus, “Cosmic Soup”, “Hydrogen Sonata”
source
Larry Niven has a slower then light colonies established by the time the humans were discovered by an alien species. And the basic premise of such travel was that the ships have two different types of people. The Crew and then the colonists. The colonists were all put into cold sleep for the trip to the new star. The ships themselves were fusion Ramships. Subjected to time dilation. So a very long time on Earth passes but much shorter time period for the people on the ship. He also had colony slow boats before they developed the Ramships capable of transporting people.
The Dark Beyond the Stars is a great generational ship novel.
There must be a decision point in the risk calculation regarding picking a colony ship destination that becomes unsuitable versus investing much more into long range detection technology.
Holy cow what a terrible way to go
I understand the value of ark and generation ships for colonization of the galaxy but what is so crazy to me is just how few humans will be living on terrestrial worlds as opposed to space habits like O'Neal cylinders, by the time of regular interstellar travel the amount of terrestrial living will probably be basically none in proportion to the amount of people permanently (or at least mostly) living in artificial habits be them stations or ships. That is still so crazy to me
Obviously I'm sure it would happen just by virtue of the fact it's doable, and I'm sure we could eventually engineer genetics or transhuman technology to make the "viable planet to live on" category larger and possibly so some terriforming again, if for no other reason than just to do it for it's own sake, but even with all that said surely it's just way easier and more likey that basically all humanity will end up living in space habitats since it's so much easier and mor economical in terms of both space and resources and unlike planets it can be built to whatever conditions or population size you want.
I haven't seen anyone mention it, so y'all are in for a treat. Check out the movie "Pandorum".
It's a generational ship movie but there's a twist. Not for the feint of heart, it's a kinda creepy.
Once away from Earth they will see nothing out the windows until they near their destination. The Apollo astronauts told us it was just total blackness out there. The original Star Trek had it right, everything will be seen on a screen with the images being created by a computer from data collected by specialised instruments. Space is really boring to the human eye.
Idk if a group seeking religious or techno freedom or something like that could build it by an interstellar ship, but if they could that may be another reason for such a trip
Also it wouldn't be one ship. More likely an armada of generational ships
One or two of the armada could be specialized to be an automated laser/space depot. Also could send an automated laser station ahead to destination in order to slow and stop incoming ships so they don't have to use ships to slow down.
Ark ship lifespan be measures in MTF (mean time to failure)
Folks born, growing up, and spending lifetime on ships might prefer shops to planet life. They may be scared of open spaces.
I need to watch entire episode before commenting cause it rarely fails that I make a comment and five to ten minutes later IA states the same thing or touches on the issue.
I’m less than five minutes into this video, but I feel compelled to state how awesome these narrative elements are. They bring the physics to life like nothing else. Truly exceptional production quality. I really want to read an entire novel or even a series of novels about this woman’s life.
is this a true story?
If there wasn't a piano on board I'd go bananas within a week. Someone needs to carry live jazz into the great emptiness.
I’ve noticed Isaac often mentions books in his videos. Does anyone know of a reading list anywhere?
A successful interstellar ark ship is not going to be a first attempt at living in space. The successful ones will be launched after we have already been living in rotating habitats for a century. It's a learn to walk before you try to run kind of thing.
This subject reminds me of the 2 final books of Rendezvous with Rama but also two videogames ( Colony Ship and the upcoming Exodus ) , there scenarios evolving around colonizing other star systems ..
How about a video about how life is like being a vat clone colonists made on planet by a AI or a automated system of some type after it got through the terraforming process to make it habitable
Like from 13 sentinels aegis rim
I think is would be interesting to think how that can go or work
providing full education, from diaper to doctorate, with a representative sample of students, is the biggest trouble… anything less means jobs will run out of people within a generation! Doctorate holders are only <2% of a human population – how many doctorates do you need to teach the next generation medical science? What about the other sciences? And how many students would you need to filter out enough doctoral candidates to meet your population's needs? You could write a show on Closed Human Population Strategies to cover issues like this!
15:42 I'm so confused – who are the two men on the very right here?
Based on sending colony ships after we have a long history of living in space, I think that it would not be a single colonizing ship, but multiple ships traveling as a group. This would give an ability to have people move between ships much like we do today between cities. Would then be a larger traveling system allowing knowledge to be maintain, and make more sense where people would easily live on a ship. As a system, there would be fewer issues of upheavel, concern of people being born not wanting to continue with the trip.
Maybe we are the result of a generation colony ship from afar. There are those who believe that life here, began out there. Far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians or the Toltecs or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the great pyramids or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Or not.
Why go? Again? What was the idea? Like Zelon wanting to go to Mars, except he's not going himself, probably because the first ship of colonists will be the first to die. Life expectancy on Earth at the time of launch in 2033-2039 depending on race, sex and zip code will be about 77 to 80 years.
Life expectancy on Mars will be 125 days.
Please stop
What do you suppose an interstellar generation ship made out of a terraformed dwarf planet would need besides a mini-star and a propulsion drive?
One of my favorites..
Moby Dick..
Mutiny on the bounty…
Planet of the Apes.. ( Rod Serling)..
SHOGAN..the t.v. series
All came to my mind about …when it comes to exploring going to unusual places..
Thank you Issac Author..
😊
Just as long as this generational ship isn't heading rowards the Halcyon system
I love my life on our interstellar ark ship, also I love the ship, couldn’t think of a more beautiful design
Just found this channel, subscribed, most likely gonna end up binge watching older episode to catch up, while watching new ones as they come out. The game "Cell to Singularity" also may be something I'll look into. Just what I need, more games and You Tube!
Alone forever with Youtube and Netflix that's my life now lol.
Elon will make it all possible.
Good man.
Get speech therapy. This is distracting.
You need to build a civilization that already lives aboard such ships. The best place to do this is from the Moon.
Once you have that civilization, going to the stars becomes just another day around the house.
This was great! More like this please. I love the what if concept here and the imagining what life will be like when these technologies come into play
Utterly unethical.
4:30 – 5 : 20 ; 13:50 , 16:45
The presumption is that, because an arkship is unable to land on Earth, it is unable to land anywhere, even on a planet with significantly less gravity and atmosphere than Earth. While this might be limited by physics and engineering principles, it's not inconveivable that, instead of being a gardener-type ship, a generational ark ship is meant to become a permanent new home for its crew and passengers upon arrival. It has all the essential infrastructure for survival, agriculture, and industry, and this being the case, if it is to be the primary population center for colonists when they arrive, it gives the occupants both an incentive and a sense of purpose for keeping the ship in proper operating condition throughout the voyage.
I think physical homogenity to minimize conflict is a must. Then fanaticism in the original crew, and the specific removal of dangerous ideas like communism from the materials on board should go a long way to allowing the ship's culture to be maintained across the centuries.
Finally, an education program aimed at inculcating the same fanaticism and there you go.
Of course this means that each new colony would be fanatically devoted to their colony, and have the systems in place to maintain that fanaticism for centuries. Which may mean conflict with the next ship that might be slightly different fanatics.
You rely too heavily on Einstein's bent nothingness conjecture. (He conflated mathematical dimensions with physical dimensions).
The ships could accelerate on the magnetic fields associated with Birkland currents that Dominate the cosmos.
Communications could use Podkletnov's gravity waves which were clocked at 80 times the speed of light. (Hey, how's a star to know where the centre of the galaxy is if it is relying on information thousands of years out of date?)
There is much of what passes for physics today that is going to be the object of mirth in the future..
Mr Kuhn approaches.
Kali Maa, destroyer of Illusions, dances. Feel the earth tremble.
The planet Earth is one big arc that goes to plases that are unknown to humanity.
Also Bernard Werber's Novel "Le Papillon" desribes Genrations ship. It's quite good, with nice plot twist at the end.
IDK if it is translated in English. It must be, but name semes to be not translated on wikipedia.
Sign me up! I'm ready to get off this rock.
I think we'll have fleets of "garden" ships, not arks. An ark is temporary housing that you endure until you get to your true goal. A garden ship is itself the destination, designed to be a comfortable permanent home. Stars are just places where you send robotic harvester ships to collect resources that you need to repair and expand your home.
Once you get your garden fleet up to cruising speed, say 20% of light speed, you intend to never slow it down to stop at some star, and then speed up again. You instead keep almost all of the ships at cruising speed, sending only harvesters and perhaps a few adventurous tourists into the debris-hazard zones near stars.
But would a fleet of garden ships be comfortable enough to be accepted as a permanent home? I think the answer is yes, as long as you have diamondoid materials to make the ships. A McKendree cylinder is like an O'Neill cylinder, but much larger because Tom McKendree took into account the much higher strength of diamondoid materials. Basically, it's the size of a small continent inside.
We're already pretty close to being able to build AI robots capable of constructing homes in space to our own specification. If we can get diamondoid materials working, why would anyone go down a gravity well to live on a hostile planet if you can have a custom-built home in space with spin gravity, traveling across the galaxy?
Of course, another option is to have a much smaller ship, and be entertained by living in a digital matrix, or perhaps being completely digital. That's certainly an option, but personally I think I'll stick with the human form for as long as I can. with current technology we worry about staying alive, and take for granted the idea of personal identity. as technology progresses, we'll almost always be able to keep at least some part of you seemingly alive, but whether or not it's still "you" will be a difficult question. preserving identity will be more difficult than preserving life, in the safest way to preserve identity is to not change things until you have to. for example, instead of making a billion digital clone of yourself and then arguing about identity and voting rights, just very slowly replace the brain cells that die off naturally.
bottom line: I'd prefer a fleet of garden ships, staffed by people who grew up there and see it as their home.
All this will be moot if we find a way to bend space for instantaneous interstellar travel. Want to go to Alpha Centauri? No problem it takes 5 earth minutes (if even that)and be back in time for dinner on earth.
Most likely, animals, plants and humans would be stored as DNA instructions to a 3D printer or some such future thing. They will be grown from a nearly infinite set of plans and then raised by AI and robots.
We will travel through an Einstein- Rosin bridge…
We are already on the finest Ark Ship in the Universe. It needs no destination. Just not to be destroyed, and instead maybe even improved a little. 😎