Slashdot Mirror
An Interstellar Lifeboat for Humanity
cravey writes "From the people who brought you the Oceania project so many years ago comes the Lifeboat project. An attempt to create a spaceship for the purposes of saving the human race from the singularity predicted by Vernor Vinge. Lots of talk about nanotech accidents and biological accidents wiping out civilization, but it has a neat picture of the ship. :)"
telephone sanitizer joke here.
We have a slashdotting approaching at nine O'clock Fire the torpedoes Ay Cap.......
There was no lifeboat or amount of bandwidth that could save their server. God bless its smoldering soul.
If I would have to be shot into space in a lifeboat, it would have to be in a gigantic Bob's Big Boy.
now there's a thought. more of a long term
thing though...first we need to focus on more
immediate goals." - 12 Monkeys
We would need a Beowulf cluster of these to save humanity.
I say we just offload all the extremists and morons onto Mars. We'll call it the "Get Off Of Our Planet" (GOOOP) project. That should help the longevity of the human race, although I can't speak for the "Mars colonists". :D
By not exploiting the fears of man. This is the kond of project that will get you some funding. Or at least collaborating with Ben & Jerry to make some better dried Icream flavors.
Remember the Neil Young song?
Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Oh fuck I just broke the DMCA. Sorry, Neil.
Seriously, this theme has been around in modern media. The genesis project from Star Trek, that crappy Don Bluth film, etc. In a lot of sci-fi's the earth is a dump and most people live elsewhere, like in Cowboy Bebop. Sci-fi's are often uncannily accurate at predicting the future.
Call me a crazy hippy, but in a lot of ways the Earth is a life form and we are like it's organs. If the meaning of life is to reproduce, then wouldn't terraforming and colonizing a new planet be the ultimate form of reproduction?
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
that this got posted the same day "create a new life" stirred up tons of flames? From all the flames posted on /. today on both sides of the argument, one might think humans really don't have a clue about anything.
I have a better name for it though... how about Titan After Earth? Yeah, that would be a cool name. Wait...
Do not read this sig.
Either that, or hope that when we go bye-bye, the next smart Earth race brings us back Jurassic Park style in hopes there's a storm and we escape our cages.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
1) Create Web page about your spaceship idea
2) Get your server Slashdotted and spend all your money recovering the data from the dead hard disks
3) Project Lifeboat comes to a screeching halt due to lack of funds
4) Die miserably on Earth
Oh the humanity! It wasn't supposed to happen like this. [fade out] Happen like this. [fade out] Happen like this...
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
... the Lifeboat project. An attempt to create a spaceship for the purposes of saving the human race from the singularity predicted by Vernor Vinge.
A good idea.
But if it's The Singularity they want to dodge it's probably a bit early to start. As The Singularity approaches the cost of such a venture will drop like a rock. (Of course, like buying a computer you have to stop waiting and plunk down cash SOME time. In this case, preferably before something breaks. B-) )
Now dodging other stuff (like an extinction-level event such as a comet-head impact) should not wait until the incoming comet is sighted.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just a second... to save the race from the Singularity? The Singularity is a good thing. If you read Vinge's essay, or any of the other essays on the subject, you'll find that people look forward to this event and are actively trying to move the date forward. One fellow says that the definition of morally good is that which makes the Singularity happen sooner.
(There's a lot of interesting things at the Singularity Institute by the way.)
So either the poster is on crack, or ve represents a new and radically different perspective on the Singularity than I have ever seen in print. Which is it?
Look, meat puppets, you are PART OF THIS ECOSYSTEM, you are stuck here in the mud with the rest of us. You are never leaving this planet, at least for any appreciable length of time. Ever. So how about taking some of the energy you put into escapist fantasies and focus those gigantic brains of yours on improving what we've got, instead of running away from our problems, huh?
-Peterb
PS: That goes for you escapist religious freaks, also. Same disease, different symptoms.
Good idea, but this is about 500 years early. I don't think, even with an unlimited supply of money, humans could put a "station" into space, keep it in orbit longer then ~20 years, and have it GROW food to sustain an existing population, let alone new children. And also include a way to get back to Earth once the "disaster" is over. And somehow have enough energy for the needs of the crew, for many generations... etc etc. I think it would be easier to build a base on Mars -at least it's got something to build ON, and it's not going to crash back into Earth because they "ran out of fuel".
I found the following interview on SpaceNStuff.com and decided to mirror it here ('cause Slashdot can take a Slashdotting). August 31, 2002 posted on 08-31-2002 at 09:35PM by Nancy
... as a "matter of life and death."
... presents many obstacles. Even if no weapons would be allowed, terrorism could flourish in the Colonies, in other ways. Currently, rules and regulations prevail in civilizations here on Earth. Governments here have impossible tasks and in the United States, laws vary by state. How would this be handled within the colonies?
Summary: Interview Part 1
"The Lifeboat Foundation "
A matter of life and death.....
Full Story: Space N Stuff has recently learned of the existence of the above Foundation, as a result of a Guest who visited Space N Stuff and contacted me.
An email request was made and Mr. Eric Klien, Founder and President of Lifeboat Foundation , generously agreed to an interview. As a matter of fact, once Mr. Klien responded to the questions in this interview, I discovered this is like eating potato chips, you can't be satisfied with just "one". At a later date, Space N Stuff will again contact Mr. Klien for a follow-up to this initial query.
Please understand that this is a very complex subject and due to space constraints, not all of the details can be presented, however, we are providing LINKS at the bottom of this Interview so that you can check their site for yourselves.
In a nutshell, the purpose of Lifeboat Foundation is to research technology in a serious effort to build vehicles, or "Arks" that will house permanent residents, away from Earth. In essence, self-sustaining colonies would be established, one at a time, in an effort to save Humanity. Lifeboat Foundation 's basic concept of leaving Earth
This premise is a result of facts that cannot be denied. Human Beings are finding more and more ways to destroy the Earth, and......... each other.
Their goals are straight forward:
By 2004, they hope to educate the public as to 'coming dangers', promote efforts to preserve life, encourage advancement in Space Technology and fund SETI research.
By 2010, the efforts to develop self-sustaining technologies will be in full swing.
By 2018, complete the development above, launch a for-profit Corporation that would have as its primary goal , to put the first self-sustaining Space Colony in orbit, 248 miles above the Earth, and have subsequent colonies, further from Earth.
By 2020, to promote free enterprise in the conquest of Space.
Space N Stuff : Mr. Klien , your site provides a great deal of background information regarding your goals. However, I do have a series of questions to pose:
Space N Stuff : If I understand correctly, based on your current projections, people will not be off this planet until approximately 2020. In view of the seemingly endless strikes of Terrorism globally, will your "Arks" be too late?
Mr. Klien : It will be a close call.
In a technology timeline produced by British Telecommunications (a multibillion dollar conglomerate based in the United Kingdom) which we have a copy of at http://research.lifeboat.com/btexact.pdf, it was predicted that in as little as three more years terrorists will unleash dangerous bioweapons on the public. It stands to reason that creating self-sustaining space stations during the time between this prediction and total extinction will be a non trivial task.
Space N Stuff : It is my interpretation that each 'Ark' will be self-sufficient to accommodate 1,000 permanent residents and 500 visitors. In addition, those who are chosen will be the winner(s) of a lottery or benefit from "Lifeboat scholarships". While security is one of the top priorities for The United States, will that be a priority onboard an Ark? Will Lifeboat screen those who enter/win said lottery or scholarships? In other words, will criminals either present or future be included? If not? Would that be discrimination?
Mr. Klien : Needless to say, each passenger will undergo an intense screening process before being allowed to board. Someone like Martha Stewart, who may have done a little insider trading, would still be considered a potential candidate. But a convicted murderer would have little chance of being accepted as a candidate.
Space N Stuff : Human Nature, being just that, "human"
Mr. Klien : Each colony will be free to create its own laws and standards of conduct. Security officials will have the benefit of a confined station and its finite number of passengers when monitoring suspicious or malicious behavior. And, of course, the use of practical safeguards such as psychological testing will have to be in place for those onboard who have access to dangerous technologies.
Space N Stuff : On this planet, we have various means to cope with and handle death. Since these colonies have no capability of returning to Earth, how would deceased individuals be cared for?
Mr. Klien : Long term, we intend for the colonies to repopulate other planets-- including the Earth. As for those permanently living on spacestations, burial traditions would be unlikely. The departed could, in the fashion of a sailor's burial at sea, be ceremoniously launched into the sun. Simple cremation and cryonic suspension are additional possibilities. In all cases, memorials could also be created to both honor those who have passed and provide comfort to those who have lost loved ones.
Space N Stuff : Although the world has made significant progress with various Space Programs, we still find 'glitches' that delay progress, at great expense. How will Lifeboat be different in this regard? Since the colonies are forever 'out there' how will replacement parts be stored? It would seem to be quite difficult to predict in advance, how many of each, would be needed to keep the Arks functioning at tip top performance.
Mr. Klien : The development of self-sustaining technologies is essential to this project. We certainly don't want to replicate the Skylab and Mir experiences where they had to toss their junked space stations into the ocean.
To create effective self-sustaining technologies will require, at the very least, the primitive beginnings of nanotechnology. This technology, which enables the manipulation of matter, atom by atom, could be used to stop a ship's entropy. Also, whatever plagues, fallout or weaponry was used by terrorists to wipe out life on Earth could be removed by this technology, thereby making the planet habitable again.
For the record, while it will take hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more, to create nanotechnology, we will let others handle the cost. (Over a billion dollars was spent on nanotechnology development just this year.) We will just slightly adjust such technologies so they are useful to self-sustain a space station. And that is what we will spend ten years doing.
Space N Stuff : For the first time since Man has walked on Earth, scientists and engineers are capable of mind boggling research and results. Yet, our Universe is constantly changing. Solar storms are perhaps altering many of our 'normal' weather patterns. Discoveries are being made faster than the press can report. Wouldn't it be difficult to plan now, with so many unknowns?
Mr. Klien : It is always difficult to make plans based on educated guesses, but no plan to preserve mankind seems premature when you consider the consequences. Stephen Hawking warns that "You can't regulate every lab in the world. The danger is that either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us." With this in mind, can we afford to wait? Can we afford not to make plans?
Space N Stuff : Finally Mr. Klien , mankind survives in 'groups.' Families, friendships, coworkers. Would Colonies provide employment? How would normal everyday expenses be handled? Would entire families qualify to climb onboard at the same time? Those who find living in space, is NOT their 'cup of tea' will face great stress, since it appears they will not be able to return, assuming there is a planet here still in existence. Can you elaborate?
Mr. Klien : The more arks we are able to build, the more room will be available to house entire families. And considering that only a few thousand people will be in such close proximity onboard the station, meaningful bonds will be forged, new families will spring up and, with time, a sense of community will grow strong.
As to employment, consumerism will not die alongside our planet. There will still be financial reward for services rendered. A new frontier offers new opportunity. Everyone will be encouraged to stimulate creativity and to provide the goods, services and entertainment needed for the station to flourish.
Comments: Mr. Klien ? Feel free to add whatever you wish.
Mr. Klien : The idea that advanced technologies are not an appropriate match for our primitive culture is an obvious one, but it wasn't until recently that I figured out why few people are worrying about it. The answer is that non-scientists are oblivious to potential dangers, while on the other hand, those who worship at the altar of science live by the precept that future advancements will cure all the world's problems.
We are currently working on phase 4, the technical credibility, of our ARK I design and, in two weeks, I will be flying off to England to meet with a multibillionaire. Within a year or two, we expect our project to really gain some momentum!
Space N Stuff wishes to extend its sincere gratitude to Mr. Klien for his timely response and the use of his valuable time. In the near future, we will pursue additional information in the form of a follow-up interview.
In the meantime Mr. Klien , have a safe journey to England and back.
Nancy, Director of Operations, Editor
www.spacenstuff.com
RESOURCES:
Below you will find various LINKS within Lifeboat Foundation 's web site. It is very easy to navigate. We hope you will visit and see the details for yourself. Thank you.
http://lifeboat.com/ex/ : Home Page
http://lifeboat.com/ex/ArkI : Details on Ark I
http://lifeboat.com/ex/timeline : Current and Future Goals.
http://lifeboat.com/ex/faq : Frequently Asked Questions
http://research.lifeboat.com/btexact.pdf : Research
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
that'd sell a lot more seats!
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
Am I the only one that thought "CULT!" when I read the title, and even moreso after reading the article? I mean, how often is this the staple of a cult? Well, suicide aside...
Danish != nationality
It's frustrating that /. posts this sort of thing, but never touches on serious stuff dealing with the Singularity. Bah to the moderators.
For example, the Singularity Institute has a vast array of comp-sci-related interesting stuff about General Artifical Intelligence and its role in the Singularity. The institute and volunteers are working on Flare, a programming language for GAI development.
Then we have the Foresight Institute who have a bunch of scholarly, serious things to say about nanotechnology and its implications.
Just for starters, of course. Then we have a million other resources out there, such as:
KurzweilAI.net
Extropy Institute
at which one can learn about the Singularity and associated topics in context.
But no, we get trash like the spaceship guy. Bah, bah, bah. Reason
Obviously their systems work!
With the end of the world right around the corner the population of the planet would be clammering to get to their site. The server obviously auto ejected itself into orbit after what it perceived to be massive panic on the web.
If only more nitwit sites had features like this... *sigh*
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
i saw once, was to show that it is indeed impossible to save the entire human population. basically, the amount of people we can take off the planet every day is nowhere near the level of population growth. so, even if you can get a few million off the planet, 99% of the people currently on earth will be still living on earth, and any large scale disaster will still wipe out almost the entire human race if we do not prevent it. sure, maybe the human race itself will survive, but it will most likely not be sufficient to maintain itself, and will just die out anyway.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
The difference between cult and respectable religions are just the size of membership. Example: Eating the body of Christ, handed to you by a priest! Imagine the reaction if someone came up with this POS today. Doesn't get more "Cult'ish" than that.
Just because your are not paranoid doesn't mean your are not being followed!
Danish by Nationality not by Name by the way.
Help fight continental drift.
First, a brief recap. "The Singularity" is a paper by Vernor Vinge which makes an observation. The author noted that the rate of change is in fact accelerating exponentially. He predicted that rather dramatic consequences will result when change reaches the vertical part of the exponential curve, rounding the bend per say. Humans simply will not be able to keep up with things or have any influence whatsoever as new life with greatly improved intelligence goes on to dominate the planet and then the reachable universe. This observation is quite well supported by other evidence. Current obstacles : human stubborness and delusions of their own grandeur, relative technological difficulty, human delusion of some mystical secret "soul" to prevent such a thing will be cleared away by one means or another. I say 'will' because trying to stop something like this would be like a group of humans deciding to end their expansion by refusing to reproduce. Someone else would, and dominate the future. Remember, the improved intelligent life, whatever form they take, will be in reality humanity's children. Random evolution won't bring it about : creating better intelligence will require a vast organized effort, whether it be designing circuitry or modifying the genetics of existing people. The new life, whether it be a baby with special genes or a learning machine that must be taught from the basics onward will require the same parenting process the current people alive must give to their children to carry on the legacy. Unlike the popular view, I see this as a positive step. Yes, biological humans will probably die away eventually...but this need not be a violent process, or any more cruel than the deaths of current humans by their own bodies. The solar system and the galaxy belong to these descendents, as it should be.
But can they save their servers?
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
The possible flaw is that by the time they get the technology necessary to live in space sustainably long-term, mature nanotechnology will be available. So at best, they will have a few short years in which to get ahead start. But more importantly, the speed in which they will be able to travel will more than likely be substantially less than c. And once the singularity happens all bets are off, but chances are nanobot probes will be heading off in all directions at close to the speed of light, which means their ship will more than likely get infected, unless this singularity is benign. But if it is Benign, then there is no reason for their escape in the first place. I do wish them the best of luck.
Planet P - Liberation with Technology.
www.enthea.org
(No sense of humor? It's a joke. I'm kidding. The first two sentences are actually in the letter. I added the rest, because it's funny. Ha-ha.)
I write in my journal
Whats the secret trick to get my laptop above 1024x768?
It's easy. Just click here and the press the green button.
I write in my journal
Okay, I apologize in advance if this is ill-informed (the site was already slashdotted), or redundant by the time I post this, but say for the sake of argument that we have a lifeboat. Where are we going to go with it? Are we to assume we've already terraformed countless other planets with suns similar to our own?
moto411.com
I don't know who said that first, but I read it here on Slashdot.
I like Vinge's fiction, but the Singularity thing strikes me as an apocalyptic/transcendent/eschatological scenario for people who can't stomach the Book of Revelation.
Face it: the real underpinnings of the "Singularity" are not any kind of hard science, but human yearning for redemption and transformation. All this talk about the growth of AI is a joke -- in fact most of the field of AI is a joke, since no one can even define what natural intelligence is, much less the artificial kind. And technological trends like Moore's Law are not in any way bound to continue, yet geeks treat them like scientifically proven laws of nature, and then extrapolate the emergence of an Ubermind.
The impulses behind religion -- a desire for collective change and a future utopia -- need not be manifested in traditionally religious ways. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, ostensibly anti- or non-religious people believed in a faith called Marxism, that promised an all-cleansing revolution and a workers' paradise. The "Singularity" nuts are just the latest iteration of this.
There's a term for the movement of people who want to cyborgize themselves, which escapes me at the moment (exomorphs? something like that). But I imagine there's a lot of overlap between them and the "Singularists."
Look, meat puppets, you are PART OF THIS ECOSYSTEM, you are stuck here in the mud with the rest of us.
Bull! We currently have the technology (assuming big bucks) to send multi-generational colonies to other star systems. Are you saying some "ancient spirit" will reach out and grab our asses back to Earth if we try? Been smokin' too much hemp perhaps.
Given what I call the "Moores Law of Terrorism" [1], eventually it will be possible to for a small group of people to wipe out the entire human species (via nukes, biokillers, nanokillers, etc.)
Why risk that when we can save at least *some* of our asses so that humans as a species survive rather than allow all 100% to die. (Note: It probably will not be me in the tin can.)
[1] The number of people who a small group of terrorists can kill doubles every X years.
Table-ized A.I.
Not much, unless the design deliberately called for it to be under tension. The things are in orbit, after all. Some designs call for the `tower' base to be mobile (a ship). It's not really a tower, it's really a bridge anchored on nothing (from the middle out).
Breaking it in the middle would be a bit more disastrous. The bottom half would whiplash around the planet (or maybe the bottom tenth, quite a lot would burn up and/or shatter as it re-entered), and what happened to the other half would be highly dependednt on stuff like where the Moon was at the time.
Terrorist attacks would not be easy to carry off; the elevator would be a very thin low-visibility target to hit, and air defense would be relatively simple. Some quite small computer-co-ordinated guns on the travellers would prove quite lethal to aircraft and missiles alike, and I imagine that provision would be made for directing and focussing the lift laser against larger and/or slower targets. The designs that I've seen would be immune to meteor strikes up to quite sizeable impacts (they're curved - like a tape measure - so even a side-on strike would get at most half of the fibres).
Terrorist attacks against space colonies would be much more of a problem. From orbit, a rocket the size of two soft-drink cans could loft a couple of kilos of small ball-bearings into a widely dispersed cloud on a collision course with a colony. This would be very difficult to even detect, let alone parry or dodge.
Terrorist attacks on ground targets from orbit would also be a worry. `We have many rocks, Man.'
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I was an active member of Oceania, and still believe in the principles... However, I am not so sure about joining any project run by Eric. Though he seemed like a nice guy, he flaked off without telling anyone what was happening or where their money was going.
I love this quote, in relation to the fact he hasn't replied to anything Oceania in YEARS:
"Eric Klien, founder of Colossus, Inc., a web hosting company since 1995 and founder of The Atlantis Project, an ambition made obsolete by current events."
He may be on the up-and-up, but from past experience with Oceania, I have to personally assume that it is a scam.
Malachi
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
I believe in many ways we already have "missed" the boat.
I think Arthur C Clark put it best when asked about the most amazing development of the 20th century was that "We went to the moon, and then, stopped."
No real progress has been made since then, except we have had better hardware to reach earth orbit.
(More powerful rockets and robtics...whoop to do to day, yippy skippy.)
Rocket technology sucks. The whole concept stinks, in my humble opinion. So does Solar sails, that stinks as well. These stupid and dumb propositions to push physical objects around in space are just as quaint as the 300-400 year old laws that describe how to do it. (Newtons laws.)
Not GOOD ENOUGH though for an ark.
Those crucial 30-40 years that we sat on our laurels I believe represented a critical time window when, the world had enough resources, and was stable enough to continue invest HEAVILY in space research, without polticians and short cited people to notice.
Now, it is far too expensive, our governments are basically corrupt, and way too many people are overly concerned about how much consumerism they can accomplish in one lifetime, to worry about the future beyond 1 hour of thier lives.
We basically lost 30 years since the time of Apollo, and we will pay dearly for it as small bands of humans, seek to destroy civilization, even at the cost of thier own lives for thier impident God they worship.
The kinds and sorts of technology required for long term duration in space, is something we don't posses, nor will we I do believe for another 100-300 years. Space is just too hazardous, radiation wise, relativistically wise, that an Ark launched with todays technology could become easily sterile before it even leaves the solar system.
I think I also believe that we are on a cycle. We have just too many "fairy tales" of past civilizations describing "Gods in the Sky" that would travel around the world, to discount that perhaps, we have already been here, or near to here, in our development.
Then inexplicably, EVERYTHING gets wiped out, and those that survive, tell thier children about the time when we could fly, when people could be "raised from the dead" and that wars were fought using "Great Rays from the Sun".
No, no ark will save us, because the window of opportunity has passed us by. We have proven our selves as a species that we lack the will to continue and all our eggs will be in this one basket till someone drops the basket.
The only way to stop the cycle, is for our species to completely die off, not such a TERRIBLY bad thing considering our most recent accomplishments at building ever greater ways of destroying the planet at the push of a button. Or, perhaps next time around, we will get a little further, perhaps going to the moon, a half a million years from now and actually building a base below its surface.
OR perhaps we HAVE come this far before, and even further, but failed last time as well...
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.