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Hyperdrive and Space Propulsion
Interested reader writes "MSNBC has an article covering the recent Space Technology and Applications Forum in New Mexico, which included a frontier physics session on hyperdrive, wormholes, and other blue sky ideas. The idea is a revival of NASA's long-dead (and heavily criticized) Advanced Propulsion Project."
I agree that we should be taking care of this planet as best as we can, but that should not stop us for pursuing the means to find and reach others.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I would say that I would be very surprised if any propulsion of the sort noted here will be put into production in my life time. But I also have no doubt that we will at some point, discover a way to permit us to distant stars.
We wont find this breakthrough if we dont look for it. As long as the false and impossible ideas are shot down, whats the harm in listening to these wild ideas?
Afterall, some day, someone my actually be on to something. It would be a shame to disregard the idea just because it sounds impossible on the face of it.
END COMMUNICATION
Everything you say is true. However, we have a lot to gain from gathering precious minerals and raw materials from other planetary bodies, moons, etc. The fact is we are running out of a lot of important resources, many of which could be easily obtained from elsewhere if we only had the means to reach "elsewhere".
Here's what people said about other blue sky ideas:
You will fall off the edge of the world.
Man cannot fly!
I can go on, but I'll just leave this as a quote from someone else.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. Arthur C. Clarke
As an experimentalist, it's refreshing to see someone making such a comment.
The owls are not what they seem
Think of something you despise. Not just anything, an idea. Say, freedom of speech. (This is purely hypothetical, mind you.)
Now, how do you resolve the ensuing conflict (whereby you believe, to the point of valuing it over your life, the non-freedom of speech) that happens when you meet a believer in freedom of speech (also to the point of valuing it over their life)?
Do you see the problem? It's a very gross oversimplification, but the fact of the matter is the problems of Earth aren't Earth's problems at all - they're the problems of humanity. And some would go as far as saying they aren't problems at all, but what makes us human.
So long as men and women have beliefs for which they would gladly die, there will be conquest and there will be war. Thus it has been since the dawn of time, and thus it likely shall always be. To die for an idea - that's something uniquely human. Of all the forms of life we presently know of, only we will do that.
Humanity has gotten along just fine over the past ten thousand years or so, even with conquest and war. So why should we face annihilation through gross short-sightedness, just because humanity doesn't follow the rules of some utopian fantasy?
"that they're planning to conquest other worlds instead of fixing the one they live in :-/"
;-).
Which sounds like a real argument but isn't. While it would be nice to fix this world, the one and the other have nothing to do with each other. And I'd rather the high and wild physics guys would keep their attention fixed safely somewhere outside the solar system I'm living in thank you (just joking, but a grain of real concern nevertheless
This planet is unfixable, nobody cares enough. A lot of people care, just not enough. And apart from some professional care takers' opinions and programs, the average solution put forward by your average shocked person are laughable. So if we're really messing it up too far, well, maybe we'll try and clean up a little. Let's hope we find viable alternatives for our more messy activities before we pass some critical treshold.
For the rest, just look at every humanitarian, ecological or political issue that in itself forms a sizeable threat to us or this planet. See if you like how we're "fixing" it. Not that some people aren't doing what they can and some organizations aren't great. Just, if you look at it all, you realize it isn't a bad idea to have some mad scientists look outside the solar system as well. They wouldn't be any good anyway in finding "solutions for this planet".
Most things are easily fixed anyway. It just takes investments (paid with money), sustained effort and lots of coordinated actions. Starting with good will between people with opposing viewpoints and different interests. Ahahahaha.
Simply put: take the combined budget of the US and Europe on military spending for ONE year, and you already have the money to fund half a century of all programs on acknowledged "big" problems like poverty, disease, education, clean water, most environmental issues etc etc etc. on a world scale, yes sir.
Problem is, even saying this is deemed political, liberal etc etc etc. So, while most problems are easily solved, we think it makes more sense to invest in a better club to hit our neighbor with. And well, for a talking monkey society that even makes a sort of horrible sense. After all, how can you trust that other alpha male and his friends NOT to kick your country in the bollocks and steal your mates? You can't, you just can't. Even Bush starts to make sense with his pre-emptive strike thing (the bloody uber-religious idiot fascist), which is fancy for "I saw you looking at my mate, so I'll kick you inna fork FIRST".
So, in short, without all the emotion: let's just try to do what we can on ALL fronts that aren't at least directly geared at killing us off as fast as possible, eh? Warp? Bloody good idea. Helping mankind? Sounds great.
Bet you half a dollar we'll have warp drive first.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
The problem I see is that while it may be possible to break the light barrier without breaking causality and using up infinite amounts of energy (and getting infinite mass), we ourselves may be keeping us from discovering it. He's right; this needs non-mainstream thinking. Creativity is severely dampened by this-is-impossible cries. Some might see a challenge in it to disprove this, but even then, the fact that it is considered impossible is cemented in the mind, thereby having an impact on creativity. Also, the fact that sometimes, the scientific community behaves like the church condemning heretics (just read the part with the difficulties getting a hearing about this exotic propulsion concepts), and that consequently, there are MANY crackpots in these "forbidden zones" which create an enormous noise, do not make things really easier. This might be too complicated for an innovation made by some weird genius in his basement, but the powers that could handle it might be too narrow-minded.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Simply put: take the combined budget of the US and Europe on military spending for ONE year, and you already have the money to fund half a century of all programs on acknowledged "big" problems like poverty, disease, education, clean water, most environmental issues etc etc etc. on a world scale, yes sir.
Tried that. Didn't work.
Problem is, even saying this is deemed political, liberal etc etc etc. So, while most problems are easily solved, we think it makes more sense to invest in a better club to hit our neighbor with.
No.
Take Africa, for example. It would be easy to make sure that every child in Africa had enough to eat. There's more than enough food left over in America and Europe to do that.
But if you ship that food to Africa, it ends up rotting on the docks, or stolen by thieves, or armed rebels, or the government (if you can even tell the difference). These people are profiting by making other people's lives a misery. Sending more aid just results in more theft. You could send in troops to protect the food, but (a) that would cost far more than the food itself, (b) the countries in question won't let you, and (c) hey, you just spent the entire military budget on rice.
Until propellantless propulsion is invented any long range space travel is just a hallucination of virtual reality.
The 1970s called, they want their fear-mongering back.
Get with the program; the majority of industrialized countries are now below the replacement fertility (almost all of them if you discount immigration) and there's no reason to believe the rest of the world won't join them as they become sufficiently wealthy. The official UN prediction of the population of 2050 has been coming down for a while now. Malthusian fears of a world of 25 billion people huddled together fighting over every scrap of food, while abstractly still possible, are much, much less likely than the many other fine things to worry about.
Disclosure: I am a neuroscientist.
I think the most likely way we're going to get intelligence to other stars is to send AI computers, since they wouldn't mind the long wait. Even if creating AI is hard, if Moore's law holds, in 50 years we'll be able to simulate every neuron in a whole human brain on a computer in real time, so even if we don't understand intelligence, we'll be able to reproduce it. And if biological life is so important to you, send some frozen embrios (or info about their DNA on hard drives, and stock chemicals for building embrios from scratch) and artificial wombs with the computers too - let them build a colony, then defrost their kids.
Far-fetched? In my opinion, it's much more likely than being able to keep whole humans happy on a 100 lightyear trek. Yes, Moore's law might not hold up, but I predict we'll be able to upload brains before sending our fragile bodies intact to distant stars.
Patrick
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
The problem with the NASA hyperdrive program is not that it costs money, the problem is that people like you think it's going to be an alternative to cleaning up our act here at home.
You will not get off this planet, and neither will many generations to come. There won't be self-sustaining space colonies, and there won't be interstellar travel. We either live on this planet or we die on this planet. Deal with it.