Interstellar Ark

xantox writes "There are three strategies to travel 10.5 light-years from Earth to Epsilon Eridani and bring humanity into a new stellar system : 1) Wait for future discovery of Star Trek physics and go there almost instantaneously, 2) Build a relativistic rocket powered by antimatter and go there in 22 years by accelerating constantly at 1g, provided that you master stellar amounts of energy (so, nothing realistic until now), but what about 3): go there by classical means, by building a gigantic Ark of several miles in radius, propulsed by nuclear fusion and featuring artificial gravity, oceans and cities, for a travel of seven centuries — where many generations of men and women would live ? This new speculation uses some actual physics and math to figure out how far are our fantasies of space travel from their actual implementation."

Comments

Re:Too many problems

[kamapuaa]

REAL courses in rationality! That will solve ALL the aforementioned problems! Thanks, Crazy Internet Guy! If you have any other pet peeves that don't really relate to what people are talking about, feel free to post about them to Slashdot!

Recursive irony?

[symbolset]

It is better not to attempt anything significant with a nation full of whiny obstructionists. Wait a few years and somebody with a WILL will pick up the torch we've dropped. It is too late for us.

I think the Iraq war is much less like trying to land on an alien world, and more like trying to land on the sun.

That you're posting as Anonymous Coward for this one is hilarious. You refute my point by proving it.

I would say we've wandered off the topic, except that this thread goes to the heart of the credibility of the premise question in TFA. This is not my grandfather's America. There are no more grand achievements like TFA within us, and you are an example of why. Americans have given up their great ambitions. There are dreamers yet but they are so few they can be weighed down by the mass. There is no hope they might achieve anything requiring this much prolonged coordinated effort before they're incarcerated, expatriated, debudgeted or sued into ineffectiveness.

It makes me sad to write it, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em. Our day is done. Who's got next? I, for one, welcome our new determined overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted slashdot personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil on their interstellar ark.