The Impossibility of Colonizing the Galaxy

OriginalArlen writes "The science fiction writer Charlie Stross has written an excellent and comprehensive explanation of why, thousands of SF books, movies, and games notwithstanding, human colonization of other star systems is impossible. Although interstellar colonization seems common-sensical to many, Charlie makes a clear-headed and unarguable case, so far as I can see, that it ain't gonna happen without a 'magic wand' or two. Nevertheless it would be interesting to see reasoned responses from the community who believe that colonization is not merely possible, but inevitable — and even, as Hawking has said, vital for the survival of the species. So, who's right — Hawking or Stross?"

Comments

Assertions

[Enselic]

"So, who's right -- Hawking or Stross?"

They are not saying opposite things, one is saying that we can't colonize other solar systems, the other that we must. They are probably both true.

Executive summary

[charlie]

I'd like to note that I'm not saying space colonization is impossible per se ... but that (a) it is really really difficult without breakthroughs in a number of key technologies (that we can't be certain will happen), (b) we're not going to see any economic return on investment from it, and (c) the motivations for it are essentially quasi-religious and ideological in nature.

Using "the high frontier" and appeals to settler gumption and heroic individualism isn't the right paradigm; if it's going to happen we need to abandon certain cherished illusions (dwelt on at length) and start doing some hard thinking about what we really want.

Re:Can we get the tech to continuously accelerate?

[Catbeller]

Not just them. It's just a physical fact. Acclerate for 1 G for a year and you reach speed c. How one does that is another matter; how to shield yourself from hitting a "penny" at that speed and turning into plasma is another. Light, infrared and radio waves hit head-on would violet-shift into x-rays and cosmic rays, so you have to shield for that as well. And then there's the matter of navigating when you can't see out.

Re:Clarke's first law

[Have Blue]

Bussard ramjet

I think the current view is that the efficiency of these things is questionable at best.

Suspended animation

It will requires several miracles in molecular biology before we can hibernate the way other mammals can. And no known organism larger than a microbe can survive for the durations interstellar travel will require.

Generation ships

Requires the ability to do space construction on a large scale, which requires a thriving space industrial presence, which requires several miracles down here first.

Impossible?

[SlayerDave]

I read the entire article (which was excellent and well-reasoned), and nowhere did the author say space colonization was impossible. His argument is that it would be prohibitively expensive and technically impractical, but certainly not impossible. Colonization, especially of extrasolar planets, is extremely unlikely, but it is definitely physically possible, given the economic and and political will to do so.

Very bad summary, subbie.

Re:Clarke's first law

[hankwang]

it will only require one.. a method for freezing water that doesn't cause it to expand.

It already exists. Cooling water to 250 K (-23 C) at 3000 bars will do the job. Unfortunately, the pressure rather than the ice crystals will kill a human being at that type of pressure.

Re:Both right?

[CaptKilljoy]

>Yeah, but wasn't it pretty well accepted belief back then that you could never break the sound barrier?

No, that was a myth created by ignorant journalists. From http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter3.html:

The first situation was that of a common, public belief in the "sound barrier." The myth of the sound barrier had its beginning in 1935, when the British aerodynamicist W. F. Hilton was explaining to a newsman about some of the high-speed experiments he was conducting at the National Physical Laboratory. Pointing to a plot of airfoil drag, Hilton said: "See how the resistance of a wing shoots up like a barrier against higher speed as we approach the speed of sound." The next morning, the leading British newspapers were misrepresenting Hilton's comment by referring to "the sound barrier."41 The idea of a physical barrier to flight --that airplanes could never fly faster than the speed of sound-- became widespread among the public. Furthermore, even though most engineers knew differently, they still had uncertainty in just how much the drag would increase in the transonic regime, and given the low thrust levels of airplane powerplants at that time, the speed of sound certainly loomed as a tremendous mountain to climb.

The same source also notes:

But Mach devised a special optical arrangement (called a shadowgraph) by which he could see and photograph shock waves. In 1887, he presented a paper to the Academy of Sciences in Vienna where he showed a photograph of a bullet moving at supersonic speeds.

Re:Leave science to the scientists

[ceoyoyo]

It's much less likely that an alien microbe will affect us in any way than it is that we'll be able to step out of our space ship and eat the local fruit. In other words, very, VERY unlikely.

Even here on Earth, most infectious microbes infect one or maybe a handful of species. The really promiscuous ones infect a bunch of closely related species. Now consider that from a cellular biology point of view (that is, the microbe's) most of the organisms on the planet are nearly identical.

You expect to step out on an alien planet and have the local microbes go "ooh, human! We've been waiting for this!"??

Re:Both right?

[The One and Only]

Moreover, Einstein claimed the speed of light is a constant, and as IBM's experiments earlier this year have proven, the speed of light is actually a variable.

sigh No, they did not prove that c is a variable. c is still a constant as far as we can tell--the fact that light doesn't always travel at c in specific circumstances is useful information that in no way disproves Einstein's theories. Like a Star Trek writer, you're substituting enthusiasm for knowledge. Enthusiasm does not change reality.

By scientific consensus, we believed the Earth was flat, until we were told it wasn't. We attacked the naysayers and tried to have them killed...

The ones behing killing people were upholding a religious consensus--even the ancient Greeks knew the world was round.

As long as there are people saying that we can't do something, there will always be people telling them to shut the hell up, who will defy the odds and fly like an eagle or reach out into the stars. Don't let typical human apathy take hold of that which is grand.

And the people who do these things are the hard-headed types who accept reality and deal with it honestly. Sheer enthusiasm makes you that guy jumping off your roof with a 5-winged human-powered flying machine.

Re:Can we get the tech to continuously accelerate?

[dkf]

Acclerate for 1 G for a year and you reach speed c.

No you don't. Relativity 101. It takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate a mass (any mass) to the speed of light (because of Lorentz contraction). Indeed, applying a 1g acceleration for a year would only take you up to 215332822 m/s (i.e. a bit under 72%).

(To work this out, compute how much momentum would be transferred to a 1kg object undergoing a 1g acceleration for a year, which I make to be about 309264480 kgm/s, and then solve the Lorentz equations to compute the velocity relative to the initial "rest" frame from the momentum. Trivial really.)