Telepresence — Our Best Bet For Exploring Space

Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute recently wrote an opinion piece for the NY Times discussing the limitations of our space technology. He makes the harsh point that transporting human beings to other star systems isn't a reasonable goal even on a multi-generational time frame. However, advances in robotics and data gathering could instead bring the planets and stars to us, and do it far sooner. Quoting: "Sending humans to the stars is simply not in the offing. But this is how we could survey other worlds, around other suns. We fling data-collecting, robotic craft to the stars. These proxy explorers can be very small, and consequently can be shot spaceward at tremendous speed even with the types of rockets now available. Robot probes don't require life support systems, don't get sick or claustrophobic and don't insist on round-trip tickets. ... These microbots would supply the information that, fed to computers, would allow us to explore alien planets in the same way that we navigate the virtual spaces of video games or wander through online environments like Second Life. High-tech masks and data gloves, sartorial accessories considerably more comfortable than a spacesuit, would permit you to see the landscape, touch objects and even smell the air."

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Re:Latency

[Sepht]

Earth-Sun takes 8minutes 20seconds. Not 8 seconds.

Re:Latency

[Burdell]

Wow, I can't believe you've been moderated "Informative" with completely wrong information. Light travels from the Sun to the Earth in a little over 8 minutes, not 8 seconds. You are a little closer on the delay between the Earth and the Moon, but it is about 1.25 seconds, not .25.

Also, anything interactive requires a round trip, so for practical purposes, the delay is double that (about 16.5 minutes for the Sun and 2.5 seconds for the Moon).

Re:Ignores time dilation

[CrimsonAvenger]

(A) What is the maximum acceleration that the human body can withstand?

Who cares, we're not going to be accelerating at much more than 1g in any case, and probably a great deal less.

(B) At that acceleration, how long does it take to reach a significant fraction of c?

0.95c is about turnover speed for a 1g trip to Alpha Centauri. It'll take about 21 months to reach that speed, and another 21 months to stop. So Alpha Centauri at 1g is about 3.5 years away.

Everything else is farther, of course. But not a lot farther, since you've done the slow part already. Twenty years can get you anywhere in the galaxy at one g.