As I keep on explaining to people on here: it is because of physics. CPUs aren't going to get faster and faster forever. The performance growth is slowing. You see this is 9-12% improvement over the previous generation. Of course this makes people angry at me when I tell them technological progress isn't guarenteed, because the reality is we won't be seeing things like AI or autonomous cars which depend on ever increasing processing power.
Uh, I said progress was SLOWING, not stopped. Incrementally isn't going to get you to where you need to be. Computers and batteries are excellent examples. Eventually digital computers won't even improve incrementally. Because physics. Jesus might return to Earth too, but I wouldn't count on it.
Um no. It is my number. Even if it were your number it wouldn't matter. You aren't going to make a starship that goes 1-2%c (or even 0.0233%) no matter how much you dream. Creating things takes actual work. People have been spoiled into thinking that if they dream hard enough it will come true.
That is the other space nutter argument, the appeal to some undefined expert that has designed some system on a napkin. You are going to accelerate a starship to a significant fraction of c with 40MWh, even if you could build one? There is a reason we don't have these engines now and haven't launched any in over 50 years. Because smart people who ACTUALLY HAVE TO BUILD THESE THINGS know it isn't possible to do.
It might be depressing, but it is reality. You can see it around you now: the CPU you have today in your computer is not much different than the one you had five years ago in terms of processing power. And if you look even further back, the CPU you have today is not much different than the 8088. It is much faster and better, but still essentially the same. We would need another technological leap from transistor based computing to something else. That something else isn't even defined yet. Digital computers have driven much of the technological growth in our century, but that is ending. And don't say "quantum computers" because they might be a dead end too. The same argument applies to other fields as well. We have been spoiled in the 20th and the 21st century. Technological progress is NOT inevitable: it requires a lot of hard work by brilliant people to make it happen.
Actually it had a real output of 500W and failed after 45 DAYS. Fission works for electricity, but isn't going to accelerate you to anything approaching any significant fraction of c. And yes, the world is basically the US at this point, despite what the anti-US idiots think. Even worse, the US isn't in a position to build starships. The Chinese are too busy building iPhones and the Russians have gone off the deep end.
"Second, fusion allows for a few percent of c just fine."
No it doesn't. You can't just say things and it is true. You claim we can get over 1%c using fusion? Bullshit. The fastest we have ever gone WITH A PROBE is 0.000542%c. That is reality. You are going to make a spacecraft that is 400000x faster? Bullshit.
You were mistaken. Do you know how many fission reactors the US has launched? One. It was over 50 years ago. Why hasn't there been another one? Because it doesn't work at the energies needed. You know how much power it produced? 500 watts. What a fucking joke.
Yet you have unshakeable faith that humans will be colonizing other star systems. You should join a religion. There is a better chance of Jeebus returning to Earth, than us travelling to another star.
It is doubtful they could even travel back and forth. The radiation exposure itself would kill them. Of course some space nutter will just say "oh we will just fill the hull with unobtainium to shield the spacecraft" so it is like shouting in the wind. Meanwhile decades have gone by with no progress but the nutters still believe.
Because physics tells us that the energies need to accelerate a starship to any fraction of c is something we cannot generate and sustain. There is no reason ghosts don't theoretically exist either, but they don't. You guys fall into the trap thinking that technology is going to get better and better: guess what? It isn't. Technological progress is slowing down. We have hit a dead end with digital computers and batteries for example. This is because there are realistic limits on how small transistors can get based on our knowledge of physics. You have been spoiled because you were born in the middle of of an era of amazing technological progress. But the rate of progress is slowing, even today. We aren't going to make a starship that can travel 100000x faster than the fastest probe we can make now.
Interestingly the 1 star reviews of that book you mentioned are all from Space Nutters. They just cannot grasp the fact that we aren't going to colonize the galaxy. They chose to give it a 1 star instead because they didn't agree with the premise. A bunch of nutjobs.
Enough with the "we used to think" the earth was flat, humans couldn't fly, etc. We don't. We know physics now. It isn't going to happen. You can always detect a space nutter because they always say "well we USED to think" and then extrapolate that all things are possible.
Um, no. We will never achieve speeds of hundredths of C. The fastest we have achieved is 0.000542% c. And that was with a small probe. We aren't going anywhere.
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But the Japanese are honorable and they would do nothing to bring shame to themselves or their company. At least that is the myth.
"The rest of the article is worth a read as well."
Well the summary was complete shit.
As I keep on explaining to people on here: it is because of physics. CPUs aren't going to get faster and faster forever. The performance growth is slowing. You see this is 9-12% improvement over the previous generation. Of course this makes people angry at me when I tell them technological progress isn't guarenteed, because the reality is we won't be seeing things like AI or autonomous cars which depend on ever increasing processing power.
Uh, I said progress was SLOWING, not stopped. Incrementally isn't going to get you to where you need to be. Computers and batteries are excellent examples. Eventually digital computers won't even improve incrementally. Because physics. Jesus might return to Earth too, but I wouldn't count on it.
Um no. It is my number. Even if it were your number it wouldn't matter. You aren't going to make a starship that goes 1-2%c (or even 0.0233%) no matter how much you dream. Creating things takes actual work. People have been spoiled into thinking that if they dream hard enough it will come true.
That is the other space nutter argument, the appeal to some undefined expert that has designed some system on a napkin. You are going to accelerate a starship to a significant fraction of c with 40MWh, even if you could build one? There is a reason we don't have these engines now and haven't launched any in over 50 years. Because smart people who ACTUALLY HAVE TO BUILD THESE THINGS know it isn't possible to do.
It might be depressing, but it is reality. You can see it around you now: the CPU you have today in your computer is not much different than the one you had five years ago in terms of processing power. And if you look even further back, the CPU you have today is not much different than the 8088. It is much faster and better, but still essentially the same. We would need another technological leap from transistor based computing to something else. That something else isn't even defined yet. Digital computers have driven much of the technological growth in our century, but that is ending. And don't say "quantum computers" because they might be a dead end too. The same argument applies to other fields as well. We have been spoiled in the 20th and the 21st century. Technological progress is NOT inevitable: it requires a lot of hard work by brilliant people to make it happen.
I'm a big proponent of nuclear energy. But you aren't going to build a starship propelled by it.
Actually it had a real output of 500W and failed after 45 DAYS. Fission works for electricity, but isn't going to accelerate you to anything approaching any significant fraction of c. And yes, the world is basically the US at this point, despite what the anti-US idiots think. Even worse, the US isn't in a position to build starships. The Chinese are too busy building iPhones and the Russians have gone off the deep end.
There you go: typical space nutter. Lets just attach scram jets to another planet.
"Second, fusion allows for a few percent of c just fine."
No it doesn't. You can't just say things and it is true. You claim we can get over 1%c using fusion? Bullshit. The fastest we have ever gone WITH A PROBE is 0.000542%c. That is reality. You are going to make a spacecraft that is 400000x faster? Bullshit.
You were mistaken. Do you know how many fission reactors the US has launched? One. It was over 50 years ago. Why hasn't there been another one? Because it doesn't work at the energies needed. You know how much power it produced? 500 watts. What a fucking joke.
Yet you have unshakeable faith that humans will be colonizing other star systems. You should join a religion. There is a better chance of Jeebus returning to Earth, than us travelling to another star.
To be fair to space nutters, everything is possible...because they have never tried to do anything significant in engineering.
It is doubtful they could even travel back and forth. The radiation exposure itself would kill them. Of course some space nutter will just say "oh we will just fill the hull with unobtainium to shield the spacecraft" so it is like shouting in the wind. Meanwhile decades have gone by with no progress but the nutters still believe.
Because physics tells us that the energies need to accelerate a starship to any fraction of c is something we cannot generate and sustain. There is no reason ghosts don't theoretically exist either, but they don't. You guys fall into the trap thinking that technology is going to get better and better: guess what? It isn't. Technological progress is slowing down. We have hit a dead end with digital computers and batteries for example. This is because there are realistic limits on how small transistors can get based on our knowledge of physics. You have been spoiled because you were born in the middle of of an era of amazing technological progress. But the rate of progress is slowing, even today. We aren't going to make a starship that can travel 100000x faster than the fastest probe we can make now.
No one, because it isn't possible to travel at the speed and distances involved to get there. And once you got there, it would just be a rock.
Interestingly the 1 star reviews of that book you mentioned are all from Space Nutters. They just cannot grasp the fact that we aren't going to colonize the galaxy. They chose to give it a 1 star instead because they didn't agree with the premise. A bunch of nutjobs.
I enjoyed KSR Mars series, but it was a joke in terms of reality. It is just Scifi.
"Straightforward fission reactor design". Space nutter detected.
Enough with the "we used to think" the earth was flat, humans couldn't fly, etc. We don't. We know physics now. It isn't going to happen. You can always detect a space nutter because they always say "well we USED to think" and then extrapolate that all things are possible.
I can theoretically go up to 1c, but it isn't going to happen. What you are saying is scifi.
Um, no. We will never achieve speeds of hundredths of C. The fastest we have achieved is 0.000542% c. And that was with a small probe. We aren't going anywhere.
I thought autonomous cars were right around the corner! Guess not!
Wow, $82 billion over 10 years? thats a lot of money! It might pay for the toilet paper for the US Military!