City spaceships might they a possibility

[Grimlock]

Don,´t know if this belongs in another part, but I'm putting it here.
Space as we all know is (to say the least) HUGE, the distances between here and the nearest solar system is about 4.37 light years, even with our fastest spaceships it likely it would take several thousand years to reach it.
But distance "isn,´t a problem as such" yes it would take several thousand years, but if enough people is onboard a ship we might be able to reach it in several generations and still have enough difference in genes to avoid in breeding.

The problem is gravity or lack thereof, in zero gravity our bones deteriorate slowly but surely, with the current speed of our fastest spaceship our bones will be so brittle that by the time we reach Jupiter a simple pad on the back would be enough to shatter a human spine.

So let's hypothetical (I think its spelled right) say that in all the years till our sun starts to give us problems or our planet becomes uninhabitable, which ever happens first, we never solve the mystery of how to make a ship go either just as fast or faster than light.
The furthest place we ever go is our own solar system and perhaps make a few colonies that barely survives.

Could it be that we simple make city size ships and just travel space never going down on a planet on the count that any form of stronger then a meteors gravity might kill us?

This might be junk science but it could still be interesting to see if anybody think we might actually do that or is such a thing completely impossible?

(it should be said i think, that someday we or our descendants will find a way to travel between the solar systems in a reasonable amount of time)

 

[Prolescum]

Oxygen, food, gravity, entertainment, power, laws, contraception... Good luck.

 

[5810Singer]

For large craft the issue of micro-meteorites will become a crucial issue IMO, and if ships are to travel at relativistic speeds then the force of a micro-meteorite impact would be catastrophic.

Shielding will become as important as all the other considerations IMO.

 

[Schwobar]

For large craft the issue of micro-meteorites will become a crucial issue IMO, and if ships are to travel at relativistic speeds then the force of a micro-meteorite impact would be catastrophic.

Shielding will become as important as all the other considerations IMO.

Yeah, I think shielding is the biggest problem. We also have radiation to worry about!

 

[Unwardil]

Actually, with a sufficiently powerful engine, the issue of gravity is easy to solve. You simply make the ship's rate of acceleration or deceleration equal to 1 G. A hydrogen fusion engine is the obvious choice seeing as how there is minute hydrogen particles even in deep space. As for shielding the craft, once you reach deep space, the chances of micro meteorite impact become very negligible, but you'd need a big scoop to collect hydrogen to fuel the ship. Apparently there's something you can do that actually projects a magnetic shield that will deflect meteorites but I have no idea what it is, only that if Carl Sagan says it's theoretically possible then he's probably not just shitting me.

Personally, I think the idea of massive generation ships is far more likely than space colonies. I am of course talking about absolutely vast ships here, a population of at least a quarter of a million people with the capacity for double that as well as all manner of flora and fauna and the genetic information of many different kinds of ecologies so that they can begin preliminary terraforming on any potentially habitable planets they encounter on their route. If they do encounter a planet that is already habitable (highly unlikely but w/e) it would have the ability to transform into an orbital dock yard and send down landing parties to establish a new colony. Or not, seeing as it's fuel would be provided by deep space hydrogen particles, such ships could keep going for as long as they wanted.

 

[Doc.]

eer.. why would you go up there in the first place? what does space have to offer?

our sun starts to give us problems or our planet becomes uninhabitable

solving these problems by staying on the planet sounds much easier.

 

[Ozymandyus]

There is little doubt that Eventually, whether there is a crisis or not, this will be a goal of humanity. This will be many tens of thousands of years in the future, but our sense of adventure and need for new things will undoubtedly lead some to want to colonize new worlds.

As for the problems... the gravity problem has many simple solutions for as technologically advanced as we will be in 10000 years: there will be technologies that we cannot even DREAM of yet. Hell, in 100 years there will be those sorts of technologies.

Anyway, the problem of shielding is undoubtedly the most complicated one: all the other problems that have been raised here are trivial (I think we've pretty much solved contraception, thankyou). In any case, I expect with an engine sufficient to get us near the speed of light we will have plenty of energy to generate the sorts of powerful fields that would be needed to shield us from certain types of radiation, and from some micrometeorites... I'm sure there are lots of solutions to these types of problems but the ones we would come up this far removed from the sorts of technologies that will be available would no doubt look nothing like what the Actual solutions would be.

 

[5810Singer]

Another issue's occured to me.

Would there be any problems with interstellar navigation, and would any such problems be worsened by travelling at relativistic speeds?

 

[Ozymandyus]

Another issue's occured to me.

Would there be any problems with interstellar navigation, and would any such problems be worsened by travelling at relativistic speeds?

How do you mean? The OP was talking about going to one of the closest stars, in which case you would be going anyway near or through any OTHER solar systems. And the space in between stars is VERY empty (or at least, it certainly seems to be!), meaning it would in general be much easier to navigate once you get past the boundaries of our solar system.

Even if we were going to a further system, it would be very easy to chart your course before you left to avoid any close contact with other solar systems: there would almost certainly be no need for course adjustments.

 

[Unwardil]

Indeed, you'd pretty much do all your acceleration and deceleration between star systems and navigate the space around a solar system at lower speeds to avoid dangerous collisions at near light speeds. Honestly my suspicions is that matter simply wouldn't hold together at near light speeds. Seeing as in quantum terms 'nothing isn't nothing anymore', I bet they'd find something equivalent to wind resistance at very high speeds that would stop the ship from being able to accelerate past a certain point. Obviously not wind resistance as there's no air, but something like it. Anyways, it would still be able to go very very fast, sufficiently so to experience time dilation. Pure speculation obviously, like this entire thread, but very fun to think about.

As for the need to do it, well, there's one very pressing one, which is that 99.9% of the species that have ever evolved on the earth have also met their end here. Space offers us survival, besides, who wouldn't jump at the opportunity? Well, not really a lot of people come to think of it, maybe 1 in 100 000 people, but conveniently, that's a lot of people.


Actually, beyond the first pioneers to make deep space voyages, I picture the first colonial generation ships being populated almost entirely by cultists and wackos who are not so much looking for something to get out of space but an earth to get away from. And ya know what? That's just fine and dandy. It will be the first time where that option of 'Well, why don't we just give them their own island or something where they can do all their crazy shit and not bother the rest of us' would actually work because each ship would be in true isolation from everything else.

 

[sgrunterundt]

There is little doubt that Eventually, whether there is a crisis or not, this will be a goal of humanity. This will be many tens of thousands of years in the future, but our sense of adventure and need for new things will undoubtedly lead some to want to colonize new worlds.

As for the problems... the gravity problem has many simple solutions for as technologically advanced as we will be in 10000 years: there will be technologies that we cannot even DREAM of yet. Hell, in 100 years there will be those sorts of technologies.

Anyway, the problem of shielding is undoubtedly the most complicated one: all the other problems that have been raised here are trivial (I think we've pretty much solved contraception, thankyou). In any case, I expect with an engine sufficient to get us near the speed of light we will have plenty of energy to generate the sorts of powerful fields that would be needed to shield us from certain types of radiation, and from some micrometeorites... I'm sure there are lots of solutions to these types of problems but the ones we would come up this far removed from the sorts of technologies that will be available would no doubt look nothing like what the Actual solutions would be.

Shielding is no problem in a colony of that size. This is a possible design, there is no particular reason that a interstellar ship should look different from a stellar orbit colony. This design is protected against radiation by six kilometres of air, similar to what earth has. In interstellar travel you could actually skip the windows, since the light would be artificial. A few meters of rock should block most. Besides most harmful radiation would come from the sun anyway, sure there are cosmic rays capable of going through almost anything, but the intensity is low.

Another issue's occured to me.

Would there be any problems with interstellar navigation, and would any such problems be worsened by travelling at relativistic speeds?

Navigation is trivial. Even without computers an undergraduate student who have trained for a few months could easily handle it. Yes relativistic effects would have to be factored in, but that would just be done.