Our future as a species - Fermi Paradox revisted - Where they all are

Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology
Technology used this way creates an unknown frontier surrounding the
known
Exploring and exploiting this frontier makes cooperation more valuable
than competition


The existence of an unknown frontier and benefits of cooperation
resonate with deep seated values in the human psyche


In this way using technology to expand our range has made us human in
all meanings of the term.



In the present age technology make the resources of the solar system
available to humanity. Interplanetary space therefore is a new
frontier made available through appropriate application of technology.
This is distinctly different than the misapplication of technology in
the over developed center – Earth.



We are on the verge of abandoning our historical use of technology and
run the risk of entering a post-technical age. While expanded or even
continued use of technology on Earth is questionable, while expanded
use of technology by humanity beyond the Earth is a requirement to
continued human existence. That's because even if we survive a
transition to a post-technical culture, our humanity will not. That's
because in a world constrained by resource and environmental limits
makes competitive behavior more valuable than cooperative behavior.
This means the historical link forged between humanity and technology
will have been broken and we will have given rise to a neo-human
culture.



Assuming we overcome the forces of decline that surround us now, and
assuming that we continue the ‘Ascent of Man' as Jacob Bronowski
termed it, we will develop our interplanetary frontier. Since the
metric by which practical development will be measured and we know our
position in the Cosmos, it is fairly easy to predict the major avenues
of advance – although we will be surprised by minor avenues as well
which are important, but not as predictable.



The metric which must improve with increased use of space is cost per
momentum. Momentum you will recall is mass x velocity. So, when
momentum increases speed or size increase or both. What this says in
less technical terms is as you invest in rockets, those rockets become
faster and bigger or both. Momentum is a convenient and useful way to
measure this statement.



Since we know the speed requirements to travel from Earth's surface to
other points in the solar system, we can predict the following pattern
of achievement over the history of rocket development;



Small suborbital payloads – ICBM – 1950
Moderate orbiting payloads – Sputnik -1960
Large cislunar payloads – Apollo - 1970
Very large interplanetary payloads – Orion* -1980


*Orion was proposed but not built but used 1980s technology.



In this development arc we can clearly see the movement from small low
temperature low energy engines to large high termperature engines.
Also we don't see developments like Space Shuttle and Space Station.
Why? Because these are applications of core propulsive technologies
not the core technologies themselves. Applications are important, but
don't change the underlying metric or measure of advance. As I
mentioned to you Saturday the underlying metric is based on another
important measure of rocket engine performance specific impulse.
Specific impulse is a measure of exhaust velocity. Exhaust velocity
is related to rocket stage velocity by the equation;



Vf = Ve * LN(1/(1-u))



Where Vf = final velocity

Ve = exhaust velocity

u = propellant fraction



The final velocity is the velocity of the stage, which scales with the
velocity of the mission. Exhaust velocity is how fast stuff gets
thrown out of the back of the rocket. Propellant fraction is what
proportion of the total mass is made up of stuff you throw out of the
rocket.



Since space technology applies to space and space extends far beyond
Earth, space technology transcends Earth. Put differently, space
technology applies to all people on Earth equally and affects their
lives equally. So, the effects of space technology shape the nature
of all life on Earth. These effects must be made into useful services
in order to be engaged in. These services take the form of global
utilities or global paradigms that change everything when they are
developed. Here are the services that are clearly associated with the
four steps in the development arc described above;



Global thermonuclear war – peace utility
Global wireless communications – internet
Global wireless power broadcast – ‘powernet'
Global product distribution – ‘factorynet'


The first service has been with us since the 1950s. Prior to 1950 the
world engaged in two all-out global wars. Since 1950 the world has
engaged only in limited conflicts and no all-out wars. To a large
extent the presence of nuclear tipped missiles – spaceships really –
has ended international conflict and has established between the major
powers important avenues of conflict resolution not involving warfare.
The development and eventual perfection of these avenues of
cooperation are due entirely to the presence of nuclear tipped ICBMs
throughout the world. These methods of cooperating will provide the
basis of an emerging world government.



The second service has been with us since Telstar in 1961. Prior to
the 1960s the world was unable to communicate across the oceans.
Since the 1960s global television, telegraph, telephone, radio, have
been commonplace. The ability to communicate via wireless connection
throughout the world has created the second global communication
utility – the internet. Development of this facility and its eventual
perfection will provide the basis of social life of an emerging world
community. As bandwidth rises and costs drop we will see the
emergence of a host of new services. Communications experts recognize
the following development arc in communications;



One to One – communications backbone
One to many –broadcast
Many to many – telephone/internet


Satellites support global radio (Sirius/XM) and TV (HDTV), global HDTV
(Japan's HDTV satellite), global telephone (Iridium), global
TV-telephone, telepresence, telerobotics.



Telepresence allows virtual reality gear to be driven by remote
sensors in such a way as to create the impression in a user that they
are at a remote location. Telerobotics does everything telepresence
does but allows the viewer to naturally take actions at a remote
location. Telerobotic soldiers are being studied by ARPA.
Telerobotic probes are being studied by NASA. MITI – Japan's
industrial research consortium is studying a telerobotic worker. In
the future instead of getting in a $20,000 automobile to drive down a
$1 million per lane mile road to get to work, burning $10.00 worth of
fuel in the process – workers will report to work telerobotically.
Here they'lyy use $2,000 computer systems to communicate along $0.01
per channel mile optical fiber, using 1/100th of a cent of energy per
day. Telerobotics when combined with wireless broadband from space
(see Teledesic designs) will permit anyone to work anywhere with
complete safety and reliability. Doctors have already performed
surgery telerobotiically. Soon, as costs drop, all workers
everywhere will do their work this way. A person working at a
convenience store late at night wouldn't need to fear robbery
attempts. They would merely summon an police officer who would appear
telerobotically in the very robotic actuator the clerk used and make
an arrest! If there were an injury, a doctor could appear just as
quickly! Telerobotics with global satellite networks will change the
way we work and play in the very near future.



http://www.globetechnology.com/servl...trobot/GTStory

http://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/







This is a picture of Honda's P3 robot. While designed for autonomous
operation, this robot could easily be adapted to telerobotic
application using well understood near-term communications technology.



Large and very capable rockets, like the Saturn V moonrocket, could
carry satellites into orbit that collect energy from the sun and beam
it to Earth. This energy could be beamed in the form of microwaves or
in the form of laser light. Microwaves require very large antennae to
be efficiently beamed long distances. Laser energy can be efficiently
beamed long distances with lenses that are small by comparison. So,
laser based power beaming produces the lightest weight system.



The Strategic Defense Initiative hoped to build a network of space
based nuclear powered killing lasers that could strike down any
attempted attack against the United States. A power network could be
built by creating a network of solar powered industrial lasers that
could beam useful energy to anyone anywhere on Earth. The same target
acquisition and tracking technology that permits missiles to be
reliably destroyed by laser in SDI can be adapted to a power net to
reliably beam power to even moving receivers placed in automobiles,
ships and aircraft.



Lawrence Livermore National Lab has even proposed using lasers
directly for propulsion. This forms a whole new class of transport.
The laser sustained detonation rocket. This is a fundamental
improvement in rocket technology that once developed will allow us to
traverse the development arc for rockets described above, but this
time at a far lower cost.





Kantrowitz Design







Kare design



Imagine solar pumped lasers in orbit beaming energy to Earth being
adapted for propulsion. This will form a whole new approach to space
travel, and lower the cost dramatically.



http://hep.uchicago.edu/solar/laser.html



This URL gives you more information on sun pumped lasers. I have
designed a satellite that's a kilometer across. Inflated like the old
Echo satellite







Except In my system the ballon is a concentrator that focuses light
from the sun to a point. At that point is a sun pumped laser. That
laser's energy is directed through an advanced beam steering setup
similar to those proposed by SDI. These beam steering systems are
capable of HOLOGRAPHICALLY beaming energy to thousands even millions
of places all at the same time! So, this technology could broadcast
power to the world from space. The Echo balloon weighed less than 150
lbs. My multi-billion watt laser station weighs less than 500 tons.
Light enough to be built on Earth and launched from Earth using the
advanced Shuttle derived hardware I described to you earlier.



Beyond the powernet there is the manufacturing net in space. This
requires the development of nuclear pulse rockets capable of moving
very large things very fast. This was first proposed by Ted Taylor
and embodied in a 1950s research project called ORION







Here, a nuclear explosion takes place behind a rocket and part of that
explosive wave is intercepted by a pusher plate. This moves the
rocket forward. A starship project, proposed using small fusion
blasts in a containment system to propel a rocket to 10% the speed of
light;







This involves two stages similar to that of Orion, except this uses
fusion blasts and the containment deflects ALL the blast, not just a
part of it.



USAF has supported a microfission bomb project. This project attempts
to use inertial confinement fusion technology to create very tiny
fission blasts. These blasts could ignite small fusion blasts. In
either case this allows the reduction of the size of the vehicles
shown above to something approaching that of conventional spacecraft.



In any event, the capacity of nuclear blast propelled spacecraft gives
us the capacity to move very large masses throughout the solar system
– including the movement of asteroids into Earth orbit. The nuclear
arsenals of Earth could be converted to microfission triggers that
initiate microfusion rockets of the size of the rocket shown above.
These rockets could fly from Earth to search through the asteroid
belt. They would return with appropriately sized structured and
composed asteroids and place them into permanent polar orbit around
Earth.



Once materials are in Earth orbit remotely controlled robots can be
brought from Earth and powered by the same power net that by this time
powers industry on Earth. Solar powered factories manned by remotely
controlled robots can use the large quantities of raw materials
contained in these captured asteroids to make anything desired on
Earth. By flying the same orbits as spy satellites, these factories
will fly over every spot on Earth twice a day. That means that for
less energy than it costs to drive from New York City to Boston,
products can be delivered from orbit by solar powered rail gun –
anywhere on Earth.



Once large-scale production occurs on orbit, everyone on Earth will
have equal access to the riches of the solar system. To pay for this,
everyone on Earth will have access –via telerobotics- jobs to pay for
this production which is easily delivered to them anywhere twice a
day.



Manufacturing will develop through the following arc;



Raw materials
Finished industrial materials
Industrial Goods
Consumer Goods
Fiber products
Food
Medical products


In the beginning we will only see raw materials arrive from space.
But ultimately we will make everything in space that we make on Earth
today. How will we make food and fiber and drugs? These are
organically grown products. We will build environmental chambers in
which we'll grow forests and farms on orbit. Once this last step is
achieved there will be no need to have any sort of industry, except
recycling industry, on Earth. People will live in a vast residential
park with all products, energy and information supplied at very low
cost from orbit. This is achievable using known technology that has
been perfected as early as 1950. It is interesting to note that if
the stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor materials were
converted to microfission initiators used in microfusion rockets, we
could use this material to move enough material into Earth orbit from
the asteroid belt to make everyone on Earth a millionaire! At the
same time these nuclear materials would be eliminated forever from
Earth's biosphere.





Doug Michaels ‘Blue Star' Human Dolphin Space Colony





Gerald O'Neil used to work at Princeton's Institute for Advanced
Study. He designed vacuum chambers for particle accelerators and
taught a class in that. For fun he reversed the signs of all the
equations. When you do that, instead of a vacuum chamber surrounded
by air, you end up with an air filled chamber surrounded by vacuum.
He asked, how big could you make a pressure vessel with known
materials? Very big it turns out. Glass, aluminum, steel, can be
fashioned into pressure vessels miles across. Filled with air, lined
with soil, and spun to produce Earth normal gravity creates







This is the interior of O'Neil's Island One. A Cylinder with a window
on the end. Through this window light is introduced by mirrors.
Inside farms, forests and homes can be built. This is ideal for farms
and forests as well as residences which can produce food fiber and
people at very low cost.



Michaels' design is more complex. A glass sphere surrounded by a
donut like chamber. The whole thing spins and the spherical center is
low-gee. Not a problem for sea-life and dolphins. The high-gee
portion is reserved for humans. As we develop this technology for
farming forests and eventually people, we will learn how to put a
planet in a bottle and then move that bottle with us as we move across
space.



The development arc described above can change life on Earth
dramatically without large numbers of humans journeying into space.
We basically do the following;



Small suborbital rockets with advanced navigation
Larger multi-stage rockets with orbital capacity
Very large reusable multi-stage rockets with lunar capacity
Aircraft carrier sized nuclear pulse rockets with interplanetary
capacity


This combined with advanced sensing, advanced communications, advanced
laser systems, advanced robotics – make all the systems described
above possible. Within 20 to 30 years the entire population of Earth
could be living in a vast residential park with zero industry and zero
pollution. Even those things that might be potentially polluting
could be sent back into space with laser launchers. The eventual
development and perfection of laser launch technology will change the
very nature of rockets. It will reduce their cost dramatically. So
that in 40 to 50 years the same development arc will be traversed, but
this time in the form of individual spacecraft. This provide a whole
new development paradigm;



Small suborbital laser rockets – ballistic package delivery
Moderate orbiting laser rockets – orbital living, space homes
Large cislunar laser rockets – mobile space homes
Very large interplanetary laser sails – mobile space communities


This last development will be the golden age of interplanetary
development. Through this development arc all of humanity will move
from the confines of Earth's surface into interplanetary space.



Assuming a doubling of momentum per dollar every 7 years (a growth
rate in performance of 10% per year – 1/5th the rate of computer
development) will allow us to radically transform the Earth within 42
years.



By the year 2057 – the 100th anniversary of Sputnik – it is
conceivable that you could live in a mountain top in Peru, have
breakfast in New York, lunch in Paris, and dinner in Tokyo. After
dinner you could watch your children play Soccer at her school in
South Africa and return home before bed time. Energy, information,
products, and people could be delivered and dispatched from space.



By 2069 – the 100th anniversary of Apollo 11 – it is conceivable that
you could live in a large farm-like estate surrounded by fully
autonomous robots and visit Earth vacation spots on the weekend.



With the rate of growth in performance described above it will take
another 50 years – 90 years from today – to reach momenta that allow
reasonably priced interstellar journeys. These will involve laser
light sails.



In a laser power system laser energy is used to power external
devices. In a laser rocket laser energy is used to power a rocket.
In a laser light sail laser light is bounced off a lightweight mirror
to propel it forward. The same laser targeting technology that makes
SDI possible can be adapted to beam powerful laser light to sails so
that they may approach a large fraction of the speed of light.







My own small contribution to this subject has been the observation
that we could reduce the size of the laser light sails to less than
the smallest ones shown here by using the gravity of the sun to focus
laser energy far away from the sun. We could use a light sail capable
of a 4.5 light year mission anywhere in the galaxy if we beam the
laser energy using solar gravity.



Sunlight falls on a laser system that makes laser energy from
sunlight. The laser energy is beamed across interstellar space to
bounce off a mirror. The mirror carries a payload. To slow that
payload into a target star system the sail separates into two parts
(shown above). The laser light comes from the upper right in the
painting above. It bounces off the big mirror and is focused on the
small mirror that just separated from it. The reflected light bounces
off *that* mirror and slows it down in the target star system.



When its time to come home, the process is repeated to take a still
smaller sail (shown in dark gray at the center of the second smaller
mirror) back to Earth. When *that* sail approaches Earth it uses the
laser light from Earth to slow down to interplanetary speeds.



Of course if laser beams were generated in *both* star systems all we
would need would be the smallest sail shown – the small gray one at
the center of the second smaller sail separating from the big sail.



In this way we have the technology in hand to send mobile space homes
from star to star. Once we establish a colony at a remote star we can
build a counter propagating light beam to send riches back to Earth –
creating a two way highway of light between Sol and another star. A
network of such light-ways could stretch from star to star across the
galaxy – opening the Milky Way to human habitation and development.



As I mentioned last Saturday we could collide small shaped objects
made of Iron-56 at speeds approaching 1/3rd the speed of light. By
doing so we can create synthetic black holes. These black holes can
be combined to create a large variety of very advanced technologies of
a whole new order. These technologies include the ability to defy
gravity (anti gravity machine) travel through time (time travel) and
propel spacecraft with zero fuel (zero point energy). While it
appears we will never travel faster than light, it does appear we can
travel through time. This ability when combined with high speed
gravity drives make the light-speed limit irrelevant. That's because
if we travel to a distant star and come back centuries later – it
really doesn't matter if we have a convenient time-machine to hop into
to travel back in time to just after the time of departure!



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/



Its easy to see that our chemical rockets can be used to develop very
powerful lasers in space powered by the Sun. These lasers in turn can
create a new class of rocket, the laser sustained detonation rocket
and laser light sails. This laser propulsion when deployed among
many stars across the galaxy, can be coordinated to create synthetic
black holes. These black holes can be used to create gravity drives
and time-machines – which open all of the cosmos – all of space and
time – to human habitation.



So where are they? This is Fermi's famous Paradox. He saw that with
the effective release of nuclear energy if there are any aliens
around, they have the means to traverse the space between stars using
nuclear power. (the sun is a nuclear furnace so it counts as nuclear
power too!) As we have just seen, it may be possible to tap into even
more powerful energy sources – the zero point energy of the universe.
So, where are they?



This is a problem of numbers. Confined in poverty to the surface of
Earth humans breed like rabbits. But when enriched beyond a certain
level their breeding declines. This is shown in cultures as diverse
as US, Europe, Arabia, Japan, even ancient Rome. When Rome achieved
high living standards for its people, they stopped breeding. This
lead to a series of edicts from a variety of Emperors that rewarded
Romans for having children. Unfortunately, this further enriched
Romans and reduced their reproductive rate. In the end Romans had to
rely on foreign soldiers to defend them. Today all nations with
incomes above 15,000 per person per year import labor and have
declining population levels when immigration is removed from the
figures.



Spread throughout the cosmos with the riches of the universe at their
disposal, humans in the future will be fewer in number with each
succeeding generation. If this is a general rule of development –
true for aliens as well as humans – our numbers should grow very small
in very short times. Typically on the order of 10x the average
longevity of the human population. In our case – 700 years.



Gerontology – the study of aging – may yield ultimate perfection and
create a solution to the problem of natural death. Does this change
the picture any? Yes. Old age and disease cause nearly all deaths.
Eliminate disease and old age as a factor through gerontological and
medical research and we could potentially live forever. Except for
accidents. Even in the safest most secure environment imaginable, its
hard to determine how people could live longer than 1 million years.
Imagining this incredibly long life-span as the norm for humans means
that humanity even at its current level will become insignificant in
number in 10 million years.



In reality, an in depth study of actuarial data available from
insurance companies shows that the elimination of age and disease
related deaths from the current death rate would only increase the
average age to 380 years. Also this analysis doesn't show the impact
of psychological factors. Already in the highest income areas of
Earth death by suicide is on the rise. This suggests that
psychological factors will play an important role in limiting
individual life-span in the future.



Now, humanity now is something around 7 billions people. This may
grow to 14 billions by the middle of the 21st century. If we have a
strong program of space development, we can rapidly increase living
standard worldwide. If we do this today by 2050 we may peak at 11
billions. If we do nothing we will peak at 14 billions – but the
decline will not come by natural decrease in birth rates – but by a
dramatic increase in death rate as resources run out. This is a
classic ‘die off' that occurs to any population that exceeds its
range.



This is the choice humanity faces. Choose to ignore the
interplanetary frontier and stay within the range afforded by Earth
and live through a die-off of human numbers from 14 billion to perhaps
as little as 20 million neo-technical humans – or chose to develop its
interplanetary frontier expanding its range into space and expand to
11 billion space faring humans.



Even under the most optimistic assumptions (1 million year lifespan,
elimination of all disease, etc.) humans will never number more than
20 billions – and their numbers will fall to inconsequential levels
within 10 million years. More realistic numbers are 11 billions
falling to inconsequential numbers in 3,800 years.



Since technology kills exponential growth of the biological species
generating it (which is what I'm postulating here) the number of
individuals are limited to less than 20 billions and perhaps to less
than 1 billions. But even accepting 100 billion as a limiting number
– this number is small compared to the size of the universe.



Advanced Technical Species



1 million year lifespan
100 billions members


Cosmos



400 billion star systems/galaxy
200 billion galaxies
20 billion years
100 interesting spots per star system






So, we have 100 million billion person years per species in the cosmos
and we have 160 million billion billion billion interesting spot
years per cosmos. All of these are available to a sufficiently
advanced technical species! Time travel and space travel technologies
once perfected – which will occur for us within the next 500 years –
will make this possible. This boils down to one person for every
billion billion billion interesting spots. (and we may not be an
interesting spot relative to the rest of the cosmos) Talk about a
needle in a haystack! Since there are 80,000 billion billion star
systems in the cosmos this means there must be at least one
intelligence for every 12 star systems for us to even have a chance at
meeting another intelligence in the cosmos. Frank Drake shows us the
number of intelligences is likely far less than this – even the most
optimistic assumption indicates that only 1 in 250 stars are likely to
support multi-cellular life. Some biologists think that the number of
intelligence life forms are on the order of one or two per galaxy.
Why? Because half the history of Earth found the Earth inhabited by
single-celled organisms. This implies multi-celled organisms are
really hard to make. Then over most of the remaining history of life
until the present day, high-technology was absent from Earth. So,
high-technology may be common in the universe, but rare on the scale
of galaxies. This means it may be a long time before we see even any
evidence of intelligence in the cosmos.



Our emotion and intellect is shaped by our environment. When
constrained by the environment and resources of Earth – non-technical
animal species engage in competition for resources. With the
development of means to expand their range by technical means – humans
beginning a few million years ago changed this paradigm. The
development of technology capable of bringing new resources from a
frontier accentuated the benefits of cooperation over competition.
Since we have filled the Earth and are depleting its natural and
organic resources we are entering a period of increased competition
for resources. Abandoning the interplanetary frontier and technology
will result in the re-assertion of competition and the abandonment of
cooperation and a large part of what it means to be human. Embracing
the interplanetary frontier and the appropriate use of technology to
develop that frontier for human use means creating a new range for
humans where abundance is multiplied through cooperation. It means a
radical change in the way modern nation-states operate and an
affirmation of older cooperative human values. This is the ultimate
benefit of space exploration and development.


So, what will be the emotional and intellectual milieu of individuals
raised in a space faring culture? It will be a culture in which you
may do nearly anything you desire have anything you desire and enjoy
it anywhere anywhen. In short is will be an age of plenty and
miracles. The motivating idea will not be profit and loss, will not
be security. The motivating idea will be meaning. What do things
mean? How can that meaning be increased? Those who possess the
greatest meaning will be those who are considered to have the
greatest abundance. But this form of abundance will have many
measuires and one will not grow rich at the expense of others – but
grow rich by their own capacity and their own mind – unconstrained by
mere material concerns. Since meaning is a function of creativity,
nearly all views will be welcomed as important contributions to the
whole. This includes new intelligences – provided they are not
destructive to the community of which they will be a part.



Cheers.



-William Mook

william mook wrote:

*Orion was proposed but not built but used 1980s technology.

Didn't you used to claim that Orion was 1940s technology? Why the
change of mind?

Jim Davis

Jim Davis wrote in message .1.4...
william mook wrote:

*Orion was proposed but not built but used 1980s technology.

Didn't you used to claim that Orion was 1940s technology? Why the
change of mind?

Jim Davis

Ted Taylor certainly created the concept in the 1940s and the A-bomb
that he envisioned powering the early versions was 1940 era. But, I
was putting this in a development arc that included the development
cycle proposed by NASA, wherein NERVA was replaced with neo-Orion.

william mook wrote:

Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology
Technology used this way creates an unknown frontier surrounding the
known
Exploring and exploiting this frontier makes cooperation more valuable
than competition

Why, necessairily?

Competition has driven most large scale Terrestrial exploration
(resources, trade routes), other than, perhaps, Antarctica.

Joann Evans wrote in message ...
william mook wrote:

Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology
Technology used this way creates an unknown frontier surrounding the
known
Exploring and exploiting this frontier makes cooperation more valuable
than competition

Why, necessairily?

Competition has driven most large scale Terrestrial exploration
(resources, trade routes), other than, perhaps, Antarctica.


Consider two scenarios;

(1) The resources and range are limited and the population is
increasing.
(2) The resources and range may increased through cooperative
action.

In the first scenario competition is rewarded

In the second scenario cooperation is rewarded.

What the environment rewards the environment gets in a system that
responds to reward.

Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology

Not really - it has occassionally, but the vast majority of the human
colonization of the earth was done by people who set up housekeeping just down
the road from where they came from - then generation after generation did just
the same thing.
The vast majority of the human inhabited surface of the earth was settled in
paleo- and neo-lithic times by people who just walked there. It's
comparatively recently that ships of any kind were employed.

My answer to the Fermi paradox is quite simple - space travel is economically
unsustainable - it always costs more in resources than it brings in. So no
species anywhere in the galaxy can afford it over the long haul.



John Ordover

on 04 Oct 2003 01:28:41 GMT, ORDOVER sez:

[Wish you would set your margins for a reasonable line length.
72 characters is usenet standard. Quotes of your text are
thus ragged and crappy to read.]

` Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology

` Not really - it has occassionally, but the vast majority of the human
` colonization of the earth was done by people who set up housekeeping
` just down
` the road from where they came from - then generation after generation
` did just
` the same thing.
` The vast majority of the human inhabited surface of the earth was
` settled in
` paleo- and neo-lithic times by people who just walked there. It's
` comparatively recently that ships of any kind were employed.

` My answer to the Fermi paradox is quite simple - space travel is
` economically
` unsustainable - it always costs more in resources than it brings in.
` So no
` species anywhere in the galaxy can afford it over the long haul.

A stupendously anthropocentric viewpoint on the priorities of
ET species economies. It is no strain to imagine, perhaps on
a planet where multiple intelligent species evolved, or where
competition for reproductive success, and/or new territory for
one's offspring became a very powerful instinctive drive, a
technological species whose need to spread their descendants
onto every available solid surface in the universe became as
strong as the sex drive is in humans. What is possible in an
economy is all about priorities. Such a species might, as well,
by reasonable extension be driven to plan generations ahead for
the provision of their offspring, or be prolific in their
fecundity, and thus predisposed to take great risks with them
in hopes of establishing new "beachheads". The concept that
colonization might "bring in" something would be utterly
irrelevant to such species. Their reward is the hit they get
from knowing they have many thriving offspring. The visceral
instinctive reward built into them might be such that the mere
fact that they had successfully established a colony of their
own offspring on another planet with almost unlimited potential
for expansion, would put them into a trance of extasy for the
rest of their life.

The universe is a big place. Lots of things are possible. Bean
counters won't be in charge everywhere. Somewhere the joy of
life will have the upper hand...


--
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Pete Vincent
Disclaimer: all I know I learned from reading Usenet.

(pete) wrote in message ...
on 04 Oct 2003 01:28:41 GMT, ORDOVER sez:

[Wish you would set your margins for a reasonable line length.
72 characters is usenet standard. Quotes of your text are
thus ragged and crappy to read.]

` Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology

` Not really - it has occassionally, but the vast majority of the human
` colonization of the earth was done by people who set up housekeeping
` just down
` the road from where they came from - then generation after generation
` did just
` the same thing.
` The vast majority of the human inhabited surface of the earth was
` settled in
` paleo- and neo-lithic times by people who just walked there. It's
` comparatively recently that ships of any kind were employed.

` My answer to the Fermi paradox is quite simple - space travel is
` economically
` unsustainable - it always costs more in resources than it brings in.
` So no
` species anywhere in the galaxy can afford it over the long haul.

A stupendously anthropocentric viewpoint on the priorities of
ET species economies. It is no strain to imagine, perhaps on
a planet where multiple intelligent species evolved, or where
competition for reproductive success, and/or new territory for
one's offspring became a very powerful instinctive drive, a
technological species whose need to spread their descendants
onto every available solid surface in the universe became as
strong as the sex drive is in humans. What is possible in an
economy is all about priorities.


If you prioritize space travel over food and medical care, you don't
survive. If their reproductive drive is that strong, it will lead
them to destruction, not successful colonization. Just wanting to go
to space really really badly won't make space travel economically
sustainable, call it sex drive or call it anything else. If the
physics isn't there, it isn't there.

John Ordover wrote:

(pete) wrote in message ...
on 04 Oct 2003 01:28:41 GMT, ORDOVER sez:

[Wish you would set your margins for a reasonable line length.
72 characters is usenet standard. Quotes of your text are
thus ragged and crappy to read.]

` Humanity has always progressed by expanding its range using technology

` Not really - it has occassionally, but the vast majority of the human
` colonization of the earth was done by people who set up housekeeping
` just down
` the road from where they came from - then generation after generation
` did just
` the same thing.
` The vast majority of the human inhabited surface of the earth was
` settled in
` paleo- and neo-lithic times by people who just walked there. It's
` comparatively recently that ships of any kind were employed.

` My answer to the Fermi paradox is quite simple - space travel is
` economically
` unsustainable - it always costs more in resources than it brings in.
` So no
` species anywhere in the galaxy can afford it over the long haul.

A stupendously anthropocentric viewpoint on the priorities of
ET species economies. It is no strain to imagine, perhaps on
a planet where multiple intelligent species evolved, or where
competition for reproductive success, and/or new territory for
one's offspring became a very powerful instinctive drive, a
technological species whose need to spread their descendants
onto every available solid surface in the universe became as
strong as the sex drive is in humans. What is possible in an
economy is all about priorities.

If you prioritize space travel over food and medical care, you don't
survive.

If those are your choices, yes. For someone else, space flight, even
interstellar, may become sufficently trivial that it doesn't impact
whatever their basic necessities are. (and supplying them may also have
become relatively trivial)

I expect a few unbenighted souls, when someone meets the X-Prize
requirements, to bitch about how 'we' should be spending those resources
on something else, not realizing that no government money went into
that, and it's just an unusual form of privately built experimental
aircraft....

If their reproductive drive is that strong, it will lead
them to destruction, not successful colonization. Just wanting to go
to space really really badly won't make space travel economically
sustainable, call it sex drive or call it anything else. If the
physics isn't there, it isn't there.

Newton's third law still works. It's not the physics, it's the the
economics. As the technology matures, the level of justification
steadily drops. Somewhere, even interstellar flight may have reached the
private expedition or 'hobby' stage. At which point, an 'economic
return' isn't required at all. (Which doesn't mean there will never be
one.)

Newton's third law still works. It's not the physics, it's the the
economics. As the technology matures, the level of justification
steadily drops. Somewhere, even interstellar flight may have reached the
private expedition or 'hobby' stage. At which point, an 'economic
return' isn't required at all. (Which doesn't mean there will never be
one.)

If the physics of the univere aren't such that there is a way to make
the ecomonics feasible, then it can't be sustained.