Why Colonize Space?

:: Do you think the latency inherent in EM-based communications is low
:: enough for such a situation, or would you prefer if the doctor used
:: an ansible to run the robot?

: "Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe
: Better than 36 minutes.

But you'd be just as dead either way.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:14:04 +0100, "Giga" "Giga"
just(removetheseandaddmatthe wrote:


"David Johnston" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:22:07 +0100, "Giga" "Giga"
just(removetheseandaddmatthe wrote:


"David DeLaney" wrote in message
...
Giga wrote:
I must admit haven't thought much about how one might acheive FTL. The
only
really useful thought, IMHO, I think I've had is that mass is the real
problem, and obviously anything we would want to send, like people etc
have
mass. AFAIK there is nothing stopping something without mass from
travelling
at any speed, given a bit of a push.

Well, actually ... there is: items that are massless MUST travel at
exactly
lightspeed. (Because for them, E=pc.)

But what if this massless thing had an engine accelerating it? Would it
not
go faster than c?

No. For one thing if the engine is massless it has no way to
accelerate and if it isn't the object isn't massless.

Then it wouldn't be an engine, and I asked about an engine.

And there are severe logical problems with an engine.


For another all
it would do is shift the wavelength.

Not sure what wavelength you mean here. The question is would it arrive at
the destination faster than light.


The answer is "no".

In article ,
Greg Goss said:

wrote:

What the first paragraph means is only a giant company could even
contemplate such an "adventure" and the directors of a giant
company have to report to the stock holders.

One of the Niven/Pournelle books has the first interstellar colony
paid for by the National Geographic Society.

No way am I buying that many subscriptions.

Especially since I can get pictures of topless women from other
places now.

-- wds

In article ,
Quadibloc said:

It was a paperback with a silver cover. Ah, here we a "The
Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps", by
Marshall T. Savage. So, the National Geographic Society already
has the first step covered...

Note: Millennial, with two ns.

(I just looked it up on Amazon. First published in 1986 by Little
Brown and Company. I'd say "Probably not one of their bigger
profit-makers," but apparently they reprinted it in 1994.)

-- wds

In article ,
(Wayne Throop) said:

At least nobody claims we "should" colonize underwater because
it'd shield from some disasters that could overtake the
surface-dwellers. Nor, for that matter, to mine the extensive
manganese deposits, etc.

Whatever _did_ happen to all those manganese nodules that were just
lying there on the ocean floor waiting to be vacuumed up, anyway?

-- wds

"William December Starr" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Wayne Throop) said:

At least nobody claims we "should" colonize underwater because
it'd shield from some disasters that could overtake the
surface-dwellers. Nor, for that matter, to mine the extensive
manganese deposits, etc.

Whatever _did_ happen to all those manganese nodules that were just
lying there on the ocean floor waiting to be vacuumed up, anyway?

Nothing.... mostly it was a cover for the Glomar Explorer and Project
Jennifer.


--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

On 30 Jul 2009 07:41:47 -0400, (William December
Starr) wrote:

In article ,
(Wayne Throop) said:

At least nobody claims we "should" colonize underwater because
it'd shield from some disasters that could overtake the
surface-dwellers. Nor, for that matter, to mine the extensive
manganese deposits, etc.

Whatever _did_ happen to all those manganese nodules that were just
lying there on the ocean floor waiting to be vacuumed up, anyway?

They disappeared once the Americans no longer needed a cover story for
the cable tapping operation.

In article ,
"Giga" "Giga" just(removetheseandaddmatthe said:

"William December Starr" wrote

[...] but it still avoids the question of *what* would be more
useful to mine in space or on a non-terrestrial planet in the
Solar system than here on Earth.

HE3 AFAIU,

And how far is that?

asteroids as well.

What do you think is more useful to mine from asteroids than here
on Earth?

Most likely any faster than light engine would need to be
lauched from space rather than from the ground.

No, most likely any faster-than-light engine will have operating
properties which no human alive today can make any "most likely"
predictions about.

What is almost for sure you aint going to land on another planet
at light-speed,

True.

or probably travel around within a system, perhaps even close to
it. So you are still going to need the same kind of technologies
that will be used to get to Mars.

Absolutely not true. Pay attention: You *cannot* say "almost for
sure" about *any* operating property of an item about which *nothing
is known*. To do so is to speak utter nonsense.

Also you almost certainly need green-houses etc as well.

None of which require preliminary slower-than-light colonization of
the Solar system to develop.

-- wds

In sci.physics William December Starr wrote:
In article ,
(Wayne Throop) said:

At least nobody claims we "should" colonize underwater because
it'd shield from some disasters that could overtake the
surface-dwellers. Nor, for that matter, to mine the extensive
manganese deposits, etc.

Whatever _did_ happen to all those manganese nodules that were just
lying there on the ocean floor waiting to be vacuumed up, anyway?

There was a bunch of people into it in the 70's.

Some even did some trial recovery.

It all died out when the price of nickel fell and it was realized that the
capital cost to go into production was too high to be profitable.

I.e., the same reason there will be no space mining.


--
Jim Pennino

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In sci.physics David Johnston wrote:
On 30 Jul 2009 07:41:47 -0400, (William December
Starr) wrote:

In article ,
(Wayne Throop) said:

At least nobody claims we "should" colonize underwater because
it'd shield from some disasters that could overtake the
surface-dwellers. Nor, for that matter, to mine the extensive
manganese deposits, etc.

Whatever _did_ happen to all those manganese nodules that were just
lying there on the ocean floor waiting to be vacuumed up, anyway?

They disappeared once the Americans no longer needed a cover story for
the cable tapping operation.

So why did Canada, the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan,
France, the Soviet Union, India, and China give up their operations?


--
Jim Pennino

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