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Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 5th 03, 02:36 PM
Al Jackson
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Default Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit

"John Maxson" wrote in message ...

Does a newer space ship offer us a timely chance to beat the
Malthusian outcome (i.e.., will it help us find natural resources
on another celestial body and also lead to colonization)?



Spaceflight will never solve the classic Malthusian population growth
problem.

Isaac Asimov was an ardent proponent of halting population growth. He
pointed out that in one or two thousand years, with exponential
population growth, the entire Solar System would be converted into a
spherical mass of human flesh, expanding at the speed of light.
The Power of Progression
First Published In: May-69, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction

Clearly this won't happen!

A lessor population growth may have to be met by off-earth resources,
but that is a different problem.
  #2  
Old August 5th 03, 03:55 PM
John Maxson
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Default Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit

Al Jackson wrote in message
om...

Isaac Asimov was an ardent proponent of halting population
growth. He pointed out that in one or two thousand years, with
exponential population growth, the entire Solar System would
be converted into a spherical mass of human flesh, expanding
at the speed of light.


I too have never had a great deal of hope that our solar system
would be of much help to us for population expansion. That
does not mean I'm without hope for moving beyond it.

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)


  #3  
Old August 6th 03, 06:30 PM
Mike Combs
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Default Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit

John Maxson wrote:

I too have never had a great deal of hope that our solar system
would be of much help to us for population expansion. That
does not mean I'm without hope for moving beyond it.


As others have correctly pointed out, we have little reason to be concerned
that we need space to solve any "overpopulation problem". But just to set the
record straight, Gerard O'Neill established that with space habitat technology,
there are sufficient resources in our system to support a population many
thousands of times that of Earth. And all without moving beyond the solar
system.

The solar system only seems inadequate if we confine our thinking to the
surfaces of planets and moons.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We should ask, critically and with appeal to the numbers, whether the
best site for a growing advancing industrial society is Earth, the
Moon, Mars, some other planet, or somewhere else entirely.
Surprisingly, the answer will be inescapable - the best site is
"somewhere else entirely."

Gerard O'Neill - "The High Frontier"
  #4  
Old August 7th 03, 02:38 PM
william mook
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Default Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit

As we invest in space transport technology the cost of imparting
momentum to payloads will decrease. As the cost decreases, the things
we can do in space will increase. As we move up the momentum curve
the Earth's surface will be the natural point of reference for
humanity since that is where the bulk of people now live and will
likely continue to live for the next century or so.

Well past the next century there will be more people living off-world
than not. At that point there will be a sea-change in the way people
think about their place in the cosmos.

But, prior to this shift we can see several clearly delineated epochs
in the evolution of space travel for humanity - all referenced to
Earth's surface;

(1) Suborbital - ballistic missiles - 1950
(2) Orbital - communications/weather/spy/nav satellites - 1960
(3) Cislunar - piloted travel to orbit - moonships - powersats - 1970
(4) Interplanetary - asteroid capture - colonies - factorysats - hold

Then, as the cost of momentum continues to decrease (assuming the hold
on continuing development is released at some point in the future) we
can see that an expansion of the powersat capacity combined with laser
driven micro-mechanical rocket arrays - will result in broad access to
low-cost easy to use rockets that will permit broad access to high
momenta. This will result in a repeat of the development curve above,
but on a broad scale;

(5) Suborbital - ballistic package delivery & passenger service -
(6) Orbital - wide access to orbit - spacehome
(7) Cislunar - industrial access to orbit from Earth
(8) Interplanetary - roving spacehome - end of dominance of Earth
surface

Since space access transcends Earth, each development along the arc
described above will be viewed by Earthbound populations as
transcending Earth - affecting everyone on Earth equally. So,
politically, these space travel developments will be result in
worldwide changes which include;

(1) Global peace to avoid global thermonuclear war
(2) Global communications and sensing network
(3) Global power delivery
(4) Global resource and product delivery
(5) Global ballistic transport
(6) Global access to space

At this point, humanity's reference changes from Earth surface to
spacehome and the relation of one's spacehome to relevant resources
and other points of interest.

As the cost of momentum continues to decline - by moving from laser
driven rockets - with lasers powered by sunlight - to laser driven
lightsails - the range and power of humanity's spaceflight
infrastructure will continue to increase until ultimately, first space
probes, then piloted space flight, then space industry, and
ultimately, space settlements, spread beyond the Solar System to
encompass the Oort Cloud and the stars beyond.

(7) Interstellar travel

As momenta increases, and the network of laser light driven highways
extend from star to star - along with a network of radio telescopes
beaming an interstellar transfer protocol from star to star - humanity
will continue to develop improvements.

During this period there will be a cloud of vehicles expanding out
from Sol at 1/4 light speed. There will first be autonomous probes
that report their findings back to 'human space'. From these findings
detailed physical models are built, and humans along with AI determine
what might be possible with the newly discovered information and the
resources it represents. The probes will be followed by human and
robotic explorers. Next, will come industrial infrastructure.
Ultimately, space homes arrive in the developing star system.

Within the next 300 years, perhaps sooner, a group of nearby stars
that have been recently settled will engage in an experiment of great
potential. They will use their laser light sail capacity to
accelerate large shaped masses of a specific isotope of Iron to 1/3
light speed - and cause these masses to collied in very precise ways.
Their hopewith this experiment is to create synthetic black holes.

Once this is successful, the black holes will be studied carefully to
determine details about the nature of spacetime and the quantum nature
of spacetime.

Then production methods will be varied to produce a variety of
temporal and spatial effects - humanity will have entered the period
of gravitic engineering.

(8) Gravitic Engineering

Some of the results of these experiments could include;

(a) Anti gravity
(b) Mass energy conversion through Hawking radiation
(c) Space drive (up to light speed)
(d) Decay of vacuum (as energy and momentum source)
(e) Time travel
(f) Temporal logic and communications circuits
(g) Faster than light travel

If collections of black hole 'dusts' can be coordinated to stamp out
new black hole collections from the vacuum - then its theoretically
possible to create a self-replicating black hole driven machine that
can be made in any quantity. This has the practical business
implication that gravitic technology while starting out as the most
expensive sort of activity in the history of mankind, will quickly
drop in price to zero - and be widely used by all humans after.

Another unusual aspect -beyond broad use of any practical technology
due to low cost- is the very high mass, energy and information density
of the resulting devices. Complete systems while very massive and
complex, have components that are smaller than the nuclei of atoms!
This means that the technology will very likely be invisible and the
devices themselves carried on the surface, or within, the people using
them. That is, they would be viewed as properties of someone who had
the technology. Someone who had access to this technology would just
be someone who could do things impossible for others.

With superluminal travel and time travel technology available to
humanity, all of the cosmos, in both space and time, are available to
humanity at this point.

The practical consequence of all of this depends on the nature of
humanity. One of the central finding of population dynamics is that
as the standard of living rises, the rate of population growth
declines. This means that somewhere around (4) above, population
growth will peak between 8 and 10 billion people. When those people
leave Earth at (6) - the density of human population will decrease.
With an average separation of 5 light years, and an expansion rate of
1/4 light speed, and a constant number of humans around, we can see
that the density of humans in the cosmos will fall over the course of
early interstellar exploration. Once humanity can move anywhere
instantly after (8) the practical consequence of this is that the
density of humans will approximate zero throughout the cosmos - as
information and people and resources move instantly anywhere anywhen
they're desired.

Assuming other intelligence in the cosmos follows similar
developmental paths, this last result explains where all the aliens
are! They're out there, but their average density throughout the
cosmos is zero!
  #5  
Old August 9th 03, 05:30 PM
John Maxson
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Posts: n/a
Default Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit

william mook wrote in message
om...

As we invest in space transport technology the cost of imparting
momentum to payloads will decrease. As the cost decreases, the things
we can do in space will increase. As we move up the momentum curve
the Earth's surface will be the natural point of reference for
humanity since that is where the bulk of people now live and will
likely continue to live for the next century or so.

Well past the next century there will be more people living off-world
than not. At that point there will be a sea-change in the way people
think about their place in the cosmos.

But, prior to this shift we can see several clearly delineated epochs
in the evolution of space travel for humanity - all referenced to
Earth's surface;

(1) Suborbital - ballistic missiles - 1950
(2) Orbital - communications/weather/spy/nav satellites - 1960
(3) Cislunar - piloted travel to orbit - moonships - powersats - 1970
(4) Interplanetary - asteroid capture - colonies - factorysats - hold

Then, as the cost of momentum continues to decrease (assuming the hold
on continuing development is released at some point in the future) we
can see that an expansion of the powersat capacity combined with laser
driven micro-mechanical rocket arrays - will result in broad access to
low-cost easy to use rockets that will permit broad access to high
momenta. This will result in a repeat of the development curve above,
but on a broad scale;

(5) Suborbital - ballistic package delivery & passenger service -
(6) Orbital - wide access to orbit - spacehome
(7) Cislunar - industrial access to orbit from Earth
(8) Interplanetary - roving spacehome - end of dominance of Earth
surface

Since space access transcends Earth, each development along the arc
described above will be viewed by Earthbound populations as
transcending Earth - affecting everyone on Earth equally. So,
politically, these space travel developments will be result in
worldwide changes which include;

(1) Global peace to avoid global thermonuclear war
(2) Global communications and sensing network
(3) Global power delivery
(4) Global resource and product delivery
(5) Global ballistic transport
(6) Global access to space

At this point, humanity's reference changes from Earth surface to
spacehome and the relation of one's spacehome to relevant resources
and other points of interest.

As the cost of momentum continues to decline - by moving from laser
driven rockets - with lasers powered by sunlight - to laser driven
lightsails - the range and power of humanity's spaceflight
infrastructure will continue to increase until ultimately, first space
probes, then piloted space flight, then space industry, and
ultimately, space settlements, spread beyond the Solar System to
encompass the Oort Cloud and the stars beyond.

(7) Interstellar travel

As momenta increases, and the network of laser light driven highways
extend from star to star - along with a network of radio telescopes
beaming an interstellar transfer protocol from star to star - humanity
will continue to develop improvements.

During this period there will be a cloud of vehicles expanding out
from Sol at 1/4 light speed. There will first be autonomous probes
that report their findings back to 'human space'. From these findings
detailed physical models are built, and humans along with AI determine
what might be possible with the newly discovered information and the
resources it represents. The probes will be followed by human and
robotic explorers. Next, will come industrial infrastructure.
Ultimately, space homes arrive in the developing star system.

Within the next 300 years, perhaps sooner, a group of nearby stars
that have been recently settled will engage in an experiment of great
potential. They will use their laser light sail capacity to
accelerate large shaped masses of a specific isotope of Iron to 1/3
light speed - and cause these masses to collied in very precise ways.
Their hopewith this experiment is to create synthetic black holes.

Once this is successful, the black holes will be studied carefully to
determine details about the nature of spacetime and the quantum nature
of spacetime.

Then production methods will be varied to produce a variety of
temporal and spatial effects - humanity will have entered the period
of gravitic engineering.

(8) Gravitic Engineering

Some of the results of these experiments could include;

(a) Anti gravity
(b) Mass energy conversion through Hawking radiation
(c) Space drive (up to light speed)
(d) Decay of vacuum (as energy and momentum source)
(e) Time travel
(f) Temporal logic and communications circuits
(g) Faster than light travel

If collections of black hole 'dusts' can be coordinated to stamp out
new black hole collections from the vacuum - then its theoretically
possible to create a self-replicating black hole driven machine that
can be made in any quantity. This has the practical business
implication that gravitic technology while starting out as the most
expensive sort of activity in the history of mankind, will quickly
drop in price to zero - and be widely used by all humans after.

Another unusual aspect -beyond broad use of any practical technology
due to low cost- is the very high mass, energy and information density
of the resulting devices. Complete systems while very massive and
complex, have components that are smaller than the nuclei of atoms!
This means that the technology will very likely be invisible and the
devices themselves carried on the surface, or within, the people using
them. That is, they would be viewed as properties of someone who had
the technology. Someone who had access to this technology would just
be someone who could do things impossible for others.

With superluminal travel and time travel technology available to
humanity, all of the cosmos, in both space and time, are available to
humanity at this point.

The practical consequence of all of this depends on the nature of
humanity. One of the central finding of population dynamics is that
as the standard of living rises, the rate of population growth
declines. This means that somewhere around (4) above, population
growth will peak between 8 and 10 billion people. When those people
leave Earth at (6) - the density of human population will decrease.
With an average separation of 5 light years, and an expansion rate of
1/4 light speed, and a constant number of humans around, we can see
that the density of humans in the cosmos will fall over the course of
early interstellar exploration. Once humanity can move anywhere
instantly after (8) the practical consequence of this is that the
density of humans will approximate zero throughout the cosmos - as
information and people and resources move instantly anywhere anywhen
they're desired.

Assuming other intelligence in the cosmos follows similar
developmental paths, this last result explains where all the aliens
are! They're out there, but their average density throughout the
cosmos is zero!


"In my Father's House are many mansions; if it was not so,
I would have told you."

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)


  #6  
Old August 16th 03, 02:47 AM
william mook
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Malthusian Theory and Travel Beyond Earth Orbit

"Kent Betts" wrote in message ...
"william mook"

(7) Interstellar travel

As momenta increases, and the network of laser light driven highways
extend from star to star


Looking at it from a more generalized viewpoint, it is apparent that not all
civizations face the same challenge when it comes to inter-stellar travel.
Unfortunately, the solar system we inhabit is not part of a globular cluster.
If we were in a globular cluster, there would be several stars within a few
light weeks. A star within light weeks would be reachable using known
technology within a human lifetime. In our neighborhood, a trip to the nearest
star would take a few thousand years. (If the laser highway works better than
this, that's great. I'm just saying that not all galactic neighborhoods start
out equal.)


http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/astro/ww...cCm_intro.html

According the the URL above, the average separation in a galactic
cluster is on the order of one light year. The nearest star to Sol is
4.3 light years away, and the average separation of stars in our neck
of the woods is around 5 light years. So, this is a factor of five -
not a factor of 50,000 as you suggest above. If stars are much closer
to one another on average than 1 light year, then their passing one
another affects planetary system development, and a stable planetary
system is unlikely. And without planets, evolution as we know it is
unlikely.

Okay, so know we know the true scale of globular clusters and our own
galactic arm, we can compute transit times, knowing the speed at which
laser lightsails operate.

The speed at which an interstellar light-highway would operate is on
the order of 1/4c to 1/3c. This puts journey lengths in the range of
12 years to 20 years - within the lifespan of human beings. Two-stage
lightsails would operate at 1/8c to 1/6c. Giving the speed limit of
the expanding front of unknown worlds with the average journey taking
24 to 40 years for the outbound trip.

In a globular cluster this would be 2.5 years to 4 years for two way
light-highways and 5 years to 8 years for one way expansion between
stars.

By contrast, a constant gee spaceship, one that accelerates constantly
at 1 gee can cross the solar system from mercury to pluto in about a
month - and won't exceed 1/30th c in the process. It takes three to
four months of constant 1 gee boost to get up to 1/4 to 1/3 the speed
of light.

At constant 1 gee, inner solar system travel Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Mars - will occur on the order of days. Lunar travel will occur on
the order of hours. Ballistic transport around the surface of Earth
(or Mars surface, or Venus surface, or Lunar surface, or Mercury
surface, etc.) will occur on the order of minutes.

So, we get an idea of the timescales around which human culture in the
future might be oriented.

Planetary (or space colony) surfaces would be global villages which
would be located within hours of one another around a common planetary
system. The inner planets of our solar system would be within days of
one another. The outer planets would be within weeks of one another.
The entire solar system could be crossed in a month or so.

If we can develop the means to put people in stasis- with reliable,
and utterly honest artificial intelligence representatives to look out
for their concerns while in stasis -then, we have an added interesting
wrinkle.

Another important wrinkle is, the ability to train people at a very
deep level while in stasis.

With this matrix of developments; (a) star travel, (b) stasis of some
sort, (c) deep training while in stasis - we might find that rites of
passage that were the habit of early cultures to send their young on
journeys of adventure as a means to mature them and have children
leave return as adults with deep seated training knowledge and
experience.

http://www.endicott-studio.com/forrites.html


One might expect after a long and productive middle life, folks might
journey outward as a rite of passage for elders to be reborn. If
biological and psychological aging processes can be brought under
technical control, its application may await the decision of renewed
oldsters to commit themselves not only to a biological and
psychological renewal - but also a spiritual renewal, recalling their
earlier rites - and travelling outward, never to return, but to
establish a new homestead among the ever growing number of stars being
discovered and catalogued by an expanding sphere of automated probes.

http://home.nc.rr.com/rwgarrison/rip_reap.htm
http://www.americanatheist.org/win98-99/T2/zindler.html

Changing the time scale from 15 years as in the Perseus arm of the
Milky way galaxy (us) to 3 years as in a globular cluster - won't
change the dynamics that much. While a 3 year (total 6 year for
two-way) travel cycle to nearby stars might be achieved without some
sort of physical stasis - it would involve a psychological stasis.
That is, the people travelling would be immobilized within a small
vessel and would require some sort of virtual reality input to
synthesize the experience of a larger psychological space during the
journey.

Physical stasis would also have the advantage even on three year
journeys, of reducing the chances for mishap, along with reduction in
inputs of food and oxygen and so forth

http://www.kubrick-web.co.uk/2001-stills.htm

I couldn't find any stills showing the Discovery astronauts in stasis
- but for anyone who's seen the film, you may recall them looking at
the stills I could find above.

Cheers.

-William Mook
 




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