Engineer: Star Trek's Enterprise ship could be built in 20 years at acost of $1 trillion

On Monday, May 21, 2012 7:48:53 PM UTC-7, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:
wrote:

It is a step by step thing. First the solar system then further.
Perhaps the model isn't the Enterprise so much as Red Dwarf, the
mining ship ;-)
...
Get more people into the great vacuum, would likely mean more
physic experiments in the vacuum of space. Perhaps tech would
advance to at least a decent fraction of the speed of light
say 1/20 or 1/10. Who knows even some thing like warp drive?

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?

Sylvia.



On Monday, May 21, 2012 7:48:53 PM UTC-7, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:
wrote:

It is a step by step thing. First the solar system then further.
Perhaps the model isn't the Enterprise so much as Red Dwarf, the
mining ship ;-)
...
Get more people into the great vacuum, would likely mean more
physic experiments in the vacuum of space. Perhaps tech would
advance to at least a decent fraction of the speed of light
say 1/20 or 1/10. Who knows even some thing like warp drive?

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?

Sylvia.

Perhaps once humanity is out of the gravity well or has
a better way off the surface of the local Earth-like planet,
the resources for the next grand jump will be considerable
less significant?

On 22/05/2012 1:17 PM, wrote:
On Monday, May 21, 2012 7:48:53 PM UTC-7, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:
wrote:

It is a step by step thing. First the solar system then further.
Perhaps the model isn't the Enterprise so much as Red Dwarf, the
mining ship ;-)
...
Get more people into the great vacuum, would likely mean more
physic experiments in the vacuum of space. Perhaps tech would
advance to at least a decent fraction of the speed of light
say 1/20 or 1/10. Who knows even some thing like warp drive?

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?

Sylvia.



On Monday, May 21, 2012 7:48:53 PM UTC-7, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:
wrote:

It is a step by step thing. First the solar system then further.
Perhaps the model isn't the Enterprise so much as Red Dwarf, the
mining ship ;-)
...
Get more people into the great vacuum, would likely mean more
physic experiments in the vacuum of space. Perhaps tech would
advance to at least a decent fraction of the speed of light
say 1/20 or 1/10. Who knows even some thing like warp drive?

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?

Sylvia.

Perhaps once humanity is out of the gravity well or has
a better way off the surface of the local Earth-like planet,
the resources for the next grand jump will be considerable
less significant?


If we got to the point where the entire job of building a civilisation
from scratch through to constructing the next interstellar colony craft
could be done by robots, then I suppose all bets would be off. Humans
would just go along for the ride.

Absent that, it's difficult to see how building and provisioning the
craft won't involve a lot of human effort, which costs money, and people
will wonder why they have to spend it.

Even prior to launching the craft, there would have to be (presumably
unmanned) survey missions to find suitable destinations, and those
missions would have durations running into many decades at least. Those
missions would also cost money.

One might regard the propagation of the human race and associated
reduction of the risk of human extinction as an end in itself that's
worth what it costs (I don't, BTW), but individual tax payers are not
likely to see it that way.

Sylvia.

In article ,
says...

wrote:


Perhaps once humanity is out of the gravity well or has
a better way off the surface of the local Earth-like planet,
the resources for the next grand jump will be considerable
less significant?


They've got a whole brand new solar system to exploit. Why would they
go haring off after another one before the one they're in filled up?

No kidding. The earth is just a tiny fraction of the solar system mass
available for building colonies.

It's always seemed to me that the key is to build much of your initial
infrastructure away from earth's deep gravity well. Off earth
production of consumables (fuel, air, water, and etc.) would seem to be
a good first step followed by production of additional vehicles,
habitats, and etc. Dependence on earth for materials should ultimately
be minimized.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

Sylvia Else wrote:
wrote:
Sylvia Else wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?

Humans do have some drive to explore. The ones who leave are selected
for that trait. Plenty of island colonis have laucnhed colonies of
their own. So it would be a matter of expense ...

Perhaps once humanity is out of the gravity well or has
a better way off the surface of the local Earth-like planet,
the resources for the next grand jump will be considerable
less significant?

My take is once out of the gravity well stay out and that's why we have
not seen such civilizations.

If we got to the point where the entire job of building a civilisation
from scratch through to constructing the next interstellar colony craft
could be done by robots, then I suppose all bets would be off. Humans
would just go along for the ride.

I think that comes close to answering Sylvia's question of why bother.
The mechanisms would already be in place so it would already be mostly
automated. I begin to wonder if what we'd really see were alien robots
not the aliens themselves.

Absent that, it's difficult to see how building and provisioning the
craft won't involve a lot of human effort, which costs money, and people
will wonder why they have to spend it.

Entire cultures will have emerged that lived on the ships. They could
hive system colonies then stay on their ships and continue moving.

Even prior to launching the craft, there would have to be (presumably
unmanned) survey missions to find suitable destinations, and those
missions would have durations running into many decades at least. Those
missions would also cost money.

If it's necessary to find specific planets. Telescopes to find them
will become common. I don't think that will be necessary as I think
most systems will be found to have asteriod belts and all systems will
be found to have Keiper belts and Oort clouds.

One might regard the propagation of the human race and associated
reduction of the risk of human extinction as an end in itself that's
worth what it costs (I don't, BTW), but individual tax payers are not
likely to see it that way.

Or just let the wanderlust happen and folks do it on their own not at
government expense.

In sci.space.policy message , Tue, 22
May 2012 12:48:53, Sylvia Else posted:

On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?


In the 1800's, Canada turned from being largely a wilderness society to
largely a civilised society in 100 years.

Why, then, should not a society arriving on a reasonably Earth-line
planet with the knowledge-base needed to build and run an 0.1c starship
be able to build another without undue effort after 200 years?

The problem is that an 0.1c ship has to gain mass of the order of 1%
(relativity) and to lose it again. With reasonable staging, fission
will not do that; fusion might perhaps do it; total conversion, Bussard,
or entirely unknown physics is needed.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05.
Website http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
PAS EXE etc. : http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/ - see in 00index.htm
Dates - miscdate.htm estrdate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.

On 24/05/2012 5:38 AM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
In sci.space.policy , Tue, 22
May 2012 12:48:53, Sylvia posted:

On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?


In the 1800's, Canada turned from being largely a wilderness society to
largely a civilised society in 100 years.

Why, then, should not a society arriving on a reasonably Earth-line
planet with the knowledge-base needed to build and run an 0.1c starship
be able to build another without undue effort after 200 years?

The issue is not so much whether they can build it (it's taken as read
that building is possible, since that's how they got there) - but
whether they're willing to. Whether the effort is, or is not "undue",
there will still be a cost, with no return on the investment other than
the knowledge that the colonisation process has been continued.

Sylvia.

On Tuesday, May 22, 2012 12:49:44 AM UTC-7, Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:


Perhaps once humanity is out of the gravity well or has
a better way off the surface of the local Earth-like planet,
the resources for the next grand jump will be considerable
less significant?


They've got a whole brand new solar system to exploit. Why would they
go haring off after another one before the one they're in filled up?

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

People are often unpleasant to downright nasty. So going off
to the next island in space may have a certain shorter term logic.
Especially if the ship only needs a refilled/refitted to take the next
great leap. And if the great ship more or less just grazing thru
the sky on Oort cloud bodies, the jump is less dramatic but
more preordained.

if its unfamiliar it may not result in inbreeding...........Trig

On Sunday, May 20, 2012 7:09:25 PM UTC-7, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 21/05/2012 5:26 AM, David Spain wrote:
On 5/18/2012 10:03 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:

Given the total lack of any theoretical underpinning for the core
technology - the warp drive - there is no possible basis for
thinking that a starship could be achieved within 20 years, or
indeeed, any other time frame.


Or artificial gravity.

Well, I'd be happy to spin my starship, if I had one, so it's not so
important. But the warp drive...

Sylvia.

What I think beyond some replacement for gravity is needed is mass and
lots of it. For what? Radiation shielding of course. The vessel needs to be large enough that the shielding is a minimized component in ratio all else like in the case of a battleship which is able to float. This would tend to reshape
at least the living quarters into a sphere instead of a disk. Or at least
rotating habitation circle would require a bit of geometry in the shielding
to lessen its load.
Barring that there is a need for an active shielding system.
For an interstellar ship passive shielding is much to be preferred, IMO.

Dr J R Stockton scribbled something on Wednesday the 5/23/2012:
In sci.space.policy message , Tue, 22
May 2012 12:48:53, Sylvia Else posted:

On 22/05/2012 1:55 AM, Doug Freyburger wrote:

Try running the arithmetic on colonizing the galaxy at 0.1 C. Give each
step a couple of centuries to build an industrial base on the colony
planet then hop again. The end result is an outward wave moving 20
light years (to the next colony world) every 400 years (half travel,
half growth) or 0.05C. For a galaxy with a diameter of 200,000 LY it
takes 4 million years to fill the galaxy. There was a Scientific
American article that did this arithmetic maybe 20 years ago.

Which just begs the question of why bother? In particular, why would
each colony want to invest significant resources into establishing
another one?


In the 1800's, Canada turned from being largely a wilderness society to
largely a civilised society in 100 years.

Why, then, should not a society arriving on a reasonably Earth-line
planet with the knowledge-base needed to build and run an 0.1c starship
be able to build another without undue effort after 200 years?

The problem is that an 0.1c ship has to gain mass of the order of 1%
(relativity) and to lose it again. With reasonable staging, fission
will not do that; fusion might perhaps do it; total conversion, Bussard,
or entirely unknown physics is needed.

You've reminded me of Heinlein's _Orphans of the Sky_, (originally a
novella, "Universe").

/dps

--
Who, me? And what lacuna?

Sylvia Else wrote:
Dr J R Stockton wrote:

In the 1800's, Canada turned from being largely a wilderness society to
largely a civilised society in 100 years.

Why, then, should not a society arriving on a reasonably Earth-line
planet with the knowledge-base needed to build and run an 0.1c starship
be able to build another without undue effort after 200 years?

The majority of the cost is in the development phase in many
transportation systems. Building to a known design costs far less.

The issue is not so much whether they can build it (it's taken as read
that building is possible, since that's how they got there) - but
whether they're willing to.

Also consider that having spacecraft capable of interplanetary trade
will be a very large benefit to a colony in a new stellar system. They
will need raw materials that are more easily mined from comets and
asteriods than planets. They will want power stations near to their new
star. With an existing industry already in place to build spacecraft
the price will go even farther down.

Whether the effort is, or is not "undue",
there will still be a cost, with no return on the investment other than
the knowledge that the colonisation process has been continued.

Plus there could be some amount of trade among established colonies.
Most would be by radio or laser but building starships for long term
trade would not be out of the question. I suspect that when there are
several colonies in place continued colonization would be a side effect
of that trade not the main purpose as it started.

The problem is that an 0.1c ship has to gain mass of the order of 1%
(relativity) and to lose it again. With reasonable staging, fission
will not do that; fusion might perhaps do it; total conversion, Bussard,
or entirely unknown physics is needed.

Or a willingness to go slower for longer. Or a very powerful catapult
to start the ships so most of the energy is spent in decelleration.
There are many possible tradeoffs of that sort. I think comet hopping
going much slower is the most likely solution but that might never lead
back into the gravity well of other stars.