Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

In article . com,
Alfred Montestruc wrote:

This is missing the point. The time from the beginning of the Universe,
to the formation of a technological civilization, should take the form
of a normal distribution (i.e. bell curve), as pretty much any other
natural process does, due to the central limit theorem. If our
civilization is average (i.e. by the Copernican principle), then the
mean of this distribution is somewhere around the present. That means
that about half of the civilizations that will ever arise, arose before
us; and half will arise after us.

Does not follow at all.

The fact that we see no evidence of other civilizations argues that we
are early.

That's a different point. My point was about the a priori probability,
which is the correct place to start. Your point is about conclusions
you make from your interpretation of the data, which is also valid. The
Fermi paradox, in a nutshell, is about the conflict between the
conclusions reached by these two methods.

The Universe should be swarming with civilizations billions of years
older than us, yet we see no evidence of any. What's going on?

I doubt we are "first" but I think it likely we are early as IIRC our
star is an early third generation star, which seems to be required to
get the right distribution of elements for us to evolve.

To explain the observations, you really do have to assume we're first
(or at least one of the first several). The rest of the (snipped) post
you're replying to explained why, IIRC. In a nutshell, the first
civilization has a very good chance of colonizing the entire galaxy
before civilization #2 even climbs down from the trees, and at best, the
first several civilizations will do so before anyone who comes after.

Best,
- Joe

--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

Matt Giwer wrote:
Einar wrote:
...
It´s cheap to simply diss the pedia. It has to be watched out for on
highly politicized subject matters. But the pedia is highly useful
when looking for pure scientific facts.

It is a fact that anyone can put anything they want into wikipedia and there is
no way to stop it or police it. It is a fact that no encyclopedia of any kind
including this one is usable for college level work.

What is it you are defending?

I was giving you the correct information. The pedia actually tends to
be pretty much correct, most of the time, which makes it a highly
convenient site for quick access to data.

However, as you point out due to theyr format the Pedia sometimes is
wrong. So what you do, is once you´ve found interesting data, you
confirm it through a different source.

Comprendé!

What one does, is that once one has found a fact one follows the
references given, or one does another search based on the information
learned and finds alternate sources.

In US colleges you reference wikipedia and you get downgraded. It is not
considered authoritative.

Whatever, but you can be sure that lot of college students do use it
somewhat in the fashion I´m descriping.

Now, instead of haranging me about the chances that the Viki may be
wrong, simply use the data I posted to you to make a separate search
of your own. Or, alternativelly go to the nearest college library,
which is what college students normally do once an internets search
has narroved down theyr search obtions.

This data is correct as I know it to be so. Go to that wiki link,
follow the references given if you whish to find alternative sources,
or make a seach of your own.

And anyone can include all the favorable links they wish and erase all the ones
that disagree with their chosen position. Sorry, not acceptable.

--
Al Qaeda is back to its pre-911 strength of 300. I am so frightened I can
only laugh to relieve the anxiety. 300 is the highest US government estimate
of their numbers ever made public.
-- The Iron Webmaaster, 3831
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Mission Accomplished http://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtml a12

Sheesh, then if you don´t trust the internet go to the nearest college
library.

Einar

On Aug 13, 12:06 pm, Einar wrote:
Sheesh, then if you don´t trust the internet go to the nearest college
library.

Einar

Such mainstream status quo infomercial stuffed college libary, right!

Hiter just loves your kind of naysay and/or evidence excluding
mindset, after all, that's exactly what got so many innocent folks
taken advantage of and/or exterminated is your kind of mainstream
swarm like actions. God forbid, whatever you folks do, don't rock
that Yiddish good ship LOLLIPOP of your's.
- Brad Guth

Hop David wrote:

ave O'Neill wrote:
:
: "Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
: ...
:
:"Dave O'Neill" wrote:
:
:
:
:I don't doubt you see all sorts of silly thing - but only from there.
:
:
: Well, I live in the US at the moment, so its an observation based on whether
: or not I buy a property here.
:
: It would appear that facts and evidence and you don't see eye to eye, so we
: probably need to give up eh?
:
ave, you're wasting your time as well as our bandwidth. Plonk the idiot.
:

Feel free to go, uh, plonk yourself, Hoppy.

Jesus, when did all the junior high school kids get on here?


--
"You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of
your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear."
-- Mark Twain

"Dave O'Neill" wrote:

:
:"Hop David" wrote in message
...
: Dave O'Neill wrote:
:
: "Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
: ...
:
:"Dave O'Neill" wrote:
:
:I don't doubt you see all sorts of silly thing - but only from there.
:
:
: Well, I live in the US at the moment, so its an observation based on
: whether or not I buy a property here.
:
: It would appear that facts and evidence and you don't see eye to eye, so
: we probably need to give up eh?
:
: Dave, you're wasting your time as well as our bandwidth. Plonk the idiot.
:
:Yeah, you're right. Like with Rand I'm always astounded to see such a
:"wilful" detachment from reality.
:

Don't buy any property, Dave. You'll be unhappy in a country where
people are actually educated and think.


--
"You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of
your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear."
-- Mark Twain

"Dave O'Neill" wrote:

:
:"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
.. .
: "Dave O'Neill" wrote:
:
: :
: :"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
: .. .
: : "Dave O'Neill" wrote:
: :
: : I don't doubt you see all sorts of silly thing - but only from there.
: :
: :
: :Well, I live in the US at the moment, so its an observation based on
: whether
: r not I buy a property here.
: :
:
: Rather a silly criterion to use to make that decision. Unless you
: wanted a sub-prime load or have weak credit and can't pass the
: tightened rules, none of this ought to sensibly affect your decision
: one way or the other.
:
:
:I assume you've never been caught in a negative equity trap before?
:

No, I'm brighter than that.

:
:I don't
:want to buy a property at the top of a boom and then see a 20% price drop.
:

Then you don't need to worry. It's a good 8 months past "the top of
the boom".

:
:
: :
: :It would appear that facts and evidence and you don't see eye to eye, so we
: robably need to give up eh?
: :
:
: The real problem seems to be that you want to avoid the facts where
: they don't suit you. We still produce 25% of world GDP, your opinions
: and/or desires notwithstanding.
:
: Just how big a part of the total GDP of the US do you think the whole
: credit crunch from the sub-prime loan mess is? Think about how little
: impact that has on an economy the size of that of the US.
:
:
o you watch the news? Read economics news? Listen to economists from
:major financial instituations?
:

Can you just answer the question? Let me repeat it. Just how big a
part of the total GDP of the US do you think the whole credit crunch
from the sub-prime loan mess is? Think about how little impact that
has on an economy the size of that of the US.

:
:They seem to think it's a problem, it's not hard for me to see why its a
roblem for the US when the entire economy is underpinned by a cheap credit
:boom, so I am astounded that you're...
:

You need to go back and read some more and figure out the difference
between concerns in financial markets and the rest of the economy.

I'm not astounded that you're...

Hint: Your premise that "the entire economy is underpinned by a cheap
credit boom" is a lie.

:
:
: Hint: I got my university degree in economics over 20 years ago from
: a major university in this country. Where and when did you get yours?
:
:
:Gosh! That would explain things. Well, that pretty much sums up my
:concerns about the US education system.
:

Oh, I see. You're just another "Hate America First" type. Never
mind, then. Your sort are impervious to reality.

:
:I got a UK economics "A level" 20 years ago which, I am told at the time,
:was equivalent to a US college degree.
:

Oh, that explains your problem, then. You don't have any experience
with anything but a dinky economy.

:
:My actual Honours degree was in
:Mechanical Engineering.
:

And this makes you smarter and better informed about the economic
state of the United States how, again?

:
:I think I'll take Hop David's advice.
:

Yeah, you should. It's probably safer for you than actually answering
the question: Just how big a part of the total GDP of the US do you
think the whole credit crunch from the sub-prime loan mess is? Think
about how little impact that has on an economy the size of that of the
US.

:
:Go for it, buy another property, refinance your debt - good luck to you!
:

Don't need another property and if I did I'd just write a check. No
need to refinance. Got loads of equity.

Go home. It's too late for you to reeducate yourself to live in a
real country. Good luck to you!


--
"You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of
your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear."
-- Mark Twain

On Aug 13, 12:24 pm, Joe Strout wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

This is missing the point. The time from the beginning of the Universe,
to the formation of a technological civilization, should take the form
of a normal distribution (i.e. bell curve), as pretty much any other
natural process does, due to the central limit theorem. If our
civilization is average (i.e. by the Copernican principle), then the
mean of this distribution is somewhere around the present. That means
that about half of the civilizations that will ever arise, arose before
us; and half will arise after us.

Does not follow at all.

The fact that we see no evidence of other civilizations argues that we
are early.

That's a different point. My point was about the a priori probability,
which is the correct place to start. Your point is about conclusions
you make from your interpretation of the data, which is also valid. The
Fermi paradox, in a nutshell, is about the conflict between the
conclusions reached by these two methods.

The Universe should be swarming with civilizations billions of years
older than us, yet we see no evidence of any. What's going on?

I doubt we are "first" but I think it likely we are early as IIRC our
star is an early third generation star, which seems to be required to
get the right distribution of elements for us to evolve.

To explain the observations, you really do have to assume we're first
(or at least one of the first several). The rest of the (snipped) post
you're replying to explained why, IIRC. In a nutshell, the first
civilization has a very good chance of colonizing the entire galaxy
before civilization #2 even climbs down from the trees, and at best, the
first several civilizations will do so before anyone who comes after.

Best,
- Joe

Umm depends on some assumptions that may IMHO be dead wrong.

We are close (~ 1-2 generations IMHO) from being able to design using
DNA as in design a living being including intelligent ones from the
ground up. This terrifies some people, but to me, the point is that
a lot of assumptions about biology that have been valid for wild
biological systems will no longer be valid.

Like for example the assumption that our population will grow in an
exponential manner. Once we have our reproduction under concious
control ( I mean beyond what is called birth control now, but that
would have major effects on evolution if technology did not change so
fast.) and can even design our children, might it not be possible
that with population density becoming a real issue, it may become
mandated that biological desire to reproduce be toned down?

A post "singularity" civilization might well not have a large drive to
reproduce and expand population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

That will not stop growth, but it will slow it down.

What will happen is once a single group escapes the home system that
does not agree with the ideal of restriction of biological growth,
then they colonized another system you get explosive growth, but with
a much much smaller start population and possibly an enemy that does
not want to allow growth due to the danger to the home system over
time of rapid growth.

Then time scale, some species might have shorter normal generations
than others, and will tend to retain that time scale and grow much
faster as they will tend to keep the same generational time scale.













--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

Einar wrote:
Matt Giwer wrote:
Einar wrote:
What ellse is there?
Did not Aristotle first ask that question?
A joke.
We have no idea what there is in this universe. If that is all there is we are
only a few years away from physicists having to get honest work but that last
time that was suggested was pre-quantum mechanics and pre-relativity. Whatever
they are we now have solid evidence of two different dark versions of matter an
energy. Dark energy is sufficient to accelerate all the mass in the universe. I
have no idea what it will do if I put it in my gas tank.
Just stop shutting yourself off with old ideas and think of the possibilities
that do not require magic but no more that what is known today.

How do you put something in a gas tank which does not notice the
material of the gas tank is there? It will be like trying to suspend
water in empty air without any support and expecting it to stay put.

When we understand what dark energy is I will let you know. At the moment it
can be described as anti-gravity. Sounds useful to me.

But even with that limit once people take to living in space for enough
thousands of years there is no particular reason to assume they would stick to
this solar system. Once the move far enough out one star is as good as another.
Sure, if you have enough patience or enough time, you can travel
through the entire galaxy at sublight speeds. It would probably take
about a million years. to cross it.
Who cares about the time as they are simply traveling to another star instead
of the other side of the Oort cloud which is not all that much closer. They are
living, period. They are happy. They have this lovely self-contained world which
they can adapt and change as they wish. What does it matter where they are? Did
people start new towns and then wonder if they could survive long enough before
they had to return to the parent city?

Stars are on the average 3 - 5 lightyears apart within the Milky Way.
That is not a trivial distance. Civilization working its way stepping
from one icechunk to another, remember everything is moving in space,
stars aren't staying put, it might take them millions of years to work
themselves towards the gravity well of another, that is if they are
simply moving without any particular direction just from one chunk of
ice to another.

Corrects stars are not staying put but locally they are not expanding. As to
the moving from one chunk to another, I ask you what that means to them and what
is the point of worrying about it? If colonizing what became the US is an
indication there are always people ready to get away from the oppression of the
government or religion or whatever and look for some place else. Latter Day
Saints, Mormons, head for their own star. Scientologists head for another.
Neocons, I wish, would quickly follow them. Seems to me governments are always
meddling and people do not like meddling.

With all reasonable advances in fusion they need nothing but raw elements to
make anything they need or want in space including more cities.

I am saying there are unclaimed resources in the Oort cloud of neighboring
stars and likely unclaimed resources along the way. And given their distance
from Sol it does not matter to them if they stay or leave. And once several of
them arrive at nearby stars they spend a few tens of thousands of years building
new cities and living off of the resources before each one spreads out again. If
there are no other space-fairing species in a billion years all the stars in the
galaxy are populated by humans. And they are unlikely to ever visit the planets
of those stars save as tourist adventures.

Sure, humans could in time fill the interstellar medium moving from
one chunk of ice to another. In a few hundred millions of years humans
might be everywhere in interstellar space within the Milky Way.
Starsystems might only be settled in case a chunk containing humans
would happen to be captured by theyr gravity wells.

Sure, it could be done that way.

However, this can be done much more quickly if we would move
purposefully, say with my seedship idea. Say in 3 - 5 million years
instead of 300 - 500 million years.

As the cities in space I am talking about are fully powered and they only have
to get a few light years to multiply enough to send out more to stars no farther
away and that continues forever a century for travel between stars is probably
on the high side. Ten thousand years between the start of new migrations is a
reasonable period. As they are going outward from earth the number of
destinations increases roughly by the square of the distance.

A several thousand ton ship, plus several trillion tons of hydrogen
tankage, make for very, very slow acceleration/deceleration. A much
smaller ship, would need far less energy to accelerate, which would
make the equation far easier to square.
Unless of course we are talking about folks who have been living in the Oort
Cloud for thousands of years and they make the very likely discovery that there
are unattached Oort objects between the stars. But even then towing one with
your city for the trip does not require a tank at all.
You are talking about drifting through space. The Voyager is expected
to get to the star it´s aiming for in 300th. years or so. Drifting in
space is no faster.
Not drifting, going where they want to go.

Yes, drifting. If they aren´t moving the chunks of ice with some sort
of a reaction drive, they´ll only be able to pass into interstellar
space with a chunk of ice which happens to drift out of the gravity
well of Sol, and that will only happen after a long time as the
cometary halo or the Oort cloud is huge, may go well over a lightyear
out. They moreover will only be able to join the gravity well of
another star, once they have settled for a very long time drifting
chunk of ice after drifting chunk of ice till they by chance do
encounter a one which happens to be captured by a gravity well of
another star, then they can continue to move from one chunk of ice to
anonther with the cometary halo of that star.

The chunks of ice are the FUEL for the reaction drive and also the mass that is
thrown away for the reaction drive to work. And they have no interest in the
gravity well of another star beyond reaching the Oort cloud of that star to get
more raw materials to make any element they need while producing all the energy
they can possibly need.

But given my extended scenario above and if it takes 300 years to get there it
is still no more than a billion years until humans have colonized all the stars
in the galaxy and are looking outward.

Maybe so, but moving purposefully that time can be cut down quite a
bit.

Why? With reasonably advance fusion there is not much of a limit on anything.

If it takes only ten thousand years to get to another star and populate it such
that only two cities move to other stars, 2x2x2x2 for a billion years is how many?

They´ll have to be moving with some sort of a reaction drive to take
less time to move there than several hundred thousand years to million
and some.

And as all the ice chunks in all the Oort clouds in all the universe are fuel
and material resources I do not see a problem with any of this. Do not forget I
do not imagine this starting any time soon but a thousand or more years in the
future but I only base it upon extrapolating a complete exploitation of what we
know is possible today. I am not talking warp drive or any other magic.

What is possible is doable if we want to do it. But so far the course of our
technology has been what we have developed and in which order. Without WWII and
the Cold War there is no A Bomb, no ICBMs, not military expenditure on rockets
that become civilian technology for communication satellites but fiber optics
appears on the same schedule and obviates the need for comm satellites.

The way we are going is people living is space as military contractors but if
Rutan were the first without all the military support the first would be workers
in space hotels trading extra money for guaranteed vacation time on earth. When
they stay in space long enough there are children born in space who know nothing
but living in zero gravity and have no interest at all in feeling gravity and
they grow up being completely adapted to no gravity like their parents never
could be. It is matter of time before that generation produces someone rich
enough to buy a big chunk of the tourist industry and with that wealth start
doing whatever they damn well please. The last thing they would want to do is
learn to walk and put up with mosquitoes.

There are your first spacemen and a credible path to them by both the military
and the civilian routes. Space is space. Close to the sun does not matter with
fusion powering the lights for the farms. The free material for fusion is beyond
Pluto so that is where to head. That far away the sun is just an unusually
bright star.

--
The difference between the President of France and the President of the
United States is the President of France can speak proper English.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3848
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
antisemitism http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ a1

On 14 Aug, 10:45, Matt Giwer wrote:
How do you put something in a gas tank which does not notice the
material of the gas tank is there? It will be like trying to suspend
water in empty air without any support and expecting it to stay put.

When we understand what dark energy is I will let you know. At the moment it
can be described as anti-gravity. Sounds useful to me.

There is dark matter and dark energy. The two should not be confused.
Dark energy can be regarded as simply curvature in the space/time
continuum. Space may be wrapped round a fifth dimension, that is one
way to look at it.

Personally I would regard knowledge of the Big Bang and Inflation as
being far more important than knowledge of what dark energy is. In
fact if we could anser the question of what Inflation is we could also
answer the question of dark energy.

Stars are on the average 3 - 5 lightyears apart within the Milky Way.
That is not a trivial distance. Civilization working its way stepping
from one icechunk to another, remember everything is moving in space,
stars aren't staying put, it might take them millions of years to work
themselves towards the gravity well of another, that is if they are
simply moving without any particular direction just from one chunk of
ice to another.

Corrects stars are not staying put but locally they are not expanding. As to
the moving from one chunk to another, I ask you what that means to them and what
is the point of worrying about it? If colonizing what became the US is an
indication there are always people ready to get away from the oppression of the
government or religion or whatever and look for some place else. Latter Day
Saints, Mormons, head for their own star. Scientologists head for another.
Neocons, I wish, would quickly follow them. Seems to me governments are always
meddling and people do not like meddling.

As I have said earlier neocons are better here of Earth as are all the
other groups you mentioned. I am frighened of having a planet called
Jihad where a VN machine constructs a set of lasers that start to fry
everyone else.

With all reasonable advances in fusion they need nothing but raw elements to
make anything they need or want in space including more cities.

Sure, humans could in time fill the interstellar medium moving from
one chunk of ice to another. In a few hundred millions of years humans
might be everywhere in interstellar space within the Milky Way.
Starsystems might only be settled in case a chunk containing humans
would happen to be captured by theyr gravity wells.
Sure, it could be done that way.
However, this can be done much more quickly if we would move
purposefully, say with my seedship idea. Say in 3 - 5 million years
instead of 300 - 500 million years.

As the cities in space I am talking about are fully powered and they only have
to get a few light years to multiply enough to send out more to stars no farther
away and that continues forever a century for travel between stars is probably
on the high side. Ten thousand years between the start of new migrations is a
reasonable period. As they are going outward from earth the number of
destinations increases roughly by the square of the distance.

The generally accepted method of intersellar travel is the forward
proposal. This involves the radiation pressure of lasers. On Jihad, of
course, lasers can either be phase locked on other places, including
the Earth. Alternatively tunsten rods can be accelerated to high speed
and crash 9/11 style.

If you are going to colonize space you cannot do it with the misfits
of Earth. If Mormons etc. go there is certain to be a colony where
there is Sharia law. Space if it is to be colonized at all must be
colonized by a normal cross section.

In fact post singularity one possibility would be to send people who
had reached a given life span. This would provide an answer to those
people who are frightened of a society frozen in time.

Yes, drifting. If they aren´t moving the chunks of ice with some sort
of a reaction drive, they´ll only be able to pass into interstellar
space with a chunk of ice which happens to drift out of the gravity
well of Sol, and that will only happen after a long time as the
cometary halo or the Oort cloud is huge, may go well over a lightyear
out. They moreover will only be able to join the gravity well of
another star, once they have settled for a very long time drifting
chunk of ice after drifting chunk of ice till they by chance do
encounter a one which happens to be captured by a gravity well of
another star, then they can continue to move from one chunk of ice to
anonther with the cometary halo of that star.

The chunks of ice are the FUEL for the reaction drive and also the mass that is
thrown away for the reaction drive to work. And they have no interest in the
gravity well of another star beyond reaching the Oort cloud of that star to get
more raw materials to make any element they need while producing all the energy
they can possibly need.

I think the Forward proposal is a lot better. A Forward laser is
powered by solar energy that would otherwise go to waste.

What is possible is doable if we want to do it. But so far the course of our
technology has been what we have developed and in which order. Without WWII and
the Cold War there is no A Bomb, no ICBMs, not military expenditure on rockets
that become civilian technology for communication satellites but fiber optics
appears on the same schedule and obviates the need for comm satellites.

The way we are going is people living is space as military contractors but if
Rutan were the first without all the military support the first would be workers
in space hotels trading extra money for guaranteed vacation time on earth.. When
they stay in space long enough there are children born in space who know nothing
but living in zero gravity and have no interest at all in feeling gravity and
they grow up being completely adapted to no gravity like their parents never
could be. It is matter of time before that generation produces someone rich
enough to buy a big chunk of the tourist industry and with that wealth start
doing whatever they damn well please. The last thing they would want to do is
learn to walk and put up with mosquitoes.

There are your first spacemen and a credible path to them by both the military
and the civilian routes. Space is space. Close to the sun does not matter with
fusion powering the lights for the farms. The free material for fusion is beyond
Pluto so that is where to head. That far away the sun is just an unusually
bright star.

From the purely military stand-point I doubt whether large colonies
would be required. AI is advancing rapidly and a futrure military
presence would be completely unmanned. I think in their heart of
hearts the military would basically want it that way. The military are
not going to be happy about people breeding in space for obvious
reasons.

A civilian colony would probably erect a statue of George III to
symbolise the unreliability of colonial settlement.

All this though does not answer the original question about the Fermi
paradox. We know it can be done. We know too that there are no ET
colonies in space, otherwise they would be here. This is the Fermi
Paradox.

This leaves just 3 possibilies.

I - We are the most advanced and will colonize the galaxy. Only one
civilization can.
II - We destroy ourselves.
III -Civilizations decide against colonization. Perhaps for some of
the reasons I have given. III = George III


- Ian Parker


- Ian Parker

Matt Giwer wrote:
Einar wrote:


How do you put something in a gas tank which does not notice the
material of the gas tank is there? It will be like trying to suspend
water in empty air without any support and expecting it to stay put.

When we understand what dark energy is I will let you know. At the moment it
can be described as anti-gravity. Sounds useful to me.

Here Viki does provite an useful overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

The fact is nobody knows what dark matter is. It´s precense has
essentially been inferred from gravitaional effects that appear not to
be explainable by the gravity effects of visible matter alone.
However, dark matter is not the field which is expanding the universe.

Here another Viki overview, dark energy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

Nobody knows what is accelerating the universe. There are several
hypothetical proposed fields, like the cosmological constant that
Einstein first proposed then abandoned.

But even with that limit once people take to living in space for enough
thousands of years there is no particular reason to assume they would stick to
this solar system. Once the move far enough out one star is as good as another.
Sure, if you have enough patience or enough time, you can travel
through the entire galaxy at sublight speeds. It would probably take
about a million years. to cross it.
Who cares about the time as they are simply traveling to another star instead
of the other side of the Oort cloud which is not all that much closer. They are
living, period. They are happy. They have this lovely self-contained world which
they can adapt and change as they wish. What does it matter where they are? Did
people start new towns and then wonder if they could survive long enough before
they had to return to the parent city?

Stars are on the average 3 - 5 lightyears apart within the Milky Way.
That is not a trivial distance. Civilization working its way stepping
from one icechunk to another, remember everything is moving in space,
stars aren't staying put, it might take them millions of years to work
themselves towards the gravity well of another, that is if they are
simply moving without any particular direction just from one chunk of
ice to another.

Corrects stars are not staying put but locally they are not expanding. As to
the moving from one chunk to another, I ask you what that means to them and what
is the point of worrying about it? If colonizing what became the US is an
indication there are always people ready to get away from the oppression of the
government or religion or whatever and look for some place else. Latter Day
Saints, Mormons, head for their own star. Scientologists head for another.
Neocons, I wish, would quickly follow them. Seems to me governments are always
meddling and people do not like meddling.

With all reasonable advances in fusion they need nothing but raw elements to
make anything they need or want in space including more cities.

You appear to be proposing humans should live in the cometary haloes.
That may be possible, and at the very least the potential living space
within all the icy chunks within the cometary haloes and within
intergalactic space probably is extensive.

I am saying there are unclaimed resources in the Oort cloud of neighboring
stars and likely unclaimed resources along the way. And given their distance
from Sol it does not matter to them if they stay or leave. And once several of
them arrive at nearby stars they spend a few tens of thousands of years building
new cities and living off of the resources before each one spreads out again. If
there are no other space-fairing species in a billion years all the stars in the
galaxy are populated by humans. And they are unlikely to ever visit the planets
of those stars save as tourist adventures.

Sure, humans could in time fill the interstellar medium moving from
one chunk of ice to another. In a few hundred millions of years humans
might be everywhere in interstellar space within the Milky Way.
Starsystems might only be settled in case a chunk containing humans
would happen to be captured by theyr gravity wells.

Sure, it could be done that way.


However, this can be done much more quickly if we would move
purposefully, say with my seedship idea. Say in 3 - 5 million years
instead of 300 - 500 million years.

As the cities in space I am talking about are fully powered and they only have
to get a few light years to multiply enough to send out more to stars no farther
away and that continues forever a century for travel between stars is probably
on the high side. Ten thousand years between the start of new migrations is a
reasonable period. As they are going outward from earth the number of
destinations increases roughly by the square of the distance.

Though they may have got fusion generators, that only grants them
internal energy. The ice might provite enough fuel for that fusion
generator. However, they´d better watch it carefully as theyr fusion
generator might be hard to replase. Icy chunks probably do not contain
much rocky material, hence encounter with metals might be few and far
between far out there.

A several thousand ton ship, plus several trillion tons of hydrogen
tankage, make for very, very slow acceleration/deceleration. A much
smaller ship, would need far less energy to accelerate, which would
make the equation far easier to square.
Unless of course we are talking about folks who have been living in the Oort
Cloud for thousands of years and they make the very likely discovery that there
are unattached Oort objects between the stars. But even then towing one with
your city for the trip does not require a tank at all.
You are talking about drifting through space. The Voyager is expected
to get to the star it´s aiming for in 300th. years or so. Drifting in
space is no faster.
Not drifting, going where they want to go.

Yes, drifting. If they aren´t moving the chunks of ice with some sort
of a reaction drive, they´ll only be able to pass into interstellar
space with a chunk of ice which happens to drift out of the gravity
well of Sol, and that will only happen after a long time as the
cometary halo or the Oort cloud is huge, may go well over a lightyear
out. They moreover will only be able to join the gravity well of
another star, once they have settled for a very long time drifting
chunk of ice after drifting chunk of ice till they by chance do
encounter a one which happens to be captured by a gravity well of
another star, then they can continue to move from one chunk of ice to
anonther with the cometary halo of that star.

The chunks of ice are the FUEL for the reaction drive and also the mass that is
thrown away for the reaction drive to work. And they have no interest in the
gravity well of another star beyond reaching the Oort cloud of that star to get
more raw materials to make any element they need while producing all the energy
they can possibly need.

It has been proposed by several science fiction authors to create
spaceships out of comets, using them as a fuel tank. Nobody has tried
it yet.

However, in order to reach the nearest stars just about all of the
comet would have to be expended in that way, and very few people could
be carried in that manner, assuming the comet has enough reaction mass
to accelerate and decelerate them.

So, this could not work for a city size colonization effort. However,
a city could conceivably live inside a comet, that´s a different
consideration. If you are not expending mass for acceleration, a comet
can last a long time and potentially provite living for a sizeable
group of people in that meantime.

But given my extended scenario above and if it takes 300 years to get there it
is still no more than a billion years until humans have colonized all the stars
in the galaxy and are looking outward.

Maybe so, but moving purposefully that time can be cut down quite a
bit.

Why? With reasonably advance fusion there is not much of a limit on anything.

Fusion energy is not a cure for everything. In order to accelerate you
still have to throw out reaction mass. But if you are not expending
the mass in that fashion, the fusion plant can provite heat and
internal energy for a long time, proviting that it can be maintained,
repaired...but doing that requires some access to materials other than
ice.

If it takes only ten thousand years to get to another star and populate it such
that only two cities move to other stars, 2x2x2x2 for a billion years is how many?

They´ll have to be moving with some sort of a reaction drive to take
less time to move there than several hundred thousand years to million
and some.

And as all the ice chunks in all the Oort clouds in all the universe are fuel
and material resources I do not see a problem with any of this. Do not forget I
do not imagine this starting any time soon but a thousand or more years in the
future but I only base it upon extrapolating a complete exploitation of what we
know is possible today. I am not talking warp drive or any other magic.

What is possible is doable if we want to do it. But so far the course of our
technology has been what we have developed and in which order. Without WWII and
the Cold War there is no A Bomb, no ICBMs, not military expenditure on rockets
that become civilian technology for communication satellites but fiber optics
appears on the same schedule and obviates the need for comm satellites.

The way we are going is people living is space as military contractors but if
Rutan were the first without all the military support the first would be workers
in space hotels trading extra money for guaranteed vacation time on earth.. When
they stay in space long enough there are children born in space who know nothing
but living in zero gravity and have no interest at all in feeling gravity and
they grow up being completely adapted to no gravity like their parents never
could be. It is matter of time before that generation produces someone rich
enough to buy a big chunk of the tourist industry and with that wealth start
doing whatever they damn well please. The last thing they would want to do is
learn to walk and put up with mosquitoes.

There are your first spacemen and a credible path to them by both the military
and the civilian routes. Space is space. Close to the sun does not matter with
fusion powering the lights for the farms. The free material for fusion is beyond
Pluto so that is where to head. That far away the sun is just an unusually
bright star.

--
The difference between the President of France and the President of the
United States is the President of France can speak proper English.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3848
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
antisemitism http://www.giwersworld.org/antisem/ a1

Well, I´m very interested in what Bigelow Aerospace is doing with
theyr experiments with inflatable modules, i.e. the Genesis 1 and
Genesis 2. The latter flew up this summer, and did well according to
accounts. They are a miniature proof of concept modules, testing that
inflation works, that they can operate in space with internal pressure
without nasty leaks.

Genesis 1, 2
http://space.skyrocket.de/index_fram...thfinder-1.htm

Here Viki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_%28module%29

Once spacehotels are being built, I´ll expect private individuals of
the super rich kind, major firms, individual countries, even rich
religious groups, to become interested in a spacestation of theyr own.
For the first few decates I expect them all to remain in orbit within
the Earth/Moon system.

Cheers, Einar