John Maxson
August 9th 03, 05:30 PM
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)
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)