Science Fiction Novels

[psCargile]

Yes, John, no disagreement from me. I've read your chapter a few years ago and recently when this topic came up. And I've been aware of the point Tom brought up as well. I usually assume we all know what we are talking about so I tend to write in generalizations.

Given the biological hazards to spaceflight, and the long durations, and the amount of energy to propel large masses, I go one step further and think that any space colonizing SIC entities will do so as swarms or clouds of microscopic individual units that can take more advantage of the quantum realm (in energy productions perhaps).

[John]

> Given the biological hazards to spaceflight, and the long
> durations, and the amount of energy to propel large masses, I go
> one step further and think that any space colonizing SIC entities
> will do so as swarms or clouds of microscopic individual units
> that can take more advantage of the quantum realm (in energy
> productions perhaps).

I'm not familiar with that. How would that work? Would it permit
faster than light travel somehow?

[Nathan G]

Given the biological hazards to spaceflight, and the long durations, and the amount of energy to propel large masses, I go one step further and think that any space colonizing SIC entities will do so as swarms or clouds of microscopic individual units that can take more advantage of the quantum realm (in energy productions perhaps).

[^ Replicators, anyone?]

Why would we assume that only machines can colonize space? It wasn't that long ago that people believed that crossing the Atlantic was impossible for humans. Now we can travel around the world in 8 seconds. Given a couple of centuries, it will become easy for biological humans to travel from one Solar System to another, whereas our current understanding of the speed of light will be given as much dignity as medieval alchemy.

[psCargile]

John, though I'm no means an expert in physics, but I could write a paper to answer your question, so I'll give you a list of Wikipedia articles and give a basic rundown of what I mean by using the quantum realm as an energy source.
Virtual Particles
Vacuum Energy
Zero-point energy
Casimir effect
Alcubierre warp drive
wormholes

Due to the uncertainty principle, all space is filled with the energy of virtual particles popping into existence and immediately annihilating each other in which very small regions of space have varying energy densities which, at macroscopic scales, averages out. Placing two uncharged plates nanometers apart causes the energy density in the space between the plates to be less than the rest of space. Since this density is less than the average, the energy is said to be negative and exerts a negative pressure on the plates, drawing them together. Thus quantum forces are producing mechanical motion which could one day be used to power a nanotech machine. Both the hypothetical Alcubierre warp drive and wormholes require negative mass/energy to either create the spacetime warp, or hold the wormhole throat open. Since large spacecraft will need larger bubbles or wormholes, and hence enormous energy to power them, it seems logical to me that an advanced nanotech craft could possibly take advantage of the Casimir effect for all it negative energy needs for the creation of microscopic bubbles. I'm on the fence on whether or not warp drives or wormholes will ever be found to be producible or usable at any scale. The realists in me says "No", however we have yet to discover everything and maybe a quantum theory of gravity will yield solutions or confirm such drives are impossible.

Nathan, my remark is less about ingenuity, innovation, and the advancement of sciences and knowledge, but about the practical matter of cost. In all the science fiction I have read, including hard, economic realities are almost always ignored; cultures are building grand space stations, spacecraft and fleets, hollowing out asteroids, and many more engineering feats with a seemingly infinite supply of value and labor. We can send people to Mars now with today's technology but the craft would be massive and the entire program and mission would cost the GNP of small countries. Probes are obviously cheaper, and less riskier.

From an article in the Aviation Week and Space Technology (June 23, 2014):

The space station is the engineering marvel of our age—a spaceship the length of a football field where six people conduct cutting-edge scientific research while refining our collective skill at operating above the atmosphere. But the space agencies of the world do not agree on where we should go next with that hard-won expertise. There are not that many choices, and the few that there are will not be easy. Mars, it seems, is as far as humankind can practicably expect to go, for now.

“Based on limitations to human physiology, based on reasonable technical limitations to the ability to shield humans during long voyages in interplanetary space, the horizon goal for human space exploration is Mars,” says Jonathan Lunine, a top planetary scientist at Cornell University, who co-chaired the recent U.S. National Research Council (NRC) human-spaceflight study. “Now, horizon in this case essentially means the farthest goal. It is not the only goal.”

Nor will it be cheap. Ultimately, the NRC panel found, the human exploration of Mars will take “decades” of work, and cost “hundreds of billions” of dollars. No one has that kind of money—not the U.S., not China and not, in the foreseeable future, all of the spacefaring nations and wannabees put together.

“I would not want to indulge in specious precision to say whether it was $300 billion or $500 billion, but it is a lot of money,” says John C. Sommerer, a retired Applied Physics Laboratory engineer who headed the subcommittee that drafted the technical portion of the NRC report. “Given that we currently spend on the order of $8 billion [annually in the U.S.] on human spaceflight, you immediately understand why it is a long-term program.”

Although humans are getting a robot’s-eye view of the Martian surface every day, courtesy of the Curiosity rover (see page 40), no one even pretends there will be a human landing there until the 2030s at the earliest. Most of the world’s space agencies include Mars in their exploration plans, but only NASA treats it as a viable goal toward which work is ongoing now that is designed to make it happen.

Even with expected advancements in technology, human exploration of space is costly. The privatization of space will bring the price down some. The ticket for a Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo is $250,000. I'll never be able to afford that. If I had that kind of money, I'd put it to better use. The private citizens that will be touring space will be wealthy enough to blow a quarter of a million dollars on a short spaceflight that doesn't really go anywhere except straight up and back down.

If John's target dates are correct, we will have the Singularity and SICs well before the industrial nations and wealthy citizens and corporation of the world could bankroll the colonization of the solar system, let alone finance an interstellar voyage. Now, is there any reason to doubt that neurological science and technology will not advance to the stage that the mind can be recorded and uploaded into computer system or robotic probe, or that the reverse could happen, that a robotic probe's experiences could be downloaded into a person's mind so that they can experience space exploration from wherever they are? Wouldn't it be great to plop down on the couch, log onto a probe feed on the internet, and explore Titan? That will be the most affordable method. Humans will go to Mars, but I think it more likely that intelligent machines will colonize the solar system, and some of those machines would have been born human.

[Nathan G]

Cargile,
I definitely see you're point of view, and I agree that a lot of those technologies will accelerate after the Singularity. The only point I disagree on is where I always disagree: biological humans won't be phased out by machines.

Nathan, my remark is less about ingenuity, innovation, and the advancement of sciences and knowledge, but about the practical matter of cost. In all the science fiction I have read, including hard, economic realities are almost always ignored; cultures are building grand space stations, spacecraft and fleets, hollowing out asteroids, and many more engineering feats with a seemingly infinite supply of value and labor. We can send people to Mars now with today's technology but the craft would be massive and the entire program and mission would cost the GNP of small countries. Probes are obviously cheaper, and less riskier.

Of course, idealistically, it would be great if all peoples and countries colonized space equally. However, the Age of Exploration gives us precedent: financial inequality did not stop big corporations from dominating the globe in the name of a hand full of world powers. Of course the entire mission would cost the GNP of small countries. That is unfortunately why the small countries never colonized America.

On the other hand, you would be right to say that the colonization of space is different for two reasons:
First, unlike America, outer space has no foreseeable investment. Although the New World did not have nearly as many valuable resources as Europe thought, the fact that a little gold and silver was discovered prompted waves of colonies from Hispaniola to Cuzco to Sutter's Mill. However, most people today see the very existence of space to be merely a scientific curiosity (and for that reason sending a probe to Titan makes more sense). That makes me sad, but I have hope for the future.

Second, the sixteenth century did not have robot probes. I am sure that if Isabella had a choice she would have gladly sent unmanned probes across the Atlantic instead of risking the life of Columbus. (On the other hand, would that have made a difference? Who knows?)

Nathan G

[psCargile]

. . . biological humans won't be phased out by machines.

I do agree with you on that.

If we advance to that stage where we can become computer or robots, some people will, others wont. I tell you, with the chronic illnesses I endure, it has it's allure.

And as much as I enjoyed Ron Moore's "Battlestar Galactica" reboot, I did not agree on the premise. The psychology of an intelligent machine is something we can't image accurately, and I think it's wrong to embue fictional intelligent machines will biological motives.

[psCargile]

In terms of expedition costs, my main issue with using oceanic voyage analogies to current and future space exploration is that when we humans step off the Earth, we have to take everything we need to live and repair the spacecraft with us. If the New World had been a baren wasteland with no resources (and the Europeans somehow knew that), and fish and water from the ocean could not be used, then Columbus would have needed food and water for two Atlantic crossing, and for the time spent ashore, plus all the material for repairs, including extra masts, sails, and rope, and he might possibly decide to double the number of supply ships to hedge against losing one at sea. A bigger fleet and larger crew would cost more, if someone would even finance the voyage.

What we want to do is find ways to produce oxygen and fuel/propellant on the Moon and Mars, so that we don't have to send so much stuff with us, which will cut down on mass and cost of the spacecraft. Then again, getting the production systems to these destinations and setting them up is going to cost and would part of the overall mission cost, so the large saving wouldn't be immediate. Having a self-sustaining colony on Mars that produced fuels, air, and food would cut the costs of Earth-Mars runs.

Speaking of Mars, a few years ago I was watching when the Curiosity rover landed, where there was the "7 minutes of terror" where anything could have gone wrong during entry and landing that would have destroyed the mission. Curiosity is the heaviest thing put on Mars, and how they did it with the skyhook system was a technilogical acheivement that surpasses landing on the Moon. The Moon is easy, no air. Atmosphere is a whole different game, if can help, or it can kill. It should have gotten more media attention, because it just landing the damn thing with no major problems is a testament to human ingenuity.