Deep space: Are we smart enough to beat the physics?

[Dryson]

http://us.cnn.com/2016/10/11/health...ace-physics0501AMStoryGalLink&linkId=29855765

(CNN)Imagine something so distant that with our current technology it would take 2,400 generations to reach there -- and that's just our nearest star.

Even moving at 10 miles a second, like the Voyager spacecraft launched in the 1970s, it would take around 80,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri -- which is 4.2 light years away.

Are there any processes where the radiation affecting humans during space flight into Deep Sol Space (DSS)
could be converted to usable electrical energy?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13545-nanomaterial-turns-radiation-directly-into-electricity/

Could using frozen or extremely cold water as a radiation shield also provide ample protection?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

We can't even make a self-contained, self-sustaining, portable ecosystem on Earth, so I think we're a long, long way off from building spaceships that would be capable of sustaining humans for, uh, longer than all of recorded history.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

We're probably better off trying to find ways around the propulsion problem, like launching lasers, or engines that can produce continuous 1-G acceleration.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Converting star light, cosmic rays, or the CMBR into electrical energy wouldn't provide enough power unless you had an extremely large array to capture the radiation, and the mass of such an array would negate any benefit. Nuclear power (fission or fusion rather than RTGs) is currently the only viable option for deep-space, long-duration space flights. Before constructing a self-sustaining generation ship, we should first practice with O'Neill colonies in Earth orbit and then further out in the solar system.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I agree, but I have always had a certain soft spot for O'Neill colonies. It could definitely be our gateway into colonizing space one day.

The challenges are rather larger, of course. It will require a full infrastructure in space to build. We would have to go from mining the raw materials to the finished shell mostly all off planet. I do think that we will have such an infrastructure one day. It may not even be too far from now if people can only figure out a way to profit from asteroid mining. Should that happen, I think it will be the snowball that starts the avalanche.

 

[Scout101]

Travel time is definitely way up there on the list of issues. Given that, you need to know a LOT more about your destination before you set off. Who wants to be on a multi-generational journey only to find out that the telescope was malfunctioning, nothing to see here, go home?

We probably need to start with trying to get small probes to make the trip and report back, can also practice the acceleration challenges there. Even going to the nearest star, need to know if there's a reason to send people or not. Work on getting there faster, and find something worth travelling to, THEN we can fine tune details on shielding and the like.

Agree that Mars and orbiting asteroid colonies would probably be good practice on that front while we're using probes to scout for other targets.

 

[psCargile]

We probably have a better chance of evolving into machine intelligence well ahead of devising ways to send meat and flesh rapidly and economically into deep space.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

We probably have a better chance of evolving into machine intelligence well ahead of devising ways to send meat and flesh rapidly and economically into deep space.

Nah, that's probably even more fanciful.

We will no doubt send machines into deep space, but they won't have anything resembling human minds anytime soon.

 

[psCargile]

People in the field are saying by at least the 2030s. By the end of the century, such machines will have minds far more superior to ours. My observation is that one technology supposes the same; once you have radio, radar and television isn't far behind. To create a machine intelligence, one must have an understanding of intelligence and intelligent systems, thus it's reasonably to assume knowledge of how the brain processes and stores information will be a mature science, and with that comes the technology to read and copy the mind, either destructively, or non-destructively. Whether or not the copy can be said to be alive, or a person, may rest at the discretion of the copy.

Once machine intelligence is on the scene, it will have a strategic advantage over us, becoming the superior species on the planet. For humanity to survive, we must become the same and evolve. Given the choice, some of us will.

Given that space travel is harmful to biology, the most efficient course is to not use biological systems with needs of massive air, water, and food. Tiny, intelligent probes—that perhaps carry the identity and memory of a person—or more economical.

And if and when we evolve to super-intelligent machines, we may very well be able to construct biological bodies on a whim and wear them as we wear clothes.

That's the 22nd century I foresee.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

People in the field are saying by at least the 2030s.

Which people?

By the end of the century, such machines will have minds far more superior to ours.

In what respect?

My observation is that one technology supposes the same; once you have radio, radar and television isn't far behind.

This is post hoc rationalization that elides vast historical contingencies.

To create a machine intelligence, one must have an understanding of intelligence and intelligent systems, thus it's reasonably to assume knowledge of how the brain processes and stores information will be a mature science, and with that comes the technology to read and copy the mind, either destructively, or non-destructively.

Our brains are not digital computers. They don't work remotely the same way. It is not "reasonably [sic] to assume" that knowledge of how the brain works will result in brain uploads to computers. You are suggesting something we literally have no idea how to do. And we'll get there in less 20 years??

Whether or not the copy can be said to be alive, or a person, may rest at the discretion of the copy.

I could program a computer to say "I am alive, please don't kill me" right now. Does that mean it's alive?

Once machine intelligence is on the scene, it will have a strategic advantage over us, becoming the superior species on the planet. For humanity to survive, we must become the same and evolve. Given the choice, some of us will.

What are you basing this on?

Given that space travel is harmful to biology, the most efficient course is to not use biological systems with needs of massive air, water, and food. Tiny, intelligent probes—that perhaps carry the identity and memory of a person—or more economical.

You're right about probes. There's just little reason to put human minds into them.

And if and when we evolve to super-intelligent machines, we may very well be able to construct biological bodies on a whim and wear them as we wear clothes.

"And if we develop omnipotent magic, we can do omnipotent, magical things" is what this amounts to.

That's the 22nd century I foresee.

I think that's overly optimistic. Strong AI has been "just around the corner" for over half a century and yet we're nowhere near it today. I don't have a lot of confidence in our impending transhuman future.

 

[psCargile]

We shall see.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Nah, we'll be dead.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I don't see the need for sending even unmanned probes to other star systems other than to satisfy our curiosity. There are plenty of resources in the Solar System that we can exploit, possibly for hundreds of millions of years if not the whole 5 billion years or so before the Sun enters its red giant phase. We might even be able to delay the onset of that phase if we can find ways of replenishing the hydrogen in the Sun's core from the radiative and convective zones although it might be easier to move the Earth (if we have kept it intact for sentimental reasons, which I think is unlikely if we manage to survive that long in biological or post-biological form).

 

[BillJ]

Travel time is definitely way up there on the list of issues. Given that, you need to know a LOT more about your destination before you set off. Who wants to be on a multi-generational journey only to find out that the telescope was malfunctioning, nothing to see here, go home?

We probably need to start with trying to get small probes to make the trip and report back, can also practice the acceleration challenges there. Even going to the nearest star, need to know if there's a reason to send people or not. Work on getting there faster, and find something worth travelling to, THEN we can fine tune details on shielding and the like.

Agree that Mars and orbiting asteroid colonies would probably be good practice on that front while we're using probes to scout for other targets.

I'm not sure we'll ever make it out there. Which makes me sad, being a Star Trek fan.

 

[2takesfrakes]

It would've been cool if we could've done a Message in a Bottle kind of thing, where we did, indeed, send a probe out to the nearest star, for future generations to hear from. We just can't power the thing to last the journey. But on its way through and out of the Solar System, it would be very useful to us, in the here and now ...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I don't see the need for sending even unmanned probes to other star systems other than to satisfy our curiosity. There are plenty of resources in the Solar System that we can exploit, possibly for hundreds of millions of years if not the whole 5 billion years or so before the Sun enters its red giant phase. We might even be able to delay the onset of that phase if we can find ways of replenishing the hydrogen in the Sun's core from the radiative and convective zones although it might be easier to move the Earth (if we have kept it intact for sentimental reasons, which I think is unlikely if we manage to survive that long in biological or post-biological form).

There was no "need" to go to the Moon, either. Sometimes you do things just because you can. This is avoiding all of the politics surrounding the moonshot, I'm just saying pure research without explicit, practical goals is generally worthwhile.

If we can send probes to other star systems for reasonable sums of money and get back some up-close data about other solar systems, well, why not?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Apart from scientific curiosity, which seemingly doesn't motivate many people, the only real reason to bother is to prove to ourselves that we can achieve such a goal. We'll probably then just give up like we gave up on the Moon and invest our time in more trivial pursuits. It's just the way we are.

 

[scotthm]

Once machine intelligence is on the scene, it will have a strategic advantage over us, becoming the superior species on the planet. For humanity to survive, we must become the same and evolve.

It's your opinion then that AI researchers are enemies of humanity, and it's in our best interests to quash their work while there's still time?

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[Robert Maxwell]

Apart from scientific curiosity, which seemingly doesn't motivate many people, the only real reason to bother is to prove to ourselves that we can achieve such a goal. We'll probably then just give up like we gave up on the Moon and invest our time in more trivial pursuits. It's just the way we are.

Strange, there's plenty of space exploration and research going on lately, so I have no idea what you're on about.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Our ambitions are a mere fraction of what they were 50 years ago. Perhaps it's best that we stick with a few space probes and give up the manned stuff. The public appetite for funding such things is far less than one might hope.