Re: Distribution & Redistribution

From: robert j. kolker (nowhere_at_nowhere.net)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 11:26:15 -0500

William C Colley wrote:

> and control any magic which superceeds this, please do. As for
> interstellar travel, well it would be extremely expensive and unlikely
> to actually succeed, except for one way trips. So long as we are
> mortal we can't live long enough to make it to even the nearest stars.

If a propulsion system could produce speeds around 1/10*c like the Orion
System (a proposed propulsion system that uses exploding thermo-nuclear
devices [A-bombs] to propel a vessel) we could perhaps freeze the
passengers for a 40 year trip to Alpha Centuri our nearest neighbor in
the Kosmos* outside the solar system. If the crew could be thawed out
successfuly that could send a radio message back, so that the world
could know in about 44 years whether the project succeeded or not.

All that being said, we have no evidence of an earthlike planet orbiting
around Alpha Centuri, so there is little justification of the multiple
trillions of dollars it would cost to mount such an expedition. In fact
we have no evidence of earthlike planets anywhere except around our own
Sun and we already live on it. I think there might very well be planets
that we could inhabit (!!!!if we could get to them!!!!), but we don't
know where they are nor do we have the means to get there or even a
small hope of finding the means. Until we build a rather expensive
intererometer we won't be able to see or detect small rocky planets any
where. The only extrasolar planets we know about are rather large gas
giants which have enough mass to perturb their mother stars sufficiently
that we can detect it. We have yet to -see- one. All evidence for
extrasolar planets has been indirect, through perturbation or
diminishment of the light from the star when the planet occults the
star. In short we either see jiggles or blinks, but we don't see planets
-- yet. I am sure the issue is purely technological. If we had the right
equipment we could see extra-solar planets directly. There is no
principled reason why we cannot, only practical reasons.

I would say we had an outside chance of launching a one way expedition
to another star which would have a slimmer chance still of succeeding.
Except for a trip to Alpha Centuri, none of the people doing or paying
for the launch will know whether they are successful or not. It would be
a multi-generational thing, like building cathedrals in Europe.

Intertellar voyaging is barely possible (and not in the manner depicted
on -Star Trek- or -Babylon 5-), but it is not practical in the sense of
producing direct benefits for us mud-feet who are born, who live and who
will die on this planet. Possibly the indirect benefits could be
spin-off technologies, but building crappy clunky interstallar arks is
hardly the best way of achieving these technologies.

Here is a better way to spend our money: Exploit energy resources which
do not involve burning hydrocarbons. That means solar energy, wind
energy (which is indirectly solar energy), heat from the earth's core,
fission energy and fusion energy (this last one does not look too
encouraging). I would remind everyone that controlled fusion has been 30
years in the future for the last 55 years. Also the burning of coal
-cleanly- using magnetohydrodynamic plasma technology could be useful.
We have enough coal in North America to keep us toasty warm for a
thousand years. The main problem is burning it cleanly. If we can keep
warm in the winter without paying the Arabs blood money it would be well
worth the investment.

Bob Kolker

*According to the late Carl Sagan there are billyuns, and billyuns of
stuhrs in the Kosmos and we are all made of stuhr-stuff.

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