I need to get this out of my head so I can think of something else: a "generation ship" is a really, really, really bad idea. Not only for the practical reasons such as how to feed and clothe and keep alive generation upon generation of humans; nor the scaling problem of having a large enough population to avoid inbreeding; nor the psychological and political problems of still having a working society after all that time. There's also the ethical problem of the first generation of astronauts committing many generations of their descendants to a life that begins and ends on a ship, a choice that they had no say in and may well resent.
There is, in fact, a much more practical approach. Instead of sending expensive, fragile, ill-tempered humans, send eggs and sperm on board an entirely automated (and self-repairing) ship. We know they can be frozen and emerge viable, so it's not much of a leap to do so for the thousand years of a trip to the stars. We could send millions of sperm and eggs ensuring genetic diversity in a much smaller, cheaper ship, and have robots incubate, deliver, and raise the first generation of colonists. And because these children will be educated from a comprehensive library that came with them, you don't have the "cultural drift" inevitable in generations of shipboard life so that you don't risk colonizing the galaxy with literal Space Nazis.
BTW, I am currently writing a novel in which this brilliant idea goes horribly wrong, so if anybody wants to steal it, they have about eight months to get there first!
Well! I AM a Philosopher and say an answer to this problem (whose literature is grossly inflated) is very simple and doesn't require improbable requirements. The Observor simply throws themself on the rails, derailing the train. A natural response to save one potential loss of life or five. Suicide? In a technical sense, yes, but imagine the scenario where you yourself see a grizzly chasing your child (or anybody's child for that matter). You wouldn't stop to ponder. You would immediately step in to divert the bear's charge. Now just substitute train for bear and derail for divert and the logic is apparent. Why doesn't anyone use this approach? Because the designers of the gedankenexperiment can alter the terms-putting the Observor in a remote viewing tower with a switch control at hand. So much for my solution! But it still operates in the grizzly gedanken at least. Actually the U S. are currently in a trolley problem dilemma with the populations of two countries bound on the rails.
I commented & deleted it because I really need to stop live-commenting as I read newsletters. ANYWAY. The excerpt below is blowing my mind & actually making me glad. Why are we trying to branch far out into space when we can't even fix the issues on our home planet? Maybe the possibility for us was never there. "Any superluminal (FTL) model of travel will have to overturn our current understanding of the nature of reality (hey, no biggie), which states that because the hard limit of light speed underpins everything, if you exceed it, you break causality - the relationship between cause and effect. This rapidly unravels…well, everything, but particularly everything as we humans experience it, and in particular our understanding of the ‘arrow of time’ and how it only ever points in one direction, so we don’t end up going back in time to accidentally murder our ancestors, or bang out infuriated replies to emails that other people haven’t sent us yet, whichever feels more anxiety-inducing to you today."
We might NEVER go superluminal? LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! ALIENS WILL ARRIVE ANY DAY AND I WILL GET ON BOARD AND BE WHISKED TO SPACE IN AN EXPERIENCE THAT IS NOTHING LIKE TO SERVE MANKIND!!!!
I'm a simple man. I see the star ship Enterprise (albeit not NCC-1701-D, the best version) and a quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I press like.
I love reading excellent pieces on topics about which I have no idea and this has made me feel educated and inspired and massively insignificant all at once. Thanks for nothing Mike.
We already have all this per Lockheed Skunkworks, Raytheon, and the fav JPL. And no, we’re not ready for it. Can you imagine a whole bunch of “us” out there screwing up the galaxy?
I need to ask friends who also work in this field if anyone has calculated the energy requirements for the life support and ship management systems required to keep the crew alive and the ship operating during these lengthy voyages
For a look at subliminal space travel, check out my “Nu Book1: The Esss Advance”. The story postulates two very different alien species interacting over billions of years coming together in our solar system just as we are about to send out our first interstellar mission. The time scales are enormous because we are basically limited to going half the speed of light.
And of course the important thing is that we don’t destroy ourselves or THIS planet in order to be able to develop the technology to expand into space. Let’s hope we manage that in time.
Brilliant! But the I wind up back at the toddler style question “why is light speed the limiting factor?” and now have to go away and remind myself. But not before watching the video and following the fascinating links you have here. I may be some time! 😉
I'm so excited I found this (and you). I'm in the midst of writing a generation ship novel and need all the help I can get! Can you believe I didn't even know about Aurora until this minute? Crazy thing is I've written the same book twice already (wasn't happy with the first try), the first time before Aurora was released. I'm still not stoked with it and am about to launch into the 3rd iteration, here on Substack. Hoping for some interaction with cleverer readers than me to up the ante again.
I need to get this out of my head so I can think of something else: a "generation ship" is a really, really, really bad idea. Not only for the practical reasons such as how to feed and clothe and keep alive generation upon generation of humans; nor the scaling problem of having a large enough population to avoid inbreeding; nor the psychological and political problems of still having a working society after all that time. There's also the ethical problem of the first generation of astronauts committing many generations of their descendants to a life that begins and ends on a ship, a choice that they had no say in and may well resent.
There is, in fact, a much more practical approach. Instead of sending expensive, fragile, ill-tempered humans, send eggs and sperm on board an entirely automated (and self-repairing) ship. We know they can be frozen and emerge viable, so it's not much of a leap to do so for the thousand years of a trip to the stars. We could send millions of sperm and eggs ensuring genetic diversity in a much smaller, cheaper ship, and have robots incubate, deliver, and raise the first generation of colonists. And because these children will be educated from a comprehensive library that came with them, you don't have the "cultural drift" inevitable in generations of shipboard life so that you don't risk colonizing the galaxy with literal Space Nazis.
BTW, I am currently writing a novel in which this brilliant idea goes horribly wrong, so if anybody wants to steal it, they have about eight months to get there first!
Well! I AM a Philosopher and say an answer to this problem (whose literature is grossly inflated) is very simple and doesn't require improbable requirements. The Observor simply throws themself on the rails, derailing the train. A natural response to save one potential loss of life or five. Suicide? In a technical sense, yes, but imagine the scenario where you yourself see a grizzly chasing your child (or anybody's child for that matter). You wouldn't stop to ponder. You would immediately step in to divert the bear's charge. Now just substitute train for bear and derail for divert and the logic is apparent. Why doesn't anyone use this approach? Because the designers of the gedankenexperiment can alter the terms-putting the Observor in a remote viewing tower with a switch control at hand. So much for my solution! But it still operates in the grizzly gedanken at least. Actually the U S. are currently in a trolley problem dilemma with the populations of two countries bound on the rails.
I commented & deleted it because I really need to stop live-commenting as I read newsletters. ANYWAY. The excerpt below is blowing my mind & actually making me glad. Why are we trying to branch far out into space when we can't even fix the issues on our home planet? Maybe the possibility for us was never there. "Any superluminal (FTL) model of travel will have to overturn our current understanding of the nature of reality (hey, no biggie), which states that because the hard limit of light speed underpins everything, if you exceed it, you break causality - the relationship between cause and effect. This rapidly unravels…well, everything, but particularly everything as we humans experience it, and in particular our understanding of the ‘arrow of time’ and how it only ever points in one direction, so we don’t end up going back in time to accidentally murder our ancestors, or bang out infuriated replies to emails that other people haven’t sent us yet, whichever feels more anxiety-inducing to you today."
Wow! I understood about ten percent of this, maybe less, and it still was "wow". Loved it.
We might NEVER go superluminal? LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! ALIENS WILL ARRIVE ANY DAY AND I WILL GET ON BOARD AND BE WHISKED TO SPACE IN AN EXPERIENCE THAT IS NOTHING LIKE TO SERVE MANKIND!!!!
I'm a simple man. I see the star ship Enterprise (albeit not NCC-1701-D, the best version) and a quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I press like.
Excellent read Mike as usual :)
Beautiful Mike. I also always appreciate a good Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference.
I love reading excellent pieces on topics about which I have no idea and this has made me feel educated and inspired and massively insignificant all at once. Thanks for nothing Mike.
Even more beautifully written than usual, Mr S.
We already have all this per Lockheed Skunkworks, Raytheon, and the fav JPL. And no, we’re not ready for it. Can you imagine a whole bunch of “us” out there screwing up the galaxy?
I need to ask friends who also work in this field if anyone has calculated the energy requirements for the life support and ship management systems required to keep the crew alive and the ship operating during these lengthy voyages
Excellent piece, thank you. This sort of essay and the wonder therein keeps me going!
For a look at subliminal space travel, check out my “Nu Book1: The Esss Advance”. The story postulates two very different alien species interacting over billions of years coming together in our solar system just as we are about to send out our first interstellar mission. The time scales are enormous because we are basically limited to going half the speed of light.
And of course the important thing is that we don’t destroy ourselves or THIS planet in order to be able to develop the technology to expand into space. Let’s hope we manage that in time.
Brilliant! But the I wind up back at the toddler style question “why is light speed the limiting factor?” and now have to go away and remind myself. But not before watching the video and following the fascinating links you have here. I may be some time! 😉
I'm so excited I found this (and you). I'm in the midst of writing a generation ship novel and need all the help I can get! Can you believe I didn't even know about Aurora until this minute? Crazy thing is I've written the same book twice already (wasn't happy with the first try), the first time before Aurora was released. I'm still not stoked with it and am about to launch into the 3rd iteration, here on Substack. Hoping for some interaction with cleverer readers than me to up the ante again.