# Generation Ships--- Can we build one now?



## Samloyal23 (Jan 26, 2019)

Personally, I am confident we will have a faster than light drive within another century. But in the meantime, could we start building a generation ship to explore nearby stars and maybe start a colony on another planet? What technology would we need to develop? How many people would need to be in the crew? How much would it cost?


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## Zardnaar (Jan 26, 2019)

No main reason is we don't have a planet we can go to followed by we don't know what the effects of long term exposure to zero/low g would be. IDK if we have artificial gravity.

 It also takes 12 years to get to the edge of the solar system. We would need some sort of nuclear/fusion power, some sort of artifical gravity and a planet that is confirmed that can support human life. Then we would also have to deal with alien microbes if we got there.


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## Hussar (Jan 26, 2019)

We’re quite a ways from anything approaching a generation ship. Good grief we cannot even land people on Mars currently. 

Unfortunately we’re centuries away from generational ships.


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## Shasarak (Jan 26, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> Personally, I am confident we will have a faster than light drive within another century. But in the meantime, could we start building a generation ship to explore nearby stars and maybe start a colony on another planet? What technology would we need to develop? How many people would need to be in the crew? How much would it cost?




Those are some good questions to ask.  I understand that Dr Mae Jemison and the 100 year starship team are trying to work out exactly how we would be able to do this in the next 100 years.

One of the biggest hurdles at the moment is energy generation which may require developement of something like a fusion or antimatter reactor that would actually be really useful for those of us still on Earth.


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## Tonguez (Jan 26, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> Personally, I am confident we will have a faster than light drive within another century. But in the meantime, could we start building a generation ship to explore nearby stars and maybe start a colony on another planet? What technology would we need to develop? How many people would need to be in the crew? How much would it cost?




SO far even the basics of maintaining an artificial biosphere has not been perfected, although it is being worked on. The major issue of reliable longterm gravity and oxygen generation need to be developed, as is the issue of maintaining immunity balanced against preventing widespread infection.

A secure power source is also needed, most likely small, self contained nuclear fusion generators of some sought. 
There is also the factor of cosmic radiation and the need for ionization shielding on the exterior of the ship to prevent DNA damage. 

Finally noone knows what the full psychological and physiological affects of taking humans off earth from longer periods is. 

So no I dont think Generations Ships are ready to be built and probably wont be built before we get a settlement on the Moon


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## DQDesign (Jan 26, 2019)

Considering how much technology is kept hidden from the masses, I think it is more a matter of politics rather than tech level


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## dragoner (Jan 26, 2019)

A big O'Neill cylinder might work; nevertheless, as others have stated, radiation shielding is the big ticket item. However, the amount of material, and labor it would take to create would be huge, for example, the International Space Station is the most expensive vehicle ever built, so imagine the cost of something thousands of times bigger, and then just to fling it off into space? Probably not anytime soon. Baby steps now, Mars by the mid 2030's, then a moon base, and space elevator.


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## MarkB (Jan 26, 2019)

Aside from fuel and power generation, you need to be able to build a vessel that can be maintained in active use without any external resources for a period of decades or centuries without any major loss of functionality.

And then you need to do the same to the crew and social structure onboard - in order to remain functional, a generation ship would likely need to be a totalitarian regime with exacting population controls and a flawless education system that will instruct multiple generations in every aspect of what will be needed in order to operate and maintain the vessel, followed by all the skills and expertise required to establish a colony on an unknown alien world. Successive generations won't have the luxury of being able to make any choices about their lives or career paths, because every single one of them will be needed to fulfill essential shipboard functions.


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## Janx (Jan 26, 2019)

I'd read these a while back, their pessimism ruining my day for at least a pico-second.

One is the guy who says colonizing Mars so we can "escape Earth" is harder than surviving whatever catastrophe happens on earth (ex. asteroid hits us, we still have air, gravity, radiation shielding and no travel time here compared to getting to Mars to avoid the hit).

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2018/aug/28/the-case-against-mars-colonisation

the other is the sci-fi novelist who pokes wholes in generation ships because stuff breaks and it all has to survive so many hundreds of years.

https://www.tor.com/2016/01/15/generation-ships-science-space-obstacles/

Anywho, I think they raise valid points, but miss the bigger picture of we gotta get out of this place.  In a few billion years, poof, it'll be gone.

To paraphrase Commander Sinclair of Babylon 5, "if we don't, then what was it all for?"


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## Tonguez (Jan 26, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Aside from fuel and power generation, you need to be able to build a vessel that can be maintained in active use without any external resources for a period of decades or centuries without any major loss of functionality.
> 
> And then you need to do the same to the crew and social structure onboard - in order to remain functional, a generation ship would likely need to be a totalitarian regime with exacting population controls and a flawless education system that will instruct multiple generations in every aspect of what will be needed in order to operate and maintain the vessel, followed by all the skills and expertise required to establish a colony on an unknown alien world. Successive generations won't have the luxury of being able to make any choices about their lives or career paths, because every single one of them will be needed to fulfill essential shipboard functions.




although they were pre-industrial a number of societies with specialised career linked to particular families survived on small islands around the world, so its possible that a generation ship would also be made up of various self-contained 'sections' where the families learn a particular set of specialised knowledge/skill which contribute to the ships maintenance and operation and with social mobility facilitated through the common areas.

The bigger issue is that even reproduction and the ability to get pregnant seems to depend on the influence of gravity - so the whole question of if babies can even be conceived and carried in space still needs to be tested


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## MarkB (Jan 26, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> The bigger issue is that even reproduction and the ability to get pregnant seems to depend on the influence of gravity - so the whole question of if babies can even be conceived and carried in space still needs to be tested




Gravity doesn't seem like that much of an issue compared to the other technological hurdles. Either you run the ship under constant acceleration aside from a flip-over at midpoint, or you rotate it for spin gravity.


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## Shasarak (Jan 26, 2019)

MarkB said:


> And then you need to do the same to the crew and social structure onboard - in order to remain functional, a generation ship would likely need to be a totalitarian regime with exacting population controls and a flawless education system that will instruct multiple generations in every aspect of what will be needed in order to operate and maintain the vessel, followed by all the skills and expertise required to establish a colony on an unknown alien world. Successive generations won't have the luxury of being able to make any choices about their lives or career paths, because every single one of them will be needed to fulfill essential shipboard functions.




I dont know if a strict totalitarian system would work long term, maybe a Religious one like the Mormons from the Expanse would work better.  It would be interesting to see what kind of morality tales they would come up with.


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## Aeson (Jan 27, 2019)

I'm surprised no astronaut has pulled the " let's have sex in the name of science" bit. Has it even been discussed as a possible experiment? Are they afraid for the baby? I figure it'll have to be studied with field research. If a woman did get pregnant she'd have to return before the gestational period went too far. Reentry would be hell. 

This type of project would need international support beyond that off the ISS. I'm not sure there are nations that could not provide money or resources and will be left out. As for training the crew. I agree groups dedicated to certain aspects would be needed, but make sure those groups are spread out. You don't want to lose your whole hydroponic group in one disaster. "Well, there went the gravity team when that astroid  hit their housing section." You need designated survivors for everything. I'd recommend not having the captain and first officer in the same room too often. Redundancy will be key. Back up bridge on another deck. Cross training will help also. Experts are a must but a few jack of a trades will be helpful. 

Has mankind reached this level of cooperation?


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## Aeson (Jan 27, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> I dont know if a strict totalitarian system would work long term, maybe a Religious one like the Mormons from the Expanse would work better.  It would be interesting to see what kind of morality tales they would come up with.




Syfy had another show Ascension. The military ran everything. Allowing a religious group to run it would be too much to ask. If it were only Mormon then that might be different, but you see how well that worked out.


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## Tonguez (Jan 27, 2019)

Aeson said:


> I'm surprised no astronaut has pulled the " let's have sex in the name of science" bit. Has it even been discussed as a possible experiment? Are they afraid for the baby? I figure it'll have to be studied with field research. If a woman did get pregnant she'd have to return before the gestational period went too far. Reentry would be hell.




Apparently the experiments have been done and famously there is a NASA video tape which is heavily censured and restricted.

Apparently only four sex positions are possible in zero-G without "mechanical assistance" another six were possible with an elastic belt and inflatable tunnel. The classic missionary position was ruled out as simply not possible due to its reliance on gravity.


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## Hussar (Jan 27, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> although they were pre-industrial a number of societies with specialised career linked to particular families survived on small islands around the world, so its possible that a generation ship would also be made up of various self-contained 'sections' where the families learn a particular set of specialised knowledge/skill which contribute to the ships maintenance and operation and with social mobility facilitated through the common areas.
> 
> The bigger issue is that even reproduction and the ability to get pregnant seems to depend on the influence of gravity - so the whole question of if babies can even be conceived and carried in space still needs to be tested




That’s not really a fair comparison though. Teaching someone to be a fisherman is slightly less intensive than teaching someone to maintain a fusion reactor. 

The number of jobs and skills required to survive on a tropical island is less than the number of skills needed to maintain a generation ship. 

And very few of those islands were truly isolated. They traded and whatnot between the islands.


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## Shasarak (Jan 27, 2019)

Aeson said:


> Syfy had another show Ascension. The military ran everything.




Thats probably the best way to get the Government to pay for it.



> Allowing a religious group to run it would be too much to ask. If it were only Mormon then that might be different, but you see how well that worked out.




I thought the ship was stolen before they could leave and then the Belters turned it into a Warship.


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## Aeson (Jan 27, 2019)

You're correct. Think that would have happened to another religious group? LOL I was just trying to be funny. 

If you hadn't seen Ascension.  It was actually an experiment where they never left the ground. Yet the people inside didn't know for 50 years. Births were tightly controlled. Only certain ones were allowed to pair up and have children, and only at selected times.


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## Nutation (Jan 27, 2019)

I wouldn't try it before the various technologies have stabilized (stopped improving). Otherwise, ship #2 passes ship #1 and arrives first.
Actually, that's also a way to send new supplies and parts, so maybe it's not a show-stopper.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 27, 2019)

We could probably build something that could transport a lot of people, at immense cost of course. But it would probably not be a generation ship, because the ship its ecology or its energy source would break down far before they get anywhere. So I guess that's a _No _by me.

I worry that the only actually feasible generation ship might look somewhat like this: 
[sblock]





[/sblock]
Or worse, like this
[sblock]




[/sblock]

The big challenge with space travel now already is how to put enough fuel aboard to get anywhere. But it gets worse when you talk generations, because you also need to ensure a steady supply of air, food, water and gravity, and an energy source that works for centuries. All the devices you need to keep this going will need replacements and spare parts. If anything breaks and you don't have what you need to repair it, it will at some point need centuries or maybe even millenia before you can even start looking for it. 
How many devices do you know that you would trust to keep working for decades before they break down and need repairs? Probably none, or only simple mechanical devices. 


Imagine going for one year with your car through the US. But you never go for a pit stop. You can't visit any gas stations or garages. You can't ask anyone for help. You have to fix everything that comes up yourself. If a tire is punctured? You got to have the replacement with you. If you need to fill up the tank, you have to have the fuel with you. If you want to eat something, you need to carry the food with you. Imagine what kind of "car" you would build to accomplish that. 
And now imagine you want to build a convoy of 1,000 cars or a bus to carry a 1,000 people, or 10,000 people. 
And now you need to scale that up for stuff like lack of air, heat/sun or gravity.


I think one thing is fairly certain though - if we ever build a generation ship, we don't need existing habitable planets anymore. We might still prefer to have them, but we can probably do without them.


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## MarkB (Jan 27, 2019)

Nutation said:


> I wouldn't try it before the various technologies have stabilized (stopped improving). Otherwise, ship #2 passes ship #1 and arrives first.
> Actually, that's also a way to send new supplies and parts, so maybe it's not a show-stopper.




Generation ships aren't a great option unless you're desperate, for a lot of the reasons mentioned in this thread. Ideally, you want to wait until you've perfected something along the lines of cryogenics/stasis/time-dilation, so that you don't need to deal with the logistics of keeping humans alive and conscious for hundreds of years in space.


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## Tonguez (Jan 27, 2019)

Nutation said:


> I wouldn't try it before the various technologies have stabilized (stopped improving). Otherwise, ship #2 passes ship #1 and arrives first.
> Actually, that's also a way to send new supplies and parts, so maybe it's not a show-stopper.




That would be an interesting premise for a short story - the first great generation ship is launched and 1000 years later arrives on a new planet only to discover that they are late, later colonist arrived 300 years prior and their entire culture of believing they were humanities last hope is now obsolete


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## Hussar (Jan 28, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> That would be an interesting premise for a short story - the first great generation ship is launched and 1000 years later arrives on a new planet only to discover that they are late, later colonist arrived 300 years prior and their entire culture of believing they were humanities last hope is now obsolete




It has been done.  Robert Reed and Stephen Baxter both have short stories along these lines.  Alastair Reynolds too IIRC.  But, I'm sorry, I can't for the life of me remember the titles.


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## Shasarak (Jan 28, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> That would be an interesting premise for a short story - the first great generation ship is launched and 1000 years later arrives on a new planet only to discover that they are late, later colonist arrived 300 years prior and their entire culture of believing they were humanities last hope is now obsolete




I think I remember a Star Trek next Generation story where the Enterprise intercepts an old colony ship.


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## Eltab (Jan 28, 2019)

NASA sent up a married couple on one of the last Shuttle flights, and made a point of allocating them some time to be alone together with no other pressing duties.  
Reports on the results of this experiment were of course not made public.  Personally, I would not be surprised to find out "Oops, we relaxed and fell asleep" because it was the only break in their busy pre-programmed week long schedule.  

As for generation ships … we have to figure out, build, and operate a closed ecosystem (in a stays-put station or asteroid or something) first.  The theory looks good, but the practice has a long way to catch up.  Maybe my grandchildren will see the ship's keel-laying ceremony.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 28, 2019)

Hussar said:


> It has been done.  Robert Reed and Stephen Baxter both have short stories along these lines.  Alastair Reynolds too IIRC.  But, I'm sorry, I can't for the life of me remember the titles.




Harry Turtledove as well. They invented ftl after a sublight ship was sent out.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Jan 28, 2019)

Hussar said:


> It has been done.  Robert Reed and Stephen Baxter both have short stories along these lines.  Alastair Reynolds too IIRC.  But, I'm sorry, I can't for the life of me remember the titles.




I think Larry Niven did this as well.  Many of his original Known Space worlds were colonized with generation or sleeper ships, but I vaguely remember one where they took so long that an FTL ship eventually caught up (and his Protector aliens never developed FTL).


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## Ryujin (Jan 28, 2019)

I think that a generation ship would be possible, given current technology. It would, however, require a massive planet-wide effort to accomplish. We have reasonably good prototyping tech that could be adapted to produce replacement parts for many items. A large enough, segmented biosphere would permit failure of some, with recovery possible from others. Rotational 'gravity' would help to avoid muscle and bone atrophy. Nuclear power for drive, with slow and constant radial acceleration, should be possible at current tech, assuming something more efficient doesn't turn up soon. (Seems the EM drive is a non starter.)

If you wait for the next big jump in tech then nothing ever gets done.


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## lowkey13 (Jan 28, 2019)

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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> No main reason is we don't have a planet we can go to followed by we don't know what the effects of long term exposure to zero/low g would be. IDK if we have artificial gravity.
> 
> It also takes 12 years to get to the edge of the solar system. We would need some sort of nuclear/fusion power, some sort of artifical gravity and a planet that is confirmed that can support human life. Then we would also have to deal with alien microbes if we got there.



Isn't the whole point of a generation ship to just go out and explore but not necessarily having a destination?


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## lowkey13 (Jan 28, 2019)

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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

Either way is possible... But humanity still kills humanity over stupid things like skin color and religion and tend to be generally apathetic about mostly everything.    I don't see us pulling together as a species long enough to really pull it off.  Too bad I won't live long enough to see it happen but I would really love to be proven wrong.


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## lowkey13 (Jan 28, 2019)

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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Those are great points re: humanity.
> 
> I think the other big problem (at least in relation to, say, the view from the 1950s) is that we have found that space is a .... hard problem. At least for manned exploration.
> 
> Whereas biotech, computers, etc. have been easier. Probably more likely at this point that our upcoming AI overlords will be ones exploring the cosmos.



IF we last that long as a species.....


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## Ryujin (Jan 28, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> So I was going to write something similar to this.
> 
> Many people have made good points about how Generation Ships ("GS") aren't feasible from either a technological or an economic perspective, which doesn't necessarily answer the question of whether we could build a GS.
> 
> ...




Good point about the Space Race. When the decision was made, the tech began to be created in order to meet the needs.


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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

Ryujin said:


> Good point about the Space Race. When the decision was made, the tech began to be created in order to meet the needs.



If we pulled our collective heads out of the universe's @$$... We could do anything... Literally anything.

Sent from my LG-M327 using EN World mobile app


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## lowkey13 (Jan 28, 2019)

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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

We might even make that a reality if humanity wasn't so petty and hateful over things that are ultimately unimportant.. 

Sent from my LG-M327 using EN World mobile app


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## lowkey13 (Jan 28, 2019)

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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

Definitely gnomes.... And dirty diapers of Poopocalyptic proportions!


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## Deset Gled (Jan 28, 2019)

Ryujin said:


> We have reasonably good prototyping tech that could be adapted to produce replacement parts for many items.




I think this is a misconception, and probably the one that is most likely to make a generation ship impossible for some time.  So many things have no simple method of manufacturing at a small scale.  Computer chips, optics, any chemical process that's not 100% reversible (which, from an engineering standpoint, is all of them).  Also, you have to keep in mind that many prototyping techniques simply aren't as good as traditional methods; you can 3D print a new bushing or o-ring, but if that replacement isn't the right kind of PTFE or Viton is it really worth it?  And what happens when the prototyping machine breaks?

Unfortunately, you always need spare parts and materials.  Determining the MTBF for components and how to deal with spare parts is a huge problem for the Mars missions right now.  The more complex a system is, the bigger the spare parts list become.  This is so much of an issue, they are actually considering giving up on an oxygen generating system.  The mass of spare parts needed for the air system is more mass than simply taking enough air with you.

For any time in the near future, the best way to develop a Generation Ship is to actually send a Generation Fleet, and have them cannibalize themselves (technologically, and probably literally, too) until there's only one left.


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## lowkey13 (Jan 28, 2019)

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## Shasarak (Jan 28, 2019)

BornChaoticNeutral said:


> We might even make that a reality if humanity wasn't so petty and hateful over things that are ultimately unimportant..




Well we can not achieve anything if we just sit around singing Kumbaya to each other either.

It takes a bit of honey and vinegar to get things done.


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## BornChaoticNeutral (Jan 28, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Well we can not achieve anything if we just sit around singing Kumbaya to each other either.
> 
> It takes a bit of honey and vinegar to get things done.



No argument there.. . but there's a difference between what you're talking about and what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about racism, homophobia, spirituality etc..  Things that ultimately don't matter except to the person in question.  Humans fight over religion, we fight over skin color, who a person chooses to love. Until that problem is solved we would never be able to find the cohesiveness to work together on a project of that scope... Never mind being able to spend generations living in a contained environment.  As a species, we have a lot of work to do to even be able to consider it..  Do I think its a bad thing?? Hell no.  Do I think its possible? Maybe.


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## Ryujin (Jan 29, 2019)

Deset Gled said:


> I think this is a misconception, and probably the one that is most likely to make a generation ship impossible for some time.  So many things have no simple method of manufacturing at a small scale.  Computer chips, optics, any chemical process that's not 100% reversible (which, from an engineering standpoint, is all of them).  Also, you have to keep in mind that many prototyping techniques simply aren't as good as traditional methods; you can 3D print a new bushing or o-ring, but if that replacement isn't the right kind of PTFE or Viton is it really worth it?  And what happens when the prototyping machine breaks?
> 
> Unfortunately, you always need spare parts and materials.  Determining the MTBF for components and how to deal with spare parts is a huge problem for the Mars missions right now.  The more complex a system is, the bigger the spare parts list become.  This is so much of an issue, they are actually considering giving up on an oxygen generating system.  The mass of spare parts needed for the air system is more mass than simply taking enough air with you.
> 
> For any time in the near future, the best way to develop a Generation Ship is to actually send a Generation Fleet, and have them cannibalize themselves (technologically, and probably literally, too) until there's only one left.




I did qualify my statement with the word "many." Obviously things like drive components wouldn't be the sort of thing that you could turn out with an FDM style printer. Many could be handled with other technology like SLS for metals, or SLA with finer precision. Refinements on fine laser sintering could be used for larger power semiconductors. We're talking about a city-sized ship, so clean rooms and semiconductor production facilities aren't out of the question. A Mars mission isn't throwing a city into space.


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## Shasarak (Jan 29, 2019)

BornChaoticNeutral said:


> No argument there.. . but there's a difference between what you're talking about and what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about racism, homophobia, spirituality etc..  Things that ultimately don't matter except to the person in question.  Humans fight over religion, we fight over skin color, who a person chooses to love. Until that problem is solved we would never be able to find the cohesiveness to work together on a project of that scope... Never mind being able to spend generations living in a contained environment.  As a species, we have a lot of work to do to even be able to consider it..  Do I think its a bad thing?? Hell no.  Do I think its possible? Maybe.




Except that we always have to balance the individuals rights to the individuals responsibilities to the group.  This is not an easy question and we can not just tell people to get over it or get better.

And if you are jamming people into a generation ship then do you really want proven problematic differences between them? For a start you would want to have a good genetic mix, you would want to exclude anyone with genetic, mental  or health weaknesses.  You would want to make sure that everyone could speak a common language.  Maybe the Military would be the best way to run it to get some discipline baked in from the start.


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## Samloyal23 (Jan 29, 2019)

BornChaoticNeutral said:


> Isn't the whole point of a generation ship to just go out and explore but not necessarily having a destination?




That is part of it. Exploration for the sake of exploration. I can see a generation ship setting up several colonies in different star systems when it stops at a planet to refuel and stock up on supplies before finally needing to stop exploring and settle down to stay.


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## Eltab (Jan 29, 2019)

High-tech computers may not be coming along for the trip, in all the applications we use them now.  OTOH, a few tons of iron ore in the cargo hold means a blacksmith and an architect can create new low-tech parts to cover minimum necessary functionality when the high-tech parts break down and cannot be repaired / replaced.  The inside of the generation ship may look more like _Titanic_ than like Kirk's TV _Enterprise_ by the time it arrives at its destination.


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## Eltab (Jan 29, 2019)

BornChaoticNeutral said:


> Until that problem is solved we would never be able to find the cohesiveness to work together on a project of that scope... Never mind being able to spend generations living in a contained environment.



Humans are going to bring human nature along with them for the trip.  Both 'fully human' and 'merely human'.

Maybe the Age of Sail offers a place to start, to work out how a bunch of people in a confined space are going to get along with each other.


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## Legatus Legionis (Jan 29, 2019)

.


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## Samloyal23 (Jan 29, 2019)

A question I have not seen touched on, how many people do you send? You need to be genetically diverse and have a sustainable population for a colony, but you have limited space on the ship. Also, what about pets and livestock? Do you take Fido? Do you bring a herd of sheep for milk and wool? Even if you find a habitable planet, the chemistry of any plants or animals you find there may not be compatible with human needs.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 29, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> A question I have not seen touched on, how many people do you send? You need to be genetically diverse and have a sustainable population for a colony, but you have limited space on the ship. Also, what about pets and livestock? Do you take Fido? Do you bring a herd of sheep for milk and wool? Even if you find a habitable planet, the chemistry of any plants or animals you find there may not be compatible with human needs.




Vegetarian and synthetic meat would be the best.


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## Hussar (Jan 29, 2019)

Wonder what the effects of that diet would be after fifteen or twenty generations. 

Hope your synthetic meat is absolutely perfect.


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## Samloyal23 (Jan 29, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Vegetarian and synthetic meat would be the best.




Even if you are vegetarian, if you are going to build a civilization you will need animals for some things. You may need Earth insects to pollinate crops. Eggs and milk produce B-vitamins that cannot be found in plants.


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## MarkB (Jan 29, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> A question I have not seen touched on, how many people do you send? You need to be genetically diverse and have a sustainable population for a colony, but you have limited space on the ship. Also, what about pets and livestock? Do you take Fido? Do you bring a herd of sheep for milk and wool? Even if you find a habitable planet, the chemistry of any plants or animals you find there may not be compatible with human needs.




One option would be to have all reproduction aboard ship and for the first several generations in the colony be via artificial implantation from a genetically diverse 'seed bank' of frozen fertilised ova gathered from across the world.

Going with that option, it would make some sense to go with, and maintain, an all female crew throughout the voyage.


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## Ryujin (Jan 29, 2019)

Legatus_Legionis said:


> Has anyone recall/seen "The StarLost" (1973)
> 
> According to imdb, it had 16 episodes, with Walter Koenig (Chekov from Star Trek) in 2 episodes.
> [video=youtube;UMAi6u4Ps5A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMAi6u4Ps5A[/video]
> ...




Well they more explained how a generation ship would go to hell. The stars played characters from an agrarian dome that fell into superstition and religion, forgetting that they were even on a ship at all. Walter Koenig played an alien whose ship crashed into the generation ship, in a few episodes. Keir Dellea, one of the leads, was most famous for playing Dave Bowman (The Starchild) in "2001: A Space Odyssey." The show was typically hokey produced in Canada fare, but not bad for its time.

So yeah, I saw it in its original run


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 29, 2019)

Eltab said:


> NASA sent up a married couple on one of the last Shuttle flights, and made a point of allocating them some time to be alone together with no other pressing duties.
> Reports on the results of this experiment were of course not made public.  Personally, I would not be surprised to find out "Oops, we *relaxed and fell asleep*" because it was the *only break* in their *busy *pre-programmed *week *long schedule.



Are you a parent?

Mustrum "I am not, but I know young parents" Ridcully


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## Tonguez (Jan 30, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> A question I have not seen touched on, how many people do you send? You need to be genetically diverse and have a sustainable population for a colony, but you have limited space on the ship. Also, what about pets and livestock? Do you take Fido? Do you bring a herd of sheep for milk and wool? Even if you find a habitable planet, the chemistry of any plants or animals you find there may not be compatible with human needs.




The calculation has been done by the University of Florida for a space trip of 200 years, (eight to 10 generations) and suggest a minimum number of 160 people are needed to maintain a stable population  Apparently that yields 10 potential partners per person and avoids both inbreeding and genetic drift.

However the study also suggest that the number could be halved to 80 if women are asked to wait until after 35 before having children (this increases the gap between generations but increases medical risk from pregnancy)

All crew members would also need to be genetically screened prior to inclusion to ensure no unwanted recessive factors affecting future population health.

The other big issue raised by the study was Infighting which rises in small isolated communities with no way to get 'out' - if one person does wrong how does the community survive any potential conflict and faction-forming 



Samloyal23 said:


> Even if you are vegetarian, if you are going to build a civilization you will need animals for some things. You may need Earth insects to pollinate crops. Eggs and milk produce B-vitamins that cannot be found in plants.




meat can be grown from real animal cells and fortified with b-vitamins, so as long as they have a viable source of animal cells preserved then they can keep growing viable meat (lets ignore the likely soylent developments)

Having a beehive colony on board might be an option for both pollination of crops, honey and 'meat', I wonder too if worms or even microbial sources could be used to develop meat alternatives (apparently the Kombucha scoby is edible though I've never tried it).


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## Hussar (Jan 31, 2019)

Only problem with that is, 200 years won't get us anywhere.  When talking about generation ships traveling between stars, we're talking about 2000 years - anything that big would be far, far to massive to accelerate to any appreciable degree of C.  Which then means that genetic drift becomes a serious issue.  Never minding linguistic drift.  What happens when the crew can no longer read their technical manuals or labels on the reactor?  

Although, to be fair, insects as a source of protein would likely be the easiest way to go.


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## Zardnaar (Jan 31, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Only problem with that is, 200 years won't get us anywhere.  When talking about generation ships traveling between stars, we're talking about 2000 years - anything that big would be far, far to massive to accelerate to any appreciable degree of C.  Which then means that genetic drift becomes a serious issue.  Never minding linguistic drift.  What happens when the crew can no longer read their technical manuals or labels on the reactor?
> 
> Although, to be fair, insects as a source of protein would likely be the easiest way to go.




Linguistic drift can be minimized with things like audio recordings and dictionarys. They haven't existed for most of the last 2000 years.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 31, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Only problem with that is, 200 years won't get us anywhere.  When talking about generation ships traveling between stars, we're talking about 2000 years - anything that big would be far, far to massive to accelerate to any appreciable degree of C.  Which then means that genetic drift becomes a serious issue.  Never minding linguistic drift.  What happens when the crew can no longer read their technical manuals or labels on the reactor?
> 
> Although, to be fair, insects as a source of protein would likely be the easiest way to go.




Well why would they no longer be able to read their manuals and labels if every generation has to do read them? The language drift shouldn't be a big deal if they constantly have to use the "original" language. At least no the written language. The spoken might differ more strongly.


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## Tonguez (Jan 31, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Well why would they no longer be able to read their manuals and labels if every generation has to do read them? The language drift shouldn't be a big deal if they constantly have to use the "original" language. At least no the written language. The spoken might differ more strongly.




now I'm imagining a strange future when the Ships Manuals are treated like Torah Scrolls and every sleep cycle the crew gather for prayer as the 'Engineers' chant the Tech-Specs and Standard Operating Procedures in the original language of ancient earth

Amene


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## Janx (Jan 31, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Well why would they no longer be able to read their manuals and labels if every generation has to do read them? The language drift shouldn't be a big deal if they constantly have to use the "original" language. At least no the written language. The spoken might differ more strongly.




I would think the written word is what helps restrain language drift as it creates a level-set of comprehension and presentation of the language.

I wonder if anybody's done any science on that.,  literate cultures vs. illiterate cultures and language drift.

side note: why would we assume nobody writes books on the generation ship.  Memoir, fiction, non-fiction.
Why would we assume nobody rewrites the manual. I mean Voyage redesigned an entire freaking shuttle.  Whos to say somebody wasn't bored and thought they could write it better (and thus it keeps up with language changes and/or loses meaning/accuracy).


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## lowkey13 (Jan 31, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Ryujin (Jan 31, 2019)

Though previously studied cultures didn't really have audio and video recordings to go along with the written works, and help keep them on track. If you have a collection of technical works that you have to continually reference, for example as a means of training successive generations on ship's maintenance, does that help to curb drift?


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## Janx (Jan 31, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Linguistic drift can be minimized with things like audio recordings and dictionarys. They haven't existed for most of the last 2000 years.




"Son, if you don't stop talking like a spacer, you'll end up working the 'sect Dome instead of Geneering like me.  Do you want that?"


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## Janx (Jan 31, 2019)

Ryujin said:


> Though previously studied cultures didn't really have audio and video recordings to go along with the written works, and help keep them on track. If you have a collection of technical works that you have to continually reference, for example as a means of training successive generations on ship's maintenance, does that help to curb drift?




That's my thinking.  The people running the ship have to stay versant in the language of the manuals and training videos.  They're going to raise their kids with that same language and videos.

The drift would be more likely in people not in those jobs, probably a lower class.  Much as we see with how people in business/upper class (aka job interview in a suit language) vs. the commoner.

I would bet those language differences would restrict class mobility for the simple point of if you can't talk like an engineer, you can't get the engineer job.


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## lowkey13 (Jan 31, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Shasarak (Jan 31, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Well why would they no longer be able to read their manuals and labels if every generation has to do read them? The language drift shouldn't be a big deal if they constantly have to use the "original" language. At least no the written language. The spoken might differ more strongly.




I think that you are right.  Take a real world example, we can still learn Latin even though no one speaks it anymore.  Latin is more then 2000 years old and it is not even the oldest language.


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## Tonguez (Jan 31, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> I don't think that I necessarily agree with that, in terms of overall communication.
> 
> Instead, if this is a long-term (multi-generation, 100s or 1000s of years), it is more likely that the originating language will end up seeming more like a dead language, akin to Latin or Old English, and its use will be specialized jargon, but not used in common speech.
> 
> Also? As much as I would love the idea of the people that kept the ship running being the upper (or ruling) class, more likely they will be the put-upon middle class.




Yep, that’s what prompted my image of the Engineers priesthood recital of the ancient manuals to the faithful crew - they’re not the ruling class (that belongs to Bridge or maybe Security) but they are privileged because they know the Codes and Protocols


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## Hussar (Jan 31, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Linguistic drift can be minimized with things like audio recordings and dictionarys. They haven't existed for most of the last 2000 years.




True, but, language drifts very quickly.  Compare Parisian French with Quebecois - two languages that started out the same, but, have drifted considerably in just a couple of hundred years.

And, what would really drive linguistic drift is specialization.  The engineers might be able to read the technical manuals of their particular field, but, have no idea how to read the landing procedures manual.  Or how to repair the hydroponics bay.  That sort of thing.  Technical jargon makes linguistic drift even worse.

And, sure, we can learn Latin, but, A.  There's no guarantee that what you learn is actually correct and B.  we can learn Latin because we have massive libraries of a couple of thousand years of translations to compare to.  Again, in a small, closed society, likely stratified by work type, it's entirely possible that parts of the ship won't be able to communicate with each other.  

I mean, good grief, it's hard enough talking to that IT guy now.  Imagine after 500 years of linguistic drift.


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## Tonguez (Feb 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> True, but, language drifts very quickly.  Compare Parisian French with Quebecois - two languages that started out the same, but, have drifted considerably in just a couple of hundred years.
> 
> And, what would really drive linguistic drift is specialization.  The engineers might be able to read the technical manuals of their particular field, but, have no idea how to read the landing procedures manual.  Or how to repair the hydroponics bay.  That sort of thing.  Technical jargon makes linguistic drift even worse.
> 
> ...




But both the hydroponics manuals and engineering manuals are written in the same language as are a vast database of downloadable books, videos and music. Indeed it is very much like when church Latin was a Lingua Franca and I think the differences would be more akin to Bronx v Scouse v Hong Kong English


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## Hussar (Feb 1, 2019)

But, in your three examples, these are all contemporary languages. Compare Bronx English to say 12th century English and you’d have a better comparison. 

Or put it this way;  how many of us can read Chaucer without any cliff notes?


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## Tonguez (Feb 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> But, in your three examples, these are all contemporary languages. Compare Bronx English to say 12th century English and you’d have a better comparison.
> 
> Or put it this way;  how many of us can read Chaucer without any cliff notes?




yeah, thats a good point when it comes to common crew, but we do need to account for the lack of widespread communication and social media from Chaucers time to now, so I think the effect would be less pronunced.  

I'd expect some greater standardisation in dialects especially among the 'educated/technicians' in much the way that Latin was used as the language of scholars in Europe right up to the 19th century in most subjects (including for instance Newton's Principia) 

so while there may be huge variance in common vulgar dialects I do expect there to be a single common tongue used by all technical crew and taught as standard curriculum in the pods


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## Hussar (Feb 1, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> yeah, thats a good point when it comes to common crew, but we do need to account for the lack of widespread communication and social media from Chaucers time to now, so I think the effect would be less pronunced.
> 
> I'd expect some greater standardisation in dialects especially among the 'educated/technicians' in much the way that Latin was used as the language of scholars in Europe right up to the 19th century in most subjects (including for instance Newton's Principia)
> 
> so while there may be huge variance in common vulgar dialects I do expect there to be a single common tongue used by all technical crew and taught as standard curriculum in the pods




There isn't a single standard tongue used by technical crew now.    Try getting a botanist to discuss growing stuff with a computer systems analyst.  They might be speaking the same language, but, beyond a few basic points, they have no idea what the other is talking about.

Now, stratify a population for a dozens of generations and imagine how little they would actually be able to communicate.  Never minding just how much language would be lost due to the paucity of the environment.  No concepts linked to nature, weather, animals, most colors, and a whole host of other things would survive beyond a couple of generations.  

Imagine trying to understand, say, A Song of Fire and Ice when you have no idea what snow is.  Never minding no idea what all those foods are that he goes on about.  Horse?  Dragon?  What do you mean an animal bigger than a house cat?  That's just too weird.  Oceans and sailing ships?  What are those?


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## Ryujin (Feb 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> There isn't a single standard tongue used by technical crew now.    Try getting a botanist to discuss growing stuff with a computer systems analyst.  They might be speaking the same language, but, beyond a few basic points, they have no idea what the other is talking about.
> 
> Now, stratify a population for a dozens of generations and imagine how little they would actually be able to communicate.  Never minding just how much language would be lost due to the paucity of the environment.  No concepts linked to nature, weather, animals, most colors, and a whole host of other things would survive beyond a couple of generations.
> 
> Imagine trying to understand, say, A Song of Fire and Ice when you have no idea what snow is.  Never minding no idea what all those foods are that he goes on about.  Horse?  Dragon?  What do you mean an animal bigger than a house cat?  That's just too weird.  Oceans and sailing ships?  What are those?




Possible, if there is actually hard stratification between various groups within the ship. Far less likely if, say, the 'crew' goes home to their arcology dome every night after work. I would posit that sort of mixing would be necessary in order to maintain the gene pool and would be somehow codified into existence. If you start having the engineering crew, pilots, navigators, farmers, etc. all sitting in their own little areas and never interacting, you could have far more serious issues than just language drift.

It also depends upon just how large the population is. A couple of hundred, with millions of hours worth of written and spoken language, and language drift is minimized. Hard stratification is unlikely. Twenty thousand? Perhaps a different story, but I'm not sure.

And Chaucer or Shakespeare aren't exactly examples of how the language was commonly spoken, even in their own times


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## dragoner (Feb 2, 2019)

Beyond sending generation ships out to other stars, I think they might be able to be used to explore, and settle the Solar System, there could be a O'Neill Cylinder or Bernal Sphere with the population of a small city, riding the cycler orbit.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 2, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> Yep, that’s what prompted my image of the Engineers priesthood recital of the ancient manuals to the faithful crew - they’re not the ruling class (that belongs to Bridge or maybe Security) but they are privileged because they know the Codes and Protocols



However, I am not sure there would be an "Engineer" priesthood or a ruling class. We know from Earth already that class systems suck. They don't actually lead to competent people at the right spot. 

I would expect that pretty much everyone aboard the Generation Ship would have duties to fulfill, and everyone would to read manuals and teaching materials, or view instructional videos for _something_.
And many probably have to be able to fill in multiple roles, because they need to have a good fault-tolerance. If something goes wrong and, say, and an engineering crew is blown out of a hull breach, they need people to fill in quickly. 

In everyone's childhood, people would need to study a lot and make aptitude tests to figure out what jobs they are best suited to - of course, there is no absolute guarantee they can work in the job they are best suited for, because there are only so many spots for each job and all the jobs on the ship need to be filled, but they'll try to get people close. 
Though it might be that people will also rotate jobs, to avoid people getting bored, and to ensure that everyone is qualified to handle multiple tasks in case the need for a specific job increases (or an important job becomes involuntarily vacant, to use an euphemism for death, sickness or dismemberment)


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## Eltab (Feb 4, 2019)

How many languages are written in Roman letters and Arabic numerals?  Being unable to read the technical manuals will be more a function of them being written 'too dense to understand' in the first place, rather than language drift during the trip.

Webster (of Webster's Dictionary fame) was trying to standardize both spelling _and pronunciation_, to provide Americans with a common language.  He failed at the latter but succeeded at the former.

Tangent:
One way to provide a body to fill every job would be a caste system, like Hindu India.  I don't know if there is a minimum size of society to make that function.  And you do get the problem that the inherited position is filled by somebody who doesn't like the job and performs it poorly.


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## Ryujin (Feb 4, 2019)

Eltab said:


> How many languages are written in Roman letters and Arabic numerals?  Being unable to read the technical manuals will be more a function of them being written 'too dense to understand' in the first place, rather than language drift during the trip.
> 
> Webster (of Webster's Dictionary fame) was trying to standardize both spelling _and pronunciation_, to provide Americans with a common language.  He failed at the latter but succeeded at the former.
> 
> ...




Or a simple hierarchical system like military rank. I think that would be more likely.


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## dragoner (Feb 4, 2019)

IIRC, high literacy rates forestalls linguistic drift. As far as crew goes, they will all be heavily cross trained, multi-disciplinary, because otherwise if you lost a crew section, everyone would die. This is also big in business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-training_(business)


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## Umbran (Feb 4, 2019)

dragoner said:


> IIRC, high literacy rates forestalls linguistic drift. As far as crew goes, they will all be heavily cross trained, multi-disciplinary, because otherwise if you lost a crew section, everyone would die. This is also big in business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-training_(business)




If you are in space, and you lose an entire crew section at once, that's probably the result of a catastrophic event that is apt to kill everyone else anyway.


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## Shasarak (Feb 4, 2019)

Language drift is an interesting phenomena.  I have seen one suggestion that it can happen because the whole concept of language is too big for a human to contain and in teaching the next generation you loose parts of it.


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## Ryujin (Feb 4, 2019)

Umbran said:


> If you are in space, and you lose an entire crew section at once, that's probably the result of a catastrophic event that is apt to kill everyone else anyway.




But lesser incidents would become survivable.


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## MarkB (Feb 5, 2019)

Umbran said:


> If you are in space, and you lose an entire crew section at once, that's probably the result of a catastrophic event that is apt to kill everyone else anyway.




Not necessarily. Life support failures come to mind. In one crew section the CO2 sensors have malfunctioned, which only becomes apparent after a defective replacement CO2 scrubber is installed and one dormitory's crew goes to sleep that night and never wakes up.


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## Hussar (Feb 5, 2019)

I think that the issue that people tend to forget is the effects of deep time.  Again, we're talking generation ships - so, we're looking at a thousand years,_ at least_ and quite likely more than that.

How much do you have in common with your 1000 year previous ancestor?  Culturally?  Linguistically?  We're talking understanding gaps that would be virtually unbridgeable.  In a generation ship, with such a huge paucity of referent points, language would morph almost instantly.  Vast swaths of concepts would vanish virtually overnight - weather, animals, anything to do with nature in general.  Sky blue?  WTF is a sky to someone eight or ten generations removed?  Sea green?  What's a sea?  

Sure, you could have pictures and whatnot, but, within a couple of generations, those images would have zero significance to people.  A Butterfly Valve?  What's a butterfly?  On and on and on.  

As it stands, if you could go back in time to talk to someone who shared your language from 1000 years ago, you could barely communicate.  Over there, there are ak.  Oh, no, I have red eyen.  English, going back that far, had separate words for every plural, like we have child-children today.  The plural S came from the viking settlers.  You really can't directly speak to someone that far back.  The language is just too different.


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## Ryujin (Feb 5, 2019)

Hussar said:


> I think that the issue that people tend to forget is the effects of deep time.  Again, we're talking generation ships - so, we're looking at a thousand years,_ at least_ and quite likely more than that.
> 
> How much do you have in common with your 1000 year previous ancestor?  Culturally?  Linguistically?  We're talking understanding gaps that would be virtually unbridgeable.  In a generation ship, with such a huge paucity of referent points, language would morph almost instantly.  Vast swaths of concepts would vanish virtually overnight - weather, animals, anything to do with nature in general.  Sky blue?  WTF is a sky to someone eight or ten generations removed?  Sea green?  What's a sea?
> 
> ...




Due to migration, cultural separation, and lack of ability to communicate over distances. These factors would not be an issue on a generation ship. Sure, some concepts wouldn't be understood over time, but with proximity and a spoken/video record, and stable technology, I don't believe that drift would be anywhere near as large as some of you seem to think.


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## Hussar (Feb 5, 2019)

But the thing is, even with video records, you have to actually watch them. Why would I watch a nature documentary, say, about things that have absolutely no context for me?

Imagine trying to understand about a whale when you’ve never seen a body of water larger than a puddle. And that paucity of environment would have huge implications on language. 

For the same reason that most people couldn’t tell you anything about the Crusades. None of that has any real context to most people. 

Give you an easy example because it’s coming up in a month or so. What does the Shrove in Shrove Tuesday mean?


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## Ryujin (Feb 5, 2019)

Hussar said:


> But the thing is, even with video records, you have to actually watch them. Why would I watch a nature documentary, say, about things that have absolutely no context for me?
> 
> Imagine trying to understand about a whale when you’ve never seen a body of water larger than a puddle. And that paucity of environment would have huge implications on language.
> 
> ...




Not all that relevant. Virtually everyone would must needs have some function on ship. Even children. As a result they would maintain the language that they do use. I wouldn't call the dropping of unused terms drift. I'd call it a lack of vocabulary. The words, however, still exist and are accessible in a very real way.

As far as Shrove, I'm going to absolve myself of stating a defintion


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## Hussar (Feb 5, 2019)

Actually, on a generation ship, so much of the ship's functions would be automated anyway that most of the human crew would be nothing but passengers.  Why would you want to trust maintenance to humans?  

Something along the lines of Wall-E would be pretty plausible.


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## Ryujin (Feb 5, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Actually, on a generation ship, so much of the ship's functions would be automated anyway that most of the human crew would be nothing but passengers.  Why would you want to trust maintenance to humans?
> 
> Something along the lines of Wall-E would be pretty plausible.




Because at some point you would inevitably need to trust to human techs, because even the automated systems would need repair. Remember The Starlost.


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## Umbran (Feb 5, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Actually, on a generation ship, so much of the ship's functions would be automated anyway that most of the human crew would be nothing but passengers.  Why would you want to trust maintenance to humans?




Because perpetually-self-maintaining machines are slightly more mythical than generation ships.

And because on a generation ship, you probably want creation of new technologies to meet unforeseen circumstances.  Human technology hasn't stayed static on the century timescale since we left the stone age.  Don't design your ship expecting it to stall.


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## MarkB (Feb 5, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Actually, on a generation ship, so much of the ship's functions would be automated anyway that most of the human crew would be nothing but passengers.  Why would you want to trust maintenance to humans?
> 
> Something along the lines of Wall-E would be pretty plausible.




The main reason would be to keep them feeling busy and useful. Let's face it, the least plausible part of Wall-E is the idea that those people who'd spent their entire lives for multiple generations living in luxurious passivity would be in any way prepared, equipped or motivated to claim and develop a world at the end of their journey.


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## Hussar (Feb 5, 2019)

And thus, the inherent flaw in generation ships.  The human crew is just so much cattle being shuttled to the next destination.  Unnecessary by and large.  Most of the work that would need human attention would either be extremely specialized, which means only a handful of people would know how to do it or largely pointless busy work just to keep people from going stir crazy.

Unless you are expecting every single person aboard to be an expert at coding thousand year old computer systems, as well as being plumbers, electrical engineers, pilots, botanists, as well as being competent at every other job on the ship.  It's just not feasible.


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## MarkB (Feb 5, 2019)

Hussar said:


> And thus, the inherent flaw in generation ships.  The human crew is just so much cattle being shuttled to the next destination.  Unnecessary by and large.  Most of the work that would need human attention would either be extremely specialized, which means only a handful of people would know how to do it or largely pointless busy work just to keep people from going stir crazy.
> 
> Unless you are expecting every single person aboard to be an expert at coding thousand year old computer systems, as well as being plumbers, electrical engineers, pilots, botanists, as well as being competent at every other job on the ship.  It's just not feasible.




Agreed, as a general principle. The engineering challenges in creating a generation ship are great, but I tend to feel that it's the social-engineering challenges that would ultimately defeat it. Hopefully, some form of workable suspended animation would be the way to work around that issue - as you say, there's really only limited use for having a conscious crew aboard the ship during its actual journey.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 6, 2019)

I don't believe a generation ship would be fully automated, though. 

You have a human crew aboard. Why waste even more resources on complicated robots that also need maintenance if you could juts use the people that are already aboard?
You need to supply the crew with air, food, water and heat already. If you add tons of maintenance robots, you now need spare parts, repair tools for repairing the robots and what not, in addition to the spare parts and repair tools these robots would need to repair the ship itself.

Humans also have the advantage that their ability to self-repair and self-replicate to compensate damage and losses isn't some hypothetical scientific or engineering advancement away- it's what have, right now, and we have had since we exist. Likewise, our abiity to improvise and devise tools to adapt our environment to work for us doesn't require some new AI breakthrough. We can already do that, right now, and we've been doing that for millenia. 

There are certainly tasks you will use robots or drones for, but it would be a complete waste of resources to let them do everythig, or even the majority, of tasks aboard the ship. Even the possibility of having robots that could do all that without steady human intervention is hypothetical.


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## Samloyal23 (Feb 6, 2019)

The amount of time planned for the trip, the number of people going, and how homogeneous the population is, are going to vastly change the potential for linguistic drift. I can read novels by Mark Twain with no trouble at all, but cannot understand some modern rap lyrics. Strict, universal, consistent education goes a long way to work against linguistic drift. There is also the fact that you have a captive population. No one is leaving before the ship arrives at its destination. So everyone is going to hear the same language on the street, see the same news media, read the same books and magazines, and rub shoulders with the same group of people throughout their lives. I do not think a journey of less than 200-300 years would lead to any significant linguistic drift.

Another issue I have not seen discussed is what to do with the people who die. Do you go for the navy style burial at sea, launching the coffin into the Void? Compost the dead for use in the garden? Turn them into Soylent Green smoothies for people to slurp down with lunch?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 6, 2019)

I am afraid recycling is really the only way to go here. Everything else would be wasteful. However, one probably would want to ensure that the flesh goes a thorough "recycling" process for health reasons. But maybe there would be a proper burial in earth-like ground, actually, and one might be able to afford to wait a decade or so before removing the remains and putting them in direct use for your generation ship farms or soylent green fabricator. The good thing is that most of the stuff we consume in food, water or air we also release regularly, so not that much material would actually be bound. But throwing stuff away into space seems just too wasteful. (And also kinda macabre, if you imagine that one could trace your starship by following the corpses you threw out...)


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## Legatus Legionis (Feb 7, 2019)

.


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## Tonguez (Feb 7, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I am afraid recycling is really the only way to go here. Everything else would be wasteful. However, one probably would want to ensure that the flesh goes a thorough "recycling" process for health reasons. But maybe there would be a proper burial in earth-like ground, actually, and one might be able to afford to wait a decade or so before removing the remains and putting them in direct use for your generation ship farms or soylent green fabricator. The good thing is that most of the stuff we consume in food, water or air we also release regularly, so not that much material would actually be bound. But throwing stuff away into space seems just too wasteful. (And also kinda macabre, if you imagine that one could trace your starship by following the corpses you threw out...)




Alkaline hydrolysis - dissolution of corpses in water and lye only takes about 10 to 15 hours depending on the weight of the body and the resulting liquid can be recycled directly through the tree farm Any left over bone could be mixed into ceramics and reused


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## MarkB (Feb 7, 2019)

Legatus_Legionis said:


> When it comes to generational ships, why not just cryogenically freeze the crew/colonists instead?




Because that comes with its own technological challenges, which we haven't yet overcome. If/when we do, it would indeed be a more viable option.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 7, 2019)

Legatus_Legionis said:


> When it comes to generational ships, why not just cryogenically freeze the crew/colonists instead?
> 
> (Think S.S. Botany Bay from Star Trek: Original Series).
> 
> This saves on the need/space/weight of food, food production, waste disposal/recycling, oxygen production, etc.




Well, we can't cryogenically freeze people _and _revive them later, so it would defniitely hinder us from doing it _now_. And then it wouldn't be a Generation Ship anymore.


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## Hussar (Feb 8, 2019)

Just as a point - a generation ship won't be travelling for 300 years.  Probably closer to 3000.  You're not going to get anything that massive anywhere near an appreciable percentage of C.  

And, the point about captive populations is an important one.  Sure, your first generation volunteered and trained for the trip.  Probably had to compete against lots of other people to get a place.  But, every generation after the first is essentially slaves.  

Not conducive to a healthy society.


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## Ryujin (Feb 8, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Well, we can't cryogenically freeze people _and _revive them later, so it would defniitely hinder us from doing it _now_. And then it wouldn't be a Generation Ship anymore.




Yup, technically that would then be a "sleeper ship" and you're right, we can't do that now. At least not unless all we want to sent is frogs and salamanders.


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## Tonguez (Feb 8, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Just as a point - a generation ship won't be travelling for 300 years.  Probably closer to 3000.  You're not going to get anything that massive anywhere near an appreciable percentage of C.
> 
> And, the point about captive populations is an important one.  Sure, your first generation volunteered and trained for the trip.  Probably had to compete against lots of other people to get a place.  But, every generation after the first is essentially slaves.
> 
> Not conducive to a healthy society.




most serious theorist on the subject highlight social and psychological stability as one of the major impediments to life in space - humans are adapted to planets and may not be able to cope living long term in a ship in space (even the biodome experiments on earth have broken down due to social tension)


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## Eltab (Feb 8, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Sure, your first generation volunteered and trained for the trip.  Probably had to compete against lots of other people to get a place.  But, every generation after the first is essentially slaves.



The Pilgrims left England for keeps, and discovered that the young generation - which did not have the same experiences (including persecutions) as their parents - was not producing the same spiritual results.  Especially missing were the dramatic 'conversion experiences' which the Pilgrims also used as the test for full membership in the church.  The kids had grown up in a society that had only one church available, and did not have to make a major life decision to join it.

I wonder what cultural features a generation ship crew will discover their kids are not impressed with, and what will draw the kids' attention / enthusiasm instead.


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## Shasarak (Feb 8, 2019)

How does being born on a Generation ship make you a slave?  That is like the Indian guy suing his parents because they did not have his consent to be born.

It just gives Millennials a bad name.


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## Hussar (Feb 8, 2019)

Eltab said:


> The Pilgrims left England for keeps, and discovered that the young generation - which did not have the same experiences (including persecutions) as their parents - was not producing the same spiritual results.  Especially missing were the dramatic 'conversion experiences' which the Pilgrims also used as the test for full membership in the church.  The kids had grown up in a society that had only one church available, and did not have to make a major life decision to join it.
> 
> I wonder what cultural features a generation ship crew will discover their kids are not impressed with, and what will draw the kids' attention / enthusiasm instead.




Well, that's perhaps not the best example.  The Pilgrims wouldn't care one whit about the morality of forcing subsequent generations into a given life considering their religious beliefs.  After all, the children of Pilgrims are also the chosen and are the only ones going to Heaven.  Where you happened to live wasn't really a consideration.  

But, also, within a couple of generations, the descendants of pilgrims had a multitude of life choices, including returning to Europe if they so wanted.



Shasarak said:


> How does being born on a Generation ship make you a slave?  That is like the Indian guy suing his parents because they did not have his consent to be born.
> 
> It just gives Millennials a bad name.




You are consigning thousands of people to a single life that they cannot ever leave.  Not only that, but, they MUST conform to life on the ship whether they want to or not.  What do you do with those who want to return to Earth?  With those who don't want to be on a generation ship, forced into labor not of their choosing?  

The moral implications of something like this are pretty staggering when you think about it.  You are locking people into a choice, thousands of people mind you, that they had no say in whatsoever.  And everyone one of those later generations MUST adhere to shipboard rules, rules that will force people into specific labor, into specific roles.

In what way is that not slavery?


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## Shasarak (Feb 9, 2019)

Hussar said:


> You are consigning thousands of people to a single life that they cannot ever leave.  Not only that, but, they MUST conform to life on the ship whether they want to or not.  What do you do with those who want to return to Earth?  With those who don't want to be on a generation ship, forced into labor not of their choosing?
> 
> The moral implications of something like this are pretty staggering when you think about it.  You are locking people into a choice, thousands of people mind you, that they had no say in whatsoever.  And everyone one of those later generations MUST adhere to shipboard rules, rules that will force people into specific labor, into specific roles.
> 
> In what way is that not slavery?




If it is slavery then who owns who?


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## Tonguez (Feb 9, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> If it is slavery then who owns who?




Weyland Corporation obviously


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## Hussar (Feb 9, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> If it is slavery then who owns who?




Hrm, you are forced into servitude for life from birth, have zero choice, cannot resign and cannot leave.  In what way is this not slavery?  Not only that, but your children, your children's children and their children as well are also forced into servitude with no recourse.  Oh, you don't want to have a baby with that person?  Sorry, too bad, we need your DNA.  Oh, you're gay?  Again, too bad, we need your DNA.  You don't want to be an engineer?  You want to be an artist?  Too bad, you have no choice since the last person who died so that you could be born was an engineer.  That's what we need.  

Oh, you want to have more children?  Nope, sorry you have no reproductive rights.  No rights to personal freedom.  No rights to religion.  No rights to free speech.  It's unlikely you'd have any rights to self determination.  

How is this not slavery?  It's even more insidious than the usual sort of slavery since slaves on Earth can revolt and be freed.  You will never, ever be free, nor will your children or their children, until, dozens of generations down the line, your decedents manage to reach the destination.  And, even then, they still likely won't be free because they'll be forced to create a new colony, whether they want to or not.


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## Shasarak (Feb 9, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Hrm, you are forced into servitude for life from birth, have zero choice, cannot resign and cannot leave.  In what way is this not slavery?  Not only that, but your children, your children's children and their children as well are also forced into servitude with no recourse.  Oh, you don't want to have a baby with that person?  Sorry, too bad, we need your DNA.  Oh, you're gay?  Again, too bad, we need your DNA.  You don't want to be an engineer?  You want to be an artist?  Too bad, you have no choice since the last person who died so that you could be born was an engineer.  That's what we need.
> 
> Oh, you want to have more children?  Nope, sorry you have no reproductive rights.  No rights to personal freedom.  No rights to religion.  No rights to free speech.  It's unlikely you'd have any rights to self determination.
> 
> How is this not slavery?  It's even more insidious than the usual sort of slavery since slaves on Earth can revolt and be freed.  You will never, ever be free, nor will your children or their children, until, dozens of generations down the line, your decedents manage to reach the destination.  And, even then, they still likely won't be free because they'll be forced to create a new colony, whether they want to or not.




I think you are confusing Culture with Slavery.  The Chinese have birth control without having Slavery.  The Jews have selected breeding without Slavery.  The Muslims do not have any Gay people without Slavery.

I might even agree with some of your points if it was not for this weird fixation on Slavery.  I mean if you had said that Section A raided Section F, captured some people and took them back to work in the Soylent Green mines then I would agree, that would be Slavery.


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## Aeson (Feb 9, 2019)

This ship has gone down fast.


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## Ryujin (Feb 9, 2019)

More technological feudalism, than slavery.


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## Hussar (Feb 9, 2019)

Ah. I see we have arrived at the overly pedantic portion of the discussion. Good to know. 

Note, you could get around this issue by having very large generation ships with populations in the millions. Essentially worlds in their own right. 

Of course once you can do this, the need to leave your own solar system gets a lot less important. Just build what are effectively tiny Dyson spheres and enjoy more or less unlimited population.


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## Shasarak (Feb 9, 2019)

Yeah the overly pedantic portion where words mean what they actually mean and not whatever you say they mean.

I wonder what reaction I wiould get if I went to my Indian friend and told him that his arranged marriage was actually slavery.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 9, 2019)

If we can get past what particular label best fits, certainly, the lives of ship dwellers would be extremely constrained.  Though, this seems to be an ethical/moral issue rather than a feasibility issue.  As a related issue, one of the ways to manage the community would be to flat out lie.

But, what if the ship dwellers didn’t have to work: The ship might be highly automated.  They would have a lot of leisure time, which they can pursue as they choose, within the scope of what is possible in the ship.

When I consider this question, I find myself led to three questions: Can we build a ship that stays functional for the necessary duration, which is likely thousands of years.  (I don’t think this is yet demonstrated.) Can we build an ecosystem that can be maintained for the same duration?  (Our current durations seem to be measured in single digits of years.). Can we keep passengers crew sane and focused on the mission?  (This I have no idea.)

I also find myself asking a stronger question: Could a generation ship _ever_ be built?  There might be basic problems, say, limits on material reliability, or limits on error free transmissions, which make this impossible.

Thx!
TomB


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## Tonguez (Feb 9, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> If we can get past what particular label best fits, certainly, the lives of ship dwellers would be extremely constrained.  Though, this seems to be an ethical/moral issue rather than a feasibility issue.  As a related issue, one of the ways to manage the community would be to flat out lie.
> 
> Can we keep passengers crew sane and focused on the mission?  (This I have no idea.)




That question of sanity is what makes the lives of ship dwellers more than just an ethical issue and raises it to a fundamental issue of survival. Even more so if the the crew are largely leisure focused. DO we get excessive drug and alcohol consumption? what happens if a person steals or if there is a fight and somebody is killed?

It takes only one person to become aberrant for the whole structure to crumble - so do you have a totalitarian system where aberrant behaviour is eliminated immediately? Do you encourage compliance and opiates What happens to political dissent?

WHat happens when two tribes go to war?


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Feb 9, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> WHat happens when two tribes go to war?




You get _Expedition to the Barrier Peaks_.


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## Umbran (Feb 9, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> How does being born on a Generation ship make you a slave?




If you are forced to labor, you are a slave.  On the generation ship, can you choose to pursue your own vocation as you see fit, or choose to not work at all?  If not, you're in some form of servitude to the polity of the ship.

Other things that may need to be done on a generation ship will seem like an abrogation of other rights - forcing you to donate your gametes to make children, for example, isn't slavery, but would likely count as an invasion of the right of privacy to an American.  

An arranged marriage, in and of itself, is not a problem, so long as it is consensual for all parties.  If, upon considering refusing, threats or coercion are applied to *make* people marry, that's forced marriage, and is not legal.


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## Morrus (Feb 9, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Only problem with that is, 200 years won't get us anywhere.  When talking about generation ships traveling between stars, we're talking about 2000 years - anything that big would be far, far to massive to accelerate to any appreciable degree of C.  Which then means that genetic drift becomes a serious issue.  Never minding linguistic drift.  What happens when the crew can no longer read their technical manuals or labels on the reactor?
> 
> Although, to be fair, insects as a source of protein would likely be the easiest way to go.




They continue to update them, just like how we don’t read 1066 manuals for steelmaking. Why wouldn’t they?


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## Shasarak (Feb 9, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> If we can get past what particular label best fits, certainly, the lives of ship dwellers would be extremely constrained.  Though, this seems to be an ethical/moral issue rather than a feasibility issue.  As a related issue, one of the ways to manage the community would be to flat out lie.
> 
> But, what if the ship dwellers didn’t have to work: The ship might be highly automated.  They would have a lot of leisure time, which they can pursue as they choose, within the scope of what is possible in the ship.
> 
> ...




I think that it would be a mistake to over automate the ship.  If the ship ended up being like the one from the Wall-e movie then how much good are the colonists going to be when the ship arrives at the new planet?  I think that you would need at least 6 to 8 hours of work each day even if it was just cleaning or maintaining the infrastructure of the ship.

I also think that it would be impossible to maintain a cohesive community based on a lie without it falling into a catastrophic failure.  Obviously it is hard to tell exactly what kind of resources will be available but I would say that there would be some very hard line rules against damaging the ship and gross negligence at maintaining the ship.  I would imagine psychological monitoring would be an important tool in helping maintain the community.


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## Hussar (Feb 9, 2019)

Morrus said:


> They continue to update them, just like how we don’t read 1066 manuals for steelmaking. Why wouldn’t they?




Does that include rewriting the entire operating system for every single automated or computer controlled element of the ship?  Flawlessly every time so that not only can people still understand it, but, it also functions without error?

How's your Cobol these days?  Or your Fortran?


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## Shasarak (Feb 9, 2019)

Umbran said:


> If you are forced to labor, you are a slave.  On the generation ship, can you choose to pursue your own vocation as you see fit, or choose to not work at all?  If not, you're in some form of servitude to the polity of the ship.




Having to work is just a normal part of being alive.  Unless you have someone else working hard enough to be able to support themselves and you as well and is that the kind of useless life that anyone aspires to?  No, it is just like being a child eventually you have to grow up and become independant.  On your second point I would imagine that there would be vocations that you could study for and that the crew would choose the people best suited for those vocations.  I dont think that there would be a choice about being able to work or not, everyone would need to work together as a team.  But in any case there is a large large difference between being a servant and being a slave.



> Other things that may need to be done on a generation ship will seem like an abrogation of other rights - forcing you to donate your gametes to make children, for example, isn't slavery, but would likely count as an invasion of the right of privacy to an American.




I can not see a generation ship running some kind of eugenics program.  Within a fixed community you would just have to be careful about the amount of inbreeding that you get over the generations and we already have, if not laws, then societal restrictions on marrying your cousin.  You would especially have to be aware of any resessive gene combinations but that happens now anyway.



> An arranged marriage, in and of itself, is not a problem, so long as it is consensual for all parties.  If, upon considering refusing, threats or coercion are applied to *make* people marry, that's forced marriage, and is not legal.




At least one person is claiming that an arranged marriage is slavery.  But then if having to work to live is also slavery then I guess everything is slavery all the way down.


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## Hussar (Feb 10, 2019)

Wow,  [MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION], who claimed that arranged marriage is slavery?  Not me.

I claimed that as part of the slavery of the subsequent generations, just like slaves, they would be forced to lose reproductive rights.  Never said anything about marriage.

But, yeah, if you are forced into a specific job in society, your reproductive rights taken away, forced to conform to extremely rigid behavior, and not given any actual choice, I don't really care what you call it.  I call it slavery.  But, hey, feel free to consider yourself technically correct if that's what floats your boat.  

After all, that's the absolutelest most important kind of correct.

Good grief, talk about missing the bloody point.


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## Shasarak (Feb 10, 2019)

I think it is wise to come up with ideas that would not work so that we can get down to something that would actually last a thousand years.

And as Hussar says slavery just is not going to cut it.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 10, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> That question of sanity is what makes the lives of ship dwellers more than just an ethical issue and raises it to a fundamental issue of survival. Even more so if the the crew are largely leisure focused. DO we get excessive drug and alcohol consumption? what happens if a person steals or if there is a fight and somebody is killed?
> 
> It takes only one person to become aberrant for the whole structure to crumble - so do you have a totalitarian system where aberrant behaviour is eliminated immediately? Do you encourage compliance and opiates What happens to political dissent?
> 
> WHat happens when two tribes go to war?




I agree that having to live in a highly constrained society would likely cause all sorts of problems.  I don’t know if they are unsurmountable.  People are adaptable and resilient.  I worry more about long term stability.  Gradual drifts into failure modes.

Also, I agree that social management by misinformation is, at the least, very risky.  But, a lot of stories put this in as a feature.

To address another point, eugenics might not be necessary.  Everyone could be born from stored, frozen embryos.  (But how long can those be stored?  Maybe that wouldn’t work.). Doing so would help stabilize the population to “known stable” genotypes.  There would be much selection going into the choice of the folks on the ship, and in any frozen assets.

With today’s technology the ship would be stuck with the machinery and computer resources that it started with.  We can 3D print some stuff, but rebuilding a large proportion of the ship seems unlikely.  What might work would be to a whole lot of backups in deep freeze.

Thx!
TomB


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## Umbran (Feb 10, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Does that include rewriting the entire operating system for every single automated or computer controlled element of the ship?  Flawlessly every time so that not only can people still understand it, but, it also functions without error?




Of course you rewrite it!  You do it in new languages as you make them up, just like we do today.  The problem you see with cobol and fortran is systems that weren't updated in a timely manner, rather than ones that were updated.  If you constantly keep the systems fresh with current lingo, they don't get to a point where nobody understands them.

Just as the people on a generation ship are born, live, and die, so must technologies be born, live, and die.  

And, guess what - you don't have to do it flawlessly.  There is no such thing as flawless software of such complexity*.  You instead build it redundant, and have human oversight, so that you can manage when software flakes out.  

You seem to be speaking as if somehow we have to make this risk-free.  That's not an option - we cannot make crossing a basic street risk-free, or our current space exploration risk-free.  You can't make great gains (like reaching another star) without taking on some risk.  





*Literally - as in, it has been proven that it is not possible to know with certainty if software of the complexity of even Microsoft Word is bug free.  You don't aim for "flawless".  You aim for high level of confidence that flaws can be dealt with.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 10, 2019)

Regarding the slavery issue - I read that there is a fellow in India that is suing his own parents for having giving him life. He wasn't asked if he wanted to live, and there would have been plenty of children they could have adopted instead. Interesting idea. 

But fundamentally, parents always make decisions about their children. Starting with that they decide to have them, but also by where they live. And the children will have to somehow integrate into society. Sure, they could at some point decide to leave the current home, city or nation, but hey always have to live _somewhere_, and they will always end up having to "work" to keep living, and if it's hunting wild animals or collecting berries, or begging for food or whatever. If that counts as slavery, then we are already all enslaved right now. But I think slavery is usually reserved for something much more specific than that.


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## Hussar (Feb 10, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Of course you rewrite it!  You do it in new languages as you make them up, just like we do today.  The problem you see with cobol and fortran is systems that weren't updated in a timely manner, rather than ones that were updated.  If you constantly keep the systems fresh with current lingo, they don't get to a point where nobody understands them.
> 
> Just as the people on a generation ship are born, live, and die, so must technologies be born, live, and die.
> 
> ...




Couple of problems with your example though.

When Windows crashes, I lose my essay.  When your life support system crashes, people die.  There is a bit more at stake here.  And, again, we're talking about computer systems that are running an entire environment.  A very, very large environment.  As you say, the problems are when some systems aren't updated in a timely manner.  

Are you saying that every generation would update their systems in a timely manner every time, generation after generation?  Nothing would get overlooked?  Because overlooking this system over there can result in all sorts of badness.  Hope everyone works at 100% efficiency with no mistakes over thousands of years.  

Yeah, good luck with that.

It's not about being risk free.  It's about recognizing that a "risk" over a long enough time span is virtually guaranteed to occur and so many of these risks are catastrophic.  Particularly when the chances of these risks rely on people.


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## Hussar (Feb 10, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Regarding the slavery issue - I read that there is a fellow in India that is suing his own parents for having giving him life. He wasn't asked if he wanted to live, and there would have been plenty of children they could have adopted instead. Interesting idea.
> 
> But fundamentally, parents always make decisions about their children. Starting with that they decide to have them, but also by where they live. And the children will have to somehow integrate into society. Sure, they could at some point decide to leave the current home, city or nation, but hey always have to live _somewhere_, and they will always end up having to "work" to keep living, and if it's hunting wild animals or collecting berries, or begging for food or whatever. If that counts as slavery, then we are already all enslaved right now. But I think slavery is usually reserved for something much more specific than that.




Well, what would you call it then when you are born into a system where you CANNOT leave, CANNOT choose your job, CANNOT choose your reproduction, CANNOT choose a different path?  

Ok, not slavery, then Throat Warbler Mangrove.  I really don't give a  what you want to call it, it's still monstrous and a complete violation of human rights.


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## Ryujin (Feb 11, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Couple of problems with your example though.
> 
> When Windows crashes, I lose my essay.  When your life support system crashes, people die.  There is a bit more at stake here.  And, again, we're talking about computer systems that are running an entire environment.  A very, very large environment.  As you say, the problems are when some systems aren't updated in a timely manner.
> 
> ...




Risk would almost certainly be mitigated by compartmentalization and parallel systems, with backups. Over time you would likely lose some of that, but it would be there to start at least.


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## Shasarak (Feb 11, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Well, what would you call it then when you are born into a system where you CANNOT leave, CANNOT choose your job, CANNOT choose your reproduction, CANNOT choose a different path?




A Strawman?


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## Umbran (Feb 11, 2019)

Hussar said:


> I really don't give a  what you want to call it...





Cool it.  Invoking the language filter is not acceptable.


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## Maxperson (Feb 11, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Having to work is just a normal part of being alive.  Unless you have someone else working hard enough to be able to support themselves and you as well and is that the kind of useless life that anyone aspires to?  No, it is just like being a child eventually you have to grow up and become independant.  On your second point I would imagine that there would be vocations that you could study for and that the crew would choose the people best suited for those vocations.  I dont think that there would be a choice about being able to work or not, everyone would need to work together as a team.  But in any case there is a large large difference between being a servant and being a slave.




Yes, the difference between a servant and a slave is that the servant gets paid and can quit.  The slave is forced to work.



> At least one person is claiming that an arranged marriage is slavery.  But then if having to work to live is also slavery then I guess everything is slavery all the way down.




You don't have to work. You can opt to go homeless as some people do.


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## Hussar (Feb 11, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> A Strawman?




How is it a strawman?

You are not allowed to have children.  The population has to be carefully controlled.  How exactly do you plan to enforce that?  Forced sterilization?  Forced abortion?  

Also, since it's a closed system, any child born is replacing an adult who has died.  So when Bob the Engineer dies, Suzie gets to be born and she has zero choice.  She must become an engineer.  She can't be a botanist because we already have those.  She can't start her own business, because the ship requires an engineer.  So, from birth, Suzie is chosen to be the next engineer to replace Bob, that's the only education she is allowed.  Because it would be a waste of resources to train her for anything else and the ship cannot afford to waste resources.

Which, of course, brings up another elephant in the room.  Exactly when does Bob the Engineer die?  Once he is too old to work, does he get to take a long walk out an airlock?  How exactly do we care for our elderly and infirm in a system with tight population caps and virtually no extra resources?  It's not like we have space for those who cannot contribute to the function of the ship.  So, are we recycling Bob on his 65th birthday?  When would retirement age be anyway?  Can I retire early?

Oh, right, I can't quit.  Somehow I'm not a slave, but, I cannot choose my job and I can never, ever quit my job.  But, I'm not a slave, apparently.  Because you cannot have institutional slavery apparently.  Slaves must be owned by someone to be a slave.  

So, @ Shasarak, how do you deal with people who want to change vocations?  

And, [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] (sorry about the errr... slip of the keyboard there.  Little frustration boiled through. Won't happen again.) you talked about innovation.  What innovation?  You are in a closed system with little spare resources and no outside information coming in.  How, exactly, are you going to innovate?  You cannot afford experimentation.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 11, 2019)

You're making a lot of assumptions abou the way the system would work. Why would anyone chosen from birth to assume a particular role? That would be most likely a very short-sighted system, because the person might not actually be good at the job you intended for him. 

When Bob the Engineer dies, there must be already someone there to take over his duties, we can't wait for Suzie to grow up. 

Most people in any society grow up to become part of it and take a job that the society in some manner needs.  
There might be outliers that don't, but if your system is not designed with certain redudancies in mind to compensate that, then it can't work for centuries or millenia as would be required for a generation ship. 



> How exactly do we care for our elderly and infirm in a system with tight population caps and virtually no extra resources?



I think that is the critical flaw here. Yes, the resources are tight. But you must have "extra" resources. That is one of the challenges of making a generation ship - putting all the resoures you will need aboard to compensate for when things go wrong, and including the capability to recycle, repair, regrow stuff that you consume. 
People not wanting to do any job, people getting old and needing medical care without contributing, people getting into accidents, people committing suicide, you need to be prepared for that and have redundancies for it.


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## Umbran (Feb 11, 2019)

Hussar said:


> You are not allowed to have children.  The population has to be carefully controlled.  How exactly do you plan to enforce that?  Forced sterilization?  Forced abortion?




We already have birth control techniques.  I would presume something similar is used to choose when children are born.



> Also, since it's a closed system, any child born is replacing an adult who has died.  So when Bob the Engineer dies, Suzie gets to be born and she has zero choice.




This is probably overstated.  In general, we need a stable population, yes.  In a practical workforce sense, a child born today is replacing someone who dies 20 years later.  But that does not mean that each child specifically replaces their own parent.  In fact, quite the opposite - the kid's parents are probably still alive when they enter the workforce on the ship.

We are talking about a ship that has to carry a viable breeding population of humans - we are probably talking thousands of individuals.  This is a town or city flying through space.  There is (and, I daresay needs to be) some wiggle room as to who does what, so long as we have enough of everything.  Honestly, in all likelihood, you *don't* have the situation where every individual is essential to ship operations.  Most of the people on board are just folks - you fly with greater human capacity than you need, in part so that things like this are not an issue.  Take 10,000 people with you, and enough will have the aptitudes you need in essential crew.  The rest are passengers.



> And, [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] (sorry about the errr... slip of the keyboard there.  Little frustration boiled through. Won't happen again.) you talked about innovation.  What innovation?  You are in a closed system with little spare resources and no outside information coming in.  How, exactly, are you going to innovate?  You cannot afford experimentation.




Quite the opposite - you *NEED* experimentation.  The idea that people on Earth thought of everything before you left is ludicrous.  The idea that you cold *stop* human innovation on the scale of generations is also nonsensical.  People on the ship will have new ideas.  People on Earth will have new ideas, and will transmit them to the ship!  

"Experimentation" does not mean "put a new idea into production use without testing."  But, even today, we make changes to spacecraft after flight has begun - most frequently in software.  A friend of mine used to work for NASA doing software updates for craft that had gyroscopes fail, among other things, to keep a craft at least somewhat functional when physical systems no longer function.  Here's an article on an example of software upgrades to spacecraft:  http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/03/28/software-upgrade-at-655-million-kilometres/

Darned tootin' if we were present, you'd see us replacing physical parts, too.  

Did you see _The Martian_?  The bits where Matt Damon's character communicates with Earth, and they come up with plans and changes to help him survive?  That's not implausible. 

You leave Earth *with* spare resources, and the ability to recycle.  Every part of the ship needs to be replaceable, and you need to be able to make new parts.  You have redundant systems so that you can have one down while you repair or upgrade another.  You may have the idea that the ship must be static - get that out of your head.  The only things humans build that last for centuries unchanged are piles of stone.  This thing must be dynamic.  Change is part of the plan.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 11, 2019)

I found one of the most astonishing things about update the Voyager 2 Probe. They already designed them back in the 70s with updates in mind, and it's kinda crazy what they had to do to still be able to update them, decades into the mission. The probes are so far away that the signal gets horribly distorted, so that there is an incredible amount of redundancy in what they send so the probe can still figure out the real message.


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## dragoner (Feb 11, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> When Bob the Engineer dies, there must be already someone there to take over his duties, we can't wait for Suzie to grow up.




Yes, because there is no other way, society isn't accidental, it's evolved. The reality is that like most modern societies, it will be a bureaucracy with a facade of democracy.


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## Shasarak (Feb 11, 2019)

Hussar said:


> How is it a strawman?
> 
> You are not allowed to have children.  The population has to be carefully controlled.  How exactly do you plan to enforce that?  Forced sterilization?  Forced abortion?
> 
> ...




It is a strawman because your plan just does not work.  Why would you have a set capacity of, just for an example, 100 people on your ship and then start with the maximum population already on board?  That would mean that you have to wait for someone to die before having any children to "replace" them.  Which means that for the next 15 to 20 years or so you are having to some how get by without someone that you really really needed.

And likewise for machinery, why would you be operating at 100% capacity all of the time?  How do you maintain something if you literally can not turn it off without killing everyone on board?  I mean I am not an Engineer and even I can see that would be a badly designed ship to try and travel 1000 years in.

Population control is not hard we have it now, it is called the contraceptive.  The largest country on earth practises a pretty extreme version of it right now.   The best way to deal with population control would be through a social agreement with exceptions built in to take into account those people who dont want to or are not able to have children. 

And as for forced job assignment, would you personally want to be traveling through space in a ship that is maintained by who ever is born into the Engineering class or would you prefer that position to be filled by the person who is best qualified?  Hereditary systems dont work on Earth so why would you try it on a Generation ship?

So that is why I think that your whole proposal can be summed up as a Strawman, something that is set up because it is easier to defeat than a real argument.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 11, 2019)

So ... I don't think it has been set what is the ratio of the ship's population to the number of roles which would need to be filled.

There might be 1000 people and just 100 distinct roles.

We also haven't specified how many roles a single person can cover.  Given that they might not have much else to do, learning several roles might be the norm.  Then we might have 1000 people each with three different roles (on average) covering 100 distinct roles.

My numbers are made up here, of course.  But are they unreasonable?  Or at least feasible?

As to highly constrained environments (what others are calling environmentally imposed slavery).  That has to be considered in comparison with other environments.  Say, growing up poor in Mexico City, or in a large city in many many places in the world.  It's hard to pursue this very far without invoking too many real issues, but I don't think I have to go there: There are a lot of places which would much much worst than the ship environment.  (At least, assuming that the ship environment is not a complete nightmare, which might be the case, but we haven't set what the environment would be like.)

Also, this does not consider how the Earth's environment _might turn out_ in not too much time.  Again, I don't think I need to enumerate this to make the point that the Earth might become a very terrible place to live, in comparison to which the ship environment, however constrained, might be a lot better.

Thx!
TomB


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## Tonguez (Feb 12, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> As to highly constrained environments (what others are calling environmentally imposed slavery).  That has to be considered in comparison with other environments.  Say, growing up poor in Mexico City, or in a large city in many many places in the world.  It's hard to pursue this very far without invoking too many real issues, but I don't think I have to go there: There are a lot of places which would much much worst than the ship environment.  (At least, assuming that the ship environment is not a complete nightmare, which might be the case, but we haven't set what the environment would be like.)
> 
> Also, this does not consider how the Earth's environment _might turn out_ in not too much time.  Again, I don't think I need to enumerate this to make the point that the Earth might become a very terrible place to live, in comparison to which the ship environment, however constrained, might be a lot better.
> 
> ...




I don't know if its possible for earthbound humans to actually envision what living in an entirely closed environment is like, because even in the most highly constrained environments (say the middle of a dense urban ghetto) people can still see the sky, feel weather and imagine what its like to go out into the country - imagination and hope are immensely powerful forces in maintaining human sanity.

Now imagine a closed densely populated urban environment, even one with bright lights and flashy visuals but where there is no sky and you know that if you step out of the residential space, you will just find more ship and beyond that the empty vacuum of space (ie death). How does that affect sanity of someone who is miserable where they are and just wants to 'get out' and visit that far away island?

(NB then again I live on an island and I've said in the past "man I'd got stir crazy if I couldnt visit the sea" , yet I've meet people who were in their 20s before they even got close to an ocean - how did they cope without it? )


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## Hussar (Feb 12, 2019)

So, on contraception - you do realize that that's voluntary, right?  We're talking about a closed system.  Contraception cannot possibly be voluntary.  And, again, very few contraception methods are 100%.  What are you going to do about "accidents".  And, as far as China goes, well, I'm not really sure I'd hold up China as an example of how not to violate human rights.

And, as far as innovation goes, well, show me a closed society with extremely limited resources and virtually no outside contact which has then gone on to display innovation.  It's okay.  I'll wait.  Because, sure, for the first few generations, communication with Earth isn't a problem. But, after we've travelled more than a couple of light years away from Earth, communication is virtually impossible, at least any two way communication.  Even reaching Alpha Century means an 8 year turn around for any communication.  Not going to happen.

And, let's not forget, we're in a closed system with ZERO additional resources.  Any resources lost cannot ever be replaced.  So, how do you innovate, create, experiment, without losing resources?  The whole point of innovation is that you are going to lose LOTS of resources before you succeed.  How many failed crops before you manage to increase crop yields?  How many systems go kablooie because you overload the circuits while trying to increase engine efficiency or reactor efficiency?  On and on and on.

Note, on the notion of personal freedoms, I did mention upthread that if your generation ship is large enough, then my issues go away.  But, even with a population of 10000, that would be extremely limited.  And, frankly, if you can create a closed system for that many people, you have zero need for leaving the solar system.  We were discussing a ship with a crew of about 2000.  Which is where my issues lay.


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## Tonguez (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> We were discussing a ship with a crew of about 2000.  Which is where my issues lay.




or is it? 
I am reminded of Battlestar Galaticas _ragtag array of available spaceships_, and although that was a neccesity due to the cylons attack, maybe even in the best conditions it will be determined that a single Generation Ship isnt going to work and that it is necessary to send a fleet of smaller craft together. The smaller craft might then allow some mobility as people move from one ship to another and in desperate times the smaller ships can be cannibalized for the benefit of the central colony ship.

As to innovation I'm sure that even that should be possible - maybe better ways to process bioplastics from organic waste? GM modification of algal colonies so that they taste like strawberries?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> So, on contraception - you do realize that that's voluntary, right?  We're talking about a closed system.  Contraception cannot possibly be voluntary.  And, again, very few contraception methods are 100%.



Nothing is a 100 %. The generation ship has to live with that.

Including the possibility that some people don't want to use contraception and rather churn out kids. But there will also be some that don't want kids and rather focus on their career. 

There are obviously ways to incentivize not having too many kids. For example, everyone gets a child support voucher. So a couple can get child support for two kids. If they meet someone that doesn't want children, he or she might give them their child support voucher. 

That doesn't mean that people with less child support vouchers will have to starve or anything - just that it's much more comfortable to have only as many children as you have vouchers available. 




> And, let's not forget, we're in a closed system with ZERO additional resources.  Any resources lost cannot ever be replaced.  So, how do you innovate, create, experiment, without losing resources?  The whole point of innovation is that you are going to lose LOTS of resources before you succeed.  How many failed crops before you manage to increase crop yields?  How many systems go kablooie because you overload the circuits while trying to increase engine efficiency or reactor efficiency?  On and on and on.



Even without innovation crops can fail. Innovation can make sure that the crops don't fail again. 
Fundamentally, you have to be prepare for the unexpected, because you're flying around for centuries. If you don't have supplies and procedures that can let you survive a few failed crops, a few hull breaches, a few reactors breaking down, a few engines blowing up, a computer crashing, a disease outbreak, and so on, then your generation ship _will fail_.  



> Note, on the notion of personal freedoms, I did mention upthread that if your generation ship is large enough, then my issues go away.  But, even with a population of 10000, that would be extremely limited.  And, frankly, if you can create a closed system for that many people, you have zero need for leaving the solar system.  We were discussing a ship with a crew of about 2000.  Which is where my issues lay.



I wasn't discussing a crew of 2,000. I am discussing what would be neccessary for a generaton ship, and if we decide that we need a crew of 10,000, then we need a crew of 10,000.

I am actually believing that it's more likely we need a crew of a few millions at least, and a ship that has roughly the size, shape mass and composition of the 3rd planet in the solar system. Or maybe the entire solar system.


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## Hussar (Feb 12, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Nothing is a 100 %. The generation ship has to live with that.
> 
> Including the possibility that some people don't want to use contraception and rather churn out kids. But there will also be some that don't want kids and rather focus on their career.
> 
> ...




So, now we have a capitalist economy on our ships?  Crew have to pay for food and shelter?  How, exactly, are we going to "incentivise" this?



> Even without innovation crops can fail. Innovation can make sure that the crops don't fail again.
> Fundamentally, you have to be prepare for the unexpected, because you're flying around for centuries. If you don't have supplies and procedures that can let you survive a few failed crops, a few hull breaches, a few reactors breaking down, a few engines blowing up, a computer crashing, a disease outbreak, and so on, then your generation ship _will fail_.




You're missing my point  Innovation is EXPENSIVE.  It takes many, many failed experiments before you get on that succeeds.  There's a reason that companies spend billions of dollars on research.  And, while, sure, you need to have supplies, you simply cannot afford to waste them on possible innovations.


> I wasn't discussing a crew of 2,000. I am discussing what would be neccessary for a generaton ship, and if we decide that we need a crew of 10,000, then we need a crew of 10,000.
> 
> I am actually believing that it's more likely we need a crew of a few millions at least, and a ship that has roughly the size, shape mass and composition of the 3rd planet in the solar system. Or maybe the entire solar system.




This I agree with.


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## MarkB (Feb 12, 2019)

Tonguez said:


> As to innovation I'm sure that even that should be possible - maybe better ways to process bioplastics from organic waste? GM modification of algal colonies so that they taste like strawberries?



And how do you check that your strawberry goop is safe to cultivate and eat? Maybe it's carcinogenic if consumed over several years. Maybe it leeches nutrients from the system when grown at industrial scale. You'll need packs of lab rats to test for the former, and sequestered vats for the latter, all extra resources to be carried in order to sustain tests that will take years to complete - and that's just to test for two out of numerous potential issues.


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## Maxperson (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Also, since it's a closed system, any child born is replacing an adult who has died.  So when Bob the Engineer dies, Suzie gets to be born and she has zero choice.  She must become an engineer.  She can't be a botanist because we already have those.  She can't start her own business, because the ship requires an engineer.  So, from birth, Suzie is chosen to be the next engineer to replace Bob, that's the only education she is allowed.  Because it would be a waste of resources to train her for anything else and the ship cannot afford to waste resources.




That would be a really bad way to go about the replacement system.  First off, you'd have an aging population that lives an average of X years.  So when members reach a time where they are Y years from death, a replacement would be born/test tubed in order for that replacement to be old enough to actually, you know, replace the person who died.  Unless we change drastically, infants can't actually replace anyone at any job that doesn't require crying, eating or going to the bathroom.  Since there would be many such replacements at any given time, you can see which one would be best to replace Bob at engineering when he does, and which would replace Al the botanist, and which would replace Mary the Astrophysicist. And so on.



> So, @ Shasarak, how do you deal with people who want to change vocations?




If they are good at the new job that they want and there is a replacement that can step into the old one, you handle it by saying enjoy the new job.  If there isn't, you handle it by saying sure, but not right now.


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## Maxperson (Feb 12, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> It is a strawman because your plan just does not work.  Why would you have a set capacity of, just for an example, 100 people on your ship and then start with the maximum population already on board?  That would mean that you have to wait for someone to die before having any children to "replace" them.  Which means that for the next 15 to 20 years or so you are having to some how get by without someone that you really really needed.
> 
> And likewise for machinery, why would you be operating at 100% capacity all of the time?  How do you maintain something if you literally can not turn it off without killing everyone on board?  I mean I am not an Engineer and even I can see that would be a badly designed ship to try and travel 1000 years in.
> 
> ...




I agree with most of what you are saying, except the characterization that his argument is a Strawman.  Being a bad argument isn't what a Strawman is.  Hell, it doesn't even necessarily make it a fallacy.  It just makes it a bad argument.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> So, now we have a capitalist economy on our ships?  Crew have to pay for food and shelter?  How, exactly, are we going to "incentivise" this?



Vouchers do not mean a captalistic society, and in fact, implies it might be something else. If it was capitalism, we could just give the voucher a monetary value and the rest comes on its own. The vouchers are the incentives, of course.
If it's not capitaism, it might grant access to bigger housing, extra vacation time, extra entertainment/wellness access. 



> You're missing my point  Innovation is EXPENSIVE.  It takes many, many failed experiments before you get on that succeeds.  There's a reason that companies spend billions of dollars on research.  And, while, sure, you need to have supplies, you simply cannot afford to waste them on possible innovations.



A failed experiment however does not mean you have to throw out the entire material of the experiment. You recycle what you can. If some research is too prohibitive, it won't happen, but innovation comes in a wide range. It might just be that someone builds a better mouse-trap, instead of inventing nuclear fusion or 1nm chip wafers. Innovation will happen within the constraints of the ship, just as our innovation on Earth is also limited on the constraints of Earth.


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## Umbran (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> So, on contraception - you do realize that that's voluntary, right?




Now, in the United States it is voluntary, yes.  

You do realize that you can't just put modern America on this ship, and have it succeed, yes?  People will have to give up some of what we currently feel are rights, for the sake of the mission.  You want humanity to reach another star, you have to give up a few things.  If you aren't on board with that, you shouldn't be on board.  We are talking less about putting just folks on here, and more about putting together a paramilitary organization, and putting it on board.  

Imagine, for our purposes, that every person on this ship is a highly trained NASA astronaut - because they'd have to be.  Start with that level of dedication and agreement to follow The Plan.  You will have exactly zero problem finding 10,000 people who will agree to give up some of their reproductive rights for such a mission.



> And, again, very few contraception methods are 100%.  What are you going to do about "accidents".




Absorb them in the system.  We are going to have some accidental, unexpected, unplanned deaths, too.  The system will have to have wiggle room both up and down. 



> And, as far as innovation goes, well, show me a closed society with extremely limited resources and virtually no outside contact which has then gone on to display innovation.




You have outside contact.  You're at sublight speed - radio and comm lasers will work just fine to reach the ship from Earth, and back again.  



> Even reaching Alpha Century means an 8 year turn around for any communication.  Not going to happen.




You're not going to have personal conversations, no.  But, you *are* going to get all the technical journals and design specs you want, beamed to you 24/7/365.  There's probably an entire industry that grows up on Earth to design new things that ship (and, after that, the colony) might use.  Labs galore doing R&D for them.  



> And, let's not forget, we're in a closed system with ZERO additional resources.  Any resources lost cannot ever be replaced.  So, how do you innovate, create, experiment, without losing resources?




You keep hammering on the fact that this is a closed environment.  That means that unless you very specifically open the environment and throw things into the vacuum of space, you actually can't lose any resources.  They're still in there with you!  You simply have to have a method of reclaiming them - in other words, everything gets recycled.  The reasons we don't do this on Earth are not technical - they are economic and cultural.



> Note, on the notion of personal freedoms, I did mention upthread that if your generation ship is large enough, then my issues go away.  But, even with a population of 10000, that would be extremely limited.  And, frankly, if you can create a closed system for that many people, you have zero need for leaving the solar system.




It isn't like you get to dictate to me what size population "we" are talking about, dude.

No need?!?  Let us be clear, there was no "need" for humans to migrate out of Africa - at the time this happened, the population pressure was not high.  But we did it anyway.  We expanded and explored every continent long before population pressures made it necessary.  If you see no need to leave the solar system... that's your problem.  I am 100% positive that, given the technical possibility, the biggest problem with finding 10,000 volunteers will be in culling down from the millions of applications you'd get.  

And, by the way, if you can do this for 2000, I don't think you'll see any particular technical issues arise if you increase the population size by a factor of five.  You can do 10K with just more of what you'd use for 2K, with probably a bit more economy of scale on your side for the larger group.  

But, perhaps most importantly, if you are talking about colonization, then you want 10,000 on board.  Not only does that make for greater genetic diversity in the breeding population (though you can overcome some of those limits with frozen gametes or embryos), but unless you posit humans gestated in tanks, your colony growth is limited by how many babies you can churn out once you arrive.  With typical human population growth rates, it'll take that 2000 person population about 540 years to reach a million+.  The 10K population can do it about 120 years faster.


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## Janx (Feb 12, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Now, in the United States it is voluntary, yes.
> 
> You do realize that you can't just put modern America on this ship, and have it succeed, yes?  People will have to give up some of what we currently feel are rights, for the sake of the mission.  You want humanity to reach another star, you have to give up a few things.  If you aren't on board with that, you shouldn't be on board.  We are talking less about putting just folks on here, and more about putting together a paramilitary organization, and putting it on board.




In the zombie apocalypse, there's always that one loudmouth who argues, "who put you in charge?"

Shoot him first.

The kind of people who make a project like this work are not the kind of people who intrinsically follow the OSS guide to sabotage.

The society that makes it to the landing will be more like the Martians in The Expanse and less like us.


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## Ryujin (Feb 12, 2019)

Janx said:


> In the zombie apocalypse, there's always that one loudmouth who argues, "who put you in charge?"
> 
> Shoot him first.
> 
> ...




Why do they never shoot THAT guy?

Punishment for acts that could endanger the ship would by need be brutal and final. If you did something that could have ended all life, you're out the airlock. Drumhead trial, combat justice.


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## Janx (Feb 12, 2019)

Ryujin said:


> Why do they never shoot THAT guy?
> 
> Punishment for acts that could endanger the ship would by need be brutal and final. If you did something that could have ended all life, you're out the airlock. Drumhead trial, combat justice.




closed system, can't afford to jettison the body.  Need to recycle everything.  Just think how much water and even air bubbles is in a corpse.

back to shooting loudmouths, I think the average survivor would have a problem with the leader just shooting a fellow survivor.  Even though we all know as the audience, that the loudmouth is always a disruptor and not going to make things better.

I guess I could see two ways of how strict a ship-culture could be.  On the one hand, can't afford to lose crew.  on the other, it could be considered very valuable to pass on ones genes, and excising problem members from that might be a means of establishing order.


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## Ryujin (Feb 12, 2019)

Janx said:


> closed system, can't afford to jettison the body.  Need to recycle everything.  Just think how much water and even air bubbles is in a corpse.
> 
> back to shooting loudmouths, I think the average survivor would have a problem with the leader just shooting a fellow survivor.  Even though we all know as the audience, that the loudmouth is always a disruptor and not going to make things better.
> 
> I guess I could see two ways of how strict a ship-culture could be.  On the one hand, can't afford to lose crew.  on the other, it could be considered very valuable to pass on ones genes, and excising problem members from that might be a means of establishing order.




True 'nuff, so you smoke 'em and stuff 'em in the recyc, like the Snouts did in "Footfall."


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## Shasarak (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> So, now we have a capitalist economy on our ships?  Crew have to pay for food and shelter?  How, exactly, are we going to "incentivise" this?




A Capitalist economy is probably the worst economy that we have ever invented except for all of the other economies.

Incentivise is practically its second name.


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## Shasarak (Feb 12, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> I agree with most of what you are saying, except the characterization that his argument is a Strawman.  Being a bad argument isn't what a Strawman is.  Hell, it doesn't even necessarily make it a fallacy.  It just makes it a bad argument.




I think it is a classic example of a Strawman.  You can see it when he says things like well a 10,000 population ship would work but I was talking about a 2,000 population ship. Its like, ah huh


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## Hussar (Feb 12, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Now, in the United States it is voluntary, yes.
> 
> You do realize that you can't just put modern America on this ship, and have it succeed, yes?  People will have to give up some of what we currently feel are rights, for the sake of the mission.  You want humanity to reach another star, you have to give up a few things.  If you aren't on board with that, you shouldn't be on board.  We are talking less about putting just folks on here, and more about putting together a paramilitary organization, and putting it on board.
> 
> Imagine, for our purposes, that every person on this ship is a highly trained NASA astronaut - because they'd have to be.  Start with that level of dedication and agreement to follow The Plan.  You will have exactly zero problem finding 10,000 people who will agree to give up some of their reproductive rights for such a mission.




Totally agree.  But, are we now going to allow those 10000 people to give up their reproductive rights for all following generations?  The choices that these people make now will be binding on EVERY subsequent generation.  How is that not a massive rights violation?

I'm not really sure of the morality of allowing a decision to bind then next dozen, or dozens, of generations.



> You have outside contact.  You're at sublight speed - radio and comm lasers will work just fine to reach the ship from Earth, and back again.




Umm, no you don't.  As you travel further and further from Earth, it takes longer and longer for each signal to get back and forth.  As in by the time you reach even the closest star, messages are taking decades to go back and forth.



> You're not going to have personal conversations, no.  But, you *are* going to get all the technical journals and design specs you want, beamed to you 24/7/365.  There's probably an entire industry that grows up on Earth to design new things that ship (and, after that, the colony) might use.  Labs galore doing R&D for them.
> /snip




So, now, we're investing hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of Earth's resources as well?  A project that is going to be massively expensive, won't pay off for a thousand years, and will be ongoing for dozens of generations without fail?  

Again, good luck with that.

AFAIC, generation ships make good SF but terrible reality.  It's just not feasible.  You need a closed system with nearly perfect recycling (never minding the violations of thermodynamics that requires), where you are going to consign thousands of people to what is tantamount to slavery for hundreds if not thousands of years, while at the same time supporting said mission for hundreds, if not thousands of years, from Earth. 

We still haven't even talked about how you build this structure in the first place.  Something that will house ten thousand people that has a propulsion system that will function for hundreds of years while still managing to keep everyone on board alive?  

Good grief, the ISS is the most expensive man made structure in history.  It houses less than a dozen people in rotating shifts and doesn't actually go anywhere.  You're talking something that is several orders of magnitude more expensive to build and maintain.  There is just zero chance of this ever (ahem) getting off the ground.


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## Hussar (Feb 12, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> I think it is a classic example of a Strawman.  You can see it when he says things like well a 10,000 population ship would work but I was talking about a 2,000 population ship. Its like, ah huh




Go back and reread the thread.  You'll find early on I talked about how a larger ship would alleviate most of the issues but, others insisted on that 2000 number.  Dunno who as I don't pay that much attention to the poster.  But, it is there.

Funny thing this.  Everyone else seems to understand my argument perfectly clearly, even if they don't agree and we can have a back and forth discussion without resorting to trying to invoke logical fallacies in order to "win" the discussion.  You're the only one who seems hung up on this notion of straw man.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Totally agree.  But, are we now going to allow those 10000 people to give up their reproductive rights for all following generations?  The choices that these people make now will be binding on EVERY subsequent generation.  How is that not a massive rights violation?
> 
> I'm not really sure of the morality of allowing a decision to bind then next dozen, or dozens, of generations.




I agree that there is a moral problem.  But, I don't think this prevents a generation ship from being built.  I do think this issue will cause problems in later generations, unless the ship is truly massive -- on the scale of Starship Warden, which held about 1.5 million people.



> Umm, no you don't.  As you travel further and further from Earth, it takes longer and longer for each signal to get back and forth.  As in by the time you reach even the closest star, messages are taking decades to go back and forth.




Sure.  But, messages can still be sent and received.  Just nothing like having a conversation.  There ought to be nothing preventing advanced knowledge from being sent from Earth.



> So, now, we're investing hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of Earth's resources as well?  A project that is going to be massively expensive, won't pay off for a thousand years, and will be ongoing for dozens of generations without fail?




Yeah, depending on ongoing signals from Earth may be too much to count on.  Priorities changes.  Governments fall.  Civilization itself might fall.



> You need a closed system with nearly perfect recycling (never minding the violations of thermodynamics that requires), where you are going to consign thousands of people to what is tantamount to slavery for hundreds if not thousands of years, while at the same time supporting said mission for hundreds, if not thousands of years, from Earth.
> 
> We still haven't even talked about how you build this structure in the first place.  Something that will house ten thousand people that has a propulsion system that will function for hundreds of years while still managing to keep everyone on board alive?




There wouldn't be any thermodynamic problems: Nuclear power could keep a ship going for a long time.  (There would be an increase in entropy in the _fuel_, and it would eventually run out, but not necessarily for a very long time.)

The problem that I envision is more along the lines of keeping the ecosystem stable.  Based on our experience here on Earth, we have a long ways to go to demonstrate a stable closed ecosystem.

I _think_ I agree with your basic sentiment, which is that we are quite far from having either the technology or the environmental skills, or the social skills, to make a functioning multi-generation ship.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 12, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Go back and reread the thread.  You'll find early on I talked about how a larger ship would alleviate most of the issues but, others insisted on that 2000 number.  Dunno who as I don't pay that much attention to the poster.  But, it is there.
> 
> Funny thing this.  Everyone else seems to understand my argument perfectly clearly, even if they don't agree and we can have a back and forth discussion without resorting to trying to invoke logical fallacies in order to "win" the discussion.  You're the only one who seems hung up on this notion of straw man.




I think no one understands your argument and I have seen no one agree with it.  Take your 2,000 population number for example.  No one is talking about that.  And your Slavery example, no one is agreeing with that.  And your contraceptive argument and your equipment maintenance argument.

And now your closed system argument.  We know its a closed system.  We know that we have to take everything with us.  We got that.  So what happens if we send unmanned resupply ships before (and after) the launch of the generation ship?  They can accelerate and maneuver faster then a ship with people on it and that would help to deal with the closed system.  And thats just one idea off the top of my head.

But honestly Slavery?  Is it just for click bait or the shock horror value?  Meh, it is not because you know what slavery is anyway.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 12, 2019)

Yes, TomB, that is exactly my point. 

One other moral issue is that you couldn’t allow free speech. After all, any dissent would need to be utterly crushed. It’s not like a group can vote to leave. 

Which would basically require a totalitarian society of brainwashed cultists to continue to function.


----------



## MarkB (Feb 12, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> I think no one understands your argument and I have seen no one agree with it.  Take your 2,000 population number for example.  No one is talking about that.  And your Slavery example, no one is agreeing with that.  And your contraceptive argument and your equipment maintenance argument.




Maybe don't speak for everyone else in the thread?

Yes, there are issues which can be eased by having a larger population. But there are other issues that will be exacerbated. Aside from increasing the technological challenges involved in building a larger vessel, you run into the "Wall-E" issue mentioned earlier in the thread, where a large portion of the population have little or nothing to do, and doing nothing becomes ingrained over generations. There's also strong likelihood of creating societal stratification between the 'passengers' and crew.

And whether "slavery" is precisely the right word to use or not, almost any viable social structure within such a vessel will require the curtailment of many rights and privileges that we associate with a free-willed society.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 12, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Maybe don't speak for everyone else in the thread?




Ok that is true.  Just because I have not seen it does not mean that there was some agreement, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.



> Yes, there are issues which can be eased by having a larger population. But there are other issues that will be exacerbated. Aside from increasing the technological challenges involved in building a larger vessel, you run into the "Wall-E" issue mentioned earlier in the thread, where a large portion of the population have little or nothing to do, and doing nothing becomes ingrained over generations. There's also strong likelihood of creating societal stratification between the 'passengers' and crew.




And not only that, there is strong evidence to support the belief that, like in the matrix, humans without something meaningful to do would rather burn the whole place down then live an idyllic lifestyle.



> And whether "slavery" is precisely the right word to use or not, almost any viable social structure within such a vessel will require the curtailment of many rights and privileges that we associate with a free-willed society.




I dont see that at all.  If you said that passengers would have more responsibilities then we have in our current western society then I would agree with that.  I mean if you knew that for every child you had meant that someone else had to die then would you have as many as you could?  Is that a responsible action?  No, no one could argue that.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Yes, TomB, that is exactly my point.
> 
> One other moral issue is that you couldn’t allow free speech. After all, any dissent would need to be utterly crushed. It’s not like a group can vote to leave.
> 
> Which would basically require a totalitarian society of brainwashed cultists to continue to function.




You need free speech to maintain your society.  Society needs to balance between Chaos and Tyranny and free speech is the best way to maintain that.  If you dont have that then you would have to balance it the old fashioned way by killing the other guys.  

Just as a thought exercise imagine we were all on a Generation Ship called Earth, on our way to the Andromeda Galaxy.  Do we need to have a totalitarian society of brainwashed cultists to continue to function?  Could a group vote to leave and go somewhere else?


----------



## MarkB (Feb 13, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> I dont see that at all.  If you said that passengers would have more responsibilities then we have in our current western society then I would agree with that.  I mean if you knew that for every child you had meant that someone else had to die then would you have as many as you could?  Is that a responsible action?  No, no one could argue that.



The same could be said here and now on Earth, though. Given the effects of population growth, anyone having more than two children per couple is contributing to the misery and death of others. Yet plenty still do.

When it comes to the right to breed, people will not always act rationally. Going into an endeavour like this on the assumption that they will would be a recipe for disaster.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

MarkB said:


> The same could be said here and now on Earth, though. Given the effects of population growth, anyone having more than two children per couple is contributing to the misery and death of others. Yet plenty still do.




Yes and yet we are holding up the ability to have as many children as you want as some kind of "right" rather then looking at it as a responsibility.  Take China for example, they have had a one child policy in place for years so it is not as if humans can not do it.



> When it comes to the right to breed, people will not always act rationally. Going into an endeavour like this on the assumption that they will would be a recipe for disaster.




Which is why if we were building a Generation ship that this is something that should be decided before it goes.

Look, lets take something less controversial like driving a car.  We dont have an inherent "right" to drive a car, you have to get a license first and then there are rules you have to follow or the license will be revoked.  Our society seems to get along fine with that rule and society has many more then that without becoming a totalitarian regime.


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## Hussar (Feb 13, 2019)

And, again, I’ll note that no one has commented on what happens when someone violates the population controls. 

More responsibilities?  Seriously?  Violations of human rights that make North Korea look like freedom central and it’s just “more responsibilities”?  

And no you can’t have free speech because free speech allows people to disagree and that leads to changes in society. But you’re on a spaceship where you can’t actually change anything. You are born into a system where you have virtually no rights or freedoms and you will die in that same system and you can’t possibly do anything to change that. 

Oh and now the most expensive undertaking humanity could do gets even more expensive because now we have to send supply ships for the next thousand years.


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## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

How do you expect a society to exist for 1,000 years without changing.  Heck the Constitution of the USA did not even last 2 years before being changed.


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## Hussar (Feb 13, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> How do you expect a society to exist for 1,000 years without changing.  Heck the Constitution of the USA did not even last 2 years before being changed.




Because it can’t change. It can’t afford to change. Any change can potentially fail and over that long some changes will fail. 

And failure in this sort of system is catastrophic. It cannot be robust enough to allow for complete rewriting of society. Even partial change has to be avoided.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Because it can’t change. It can’t afford to change. Any change can potentially fail and over that long some changes will fail.
> 
> And failure in this sort of system is catastrophic. It cannot be robust enough to allow for complete rewriting of society. Even partial change has to be avoided.




It has to change.  Everything can not run at 100% efficiency for 1,000 years so you need to be adaptable.  You can not have maximum population if you are down to 80% resources.

If you want everything to remain static then just send everyone in stasis.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 13, 2019)

And thus my point that generation ships are not possible.


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## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

Yes, when you have impossible requirements then things are impossible.

Next at 6 journalist reports that water is wet.


----------



## Maxperson (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> And, again, I’ll note that no one has commented on what happens when someone violates the population controls.
> 
> More responsibilities?  Seriously?  Violations of human rights that make North Korea look like freedom central and it’s just “more responsibilities”?




If you are on a generation ship, it's not for a joy ride.  Humanity is at stake and some sacrifices will be necessary to ensure mankind's survival.



> And no you can’t have free speech because free speech allows people to disagree and that leads to changes in society. But you’re on a spaceship where you can’t actually change anything. You are born into a system where you have virtually no rights or freedoms and you will die in that same system and you can’t possibly do anything to change that.




Sure you can.  I mean, what sort of changes do you think they will be making?  Everyone gets 10 extra meals and gets 20 kids?  They are going to be on a generation ship.  They aren't going to be making suicidal decisions.  Any changes will be minor, constrained by the survival requirements that come with being on a generation ship.



> Oh and now the most expensive undertaking humanity could do gets even more expensive because now we have to send supply ships for the next thousand years.




Or else they just plant and grow food/animals on the new planet.  Seeds don't take up much space and by the time we send a generation ship anywhere, cloning will be much more refined.  We will be able to grow animals to breed on the new world.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 13, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> If you are on a generation ship, it's not for a joy ride.  Humanity is at stake and some sacrifices will be necessary to ensure mankind's survival.




So, forced abortion.  

Fair enough.  But, that's what we're talking about here.  We're stripping away the reproductive rights of thousands of people without their permission.  Now, we can certainly do that.  Sure.  But, let's not pretend that we're not committing  massive human rights violations to do so.  "Some sacrifices" seems a tad euphemistic.




> Sure you can.  I mean, what sort of changes do you think they will be making?  Everyone gets 10 extra meals and gets 20 kids?  They are going to be on a generation ship.  They aren't going to be making suicidal decisions.  Any changes will be minor, constrained by the survival requirements that come with being on a generation ship.




You are presuming 100% rational decisions.  I would never presume that.  I mean, a change could be, "murder half the population then we can all have more kids and eat more".  Societies have certainly done worse.



> Or else they just plant and grow food/animals on the new planet.  Seeds don't take up much space and by the time we send a generation ship anywhere, cloning will be much more refined.  We will be able to grow animals to breed on the new world.




Hard to plant in space.  [MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION] was sending supply ships during the voyage, not the end.  Which means that you have to send the supply ships more and more often because you hit the upper limit of speed and the generation ship is getting further and further away constantly.  The only way to make sure that supplies reach them regularly is to send them more and more often.

It's not feasible.

Of course, if "humanity is at stake" then there won't be any resupply ships will there?


----------



## Hussar (Feb 13, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Yes, when you have impossible requirements then things are impossible.
> 
> Next at 6 journalist reports that water is wet.




Glad we agree.


----------



## Maxperson (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> So, forced abortion.
> 
> Fair enough.  But, that's what we're talking about here.  We're stripping away the reproductive rights of thousands of people without their permission.  Now, we can certainly do that.  Sure.  But, let's not pretend that we're not committing  massive human rights violations to do so.  "Some sacrifices" seems a tad euphemistic.




You gotta do what you gotta do in order to survive.  Look around.  The reason you have all of these "rights" is that humanity has progressed to the point where life is easy enough for you to have them.  The farther back you go, the harder life gets and the fewer "rights" people had.  Harsh conditions breed harsh rules.



> You are presuming 100% rational decisions.  I would never presume that.  I mean, a change could be, "murder half the population then we can all have more kids and eat more".  Societies have certainly done worse.




Okay.  Let's presume that someone proposes murdering half the kids so they can eat more.  So what.  The rest laugh at the irrational person and say no.  If there are so many that want to make that decision(highly unlikely) that they can pull it off, a rule against speech isn't going to stop them.  There's no need to curtail speech with your example.



> Hard to plant in space.  [MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION] was sending supply ships during the voyage, not the end.  Which means that you have to send the supply ships more and more often because you hit the upper limit of speed and the generation ship is getting further and further away constantly.  The only way to make sure that supplies reach them regularly is to send them more and more often.
> 
> It's not feasible.
> 
> Of course, if "humanity is at stake" then there won't be any resupply ships will there?




No.  The resupply idea is probably not workable unless we get some sort of tech that allows faster than light travel and has a mass limit that keeps the generation ship from using it, but allows the supply ships to use it.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 13, 2019)

If we can set some parameters:

(1) How close are possible target systems?  

The Centauri system is closest at 4.2 LY, and Proxima Centauri has a candidate planet.  If that planet is habitable, that would be great luck.  But we don't have enough data yet.  There are other candidates out to about 50 LY shown here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_terrestrial_exoplanet_candidates

(2) How fast could we get the ship going?

(3) How big of a ship _could we build_?  How many people would that ship hold?

(4) How big of a ship is necessary?  How many people are necessary?

Thx!
TomB


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## Umbran (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Because it can’t change. It can’t afford to change. Any change can potentially fail and over that long some changes will fail.
> 
> And failure in this sort of system is catastrophic. It cannot be robust enough to allow for complete rewriting of society. Even partial change has to be avoided.




Then it cannot be done at all.  

Humans *do not* stay static.  No society on Earth has stayed static for so long, and we should not suspect it here.  Yes, abject failure is catastrophic, but *the people know that*.  Their situation, and the fact that hard vacuum is just outside, is not lost upon them.  

On the flip side, once you are hurtling through space... you just keep hurtling through space.  The interstellar void is filled with a whole lot of nothing, and a whole lot of nothing people on the ship have to do other than regular maintenance, and you probably have wiggle room on exactly when that happens.

While there is potential of failure, that's *always* the case in space.  *ALWAYS*.  People die in space.  Space is dangerous.  If you're not up to taking on some risk of failure, don't start.

Honestly, it is always the case here - especially since the creation of nuclear weapons.  Note that we haven't been able to manage that risk with a static policy - we keep changing over time, a dynamic approach to reaching the goal.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> So, forced abortion.




Or, forced contraception measures, and working the occasional extra kid into your long term plan.  We are talking about decades and centuries of travel time - the plan is long term population control, not "OMG, we have one extra kid, we are DOOOOOOooooooOOOOOmed!"  If you have one unplanned kid, you just cut down on the planned births next year, and it evens out.

Your approach to this seems... always catastrophic.  We have centuries to work with, not minutes.



> We're stripping away the reproductive rights of thousands of people without their permission.  Now, we can certainly do that.  Sure.  But, let's not pretend that we're not committing  massive human rights violations to do so.  "Some sacrifices" seems a tad euphemistic.




For everyone who gets on board to start with, it is entirely voluntary.

For people who are born in flight - they are taught from a young age exactly what the stakes are.  They can be taught the plan, and about population dynamics.  They can understand that population growth needs to be controlled.  And note for most of these people, it isn't that they *cannot* have kids.  It is a question of when, and how many.  And, if we are smart, some of that will be negotiable, and we can plan around it.  If one couple doesn't want kids, that's cool, another couple that does want them can have more.


I think you're failing to note how that we here on this board are, for the most part, highly privileged people.  Most of the population of the planet you are standing on still aren't.  Humans are already born into cultures they cannot control, many with aspects we think of as human rights violations, and they have no way out of them either.  You are speaking as if the ship failing to be a utopia is somehow a major failing.  




> Hard to plant in space.




No, it isn't.  You spin the ship anyway to create a centrifugal gravity to make sure human bone development happens normally, which gives you planting surfaces.  Use lots of hydroponics.  The plants become part of your biological and air recycling systems.


----------



## tomBitonti (Feb 13, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Then it cannot be done at all.
> 
> Humans *do not* stay static.  No society on Earth has stayed static for so long, and we should not suspect it here.  Yes, abject failure is catastrophic, but *the people know that*.  Their situation, and the fact that hard vacuum is just outside, is not lost upon them.




But, do they change because they are forced to by external influence, or do they change because they are inherently unstable?  Aboriginal culture, which was isolated until relatively recently, was apparently stable for at least 50,000 years.

Also, "static" vs "non-static" is too crisp.  Clearly, there will be new people over time, so the society cannot be absolutely the same.  But just changing individuals within a society doesn't seem to be enough to say a society changed.  What sorts of changes are necessary to indicate a changed (non-static) society?

Thx!
TomB


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## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Oh and now the most expensive undertaking humanity could do gets even more expensive because now we have to send supply ships for the next thousand years.




You do know that is not how speed works, right?

Right?


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> No.  The resupply idea is probably not workable unless we get some sort of tech that allows faster than light travel and has a mass limit that keeps the generation ship from using it, but allows the supply ships to use it.




The generation ship has humans on it so that limits your acceleration.  A supply ship would not have that restriction.

And if you had FtL travel then you could just go and pick up everyone from the generation ship, like a space uber.


----------



## MarkB (Feb 13, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> The generation ship has humans on it so that limits your acceleration.  A supply ship would not have that restriction.




The generation ship also has humans on it to perform periodic maintenance and repairs. The supply ships have to survive for hundreds or thousands of years without that. If you're adding long-term high-gee acceleration, even the toughest mechanisms have their limits.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

MarkB said:


> The generation ship also has humans on it to perform periodic maintenance and repairs. The supply ships have to survive for hundreds or thousands of years without that. If you're adding long-term high-gee acceleration, even the toughest mechanisms have their limits.




If you can use solar sails to get the initial acceleration then all the ship would have to do is de accelerate and maneuver to match with the Generation ship.  Thats not a hard problem compared to the Generation ship itself.


----------



## MarkB (Feb 13, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> If you can use solar sails to get the initial acceleration then all the ship would have to do is de accelerate and maneuver to match with the Generation ship.  Thats not a hard problem compared to the Generation ship itself.




If you want the later-launched supply ship to actually catch up with the generation ship, especially late into its voyage, then it can't simply accelerate to the generation ship's speed - it has to travel significantly faster in order to overhaul it. That means it's going to have to decelerate a lot once it gets close, and it can't use solar sails for that - it needs to use actual engines, engines which at that point will have been mothballed for centuries. That is a hard problem, even when compared with the generation ship itself.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 13, 2019)

MarkB said:


> If you want the later-launched supply ship to actually catch up with the generation ship, especially late into its voyage, then it can't simply accelerate to the generation ship's speed - it has to travel significantly faster in order to overhaul it. That means it's going to have to decelerate a lot once it gets close, and it can't use solar sails for that - it needs to use actual engines, engines which at that point will have been mothballed for centuries. That is a hard problem, even when compared with the generation ship itself.




If you are an RPG geek then it is a hard problem.  If you are a Rocket Scientist then its just a Tuesday.


----------



## MarkB (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> If you are an RPG geek then it is a hard problem.  If you are a Rocket Scientist then its just a Tuesday.




Or maybe you have that statement exactly backwards. Are you qualified to tell?


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Or maybe you have that statement exactly backwards. Are you qualified to tell?




Yes, unless you have any further evidence.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Then it cannot be done at all.
> 
> Humans *do not* stay static.  No society on Earth has stayed static for so long, and we should not suspect it here.  Yes, abject failure is catastrophic, but *the people know that*.  Their situation, and the fact that hard vacuum is just outside, is not lost upon them.




Maybe not for so long, but, there are numerous societies that have stayed, more or less, static for centuries.  And, to do so, created societies that were, by modern human rights standards anyway, shockingly repressive.  



> On the flip side, once you are hurtling through space... you just keep hurtling through space.  The interstellar void is filled with a whole lot of nothing, and a whole lot of nothing people on the ship have to do other than regular maintenance, and you probably have wiggle room on exactly when that happens.
> 
> While there is potential of failure, that's *always* the case in space.  *ALWAYS*.  People die in space.  Space is dangerous.  If you're not up to taking on some risk of failure, don't start.




It's not a risk when it's a virtually guaranteed certainty.  We can afford change and changing societies, even ones that murder 1/4 of their population (Cambodia) because the amount of "wiggle room" we have is enormous.  On a space ship, you cannot have that degree of wiggle room.



Umbran said:


> Or, forced contraception measures, and working the occasional extra kid into your long term plan.  We are talking about decades and centuries of travel time - the plan is long term population control, not "OMG, we have one extra kid, we are DOOOOOOooooooOOOOOmed!"  If you have one unplanned kid, you just cut down on the planned births next year, and it evens out.
> 
> Your approach to this seems... always catastrophic.  We have centuries to work with, not minutes.
> 
> ...




So, everyone in subsequent generations must be forced into a single culture and way of thinking because any deviation from the baseline isn't possible.  And this is a morally justifiable position?  Because, it's not just "understanding" that population growth needs to be controlled, it's "You have zero choice in this.  We are going to control your reproductive rights (as well as a host of other personal rights) from birth whether you agree or not"

Or, can people choose to disagree?



> I think you're failing to note how that we here on this board are, for the most part, highly privileged people.  Most of the population of the planet you are standing on still aren't.  Humans are already born into cultures they cannot control, many with aspects we think of as human rights violations, and they have no way out of them either.  You are speaking as if the ship failing to be a utopia is somehow a major failing.




Umm, having basic human rights is hardly what I'd call a "utopia".  Being able to choose when and with whom I have a baby is hardly a utopia.  Being able to choose what kind of job I'd like to do for the rest of my life is hardly a utopia.  Being able to disagree with policies is hardly a utopia.

Your bar for utopia is pretty darn low.  

And, you claim that there is no way out for them.  That's not true.  They can, and often do, flee countries.  Not everyone, true.  But, that is an option.  And, note, while they might suffer under these regimes, many of these regimes do change over time.  So, the horribly repressive dictatorship of today becomes tomorrow's free democracy.  It's a painful process, to be sure, but, it does happen.  As you say, societies are rarely static.


----------



## MarkB (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Yes, unless you have any further evidence.




Further than what? We're having a discussion, not citing sources. If you want to dismiss extremely difficult engineering challenges as just routine legwork, feel free.


----------



## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Maybe not for so long, but, there are numerous societies that have stayed, more or less, static for centuries.  And, to do so, created societies that were, by modern human rights standards anyway, shockingly repressive.




With respect, most societies on Earth (including both static and not-so-static ones) prior to, say, the 19th century, were, by modern human rights standards anyway, shockingly repressive.  So I don't think you can really pin that on them being static.  



> It's not a risk when it's a virtually guaranteed certainty.  We can afford change and changing societies, even ones that murder 1/4 of their population (Cambodia) because the amount of "wiggle room" we have is enormous.  On a space ship, you cannot have that degree of wiggle room.




Not so much as to kill off a quarter of the population, no.  But goodness, dude, there's a middle ground in there!



> So, everyone in subsequent generations must be forced into a single culture and way of thinking because any deviation from the baseline isn't possible.




No.  They are forced to meet some _standards of results_ for their culture, like having a pretty stable population.  Note, it isn't like they must have *exactly* X people alive at any given moment - they just need to be generally stable.  They can make changes in how they achieve that stability - they can monitor the results over some years and alter what they are doing if they see significant deviation from what is needed.  But, historically, absolutely free reproduction leads to growth, so that's probably not an option unless the population has fallen low, and then only for a while.



> And this is a morally justifiable position?




I think it was a strawman, invented position that overstates a need by a large degree.  As such, I disregard it, rather than try to classify its moral quality.



> Or, can people choose to disagree?




Disagree... with what?  With the fact that, in this scenario, thousands will die and the mission will fail if they blithely disregard the physical limitations of the situation in which they find themselves?  That's kind of like disagreeing that the world is round, or that if you dump too much carbon into the atmosphere, the world will warm up*.  I mean, you can do it - you can disagree.  But you'd just be wrong, and in severe cases, risk hurting many people with your willful denial of reality.

Disagree _with how we implement limits_ on population growth and decline?  There, we have some room to negotiate.  There are several ways to get to the same results.  

By the way, this is another reason to take a large population - if the population is large, you get to have kids with who you want, and statistics will take care of the details in the long run.



> And, you claim that there is no way out for them.  That's not true.  They can, and often do, flee countries.  Not everyone, true.




Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, dude.  My folks fled the Soviets.  

I am also very, very aware that most people _did not have the option_ to flee from the Soviets back after WWII.  My close family was lucky, my extended family was not, and I accept that.  Those who can flee are generally a minority.  




> So, the horribly repressive dictatorship of today becomes tomorrow's free democracy.




Well, no.  Today's repressive dictatorship is tomorrow's civil-war battlefield, and in a decade maybe it is a free democracy.  The changeover, historically, isn't very quick.






*I mean, you probably want to think about that, really deeply.  You, and I, and pretty much everyone reading EN World, already live on what is to first approximation a very large, but still closed, environment.  We are apt to have to accept, within our lifetimes, some major changes to how we do things if we are to allow our grandkids and beyond to live some semblance of a decent life.  How much restriction of your lifestyle are you willing to put up with for that mission to succeed?  Are your personal freedoms more important than the conditions under which future generations will live?

And, by extension, are we repressive in making those changes, even if some folks don't agree with them?


----------



## Maxperson (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Well, no.  Today's repressive dictatorship is tomorrow's civil-war battlefield, and in a decade maybe it is a free democracy.  The changeover, historically, isn't very quick.




And often just ends up with another repressive dictatorship.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 14, 2019)

Ok, couple of points.

1.  The Moral Issue

People have made points that because some people are born into repressive regimes, it's okay that others are born into repressive societies.  I'm not quite sure I agree with that, but, that's not the real issue.

 [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], your folks fled the Soviet Union.  Ok, now, did they choose to go back?  And, if they did choose to go back (for whatever the reason) could it possibly be morally justifiable that they would decide that the next thirty generations of their offspring would continue to live in the Soviet Union, accepting Communism as the only possible way to live?

Of course not.  

And that's the issue here.  Sure, the first generation chooses to go on the ship.  Fair enough.  But, it's morally reprehensible to think that that decision is acceptable for the next twenty to thirty generations.  And that's what you are condemning the later generations to.  That one decision made by your great, great, great, great ... great grandfather is still dictating how you live your life.

-----------

But, there is the larger issue here as well.  In order to create a generation ship, you need the technology to create a self sustaining biosphere in a closed system.  Note, the Earth is NOT a closed system - we have a sun that injects LOTS of energy into the system.  Nor are human societies closed systems either.

In any case, if you can create a self sustaining biosphere, why would you bother with a generation ship?  What's the point?  To travel to a new world?  Why?  We can create self-sustaining biospheres, we don't need a new world.  We can make them.  Take a nickel-iron asteroid, drill into the center and fill it with water.  Detonate a very large nuclear device inside and poof, you have a nice hollow world with a nice thick skin to keep out all those nasty cosmic rays.

Spin the sphere in the direction of its axis so that "north" is the direction you are headed and you've got a nice gravity well.  Place your fusion reactor somewhere near the center of the hollow sphere and poof, you've got a world, depending on how big your sphere is, with enough living space for millions or billions of people.

Wash rinse and repeat as needed to increase the solar system's population.  Hang these asteroids in orbit somewhere about a 10 light minute radius from the Sun and you've got enough real estate that population is pretty close to unlimited.  Or at least as unlimited as you need it to be.

That's the primary problem with generation ships.  Once you have the technology to create one, you don't need to anymore because everything you could need is more cheaply found within the solar system.


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## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

Hussar said:


> But, it's morally reprehensible to think that that decision is acceptable for the next twenty to thirty generations.




You want to be very, very careful with that logic.  It has wide-reaching implications. I wish to avoid politics, but let us just say that the culture you live in right here and now is not, by those measures, particularly clean.  Then, there are platitudes about splinters in eyes, pots & kettles, glass houses and stones, that then apply to your position.  Not a good look.

Also, it would seem to me that this is a choice that each person boarding the ship gets to make for themselves.  I don't think you get to sink the project because you have no stomach for the moral implications.  You get to choose not to go yourself, and that's fine.



> But, there is the larger issue here as well.  In order to create a generation ship, you need the technology to create a self sustaining biosphere in a closed system.  Note, the Earth is NOT a closed system - we have a sun that injects LOTS of energy into the system.  Nor are human societies closed systems either.




Yes, the sun injects a lot of energy into the system.  

You want energy injected into the system?  We can do that - use a Bussard ramscoop.  You set out a network of superconducting cables around the ship, and run current through them to produce a magnetic field.  That field scoops up interstellar hydrogen.  Voila!  Fuel!



> In any case, if you can create a self sustaining biosphere, why would you bother with a generation ship?  What's the point?




That sun is going to die, you know.  And it will take us with it if we are not elsewhere.



> To travel to a new world?  Why?




I noted previously that every single habitable continent on this planet was colonized by humans *long* before population pressure made it necessary.  Exploring new places may not be your cup of tea, but it is a things humans do. 

But, perhaps there's no romance in your soul.  So, let us look at socioeconomic benefits.  You are asking, writ large, the same question as those who wonder why we have NASA.  Why we bother having an ISS, or going to the Moon, or Mars, or asteroids.  

1) there is *massive* economic benefit to be gained in the development needed to make the trip possible.  The technologies created for the trip have uses groundside, but we likely wouldn't come up with them if we didn't have a lofty goal.

2) There's a massive amount of stuff to be learned about the universe we live in.  And that, again, will often have applications back home.  Yes, there's a long distance call back, but it gets here eventually.

3) There is a strong argument that a society engaged in expansion gains major economic and sociological benefits - jobs, reduced crime, and all that.  Great undertakings fire up human imagination and creativity in ways that merely continuing to exist does not.  By what you are saying, you may not actually understand that last, but that's okay.  We don't need *you* to go.  Just stay out of the way.



> We can create self-sustaining biospheres, we don't need a new world.  We can make them.  Take a nickel-iron asteroid, drill into the center and fill it with water.  Detonate a very large nuclear device inside and poof, you have a nice hollow world with a nice thick skin to keep out all those nasty cosmic rays.




Yep.  I've read the same pieces.  Slap an engine on it, and you're pretty good to go!


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## Hussar (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> You want to be very, very careful with that logic.  It has wide-reaching implications. I wish to avoid politics, but let us just say that the culture you live in right here and now is not, by those measures, particularly clean.  Then, there are platitudes about splinters in eyes, pots & kettles, glass houses and stones, that then apply to your position.  Not a good look.
> 
> Also, it would seem to me that this is a choice that each person boarding the ship gets to make for themselves.  I don't think you get to sink the project because you have no stomach for the moral implications.  You get to choose not to go yourself, and that's fine.




Now that I'm going to disagree with.  I think that it's perfectly acceptable to sink the project when someone's decision effectively condemns generations to institutional slavery and massive human rights violations.  And, you can talk about glass houses all you like, there is always the significant difference on Earth that if we're wrong, we can make changes to fix the problem.  Vastly more difficult in a closed system with very limited resources.  

IOW, just because our cultures might not be utopian, doesn't mean that we can't look at others and say, yup, that's worse.




> Yes, the sun injects a lot of energy into the system.
> 
> You want energy injected into the system?  We can do that - use a Bussard ramscoop.  You set out a network of superconducting cables around the ship, and run current through them to produce a magnetic field.  That field scoops up interstellar hydrogen.  Voila!  Fuel!




Hard to eat hydrogen.    Unless we're going the route of completely magical science and we now have replicators and the like.  By that point though, we might as well have FTL drives because, well, it's all handwavium by that point anyway.



> That sun is going to die, you know.  And it will take us with it if we are not elsewhere.




Again, at that point, we're hundreds of millions of years in the future.  Presuming that our species should live so long, by that point, the gloves are completely off.  Science will virtually unrecognizable to our cave dwelling selves.  I mean, by that point in the future, we're closer in time to Homo Habilis than we our to our far, far distant offspring.



> I noted previously that every single habitable continent on this planet was colonized by humans *long* before population pressure made it necessary.  Exploring new places may not be your cup of tea, but it is a things humans do.




Couple of points though.  

1.  The exploration done on Earth required very, very little resource from the sponsoring country.  Four or five boats and a couple of hundred men?  Yeah, that's not exactly breaking the bank.  We're talking many, many orders of magnitude more resources required to build a single generation ship.  

2.  The exploration done on earth was not really done out of "curiousity".  It was done out of necessity/search for resources.  Whether you want to talk about those coming across the land bridge to North America, or Magellan, it doesn't really matter.  No one explored the continents nor colonized those continents because they wanted to know "what's over there".  America and Australia were dumping grounds for malcontents and convicts as well as giant sources of wealth.  



> But, perhaps there's no romance in your soul.  So, let us look at socioeconomic benefits.  You are asking, writ large, the same question as those who wonder why we have NASA.  Why we bother having an ISS, or going to the Moon, or Mars, or asteroids.
> 
> 1) there is *massive* economic benefit to be gained in the development needed to make the trip possible.  The technologies created for the trip have uses groundside, but we likely wouldn't come up with them if we didn't have a lofty goal.
> 
> ...




You get the exact same thing building and populating habitats in the Solar System for far, far less cost.  Good grief, why bother sending a ship to Alpha Centauri?  With that level of technology, I build an orbital telescope array and actually LOOK at those planets long before waiting a thousand years for some generation ship to get there and tell me.    

Look, it's not that I don't have romance in my soul.  And I totally agree with the notion of space exploration benefiting Earth.  Totally down with that.  But, I also recognize that the F in SF is equally important.  Generation ships are a plot device, not a practical idea.



> Yep.  I've read the same pieces.  Slap an engine on it, and you're pretty good to go!




That would be cool.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> You want to be very, very careful with that logic.  It has wide-reaching implications. I wish to avoid politics, but let us just say that the culture you live in right here and now is not, by those measures, particularly clean.  Then, there are platitudes about splinters in eyes, pots & kettles, glass houses and stones, that then apply to your position.  Not a good look.
> 
> Also, it would seem to me that this is a choice that each person boarding the ship gets to make for themselves.  I don't think you get to sink the project because you have no stomach for the moral implications.  You get to choose not to go yourself, and that's fine.
> 
> ...





Age of exploration was because the ye olde traditional benefits of trade with Asia via the silk road were lost with the collapse of the Byzantines.

 Columbus was trying to get to Asia, the Portugese went around Africa to get to Asia. Constantinople fell in 1453, within 100 years European ships were preying on Muslim shipping in the Indian Ocean. They knew where silk came from, they knew what direction it was in in in broad terms they knew how to get there due to Marco Polo. They were all trying to get to the richest country in the world of the last 1800/2200 years. The gold at the end of the rainbow was spice, textiles, silk, porcelain etc. 

 Exploring for the sake of exploring mostly came later.

 Morally you would probably have to have some form of oppressive society on a generation ship. We might have to start making decisions like that in the next 50 odd years, for example shooting refugees at the border or let them in and ultimately create more problems or doom more people long term. In extreme survival situations being able to do what you want doesn't work. 

 Morally wrong right now, sure. Morally wrong in 50-100 years who knows. I'm a cynic I bet on violence, its the human thing to do and we're really good at it.


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## Hussar (Feb 14, 2019)

Sorry, [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION], but, morally wrong is just morally wrong.  Full stop.  It doesn't become morally right because we have to do it.  It's just that that's the choice - abandon morals or not.

Although, not to get too far into politics, but, it's extremely doubtful refugees are going to be much more of a problem in 50 years.  At least, no more or less than they are now.  It's just that the current population of most first world countries have forgotten that, not that long ago, about 10% of their populations were foreign born.  Give or take.  It's only in the post war era that we saw such a drop in immigration and mobility.


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## Maxperson (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> That sun is going to die, you know.  And it will take us with it if we are not elsewhere.




Nah. It's not going to take us with it.  Long before the sun dies it will expand and simply take us out.


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## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Exploring for the sake of exploring mostly came later.




How... Eurocentric a view you have.  

Think farther back than that.  Like, ten thousand years and a hundred thousand years and more.  Back before money was invented.  Back to when nowhere other than Africa had humans.  We spread around the globe when we have *extremely low* population densities.  We didn't *need* to move at that time.  We did anyway.


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## Janx (Feb 14, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Sorry, [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION], but, morally wrong is just morally wrong.  Full stop.  It doesn't become morally right because we have to do it.  It's just that that's the choice - abandon morals or not.
> 
> Although, not to get too far into politics, but, it's extremely doubtful refugees are going to be much more of a problem in 50 years.  At least, no more or less than they are now.  It's just that the current population of most first world countries have forgotten that, not that long ago, about 10% of their populations were foreign born.  Give or take.  It's only in the post war era that we saw such a drop in immigration and mobility.




Your the guy in the zombie movie who questions our moral right to survival shouldn't come at the expense of the zombies.

hearts in the right place, but you don't lead to surviving to a future positive outcome.

Your way of thinking leads to taking no action because of the moral implications on anything else.

We kill things to survive.
We go to other places and kill things there to survive
We make sacrifices for a larger future plan, like a pyramid.  Some of you didn't get a choice in that, but it's a sacrifice somebody was willing to make.

As Umbran says, if we don't get out of this solar system, our species will die when the sun dies.  Everything we've ever done will be lost and thus be as if it never happened.  Biggest waste of time ever.  

Hopefully we can be nicer about it than the guy who made the pyramids, but yeah, it's gonna suck for some people for awhile, in order to achieve the next big thing. 

And yes, I can make that decision for future generations. It's the ultimate right of all people in the present, because they are here, and the future is not.

---
btw, I just thought of a horrible metaphor that seems to apply.

If you don't think it is morally right to get on a generation ship because you would subject your descendants to generations of hardship and restriction of rights, think about that and find a parallel situation here and now.

Like, you know.  Black people.  You are basically saying black people should not breed because they are knowingly bringing future generations into the world that they will face the kind of things we don't talk about on EN World.

Now I know Hussar don't mean it that way.  But that's the extreme end of where that line of "moral" thinking goes.  And it turns out, that ain't right either.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 14, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Sorry, @_*Zardnaar*_, but, morally wrong is just morally wrong.  Full stop.  It doesn't become morally right because we have to do it.  It's just that that's the choice - abandon morals or not.
> 
> Although, not to get too far into politics, but, it's extremely doubtful refugees are going to be much more of a problem in 50 years.  At least, no more or less than they are now.  It's just that the current population of most first world countries have forgotten that, not that long ago, about 10% of their populations were foreign born.  Give or take.  It's only in the post war era that we saw such a drop in immigration and mobility.




I think we're around 20% foreign born, in Auckland its 40%.

 Morals are subjective and vary by time. Survival of the species is basically natures primary goal. If things get as bad as the horror stories make out (11+ billion declining food and oil etc) due to global warming I bet on violence.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> How... Eurocentric a view you have.
> 
> Think farther back than that.  Like, ten thousand years and a hundred thousand years and more.  Back before money was invented.  Back to when nowhere other than Africa had humans.  We spread around the globe when we have *extremely low* population densities.  We didn't *need* to move at that time.  We did anyway.




Hunter Gatherers, we probably followed the animals.


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## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Although, not to get too far into politics, but, it's extremely doubtful refugees are going to be much more of a problem in 50 years.




There is a fine line between "refugee" and "people suffering economic dislocation".  For example, as climate shifts, weather patterns shift.  That means the temperature and rainfall shifts - that means where you can grow various crops will move.  Much of the heartland of America, currently devoted to agriculture, may become untenable for that purpose.  All the farmers, and the people who support the farmers, will need to move.  These aren't foreign refugees, they're our own citizens.

As another, only partly related branch of discussion, we were talking about how immoral it is to restrict breeding rights - we have 7.5 billion people on the planet, and that number is growing.  The planet does have a limit on its carrying capacity.  That limit is apt to drop as the climate warms.  As we get close to it, we need to ask ourselves what is more moral:

1) Instituting broadly distributed population controls.
2) Letting people starve.
3) Having wars that end up reducing the population in a host of unpleasant ways.

If you don't do 1, you eventually end up with a mix of (2) and (3).  Choose your poison - a limit on reproductive freedom, or nasty population losses.  

Suddenly, controlling population growth through planning and contraception doesn't sound so ugly, now does it?


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## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Hunter Gatherers, we probably followed the animals.




It isn't like *all the animals* suddenly decided to flow into North America, dude.  Asia was still full of critters.  Early humans *chose* the direction the went.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> It isn't like *all the animals* suddenly decided to flow into North America, dude.  Asia was still full of critters.  Early humans *chose* the direction the went.




We don't really know. Humans got to America over the Bering Strait or over pack ice in the Atlantic (or both).

 There was a very small Pacific Island. It could only support a small population and in their culture old people got on a boat and sailed to their deaths. They may have theoretically survived reaching another island but it was Logan's Run in a way. 

 The groups rights outweighed the individuals. Other cultures had human sacrifice and left babies out to die if they couldn't support them. Other cultures practiced infanticide.

 Horrific by our standards but human rights is a very modern concept as such and far from universal.

 I'm glad we don't have to make those decisions but still kind of think the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the individual. Every society functions this way to some extent it's why we have prison's.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 14, 2019)

Umbran said:


> There is a fine line between "refugee" and "people suffering economic dislocation".  For example, as climate shifts, weather patterns shift.  That means the temperature and rainfall shifts - that means where you can grow various crops will move.  Much of the heartland of America, currently devoted to agriculture, may become untenable for that purpose.  All the farmers, and the people who support the farmers, will need to move.  These aren't foreign refugees, they're our own citizens.
> 
> As another, only partly related branch of discussion, we were talking about how immoral it is to restrict breeding rights - we have 7.5 billion people on the planet, and that number is growing.  The planet does have a limit on its carrying capacity.  That limit is apt to drop as the climate warms.  As we get close to it, we need to ask ourselves what is more moral:
> 
> ...




There are answers (4), which is to provide better education, especially to women, and to provide more reproductive control to women, and (5), have economic policies that incentivize lower birth rates (basically, make it such that one's offspring do better if there are fewer of them, generally, by having offspring do better if they are better educated and have a richer upbringing).  From what I've read, these are effective at reducing birth rates.

I can see that these would be ineffective for certain groups.  If a group firmly believed that they should have many children as a mandate, that would counteract the effects of (4) and (5).

There is also the option (6): Infanticide and killing elders.  See for example, the practices of Inuit Eskimos.  Generally, the Inuit seem to be a very useful example against which to compare the population of a generation ship.  Those are repellent to modern sensibilities, but are strategies which were used historically.  (Infanticide seems to disappear as a strategy when effective contraception exists, and where woman have control over whether to initiate a pregnancy and can choose their child's gender.)

But, this might be the wrong problem: The problem might be too few children, not too many.  And, there is the same moral outrage to the idea forcing women to have children as there is to the idea in preventing them.

Thx!
TomB


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## Eltab (Feb 14, 2019)

Janx said:


> btw, I just thought of a horrible metaphor that seems to apply.
> 
> If you don't think it is morally right to get on a generation ship because you would subject your descendants to generations of hardship and restriction of rights, think about that and find a parallel situation here and now.



I saw an article on a Current Events / News site: A man from India who is suing his parents for bringing him into the world.
I can post a link if anybody thinks it important.


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## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> From what I've read, these are effective at reducing birth rates.




They have not, IIRC, shown to reducing them to the point of zero population growth in a reliable manner.  We will, in general, eventually fill up the planet and need plans to institute reliable control.  We may experience periods when the world, or parts of it, do not need those controls for a bit, but then we'll need them again.



> There is also the option (6): Infanticide and killing elders.




Yes.  Logan's Run is a possibility I missed.  



> But, this might be the wrong problem: The problem might be too few children, not too many.  And, there is the same moral outrage to the idea forcing women to have children as there is to the idea in preventing them.




That issue can arise on our generation ship if there's a problem that causes population loss, or on the new colony it may be viewed as necessary to increase reproduction rates.  On the Earth in general, it requires a pretty major disaster do drop the population so much that we'd need to force reproduction.


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## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Further than what? We're having a discussion, not citing sources.




If we are just having a conversation then why do you need to ask for my qualifications?



> If you want to dismiss extremely difficult engineering challenges as just routine legwork, feel free.




Considering that we already have to sort those extremely difficult engineering challenges before even creating the Generation ship it seems odd to worry that we have not solved those extremely difficult engineering challenges yet.  Thats just a circular argument.


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## dragoner (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Considering that we already have to sort those extremely difficult engineering challenges ...




It would be anything but routine, mechanically, the challenges can be insurmountable. My qualifications are that I am an Engineer. A lot of people want to put the cart before the horse in this discussion.


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## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

Hussar said:


> 2.  The exploration done on earth was not really done out of "curiousity".  It was done out of necessity/search for resources.  Whether you want to talk about those coming across the land bridge to North America, or Magellan, it doesn't really matter.  No one explored the continents nor colonized those continents because they wanted to know "what's over there".  America and Australia were dumping grounds for malcontents and convicts as well as giant sources of wealth.




Maybe that is true for Europe and on the other hand in the South Pacific humans were exploring fine before Magellan was born.


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## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

dragoner said:


> It would be anything but routine, mechanically, the challenges can be insurmountable. My qualifications are that I am an Engineer. A lot of people want to put the cart before the horse in this discussion.




Take fusion power for example.  Thats a pretty hard engineering problem until we solve it.  And we need something like fusion to have enough energy for a 1,000 year trip.

Why stand around wringing your hands about how hard fusion power is?  That would be a different thread.


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## Hussar (Feb 14, 2019)

Migration =/= exploration.

-----

As far as enforcing population controls on Earth goes, well, the jury is still out on that.  Every first world nation currently has birthrates far below replacement.  It appears that as countries become wealthier, their birthrates drop.  The only western countries currently with a positive population growth are ones with fairly high immigration rates - the US, Canada, and a couple of others.  

Japan, on the other hand, is due to lose half its population in the next thirty years.  As are many European nations.  And, population growth world wide is slowing as countries are becoming wealthier overall.

IOW, the system tends to balance itself without the need for enforcement.  Mostly because we have such a massive abundance of resources.

Again, the problem isn't instituting controls.  It's that you are instituting controls for the next thousand years.  Pointing to real world cultures doesn't apply.  No one chooses to move to repressive regimes and then chooses to force their decedents to live in those repressive regimes while choosing to force their decedents to never, ever change those repressive regimes.

And, as far as "we'll die when the sun expands", well, that's 5 BILLION years in the future.  If we survive as a species for 5 billion years (that's about 10 times as long as pretty much any other species) which is wildly optimistic, I'm pretty sure that we have other options by that time.  Heck, that far into the future, moving the Earth further out into the Solar System is an option.


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## MarkB (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Take fusion power for example.  Thats a pretty hard engineering problem until we solve it.  And we need something like fusion to have enough energy for a 1,000 year trip.
> 
> Why stand around wringing your hands about how hard fusion power is?  That would be a different thread.




How so? The topic of discussion is "can we build generation ships yet?" If we're discussing exactly how far off we are from doing so, how can the basic technological requirements for making them a reality be off-topic?


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## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

MarkB said:


> How so? The topic of discussion is "can we build generation ships yet?" If we're discussing exactly how far off we are from doing so, how can the basic technological requirements for making them a reality be off-topic?




Discussing the basic technological requirements for making them a reality is not off topic.  Trying to shut down the discussion because engineering a fusion reactor is "hard" is off topic in my opinion.  Fusion power is not even some kind of fake science like talking about FtL drives.  Complaining that we should not even discuss Generation ships because we have not developed Fusion power yet is ridiculous.


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## Umbran (Feb 14, 2019)

MarkB said:


> How so? The topic of discussion is "can we build generation ships yet?" If we're discussing exactly how far off we are from doing so, how can the basic technological requirements for making them a reality be off-topic?




They aren't off topic.  

Much of the recent thread has focused on the sociological view of it, but the technological sphere is full of fair points.

Broadly - no, we could not build such a ship at this moment.  If nothing else, we don't currently have a drive system that would do the trick.  We have started using small ion drives on occasional probes, but those aren't up to snuff for moving entire cities of people yet.  And that's ab out what we see for a lot of the technologies and systems that we'd need.  We have *started* on most of it, but so much is not yet mature technology.  This, however, is a far cry from the situation when writers started considering generation ships.  So, with a little more time and focused effort, reality could catch up.


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## MarkB (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Discussing the basic technological requirements for making them a reality is not off topic.  Trying to shut down the discussion because engineering a fusion reactor is "hard" is off topic in my opinion.  Fusion power is not even some kind of fake science like talking about FtL drives.  Complaining that we should not even discuss Generation ships because we have not developed Fusion power yet is ridiculous.




I thought you disliked strawman arguments. You're the one who mentioned fusion in the first place, and nobody's suggested that we shouldn't even discuss the topic.


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## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

MarkB said:


> I thought you disliked strawman arguments. You're the one who mentioned fusion in the first place, and nobody's suggested that we shouldn't even discuss the topic.




So then put forward an argument.


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## dragoner (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Take fusion power for example.  Thats a pretty hard engineering problem until we solve it.  And we need something like fusion to have enough energy for a 1,000 year trip.
> 
> Why stand around wringing your hands about how hard fusion power is?  That would be a different thread.




It's not just fusion power is hard, because it isn't (and the state where I live is 3/4's coal powered for electrical generation)*. No, what is hard is doing the math and seeing that you would need all the combined power output of the entire Earth for the next ~14 years or so to launch it from out of our solar system. I have no doubt we'll come up with better propulsion systems, such as eventually fusion rockets, anti-matter catalyzed fusion rockets, or even a super VASIMR/MPD type combined with a field that reduces the interaction between mass and inertia on the quantum level, _something wild._ Nevertheless, that day isn't today. 

*Fusion works, we just aren't getting enough energy back out for what goes in. However, fusion reactors to be efficient have to be much larger (football field sized), is what I have read.


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## MarkB (Feb 14, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> So then put forward an argument.




This isn't the room for an argument. Try down the hall.


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## Shasarak (Feb 14, 2019)

MarkB said:


> This isn't the room for an argument. Try down the hall.




Smashes MarkB into the canal with a fish.


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## Janx (Feb 14, 2019)

How much radiation shielding do we need?
How much water does one person need until we can recycle enough of it to not run out?
How much food does one person need until we can replace it?
How few crew do we actually need to run/maintain things?

how long can we keep sperm, eggs, gametes "fresh"?
Can we build an Iron Womb and skip the pregnancy step?
How big would this ship need to be?
How fast can we get it to fly?
How far does it need to go?

If we only needed twenty people to run things, carrying another 1,980 who sit around all day is a waste.  Keep live crew + children growing/training and maybe have to only support 100 people total.  

Hatch and train the rest (in batches) on arrival.

That could mean a smaller ship, lighter payload overall, compared to keeping thousands of people alive the entire time.


----------



## Shasarak (Feb 15, 2019)

dragoner said:


> It's not just fusion power is hard, because it isn't (and the state where I live is 3/4's coal powered for electrical generation)*. No, what is hard is doing the math and seeing that you would need all the combined power output of the entire Earth for the next ~14 years or so to launch it from out of our solar system. I have no doubt we'll come up with better propulsion systems, such as eventually fusion rockets, anti-matter catalyzed fusion rockets, or even a super VASIMR/MPD type combined with a field that reduces the interaction between mass and inertia on the quantum level, _something wild._ Nevertheless, that day isn't today.
> 
> *Fusion works, we just aren't getting enough energy back out for what goes in. However, fusion reactors to be efficient have to be much larger (football field sized), is what I have read.




Is there any way we can increase the amount of energy that we can use on Earth?  I mean we are burning trees and dinosaur juice now and on the other hand the Sun releases a million times more energy in 1 second then the earth uses in 1 year.


----------



## Zardnaar (Feb 15, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Maybe that is true for Europe and on the other hand in the South Pacific humans were exploring fine before Magellan was born.




 They were probably looking for new islands to settle. The islands can't support massive populations even in the modern era. That overly large village north of the Bombay hills is the biggest Polynesian city in the world.

 I think it was Tikopia where they practiced exiling old people due to population restraints.


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## Shasarak (Feb 15, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> They were probably looking for new islands to settle. The islands can't support massive populations even in the modern era. That overly large village north of the Bombay hills is the biggest Polynesian city in the world.
> 
> I think it was Tikopia where they practiced exiling old people due to population restraints.




One of my Maori friends was talking about how there are basically "Pathfinders" who go out exploring kinda like in Moana.  If they find something they go back to get the rest of the whanau.   The idea that there are no explorers is kinda bonkers, the first people to discover the Americas were the Spanish?  Yeah, nah.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 15, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> One of my Maori friends was talking about how there are basically "Pathfinders" who go out exploring kinda like in Moana.  If they find something they go back to get the rest of the whanau.   The idea that there are no explorers is kinda bonkers, the first people to discover the Americas were the Spanish?  Yeah, nah.




There were definitely explorers never said there wasn't. The Vikings got to America before the Spanish the Polynesians probably got to Chile and traded for the kumara.


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## Hussar (Feb 15, 2019)

Sigh.

No one said there were no explorers.  

What was said was that exploration wasn't done for curiousity's sake.  Exploration was always done because of a search for resources.  You move your village a couple of miles every few years because you're a hunter/gatherer society and you're looking for new game and you wind up crossing most of the planet before too long.

It's not like the Vikings were just out for the heck of it.  They were hunting for new lands to expand into.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 15, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Sigh.
> 
> No one said there were no explorers.
> 
> ...




Some of the documented voyages were for exploration sake. Most of the time it was for new land to settle or trade with.
 Ancient human migration we don't really know but it was probably food.  Food was easy on the coast.
 As kids we ate dinner off the rocks more than once.


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## tomBitonti (Feb 15, 2019)

Umbran said:


> That issue can arise on our generation ship if there's a problem that causes population loss, or on the new colony it may be viewed as necessary to increase reproduction rates.  On the Earth in general, it requires a pretty major disaster do drop the population so much that we'd need to force reproduction.




I dunno ... see, for example Italy and Japan, which are losing population because of very low birth rates.

Thx!
TomB


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## tomBitonti (Feb 15, 2019)

dragoner said:


> It's not just fusion power is hard, because it isn't (and the state where I live is 3/4's coal powered for electrical generation)*. No, what is hard is doing the math and seeing that you would need all the combined power output of the entire Earth for the next ~14 years or so to launch it from out of our solar system. I have no doubt we'll come up with better propulsion systems, such as eventually fusion rockets, anti-matter catalyzed fusion rockets, or even a super VASIMR/MPD type combined with a field that reduces the interaction between mass and inertia on the quantum level, _something wild._ Nevertheless, that day isn't today.
> 
> *Fusion works, we just aren't getting enough energy back out for what goes in. However, fusion reactors to be efficient have to be much larger (football field sized), is what I have read.




Using fusion for propulsion is a bit different than using it to generate electrical power.  I don’t know that our failure to generate power means we can’t make a fusion drive.  (There is a lot of solid research on this ... do a search on interstellar rocket motor.)

Thx!
TomB


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## Umbran (Feb 15, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> I dunno ... see, for example Italy and Japan, which are losing population because of very low birth rates.




Yes, they are losing population, but not drastically.  In the past decade, Japan has dropped from 127.8 million, to 126.8 million.  That's less than one percent (it is 0.7% or so of the population, over an entire decade).  In the long run, yes, you'd want to correct for it, but it isn't a situation to call for *forcing* people to have babies.


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## Umbran (Feb 15, 2019)

tomBitonti said:


> Using fusion for propulsion is a bit different than using it to generate electrical power.  I don’t know that our failure to generate power means we can’t make a fusion drive.  (There is a lot of solid research on this ... do a search on interstellar rocket motor.)




At the low-tech end of the scale - you can make a drive with bombs.  Build your ship on a big metal plate, with shock absorbers.  Throw bombs behind the plate, and let the blast push you along.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)


----------



## dragoner (Feb 15, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> Is there any way we can increase the amount of energy that we can use on Earth?  I mean we are burning trees and dinosaur juice now and on the other hand the Sun releases a million times more energy in 1 second then the earth uses in 1 year.





Eventually, except in the confines of the question, not today, that is the simplest answer. Sure, we will increase power generation, and if we build a smart grid we won't lose 40% of generated power due to Ohm's Law, from pumping power into a hundred year old grid with hundred year old power plants.

It's really baby steps to get into space though, the knowing comes from doing, right now, if we built an interplanetary vehicle, it would be very primitive in design, like one of those Duryea cars in comparison to modern ones. That's before any consideration of an interstellar vehicle. Plus the fundamental truth is that if we could create a vehicle where people could live on some thousands of year journey, we could build an O'Neill Cylinder at a Lagrange Point and live there, not needing to make the long journey.




tomBitonti said:


> Using fusion for propulsion is a bit different than using it to generate electrical power.  I don’t know that our failure to generate power means we can’t make a fusion drive.  (There is a lot of solid research on this ... do a search on interstellar rocket motor.)
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




Rockets are engines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine I'm lucky enough to have a pint or two with propulsion engineers from Armstrong Hall of Aerospace Engineering https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/Facilities/ArmstrongHall Fusion rockets are often a favorite topic, for right now, they are less possible than Fusion Reactors, due to the nominal erosion of the combustion chamber, at least in theory, as one has never been tested. Someday maybe, sure, but not today.


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## Umbran (Feb 15, 2019)

dragoner said:


> Plus the fundamental truth is that if we could create a vehicle where people could live on some thousands of year journey, we could build an O'Neill Cylinder at a Lagrange Point and live there, not needing to make the long journey.




*sigh*

Any one of you drive out of your way to get a better cup of coffee or taco or anything at all?  Or are you people all hyper-efficient, and never do anything that you don't *need* to do?




> Fusion rockets are often a favorite topic, for right now, they are less possible than Fusion Reactors, due to the nominal erosion of the combustion chamber, at least in theory, as one has never been tested. Someday maybe, sure, but not today.




That's an issue we may not ever get past, given that what you're basically doing is making a tiny star, and throwing it out the back of the ship.  For long-term use, an engine with low temperatures, and few moving parts are good - and that suggests an ion engine as a good choice.  Then, you make electricity through whaatever means you want, and pump it into the ion engine.  Fusion not required.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 15, 2019)

[MENTION=6943731]dragoner[/MENTION] Well, there is still a "long-term" need for your O'Nell Cylinder to fly somewhere else - the Sun won't be there forever. That is really long term, of course, but it's almost the only reason to actually bother with the Cylinder in the first place, I think. If you expect you can stay on the solar system, no planet is really a safer bet than Earth, because the base environmental conditions are just so much better here, even if we assume severe changes due to asteroids, super vulcanos, nuclear war or even zombie apocalypses. 

An O'Neill Cylinder that stays in the solar system has a few conveniences that it would not have in deep space flight hasn't. There are planetary bodies and asteroids that could be mined. And there is a sun that radiates energy. 

One of the really hard parts is the time in isolation when you're too far from any star system to mine resources or collect solar energy.


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## Shasarak (Feb 15, 2019)

dragoner said:


> It's really baby steps to get into space though, the knowing comes from doing, right now, if we built an interplanetary vehicle, it would be very primitive in design, like one of those Duryea cars in comparison to modern ones. That's before any consideration of an interstellar vehicle. Plus the fundamental truth is that if we could create a vehicle where people could live on some thousands of year journey, we could build an O'Neill Cylinder at a Lagrange Point and live there, not needing to make the long journey.




There is always going to be that fundamental human curiosity that drives us to explore.  If not that then the bloody mindedness when someone tells us that we can not do something.

And there is always the Mormons.


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## dragoner (Feb 15, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Well, there is still a "long-term" need for your O'Nell Cylinder to fly somewhere else - the Sun won't be there forever.




Though the question is for right now, in the future, I suppose much more will be possible. Even with more powerful engines, we will not need generation ships, as the time, subjective, will be less. _Tau Zero_ by Poul Anderson is a good novelette on the subject.

An O'Neill in orbit can also provide a base for building spacecraft for exploration of the Solar System and beyond. In a sci-fi setting I made, there are those, plus space elevators, where the orbital stations provide Earth with it's manufacturing and food production, and the Earth is like a park.




> An O'Neill Cylinder that stays in the solar system has a few conveniences that it would not have in deep space flight hasn't.




I mentioned up-thread of using them in the Mars cycler orbit, they can be stepping stones. There is an old Soviet sci-fi film, A Dream Come True, where they sing _"Apple Trees will bloom on Mars ..."_ A favorite of mine as a child.



> One of the really hard parts is the time in isolation when you're too far from any star system to mine resources or collect solar energy.




True, however we could find a rogue planet, current research says they might be more common than we previously thought.



Shasarak said:


> There is always going to be that fundamental human curiosity that drives us to explore.




I am 100% for space exploration.



> And there is always the Mormons.




Until the Belters steal their ship. 

(I was voted one of Avasarala's biggest fans on Shohreh's FB page, unrepentant Earther that I am.)


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 16, 2019)

dragoner said:


> True, however we could find a rogue planet, current research says they might be more common than we previously thought.



Not a direct source of power probably, but a source of resources (and if includes stuff like whatever we use in the reactors, an indirect source of power). Getting things up from a planet is costly, of course, but if it has the resources for it, it might work out in the end.

Do you mean that we would follow that rogue planet around? Because even if they are common, I don't think one could count on the ability of plotting a route that leads us near rogue planets often enough. 

But an interesting side-topic - the science behind rogue planets: What would be the basis on assuming the frequency of rogue planets? I don't really know enough about planet formation and star formation to see why planets wouldn't form outside of star systems. It seems the fundamental is always the same - you have a collection of gas and materials, and their gravitational attraction brings them closer together until they collide and can't escape each other. I can somewhat see that a star forming means there is so much mass in the area that additional "mass clumping" are more likely.


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## Umbran (Feb 16, 2019)

dragoner said:


> True, however we could find a rogue planet, current research says they might be more common than we previously thought.




I feel a need to quote Douglas Adams.  “_Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space._”

"More common than previously thought," doesn't really help.  You have this one thin line, from point A to B, in all the vastness of the interstellar vacuum.  The chance that there will _just happen_ to be a rogue planet close enough to your route to make a stop off for major mining operations is not credible.  If they were common enough to be relevant, then over the course of our history they'd have been disrupting our solar system with flybys, and that hasn't happened.  So, this is not a realistic scenario.  Sorry.


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## Janx (Feb 16, 2019)

Umbran said:


> I feel a need to quote Douglas Adams.  “_Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space._”
> 
> "More common than previously thought," doesn't really help.  You have this one thin line, from point A to B, in all the vastness of the interstellar vacuum.  The chance that there will _just happen_ to be a rogue planet close enough to your route to make a stop off for major mining operations is not credible.  If they were common enough to be relevant, then over the course of our history they'd have been disrupting our solar system with flybys, and that hasn't happened.  So, this is not a realistic scenario.  Sorry.




Yeah, I just love how often crash landings on planets happen in sci-fi.  I mean it's great that technology has developed so well that nearly all crashes are survivable, but how come everytime a ship-critical problem happens, a planet just happens to be nearby.  That's like 1% of the entire time the ship is in transit.  That's Murphy's Law throwing soft pitches.


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## dragoner (Feb 16, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Not a direct source of power probably, but a source of resources (and if includes stuff like whatever we use in the reactors, an indirect source of power). Getting things up from a planet is costly, of course, but if it has the resources for it, it might work out in the end.
> 
> Do you mean that we would follow that rogue planet around? Because even if they are common, I don't think one could count on the ability of plotting a route that leads us near rogue planets often enough.
> 
> But an interesting side-topic - the science behind rogue planets: What would be the basis on assuming the frequency of rogue planets? I don't really know enough about planet formation and star formation to see why planets wouldn't form outside of star systems. It seems the fundamental is always the same - you have a collection of gas and materials, and their gravitational attraction brings them closer together until they collide and can't escape each other. I can somewhat see that a star forming means there is so much mass in the area that additional "mass clumping" are more likely.




Some people's logic seems so poor as their arguments against destroy themselves.

I go from astronomers, their papers, blogs, and such. As far as I have read, many of these rogues come from forming in proto-planetary disc and then being thrown out, often when larger bodies such as gas giants move in their orbits. As well as star systems where they were in stable orbits and the star had an event, and the planet wandered out of orbit. Billions of star systems over billions of years, that would increase incidence quite a bit. They could come from independent mass-clumping though, star that never came to be, and all that. The universe is orderly, yet also sublime.

I don't think a big generation ship vehicle would follow, or even stop at one of these rogues, most likely dispatch smaller vehicles to investigate or mine. For example, IIRC oxygen becomes ice at lower than 54 Kelvin, that could be mined. Then the smaller vehicles would then catch up to larger vehicle(s). 

There is also a statement here that any generation ship simply must have the ability to maneuver, as without it, it could collide with something. In this, much as with the Mars cycler or other cycler orbits, the big generation ship could use momentum imparted by the gravity of the rogue in a slingshot manner. So this could make finding a rogue of even greater importance.


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## Shasarak (Feb 16, 2019)

Janx said:


> Yeah, I just love how often crash landings on planets happen in sci-fi.  I mean it's great that technology has developed so well that nearly all crashes are survivable, but how come everytime a ship-critical problem happens, a planet just happens to be nearby.  That's like 1% of the entire time the ship is in transit.  That's Murphy's Law throwing soft pitches.




Do you mena that you dont read all of the sci-fi books about the ships that explode in space or get destroyed when they crash land on a planet?  They usually have one great action scene at the start but I have to admit not much character development after that.


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## Hussar (Feb 17, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Yes, they are losing population, but not drastically.  In the past decade, Japan has dropped from 127.8 million, to 126.8 million.  That's less than one percent (it is 0.7% or so of the population, over an entire decade).  In the long run, yes, you'd want to correct for it, but it isn't a situation to call for *forcing* people to have babies.




Expectations in Japan is that by 2050, Japan will be down to 60 million people.  These predictions are being taken so seriously that Japan is currently changing its immigration laws to make it easier for foreign workers to work here.  They are predicting massive worker shortages in very short order.  

IOW, Japan is facing a very serious problem.  And, one that a generation ship couldn't fix with immigration.



Shasarak said:


> Do you mena that you dont read all of the sci-fi books about the ships that explode in space or get destroyed when they crash land on a planet?  They usually have one great action scene at the start but I have to admit not much character development after that.




Ok, this?  This was funny.   

----

As far as "no romance" goes.  If all you're doing is exploring, there are far, far cheaper, more effective, and safer ways of exploring the universe than a generation ship.  Again, no society invests a significant portion of its resources on exploration just for the sake of exploration.  Expecting the people of the Earth to invest a significant portion of the entire planet's resources for a significant length of time, just so a tiny handful of people will get to explore the universe is just not going to happen.

And, again, if we're talking 5 billion years in the future when our sun begins to expand, well, at that point we're into Dyson Sphere territory.  Heck, by that time, you could probably harness the sun itself as your propulsion system, creating a Dyson sphere around the sun to house a virtually infinite number of people (yes, it's not infinite but, a Dyson Sphere with a diameter of, say, Venus's orbit, would have a surface area of a (not a mathematician) crap ton of Earths.  IOW, it might not be infinite but, it could at least wave at infinity in the distance.


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## dragoner (Feb 17, 2019)

Here is an article on propulsion that has some relevance to this discussion:

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/02/15/breakthrough-propulsion-study

I like how he signs off:
_Ad astra incrementis._


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## Samloyal23 (Feb 28, 2019)

So what would be a good option based on current knowledge for a possible destination? Where should we go?


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## MarkB (Feb 28, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> So what would be a good option based on current knowledge for a possible destination? Where should we go?




It depends on what you want to do when you get there. We're getting better at identifying smaller, Earth-scale planets in other solar systems, but we can only detect the very broadest information about them. As it stands, we couldn't easily confirm whether a planet is capable of supporting any life, let alone human life.

If you want to go to a new solar system and then spend several hundred more years living in a tin can while you try to terraform an unknown world, there are some potential candidates - but you'd probably be better off staying here and doing the same thing to a world in this solar system.


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## Baron Opal II (Feb 28, 2019)

A minimum population size would be 10,000 from papers I've read in the past. That would allow for sufficient genetic variation that recessives would get buried indefinetly or bloom and get selected out.

Apollo 13 survived a disaster fairly well. They had specific resources for a specific mission. When a disaster occurred and they had less resources than they needed to survive, the home team was able to come up with a solution that the astronauts could implement. Yes, in this situation communication times would make that less reliable, but there is still the possibility of communications for a while.

The Polynesian explorers colonized the islands in the South Pacific fairly handily. They certainly had a closed system as far as water went. And, they seemed to have moral certitude they were making the right decision for their unborn children. And, I'm certain that there were many ships that went out that didn't find anything and didn't come back.

Redundancy is key. Multiple systems, acknowledged societal systems to handle disagreements, perhaps ritualized combat (sports up to gladiators?), and multiple generation ships. Don't put your eggs in one basket.

Also- An O'Neil cylinder would be an exceptional first step. A dry run ferrying people and goods between here and Mars, even the Jovian colonies, would be good practice to determine unexpected needs.


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## Hussar (Feb 28, 2019)

Baron Opal II said:


> A minimum population size would be 10,000 from papers I've read in the past. That would allow for sufficient genetic variation that recessives would get buried indefinetly or bloom and get selected out.
> 
> Apollo 13 survived a disaster fairly well. They had specific resources for a specific mission. When a disaster occurred and they had less resources than they needed to survive, the home team was able to come up with a solution that the astronauts could implement. Yes, in this situation communication times would make that less reliable, but there is still the possibility of communications for a while.




I'll see your Apollo 13 with an Apollo 1 and raise you a Challenger.  The problem with space travel is that when disaster hits, it's very often catastrophic.

And, once you're beyond a few light weeks, communication becomes largely impossible.  Even a single light year.  And we need to make at least 5 light years to make the nearest star.  Communication with home to fix problems just isn't plausible for most of the journey.



> The Polynesian explorers colonized the islands in the South Pacific fairly handily. They certainly had a closed system as far as water went. And, they seemed to have moral certitude they were making the right decision for their unborn children. And, I'm certain that there were many ships that went out that didn't find anything and didn't come back.




Yeah, because exploring in a tropical environment where food is plentiful and even water isn't all that difficult to come by in an area where it rains 300 days a year (yes, an exaggeration) is equivalent to space exploration.    And, never minding I'm not really interested in the moral arguments of a pre-industrial civilization.  The notion that children would even have a say in things is a fairly modern concept.  And, again, your children didn't have to keep exploring.  They could always stay on whatever tropical island you found yourself colonizing.  Or they could leave and go to a different island.  IOW, they had considerable choice.



> Redundancy is key. Multiple systems, acknowledged societal systems to handle disagreements, perhaps ritualized combat (sports up to gladiators?), and multiple generation ships. Don't put your eggs in one basket.
> 
> Also- An O'Neil cylinder would be an exceptional first step. A dry run ferrying people and goods between here and Mars, even the Jovian colonies, would be good practice to determine unexpected needs.




Now we're investing in multiple generation ships?  Where exactly would the resources for this come from?  We're talking an undertaking that, currently, would eat up the entire global output for decades just to create a single ship.  And you want to make several?  

Again, by the time you have that many resources at hand that you could feasibly build something like this, you no longer need to.


----------



## Baron Opal II (Feb 28, 2019)

Hussar said:


> I'll see your Apollo 13 with an Apollo 1 and raise you a Challenger.  The problem with space travel is that when disaster hits, it's very often catastrophic.



It can be, yes. That's why redundancies and improvisation are important. But the crew of Apollo 13 made it home, seemingly impossible by your thesis.



> Communication with home to fix problems just isn't plausible for most of the journey.



True. But it lowers the risk at the beginning.




> Yeah, because exploring in a tropical environment where food is plentiful and even water isn't all that difficult to come by in an area where it rains 300 days a year (yes, an exaggeration) is equivalent to space exploration.



From a resource perspective, it is. If you run out of fresh water in your catamaran and you are a week out from the dry land you hope is out there, you're screwed. Yet, many voyages succeeded. And, I'm sure, many did not.



> Now we're investing in multiple generation ships?  Where exactly would the resources for this come from?  We're talking an undertaking that, currently, would eat up the entire global output for decades just to create a single ship.  And you want to make several?



It seems prudent to me to have multiple bites at the apple. Each ship is probably going to be a hollowed out asteroid- this would give sufficient shielding and volume for resource storage. Water is probably going to be the key resource and there is a lot of it out there.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2019)

You're missing my point.  What is a generation ship?  It's a closed, self sustaining ecosystem that will support thousands of people for many, many generations.

Once you have the ability to make something like that, there's no need to send it to another star.  Why bother?  Orbit it around our star and you're good to go.  5 billion years from now when the sun begins to expand?  Move the orbit out a ways and enjoy the resources of an entire solar system.  

This is the fundamental problem with all the "alien invasion" stories.  Once you have the ability to travel between stars, you don't need to anymore.


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## Baron Opal II (Mar 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> You're missing my point.  What is a generation ship?  It's a closed, self sustaining ecosystem that will support thousands of people for many, many generations.
> 
> Once you have the ability to make something like that, there's no need to send it to another star.  Why bother?
> 
> ...Once you have the ability to travel between stars, you don't need to anymore.




I find this to be a reasonable criticism. At least for the next 10-20,000 years or so. If there truly is no means of FTL then robotic probes will need to be the answer to see what is out there. If we are going to actually build a generation ship, we would need to have a solid destination planned.

Because once we find and confirm that there is another planet out there with life, or could support ours? Getting 10K volunteers would be trivial.

Why bother? How could you not?


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## Eltab (Mar 1, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> So what would be a good option based on current knowledge for a possible destination? Where should we go?



Proxima Centauri hosts a planet of about the right size and about the right distance.  We don't know its composition yet.  This is the closest possible destination.
Sirius probably will be a dud unless your sponsoring organization is named National Geographic, due to previous nova (Sirius B) that likely messed up any planets' orbit.
Tau Ceti has a big dust cloud around it, with ripples that suggest planets in the right places.
Other nifty-looking systems are much farther out.  There seems to be a 'shell' of interesting exoplanets at distance 40 light-years.
The Kepler probe was pointed in one direction only and has found exoplanets up to 33,000 light-years out.  That will be a LONG trip.

It seems to me that asteroid belts would be more interesting to the generation ship crew than landing on a planet.  They might want to mine the resources and build landing craft, rather than carrying the gear all that way.

The website SolSystem.com has known data for nearby stars and planets.  It looks like the data has not been updated for a while but it can serve as a rough first guess of system astrography.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2019)

Baron Opal II said:


> /snip
> 
> Why bother? How could you not?




Because the expense is just far, far more than it's worth.  Again, if you have the ability to create closed, self-sustaining ecosystems, then things like terraforming become an option.  Mars has as much land as Earth even if you flood the lower parts of it with water (possibly by crashing a few ice comets into the planet).  Never minding things like hollowed out asteroids which could yield living space comparable to Earth's.

At a certain point, it's just not really necessary.  Far easier to send unmanned probes.  Safer, cheaper and far, far faster.  Meanwhile, the living space for humans in the Solar System is effectively unlimited, so long as you can keep creating new habitats.  

It would take hundreds of millions of years to actually exhaust the resources available in the Solar System by that point.  Far longer than the life expectancy of a species.


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## Baron Opal II (Mar 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Because the expense is just far, far more than it's worth.
> 
> At a certain point, it's just not really necessary.  Far easier to send unmanned probes.  Safer, cheaper and far, far faster.




No, it would well be worth the expense and time.

I will absolutely concede that there might be an easier way to do it as a large dome on Mars, or dropping millions of tons of ice on Venus. That we know of today. There might be a reason that we haven't thought of that would make being planetside on a non-Terran world undesirable.

But to touch an alien world... a glorious thing. Even if I can't do it myself.


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## Umbran (Mar 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Because the expense is just far, far more than it's worth.




Oh, really?  I mean, you've *calculated* how much a journey to another star is worth?  How many dollars is it?  Please, tell us!  And I am sure NASA wants to see your numbers...

Because, you see, in science and exploration, we don't get to know the value beforehand - leaving your assertion that it would not be worth it ringing rather hollow.  Yes, it is a crap shoot.  But, NASA has to date shown that exploration efforts pay off for mankind, regardless of whether an individual mission itself succeeds or fails.


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## Janx (Mar 1, 2019)

Hussar said:


> Because the expense is just far, far more than it's worth.  Again, if you have the ability to create closed, self-sustaining ecosystems, then things like terraforming become an option.  Mars has as much land as Earth even if you flood the lower parts of it with water (possibly by crashing a few ice comets into the planet).  Never minding things like hollowed out asteroids which could yield living space comparable to Earth's.
> 
> At a certain point, it's just not really necessary.  Far easier to send unmanned probes.  Safer, cheaper and far, far faster.  Meanwhile, the living space for humans in the Solar System is effectively unlimited, so long as you can keep creating new habitats.
> 
> It would take hundreds of millions of years to actually exhaust the resources available in the Solar System by that point.  Far longer than the life expectancy of a species.




The problem is, we don't tend to develop technologies that solve those problems unless we actually try the actual goal.

So while I pointed out that surviving an asteroid strike is easier on earth than getting to Mars, staying there and then coming back to rebuild, we on't get the technology to stay on mars unless we actually go try to stay on mars.

And we're not likely to develop good enough technology in a hurry to survive on earth unless we try something harder, like going to live on mars.

And unless we get out of Sol, our entire species will die out unless we work on getting out of Sol system.  Yes, that's very long term, but there is no point to history to art, to learning anything if we don't find a way to pass it on to the next generation.  Because all of it will be destroyed when the sun dies, if we're stuck here.  Our cumulative lives and accomplishments will be as meaningful as ants.  Nobody around to care or learn from it.


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## Hussar (Mar 2, 2019)

Umbran said:


> Oh, really?  I mean, you've *calculated* how much a journey to another star is worth?  How many dollars is it?  Please, tell us!  And I am sure NASA wants to see your numbers...
> 
> Because, you see, in science and exploration, we don't get to know the value beforehand - leaving your assertion that it would not be worth it ringing rather hollow.  Yes, it is a crap shoot.  But, NASA has to date shown that exploration efforts pay off for mankind, regardless of whether an individual mission itself succeeds or fails.




Well, no, that's true.  I haven't actually crunched the numbers.  But, I'm pretty sure that harvesting near Earth objects for resources for the next million years (and yes, that's how much there actually IS in near Earth orbit) is probably a whole lot cheaper than building a several million tonne spaceship capable of continuous travel for thousands of years.  

Are you seriously suggesting that a generation ship's primary mission would be _exploration_?  Really?  I can think of a thousand ways to explore for a fraction of the investment that would give as good or better results than a generation ship.

So, no, I don't think the objections are hollow.  They are realistic.  The real problem is that people who have devoted so much time to science fiction often have incredibly unrealistic views of space.  A single nickel-iron asteroid in near Earth orbit has more iron in it than we have mined in all of human history.  And there are literally thousands of these objects in orbit.  

Why are we building asteroid colonies in the asteroid belt?  If we have that level of technology, why not just deorbit that asteroid into Earth's orbit and mine it here?  Saves tons of time, expense and effort.  Is it less romantic?  Sure.  But, reality often is.


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## Samloyal23 (Mar 12, 2019)

Shasarak said:


> The Muslims do not have any Gay people without Slavery.




The Muslims do not have any gay people because they lynch anyone they find who is gay.


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## Umbran (Mar 12, 2019)

Samloyal23 said:


> The Muslims do not have any gay people ...





*THIS IS NOT OKAY.

Do not bring this racist nonsense to this website.  And, no, we don't care if you were joking or not.

Do not post in the thread again. *


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