Will Humans EVER Being Willing to do Hibernation?

Hey, Farmer, since warp factor is an imaginary unit for an imaginary means of propulsion, how do you know it's linear (or will be, if we ever invent a warp drive)? Maybe it's exponential, say by powers of 2, so warp factor 10 would be a thousand times warp factor 1 (well, 1024), so we'd get to Alpha Centauri in about a day, which is probably about the "Star Trek" speed, I'd guess (of course they have to do it for dramatic necessity rather than physics).

At the first "Star Trek" convention, Gene Roddenberry told us that the speed was the cube of the warp number times the speed of light. I seem to remember that in "Next Generation" it was the 5th power times the speed of light.

None of that warp speed bullshit takes into account the effect of time dilation--what happens with time dilation if one exceeds the speed of light? Do you leave the earth an octogenarian and return a zygote?

Good Point. I was using a factor that was originally used by Carl Sagan in one of his shows. You may be right and , in that case, wed be able to reach our destinations before we left eh? eh?
Somehow I think reality will hit us in the ass .
I saw an experiment at Lincoln Lab one year where they exceeded light speed for photons and they arrived at the target before they left .

AMericans have always been criticized for not thinking far enough into the future, so you make a fine Merkin .
I think we should begin with "making a list" of all the things we need to know and all the things we don't and then start working.
Earth could be made a smoking ruin by well before the time the sun starts burning up and out. We could get smacked by some bigass piece of space rock and hve to deal with a thousand year nuclear winter or, WORSE, I fear a gamma blast from some distant sun going supernova and we are in the target. Then, in that case . we lose our atmosphere

As someone said, our combined global politics is always led by men of NO VISION.

Another thing. If Fermi was incorrect and theres lotsa civilizations out there, maybe they hvent solved the "getting outta Dodge" problem even if their worlds are far older than ours.
We need to, at some time, face that reality and either prepare or resign

Colonizing would always be a gamble, and an expensive one. The men of no vision to whom FM referred (and it's a good assessment) aren't even trying to solve the problems we face as societies let alone the future of the human race. You'll never get people to accept the enormous costs of sending out colonizing missions as long as not everyone on the planet has enough to eat, as long as greedy bastards run rampant cheating, lying, stealing and f*cking up the environment, all the while chaning the mantra of the holy bottom line.

If there were ever a social climate which would accept sending out colonizing mission, it will be a gamble because we just can't send out thousands and thousands of people at once to each target. A few hundred is a much more realistic scenario. Marion Zimmer Bradley, in her highly popular Darkover series of novels and short stories, starts from the premise of a colonial ship carrying somewhat more than 200 would-be colonists, and a crew of not quite one hundred. Forced to find a planet to land on to effect repairs, they lose a few colonist and about a quarter of the crew when the ship crashes while attempting to land. Leaving aside all the other aspects of what she calls herself science fantasy, the size of the crew complement and number of colonists on her ship is realistic. You have to take along enough oxygen to keep the passenger and crew compartments beathable, and yuou have to take along food and water, in addition to whatever supplies are projected to establish the conlony. You ain't gonna be sending out for more, and you ain't gonna be goin' home if it don't work out. Even our science fiction writers prove to be men and women who are largely devoid of vision. Star Trek is bullshit, and people need to realize that.

Star Trek is based upon a single assumption that may or may not be possible, that is, the availaqblity of infinite supplies of energy.
Sometimes (well, usually always) Physics gets in the way.

However, should China and Indiia decide to do a joint effort at near space probes with an eye to colonization, I think the deadheads in the west will wake up.

As i mentioned in Brandon's space thread, i think our best bet is the Japanese--they already have considerable expertise and lots of cash. A partnership of the US, Russia and Japan would be full of potential. I don't expect, however, that we'll get anything out of American governments. Even without the teabaggers, the Republicans seem to be happy to squander astronomical sums (pun intended) on larcenous defense contracts, but unwilling to spend money on anything else that doesn't promise to directly or indirectly line their own pockets. Despite the Kennedy legacy, the Democrats don't seem inclined to spend anything on space, either. At least they're willing to spend tax dollars to benefit the populace.

I think a collaborative team of several nations all united by some sene of MISSION would probably be the most realistic means of doing any "close to home" colonization
BENEFITS

Off planet industry by exploitation of known resources on several planets (Mars seems to be loaded with large liner regions of metals)

Make these off planet bases the starting points to roam the galaxy. (We could even more safely screw with isotope based ion engines to achieve %(c) speeds (Acceleration would take months but itd be like pre-heating an oven). Due to the lower G M1m2/r^2 we could actually use a Martian orbit as a star base that would save lotsa fuel space and lessen weight issues

prepare an "emergency" refuge base should earth be threatened by a left field bolide smack

an entire new spce industry with all sorts of economic benefits

I'd be willing to hibernate for a few hundred years even ON the planet. It'd be amazing to wake up and see how the world advanced. I'd like to have maybe another 10 years in this time though to prepare myself however.

welcome back. If you took anything from the top of Kathdin you must return and put it back.

Good going , by the way. Di you eat your gallon of ice cream at Pine Forge? Did you get any snow days in NH or MAine?

I agree and I tell me wife almost exactly what you just said about once every two weeks. However, I never plan more than a hundred million years ahead on a daily basis. Even I have limits to the things I want to plan for. I am very concerned, though, about the type of danger to the Earth that could occur at any time.

The thing is, the human race sucks at considering and planning for things like this. There are always members of society who can see that these things ought to be addressed, but they are hindered by the vast bulk of people who consider these issues to be so improbable as to be unworthy of consideration. Typically, the human race never envisions certain types of problems until they are occurring.

They did take it into account. They travel through "subspace," not ordinary Einsteinian space, and aren't actually getting their distance out of simple velocity. "Star Trek" simply depicts a future in which interstellar distances have been dealt with by science. The "warp factor" is a story telling device showing an imaginary solution.

No idea what the movie will be like, but this trailer for the movie "Interstellar" is absolutely awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyc6RJEEe0U

Thanks Farmerman. The whole trip, I left only footprints and took only pictures. It was an adventure for sure.

I had A LOT of snow in March down in Georgia and North Carolina; I finished in late September so beat the snow by about two weeks it seems.

Katahdin was AMAZING; I'll be going back for sure, but not to return anything.

I did have the half gallon of ice cream too; check this pic out for how I felt.

I consider my own immortality as a member of a gene pool.
But, nevertheless, you can tell your wife that when the going gets tough, we do rise to the occasion.
As WInston Churchill said
"We can always count on the Americans to do the correct thing, after they first exhaust all other possibilities"

Youre in a select group now. Have they finished the Katahdin to Gaspe segment yet? I heard the ATS (US.CAN) has been working hard on acquiring rights and actual ownership for this additional 400mi segment.

Notice the Coke Zero next to the half gallon of ice cream. Must'a been on a diet.

I go along with all of that. I was thinking about this again last night when taking one of my walks (i take several walks a day when i can), and i was thinking Japan for long-term thinking and cash, the US and Russia for existing expertise and systems (if nohting else, the Russians can boost huge payloads into low earth orbit, no problem) and the Chinese for cash and drive--you could appeal to Chinese vanity and plaster their flag all over everything and they'd be tickled pink.

In the other thread i already pointed out that the asteroid belt would be a good place to build and launch vehicles (i'm still in favor of mechanical exploratory vehicles). As for Mars, keep in mind that it wouldn't be very long in .38 G and living underground before a radically different form of human would evolve.

We gotta sell stock on this one. IF we all agree here, the rest of the planet will be a piece of cake.

Maybe that's what all this screwin around with a space program is accomplishing NOW. Its ultimately enabling us to move out to lower G conditions and thus developing a whole nother "industrial revolution" in near space. The new industrial revolution would prioritize long term cooperation and would develop a pan- global mission . It also would allow industry to concentrate on and solve challenges that are critical to entire new vehicle designs that wouldn't need to be heavy "Space Canal Boats" where 80% of fuel (and fuel storage) weights are only develop escape velocity, AND, they wouldn't need to be all streamlined to blast through atmospheres. The new world wide "Cape Canaveral" could be an asteroid or could even be in space itself, sort of an orbital SPaceport.
Im gonna invest in an Auntie Annes soft pretzel stand on the spaceport. Think about in GDP impacts, if we can, once again 'Get a mission sense back in our govts psyche" all the money would be spent here on Earth, at least until we graduate to breakaway colonies on nearby planets pr moons