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NASA's Perseverance Rover is due to land on Mars on Thursday on 23:34 - Feb 19 by StokieBlue
It's an academic discussion at the moment but that doesn't mean that it will always be an academic discussion.
I am aware of what a light year is but your statement is only correct for existing chemical rockets. The time it takes to get their is entirely dependent on the fraction of C that you can achieve and that is determined by the amount of continuous thrust you can impart on an object. Already there are plans (perhaps a bit fanciful) to accelerate a small probe using lasers to about 25% C which could get to Proxima Centauri in about 20 to 25 years. This is obviously of very little use to us for colonisation but whilst difficult, the challenges are not impossible given enough time. Of course there might not be anything there to colonise.
I think your final paragraph is actually fairly likely, there is a good chance that immortal digitised versions of humanity will actually be the ones to complete the colonisation but I wouldn't fully rule out biological based colonisation attempts. Not everyone will want to become a digitised existence, at least not at the start.
Certainly it's an excellent discussion to ponder the possibilities.
SB
[Post edited 19 Feb 2021 23:34]
Yeah, it’s an interesting one. And I think we can start addressing the practical and even ethical issues now.
One way to travel at the speed of light is to travel as light and information. One way to jump to anywhere in the universe is to travel at the speed of thought and use simulation. Of course, the latter doesn’t just change the idea of ourselves but also of reality but we’re nudging those areas already.
Agreed. We could explore Mars quicker using automation and AI and learn even more.
Elon Musk is Lyle Lanley on a global scale. Monorail to the stars!!!
Absolutely Darth - All the new digital oligarchs seem obsessed by leaving the planet! (Yes in a billion years (not 4!) the oceans will boil! As the sun expands. But a billion years is a long long long time. And you can’t leave the planet on mass with conventional rockets anyway).
Went to the design museum for an exhibition on, well, the design of travelling and inhabiting Mars.... and we’ll let’s just say it ain’t the atmosphere, or lack of, or freezing temps, or biblical sand storms, it’s the massive radiation you really need to worry about!! Matt Damon’s potatoes wouldn’t have lasted 1 second! And of course then there’s the challenge of our earths gravity, and getting anything of scale actually over there and back.
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