Interstellar Colonisation - Take your time

[stevebowers]

An article by Stuart Armstrong about Interstellar expansion.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/hll/to_reduce_as...time_then/

So, in conclusion: To efficiently colonise the universe, take your time. Do research. Think things over. Go to the pub. Saunter like an Egyptian. Write long letters to mum. Complain about the immorality of the youth of today. Watch dry paint stay dry.

But when you do go... go very, very fast.

The problem is that any initial interstellar expansion wave is likely to be overtaken by a second wave of faster expansion, and so on. But there will be an eventual limit to the speed at which expansion can reallistically progress; once that limit can be reached, there's no need to wait any longer.

.

[AmrlKJaneway]

I was thinking about this the other day, and wondered; will starships ever happen?

My thinking was; we could probably make unmanned interstellar probes now, albeit slow one. But manned exploration will take understanding we don't have right now.

So as we build up to this understanding, the powers of computers, nanocomputers and robotics will also increase. To the point that I was wondering about; by the time we understand manned interstellar space flight, will we also have the ability to simply "beam" ourselves to the target star.

We'll have breached first singularity. So we should be able to quantify information in the brain, and all over our bodies. That combined with nano-tech and Von Neumann robotics, will allow us to send a copy of ourselves to another planet, and not only that, but the copy will construct itself at the molecular level and include any tweaks it needs to survive what could have been a hostile environment for regular humans.

Then an information net will broadcast details about every colony across the explored galaxy, and soon after virch-tourism will explode.

Or am I thinking too advanced? Or am I fundamentally wrong? Will the starship phase of expansion be skipped, in favour of cheaper, more energy efficient (and environmentally efficient, as every energy expenditure speeds up the universe's eventual heat death) and seemingly faster "beaming" of human colonists?

[Worldtree]

All of the above happen in OA, just a different rates.
Unmanned probes/AI/Von Neumanns make up the first wave of travelers and explorers, certainly.
Usually a bit later, biological colonists might follow.

These articles might help.

Commerce
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/485a9939c3ef8

Colonists (colonization early in the setting)
http://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oaeg...35e71ad525

Interstellar colonization early in the setting
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45b2e060b234a

Engenerator Technology ("beaming of colonists")
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a3d78dc77e6f

Colonization in OA's "Present day"
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/479bc6d708753

[Drashner1]

An article by Stuart Armstrong about Interstellar expansion.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/hll/to_reduce_as...time_then/

So, in conclusion: To efficiently colonise the universe, take your time. Do research. Think things over. Go to the pub. Saunter like an Egyptian. Write long letters to mum. Complain about the immorality of the youth of today. Watch dry paint stay dry.

But when you do go... go very, very fast.

The problem is that any initial interstellar expansion wave is likely to be overtaken by a second wave of faster expansion, and so on. But there will be an eventual limit to the speed at which expansion can reallistically progress; once that limit can be reached, there's no need to wait any longer.

.

This sort of assumes some sort of expansion 'wave' which isn't the only option or is an option that only comes into play above a certain tech/resource level. As we see in OA, early (and slow) starships were rare and went to specific (presumably deemed desirable) star systems. They traveled slowly but also didn't travel far and so the transit times were fast enough that there wasn't time back home for tech to advance to the point where a faster ship could catch up to/pass the first ship. Even when faster ships were developed, there are were so many places to go that they most often went elsewhere, leaving the slower ships to go on their way.

Eventually, Terragen tech and resources advance/expand to the point where a sort of expansion wave (actually several of them) is heading out in all directions. But by that point, tech has also started running into the limits of physics and ships can't go vastly faster. And as the expansion wave grows the number of possible places to go grows at a huge rate. So faster ships are still more likely to go somewhere new (at least if they know a slower ship is on the way to some particular place).

There is some mention of generation/world ships in the setting which apparently did run up against this issue to some degree (and perhaps still do, it's implied some are still in transit), but also evolved to a macrolife lifestyle in which they just travel and use star systems as way stations as they go about their business. So they seem to have sort of checked out of the expansion/colonization race.

Todd

[Drashner1]

Or am I thinking too advanced? Or am I fundamentally wrong? Will the starship phase of expansion be skipped, in favour of cheaper, more energy efficient (and environmentally efficient, as every energy expenditure speeds up the universe's eventual heat death) and seemingly faster "beaming" of human colonists?

In OA we have starship tech being perfected before 'beaming' tech is mastered. However, that is just one possible future. Note that not everyone may want to be 'beamed' around. In OA it appears that this method is getting ever more popular (or is the majority method if we consider that the vast majority of the population is sophtware and presumably travels this way all the time (when they bother to travel in a 'conventional' sense).

Note that in OA, uploading and engenerator tech are all modosophont inventions, no singularity required. Whether that turns out to be true, only time will tell.

Todd

[AmrlKJaneway]

Thanks for the info Todd, and thanks for the links Dfleymmes! I have some reading to do, and a lot more pondering to do after it!

What an exciting thing the future is!

[Rynn]

Thanks for the info Todd, and thanks for the links Dfleymmes! I have some reading to do, and a lot more pondering to do after it!

What an exciting thing the future is!

I don't mean to be pessimistic at all but remember that OA is fiction for fun! Don't get carried away thinking that it is a prediction of the future It's for enjoyment and some of it might be reasonable but if it's thinking about the future you are interested in don't get too caught up in SciFi, or anyone purporting to know with any certainty for that matter.

[AmrlKJaneway]

Thanks for the info Todd, and thanks for the links Dfleymmes! I have some reading to do, and a lot more pondering to do after it!

What an exciting thing the future is!

I don't mean to be pessimistic at all but remember that OA is fiction for fun! Don't get carried away thinking that it is a prediction of the future It's for enjoyment and some of it might be reasonable but if it's thinking about the future you are interested in don't get too caught up in SciFi, or anyone purporting to know with any certainty for that matter.

Lol, cheers!

I realize that! I simply reference OA as the most plausible future of the sci-fi I know, due to the consistent nature and hard sf setting. I know that things will differ greatly, and some things may even be more like other sf properties, and HUGE amounts will be like nothing we have imagined as yet!

But the fantastic thing about OA, is that nothing in the setting is based on pure fantasy. If a technology exists, it is because it already exists in theoretical physics, and has little drawbacks on paper (unlike something like a FTL warp drive, whose papers answer questions on how it could be done, but raise many more about how plausible it is to generate the energy needed, etc.). This is something that franchises like Star Trek, for example, ignore in favour of easy story-telling.