lol we're clearly on the same wavelength I just finished Reading Rainbow's End. Funny after reading it was one of those books I enjoyed thinking about after reading it. The reading of it wasn't that enjoyable. I didn't like the style.

I'm curious what we would even use to run a true starship that needs to be 100% reliable for decades. Maybe Rust will be a good candidate some day? I think it needs to have that speed & safety, but be much higher level.

I doubt the language picked will have significant impact; reliability will mostly depend on the extensiveness/correctness of simulations. And presumably with sufficient coverage (and at the scale, we require it) memory bugs will be the least of our safety worries

I'm guessing full AI that can maintain itself. Vernor Vinge assumes the singularity hasn't and will never happen, but most fanciful and pragmatic visions of the far future don't make that assumption.