Re:Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox
by Retric on Saturday March 09, 2019 @08:28AM
(#19346008)
Work out the kenetic energy of a 0.0001 gram strike at 4.5% c.
Ignoring relativity it’s 9 x 10 ^6 J. By comparison, one kg of tnt is 4.184×10^6 J so that’s over 2.1 kg of TNT. Now reolize it’s much worse than that much TNT as it’s penetrating into your shield before releasing that energy. Even atom sized impacts are an issue at those speeds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputtering
As to your sanity check, Alpha Centauri our closest star, if we are sending multiple probes then you need to targets much further out. Especially if we are trying to get somewhere approaching a straight line in 3D space. The 20th closest star system is 12 light years from earth and on the order of distances we need. Though this gets worse if you need specific kinds of star systems.
That’s pushing 3+ grams under your estimate and your 30 ton payload would need truly massive shielding. Or, you can have a 30 ton shield being activly maintained in front of a postage stamp sized cargo and possibly survive the trip.
As to that billion tons of cargo, it’s almost unimaginably better than current tech could do. We are talking either self sustaining habitats for hundreds of people or safe replicating near full AI on million year timescales. It’s got to gather energy and resources, build CPU’s, engines, etc to gather even more resources. It’s got to travel hundreds of years meaning redundancy and self repair on all critical systems etc etc the list just keeps going.
In terms of engendering from ancient Egypt to now the tallest structure is just under 6x as tall. Some things have improved vastly more and others even less. We simply can’t assume magic even on 10,000 year time scales.
As to your sanity check, Alpha Centauri our closest star, if we are sending multiple probes then you need to targets much further out. Especially if we are trying to get somewhere approaching a straight line in 3D space. The 20th closest star system is 12 light years from earth and on the order of distances we need. Though this gets worse if you need specific kinds of star systems.
That’s pushing 3+ grams under your estimate and your 30 ton payload would need truly massive shielding. Or, you can have a 30 ton shield being activly maintained in front of a postage stamp sized cargo and possibly survive the trip.
As to that billion tons of cargo, it’s almost unimaginably better than current tech could do. We are talking either self sustaining habitats for hundreds of people or safe replicating near full AI on million year timescales. It’s got to gather energy and resources, build CPU’s, engines, etc to gather even more resources. It’s got to travel hundreds of years meaning redundancy and self repair on all critical systems etc etc the list just keeps going.
In terms of engendering from ancient Egypt to now the tallest structure is just under 6x as tall. Some things have improved vastly more and others even less. We simply can’t assume magic even on 10,000 year time scales.