What should be done to make humanity support becoming an interstellar society?

[CmdrShep2154]

Besides making kickass books, movies, tv shows, and games involving cool looking spaceships?

[Vivapin8]

Besides making kickass books, movies, tv shows, and games involving cool looking spaceships?

Duh i don't know, maybee geting a FTL drive. (is that star citicen ??)

[Kraineth]

How about we start with interplanetary first.

The nearest star to the Sun is over 4 lightyears away which could take tens of thousands of years to travel to at best.

baby steps

[Macaquerie]

Until someone satisfactorily demonstrates that faster than light travel is possible, even if only theoretically, the whole notion of an interstellar society is simply not feasible, because even taking time dilation into account there is still no way to have productive round trip travel.

[Skroe]

I read an interesting article a long time ago on this topic. It went something like this:

- Once upon a time, countries were primarily organized around what we would call "security issues". Leaders were in place because of their military accumen. The chief purpose of the state was to either fight neighboring powers or defend themselves from predation by neighboring powers. The economy was principally built around sustaining and building periodic "war marchines". Much of the state was focused on military expeditions.

- The Modern Era is chiefly defined by the transition of the state as being focused from military matters to economic matters. Replacing "security issues" with providing for the general wellfare through economic growth. Whereas once leaders were held in high regard for their success in military maters, it transitioned to be based on an assessment of economic matters. What we would call "economic growth" (or more historically, trade) became the metric. Countries strived to maximize their economic growth in a way they used to strive to maximize their success on the battlefield. Security concerns are still present, but secondary to concerns of economics for the sake of a larger population.


I think becoming an interplanetary society (interstellar is so far off to even imagine) will involve another transition. Right now the US economy is dominated by the service sector.



If colonization is to truly be a thing, the economic case for it must become large enough to become a substantial part of that pie. That is to say, "space" has to become an organizing principle around which government is purposed. "Colonizing planets", and the benefit that brings to the people, must somehow be put on the level of "economic growth" and "defending against military aggression".

How could that be possible? Well that's the $100 trillion question.

I think there are a few things that might do it though.

First of all within our solar system, though there are hundreds of planets and moons, the list of destinations you'd want to colonize is quite small: The Moon (soley because of proximity, Mars, Callisto, Ganymede, Titan. That's pretty much it (and in order of difficulty, with each step much harder than the prior step). 5 locations in the entire Solar System. If this is analogous to Colonizing the New World, then Mars is Chesapeake Bay. Other places not mentioned are the equivalent of Las Vegas, which is essentially a mid 20th century city that was only possible because of colonization and development elsewhere.

So there is a kind of land scarcity for prime real-estate within the Solar System. Like how the Portuguese Claiming Brazil gave it a distinct character that lasts to this day, the countries to claim worlds in our solar system will have an enduring effect on the political, economic, judicial, ethnic and cultural make up of those colonies for centuries.

Which leads us to part 2, which has a fictional analog: the opportunity to start a new society.

Star Trek kind of skirts around it, but it does address this directly, especially in TNG. One of the core purposes of the Federation is to colonize unhinhabited planets and have those colonists create a society as they see it, free of the constraints of history that make that impossible on Earth. That's why, within the fictional context, you see Colonists so different, and often left to their own devices by the Federation: they are spread on purpose to diversify the way federation citizens (mostly human on the show) live. The Federation is not mono-cultural and every colony world is different.

There may be something to that, to a degree, as we go across the Solar System. That Federation example is actually a fictional analogue of what happened in the New World and the United States, as colonization happened here. The US colonies were founded differently, some by different countries, and to this day have some distinctly different legal and historic traditions. If that could be done intentionally, as we Colonize places around our solar system, that could be a justification. People want to try living in a hypercapitalistic society? Try Ares Colony. People want to try a socialist utopia in the making? Try New Armstrong colony. Want to try an entirely different political system? Try Titan Colony.

[Cuppy]

Might take a while.
I mean, this scale here:

Human species - 200k years old
Civilication - 6000 years old
Trip to Jupiter at 100km/h - 7 million years

[Skroe]

Might take a while.
I mean, this scale here:

Human species - 200k years old
Civilication - 6000 years old
Trip to Jupiter at 100km/h - 7 million years

The SLS can do Jupiter in 1.9 years. Atlas V in 6.

[Deleted]

All we need to do is point the young men who are on the way to becoming school shmuppers to the ships and tell them no one will ever talk shit to or about them again.

Hell, it's what's done the job for every single frontier so far.

[Deleted]

I don't know what should we do, bu i know what shouldn't we do:

Forget this communist globalist utopia what "progressives" trying to achieve.
If the society of Star Trek would be real 99% of population would sit at home, watch some TV show and feed themselves to death from the "replicators"

You should read Asimov if you want to know the only way how to "force" people out to the space.

[Azadina]

Might take a while.
I mean, this scale here:

Human species - 200k years old
Civilication - 6000 years old
Trip to Jupiter at 100km/h - 7 million years

Why would you go at 100km/h? You know every regular car here on earth goes faster than that? Rockets tend to be on the scale of....even faster

You need to go ~40000 km/h just to get ship off the earth in the first place.

[Puupi]

Trip to Jupiter at 100km/h - 7 million years

My farts as propellant would probably make a spaceship travel faster than 100km/h.

[Activi-T]

Massive pushes in the fields of AI, computer-brain interfaces and gene editing. AI to manage resources. Computer-brain interfaces to allow for the instant access of all information, outsourcing and modelling of ideas in a 'hive mind' sort of way. Gene editing so we can cure diseases, increase the number of people born who are exceptional and tailor plants and animals to better survive on any planet we do eventually get to. This would need massive a shifts in attitude towards ’playing God' and what we would consider a person to be.

[Grimbold21]

There may be something to that, to a degree, as we go across the Solar System. That Federation example is actually a fictional analogue of what happened in the New World and the United States, as colonization happened here. The US colonies were founded differently, some by different countries, and to this day have some distinctly different legal and historic traditions. If that could be done intentionally, as we Colonize places around our solar system, that could be a justification. People want to try living in a hypercapitalistic society? Try Ares Colony. People want to try a socialist utopia in the making? Try New Armstrong colony. Want to try an entirely different political system? Try Titan Colony.

But then you'd have interplanetary war, would you not? The kind of tensions you see in the tv series The Expanse with Earth and Mars at each others throats.

[Slirith]

1. Remove religion(let's face it, the religious folks with big money will make some kind of stink)

2. Not allow the government to do "budget cuts"

[Cuppy]

Might take a while.
I mean, this scale here:

Human species - 200k years old
Civilication - 6000 years old
Trip to Jupiter at 100km/h - 7 million years

Edit: For the sakes of many quotes; I know the speed is a bit faster when talking about space travelling, but the point was the scale. It's HUGE!

[Skroe]

But then you'd have interplanetary war, would you not? The kind of tensions you see in the tv series The Expanse with Earth and Mars at each others throats.

No you wouldn't.

First of all, in real life space is nothing like space in fiction. Space in fiction is really an analog for World War I and World War II naval and aviation experiences.

Space is big in real life, but I don't really think people grasp how big. Jupiter for example is "only" the 5th planet from the sun and is the largest body in the solar system other than the sun, but it is also really, really far away from both the Sun and Earth. It is very cold. Many moons around Jupiter and beyond were beyond the Frost Line when the Solar System was formed and are composed Ice - yes, Ice of water, methane, CO2, and methan - so hard, it's harder than rock on earth. Earth's mantle, for example, is iron, oxygen and silicon, but Titan's mantle (around Saturn) is made up of Water-ice.



Space is enormous and the energy needed to travel through it is just as great. Consider that only two spacecraft, ever, after sixty years of spaceflight, have been able to leave the orbit of one body and travel to another. A decade ago NASA was planning the JIMO Jupiter probe, and in order to do something that you would think would be routine, like Orbit Europa, then leave Europa's orbit and Orbit Ganymede, then leave Ganymede's orbit and orbit Callisto, it would have required a fission engine and a clustered ion drive.



And it would have been enormous... perhaps as much as 100 feet long.

Even powerful weapons wouldn't work. If Earth launched a missile from Earth at Mars, it would have one window every 22 months to do so, and with the most powerful engine we could build in the next century, it would take a minimum of 40 days to get there.

The entire scenario is just kind of ridiculous in that regard. Could Mars colonies fight Mars colonies one day? I mean... perhaps. But planet fighting planets? In the real world we should divorce ourselves of the notion of Star Trek or Star Wars, where it makes sense to fleets of ships engaging in manuevers and permanent in-space presence like that. That's just the US Navy's story being but into space. In the real world, Space is a radioactive nightmare that is terrible for human life, and everything interesting in the universe that people can and should interact with happens on planets. If in fiction, space is analogous to the Ocean, in real life, it is better to think of it as the gulf between worlds - something to be traversed but not lingered in, as people move from one planetary "lillypad" to another.

[Deleted]

Just drop a big stone on a huge city and let the world see how easyly we can be wiped out.

If the people are scared they will support everything that can help them.

[Puupi]

...aaaand the first "remove religion!" post of the thread has been made.

Totally fucking useless point, as in the past lots and lots of people went to the New World exactly for religious reasons. To build a community where those who want to, can adhere religious teachings in peace.

Yeah I'm sure those heathen Martians are needing some Jesus in their lives.

Have you picked up the bible recently? Or did you become allahusnackbar?

[Puupi]

Are you telling me that no wealthy religious group would want to go out there and build a society where they can set their own rules based on their religion?

Want, will and be capable of are all very different things and quite far from each other. Sure, they want, but....

[Osmeric]

Nothing should be done. In general, long term planning is pointless. Freeman Dyson pointed out that technological or scientific plans taking more than 5 years are not useful, since the context of problems changes too much after that time.