Though it seems impossible to colonize galaxy at sub-light speed but without FTL travel we can still colonise the universe at sub-light velocities[ using self replicating probes and Bioprograms which I’ve discussed recently], but the resulting colonies are separated from each other by the vastness of interstellar space. In the past trading empires have coped with time delays on commerce routes of the order of a few years at most. This suggests that economic zones would find it difficult to encompass more than one star system. Travelling beyond this would require significant re-orientation upon return, catching up with cultural changes etc. It’s unlikely people would routinely travel much beyond this and return.
Archive for the ‘Space’ Category.
Since the 6th of October, 1995, several new planets orbiting other suns have been discovered and officially announced. However, in what may be a breakthrough for ufology, on the 20th of September, 1996, a planet was discovered orbiting the star Zeta 2 Reticuli.
“Aliens may exist but contact would hurt”, said Hawking. Despite being one of the fan of Hawking, I refute his speculation. After writing tons of articles on alien life I can finally conclude that poor Hawking is wrong. Hawking says that such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. But my contention with his argument is that why would aliens eradicate us? Perhaps they want food or want to steal our technology?
While terrestrial self-replicating systems may be limited for some time to coevolution with Earth-based industry constrained by normal economic factors, the prospect for extraterrestrial applications is quite different. The difficulty of surmounting the Earth’s gravitational potential makes it more efficient to consider sending information in preference to matter into space whenever possible. Once a small number of self-replicating facilities has been established in space, each able to feed upon nonterrestrial materials, further exports of mass from Earth will dwindle and eventually cease. The replicative feature is unique in its ability to grow, in situ, a vastly larger production facility than could reasonably be transported from Earth. Thus, the time required to organize extraordinarily large amounts of mass in space and to set up and perform various ambitious future missions can be greatly shortened by using a self-replicating factory that expands to the desired manufacturing capacity.
The universe is out of control. Not only is it expanding but the expansion itself is accelerating. Most likely, such expansion can end only one way: in stillness and total darkness, with temperatures near absolute zero, conditions utterly inhospitable to life. That became evident in 1998, when astronomers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Australian National University were analyzing extremely distant, and thus ancient, Type Ia supernova explosions to measure their rate of motion away from us.