The 100 Year Starship Project

[Siege]

1) Lawlessness.  Possible if we go the penal colony route; society decides that some people are too dangerous to integrate back into normal society and put them out of sight and out of mind.

In this scenario, convicts would probably be delivered via automated ferry ships that don't land; dropships deliver colonists to the surface to minimize the population required to secure a spaceport.

I suspect prisons on Earth will always be cheaper than prisons in space. Australians were expected to grow or catch their own food.

It would be cheaper to push convicts out of the airlock.

Which brings to mind, why didn't the brits drop their convicts into the sea instead of the expense of the trip all the way to Australia?

[Neil]

A few questions I think might be interesting:

Okay, say we're about to send off one of these ships and we're doing it as an international effort; how can we put this thing together in a way that will allow countries as diverse as the US, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, and India* to contribute? Do we structure things such that smaller countries - for example some African nations - can participate even if they cannot contribute meaningfully to the funding of the ship? Why/ why not?

What sort of decision making structure do we set up for the ship? Military style "the captain is god?" Direct democracy? Some sort of hybrid, council of experts? Something else? Again - why/ why not? How is the ship, and later colony, economy supposed to function?

If you're concerned with American civics, you can bring up contentious issues from the national debate there. Assuming a primarily American patterned culture on the ship, does the second amendment hold? Should abortion be viewed differently on this kind of mission? How about crime and punishment? Does it function differently on ship or in a colony with a limited population?

I really do wonder how a traditional military command structure would react to a lifetime in transit.  On the one hand, space is the most hazardous environment possible, and that would make a centralized command system pretty useful.  On the other hand, autocratic systems can get pretty weird over time.

[Neil]

1) Lawlessness.  Possible if we go the penal colony route; society decides that some people are too dangerous to integrate back into normal society and put them out of sight and out of mind.

In this scenario, convicts would probably be delivered via automated ferry ships that don't land; dropships deliver colonists to the surface to minimize the population required to secure a spaceport.

I suspect prisons on Earth will always be cheaper than prisons in space. Australians were expected to grow or catch their own food.

It would be cheaper to push convicts out of the airlock.

Which brings to mind, why didn't the brits drop their convicts into the sea instead of the expense of the trip all the way to Australia?

The British colonies needed labour.  That won't be the case with space colonies.

[Razgovory]

If mankind set up an interstellar colony it would be done by machines.  You wouldn't need "exowombs".   There's no reason that an adult human being can't be built from the ground up with sufficient technology using only genetic code as a guide line.  Such a person could be implanted with an AI modeled on a human being and raise a family.  Hell, it doesn't violate any known law of physics to build a human being with memories built into the brain.  I mean, memories are organic not magical.  They should be able to replicated with sufficient tech.

A plus side to this is you could have the machines tailor the human colonists to whatever econsystem you find.

[jimmy olsen]

I know Orion ships are kind of slow, 50% lightspeed at best, but right now it doesn't look like we have anything better.
If we build Orion ships with a cryogenesis stasis chambers, we can expand to near star systems, firefly style, creating independent colonies.
Of course, cryogenesis does not look like a viable technology right now.
And nobody is going to invest on colonizers that will not provide return money.

Think more like .01-.04C at best.  I'm don't think Cryogenesis is actually possible.  A space ship that takes several hundred years doesn't seem practical.  Can you imagine a functioning machine lasting that long?   You'll need something with a lot more kick.  Like anti-matter.  The Ramscoop is an elegant solution, but it has a bunch of problems and may not be feasible.  Still, it's worth a look.

If you use anti-matter rather than nukes it can get that fast, and fusion can get it up to .12 IIRC

[Neil]

Where do you get enough antimatter?

[grumbler]

Where do you get enough antimatter?

Unicorns poop antimatter.  Just breed up a big herd of them.

[CountDeMoney]

A few questions I think might be interesting:

Okay, say we're about to send off one of these ships and we're doing it as an international effort; how can we put this thing together in a way that will allow countries as diverse as the US, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, and India* to contribute? Do we structure things such that smaller countries - for example some African nations - can participate even if they cannot contribute meaningfully to the funding of the ship? Why/ why not?

What sort of decision making structure do we set up for the ship? Military style "the captain is god?" Direct democracy? Some sort of hybrid, council of experts? Something else? Again - why/ why not? How is the ship, and later colony, economy supposed to function?

If you're concerned with American civics, you can bring up contentious issues from the national debate there. Assuming a primarily American patterned culture on the ship, does the second amendment hold? Should abortion be viewed differently on this kind of mission? How about crime and punishment? Does it function differently on ship or in a colony with a limited population?

Thanks, Jake.  These are the sorts of things I am looking for.  I had come up with a couple of these already, but you've added a lot to the discussion.

Indeed, the issue of "who goes" isn't just a matter of the individuals.  Like I said, what cultures/languages/heritages should be exported along with the colonists?  Multiple languages could make things tricky, but would, say, France cooperate in the sending of an Anglophone colony?  Would such a project unite humanity, or divide it?  Would, indeed, enough people with the skills needed be willing to volunteer for such a mission, knowing that they would be leaving behind successful and relatively comfortable futures for the unknown?

A comparison/contrast to the early days of colonialism and exploration would be cool...in what way would interstellar colonization share the same characteristics of the colonization of the New World, and where would they be different?  Would there be economic drivers, political considerations that Jacob touched up, etc.  The very concept of how the US political model developed through empirical collectivism was a direct result of colonization, when groups of colonists separated by the mother country by so much time and distance required them to solve their own problems collectively.  Would the exploitation of new worlds be economically driven, like European colonialism, or would humanity try to avoid the same mistakes when it came to the environment and alien cultures they came across?

[PDH]

From a historical viewpoint the various colonies from ancient to more recent would be a good place to look.  Would the set up of such a base be fairly successful like the sister-cities of the Greeks/Phoenicians, or would they be the slapdash affairs because of unexpected happenings of the English in the late 16th Century?  Does planning for as many possible problems as can be foreseen make the entire thing too sclerotic or does it ensure success?

[Razgovory]

Where do you get enough antimatter?

That's the rub, ain't it?  Still Anti-matter has the benefit of actually existing it's possible to produce.

[Razgovory]

From a historical viewpoint the various colonies from ancient to more recent would be a good place to look.  Would the set up of such a base be fairly successful like the sister-cities of the Greeks/Phoenicians, or would they be the slapdash affairs because of unexpected happenings of the English in the late 16th Century?  Does planning for as many possible problems as can be foreseen make the entire thing too sclerotic or does it ensure success?

I disagree.  When the Greeks and English colonized new Lands they did so with the knowledge that these new lands could support human life.  This may not be the case on another planet.

[grumbler]

From a historical viewpoint the various colonies from ancient to more recent would be a good place to look.  Would the set up of such a base be fairly successful like the sister-cities of the Greeks/Phoenicians, or would they be the slapdash affairs because of unexpected happenings of the English in the late 16th Century?  Does planning for as many possible problems as can be foreseen make the entire thing too sclerotic or does it ensure success?

Agree.  The difference between the mercantilist colonies of the 16th and 17th centuries and the "daughter city" colonies of the Greeks et al would be interesting in this context.  It is pretty clear to us that no mercantilist motive could drive interstellar colonization (even did we believe in mercantilism) because of the lack of trade opportunities, but that would be a useful conclusion for students to reach.

[The Brain]

Alien trade will drive our expansion. We give them space beads and blankets and they sign away their paradise worlds.

[KRonn]

I don't think I saw questions on how to deal with the ecology on another planet.  Setting up rules for proper caring for plant, aquatic, animal life. Most importantly if the colonists encountered intelligent life but not as developed/advanced how will that be dealt with? If encountering more advanced life then it's a whole different issue and colonists would have some laws/rules to go by as they wouldn't want to risk war or especially bringing war to Earth.

[Siege]

Do you think space colonization will require genetic manipulation of the human body to adapt and survive in the new enviroment.

If so, these colonials will definitively become a diferent culture, no matter what country they originally came from.