Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

Suicide Junkie · #1 September 24th, 2005, 02:12 PM

I like the Fedex suborbital option.
Pickup by 8am in New York, Delivery in Japan by 5pm the Previous Day.

Starhawk · #2 September 24th, 2005, 03:13 PM

Well as a wise man once said "Time is Relative"

douglas · #3 September 26th, 2005, 05:36 PM

Did that model take into account the possibility of multiple independent colony efforts going to the same stars, or was it assumed that it would all start with one master plan of chains of colonization that all colonies would have uncorrupted versions of? There's also the matter of how many colony ships would actually find livable planets to colonize at their destinations.

Wolfman77 · #4 September 26th, 2005, 05:44 PM

Here is one site I found that talks about it.

http://www.ibiblio.org/astrobiology/...?page=future05

It assumes 25% light speed and done in under 100 million years. Also assumes a few other things.

Alneyan · #5 September 26th, 2005, 05:55 PM

Speaking of contact, aliens and the like: are we currently ready to detect alien spacecraft in our vicinity, or could they slip past us unnoticed?

Consider that such a ship enters our system tomorrow, and uses technology comparable to ours (and within the boundaries of science as we know it): do we have the technology to (indirectly) detect that something is amiss? If so, is this technology currently used?

Oh, and just for kicks: am I right in thinking we would be hard to detect ourselves? SETI would be a clear give-away, if someone else was doing the same thing, and our satellites might allow detection; is our activity on Earth detectable without going up close?