The thing I hate about that phrase is it assumes technological progression magically stops for a BILLION years (then the sun becomes too bright and boils our water). If we go extinct it’s not because the sun exploded but something else. If we survive the next billion years, we are going to be in fucking space.
You mean to say millions of years. The tech needed to accelerate enough to make the trip in hundreds of years is also far outside the realm of physics as we know it
The problem isn’t travel time, it’s speed. Space itself is continuing to expand, at a faster and faster rate. It’s expanding so fast that we’ll actually never reach far out with conventional means. We’d just endlessly drift through the darkness because we wouldn’t be able to go fast enough to reach anything. A generation ship would simply not be able to get anywhere, ever.
I mean, maybe we can make it into another very close system, but what are the chances that there’s anything even close to being habitable?
You dont have to go faster than light to get to another star. It’s not easy but you couldn’t possibly imagine a billion years of technological development.
The thing I hate about that phrase is it assumes technological progression magically stops for a BILLION years (then the sun becomes too bright and boils our water). If we go extinct it’s not because the sun exploded but something else. If we survive the next billion years, we are going to be in fucking space.
This assumes that faster than light travel is possible. Without it humans will not be escaping the sun.
What about those generational ships with closed ecosystems where people live and inbreed for hundreds of years until they reach another system?
You mean to say millions of years. The tech needed to accelerate enough to make the trip in hundreds of years is also far outside the realm of physics as we know it
The problem isn’t travel time, it’s speed. Space itself is continuing to expand, at a faster and faster rate. It’s expanding so fast that we’ll actually never reach far out with conventional means. We’d just endlessly drift through the darkness because we wouldn’t be able to go fast enough to reach anything. A generation ship would simply not be able to get anywhere, ever.
I mean, maybe we can make it into another very close system, but what are the chances that there’s anything even close to being habitable?
You dont have to go faster than light to get to another star. It’s not easy but you couldn’t possibly imagine a billion years of technological development.