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[Avernus]

I think a better question might be why has abiogenesis happened only once on Earth. Instead of several times or even happen today.

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One possibility is that the first life just spread so fast that it ate all possible competitors. You aren't going to see life originate again now because life is already everywhere, and will just consume any batch of chemistry that starts getting life-like enough to be nutritious.

Another more outside possibility is that Earth life actually originated on Mars and was carried here by meteorite. In that case life from Earth never had a chance to originate. As for finding evidence of that; if life is discovered surviving underground on Mars and turns out to be multiple-origin, one of which appears to match Earth-life and the rest don't that would be good evidence.

 

[Q99]

I think a better question might be why has abiogenesis happened only once on Earth. Instead of several times or even happen today. Or why cant we replicate it in the lab.

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It could've happened a number of times in the early
eras, millions for all we know. We're descended from
the ones that won.

The others either were wiped out or mixed in to the batch. Newcomers later don't stand a chance.

Any new life is really going to be hopelessly outmatched against bacteria with so much evolutionary refinement behind it- new stuff won't be different and weird, it'll be barebones with no chance to get unusual adaptations.

 

[RRoan]

"FTL in our lifetime" seems like a bold expectation.

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Do you also think SuperSonicSound was proposing that generation ships would be taking on volunteers shortly?

Also, why are you bringing up FTL? This isn't Fiction Discussions.

 

[Omicron]

Do you also think SuperSonicSound was proposing that generation ships would be taking on volunteers shortly?

Also, why are you bringing up FTL? This isn't Fiction Discussions.

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There is basically no other way to parse your statement? "My kid might sign up for the colony ship that will pass the generation ship on the way."

Are you suggesting that there might be some kind of STL colony ship that isn't also a generation ship? That seems silly.

Well, I guess in the specific case of Alpha Centauri it could work, but that's sci-fi in and if itself.

 

[RRoan]

There is basically no other way to parse your statement? "My kid might sign up for the colony ship that will pass the generation ship on the way."

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Again, do you think SuperSonicSound was proposing that generation ships will be taking on passengers in the immediate future? No. He was asking a very typical "what would you do if you existed in this certain context" question. I provided my answer in that context.

Are you suggesting that there might be some kind of STL colony ship that isn't also a generation ship? That seems silly.

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Generation ships are a bad meme. A really, truly godawful one that makes good, serious discussion on this topic difficult. Just developing the engine tech further is very likely a lesser challenge on a technical level and it incontrovertibly is on a sociological level.

As for the limits of STL travel, I doubt anybody will bother with velocities beyond a lorentz factor of two or so. Not because going faster will be impossible, but because diminishing returns suck.

 

[Omicron]

Again, do you think SuperSonicSound was proposing that generation ships will be taking on passengers in the immediate future? No. He was asking a very typical "what would you do if you existed in this certain context" question. I provided my answer in that context.



Generation ships are a bad meme. A really, truly godawful one that makes good, serious discussion on this topic difficult. Just developing the engine tech further is very likely a lesser challenge on a technical level and it incontrovertibly is on a sociological level.

As for the limits of STL travel, I doubt anybody will bother with velocities beyond a lorentz factor of two or so. Not because going faster will be impossible, but because diminishing returns suck.

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I have no idea what you're talking about at this point.

 

[Hotdog Vendor]

I thought it was a rhetorical question implying generation ships are unlikely to be a thing due to lack of volunteers because there's no benefit in their lifetime. Though that's making assumptions about hypothetical extraterrestrial psychology.

 

[Avernus]

I think that generation ships will become much more likely once permanent space colonies exist. After all in a lot of ways the main difference between the two is that one has a big engine and the other doesn't; it's no longer a matter of giving up your home on Earth to live in an artificial environment in space for the rest of your life, you were probably going to do that anyway.

Also, why are you bringing up FTL? This isn't Fiction Discussions.

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There is basically no other way to parse your statement? "My kid might sign up for the colony ship that will pass the generation ship on the way."

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Actually it's a signifcant issue that has nothing to do with FTL. As long as technology is still advancing, interstellar flight will take so very long that the odds are excellent that a ship built decades or centuries later than yours could be faster enough to beat you to your destination. No FTL required; a ship moving at .01 c is going to beat a ship moving at .001 c without it.

 

[Q99]

If you can do Generation Ships, you can also just make huge space habitats.

With in-system materials, it would be quite possible to, eventually, make habitats that make supporting trillions of people with plenty of living space trivial.

Actually it's a signifcant issue that has nothing to do with FTL. As long as technology is still advancing, interstellar flight will take so very long that the odds are excellent that a ship built decades or centuries later than yours could be faster enough to beat you to your destination. No FTL required; a ship moving at .01 c is going to beat a ship moving at .001 c without it.

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That said, odds are high we won't use a particular drive if we're still at a point where it's advancing relatively rapidly- while we won't necessarily wait for a fully matured tech (then again, with this timeframe, we might), but each drive tech has it's limits, so something surpassing a current generation will often require waiting for entirely new major breakthroughs in new drive techs.


Also, one could use a new drive to fly to an old ship and boost it/add to it's mission.