Come to think of it, the best way to send humans to Alpha Centaurus will be
to send them in spacecrafts controlled by robots. Human genes kept in cold
storage will be activated to deliver babies in artificial wombs - once
favourable environments have been created by robots. Smart robots will bring
up the kids, keeping in touch with planet earth (with a time lag of 4.4
years). Theoretically we could have human habitations around Alpha Centaurus
within a 100 years!

Except that we are nowhere close to have intelligent robots able to raise
children.

I do not like the idea.
I hope that when we try to do such a thing we will send generational ships
and more than one.

Well, we'll need cold storage of fertilized eggs or the harder part of building a fertilized egg from just genetic information. All the abilities to grow the zygote to a baby in an artificial womb, with all the conditions and nutrients necessary. Then have food ready for the newborn and up to at least 13 years old. Which with a travel time likely being at least a 100 years means bringing seeds for growing food when your robots arrive, who will need to farm when they get there. Which means building or bringing greenhouses to inflate on a some reasonable location and using native resources. Then robots smart enough to do it all. Also a ship with an energy supply and machinery to last the journey or that can be continuously be repaired in transit. Also the ethics worked out if babies can be born that way and if robots can raise them right.

Well there is an inbetween position. Send a robot ship ahead that will scout the system, send back data, then we pick a suitable site. The robots will 'build' the eventual home for the settlers. Then we send only 4 to 5 couples and lots of cold storage fertilized eggs and artificial wombs. When they get there the robots will have food production going and the wombs can start up and the humans (by necessity the children or grandchildren of the first 8 or 10) can work, expand the base, and raise the first generation.
Brooks

If we don't have humans the system becomes simpler.

Ah, but would they know what Human IS?

Frankly, doesn't sound like much fun. Here's an alternative:

Victor Smith wrote: Ah, but would they know what Human is?

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:57 PM, Al Globus wrote:
(...)
> Suppose you've been living in orbital colonies for 50 generations.
> How much does it matter if you are near Sol or not? Some, but not
> that much. You could live a perfectly wonderful life traveling
> between Sol and Alpha Centuri, even if you don't survive the whole
> journey. All your friends and family are with you, just as if you
> were orbiting Sol. It would probably be good to go in groups of space
> settlements, say 5 or 6, in case something goes wrong with one. You'd
> need some population controls until you get to Alpha Centuri. Once
> there, assuming there are some asteroids, population growth can be
> absorbed by new settlements.
(...)

Either option is a nightmare.

On Feb 16, 2011, at 7:51 PM, sraj wrote:

On Feb 17, 2011, at 4:27 AM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

Personally I favor both options. There is an absolute need for space colonies to guarantee the human race in case something happens here, and in my opinion, to utilize resources other then those on this quickly shrinking planet. Eventually though there will be a need to leave the solar system to guarantee the human race in case something happens to our 'neighborhood'. If the technology for the robots and zygotes comes way ahead of a habitat that can make the eventual journey then I'm all for using robot mommies to guarantee we don't wink out existence due to some unforeseen catastrophe. Complex life and in particular intelligent life may be exceedingly rare in this universe.

On Feb 18, 2011, at 8:53 PM, brooksn wrote:

I would definitely agree with funding at those levels and as has been mentioned a few other groups are moving forward on their projects. Nuclear is very expensive and if its as expensive or more it will be difficult to sustain/justify at a large scale. But with some funding and experience gained by actually 'doing it' there is a good chance costs will drop and maybe even beat nuclear which would move it into a very serious contender for our future energy source.
Brooks

Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven explored this thought briefly. As people move out into the outer system, they will establish homes and habitats on and around many moons and planets, but, eventually those groups will develop splinter groups who will naturally move out into first the Kuiper belts in a disk, and then after making use of available Kuiper Objects, they will move on snowball after comet after snowball through the Oort Cloud (which extends as a sphere extending 3 light years out in ever direction from the edge of our own solar system) until theyre actually moving into someone elses Oort Cloud. Now thats a lot of volume and resources to utilize and grow cramped in, but by that time well be at the kuiper belts of our neighboring stars.
From: Al Globus
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 7:34 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] : 100-Year Starship some way off

Interesting, a few issues with the South Pacific diaspora of humans though. One is the slowing growth rate of the human race, we are expected to cap out at 9 billion and then actually start to drop after that. (Not that a 1 to 10% would probably be more then happy to live Earth with their families for a space colony.) But still after that we will have a declining population so 'expansion' will be less of a pressure. Though environmental degradation will continue for the next couple hundred years, removing even 10% isn't likely to really relieve that much pressure on the system.

Brooks,
One is the slowing growth rate of the human race, we are expected to cap out at 9 billion and then actually start to drop after that. (Not that a 1 to 10% would probably be more then happy to live Earth with their families for a space colony.) But still after that we will have a declining population so 'expansion' will be less of a pressure. Though environmental degradation will continue for the next couple hundred years, removing even 10% isn't likely to really relieve that much pressure on the system.

http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf

On 2/21/11 8:41 AM, brooksn wrote:
> http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf
>
> This report indicates, see page 15, that population will reach 9 billion
> in 2050, decline a little, rise a little, and essentially be the same
> until 2300. They include 3rd world increases, as well as expected
> advances in the 3rd world.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Joe Strout wrote:
>
> On 2/21/11 8:41 AM, brooksn wrote:
> > http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf
> >
> > This report indicates, see page 15, that population will reach 9 billion
> > in 2050, decline a little, rise a little, and essentially be the same
> > until 2300. They include 3rd world increases, as well as expected
> > advances in the 3rd world.
>
> But that's rather silly. Singularity or no, it's clear that technology
> will continue to advance. It's already advancing so fast that I think
> it's very hard to predict what life will be like in 2100, or even 2050.
> 2300 is way beyond our ability to foresee.

On 2/21/11 9:28 AM, brooksn wrote:

Sounds like we need every beanstalk and skyhook we can throw up, then. But, even with elevators (of whichever sort), try calculating how many trips up the beanstalk it takes to move a billion people to orbit.
With some of the advances in nanotech and materials science lately and forecasted for the near future, we may have both elevator and self replicating bugs that when applied to an asteroid will harvest it into pure elemental stock and can then be turned off. These same types could, I would think, be programmed to lay down multiple layers of metal, etc. one atom or molecule at a time, onto a matrix or framework to produce habitats (or most anything else).

From: Victor Smith