Generation Ships
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2018
- Today we will begin our look at the spaceships we might use for colonizing interstellar space in the future. In order to cover the vast distances between even the nearest stars in our galaxy within the boundaries of known physics, we need vessels able to voyage at high speeds for very long periods of time while carrying everything they need to colonize another solar system, a concept typically known as a space ark or generation ship. We will explore the challenges and options for such a vessel, as well as some alternative approaches to the problem.
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"The World, The Flesh And The Devil" by J.d. Bernal:
archive.org/details/in.ernet....
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Credits:
Generation Ships
142, Season 4 Episode 27
Writers
Isaac Arthur
Editors
A.T. Long
Darius Said
Evan Schultheis
Jerry Guern
Keith Blockus
Mark Warburton
Sigmund Kopperud
Producer
Isaac Arthur
Cover Artist:
Jakub Grygier www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier
Graphics Team:
Jarred Eagley
Jeremy Jozwik
Katie Byrne
Kristijan Tavcar
LegionTech Studios:
Sam McNamara www.artstation.com/sboterod?f...
Sergio Botero
Narrator:
Isaac Arthur
Music Manager:
Luca De Rosa - lucaderosa2@live.com
Music:
Markus Junnikkala, "Plotting a Course" www.markusjunnikkala.com/
Phase Shift, "Forest Night" www.last.fm/music/Phase+Shift...
Aerium, "The Islands moved while I was asleep" / @officialaerium
Stellardrone, "Between the Rings" stellardrone.bandcamp.com
Denny Shneidemesser, "Constellations" / denny-schneidemesser
Koalips, "Kvazar" freemusicarchive.org/music/Koa...
Ayreon, "The Theory of Everything" / @arjenalucassen - Věda a technologie
People are planning methuselah ships, sleeper ships, generation ships, seed ships, data ships, gardener ships....and here I am, still struggling with relationships.
Well compared to that space ships is simple, just some math, engineering and money ;-)
:) Luckily I was at least partially joking.... haha
lol
Direct hit to my feels.
In science, we aim as directly as possible for the truth. Apparently your feelings was in the way :P
Waking up from being frozen for thousands of years and dying of radiation poisoning caused by your own body. Such a scenario wouldn't have ever crossed my mind :D
I know, Thanks IA for another wonderful plot limitation on hard SF.
Would the radioactive compound be exhausted. Unless the half lives are in the hundreds of years any radioactivity in the body would decay, Many common isotopes in the body are measured in days or months.
The radioactive isotopes, even within the shielding of Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere is a very small fraction of the radiation we receive from cosmic rays and radiation from our Sun. However, in space travel, we would be exposed to a lot more external radiation and significant shielding would be difficult to manage, even replicating the shielding of sixty miles of atmosphere would amount to about 40 feet of regolith. External sources of radiation would be the limiting factor to cryogenic life suspension not internal radioactive isotopes which should diminish so long as there's no additional neutron bombardment which there likely would be from spalling or cosmic rays on the hull of the ship. However, hibernating such that the DNA repair mechanisms may continue to operate would have many challenges, we do not know if hibernation halts the aging process though we could assume we would know how to stop aging by the time the technology is developed, however one of our main defenses against fungal diseases is our high body temperature, we could become vulnerable to a lot more pathogens while hibernating. Cryogenics has the advantage of suspending and maybe even destroying pathogens we may be vulnerable to. If suspended animation is to play a part in interstellar travel, it must first fill a role in trauma treatment on Earth, then developed to interplanetary use and finally to interstellar use as it will no doubt uncover a host of challenges to long term use in space.
It would really suck to be the generation that reaches their destination only to find humans already living there because FTL was invented during your transit.
IF FTL was invented then they could send a message and they would know about it beforehand, probably have enough time to retrofit crafted engines. Certainly would get schematics for comms. They would still get there with other people there first, but it wouldn't be a surprise. The journey would also be shorter then expected..
Nah, all the dirty work would have been done!
DrewLSsix exactly!
You wouldn't find it at the destination, you would know that a new colony has been set up, that ftl is possible, and you would simply course correct elsewhere.
Yeah, pretty much. Have to remember that as long as people on Earth remember it's existence, it'll have full two way communications with Earth for most of the trip.
Sure, if it's travelling to a destination 1000 lightyears away and has hit the halfway point, the signal delay is 500 years. (Even if FTL communications exists, you couldn't message the ship that way because it doesn't have FTL comms equipment.)
That would mean that if FTL was developed far enough along into the trip, they may reach the destination before they get notification that happened.
Plus, depending on the nature of the technology, it's not guaranteed you could explain to them how to retrofit an FTL drive to their ship in a way that their manufacturing technology could accommodate. (the ship might also be structurally unsuited to the technology, meaning at best, building an entirely new ship and transferring everyone across to it.)
Now, the comm delay can be overcome if you can justify sending an FTL probe.
Let's say you can do 1000x lightspeed, meaning the trip to the destination takes one year.
You couldn't send an FTL message to the colony ship, but you COULD send a probe, which would take about half a year to reach them, and could then either dock, or message them from short range using conventional radio tech.
That would cut the delay for informing them of things from 500 years to half a year.
Of course, if you sent a colony ship at FTL speeds to the same destination from the same origin point, you could skip the probe entirely and have the FTL ship message the generation ship from close range as it passes. (or, stop and pull up beside it to talk about it directly, if your FTL tech makes stopping in the middle sufficiently cheap.)
So... Yeah, with FTL tech especially it won't be a mystery.
But assuming trajectories similar enough that colony ships pass within even a few lightyears of one another, you can assume that the following ship can message the one ahead and mention what's happened. (assuming they remember the old ship exists of course.)
So... Surprises are unlikely unless everyone on Earth just outright forgot that the old colony ships even existed.
A funny note with things like generation ships headed to colonize planets and the like is joked about in hitch hikers guide to the galaxy as the ships take 1000 year log journeys, but by the time they reach their destination technology for new ships has become so powerful that the new ships beat them to the destination. The stories also joked about warships sent on journeys causing new wars because the original war would end hundreds of years before the ships arrive and then tens of thousands of marines pumped up and ready to go from stasis land a thousand years later and don’t know the war had ended, starting it all over again.
Marines: wait the war was already over while we were in cryosleep? Ah crap, might as well start another one.
The marine’s descendant protesting against war: am I a joke to you?
im pretty sure he says that in this video. if not he says the exact same thing in another one
Fascinating concept. The idea of successive generation ships overtaking the previous ship due to technological advances between launches and the potential culture shock when they reach their destination and aren't the first people there has always struck me as a great idea for a Sci-fi series.
Intrepid Dawn I've played with the idea but only as a background detail. Maybe I should try writing a story like that.
Intrepid Dawn
Someone should call Alastair Reynolds!
It sets up a fractured society pretty well IMHO. Or it could even be the cliffhanger for the end of book one if the first book is about the journey. It's assumed that the culture on a generational ship will be tied to the culture on Earth when it leaves via technology, ideology, etc. Today we wouldn't relate at all to people from even the 1400's let alone the 1800's. Can you imagine if a group of 'primitive' colonists arrived, had their dreams shattered and were all of a sudden outcasts in that society? I think there's potential there.
Intrepid Dawn Robert Heinlein touched on some of that in his book Time for the stars. The slower ships eventually overtaken by ships with FTL tech.
While the story has not been told in detail, the consequences have been shown in David Weber's books.
Jesus christ Isaac your speech is getting so good now you can hardly notice the lisp anymore!
TehKove At first, I thought that I had just gotten used to the sound of Issac's voice. But after what I've learned attending the speech therapy groups for my kid, I can say that Issac's speech is much improved. Way to go, man! Its quite the accomplishment. Was the podcast at all related to helping you work on your speech? Or has it just been an added benefit in your becoming a SciFi demigod?
now he sounds like just another human,,,
He still sounds like the Elmer Fudd of Sci-Fi ;)
TehKove i actually came to the comments to see if there was an explanation for his voice. I wasn't sure if I was hearing a accented dialect or if it was from a lisp. No biggie, just curious.
@@deviantaffinity1626 Sound like a soft southern accent with er replaces by or and our. Not unpleasant at all. Reminds me of my Grandfather who was from New Orleans
Awesome topic! I'm reminded of the ship "Axiom" from the movie WALL-E. The take away from that movie is don't serve soda and make sure people have to walk to get around to guarantee bone development centuries later
I was just surprised there wasn't that 10% group of people who were health nuts, much thinner and drinking their soy smoothies while jogging around the ship... XD
This is why I consider Wall-e to be the best horror film ever made.
Earth is dead and humanity has devolved under the supervision of A.I.
Well, an alternative solution that would've fixed things too, would've been genetic engineering.
Part of the reason that 'junk food' is bad for you is because you didn't evolve to deal with it, and thus it throws a lot of your biology out of whack. (directly or indirectly).
Thus, if that was our only food source, but evolutionary pressures still applied, we'd out of necessity develop a much higher tolerance for such foods, and be able to handle them with far fewer health consequences.
But, of course, the alternative to letting 'evolution' sort out that mess, is to genetically engineer people for it.
The not walking around part... Well, fundamentally that's somewhat of the same issue. Bones weaken with inactivity because that's how we're set up biologically.
There's nothing particularly innate about it. It's just what our body does.
Obviously, yes, you can try and keep everyone healthy by enforcing strict diet and exercise regimes. But given the underlying nature of the problem, you could accomplish most if not all of that goal through genetic engineering and modifying people to suit the conditions.
(eg, low activity levels and high sugar, high calorie, low vitamin foods.)
I know it's a weird solution, but it IS a solution.
I'll leave this here... XD
czcams.com/video/9qHSiLwLGug/video.htmlm30s
tbh genetic engineer either healthy things to taste good or make your body tolerant to junk food
Stunning exposition of a usually mangled concept. Kudos Mr. Arthur!
I subscribed after one minute of watching. Pleasure to learn from you.
Congratulations!
Welcome to the Channel!
welcome to the Isaac effect.
One of us now.
ONE OF US
Had a last minute appointment at the normal time, hence the early release, will be a bit delayed responding to comments today for the same reason, sorry. Also, I should probably note as a warning, the paper mentioned by Bernal I linked is, um, 'opinionated', and 1920s-style at that.
Isaac Arthur don't worry man
That's alright man, I'm loving the early release, it means I can watch on my walk to work!
Early video, no need to apologize man
Take it so that there will be many more comments waiting for you once you get to it. ;)
Hope your appointment went well!
I got Isaac and Cody at the same time..mind blown!
I giggeled a little, when I saw him :D
Cody?
Shayne no
Cody's lab?
Cody (Cody's Lab) Appears at 6.40 into Isaac's Video..
"Tomb ship".... FOUL NECRONS!!!
+Alistair Jephte Caseñas
HAHAHAHAHAHA!! HUAHAHAHA!!
(a bit of the old ULTRA-VIOLENCE)
4th degree Interdmensional warp f#ckery, rofl
One of the things in the Sci-Fi series I'm writing(and I'm seriously thankful for this channel because it's helped worldbuilding immensely) is that by the 2070s, humanity sends out two colony ships. One arrives in its first system in 2313, which is barely two-and-a-half decades. I don't know exactly where the colony would be, but I assume it would be at least 60-100 LY(maybe more, with the likely candidates for their first colony being Xi Ophiuchi, Eta Corvi, or Pi Mensae) away from earth, give or take. This is prior to humanity developing FTL travel(which is in 2415), so I don't know exactly how you'd be fast enough to reach this speed. Of course, my current idea is that they went counter-spinward, allowing the natural spin of the galaxy to reduce their travel time slightly. I don't know exactly the feasibility of this.
The other one, of course, gets lost and becomes a civilization not encountered until a few thousand years later.
YES!! Permission to come aboard cpt!
Got my drink, got my snack, got my favorite youtuber posting early today!
It is amazing, I just cooked up a meal and went to youtube to find something to watch! Although it is not like I was not listening to one of the other Isaac Arthur's videos while I was cooking.
We are on a generation ship already. Considering future generations is a worthy thing to do, but children can complain all they like about being born on Earth to no purpose, unless they're willing to build their own ships.
The people of a generation ship could very well decide that they prefer life on the ship, rather than transferring to a planet.
Yeah that's unsettling
I see two options for your scenario of people preferring life on a generation ship to come true. The first is a very luxurious ship, especially a very big one on which little work is to be settled. It also would help if reincarnation became known as a fact, because that would support an idealistic motivation. The second option is desperate people. There will be reasons why science-fiction authors usually choose this latter possibility. If you know a novel on the former, please tell me!
@@HansDunkelberg1 I'm working on one that includes a society that is ship based. But really, is it all that different from a planet, other than in size?
@@gregcampwriter Have you ever lived at a place with, say, 20,000 inhabitants? The size of Earth, and also of the several countries, enables that specialists flock together, in the big cities and at the centers of sciences and of development. And not only do they flock together, they also move to and fro, from one center to the other. Thus, you absolutely obtain a difference not only of the quantity but also one of the quality of stimuli.
@@HansDunkelberg1 I've lived most of my life in places with a few tens of thousands of inhabitants. And even for people who live in large cities, the number whom they know is going to be much smaller than the total population. The stimuli from outside of the people I know comes from information exchange, which isn't precluded by living on a ship.
Another great episode Isaac! Great way to wake up in the morning.
I love it when these are uploaded nice and early like this, right as I get home from work. Makes for an awesome way to unwind. Thanks for all your hard work!
Robert Heinlein penned a good book about how a Generation ship could go wrong called Orphans of the Sky. No spoilers it is a good read by a excellent author.
It is indeed, might actually have beat out Rama if I hadn't used Heinlein up a couple months back for Starship Troopers, I don't like to repeat authors to close together and thus far haven't had to.
Hey, it's Arthur's Day again! I just wanted to thank you. You've been a big inspiration in studying science.
I was 11 when my dad gave me this book... I didn't just read it, I ate it...
the cascade reaction of those ideas molded my existence
which book?
Trumptard Terrorizer Randevouz with Rama
Well done my FRIEND for one more time
Issac you are a genius and this is the best channel on youtube! Have a great week =)
Stopped ...went off and read "Rendezvous with Rama"..came back...cheers!
I love all the new stock footage, including cody's footage.
Another great episode. Lol waiting for the day Phily D gives you a shout out, your entire Chanel is basically everything I wanted to do as a kid, I'd travel the universe in a heartbeat if I had biological immortality, sign me up
Genesis Stewart but what's the point
To get your name on a plaque.
On the subject of seed ships I recommend “Voyage from Yesteryear” by James P. Hogan
On Methuselah ships see
“Protector” by Larry Niven
I read Protector twice. With Phsthpok the Pak. I ended up just pronouncing his name Spock. The Brennan monster was pretty cool too, with his duplicate Stonehenge. Now that's a prank I would like to pull off.
There's also "Building Harlequins Moon" by Niven and Brenda Cooper. The plot was just okay, but it was best description of actual technology that could exist in the future that I've seen in fiction.
Didn't know about that one. I'll have to check it out.
"How do you get a crew to stay on mission for centuries?"
Or
What is a mission worth following for generations?
Great Video as always!
NomisCasio one is simply to live on the ship, since few if any missions are worth locking multiple generations of your children in a specific life for no real reason. However, buying an apartment or home on a ship and living there while it travels to its destination and getting whatever jobs are available and that you can think of is a great way to get people to join the mission, because they aren’t riding along for the mission they’re just living the same way they’d be living on earth.
Microsoft Project! ;)
Bob Johnson are they living the dream
Sausage N Bellenz interesting question if they are not living "their " dream there will be no chance for a couple live times to get of the ship and pursue another dream.
It is really the question if it's a dream or a nightmare that possibility lasts generations.
I guess someone has to try. I really do hope that they find out they are living the dream!
Are you equally upset that we're stuck on this planet? Are we trapped by our parents on this spherical space ship? People who weren't born on Earth, wouldn't miss Earth, because they weren't born there. They might think it sounds like a nightmare to live in an environment where you cannot make any adjustments to gravity, for instance.
You guys realize that his name is the combination of ISAAC Asimov and ARTHUR C Clark?
Damn, I like this channel more and more
Arrival nearing. Introduce "Isaac Arthur" into the simulation to prepare the passengers for disembarkation.
This reminds me of a story I have read a long time ago. It starts with the same notion of a huge arkship entering the solar system and the local folks go to investigate it. Later they find out it was a human colony ship, which engines malfunctioned.
Great episode as always, looking towards the "Exodus fleet".
What was the name of that story?
I have thrown caution to the wind a started watching without a snack (quantum cheeseburger) and drink.
Bro did you survive
@@Ireallylikeeggs nope. Had to get downloaded to a back up
Excellent graphic throughout
I'd say thanks but that's all the volunteers making the graphics and the donors funding access to better stock footage, not me. I'm very grateful to both as I feel it's made the visuals so much better.
I can't wait for this channel to get enough for Isaac to hire full time animators.
Bob of the Storm it's good as it is, I have toyed with animation graphics, so I respect good graphics when I see them
Free Saxon It's good but a lot of the stock footage, especially the older ones, weren't exactly directly made for an episode. A lot of them gets recycled. I'm not sure how many hours it takes to animate but I hope future videos will have animation directly relevant to a topic. Maybe Isaac could even remaster his older vids with new footage.
Bob of the Storm .... Yes the stock footage, especially the ' people' clips can be seen on many other channels, and the ' actors' seem a tad wooden, and rehersed. The ' people' stock footage company is professional, and large'ish enough to feel they have to comply to expected p.c standards. So with only 4 main ' actors ' you always get a woman in a lab coat showing a man what to do, a Black man showing a White man what to do, and those two looking clever in some way. It's only really noticeable if you are a regular, and in the back of my mind, I am waiting for them to appear, and wondering what dumb thing they will be up to LOL. At least the woman is smart ;-) Not bashing Arthur in the slightest, just an observation I am sure he knows about
Thank you for the time, effort and thought you put into each video. I really enjoy your channel.
Dear Isaac,
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the work you are doing. A long time ago I tried to become a science-fiction writer, I've even have published a couple of stories. But the amount of information you provide in your single video makes my stories fade into the oblivion. I am grateful beyond expression for a chance to learn from you. One day I will write again, but this time I will be armed.
With deep respect,
N.V.S.
Been so looking forward to this one, awesome , didn't disappoint.
Great video Mr. Arthur! On the problem of radioactive decay while frozen, it occurs to me that radioactive elements could be depleted from the crew beforehand by filtering them from their diets.
Yes but that would be a pretty slow process, and very controlled, potentially some years of constant diet monitoring with food carefully grown in isotope seperated hydroponics... which is certainly doable but is essentially making it a little bit of a generation ship too, as that person might need to gives years of their life over to controlled dieting before boarding.
Now you have me wondering how long it would take for all the potassium to cycle through the body and get replaced by totally non-radioactive isotopes. And even if most of it goes through fairly fast, what about the atoms that end up in some hard, mineralized substance like tooth enamel? Maybe star travelers will have to get all their teeth replaced before they go into cold sleep...
Isaac Arthur if your going to spend your whole life on the ship anyway, what's a few years?
I find talk about how people born on the way didn’t volunteer rather weird. No one volunteers to be born or born in the place they are. My ancestors who crossed over to North America from Asia 10 to 15 thousand years ago and the ones who came over from Europe a couple hundred has no problems raising their children.
It's often seemed a bit peculiar to me too, but it's a common point raised and I can see it. Ignoring for the moment that people don't usually need much solid logical reasoning to complain about what their parents or grandparents decided for them, you are making a huge decision that's irreversible for your descendants. They can't go home. something that was at least on the table if hard for folks on the Mayflower or even the old Landbridge, it presumably was a few generations before those first tribes were far enough away from it that they neither remembered it nor could some folks head back over if they wanted. Indeed one would guess they probably often did early on.
For thousands of years on Earth we had millions of people born into slavery, poverty, illness, war, etc. I don't think being born on one of these ships would be any worse than that. If you're gonna play the "why was I born here, why don't I have this or that?" game, you need to realize that 99% of people who ever lived could say the same thing.
I think one of the reasons it's brought up is because people think you're going to be crammed onto a small ship, eating algae cakes and watching videos of nature and big cities back on planet Earth making you homesick. You might choose a life of deprivation for the goal of exploration, but would your kids hate you for it?
But if you make your habitat comfortably large, with more than a thousand people so you don't get bored with the same small group, and you bring enough of an ecosystem to support natural foods, pets, and some things just for beauty (song birds, butterflies, aquarium fish), then it really won't be the sacrifice and deprivation that most people assume it would be.
Vane Fal, a ship like this could smash into a modern navy fleet and not notice. Space, interstellar space in particular, is not a gentle place to be.
@@denisl2760 "Slavery, poverty, illness, war". Interesting comparison.
All I would ever need TV-wise is Breaking Bad and Isaac Arthur. Not much else comes close.
Thank you Mr. Arthur and Happy Arthursday Everyone!!!
This is so exciting, I can’t wait for the rest of this series. I’ve been wondering about more of the details for long-term, semipermanent, and permanent spacefaring populations for a while. I’m really looking forward to more of this :D
Great as always
Interesting information about cryogenic freezing and radiation, something I hadn't heard about before........... Well that's why I am watching this video... To be informed!
Yeah I'd never thought about it either till someone asked about in passing a couple years back. At first I dismissed it but then I thought on it and ran the numbers and was a bit surprised. I was expecting million year+ timelines at least.
The explanation starting at 10:54 is very interesting. It's something I've never thought of before but very true. Wonderful that you covered that.
Dude you seriously have the best/most detailed videos about futuristic topics and space!
Oh another SFIA video. *cobbles together a drink and lunch and hits the like button*
reddit.com/r/meirl
There is a considerable moral problem with classic generation ships. The first Generation may have boarded out of their free will, but following generations, that are born on board, have not. They find themselves trapped on the ship, without hope of ever seeing the destination or going back to Earth, condemned to be only a genetic bridge.
For that reason alone, sleeper ships and seed ships make much more sense. They would also be smaller, cheaper and potentially faster than huge, clunky generation ships with mini-civilisations on board.
If you think about it, that's the same problem every generation has on earth. You inherit whatever your ancestors left you for circumstances, culture, and purpose; then try to do what you can with what you have to work with or discover. On colony ships, at least you start out knowing "the meaning of life" as it were, and the environment is designed specifically to help achieve that purpose in a state of peace and prosperity. That's a better deal than any generation on earth has gotten so far.
If any generation decides to "go off mission" they can do so and change course if they think there's a better destination. They could even pause and use interstellar asteroids or planetoids to copy the ship and split the mission between "original coursers" and "new coursers" if a promising alternative turns up along the way.
Most likely these generations would be happy to live in health and luxury, playing games and sports and basically enjoying the ride, knowing that they are part of a grand tradition that would bring life to the stars. It would be like a religion that actually works, without drawbacks or enemies. They only have to look at their historical records of earth to see how much better their way of life really is.
Someone born on board wouldn't have some overbearing nostalgia for a dangerous and endangered planet they never knew. They might have re-enactment clubs for those who wanted to camp out in the onboard forest or do medieval-tech arts & crafts. The trick is just making the onboard ecology big & diverse enough to have a feeling of dynamic wild to wander in.
This is part of why I think the bigger O'Neill cylinder size cluster ships should be used. A six-pack of cylinders around a central drive core would hold enough people, space, and dynamic nature to make it not only a home, but a world unto itself. The hard part would be getting them off the ship when they got there... it might take a few more generations to find enough of them satisfied with living on planets again :)
Kit5une131313, In that regard, it would be like the colonization of the Americas, because with the exception of slaves, every adult settler came on their own free will, but the later generations born in the Americas really didn't choose to be born in the new world.
One thing is left out in this video, but is mentioned in others. The ship may be building interstellar highway as it goes (trail of stations with lasers (to power nearby lightsail ships) build on interstellar asteroids, powered by native hydrogen). It's kind of like building an intercontinental railway through untouched wilderness and leaving villages with train stops along the way. Even though the generation ship is nomadic, at any point it is close enough to nearest settlement that passengers can visit there and return if they want to. In fact, it might even be possible to literally hitch-hike your way back to the original star system.
Well they could always lie to the children adults are good at this..what they don't know can't hurt them a necessary evil I would say more of a necessary evil than it is today and it's done everywhere as of now..
The Rama series has been one of my Go Too book series of all time. When I'm board and have nothing new to read I pull it out and re-listen to it. Even after all the times I've read or listened to it I seem to find new things I have missed in the past. Love his work. Great video, keep up the great job. :) Before anybody asks my other go too book series are: Stainless Steel Rat series (listening to this now), Dark Elf series (next on my listen to list), Ring world series, and The Adept series. And a few more. lol
been watching for a while now... gotta say this channel is reaaly cool... both for inspiration and relaxation.... keep it going please :)
Another great episode! Still, I'd like to throw some thoughts into the mix. Generation ships aren't about being quick or efficient. They are about being... inevitable. The galaxy isn't going anywhere soon. There's no space race for this endeavor. Sure, you can send little sciency data probes ahead, for the sake of science itself and to eventually pick out prime real estate; but the point of generation ships is to enjoy the ride and arrive in style. "Go big or stay home!"
If you just send photocopies of yourself over email to another system, you haven't really done anything. You still aren't a spacefaring civilization, just a copy of a copy that never did it on their own, sprung up like a viral infection on another world without learning from the journey. You haven't developed or evolved from the experience, and you may not be what belongs there when you arrive, just pale copies of vain ancestors who wanted to think of themselves as star-men but lacked the resolve to dedicate themselves to the proposition. It's gutless.
The majesty of a proper generation ship is to send an actual piece of home soil, big enough to be a little world in transit unto itself, learning and evolving as it goes towards a long-term goal even bigger than itself, full knowing and embracing that future. It's a grand tradition in action, with its own "meaning of life" built right into the design.
Strap a 6-pack of big O'Neill cylinders (say, 4km wide and 8km long) onto a central drive core, and let it go find its destiny with an ongoing lifestyle of peace, prosperity, and care-taking. That's 600 square kilometers of floor space, enough to have fields, forests, lakes, and trails to explore, fresh natural air to breathe, and weather that always lets you know in advance when it's a good day to go to the beach, which is any day. Since interstellar ships will tend to be longer than wide, you should probably do at least two 6-packs in a line. That's 12 regions with potential variations in ecologies and layout.
Generational caretakers don't need to be strapped into cubicles or crammed into freezers. That's just a greed of numbers. Caretakers on such a ship can have a population that is both stable and generous enough to live in quality over quantity (say 100,000 overall). Sure, they may mostly eat high-efficiency hydroponic veggies & fish; but they can also go pick berries along the woods or keep herds in the fields, or grow their own garden for that hands-on feel. Maintaining and interacting with that world is a purpose unto itself, on top of all the entertainment and social options.
Why settle for the cheap seats when you can ride in luxury? The destination will always be there. The more important thing is to learn from the journey, to learn to care for and develop a fresh new world like the one you're going to build when you arrive. This needs a tradition of caretakers. If we are truly going out to meet this great big galaxy, we should do it in grand fashion!
There's plenty of room, and plenty of resources out there. Don't skimp on the future.
now I imagine a ship where people dress up to go shopping in the ship supermarkets, and drink pints in a pub in a forest, after hunting deer. I think I can like this kind of ship
Livin' Life like a high tech Hadzibe', that is my ideal lifestyle. Paleo FTW!
I like your style
I really don't see how starting an interstellar colony from scratch is "gutless", even if its via settlers (copies or whatever) who didn't experience the trip directly. It would still take courage, sacrifice and determination to make that colony a success. In that struggle, the settlers would certainly find development and evolution whether they wanted to or not.
animist channel They are about being efficient, they're just efficient in other ways. Like a ship with a more efficient O2 recycler is going to support more people. Or maybe it grows crops which are genetically modified to be more energy and space efficient.
Speed *does* matter. There's little point in sending out a ship in 2050 if the one we send in 2100 will be faster and better equipped, and pass the first ship.
oh that ayreon piano at the end my soul has reach the stars
I only heard about your videos a few days ago from watching one of ask joes videos and I have to say I am really loving them
a great video! love listening to these when at work, always fills me with the optimisim to get through the day
Of course our bodies create a small amount of radiation. I would never have thought of that myself. Once more you made me think outside my box.
The habitats in a Dyson swarm are basically generation ships. Outfit a few hundreds of the large ones, each with tens of millions of occupants, with fusion reactors and adequate supplies to compensate for leakage during the trip, and you could move entire civilizations and biospheres from one star system to the next with very little, if any, hardship to the colonists.
Yes and no, you can convert one into an okay-ish ship and vice-versa, but it's probably not the best approach. An RV can certain run the Indy 500 track but it's not really ideal for it and a F1 racer isn't too suited for off-roading or a month long camp stay. Your default O'Neill cylinder is probably rather heavy on mass and not really meant for total self-sufficiency on century long time scales, it's probably a garden park that needs to import DNA rather than having an indefinitely stable and very diverse ecology and probably isn't built for anything but milligee thrust in mind.
To echo Isaac here, VERY tiny thrust can do a number on an unmodified cylinder habitat of ANY size. I looked into the damage that even milligee accelerations could do to the 32-kilometer-sized cylinder habitats and the general results vary from annoying to deadly to potentially-apocalyptic. Your house might have similar amenities to an RV, but it is probably not designed to withstand acceleration on a freeway onramp.
Just as an example, acceleration of 1 milligee could DOUBLE the water pressure in a pipe at one end of the massive cylinders habitats, while reducing the pressure at the other end to hard vacuum that would rapidly begin to suck air in through your kitchen sink.
Interesting. Then it would be easier to design such ships for that purpose from the start instead of converting existing O'Neill habitats. Unless we use the protomolecule's inertialess drive, or bite the bullet and purchase the Outsider's reactionless drive. 😉
Still, that doesn't alter the premise of sending large numbers of people to colonize other star systems. A billion colonists would be a minuscule fraction of the population of a Dyson swarm, and yet constitute a complete civilization on par with what we have on Earth today. "Condemning" whole generations to live out their lives under those conditions would be no worse than us being "condemned" to live out our lives trapped on Earth.
@@francoislacombe9071 Meanwhile, when such things will be possible the conditions of our current lives on Earth will appear as Neanderthalish.
out of all the types of colony ships the concept of gardener ships is my favourite
Hey Isaac! I haven't watched your videos in a while (time a big binge!) and I just wanted to say the improvement in your speech is extremely noticeable! Awesome video as always
What if we're the vanguard infrastructure?
Well, I'd assume, based on performance, that the Minister of Colonization back on our real home-world probably got fired.
LOL
Thank you Isaac, for continuing to inspire the pioneering spirit.
I'd like to make a special thanks to this channel for allowing me to win sci-fi debates with friends now that I've listened to a few dozen episodes
I just can't get enough of this channel.
Another great video.Thanks Isaac.
While "Rendevous with Rama" is a great book, I also recommend to read "Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Very good, hard Sci-Fi novel about a generation ship sent to Tau Ceti and all the problems that can occur durng such a long mission.
Thank you for your recommendation. Didn't read that one yet.
I just finished reading "Aurora" a few days ago. Definitely a fascinating (and also grim) novel.
I cannot say that I agree with all the author's thesis but I think I'm still happy about the book's plot. We've had a lot of stories about successfull colonization already, so it's good to see a different point of view. Even if it's like a "punch in the face" for space-enthusists.
A "punch in the face" pretty well sums up my own reaction to reading "Aurora." Mr. Robinson posed some intriguing dilemmas in that novel, including of course the possible mindsets of future generations born/raised on a Generation Ship. I can't help but imagine there could potentially be a much higher level of angst and discontent among 'Star-Borns,' -compared to terrestrial first generations born in "The New World;" as they could have taken comfort in knowing that returning to Europe (or wherever) was if nothing else, a semi-realistic possibility in their lifetimes.
Without revealing spoilers, the other *major* 'obstacle' encountered by the Aurora colonists was even more overwhelming than the voyage itself - and seems like a depressingly plausible complication that human space travelers might confront. Yep, it was a good read, but Mr. Robinson bummed me out a little with this book...
With that said, I still highly recommend "Aurora" as a good read on the subject of Generation Ships, Ecology & Interstellar Travel.
Yes! I loved Aurora! Material shortages, system failures, and social failures, are all very plausible issues that most stories of the like tend to gloss over.
I’ve been looking forward to this one. Thanks IA
I live for Thursdays. Thank you so very much for all your hard work. It's such a breath of fresh air to see real thought put into these topics. May your endevours bring you all the success you deserve.
I don't understand the concept or issue with an 'Involuntary" crew. Is anyone on spaceship Earth voluntary?
I agree, but there is a difference. We're here because that's what happened. There's no one to blame. In a generational ship, someone has made the decision. That really does change things significantly. If your house gets burned down by a lightning strike, then that's very different from having been set on fire by your neighbor. Right?
But I agree. I think people won't miss the Earth unless they grew up there.
I don't think there's much of a difference. It's your parent's fault you're here. It didn't just "happen". Same as on the ship. Even if you don't have parents and you were a frozen embryo raised in an artificial womb, someone donated that embryo to "science". Anyways my point is there is always someone to blame regardless of where you were born.
@@denisl2760 You actually cannot really blame your parents, in a way. They have not been able to influence who'll incarnate as their child.
Imagine, you builded a hudge, costly generation ship, you are traveling at 0,01% c proud as hell, because it is realy fast for a chemical propulsion. You are now old, you spend half of your life on that ship and sudenly turists start ariving because some Epstein invented a drive and your ship, still in the solar system, is an easy destination. The worst thing is that you will look like some Amish with them LOL
Lol. Now that's an interesting idea for comedy sci-fi. :D
This gets called the "Wait Calculation", the assumption you never colonize until you have FTL, and if you can't actually have FTL, you never do it. Now the last case is extreme and silly, one of the more unlikely Fermi PAradox solutions, but there is a certainly element of truth to the concept. We don't do a lot of stuff like moon bases or Mars trips because we tend to assume if we wait 10-20 more year sit will be way cheaper and safer, and this tends to be true. However if you've waited till you can make an affordable ship that does 10% light speed (and next episode we'll show how to do that with modern tech), you probably won't wait on 20% unless it seems pretty solidly near horizon, because you've got a ton of systems that would reach in a century or so while the 20% system, even if it's only 30 years off, isn't going to save you much time to those nearby systems. That's the other aspect too, there are a massive number of stars, so if you've got 100 ships sailing out a 10% light speed to the nearest stars, and there's that many within 25 light years, your next-gen 20%c ships just head off to the thousand or so systems 25-50 light years out.
Isaac Arthur I'm waiting then for the next episode. Happy Arthursday Isaak!
hahaha you spoke his language?? lol ..Epstein lol
noone who types Epstein and turists should comment on youtube
Happy Arthursday everybody!
Thank you Arthur! I usually listen to philosophy or your videos at night.. very interesting ideas.. and I also started listening to rendezvous with rama due to your recommendation.. I'm enjoying it so far.. thanks again for the thought provoking ideas and enriching my dreams!
Yes! It's a good day already!
I'm so early that it is still Thursday in Asia. I usually see sfia post on Friday
Literally living in the future.
I don't know, I'm also from Asia, and I usually notice posts appear by ~2200 PHT (10 PM Manila)
Happy Arthursday everyone!
This topic made my morning. Got some biscuits and gravy with a nice cup of Joe, while I listen to this. Thank you Mr Arthur!!!
Hey IA, what's your estimate on what the maximum possible interstellar journey time could be without stopping? 1000 years?
well episode 4 is titled "Ark of a million years" :)
But I assumed that million-year journey would involve stopping at a new star system every few centuries, right?
Not if they were heading to another galaxy. Nowhere to stop in between.
Actually there are places to stop in-between. See IA's video on intergalactic colonisation for more on that.
That's also somewhat relative to what kind of technology you have, and how much fuel you can realistically throw at the problem, since if you get up to relativistic speeds, apparent travel time onboard the ship would be shorter.
Of course, that just means reframing the question as 'how long can a ship go without stopping, from the perspective of it's own internal timekeeping'.
So....
Going at 9.9999c doesn't fundamentally change how long the ship can travel without stopping, but it DOES change how far it can travel in that timespan.
tl;dr: The idea of a single ship seems incomplete to me. I would think there would be a fleet of robotic surveyors, construction drones building habitats or the infrastructure for the ship itself to be the habitat, ect.
I always felt that the biggest problem with Prometheus, aside from a bunch of scientists that act like 10 year old brats running wild at Disneyland, is they way they got there. They had one ship and showed up with no knowledge of the planet. This always bugged me. There would be a FLEET there. Specifically a fleet of satellites and drones. If AI is only half as advanced as David (seeing as how he is an advanced prototype) then there is no reason an entire ship and fleet of robotic, self sufficient and adaptable machines can't be in orbit years or even decades ahead of time doing all the surveying and potential base building.
Everyone would have woken up maybe a few weeks ahead of reaching the system and there by have time to study all the data accumulated by the robotic fleet. They would have known every square inch of that planet, would have mapped it with plenty of those "dogs" and probably had plenty of other deep scans. They would have known about the multiple ships, underground bunkers, and probably even the outbreak. They would have seen things like the giant frickin SKULL OF DOOM on the "pyramid" they went into.
And just because it cost a lot to make that ship, doesn't excuse this not being there. It would have all been there precisely BECAUSE of all the money spent. All that data, all those potential mineral deposits, xeno-archaelogy sites, science outposts and observation stations would be HUGELY profitable. Basically Wayland could have rented out an entire planet to governments.
he does bring this up, but you're right it's a valid point
What was also silly was how they take the lander down and immediately disembark without wearing armored isolation suits. I mean, seriously? Also how their 1 AI android doesn't get spotted as an imposter by their starship computer - there was no exchange of cryptographic keys?
you dont have a comprehension of the COST of interstellar travel. we literally arent capable of it now. and humanity isnt going to sacrifice 10% of its resources for "some shit made up by some nasa moron". Generation ships would only ever be done by people who wanted to leave here and try.. and theyd mostly likely be the ultrawealthy.. or rather.. the beneficiaries of the ultrawealthy. It would likely be a warped society.. because those people arent going to be able to even comprehend hardship or sacrifice. The only way it can be done is when we our world is so plutocracitc/feudal that the top .01% own everything.. or those at the very top have decided in their delusions we mere humans are below them and htey want their far far far right wet dream.
I love your videos, I'm currently writing a series of sci fi stories so your channel helps me base some of the future tech with real science.
Keep up the good work sir.
Love your videos man! I just subbed your channel & have a lot of catching up to do, but I absolutely can’t wait for the new releases!
Arthursday
Isaac, it's not really my place to say this, but I'm a selfish bastard. I worry about your weight and your health.
I want you to be making these videos for the next hundred years, and I worry that your weight is a risk to that. We unfortunately don't yet live in a world where you can eat whatever you want and still be perfectly healthy. I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but a thinner you is a healthier you, and I really want you to be around for a long long time :)
Erik S "thinner you is a more healthy you" it's more about a balance. I know this is not what you are advocating, but such statements lead to confusion. The healthiest people are not thin, and the strongest men aren't rippling with muscle definition. Having fat deposits is not the evil, eating poorly and not excercising are.
His reply at 17:25
Isaac, I absolutely love your content! Your channel is the only one I hit the "bell" for. Thank you so much for the marvellous thought provoking content🤔👍👍❤️
Consistent.
Favourite
YT day of the week
Is this unwillingness concern really real? After all we are all drafted to the adventure called life. How are children in generation ships really different?
Yes and no, I don't view it as a real moral concern but I've known people who bitched about their parents making them take piano lessons and this is a bit more extreme that that. On the other hand while folks will sometimes complain about their parents moving when they were kids, they generally don't complain about them moving before they were born, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain that their great-grandparents immigrated to Ohio. And since griping about Ohio being boring and meteorologically schizophrenic is our major pastime here, I tend to assume they wouldn't hesitate to do so if it bugged them.
Think about what would need to be done to preserve genetic diversity and maintain the correct level of population generation after generation. You are now born into a world where you are required to produce two children, regardless of how many or few children you want, and the pool of partners you have to chose from does not necessarily contain the person you want to be with (or any person you can even bear). And you have to do this, completely undemocratically, because your ancestors signed up for this scheme.
Now can you start to see some ethical issues emerging?
6th also I am writing a book about a generational ship gone wrong 3 of the ark class enuma elis
Turn out I wasn't 6th
6th?
xbfalcon83 the number of comentary
oh, I thought viewers of this channel would be above such a silly mentality
xbfalcon83 this is youtube sillyness is king
I'm just here 3 years later in 2021 going back through Isaac Arthur's catalog after being pointed this way from The Event Horizon channel. Excellent stuff. Also here to say I read Rendezvous with Rama and the second book in the series a couple of years ago and they hold up pretty well. I believe there's a third in the series that I still need to get to.
Great episode. Fun to see the cameo by Cody!
I don't like the generation ship concept because their is a good chance it could degenerate into a flying north korea in a giant tin can. Also i would not care to subject any descendant of mine to a situation they can't get out off.
We do that already by birthing kids on Earth. Of course, Earth is pretty big and if your kid doen't like the hundred people around him he does have the option of moving twenty miles away. But, you know, *strictly speaking* we do that to our kids already.
Sailor Barsoom strictly speaking you would be correct however on earth one can roll the dice and take chances to improve or otherwise change your situation. On a generation ship their is no chance if one rock's the proverbial boat to much too often or too hard their is only death.
Well yeah, there is that.
It also depends somewhat on how big and how many people. If you're trapped your whole life with a hundred square Km and a hundred other people vs. a million square Km and a million other people.
I agree, whatever arrived at the destination would likely be either insane, dead or not human. Although, a ship the size of a moon could work, but then it wouldn't be a colony *ship* .
Why wouldn't it be a colony ship if it was as small as the moon?
you really need to stop thinking you can jsut mine mercury into nothing but ships with out consequences to the orbits of the other planets , the pretabation of the orbits may have real bad consquences
Really not an issue, think on it more
If we can mine mercury to nothing we can probably correct for that
Ascension was a great mini series that tackled this subject with a twist at the end. Starring Cylon 6 I mean Tricia Helfer. Great episode Mr. Arthur!
This is why I love your channel Isaac! I want able to watch thus on Thursday because I was at Stennis Space Center (happily) working myself to death. But I just finished this video for the second time and wow! What a cool video! I think I'm going to start my channel soon. You're by far my favorite on CZcams and a constant source of inspiration! Thank you!
Nice episode isaac, one of my favorite concepts in science fiction.
Liked before I started. thank you for your work, Arthur.
...that segue to the audible commercial at the end was smooth AF :D
Good work as usual. Enjoyed it very much.
Again, this is how best to convey ideas with this platform.
This is how we will grow.
Great use of Ayreon music at the end. I'm a giant fan of his!
Top notch music. The best you had by now!
I can’t wait for more from this series. I would love if you could explore the issues with raising of children on a Seed ship solely with machines. If we are unable to send Methuselahs or Sleepers, then we need to find a way of preventing the first generation of Seed colonists from becoming messed up.
I love your work so much
Just came from public lecture. Made me realize again... You are the best.
Mr. Arthur, you make some really good points here. The knowledge drain and necessity of mainly technical expertise could prove disastrous in delivering a functional society anywhere distant. Good video of many good videos from you sir.
I really enjoyed this presentation.
just came home from my summer holiday trip with my wife and kids; They are asleep now and I was bored, nothing to do..but then, Isaac Arthur's new Video popped up. Awesome end for an awesome holiday :)