COLONIZING GALAXY ---------------1. FUSION ROCKETS------------------- ++Atmosphere is an endoplasmic membrane of unicellular photosynthetic organism Gaia ++Million years from now puny race will have attained Kardashev level 3, human numbers 1x10^34. ++Interstellar flight is the province of solar civilizations. ++Fusion powered clippers, capable of speed > 300kps ++@300kps, to nearest star = 4200yrs. ++World ships, generation ships. Spend few 100 years to get tech, then build fast ships to cross void in 10s of years. ++30000kps, 10%c, .1c if you can't travel at least this fast, don't bother going.! ++Fusion rockets, atomic nuclei expelled at 10000kps. then a rocket exhaust w/ that velocity can be produced, To reach 10% speed of light, a ship achieve 3x own exhaust velocity. 10000 ton payload in 40000 ton structure would require 1mil tons of fuel. ---------------2. PROPULSION SYSTEMS--------------- ++Nuclear pulse propulsion, beamed energy drives, solar sail starships, fusion ramjets, interstellar ion scoops, gravitation wormholes. ---------------3. THE ULTIMATE FUEL---------------- The ultimate fuel ++Gamma effects include an increase in mass, slowing of the passage of time, and a contraction in the direction of motion. ++++As velocities increase > 90% c .9c , gamma rises more and more rapidly. ++Foreshortening effects of the FitzGerald contraction are too mind bending to include here. The Hull ++Comprehensive library of human knowledge. ++Frozen samples of DNA ++Robotic factories like sophisticated unifabs, hard to produce high-tech equipment like fusion reactors. ++45 yrs after the cargo ships have departed, smaller, faster ships will leave, carrying the human colonists at .5c ++Constant acceleration of 1g clipper 6mo to get to .5c ++Each person needs 50tons of antimatter fuel to make this trip. ++<.0002% of the gross solar system product. ++One or two hundred people are more than enough to found a thriving solar system ++Exponential explosion of virtually the sole province of life. ++Rate of growth not exceeding 8%, 150colonists can produce a population the size of the present Earth's in just over two centuries. ++Population w/ 100 child bearing adults enough for gene pool diversification. ++Rigil kent first astral port of call (1) set sights on nearest star (2) secure foothold in galaxy a star of the same type as our own sun. (3) We establish our first galactic outpose in a place where resources for colonization are likely to be incredibly rich. +3rd star in the triple system Rigil Kent C Proxima Centauri our closest stellar neighbor. ++Enrico Fermi - "Where is everybody" ++Earthlike worlds are rarer than sapphires in sand piles. ++Like bees swarming to nectar of opulent blossom they would quickly zero in on our sweet world. ++Any life form will, by definition, be dependent on energy. ++No ETs have ever called on our planet. ++Civilization - just now at the crackling dawn of the telecommunications age already raises a radio din of astronomic proportions. ++a K2 civilization would look like a radio quasar inside the galaxy. ++SETI ( Search for extra terrestrial intelligence. ++Detect K2 signals in the form of laser pulses, gamma rays, cosmic rays or neutrinos. ++No signals; no aliens. ++Napoleon's time-honored maxim : That battle is incidental to the decisive question of supply. A K2 culture - able to harness whole solar flares at will - can easily fry any unwelcome raiders. ++Information - theory reduces the nebulous concept of information to exact mathematical quantities relating to message length and content. Meaning can be interpreted as a level of probability. ++Genesis DNA would take 10^360 chemical reactions. ++Of highly complex, self-replicating material is just as unlikely to occur as our ofrm. ++Universe is a probability field, The future is an infinite continuum of possibilities.