I used to get some elitist magazine back
when I was single. OMNI was good, but I
found one that went one step beyond.
Not only space travel, but longevity to
get humans to live well past 200. I think
it was called 'Paranoia', but that doesn't
sound right.
So if I were to get to such a space conference
here are some topics that roll around in my
imagination....
Politics : I heard a Leslie Fish tune called
"Queen Isabella". Very apropos. With limited
resources on earth, you'd think the government
or business would get it. Like space takes
money to get to, but the payback is worth it,
especially if you want humanity to survive
more than another 1000 years. Recycling only
goes so far, and at some point you'll be too
poor, too depleted to make the jump to space.
Then once you start settling planets like
Mars or Titan, make them self sustaining.
Then what if they want to declare independence
from earth governments? Who really owns
land on Mars? Can you just declare manifest
destiny again and take over? Should we really
be making all those radio and TV signals that
radiate into space. Like a big target on your
back that says "Kick me ! I'm stupid !"
Some smart and dangerous alien group could
dupe us. Like we'll be like so gullible.
Mixing with alien races ? How kinky ? But I
really don't think the genetics could work here.
Not any more than a dog and a lizard mating would
produce anything. Unless the alien race and human
were derived from similar species and just diversified
in their own environments, alien mesegenation is not
a viable or smart idea.
Economics : Who invests in space ? Who reaps
rewards, or consequences. Who has the right
to use earth resources? What if plenty and
prosperity are found? Enough food and energy
and health for everyone? Would some impose
scarcity to maintain their economic systems
of haves vs have nots? Would some impose
pain, and suffering to keep us all "human"
and struggling? Keep primitive and irrelevant
systems of taxes for the inequitable distribution
of wealth which should no longer matter?
Sociology : Do societies need gravity? Sex in
0 G may sound like fun, but will it work? Or
will humans need gravity so someone knows who
is on top? So things know which way to flow.
Maybe some species are sexless? Maybe some
have a dozen genders? Maybe some don't die but
merge into youngers. Is it us & them, or just us?
What are jobs and occupations in space? What
kind of schooling makes sense? What becomes
of arts ? and crafts ? People now have cars
as personal transports. Such things may not
make sense in the vast expanse of space.
People will be confined to ships, or to
limited facilities. Most planets are not
as comfortable as earth. So until you
find some planets, some that you are welcome on,
humanity will be extremely confined.
Maybe people will connect to virtual worlds
until they get to reasonably habitable world.
What will that do to us over years or centuries?
Religion : Christ died for mankind, but maybe not
for Martians. Maybe other worlds were smart and
never had original sin. Do we have any right to
go near them and maybe corrupt them with our
sinful nature ? Just because they found the meaning
of life and have no more problems. Maybe our duality
of good and evil make no sense. Maybe someone else
have a sevenfold metaphysical systemology that makes
absolutely no sense to humans. How can humans and
such relate ? We're not there yet.
Technology : I gave some of the technologies of sci fi a
closer look. They're only cool in video. Very scary in
reality. Maybe impossible. OK phasers. Shoot something,
it glows, phzzt gone. NO ! All the water in humanoid
life forms, Gosh ! There's be a huge blast of steam
and 'chunks'. Gads, you'd probably get killed from the
bio shrapnel ! Transmats ? Like McCoy, I'd be scared
of getting correctly reconstructed on the other side,
and whether my soul, intellect and life force would go
as well. Would it be the same or only a 'copy', and the
original consumed in the process? Aliens ? I like how
Lister put it on 'Red Dwarf'. "There ain't no aliens.
The universe is empty, it's just you and me and bunch
of smegging rocks !" So far nothing to dispute that.
Warp Drive. This is something they desperately need.
If you take our fastest space vehicles, you can get to
100,000 mph using gravity, and sustain it, the nearest
star is over 32,000 years away. No guaranty of habitable
planets or any planets. Everything else is much further.
What is the slowing factor ? Inertia. Inertia is the
direct result of mass. So they propose inertial dampers.
What's cool here is that you can turn on a dime at
1,000,000 miles per hour and not feel a thing.
Obviously, if you conquer inertia, there's little
to stop you from going faster and faster. NASA, via
Dr Alan C Holt, had a concept for travel called field
resonance propulsion. It looked to me like doing
clever things to get from here to there by "tuning"
into it's space/time coordinates in the "unified field".
He suggested that this is probably what UFO's used.
However, he never mentioned if he visited area 51.
This tuning in skips past inertia, and it avoids the
potential mess of a long distance transmat. This was not
science fiction, it was a NASA white paper, I was able
to get a copy of. Sonic disrupters. We had one at
McGraw Edison in the late 1970's. Wicked ! Very nasty.
Stun guns are common place now. Communicators are
cell phones, nearly par with Startrek TNG. Doctor Who
bettered it my adapting Rose's cell to call across the
universe and to any time (she phoned home from 5 billion
years in the future). Computers, also at Startrek TNG
levels. Computers are evolving much faster than
our current fire cracker propulsion systems. Also when
I was at McGraw Edison we were adapting a NASA designed
plasma thruster rocket engine into a circuit breaker/
surge protector, back in the late 1970's. Funny eh?
Red Dwarf had some practical applications. Luggage that
lugs itself and follows you, and talks to other luggage
to pass the time. Toasters that debate metaphysics while
trying to get you to you to have another piece of toast.
Time travel is funny. We all do it, forward, slowly.
Although a movie, "What the Bleep do we know" says it's
possible to remember the future. Time does not really
move forward, but our thought processes make us think so.
It's terrible interesting, a combo story/documentary.
Dr Who does it well. Red Dwarf botches it so bad it's
hilarious. They put a time drive on their ship and went
to October 1492. But they were 3 million light years
from earth. And deep space didn't feel too different
in the 15th century vs 3,000,000 AD. Androids ? Slow
going. Although I worked at a defense contractor that
had battle bots in the middle 1980's, and a built droid
legs and pelvis that could walk and climb stairs.
Holograms? Most are suspended light AI animations in
sci fi. Again Red Dwarf came up with a 'hard light drive'
for holograms giving them a pseudo material presence and
the ability to interact with matter. Suspended Animation ?
The publication I used to get mentioned it. People getting
quick frozen at death, in case they come up with a cure
for death. Good for really long space voyages too. Well
except for the Weka, most earth life cannot survive long
term freezing. In movie 2001 the goal was to slow metabolism down
through cooling, special fluids etc,... Red Dwarf used
'Stasis' a small field of frozen time. That's how Lister
gets from the 25th century to 3,000,000 AD in the first
episode. Stasis malfunction. Worm hole/Star Gates.
OK. Can't build a warp drive, use an intergalactic
wormhole mass transit network set up by the ancients of
Atlantis 50,000 years ago. I have not seen anything
close to this anywhere. But then I haven't been to
Antarctica or Chulac?
Physics : Physics is mostly applied mathematics. But
how those maths play out can be quite incredible.
OK inertial dampers? How could you neutralize inertia
but still keep the same matter? Warp drive ? What does
this mean exactly ? Maybe you know, please tell me.
My understanding says it's a way to cheat the speed
of light. I've also heard of hyper drive and hyperspace,
but I'm thinking that is more relevant to worm hole
stargates. Now relativity says that the closer you
get to the speed of light the more time distorts.
There is also a 'red' shift. So I'm thinking, not
only are we seeing the distant past in the far heavens
but also time distortion. A quasar pulsing 10 times
per second, may be pulsing at a vastly different rate
up close. Black holes also do funny things to time.
If you were able to stand just above the event horizon of a
black hole, time is slowed, and do the outside universe
should appear to be moving very fast. It would likely
be very twisted and distorted as the intense gravity
bends the light bizarrely. Spiral galaxies? Do they
exert gyroscopic forces as they spin ? Would those
distort the path starships in the galaxy or flying
near the edge ? Granted a galaxy isn't spinning at
78 rpm, but the shear mass of 100 billion stars spinning
as a galactic whole must count for something?
Matter/antimatter ? Antimatter is just matter that
doesn't get along with matter. It can be made in a lab
but it has to be carefully contained. Alternate universes
or realities? Let's not go there. Upside down or rightside
up? When I see starships depicted orbiting planets
on the upper or lower hemisphere the ships could be
seen as traveling upside down? Or it that meaningless
in the 0 G of space ? What is the vacuum of space ?
Is it true emptiness, nothingness ? Or is it something,
a medium. Light travels through it. It occupies space
and dimensions. What is it really? How can spaceships
push against it for propulsion ? And then there is
high speed collisions in space ? I wonder if two
objects hitting each other near the speed of light
have anything to worry about. Why ? For one thing,
matter is mostly empty space. Second, the subatomic particles
may pass each other and moving so fast, and time so slow
they never touch, just pass through each other with little
or no effect. Force fields? Well if there are phasers and
photon torpedoes, it seems that there would have to be
different kinds of force fields. I mean, a gas cloud could
be a shield. At high speed, gas could burn up most projectiles.
Energy beams ? I suppose could be diverted my magnetism
or absorbed and stored. Light beams could be altered by
lenses or mirrors solid or projected. Cloaking devices?
Not far fetched really. Energy wave phase neutralizers or something
to project the behind in front would feign invisibility.
Most space travel and targeting will be by instruments and
not site. So visible invisibility is less important than
instrument invisibility by erasure of certain energy signatures.
I think windows in spacecraft may be seen as a problem and
not desirable. Using virtual windows instead.
Sight seeing? Most of space dark, pitch dark. Unless you are
within a billion miles of a decent star you won't see much.
Galaxies? Nebulae? All those glorious photos in Astronomy
publications are time exposures with telescopes and film
exposure in terms of hours or days. Your human eyes will
likely just see dots, lots of dots, or maybe a hint of haze.
Space ships? Star ships? Unless they're painted white and
have a big light to illuminate themselves and you have
windows to look out of, you won't see a thing. You probably
have to be within 20 miles of the starship Enterprise to see
it as being something other than a dot. Hey, a cloaking
device might be as simple as a coat of matte black paint.
In conclusion much of space is boring, dull, and hard to get.
But also it is necessary as a destination if humanity is to
flourish and prosper beyond the next 100 or 1000 or 1,000,000 years.