X-Message-Number: 14486 From: Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 17:42:44 EDT Subject: Re: msg# 14468 Fermi and the like From: "Brett Bellmore" <> ... > Now, what are the consequences of this for interstellar travel, assuming >that the speed of light is a real limit? A trip which might formerly have >taken several years at relativistic speeds now takes a subjective several >MILLION years! This would probably discourage interstellar exploration and >colonization to some extent by itself. If such colonization did take place, >it wouldn't be by great leaps across distances of lightyears, but instead a >slow diffusion into the cometary zone and from body to body across the >interstellar "voids", which after all aren't really empty. Strange, I see the opposite effect! When cryonics is perfected, life may extende over (real) millions of years, that allows to launch projects with far longer objectives. Assume for example that cryonics opens the possibility to live one year per century, this is as if we could multiply by 100 the velocity of light. If you are in a virtual world, it is even simpler: you live on microsecond every one millisecond and a nuclear space ship with a real speed of c/10 (~ 18000 mi/s) would be seem as a 100 times superluminal vessel. Because your life uses only 1/1000 th of the real time, you can live 1000 lives at the same time. So, cryonics may be the only way to render interstellar travels afordable and virtual life could greathly simplify it. Well, some people in that society may choose your way of life with only one superfast life at a time, but other may choose my solution, so that in any advanced civilization, at least one componment will choose what I have described. Cold environment is not the only solution for superfast computer or any other information processing device. as an extreme case, quantum computers processing information in nonlinear energy levels of nucleus may store that information for more than the Universe age at a temperature larger than the one found at the heart of the Sun ( 15 millions degrees C). The heavy elements found at the surface of a neutron star could be interesting for that technology... Back to the real world: NASA distribute some small grants for advanced propulsion project, given that cryonics is the only way to do cost effective interstellar travel, why not ask for something in that domain? What is only some dust for NASA could be an enormous boost for cryonics researches. And don't forget the good publicity for both sides: Cryonics becomes main stream science/technology. NASA finds a practical road to the stars. May be it is time to rejuvenate the link between cryonics and space travel. Yvan Bozzonetti. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14486