Moontanman

No, in fact if they release the UAP files and their own conclusion is that UAP represent "aliens" I'll still think it's just another shiny object being used to distract from the total corruption of the US gov to enrich the oligarchs and defend Trump from his pedophillic behavior while destroying our governement. I'm gonna need a scientific consensus along with completely removing the MAGA movement and project 2025 from power in our nation before I am willing to even start to believe our government. It is on youtube as well but it's also a report from "News Nation" a right wing rag that twists itself into knots to keep from saying anything bad about the PPOTUS and a firm promoter of "shiny Objects" used to distract.

Either this "disclosure" is going to be the defining moment of humanity or a complete hoax that will completely destroy any faith in our gov for many decades. My BS meter is whipping back and forth like a rattlesnake tail!

Hmmm... not sure if this is gay sex.

In the book Forward says something about changing the wavelength of the laser after separation, Forward is a physicist and an aerospace engineer., somewhat know for his books scientific accuracy. 5 hours ago, studiot said: One of the arguments presented is "Why bother ?" But other than the satisfaction of curiosity what does Pluto have to offer humans ? Why bother? Good question and Pluto? My idea is that debries like the kuiper belt or the oort cloud, asteroids would be used, large planets would be avoided and the debri would be used to build space habitats, millions of space habitats could be built with just the small objects, ice, carbon, metals, all are there with no gravity well to deal with. it would no doubt take thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years to exhaust the resources of a planetary system. Space habitats, once they become the norm and people are used to living in them, using them to travel to the nearest star would be much like taking your home with you. ie slow boats! Using resources available in system to reach out to any and all stars becomes more of a lifestyle than an adventure. The idea is that what to do with pluto becomes moot... unless you can break it up for use but breaking up even a small planet like pluto might be too much trouble.

Over time in a pool of water the algae will exhaust the nutrients in the water and other organisms will also eat the algae. Unicellular algae will slowly disappear over time in favor of more complex plants. Unless you filter and chlorinate the water is will always grow some sort of algae, it just how life works. I suspect the water was high in nutrients to begin with, but even tap water will turn green quite quickly in the full sun.

More along the lines of debri is valuable, planets not so much.

The whole idea that the Trump régime is struggling to figure out why algae grows in the reflecting pool is hilarious. Anyone who keep yard ponds or aquariums knows the answer, water plus sunlight equals algae... well duh!

I agree, slow is the key, and IMHO planets would not be the point, this makes it much easier to colonise another star system. To me this discussion is assuming quite a bit too much. If any star is the destination instead of only star systems with a habitable planet the possibilities and the practicality for slow travel rises significantly. Once a space habitat reaches its destination, let's say 400 years to the alpha centauri system, then 500 years to get to the pointy of being able to launch two colony ships to the nearest stars to alpha centauri and so on. Let's say our numbers double every 2000 years. how long until we occupy all the stars within 100 light years from earth. Also I can see the possibility of launching colonies like multistage rockets from earth. The first stage accelerates the colony to it's speed then another stage, slightly smaller decelerates the space colony. The two stages are used and discarded... The stages would be much larger than the cargo but still within the scope of technology? It's really difficult to predict what future tech will be able to do but I remember reading how one of the original problems with attaining Earth orbit was that the rocket would have to be gigantic to even reach orbit but staging the rockets solved that problem. If... huge word, if robots raise the children, and I have trouble seeing how much worse they could do than we already do, I can see how how this could work. Hence my idea of colonising the Kuiper belt of oort cloud with space habitats, they would want to keep track of any planet in the planetary system they are colonising. So... they visit and screw with us in improbable ways for no apparent reason... lol Robert L. Forward proposed a laser propulsion system that would both accelerate and decelerate the spacecraft from lasers in our solar system. Rocheworld

Depends on what the pont was. I see no reason why such a journey would have to include living humans. Self replicating machines could make the journey, the time scale would be meaningless. Humans could be constructed once the ship arrives... assuming that humans are still the point. Information travels at the speed of light, a great many stars are less than "hundreds of thousand years" away at light speed, info could be transmitted if it was wanted. Why is information be the point of interstellar travel? Maybe actual colonization is the point, information would just be secondary. No, no magical mcguffin is necessary, just technology and the desire to expand human civilization. I would have to think that controlled fusion is necessary as well. Lack of practical fusion power, IMHO, would be a deal breaker, but fusion power is just 20 years away. Don't assume why future humans... or aliens would want to travel to another star. I still think that generational ships are a possibility for colonization of other star systems. Once we colonize the solar system with space habitats, and living in those habitats are the norm, travel to the nearest star would just be like a normal life. No planets are necessary for colonization of the galaxy once we live in space habitats. I honestly think that underestimating human perseverance and technology will not age any better than early scientists who were sure flight would never be possible or that trips to the moon are a crazy fantasy. The things I am suggesting are not impossible, they may seem unlikely from our current goals but goals change and space habitats are possible. Development of space habitats will change our zeitgeist, living in space will allow us to expand into the solar system in the trillions, living on millions of space habitats.

How does physics have to be wrong for interstellar travel to occur? I see no reason why matter from one planetary system cannot travel to another planetary system. Can you elaborate on this?

These are the key words, in this vast universe "vanishingly unlikely" becomes a certainty over large scale time and space. Unless it can be shown to be impossible it will happen eventually. The very fact that we can speculate ways it could be done that are not impossible points to this. Winning the lotto might be improbable but try to take away the winnings of the man who won with that excuse will no doubt be a problem. I will admit that alien visitation is highly improbable, I have changed my approach to the subject having admitted that the data we currently have is does not meet the standards of science and the jet stream of bullshit currently emanating from the Trump regime cannot be trusted and so far is no better than lights in the sky being reported by Billy Joe Jim Bob after his friday night anal probe!

If the point of this is to explain some aspect of current UAP then possibly the Machine Civilization is watching the emergence of another machine civilization here. I believe @MigL hit on an aspect of this in his post. Could be why they don't contact us, we don't count as alive in their paradigm.

Would the distance problem apply to machine civilizations?

Capitalism unchained... The rich get richer and the poor stay that way while more and more of us join the their ranks. What happened to antitrust laws? I remember what the gov freaked out over Ma Bell and broke it up, now days no one seems to mind companies so big the engilf everything like a giant amoeba, or maybe "The Blob".

I've seen much better stuff from back in the Blue Book days, but more importantly the reason for the release is insulting.

@TheVat You forgot "The Monster" by Steppenwolf

I think this whole "UAP/UFO disclosure" is complete BS! If they had anything to disclose why not show the evidence to scientists? Why display what amounts to "lights in the sky" on TV for all to see with no real explanation or context? This is nothing but an attempt to distract from the Trump régime's crimes against the American people. If it was a serious attempt to disclose actual evidence it should be given to the scientific community... all of it, no redactions and if what they are showing is the best they have then I for one am not impressed, UFO magazines of the 60's and 70's had better photos and much better background information. This is so obviously just another jet stream of BS coming out of our government... yes I am angry! It's sad to see our Nation reduced to such flimflammery to prevent a pedophile from getting his just deserts.

@dimreepr I honestly do not understand how you are getting this from my post.

IMHO, ignoring the possibility of "Clark Tech" the only scenario that I can think of is that aliens colonize the debri of stars like our kuiper belt or oort cloud, taking advantage of the resources available to create their civilization. They could have specialists who study planets with life, much like we have specialists who study remote tribes here on earth but for the most part I would think they would ignore us.

@dimreepr I'm not sure what you mean, I agree that simply visiting another star is hardly worth it unless you intend to colonize that stars "debrie" . The gravity well I am alluding to is the gravity field of planets, going to and fro the surface of planets is silly if you live in space in artificial habitats. In my idea planets would be pretty much ignored in favor of ice and rocks that orbit the star. Some small subset of these "aliens" might be interested in what is going on any specific planet but colonizing them seems unlikely for reasons that really off topic. Wouldn't a more efficient methods require significantly less propellent? Or are we talking about waste heat? Hmmm... I'm not sure all power sources need as much shielding as others but I'm pretty sure a nuclear light bulb rocket gets around this. Studies I've seen would seem to show an engine several times as efficient as chemical rockets not to mention safe to launch from a planetary surface. I know this would not be appropriate for interstellar missions but it shows that there are alternatives to chemical and solid core nuclear rockets. For my money aneutronic fusion seems the best bet but of course that is only 20 years away. https://beyondnerva.wordpress.com/2020/03/21/the-nuclear-lightbulb-a-brief-introduction/

This describes the basics of a magnetic sail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_sail I wasn't aware we were talking about the Fermi Paradox but you do have a point, there is a sweet spot of planetary mass where a planet is really too small to hold onto an atmosphere long enough to allow complex life (Mars?) and and so big that getting off the surface is next to if not impossible. I'm not how large or small that sweet spot should be. I would think that nuclear power might expand that sweet spot. Would nuclear power change this equation? Thanks, see what you mean, but wouldn't the efficiency of the engine at least cut down on reaction mass required to reach a certain speed?

Wouldn't that depend in part on how fast your slow boat was going? To people who live inside space habitats the trip would just be life as usual, so the speed could be quite low. The time of travel would be very long of course but if you used the same amount of energy to slow down as you used to speed up... Then again this could seem trivial to beings with much longer life spans than ours, or technology that allows them to spend most of the time in hibernation, combine that with long life spans... Technology is a wonderful thing. Also i can see a system similar to staged rockets, the engine could be dropped after the habitat hits a certain speed, things like magnetic sails could be used to decelerate, or carry a second stage capable of slowing down in conjunction with mag sails. I am sure that thousands of years in the future technology could be somewhat more advanced than today and be capable of things like antimatter drives or fusion drives or more likely something we haven't thought of yet. I'm not sure how that could explain the Fermi paradox, are you suggesting that most planets are too big to escape from? Teapot orbiting jupiter? I have not suggested such a thing, only logical extensions of current technology not physics breaking Clark Tech! I'm not sure I understand this, things like Ion drives use much less fuel to do the same thing as a chemical rocket, other methods like fusion or antimatter could hypothetically be even more efficient, wouldn't not requiring high speeds be another way to requre less fuel?

Swanson, I honestly do not understand what you are talking about, your statement seem to be a blanket statement without any nuance. Please elaborate.

I agree the balance may indeed be fine, maybe there are planets that require nuclear power to escape... my idea of colonizing space happens after the the beings escape their planet. In fact you have hit upon why a space faring civilization might want to avoid planets. coming and going from a Earth sized planet require enormous amounts of energy, it would be much easier to travel between space colonies than between planets. Once a civilization begins to colonize via space habitats the game changes from going in and out of deep gravity wells to using things like ion drive or hall thrusters or maybe things we do not see happening yet. As the integrity of space colonies gets better and better at total recycling, probably won't ever be 100%, the idea of spanning space in the home you already live in becomes much more attractive to certain types of people at least. It also make choosing a goal much easier since you are not looking for habitable planets.

I agree, but how do these things prohibit star travel? There are ways to star travel without violating the laws of physics. Slow boats are an example, we might not be able to do it now but it's mostly engineering problems not the laws of nature. I don't think planets are necessary, in fact I doubt planets would be a factor at all in any equation. Planets are deep gravity wells, why bother when space habitats made from debrei like asteroids and kuiper belt like objects can be used to build space habitats. An inhabited planets would be at best a curiosity.