[ExI] Alpha Centauri

[Anders Sandberg]

On 17/10/2012 02:30, BillK wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 10:02 AM, BillK wrote:
>> Using present rockets, about 50,000 to 100,000 years.
>> So we need new rocket systems first.

We have convinced ourselves at FHI that interstellar and intergalactic 
colonization is 'easy' once you have decent nanotechnology and smart 
software. Laser-propelled microships are probably the way to go - you 
can likely get enormous acceleration with little heating if you play the 
optics and materials game right.


> That's a very long way away, but it is a bit discouraging that the 
> universe is expanding at a much faster speed than our best rockets can 
> reach

Ja. We will miss a lot of visible galaxies simply because they will be 
expanding away faster than we can reach.  But we still have a few 
gigaparsecs to colonize; there are plenty of superclusters to share.

A bigger problem is that those superclusters will drift apart.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University