eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) (11/08/85)
> ... However, travel to any star system at nonrelativistic speeds will > take a LONG TIME and require some clever mechanism to support humans for the > trip duration. However, if those humans do not intend to return, then they can > travel at nearly the speed of light and into the future at the same time. They > are gambling that technology won't find a better way to do this in the time > that slipped by. These people might find much more advanced humans already at > their destination when they get there. > > Steve DiPirro > Digital Equipment Corp. > That may not be the bugaboo it is thought to be. If an expedition starts out with a well equipped starship, with a varied assortment of raw materials (which you would do anyway if you were colonizing), and stays in touch with home via radio/laser, as new technologies are developed they could be incorporated into the ship's design. You would need something like a fair sized asteroid plus a complete manufacturing complex and a skilled crew, well suited to the generation ship type of interstellar travel. Really unusual materials might even be delivered to the expedition by way of small, fast courier. Dani Eder/ Advanced Space Transportation/ Boeing
josh@ism70.UUCP (11/22/85)
You would need a very sophisticated mathematician and quite a fast computer to calculate the doppler shift assuming the starship is constantly thrusting which necessary to reach a fair % of c. Otherwise communications would be a impossible.
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (11/25/85)
> > You would need a very sophisticated mathematician and quite a fast computer > to calculate the doppler shift assuming the starship is constantly thrusting > which necessary to reach a fair % of c. Otherwise communications would be a > impossible. Actually the equations would be much simpler than, say, the AGA gasflow equations for turbine flowmeters, let alone orifice plates. You can do those in Forth on an 1802 in realtime. Doppler shift & constant-acceleration problems are simple. -- Name: Peter da Silva Graphic: `-_-' UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter
carroll@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (11/28/85)
Only if the acceleration varied a lot. Otherwise it's a pretty easy and straight forward problem.