Space 12 - About Everything That You Know is Wrong

(... Space postings start here but no prerequisites for this one...)

So I've been thinking some more about what our Galactic Empire is actually going to look like, assuming we ever get to that point. To be sure, I've been generally pessimistic about our ever getting out of this stupid solar system in any meaningful sense, the obstacles to practical interstellar travel really are quite insane, as I hope I've been able to convey.

But I've been peering at the math some more, and it's possible we're not completely screwed. There really are ways we can get Out There. In fact, I think I'm now getting a pretty good handle on how it's going to need to happen (i.e., if it's going to happen at all).

What I'm sure of is it's going to be different. It's not going to be Issac Asimov's Roman Empire in Space. Not Jerry Pournelle's or Elizabeth Moon's or dozens of other people's British Empires in Space. Polynesians exploring The Really, Really Big Pacific Ocean in Space doesn't really work, either, unless they were doing stuff with automated mechanical sea kayaks going off in all directions, finding islands and building stuff by themselves.

Suffice it to say, I don't think I've found the right metaphor yet.

Vernor Vinge's Qeng Ho cruising about the Slow Zone scenario definitely had a lot of thought go into it but, as of a few days ago, I'm now thinking he may be missing the boat, too.

Right now, I'm annoyed because I go out on the net to try to sanity check what I'm thinking and instead I'm seeing all of this horribly misinformed speculation about Shit That We Know Is Never Going To Happen, some of it apparently coming from actual physicists who really ought to know better. And perhaps they do and it's just that they're stuck writing for popular press, where, if you do too much crapping on the audience, dumping cold water, and killing their dreams, you stop getting asked back.

Luckily, since nobody's paying me to write anything, I don't currently have that problem. My only worry is that this is going to bore the shit out of you, because it's stuff you already know, or should.

But apparently, too many people don't. So…

( now watch me rant about stuff you should already know )

Space 13: How to Have Places to Boldly Go To

(galactic empire continued from here)

About finding planets that will support life

Here's a radical thought:  We won't. And we won't want to.

This is the #1 thing people are really getting wrong when it comes to looking for exoplanets to colonize.

All indications are that the basic chemical building blocks of life are actually fairly commonplace. Which means any planet that has free oxygen (this in itself is kind of a red flag because life is pretty much the only way we know of getting large quantities of free oxygen), the right distance from the sun so that we can have bodies of liquid water, also actual water so that we can have bodies of liquid water, .. all of the ideal attributes, will most likely also already have its own life of some sort. It may not be much more than algae or protobacteria, but that won't matter.

Because it will have evolved separately from us it'll be subtly different. They may use a slightly different set of amino acids. They may have their own notion of RNA/DNA where the codings are slightly different.

Which means it's going to screw up our biochemistry something fierce. Their neurotransmitters and enzymes and whatever else will interact with ours in really stupid ways. In fact, the whole place will be this Huge Biohazard for us that we'll need to avoid at all costs (thank you, PZ Myers), and hence useless from any kind of colonization point of view.

Which means if we are looking for Earthlike bodies, we are never going to find the right planet, because even if we find another Earth, we still won't be able to live there.

The only way out of this box will be to build the right planet. Which changes the questions we need to be asking.

( and what do we need to be asking? )