Subject:
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Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Fri, 17 Jan 2003 17:28:13 GMT
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Viewed:
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1002 times
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James Brown wrote:
> And that's not taking into account the possibility that any of those 50
> million sites evolved a culture before you did, or any of a gazillion other
> factors.
I agree that the numbers seem staggering. On the other hand, clearly the
number of interstellar civilizations is below some threshold. Of course
part of the premise is also that the first civilization to make it to
interstellar capability wipes out all subsequent ones, at least within
some radius. Remember that you announce you're on the way to
interstellar civilization 10s of years before you get there. Also,
assuming the interstellar travel is limited by the speed of light, you
always have these 10s of years before their ship can reach you, which
means you can reach them first (and presumably the civilization that has
been at it longer has somewhat faster more efficient ships).
> And I do indeed realize the 90%/10% problem, but really, unless they're in
> our solar system it's still a long time to react. Our nearest neighbor is
> (Proxima) Centauri at a hint over 4 light years, which means we still have
> about 5+ months to put something in the way. Remember, we'll know exactly
> where the rock is going to be at any given time (once we can see it) - math
> is great that way - and we need to impart very little velocity (or damage,
> either will do) to change the rocks course enough to make it miss. Not to
> mention the fact that this rock was fired 5 years ago, from a huge distance
> away. There is a miniscule tolerance for error in that.
>
> If they're in our solar system, they can do the job much more cheaply and
> efficiently by just towing a handful of big rocks over from the asteroid
> belt, dropping them from orbit and killing us with nuclear winter from the
> dust clouds.
Well, I think part of the assumption is that the rocks are launched from
within the solar system.
Of course I'm too much of an optimist to believe that this would really
be the way contact is handled...
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Some great Space info and dicussion
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| (...) Yeah, I understand his premise, I just don't buy it. :) Even stipulating 1 possibility for a technological culture per say 10,000 stars that's still 50 million sites (half a trillion stars in our galaxy alone) you need to check. Further (...) (22 years ago, 17-Jan-03, to lugnet.space)
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