Or you know, this is discussed in advance and the faster ships pickup the slower ships on the way (if possible).
Or in an infinite universe just go to a different planet.
Comment on The problem with sleeper ships
MNByChoice@midwest.social 4 months ago
Or you know, this is discussed in advance and the faster ships pickup the slower ships on the way (if possible).
I get the world is a shit show, but it is less so when we discuss.
Fun meme though.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
If we assume that the ship, while traveling, always moves towards its destination, but it might be off by up to 1 degree. Then the margin of error for its position would grow until about the midway point in the journey. I have no idea how to calculate this, unfortunately, but I’d image there’d be a lot of space you need to cover if you want to find the ship.
MNByChoice@midwest.social 4 months ago
Yes. That is a problem. Not least of all for the sleeper ship.
I am going to assume any higher technology follow-up ship will only do best effort.
So, then there is a good window for memes about “lost” sleeper ships.
Hupf@feddit.org 4 months ago
faster ships pickup the slower ships on the way
That’s not how space travel works, at all, unfortunately.
skeezix@lemmy.world 4 months ago
With 2 jumps it is. Jump to calculated position of old ship. Load cryo beds onto new ship. Jump to destination.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I think the problem is more matching velocities so you can make the pickup. Also, a certain compatibility between vessels for any kind of docking/passenger exchange.
Even then, there’s a huge energy cost to slowing down mid-flight. It might actually be faster to drop off improvements as you fly by and let the slower vessel upgrade itself using the improvements.
This also opens up a big question of extra-solar transportation economics. If you’re planning to develop Vehicle Y that can outpace Vehicle X, why would anyone get on X to begin with?
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 4 months ago
I kind of picturing it like how planes refuel in the air.
Cause it’s 50 years later. 50 years ago they thought we have flying cars but no one thought of smart phones. Stuff happens. Plus this way you can less people through the ftl because the rest are on their way. something like raised by wolves with androids and human incubators prepping for the rest. Also no gaurentee humans can survive that kind of trip. Could only be able to send a bunch of walle’s setting up the town.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 4 months ago
Given the brittleness of civilization, chances are the backup tapes with the exact flight planes get lost during a thunderstorm and 50 years later nobody remembers this ship even exists.
MNByChoice@midwest.social 4 months ago
50 years is terribly short. 500 maybe.
Also, resolvable. Space beacons, stone tablets, etc.
If you can think of it, so can they.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 4 months ago
And I can think of just as many ways how it can get lost.
Stone tablets break, and how can you even communicate abstract concepts like spacetime coordinates on a slab of stone? There’s a huge debate on how to communicate the simple idea of “danger, don’t dig here” on top of nuclear dumps.
Beacons require enormous amounts of power. We can barely communicate with voyager, and that thing is just outside of our solar system and we know exactly what and where to look for.
Think about hieroglyphs. Those were out in the open for centuries and only through a lucky accident we stumbled upon the Rosetta stone. Otherwise we would have no idea what these weird symbols might mean.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
actually it turns out the answer is quite simple, do nothing, you don’t want anybody digging there, and why would anybody dig there if nothing is there.
And if they are capable of digging down to where the waste lies, chances are they’re advanced enough to know about radiation and other relevant risks, so we don’t really have to think about it all that hard.
also voyager 1 was launched in 77, we’re coming up on 50 years, so we could use voyager as a stand in for that specific ship, it’d be weird if we just, sent someone out into space, and didn’t ask any questions, or try to get any follow up information or anything.
The human race is much too nosy for that.
Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world 4 months ago
How would a space beacon be detected by an FTL ship? Unless there’s some sort of weird quantum entanglement communication with some paired exotic material, whatever data (probably a waveform of some type) would be so fractional it is unlikely to be useful or even detectable.
But on top of that, if we still contend with inertia, a ship has to slow down precisely to the velocity of the slower ship or do it multiple times to detect it somewhere and then speed back up again.
But then, we’d also have to figure out why the resources are even worth it to spend and weigh the chances of success and the risks of failure.
Unless the problem is arbitrary for everything involved it is doubtful that regardless of what the future holds for technology that we just wouldn’t pick up the other ship/passengers.
MNByChoice@midwest.social 4 months ago
Space beacon can be in our solar system. It only needs to give start date, end point and route.
We can make-up FTL rules. They can use future magic tech to send probes out ever X distance to look for sleeper ship. Or not.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Famously, nobody knows about the Apollo Moon mission today, because we lost all the records from 60 years ago.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
brittleness of civilization? last i checked civilization has managed to survive 12’000 years since it first came about.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 4 months ago
Is that so? Then how is Akadia doing currently? And what’s up with the Hittites? Are the geometry nerds in Egypt still in power?
Civilization as a whole might survive, but civilizations are constantly going under. Just think about how much knowledge was lost during WW2 or after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There’s exactly two locations in this world still having samples of small pox. Do we know that the location in Russia is still operational? They might as well lost power in 1991 and had their Diesel stolen.
RagingHungryPanda@lemm.ee 4 months ago
We’ve actually had multiple civilizational collapses. Just because humans survived doesn’t mean the knowledge or civilization did.
CasualPenguin@reddthat.com 4 months ago
I’m still waiting to see civilization start…