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Space Science




How Many People Does It Take To Colonize Another Star System?

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  • by NotDrWho ( 3543773 ) on Friday April 04, 2014 @02:33PM (#46663227)

    A lot of people (not us Slashdotters, of course) have the misconception that other solar systems are right next door to ours. So I always illustrate it like this: The fastest spacecrafts we've ever built take about 9 years or so to go from Earth to Pluto. At that rate, they would take about 120,000 years to reach the next closest solar system. I also saw a great illustration once using a quarter (coin), to represent our solar system, and the next solar system being something like two football fields away.

  • In the long run (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dorianny ( 1847922 ) on Friday April 04, 2014 @03:03PM (#46663585) Journal
    Early human population dwindled to as few as 2000 individuals with most living in isolated pockets of a few hundred. Given enough time the population and genetic variability rebounded. Colonization of other worlds is most definitely a long-term project and while a bigger sample might give you better chances its probably possible with far fewer individuals.

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday April 04, 2014 @03:55PM (#46664279) Journal
    As it happens, those methods are big on drama and small on results. By way of example: here's Europe [], in millions, from the mid 19th century to more or less the present.

    Notice the two tiny little dips around 1914 and 1939, and the effect (bugger all) if you take the longer view of, say, 1900-1975? That's two world wars, few genocides, and massive devastation of infrastructure. Not much population control per unit unpleasantness...(and if you think of this period as not especially 'sin'-pocked, maybe you would get along well with a certain old testament deity.)

    Famine and plague are similarly good for painful, short-term, die-offs that just leave a bit of room below environmental carrying capacity that ends up being filled out by a new crop of poor fuckers within a generation or two. Disposable income and contraception, though? Now that will crater your birthrate more effectively, if less dramatically, than saturation bombing.
  • Re:Sure, but... (Score:4, Informative)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday April 04, 2014 @03:57PM (#46664299) Journal
    Some sort of magic shield would be nice as well. There is mostly nothing but space in space; but there's nothing like colliding with it at the thick end of the speed of light to teach you that 'mostly nothing' and 'nothing' differ slightly.

    by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:09PM (#46664455) Journal

    Sure, that's only ~5 TWH/ton. By comparison, the US as a whole consumes on average about 1 TW. If you spent 100 years of that time boosting, you'd need about ~5 MW of power generation (including 100 years of fuel) per ton of spaceship. So we're back to "revolution in physics".
