The Vikings say Hi!

Only a couple millennia older I believe, so I'm mostly just being a smartass.

Aboriginals came to Australia 50,000 years ago, presumably on boats so we know about sea travel considerably longer than 8000 years.

I'm not saying Alien Satellites are watching us...
https://earthsky.org/space/9-weird-t...ervatory-1950/

https://www.nordita.org/people/staff...riz.villarroel

But Alien Satellites are watching us

Yes, that is a good catch. The Vikings are definitely the outlier. Their ability to do prolonged all-weather navigation is an unsolved mystery.

I spent a couple of years in the North Sea and Arctic Ocean, and I have (or at least had) a passable knowledge of navigation and I can't even begin to guess. I've seen the various guesswork, but it generally strikes me as very lacking and more "read my book!" than "here is my educated guess".

Yeah, sea travel is so old, common and independently discovered throughout prehistory we’ve lost many of the details. And of course oceans themselves are teaming with life including mammals and life likely started in aquatic environments. Unlike open space which is so hostile to life it makes up >99.999% of the universe but 0% of the places where we think life could evolve.

We have to be careful with being too certain behind "the places where we think life could evolve".


For much of our history the predominant theories of where life could evolve here on planet earth were woefully off and time and time again as we improved the technologies to explore this planet we have found some forms of life evolved to live in pretty much every environment we have here on earth.

I watched a special that examined all the places once theorized to not be able to sustain life (Deep Oceans where no photosynthesis could occur... surprise chemosynthesis, ... in and near sulphur springs ...surprise life!, etc) and to date, I think only Dallol Ethiopia, one of Earth’s most extreme environments, have we failed to yet discover some form of life.

So when we speak to the harshness of the universe, we must be careful to not assume too much, that it is a deterrent to life, because as they say, life tends to find a way.

Sea travel != blue water travel. That’s comparing walking briskly to the grocery store to crossing the Sahara.

If you were dropped mid-ocean, you have 5 minutes to 2 days to live, depending in whether it is drowning, hypothermia or thirst that kills you (if you’re fit or float easy, maybe you can add a day). Your vessel, supplies, propulsion and navigation is all that keeps you alive. The only thing your mammalian dive reflex will do is to extend your misery.

Regardless, I have never said ocean travel was space travel. I made the comparison of developing space travel to the thousands of years of maritime tradition it took to develop the vessels and knowledges necessary to navigate blue water.

But it's still not an apt comparison for the reasons covered. As Ecrit pointed out we're far more familiar with sea travel. We're more adapted to it and indeed pretty much any terrain on Earth to a degree.f you were dropped in space you'd be dead in seconds. Astronauts experience greater risks of cancer, immune deficiency and muscle loss even by venturing into space. Bacteria are more virulent and resistant to antibiotics in space. Space and the ocean really aren't comparable in terms of environment and potential unknowns.

Kinda funny how you’re so charitable when interpreting your own analogies but quite harsh for other peoples. I’m not sure if you’re just straight up trolling now, but I think we’ve sufficiently gone over how misleading the comparisons are to sea travel so I’m done here.

Yeah, and it’s not just life that space is hostile to, but even much of the basic chemistry like liquid water, O2 etc that is far less of a problem on Earth.

Not trying to enflame anything but corpus above is yet another example of how people on this forum state things incorrectly.

So I happen to think it is an apt comparison given the limited context Tame has defined it within.

What is the point of stating "it is not an apt comparison"? Do I then just state "you are wrong, it is apt" and we both can cut, paste repeat for as long as neither is willing to concede they are wrong.

As soon as corpus states it that way it creates a reply that is a point of contention. 'Sorry corpus you are wrong, it is apt'. Whereas if corpus instead said 'I still do not see it as an apt comparison for the reason covered' the only apt reply is 'well we can agree to disagree then'.

(edit and is see ecrit is leaving even less room for this to be a discussion of opinion as opposed to fact. Sad.)

Because it is fact that they're incomparable and ample pertinent reasons were given as to why. You just like arguing and I'm not even going there with you. I respect TD's opinion in general but he's incorrect comparing the ocean or sea travel to interstellar travel in terms of mastering or being potentially surmountable or being environmentally comparable and neither me or him (nor I reckon Ecriture) are going to agree on this specific issue, so we leave it at that

Of course, nobody knows the reality, but it's interesting to keep up to date with the theories! I loved the 3 body problem trilogy. I read a lot of sci-fi and this is probably the last really good one I read!

I'm trying. And that is to my understanding which might be a little wrong.

Yes the speed in space is cummulative, meaning once you are pushed to let's say 1000mph, you stay at that speed. There are no things to slow you down. No air, no gravity no nothing. (They tried this in a vacuum on earth)

So in theory you could achieve lightspeed if you have a good powered propulsion system. Let's say like the sonic boom propulsion system in the movies. A few bangs (detonations) should get you to crazy speeds.

But here comes the problems. One is how do you stop? Another one is where do you get the energy from? Another one is what about the asteroids and trash in space? What if you hit something at full speed? A tiny asteroid could evaporate your whole spaceship.

And then, one of the biggest issues is, you would dissolve at light speed. The human body is bit made for lightspeed apparently. You would turn into energy. So it's not sure in what vessel we would survive at that speed and just about everything is unknown. One minute lightspeed would also take you 10.000 years into the future. Meaning that time has passed for the rest of people on earth. So you see? All this would break the laws of physics. That's probably why they are stuck now trying to propell electrons and nutrons to lightspeed in Switzerland.

We can get close to lightspeed though and we speed up matter to almost lightspeed in cern I think it's called. In Switzerland thru have a thing that speeds up matter in a vacuum in a huge cannon.

And here we go.

A true demonstration that people on this forum generally and truly are unable to discern between areas of fact and opinion.

A discussion as to whether or not there is any comparison in this areas of Space travel and Sea travel is NOT a discussion of fact. It is by definition, 100% a discussion of opinions. And very dependent upon how the questions are framed and the scope of those discussions. And two people can agree to disagree on all elements and that is fine.

But CV as so many here do, mistake their confidence in their opinion, that what they think makes so much sense to them, that it of course then must be the correct answer for everyone. He allows for no exceptions and no countering views (Carlin Meme).

this forum, is arguably the worst I have ever seen in this regard. Time and time and time again, people asserting their opinion as if fact, wrongly, and then refusing to acknowledging it out of pride or more likely ignorance. I am genuinely beginning to believe many people legit do not understand the difference.

Yeah 'k and congratulations for not posting a novel and going several whole posts now without falsely accusing everyone of racism or posting George Carlin memes, keep up the good work every journey begins with a single step etc.

Yeah, this is sort of similar to the debate over possibility of heavier than air flying machines in the 1800s. Someone as smart as Lord Kelvin thought they were fundamentally impossible for various reasons. His contemporaries pointed out the obvious fact that birds exist and basically are heavier than air flying machines and he sort of hand waved it away. Of course birds fly quite differently from planes, but the mere existence of birds or ocean traveling animals puts doing those things in a completely different category than interstellar space travel by living organisms, which legit might have 0 times in the 14 billion year history of the universe so far

So i've addressed many of those issues and tame raised the key one, imo.

So to some of your key questions or points.


- since speed is cumulative or additive in space then any thruster on the ship, even a tiny electric one that produces a tiny amount of thrust (think of motor that drives a skateboard here on earth) every time it is fired up would be adding new thrust and increasing the speed of the craft. There are no forces pushing back on the ship, so any thrust from the rear just add more energy and speed going forward. Such a small type thruster could be added easily and have a small solar array to charge it. Think how long the Mars rovers have been running and they are way more complex machines than a simple thruster

- And yes tiny cumulative increases in speed add up to massive changes over time if you are not shedding any of that speed. YOu might not achieve light speed but you certainly could achieve speeds that could allow for the spanning of galaxies and beyond especially if we had a generational ship whose goal was to get from this planet to another observed habitable planet to colonize, and the time line of arrival was not important.

- Speed can also be gained by sling shotting around items with sufficient gravity such as moons and planets

So if we accept the above we can say that in this regard the 'Speed' issue to traveling the Cosmos is solved in this one very narrow way. Meaning currently we have the ability and technology to achieve the great speeds necessary to do it.

But that then leads to the other issues, which you (and I prior) pointed out. The other challenges that such speed creates. Collisions with space junk. Increasing mass issue (tame raised), general hull and human body integrity at such speeds. Etc, etc. All of those would first need to be solved before you could use that speed. Just as putting today's top race car engines on a 1930's roadster would not work, despite the speed being available, as the vehicle is not engineered to utilize that type of speed and would break down instantly.

So things that could 'solve' those other issues are in the science theory areas of Warp Bubbles, or worm holes or other such ways the vehicle is protected from those elements of space travel. Imagine in the simplest of terms you could create a force field (Energy Shields) around the ship, that can protect the ships and its passengers from those things, while the ship travels within at its ever increasing speed. If we go there (a massive jump from where we are) than those two things combined would give us the ability to create generational ships and travel the cosmos.


Anyway, this type of science theory to science fact talk is just high level fun talk. Not meant to be taken too seriously but it is so interesting looking at how many science fiction items have made the jump from the earliest sci fi tv and movies (like Star Trek TOS) to now being actual sci fact, or well under way, which is a credit to the teams of scientists they use to advise those shows on leading edge stuff that will present well on those shows.

Yes everything is adding speed. But first you need something to propell from. Up there is no atmosphere which means your tiny electric motor is probably sensless as a propulsion motor having nothing to work with. Idk even know how they do it up in space.

washoe, I am obviously assuming a normal ship like we have already developed getting off earth and into space but then switching off the main jet that burns tons of fuel and instead using the smaller solar propulsion to add to the speed.

Think about the space shuttle breaking earth's orbit, entering space with engines at full burn, cutting the engines once it is now in space but still having all the same speed, as it did at the moment it entered the vacuum of space. The craft is not just drifting at that same speed. Then the switch to the smaller solar power motor and every time it fires it up, it increases the speed from where it is. It is continually additive or cumulative.

No, sea travel on Earth is within our own biosphere under conditions that we're accustomed to and evolved to cope with. The fairly simple difficulties are the force of wave action, the unpredictability of the weather, navigation without landmarks and the need to provision your boat with enough essentials for the voyage.

The difficulties of interstellar space travel are incomparably greater, to the point of, as far as we know, frank impossibility. I've seen, from a back garden in Berkshire one night, the Great Galaxy in Andromeda, the most distant object visible from Earth with the naked eye. Of course, I was seeing it as it was 2.5 million years ago, since that's how long its light takes to get here, but in astronomical rather than imaginative terms I suppose that's simultaneity. It's mind-blowing, of course, and it makes you wonder how many 'intelligent worlds' are or have been or will be out there, but we'll never know, and it's unlikely that different 'intelligent worlds' existing in a compatible time-envelope will ever meet, and it's probably best they don't, because the microbes accompanying any intelligent interstellar travellers will have first dibs, and what that might do to animal and plant life on Earth doesn't really bear thinking about.

I don't know what you are saying 'no' to.

You have done a fine job in defining what I would call a 'scope' of considerations by which to compare them but a person who is not you might look at this question in very different ways and create a completely different scope.

For instance I am a big proponent of us spending more money and focus on exploring our deep oceans. Trying to map out all or more of it and to create livable colonies in the deepest parts of the oceans. I have said that I think a ton of those learnings would be applicable to our long term goals in space. And I had someone on this forum disagree that they are analogous enough to really get any good learnings from.

We are both just speculating so both views are fine to hold.

I can believe the type of advanced materials (super strong and yet light and perhaps transparent), ... dealing with extreme pressure imbalances (inside and out), the ability to capture, store and utilize different types of energy (deep ocean vents, solar, etc) ... and so many more factors would all be useful to future long term space travel and you might disagree and only thing other aspects (propulsion, shields, etc) matter.

I can't force you to look at it thru my considerations and you can't force me to look at it thru yours. And that is fine. We can agree to disagree but neither of us can tell the other they are wrong.

I guess that should work but how do you stop it? Btw everything I said about propelling in space was wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...acuum-of-space

Stopping, changing direction etc all work on the same principle in space, conservation of momentum. If you were in empty space with a bucket of baseballs and at rest relative to some asteroid. You could get to the asteroid by throwing baseballs in the opposite direction of where you want to go. Rockets in Soave basically do the same thing.

Be pretty funny if "physics" was completely/moreorless irrelevant to anything but our localised biological context. Probably why none of it scales properly eh?