Interstellar Colonization Ideas

I’m in self-isolation, so I decided to finish off some draft posts that have neglected. Over the years I have read stories and articles and watched some videos about interstellar travel and colonization. I have some of my own ideas about how this might happen. Maybe I can use it as background for a story.

Most of the stories, articles and videos I've seen that seem realistic imagine a big ship full of colonist, either awake or in suspended animation. I think it would likely happen in a different way.

I believe any real colonization effort would be done in a series of stages.

Path Finder Probes

It seems that obvious to me that before sending a colonization mission you would start with path finder probes. The object of these probes would be to reconnoiter the space between the sun and the destination star. There could be many dangers and opportunities that lie in the space in between.

The nearest star, Proxima Centari, is about 4 light years from Earth. The sun's Oort cloud is estimated to extend for 2 light years. If the same is true of Proxima Centari, then the whole distance between the two stars would be occupied by Oort cloud objects. In addition, there may be rouge planets, brown dwarfs and maybe other exotic objects passing through.

If you want to send a colonization probe to Proxima Centari, you will want to know more the objects along the route. These objects could be dangerous. A probe flying at 20% the speed of light that hit one would be destroyed. On the other hand, larger objects could be used for gravitational adjustments to the speed and direction of the probes on their way to the other star.

Reconnaissance Probes

If the path finder probes survive the trip, they could be used as reconnaissance probes at the other star. Otherwise, specialized probes could be developed and sent after the pathfinder probes.

The goal of these probes would be to investigate the planets around the other star. Could these planets be colonized? What would be needed to make them succeed? What other challenges might they face?

Colonization Probe

I think that a colonization probe is that it would be totally robotic. But, it would be able to use genetic engineering to create new life - plants, animals, humans and whatever else is needed for colonization.

I thought this was an original idea, but as I was preparing this post, I saw a video by John Michael Godier that proposes a very similar idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_51T8bbT-g

The colonization probe would prepare the planet for the colony. This might include some modification to the planet but may also involve modifying plants animals and humans to survive on the planet. It might also be possible to "e-mail" individual genetic codes, so individuals could be recreated on the colony.

It may be possible to recreate the memories of individuals as well. Otherwise, I imagine the probe could create robotic parents to raise the new colonists. This would provide the new colonists with the emotional environment they will need before they the time comes to take over from the robotic parents.

Story Ideas

So far, I haven’t come up with much in the way of story ideas. I'd like to do a story about the path finder probes, although I think it would be difficult for most readers to identify with a robotic space probe.

One idea I came up with would be about the first generation of colonists being raised by the robotic parents. As they would want to seem to be normal people, the children would not at first realize the reality of the situation. A story could be developed about how they would learn the secret of their existence.

At the moment I haven’t found much inspiration from this idea. Maybe something will pop into my head some day that will get me going. Before I start any story, I feel the backstory of how interstellar colonization would work needs to be developed far beyond what I have so far.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Do Ancient Alien Probes Watch Earth?

In the last couple of posts I talked about the possibility of aliens visiting Earth in the past. One of the reasons is that I had not found any serious discussion of the possibility. I found some this week.

I came across Robert A. Freitas Jr. (www.rfreitas.com), who in the late 1970s and early 1980s produced a number of studies on the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). One line of inquiry was the possibility of alien probes within the Solar System. Although he did not, strictly speaking, focus on ancient alien visits, the discovery of alien probes would be proof of visitation.

The list of articles he wrote can be found at http://www.rfreitas.com/AstroPubls.htm. In addition he produced a book on the subject "Xenology" more information and a link to portions of this book can be found at http://www.xenology.info/.

The article "The Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA)", (which can be found here: http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/SETAJBISNov1983.htm), gives an introduction to Freitas' ideas.

I haven't read all of the material he wrote, but I have found some ideas that are relevant to the question I started with: If There Really Were Ancient Astronauts, What Kind of Evidence Would We Find?

• In his articles Freitas focuses on observational probes. He concludes that these would be small, in the 1 meter to 10 meter range.

• He identified three broad categories of probes: probes that didn't want to be found, probes that wanted to be found, and probes that didn't care if they were found.  He suggests that a any technology capable of sending an interstellar probe would be able to successfully hide from us.

• He concluded that any probes would be located in stable orbits close to Earth. He identified five such orbits.

• He conducted a preliminary search for alien probes. This did not identify any potential probe, but was not of sufficient detail to eliminate the possibility that alien probes existed close to Earth.

Freitas has restricted himself to a more limited range that I have so far. I do think that any definitive proof of alien visitations will be found in space.

I would think there would have been some follow up work along these lines more recently, but other than doubtful claims of cities, space ships and monuments found on the Moon or mars, I haven't found anything more recent that the early 1990s yet. It appears that since about 1985 Freitas has moved onto other research projects, specifically nanotechnology.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog