Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Draco18s]

I would love to be in a generation ship, I'd be able to play every game made up to that point for the rest of my life and do like nothing else. Would only volunteer after DF is finished.

You could probably get updates via long range communications.  DF is teeny weeny after you strip out the music files.

[Double A]

I thought so. Hell, it's small even with the music.

I would love to be in a generation ship, I'd be able to play every game made up to that point for the rest of my life and do like nothing else. Would only volunteer after DF is finished.

STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY DREAMS YOU GUYS

[Lord Inquisitor]

I would love to be in a generation ship, I'd be able to play every game made up to that point for the rest of my life and do like nothing else. Would only volunteer after DF is finished.

You would probably reach your target before dwarf fortress is finished. and donating to the Cyber-toady.

As addon to the ashes pressed to memorial slab, you could have their faced mounded  or etched into it. so you know whos grave you are dancing upon. Or use in construction of santation device, more than a few deserve this.

[jellsprout]

Odds of this occurring within the next 1000 years: zilch.  Primary reason: Physics; that stupid speed of light problem.

To be fair, we can theoretically get to the nearest star system in a bit over a century using 1970's tech; Freeman Dyson calculated project Orion could reach Alpha Centauri in as little as 133 years (that's using the momentum limited estimation which assumes we want a *smooth* constant 1g acceleration; tweak those and we can go faster). Develop cryotech or hell, build a generation ship, and that's downright doable.

More like 250 years. You also need to slow down again.
And how do you propose to feed the crew for those 250 years? To keep the genetic diversity high enough for a generation ship, you will need many people. All these people will need to be fed for all those 250 years. Farming isn't viable, considering how far away you will be from any star during the entire flight. And I somehow don't think it will be feasible to bring canned food for the entire trip either.
What about heat? Without a sun to warm the ship, you will need a heat source or you will freeze to death.
What about oxygen? Photosynthesis will be impossible in space.
What about light?
You get the idea.

The problem isn't getting a ship to a nearby star. The problem is keeping the crew alive. To be honest, I don't think it is realistic to assume there will ever be manned flights past the asteroid belt.

[daveralph1234]

More like 250 years. You also need to slow down again.
And how do you propose to feed the crew for those 250 years? To keep the genetic diversity high enough for a generation ship, you will need many people. All these people will need to be fed for all those 250 years. Farming isn't viable, considering how far away you will be from any star during the entire flight. And I somehow don't think it will be feasible to bring canned food for the entire trip either.
What about heat? Without a sun to warm the ship, you will need a heat source or you will freeze to death.
What about oxygen? Photosynthesis will be impossible in space.
What about light?
You get the idea.

Farming is possible in space, not only starlight is viable for growing plants/photosynthesis.
On Earth we already have small scale farms running entirly off artificial light.
Heat is easy if you have enough energy.

So the problem is energy. Nuclear power is an option, but you would need a lot of enriched uranium. I guess you could just throw the depleated uranium overboard, but thats very wasteful (normally we would reprocess it to recover any remaining U235).
I'm sure we will have other power generating methods in future.
(Que discussion involving dwarven water reactors for use in space colonisation)

[Starver]

Let's see, so many things in response to this thread...

Talking of playing DF while on a Generation Ship, and of the many jobs any resident would have to undertake (in-between joining the mission and... well, dying and letting your descendants take over, or else when not in some form of stasis if you're cheating), well, you're dangerously close to my still-not-nearly-ready-enough idea of a Generation Ship simulator that I've been desperately trying to make not look like DF...

For environmentally-friendly sun-bound trajectories, space elevators with 'drop'-launches from the counterweight ends...

For a tomb, I want my own Dyson Sphere, with my remains preserved so that when the Sun involved finally cools (which will probably take longer, if I'm not just re-radiating the captured energy outwards again as fast as I can, which'd make my 'home' quite visible again) the suitably automated and suitably technologically advanced machinery that will by then have been developed for this task can send my encoffined body burring/diving into the collapsed husk of the star (when brown dwarf-ish, probably, but that's bearing in mind that it depends on the star and the effects of the Dyson enclosure), there to reside for some reasonably long 'forever after'...  Pyramids be damned.  Four thousand years?  I might get a good four thousand million years, plus change, if not several orders of magnitude more...

Failing that, enclose me in a well reinforced coffin made Tungsten, and put me in a subduction zone...  Eventually it'll melt, but I might just find myself floating up out of a volcano, before that.  (If you can find an alloy that doesn't melt at all at 4400-degrees C/K or more (the 273.15-ish difference probably not mattering, unless on the cusp!), even better...  Weight me down with Tungsten, and when it does melt, I could pop up anywhere... )


Oh, and Ramscoop-like capture of interstellar elements... Even if not to be actually used for propulsion, could perhaps provide enough matter to replenishing a fusion-based fuel-supply...

[Double A]

Mushrooms don't need sunlight, do they?

[Draco18s]

Mushrooms don't need sunlight, do they?

I don't believe so, no.
They do, however, need rotting vegetable matter.

[Loud Whispers]

Mushrooms don't need sunlight, do they?

I don't believe so, no.
They do, however, need rotting vegetable matter.

Any decaying matter works. It need not be from plants.

[misko27]

Mushrooms don't need sunlight, do they?

I don't believe so, no.
They do, however, need rotting vegetable matter.

Any decaying matter works. It need not be from plants.

The vagueness of that sentence would be disconcerting, if I was not in a place where goblin meat roast is a common thing.