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[Servant Corps]

Assumptions:
1) It is impossible to go faster than the speed of light.
2) In fact, Human ships are slow.

To illustrate, Boss said the fastest rockets available to us right now are those being used in NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Even going at that rate of speed, it would take 100,000 years to get from Earth to the closest star outside the solar system, he added.

3) Human beings really want to form a space empire anyway.

How it works:
1) Your goal is to send a colony ship form Solar System A, Terra, to Solar System B, the closest star outside of the solar system, so that it may be colonized. You estimate that the trip will take 100,000 years. Once the system is colonized, you will then send a Tribute Ship from Solar System B back to Solar System A. This will also take 100,000 years.
2) You recruit an entire COLONY SHIP. Of 10,000 people. You fit this entire ship with everything they need to have a sustainable society. You know, food, water, atomsphere, entertainment, you name it. 10,000 people. You have to see if they are prepared, but you need numbers.
3) You blast off.
4) You declare yourself High Supreme Capitan of the Colony Ship, which will lead the ship until they reached the Promised Land, in 100,000 years.
5) The first generation passes, and the people inside the colony ship reproduce, causing more labor to be on the Colony Ship. Eventually, the 'original settlers' will die off, leaving the natives, who are still willing to go to Solar System B.
6) The Colony Ship might suffer a few wars here and there. You may even be overthrown. But no matter who owns the Colony Ship, the fact remain that the human race will recover from the disaster and again populate the Colony Ship.
7) After 100,000 years, the Colony Ship will finally stop at Solar System B. The surviving settlers finally touch a real-live planet!
8) Assuming they don't get eaten by the wildlife, the settlers will spilt up and form brand new civilizations, waging war on each other for resources.
9) Eventually, however, each of the Civilizations pay homage to the "Great Gods" (i.e, the original settlers). There is a competition to reach Space Age, and they access the database on the Colony Ship that teaches the Civilizations how to build a Tribute Ship. A Tribute Ship is just like a Colony Ship, except that it is made purely to give tribute to Earth (or whomever owns it). You know, since Earth spent all that money building the Colony Ship in the first place, it is very important they receive tribute. Who knows? The "Great Gods" might reward them.
10) A Tribute Ship is built. 10,000 people are sent onto the Tribute Ship, along with said Tribute (likely a precious resources).
11) Tribute ship blasts off, and acts as a normal Colony Ship.
12) Eventually, after 100,000 years, the Tribute Ship reaches Earth. There, they find that the government has been overthrown in the intervening 200,000 years, Earth is now a communist utopia! The government refuses the tribute, stating that Solar System B needs the aid more than they do. The Tribute Ship is forced to turn around and go back to their home planet, which will take 100,000 years to do.

This seems realistic, as it does not violates the laws of physics. It does violate the laws of common sense (why in the world would any government want to plan ahead 200,000 years from now), but at least it works.

[mainiac]

Or... you figure out how to travel at .1 c before you attempt interplanetary travel and make it in a single lifetime.

[Servant Corps]

Er. That's a good point too. Just make sure you bring about 100 people along for the ride (to allow for more people being born to replace those that die).

[Armok]

Yea, the original idea still works well for INTERGALACTIC colonization, in which case the extremely long term planing makes more sense as well.

[mainiac]

Er. That's a good point too. Just make sure you bring about 100 people along for the ride (to allow for more people being born to replace those that die).

not enough genetic diversity there

[woose1]

Er. That's a good point too. Just make sure you bring about 100 people along for the ride (to allow for more people being born to replace those that die).

not enough genetic diversity there

Not even with 10,000 people would you have a big enough gene pool.
EDIT: You could in theory have about 2 million people (From reproduction) before you start to see a problem. Still, that's not alot.

[JoshuaFH]

I heard somewhere Woose, that you'd only need around 100 males and 100 females to prevent any significant inbreeding in the event of a space colony. I mean, sure, there'd eventually be cousin-couples, but the event of first or second cousin couples is pretty small methinks.

10,000 people sounds pretty safe.

My concern is exactly HOW a space colony, careening who-knows-how-fast through the galaxy is going to independantly provide food, water, air, electricity, etc for 100,000 years.

[Servant Corps]

My concern is exactly HOW a space colony, careening who-knows-how-fast through the galaxy is going to independantly provide food, water, air, electricity, etc for 100,000 years.

Um. I don't know. I guess it could be like the ISS, only that you decide to load up 100,000 years-worth of the stuff and just pray that there's no technical malfunction.

What I'm more worried about is the lack of incentive for Earth to spend a lot of money in the hope that in 200,000 years, they come back with a bunch of useful planetary resources as tribute.

[JoshuaFH]

That seems implausible SC, 100,000 years worth of food, electricity, etc, for 10,000+ people would probably require a spacecraft larger than the moon.

[Servant Corps]

Well, as you said, you could just build a spacecraft larger than the moon...

But, yeah, if it is implausible, I have think of another method, for self-suffiency. I suppose you could have the hydro-gardens for food (or whatever they're called). Electricty could be provided by nuclear reactors, cutting the size of spaceship in half (half-a-moon). And let take out entertainment. I'm sure the 10,000 colonists will find ways of creating their own fun out in space.

[mainiac]

I heard somewhere Woose, that you'd only need around 100 males and 100 females to prevent any significant inbreeding in the event of a space colony. I mean, sure, there'd eventually be cousin-couples, but the event of first or second cousin couples is pretty small methinks.

You have two hundred people.  Assume everyone has children.

The children of the first generation are the offspring of 1% of the original population.

Assume no inbreeding yet and the children of the second generation are the offspring of 2% of the population... and so forth; 4%, 8% and so forth.  By the seventh generation, it's not possible for everyone to avoid inbreeding.  Past that point, it's not possible for anyone to avoid inbreeding.  Sure, seventh couples doesn't sound like it's all that bad.  But it's not that everyone is seventh couples in one way, it's that everyone is seventh couples 128 times over!

At this point, everyone has a roughly equal chance of having two of 400 different possibilities for the 26 different
chromosomes.  That means 33% of the population are going to inherit one of the founders chromosomes twice.  In addition, genetic recombination during meiosis means that ALL children born past this point will receive some genetic sequences twice.  So 33% of the population is going to suffer from severe inbreeding while the rest suffer from less severe inbreeding.

And that's assuming that everyone reproduces according to a plan made before they were born.  With a population that picks it's partners...

There's evidence that the human population did emerge from a genetic bottleneck many millenniums ago.  I forget the exact numbers, but I think there were something like only 10,000 humans left on earth.  So it can be done.  But the cost of doing it is that A LOT of nonviable offspring are born. 

Eventually, growth and mutation will result in a population that is no longer under such harsh inbreeding pressures.  But along the way, you are going to face centuries of suffering for your settlers.  They will be forced to raise large families to keep from losing genetic diversity and grow to a size where mutation can eventually eliminate the inbreeding.  But they will raise these families knowing that most of their children will be doomed to infertility or death.  Those who do survive to reproductive maturity will be plagued with all sorts of genetic traits.

That seems implausible SC, 100,000 years worth of food, electricity, etc, for 10,000+ people would probably require a spacecraft larger than the moon.

No they wont.  They'd need a craft about as big as one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27niel_cylinder

[Duke 2.0]

 Of course, when you take the massive amounts of radiation they will get 24/7 mutations will likely be common. that could kill off quite a few of them, but it might also diversify the genetic pool. Of course, this diversity consists of unwanted mutations, but whatever.

 And by massive, I mean in a comparison. Not saying the radiation shields will be crappy here.

[JoshuaFH]

I'm not gonna argue about the inbreeding thing, because I'm definitely not educated on the topic.

Would it be possible to pick up matter when traveling through dust clouds and somehow convert that to energy for self-sufficience?

And now that I think about it, a moon-size spacecraft would be ideal, because 10,000+ people living in cramped small quarters for their entire lives would lead to alot of people getting cabin fever and going stir crazy. The craft would also need thick shields wrapping around the entire thing, to prevent entire craft from dying off in case it strikes an asteroid or there's an explosion in the craft.

[Strife26]

Once anihlation power sources come along, everything (except maybe the population) will become easy!

[mainiac]

I'm not gonna argue about the inbreeding thing, because I'm definitely not educated on the topic.

I'm no expert either.  I just combined high school biology with middle school mathematics.  Think it through and you can see that's you need.

Would it be possible to pick up matter when traveling through dust clouds and somehow convert that to energy for self-sufficience?

Interstellar space is really, really, really, really, really empty.  And most of what you find is going to be stray hydrogen.  And keep in mind that 99.7% of that hydrogen isn't the type that fusion will hopefully use.

However, relatively small quantities of fissile or fusible materials could power life support for hundreds or thousands of years.  Also, a laser fired from the origin planet could provide a constant power supply.

And now that I think about it, a moon-size spacecraft would be ideal, because 10,000+ people living in cramped small quarters for their entire lives would lead to alot of people getting cabin fever and going stir crazy. The craft would also need thick shields wrapping around the entire thing, to prevent entire craft from dying off in case it strikes an asteroid or there's an explosion in the craft.

Try to think through your sense of scale here.  The surface area of the moon is 3.8 million square kilometers.  That's a rather large amount of space, no?

Also, meteors, even micro-meteors, would be so rare in interplanetary space that they could be individually tracked and avoided.