[Shrike]

Cross-posted from SB.com

Scenario:  In January 2002, a team of scientists discover a way of building a practical FTL drive, and the first prototype drive, given sufficient funding, could be constructed in 8-10 months.  This prototype would be sufficiently powerful to move a 10 ton ship at 1 light year every week.  'Production' models (if they are funded, obviously) capable of being built by 2005 (or about 4-5 years for the slow adopters) would be able to have speeds of up to 2 ly/day for military-grade drives, and 1/2 to 1 ly/day for civilian drives, and could theoretically go much higher, given enough time and money invested.  Mass limitations on production versions are much higher, in the tens of thousands of tons.  Power requirements are extremely high, and would require either a nuclear reactor or large solar 'sail' array (a la BattleTech) to charge the drive capacitor.  Mass of the drive and associated machinery would be comparable to ship-based diesel powerplants, so the larger the ship, the larger the drive. (obviously)  The drives can only be engaged in microgravity environments equivalent to at least 200 km altitude above Earth.

The work was done in a US university, with members of the team from Canada, Japan, Britain and Germany, giving these nations the designs and know-how immediately.  However, an unspecified source got ahold of the design and theory, and this was distributed across the internet in July of 2002, giving effectively universal distribution to governments, corporations and private citizens.  The theory and engineering is no more complicated than a nuclear reactor, although the system does not need the extensive safety measures a nuke does, nor the exotic elements. (Uranium fuel)  However, efficient drives require precision manufacturing and extensive computer support for navigation.  The drives lend themselves to mass production, like giant computer chips, which would reduce the prices significantly.

How do you think this would affect the geopolitical nature of the world?  Would there be a sudden outpouring of people?  Would space programs suddenly become fashionable again?

[Carl]

there is no way to predict what would happen. the space program will probably be renewed, but most people are to stupid to realize how important this would be.

[This message has been edited by Carl (edited 11-15-2001).]

[WarpStar]

 

Originally posted by Carl:
there is no way to predict what would happen. the space program will probably be renewed, but most people are to stupid to realize how important this would be.

[This message has been edited by Carl (edited 11-15-2001).]

I don't think most people are too stupid, as anyone can be educated on the subject on some level, but I think it will be hard for them to let go of petty things like money and such, and the rich people won't want their lives disrupted or their power threatened by new interstellar corporations.  I think there would be a lot of effort, not by the Scientific Community, but by the business community, to interfere with this as much as they could.



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[Setekh]

Hmmm... interesting. Well, January 2002 - not too far in the future - I'd love to think that there would be immediate extra expansion, but then again these suckers are probably prohibitively expensive for that kind of instant take-off to begin.

And look at the current space program, also. Rockets are damn expensive. Maybe private-owned companies would begin to enter the space race, gain a foothold in exploiting outer space resources. And then of course, there would have to be an army in space to protect the burgeoning community up there... Things would change a heck of a lot.

But you know, what I would really want to know is whether people would use these drives to explore first, or to get to the resource-rich (very rich) asteroid belt first. Getting into the asteroids would definitely be a huge weight off the chest of Earth-based mining-type operations.

And then there would be the sorting out of who owns what. Land rights, but in space. Hoo boy, the possibilities... endless.

[wEvil]

Chances are an uncontrolled expansion would spawn a bunch oh highly irresponsible nation-states whithin 50 years and the whole thing would be a total mess.

The fact that such a drive would require precision engineering would immediately relegate it to corporates only, I doubt govornments would be able to persuade their parliaments to invest in such a production house - particularly given the current social and economic climates.

Unless such an invention were to be accompanied by something like a matter replicator (a la startrek) i dont think the status quo would change dramatically because people would still have a reason to be greedy.



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[Darkage]

Does the vessel that holds the drive must be build in space and then build the drive in it? or is it also posible to laucnh the vessel its self into space?

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[KillMeNow]

i think the miliary would be amoung the first to to take this up -  they have teh resources and the money to do such things - commericalisation woudl take longer - what are teh insitives to travelt o other solar systems? it would most like be used more for the colonisation of this solar system first bring transit times down the seconds instead of months and months of traveling  but unitl there is a reason to move off the earth i think people will stay here with the luxurys we are accustomed too - perhaps the in hospitable countrys populations might move out to see if they can find more fertile lands etc since it could only imprve there lifestyle but they dont have the funding for such a thing  - so i think the expansions would be military - then corporate for mining in space etc plu potential discovires with aline life forms that could help create new medicines etc etc etc people emigrating to space thats not going to happen for a long while

[an0n]

FTL Travel and space exploration will be just the same as every other invention in history:

The military will exploit it and it will be used as a very effective weapon
The military monopoly on the technology will be toppled by corporations and they will reach and agreement
The rich will use it to live in luxury and make money
The mentally unstable will throw themselves at every chance to improve the technology and make a name for themselves while the corporations sell tried and tested versions of the tech to the public
The technology will become a norm and every household and family in developed nations will own one/some.

This happened with microwaves, cars, guns, computers, everything.

The smart thing to do with FTL would be to export all the pollutive gases to Mars and make it habitable, then ditch the Earth for a coupla hundred years to let it fix itself while the human race explores the galaxy. Or send out a billion FTL greeting probes across the galaxy and see who's out there.

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[Nico]

 

Originally posted by an0n:
This happened with microwaves, cars, guns, computers, everything.

yeah, boats, nuclear engines and airbus.
Yeah right  
cya, need to clean my space shuttle.

[CODEDOG ND]

Nuclear reactors in space would have to be legalized first.  Second, space craft are too big to have in your garage.  Third, like Dark said, can the ships be launched into space?  Or have to be built there?

[Shrike]

 

Originally posted by CODEDOG ND:
Nuclear reactors in space would have to be legalized first.  Second, space craft are too big to have in your garage.  Third, like Dark said, can the ships be launched into space?  Or have to be built there?

However you want to do it.  The only requirement is that the drive has to used in microgravity.

[Darkage]

 

Originally posted by Shrike:
However you want to do it.  The only requirement is that the drive has to used in microgravity.

And if there isn't any microgravity where they travelled to, they would be in some seroius trouble?

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[phreak]

um nuclear reactors can be installed, just crappy ones like on cassini

[Ace]

So if you generate a microgravity well at two points you can make an FTL jump hrmm.... interesting military applications...

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[WMCoolmon]

See: Battletech, like he said.  
Like in Battletech, you would have some serious problems with celestial bodies shifting around, and if it travels through realspace some really BIG problems. You might have to go beyond Pluto to use the device.

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[Eishtmo]

The immediate effects would depend on whether or not a ship with the drive could launch itself into orbit at a cost significantly less than conventinal rockets.  If not, than a single, internation project (or multi-corporation, which to an extent is the same thing) would be formed to build them.  This is mainly due to the insane costs of launching anything into orbit.  Currently, there are only a handful of facilities that can, and do with any regularity, launch payloads into orbit, and that would hamper construction time and raise cost.  Private corporations would have it worse as they would have to rent the facilities or build them.

If the ships with drives can launch themselves, expect a new space race, initially restricted to nations that could afford them, then corporations, and later on, individuals, maybe.  Even then, the cost and availablity of the power systems would restrict who could build one early on, as nuclear reactors, and the material necessary to fuel them, are expensive and resticted to a few groups (mostly nations, I know of no individual that owns reactor grade Uranium).  Solar sails need to be enormus and require new techniques in manufacturing before they can even be produced, and then are easy to cripple either through accident or foul play (something likely in a space race).

Money runs the world, and beyond it, apparently.

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[Shrike]

 

Originally posted by WMCoolmon:
See: Battletech, like he said.    
Like in Battletech, you would have some serious problems with celestial bodies shifting around, and if it travels through realspace some really BIG problems. You might have to go beyond Pluto to use the device.

*cough*
The drives can only be engaged in microgravity environments equivalent to at least 200 km altitude above Earth.
*/cough*

 

[This message has been edited by Shrike (edited 11-16-2001).]

[Carl]

 

Originally posted by WarpStar:
I don't think most people are too stupid

30% of all people think the sun orbits the earth.

[Thorn]

 

Originally posted by Carl:
30% of all people think the sun orbits the earth.

That high? Man, people are stupid...

[Grey Wolf]

 

Originally posted by Carl:
30% of all people think the sun orbits the earth.

Damn, that sounds like half of my Regents Earth Science class.