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From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL%SRI-NIC@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible?
Message-ID: <15028@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Jan-84 12:54:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.15028
Posted: Tue Jan  3 12:54:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Jan-84 00:55:26 EST
Lines: 30

I don't recall seeing Lin's message in this digest, (was it a private
message to REM?) but I'll respond anyway.

    Date: 2 January 1984 15:34 EST
    From: Herb Lin <LIN @ MIT-ML>
    on survival, i think that the odds are essentially zero that we will
    contribute to the genetic pool in 10^11 years, regardless of nuclear
    war, because I don't believe that interstellar space travel will ever
    be possible.

Herb, I don't see how you can make this prediction.  Similar
predictions were made for heavier-than-air flying vehicles, for
sattelites, for manned spacecraft.  These predictions, like yours, were
made AFTER all the fundamental discoveries/inventions necessary had
already been made.  Many different schemes have been outlined for
interstellar space travel that look feasible.  Manmade objects are
already leaving the solar system at 10^-4 c -- and that's just with
chemical propulsion (and gravitational assists).  Boost this velocity
by a factor of 50 to 100 and generation ships become feasible.  I'll be
adventurous (some will say conservative) and predict that, baring
nuclear war or social collapse, a manned interstellar spacecraft will
leave the solar system before the end of the next century.

If you believe that there are many intelligent civilizations in the
galaxy (I don't) then you don't even need interstellar spacecraft to
spread human genes around the galaxy -- radio will do (reconstructing a
working cell on the other end is a problem left to the reader).  It's
already possible to clone an entire human genome in bacterial hosts (in
fact, it's been done); so it won't be too many decades before an
entire human genome is sequenced.