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From: peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,net.astro,net.space
Subject: Re: Re: Re: The Great Silence
Message-ID: <586@baylor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Aug-85 16:20:18 EDT
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Posted: Thu Aug 29 16:20:18 1985
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> >You're assuming there's only a few intelligent races in the galaxy. Besides:
> >why would a reace with a low exploratory/reproductive/etc. drive acquire
> >interstellar travel? And so what if they can survive for 1000 years on a
> >single solar system: that still leaves time for 3,000 iterations of the
> >explore/colonise/fill a solar system/explore cycle if they're only 1%
> >ahead of us. And do they have to fill the solar system before they want to
> >go for the next one?
> 
> you're assuming there are many.

No I'm not. I'm just assuming that colinisation is possible. It
certainly looks like it is. There are no physical laws that prevent it... they
may make it difficult (it may take 1000 years to travel to the next star in a
converted asteroid), but it's pretty unlikely to be possible.

Let's say that we have a race with the capability to keep a small ecosystem
going for 1000 years. I don't see that we won't be able to by the time we
get around to chucking asteroids around. Let's say that they're inquisitive
and dedicated... like us.

They send out half a dozen of these ships. 1000 years later they arrive at the
next system and start building a civilisation. Being acclimitised to life in
space they're not likely to need planets, just energy and matter: a common
resource in the vicinity of stars. I'm sure that within 500 years they're
ready to send out another one. Likely the crew will just want to plant a colony
and keep on going (who wants to live near a star? They're dangerous! Useful for
fuel but dangerous!), but maybe thhey'll want to hang around & have a bunch
of kids. Let's assume an average distance between usable stars of 7.5ly. This
may be high or low, but it will do for a first approximation and is certainly
about the right order of magnitude.

OK. Pretty soon you'll have a sphere of these ships expanding at .5% of the
speed of light. In a million years that sphere will have filled a pretty
nice chunk of the galaxy. In 12 million years it will have filled the whole
thing. Probably less, as advances in science speed things up and heavy duty
radicals and dissidents head for the REALLY distant parts of the galaxy.
-- 
	Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva
		UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter
		MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076