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To: MHGinTN
Lets explore your perspective for a moment. You mention the Mayflower and what provisions would be minimal requirements, but what if the Mayflower inhabitants had a Concorde? Wouldn't carry any provisions for so short a trip, eh?

Well, they would if they expected to live indefinitely in the New World. But you're still missing the point about fuel. Already I've shown that essentially everything you want to bring with you is fuel. I'll even let you convert mass directly into energy. Here's the point: the faster you want to get there--by rocket or by bicycle--the higher the percentage of the mass of ship that must be made out of fuel. The less fuel you want to carry, the slower you have to go, so the more support equipment and supplies you need. There may be no optimum that actually permits a human being to make it to the nearest extrasolar planet.

The only way out is to have a ship that does not carry its own fuel, such as a Bussard ramjet. When we come up with a proof-of-principle for such a device, we can start to talk about it.

80 posted on 11/09/2001 5:05:23 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
The only way out is to have a ship that does not carry its own fuel, such as a Bussard ramjet. When we come up with a proof-of-principle for such a device, we can start to talk about it.

You've made me think. It's possible that such vessels can only travel in regions where there is a sufficient density of ions or whatever to provide them with fuel. It is also possible that there are great "voids" where there is insufficient fuel, and thus no interstellar travel. Perhaps ramjets can only chug around near the central disk of the galaxy, and out here in the arms it's impossible to get around. So ... if we live in such a void, then of course we see no sign of alien signals in our neighhborhood. Perhaps you've solved the Fermi Paradox for me.

88 posted on 11/09/2001 7:44:30 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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