Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Lecture 41: Interstellar Travel and Colonization
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Lecture 41: Interstellar Travel and Colonization
If we ever detect life elsewhere, how will we go visit? This lecture
considers the challenges of interstellar travel and colonization. The
problem is one of basic physics (the enormous energy requirements of
star flight) coupled with the vast, irreducible distances between the
stars. I will describe various starship concepts that use reasonable
extrapolations of current technologies (nuclear propulsion and solar
sails), ignoring for our discussions science-fiction exotica like
faster-than-light drives and wormholes. My interest is in the
scientific aspects of the problem, not an exploration of speculative
fiction. I then turn to interstellar colonization, and how even
a relatively modest star-flight capability might allow a determined
civilization to colonize the entire galaxy very rapidly. This has
implications for how we might interpret the results of Drake Equation
type arguments about the frequency of intelligent life in the Galaxy,
and leads to the Fermi Paradox that will be the topic of the next
lecture. Recorded live on 2009 Nov 25 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on
the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
View all episodes
By Richard Pogge
4.7
181181 ratings
If we ever detect life elsewhere, how will we go visit? This lecture
considers the challenges of interstellar travel and colonization. The
problem is one of basic physics (the enormous energy requirements of
star flight) coupled with the vast, irreducible distances between the
stars. I will describe various starship concepts that use reasonable
extrapolations of current technologies (nuclear propulsion and solar
sails), ignoring for our discussions science-fiction exotica like
faster-than-light drives and wormholes. My interest is in the
scientific aspects of the problem, not an exploration of speculative
fiction. I then turn to interstellar colonization, and how even
a relatively modest star-flight capability might allow a determined
civilization to colonize the entire galaxy very rapidly. This has
implications for how we might interpret the results of Drake Equation
type arguments about the frequency of intelligent life in the Galaxy,
and leads to the Fermi Paradox that will be the topic of the next
lecture. Recorded live on 2009 Nov 25 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on
the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.
More shows like Astronomy 141 - Life in the Universe - Autumn Quarter 2009
View all
Radiolab
43,821 Listeners
Astronomy Cast
2,868 Listeners
Stuff You Should Know
77,301 Listeners
StarTalk Radio
14,023 Listeners
The Infinite Monkey Cage
1,957 Listeners
Ask a Spaceman!
802 Listeners
Space Nuts: Astronomy Insights & Cosmic Discoveries
226 Listeners
SpaceTime: Your Guide to Space & Astronomy
315 Listeners
Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe
2,295 Listeners
The Supermassive Podcast
284 Listeners
NASA's Curious Universe
778 Listeners
Why This Universe?
368 Listeners
The Astrophysics Podcast
44 Listeners
Crash Course Pods: The Universe
294 Listeners
Sherlock Holmes Short Stories
583 Listeners