PB666

If capacity is increasing in the industry and prices are falling it might take a gov time (i.e one administration to the next) to respond.

Of course and a muzzle.

Cyborgs are also susceptible to radiation sickness, so .... you have to wait until the radioactivty has sufficiently decayed. We are playing quantum mechanics on a grand scale here, you have to imagine that Eathlings and aliens are Earthlings or aliens at the same time, with any first contact you neither know how big or small a race is or how many allies that they have other than what you see you are unaware of other defenses or offenses. To be interstellar colonizers must have master fusion energy so that also means they have mastered atomic physics, including weapons. Certainly as an Earthling you are not going to war on first contact proxima, but you might if you had 10 colonies, but as an advanced alien race why would you expose yourself when you could research the enemy covertly and find either his potential, for touchy-feely races or his weaknesses for roadkiller races. The Earthling alien contrast is simply for the sake that we are starters and the aliens are most probably not, so its an unbalanced dance. OK, so now you have created a counter defense strategy whereby you survive, somehow by colonizing outside of their SOI and then counterstrike, but Earth will still remain dead. The prospect of game theory then in space is not to alert others and gather intelligence as much as you can, only announce ones presence when neccesary. This is not neccesarily always the case, because if you had 1000 stellar colonies you could just send termination ships to this system and all the plausible Earth colony systems, but then if that were the case we would prolly already be dead, so we have to assume that whatever is out close by would give us half a chance before they eliminated us. Another prospect of course is the spritual species, something like the ancients in SG1 whereby they connect the sentients that can get along into a network, although the show had its logical weaknesses, they tend not to realize that parasite species are never the predominant biomass in nature. One assumes the strategy is to let species to progress and then determine if they are suitable for the network otherwise isolate them so that they can never network themselves, and hope that a compatable sentient evolves opin their system. I think a forward looking IS sentient is prolly more concerned with what happens when andromeda merges with our galaxy and what will be the fate of the resulting galaxy once it has a supermassive black hole at its core. Such a forward looking sentients might be more concerned about options and want to keep networked sentients around to use whatever unique cognative talents they might have. The prospect might also exist that they might create a Monarch race collectively, something that has the composite features of many races but could survive for a billion years traveling to the most suitable galaxy in search of new homes as the current galaxy ages. Such a race might have a multipart lifespan that includes a single cell dormant stage capable of being frozen and regrown in a test tube for a generation before constituting a breeding form that then gives birth to a full sentient, just as a monarch goes through several life phases on its migration from mexico to canada and back. The flip side is if you are a race voted out of the network you might decide to take a longrange stealth existance to build up forces and attack exclusive sentient consortiums. For earth i think any space agency realizing that there is a four year lag (assuming no but hoping for FTL communication) in communication, would hesitate acting on partial information, no contact, no treaties, generally avoiding, seeing if resources are available. Such a space agency would have directives in place for any alien encounters. A generational fusion power ship would probaly try to hide and use resources to create probes. With three stars it would be easy to hide, and use of probes that observe and return and do not communicate except when in laser range. They might choose to colonize other objects, since planets around proxima are likely to be inhospitable, they might construct another one or two colonizer ships, then discretely leave after sending a message pribe back to Earth with all suitable info and a Silence directive. If their colony ship is too old they might retrograde all it motion so that the spent hull falls into a alpha centauri. Alternatively they could creat a ruse sending a decoy to another system and then start sending unintelligible signals, like we are angry you setlled in our territory, grandstand rattle sabers and see if they leave, try to make peace or respond. Of course then you would have to make other decisions. Centauri- a is a traveling system, it will come close and then travel far away from us, it might be best to take on non-offensive strategies that inhibit an eventual attempt to reach Earth.

But unfortunately they use black fusiform probes that orient themselves point first at any unknown object, they also use asteroids as probes and monitor your deception, some of these probes send a laser signal back to their home planet from deep space, once the loses are realized they reanalyze the data before your ships have a chance to reach thier homeworld, they then move resources to a colony you are not aware of. They then create and send a cesium nuclear war head the size of a small asteroid to Earth, it denoates sterilizing all higher lifeforms on earth, they bide their time with all Earth colonies. Their low risk strategy is to destroy the perception of trickery, whether real or not. Their probes as stated in the OP can monitor the direction from which colony ships entered the system so that they are aware that Earth is the likely source, but they would also use your directive to uncover potential 'fiction' species in that direction just to make sure they are wiped out. 15000 years later the 'alien-form' earth and colonize it. Game over.

Unfortunately reality is sometimes stranger than fiction Phobos 1. (Soviet). Stopped communicating because of a software error cause solar panels no longer to sun-face. Phobos 2. (Soviet). Putative on board computer system malfunction, possibly course miscalculation and phobos collision. Mars observer. "Likely reason for spacecraft failure was the leakage of fuel and oxidizer vapors through the improperly designed PTFE check valve to the common pressurization system. During interplanetary cruise, the vapor mix had accumulated in feed lines and pressurant lines, resulting in explosion and their rupture after the engine was restarted for routine course correction. A similar problem would later cripple the Akatsuki space probe in 2010 ".wikipedia - Mars curse - exploration of Mars. Fortunately the Akatsuki, like Hyabusa manages somehow to salvage itself and is now performing it mission but crippled. Mars 96. (Russian). - Never lefts earths SOI, standard launch failure issues we are all used to. Its 2nd 4th stage burn did not occur, and the correction burn that followed was essentially an aerobraking manuever. Nozomi- Numerous, starting with a less than optimal earth oberth manuever, followed by more less than optimal manuevers it lacked sufficient fuel to insert on Mars and was abandoned after the flyby of Mars. Mars Climate Orbiter - Seriously NASA your scientist and contractors aren't using metric yet, what gives. Mars Polar Lander - Did what latest SpaceX mission did on the OCISLY (i.e. whap!), except on Mars. Telemetry, telemetry, telemetry. Beagle 2 (UK)- Failed to fully deploy most solar panels after landing, antenna blocked. Mars Express however still operational Deep Space 2. - NASA, cost cutting can only go so far. So to recapitulate. Computer or computational errors. 3 to 5 (prolly 5) Mechanical malfunctions not related to burns. 2 Valve problems. 2 Stubborn adherence to obsolete measurement systems. 1 Zie Kraken. 0 to 2 (prolly 0). Never put off to malice that which can be explained by _______, _______, or ________.

It might be simpler to think of it like this, when a space craft enters a hillsphere it has thermodynamic energy that will be converted to kinetic energy as it loses altitude given by the integral of MGH. from a space craft point of view without drag dV affords acceleration ar the perigee, since at perigee the craft is no longer falling. Relative to that natural satellite though its energy is 1/2mv2. So from the space crafts point of view it just gaining energy just as occurs as any object accelerates, BUT it only has to pay back the integral of MGH as it leaves, so that the difference it gets to keep as kinetic energy, it gets big really fast. Heres an example you enter a system with a speed of say 100 and a potential of 1000000. That 5000 + 1000000 or 1005000, means you are traveling at 1417.6, you increase speed by 1 meter per second to 1418.6. you ke assuming you did this right a perigee, the resulting ke then is 1006411.6.44. As you leave that system you have to give back the kinetic energy borrowed that leaves 6411.6. This leaves you with a velocity of 113.2, by adding 1 m/s at perigee you gained 13.2 upon exit the hill sphere (there are alot of assumptions here about how you entered and exited relative to the parent to natural satellites, but lets just say relative to systems center you entered and left the hillsphere at the same altitude). If you were going much faster, say 4000 when entering the system you would still gain energy, but not proportionally as great as if you reached so trick point where you basically fall but miss the atmosphere. So the other part here is that in doing Oberths you really want dense rocky targets far away from the star so you can get really close to the point mass with most of you energy in integrated MGH obtained kinetic energy, you want to accelerate as much as you can at pe, and you might want an entry angle that throws you into another Oberth later on. Of course this is not always possible, and so the large hill sphere around Jupiter sufficiently compensates for the fact that you will not be able to do a very close approach because its a gas giant of lower density than say earth. There is another trick point in the system, if you can manage a course change doing Oberths in mid system, you can use the combined gravitational well of the star and its first planet at its perigee to increase the kinetic energy leaving that planets system to gain a high eccentric orbit that leaves the system, potentially using the Oberth effect of large Jovian planet as it leaves. This type of approach might be suitable for ion driven systems because they rely on the sun for exhaust energy.

China's space expanding but slowly, Japan is coupled with NASA and because if the thecrecent tsunami, the global economic slowdown and the need to replace nuclear reactors everywhere they are investing in technological rebuilds everywhere.

I forgot to add you could move to a kuiper belt in the system and restock hydrogen in the fusion drive and choose another destination or move on. As you added, their are advantages to stealing others technology by force or stealth, but it could come at a price if they find you carrying around near copies of technologies and their ship( s) disappear, you could have a cold war and that could spread with future encouters because of alliances. For a species technologies would be highly proprietary,,so you don't want to share unless something more useful is given in exchange. So no effort is made in the system to look for contemporary colonizers, but at some point, discovering some uninhabited system, with both sides choosing a maximum avoidance scheme such an encounter will occur. There is no need to take risk until the limit of the local expansion bubble is reached.

See my other thread on gaming aliens, playing the game first encounter is made when we are colonizing as we are about to explore a new system at which point we decide to explore a different direction or about to colonize and we have to make choices about how to manage an encounter. So assuming we can manage a new star system at the frequency of 0.002/T2 until some galactic barrier is reached, and assuming we while move out like fingers on a hand there's a pretty good chance this would happen within 1500 years, but because of the way preferential stars are distributed it might happen faster or because IS travel is harder much slower.

The visible universe is pretty big, and the last set closer but represent two smaller system holes, so bunches of these, not like gbh which require galaxies to merge.

Not only that but throwing RP-1 half burned on the deck explaning the darker smoke and the fire ball that moved from left to right. Looking at the engine it appears to have lost thrust about 20-50 ft up and dropped, timing program problem?

The current partial failure they would call an experiment, the loss of the ISS delivery was a failure, but the dragon test was a sucess. if its an experiment, its not a failure unless it failed to reach the experimental/data gathering phase. They are a businees so at some point they are trying to make a profit and test at the same time, where as NASA and the soviets have the luxury of a money-maker at the backside. There are qualifications, so the current mission was three part, two sats and a landing, the landing suceeded in all but one respect, data was collected but not all that they hoped for, or more than they hoped for since science is somewhat insideous. We have to take it on Musks word that it was experimental, that one engine underperformed, so whatever data they were looking for the hard engine slam prolly compromised that in part. One thing they do know now, its not such a good idea retroing 3 rocket engines at 100% because ther are no margins for weakness, sonthats one thing they learned. CRS-7 was a midlaunch failure and a second failure because no return and no backup chute deployment to rescue the payload. But again they learned that such contingencies need to be programmed in. Im pretty OK with this level of failure for unmanned stuff, as long as the corperate attitude is we are still learning and testing new cheaper ways of doing things.

Well contracts are made years in advance, so if capabilities increasing they can call it lag effects.

All right this is not a novel topic at least, its more of a thought experiment, so let me set up the premises. Lets just say deep thought, your massive computer that calculates the meaning of everything has estimated that there is about one sentient race on every X number of stars, lets just say X is a big number more than 1000, in parts of the galacies about the same density as our sun. So you now know they are out there because DT is never wrong, except that one time it gave the answer 42. All sentients a knowledgable in game theory. And once a culture is space worthy,meither in thier own or adjacent systems aliens do not penetrate systems unless for trade or conflict resolution. Now, next premise, your culture has never detected any alien civilization or cultural artifact as such. As per fact you dont know if some alien culture is 100 or 1000 light years away. Third premise your culture has the ability to detect sentient telecommunication in the next star system but no further, it has the ability to send probes to those sysytem but no further due to that limit of about 6 light years. Forth it is just on the verge of sending colony ships (handwaving) to about 10 ly in distance. Game theory suggests that two players, be it you or aliens will try to take steps so that thier share is the best, i think it would be valuable resources, since colonization is expansive. The first step taken in the game is that you probe proxima centauri, find a suitable planet to land on and probe the entiresystem with directed/highly focused em radiation of various wavelengths to see if there is a response. With nobresponse the colony ships are en-route. Fifth applying uncertainty principle, while you are much more likely to close encounter colonizing sentients than homeworld sentients, for the sake of argument the next star system simultaneously does or does not have alien colonizers in progress until your colonizers reach the system. So in the instance below a rare contemporary attempt to colonize proxima centauri can be applied to any attempt to colonize but at low, say 1/1000 frequency. The next step you are an alien attempting to colonize proxima centauri unaware or Earth or its intention, what is your next move. 1. Upon seeing the ship try to avoid all contact, assuming the star was approaching Earth you flee to another system. There are more fish in the sea for you. 2. Continue on with plans hoping Earth turns around and returns, realize the errors of their ways. 3. Try to destroy the ships transmitter covertly and then degrade the colony ship so that it looks like a failed mission hoping that Earth morale falls and does not repaet. 4. Contact Earth and recommend a sharing treaty, after which the new planet is called new poland. (ominously named) 5. Share but no contact or treaty, let the best colonizer win. Sensing you noticed them and they did not notice you, you land on the other side of the planet, or a moon or some other satellite and attempt to mske it look like you have been their longer. 6. Overt attack in which Earth is informed. We're the king of this mountain! Now for the success of alpha centauri there is a 80% chance of colonizing the next star from there versus the other sentient. As an Earthling you really need this colony, as an alien its just another feather in the cap. For earth Therefor it opens up almost double the available colonizable stars to you. For both, Each sentient has other stars it can colonize and based upon densities of aliens such choices will generally have no encounters. And so this is a expansive game setup, there are no bad choices just higher and lower risk/reward scenarios. As a alien would you attempt to block a colony that is much more vital to them than to you, would you use covert or overt means, would you negotiate. As an Earthling, would you risk miffing a more well traveled and distributed species whike other colonization options are on the table, would you suspect covert operations are at play, would you have preemptove measures for looking for other colonizers, ongoing with your colonization mission (remembering the time component with different comoving soace times is plastic, no one could be quite sure who succesfully colonized first from great distance, so the only objective measures are local interactions to proxima) This is enough to get the argument of whether or not we make first contact or not.

It was all good for except the blackout period. Thier just young peeps, dont expect them to be polished.

Of course its no moon, its the next dinosaur BBQ, lol.

That's a problem, but my prediction is that it will take 600+ years with perfect technology, it could take 15000 years without any active efforts on our part to reach out to aliens, we would be waiting for them to broadcaste signals.

your directive is wrong -60 (-)

Its easy, falcon 9 with solar driven ion drive payload.

Oh but you think hypersonic is Going to work? Well news today we have a 300 meter asteroid within 3 to 9 million miles that is clearly within reach, lets prize a return sample there for the funds neede to build a mars satellite return which then funds the mars sample return, allow two entries for each with a lessor payoff for second return. Edit: I think hypersonic planes is a terrible NASA goal, if we recall it was Britian and France that pushed the Concorde, I think that hypersonic woukd fair wirse than Concorde.

That was quite a while back. This is what you are referring, second stage explosion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_CRS-7

Minimus, cause its really smaller.

SkeweredSnake

-60 (-)

Banned for double wording "a".