Newtonian ships or not?.

[JurijD]

No, GEO, I mean a COUPLE 100.000 years.

I didn�t do the math as you did because there are some serious limitations to your exponent-theory.

I just assumed our galaxy to be 100.000 light years across and since if you jup from one star to the next you must go in a straight line from one end to the other...

you cannot SIMPLY say: we got 1 star now and in 100 years we'll have 2 then 4 then 8... etc. etc
It doesn't multipy like that because you must take into acount that colonists won�t be leaving from your first star anymore (and if they do they won+t get to the colony "much" sooner than those from your secondary colonies... making the whole thing pointless).

Think about it geo you�ll see there is a big logical error in your exponent-calculation.

So you really have to think in terms of a "virtual ship" traveling from one part of the galaxy to the other. the real question is: how long would it take for this virtual ship to cross the galaxy if it took "pit" stops every 10 light years for 100 years each stop... the answer is: 100.000light years/10 light years = 10.000 stops

10.000 stops*100 years/stop= 1.000.000 years ... or in other words "a couple 100.000 years" since we are not exactly at one edge of the galaxy. (and I didn�t take into account the travel time between the stars.. only the stops of 100 years)

If we are traveling at SUB-LIGHT speads we should be able to clonize the galaxy in a couple 100.000 years.

To see how very wrong your 4000 years estimate is ... just try to explain to yourself how we are supposed to reach the other edge of our galaxy (some 60.000 light years away) in 4000 years if our colony ships are traveling at 1 ligt year per year at most (not taking into account that they are stopping at planets for 100-200 years) The colony expansion is NOT exponent in nature.. it is very much LINEAR. Just imagine it as a circle that grows from our solar system outward. Get it?


but anyway you tweek the numbers...any race that is acpable of developing some sort of anti-matter driven space ships (for the low mass/fuel ratios) and genetically modify its population so it can travle in space for several decades would be able to colonize the galaxy in roughly 1.000.000 to 10.000.000 years... which is still nothing to the WAST eones passed.

[ March 28, 2004, 13:11: Message edited by: JurijD ]