Then why don't our radio telescopes see all the extra radio energy around the stars they have colonized?
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Mars One...Way Mission
- Thread starter bleubird
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Then why don't our radio telescopes see all the extra radio energy around the stars they have colonized?
Malintent
Veteran Member
What was Columbus' backout plan if they were to go tipping over the edge of an Earth that has an edge to fall off of?
What was Luis and Clark palnning on doing if there was no habital ecology to live off of once they got to the point of no return?
Malintent
Veteran Member
Sure wer're smart enough.. just not powerful enough to stop the inevitable colapse of our Sun in what, half a billion years or so?... or the path of the 500 KM wide asteroid that is 5 months away from a 90 degree impact in the middle of Europe... that might come next year from an eccentric orbit just behind the sun from us.
Malintent
Veteran Member
Radio? what a primitive means of interstellar communication... about as usefull as smoke signals on the other side of a planet. Why would these advanced civilizations use such simplistic, ancient technology to communicate?
Malintent
Veteran Member
Then be surprised.. http://www.space.com/24112-private-mars-colony-1058-martian-volunteers.html
over 1,000 acceptable volunteers OUT OF 200,000 already.. and they are ALL in good health.
barbos
Contributor
Because radio telescopes are not big enough.
And Prime Directive would be pointless if we could hear them, wouldn't it?
skepticalbip
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The people at the time who believed in the "edge of the Earth" were the mass of illiterates, not anyone who understood a little. so there wasn't that worry. They had lifeboats as a backup plan for real disasters.
I don't understand your Lewis and Clark example. They lived off the land. If they got to a point in the mapping that there was nothing ahead to sustain them then they could always turn back as a backup plan. They didn't strike me as foolish enough to continue to walk across a bleak, barron, waterless expanse beyond the point of no return. - as this Mars settlement plan would be if they don't have "lifeboats".
If this Mars settlement plan doesn't have "Lifeboats" to get them back in the event of catastrophic failure of their technology (oxygen recovery systems, water purification systems, atmospheric containment, etc.) then they die because they can't row or walk out of it. Granted all exploration carries risks of death but this requires assurance of no serious technical failures of their equipment in addition to the risks of any exploration, or they die.
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Do we have anything between 5 months and a half billion years?
I'm much more worried about what we might do to ourselves. The power to wipe us out is getting more and more available.
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Why wouldn't they? I'm not saying they would use only radio (who knows what other tech might be discovered), just that radio is useful, it would be used.
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They don't *NEED* to be all that big to see the excess energy.
I'm not saying that we could interpret it--it's going to take some mighty good gear to actually receive inadvertent signals over interstellar distances. Rather, I'm saying there will be too much radio-frequency energy coming from the system. We should be able to detect that now.
skepticalbip
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"Too much" rf wouldn't be the clue. For instance the rf emitted by our sun completely swamps anything humans on Earth can possibly generate and there are radio stars that dwarf our sun's emissions. The clue would be the nature of the rf like an extremely narrow band transmission that doesn't correspond to any natural atomic transition. Like our radios are tunable to select only an extremely narrow band at the frequency the station we want to listen to is transmitting. If our radios picked up the full rf spectrum all at once then all we would hear is a loud roar. But what if those star trek aliens don't use our standard system of a single carrier either modulated by amplitude or frequency but used spread spectrum transmission or single side-band (no carrier) or lasers or something we haven't figured out how to use yet.
barbos
Contributor
You are mistaken.
spikepipsqueak
My Brane Hertz
barbos
Contributor
wrong link?
Mageth
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spikepipsqueak
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Oops, sorry.
Thanks Mageth.
Thanks Mageth.
barbos
Contributor
Kids.
It is an easy calculation.
You need megawatts of transmit power. To get a receivable energy density across the diameter of the Earth. Part of the problem is antenna beam width even on a directional antenna.
Then you have to be able to put that power through the antenna.
Plus if the source is moving. The receiving antenna has to line up at rhee right time.
Using our level of technology setting up a two communication link between two solar systems would be a large project economically justified.
Cell phones, digital radio, and digital TV use what is called spread spectrum. The kind of receivers used for SETI will not detect it. It will look like noise.
The odds of detecting an ET not intentionally transmitting to space is close to zero.
As to a one way trip to Mars, I give six months before they all go crazy.
You need megawatts of transmit power. To get a receivable energy density across the diameter of the Earth. Part of the problem is antenna beam width even on a directional antenna.
Then you have to be able to put that power through the antenna.
Plus if the source is moving. The receiving antenna has to line up at rhee right time.
Using our level of technology setting up a two communication link between two solar systems would be a large project economically justified.
Cell phones, digital radio, and digital TV use what is called spread spectrum. The kind of receivers used for SETI will not detect it. It will look like noise.
The odds of detecting an ET not intentionally transmitting to space is close to zero.
As to a one way trip to Mars, I give six months before they all go crazy.
barbos
Contributor
Even if you have ability to decipher spread-spectrum signal you still need an antenna with a size of hundreds of thousands of kilometers in diameter to receive satellite TV from closest star (4 light years)
And actually Satellite TVsignals and other high bitrate density stuff are not spread spectrum
As for Mars, most people will get bored on Mars within a month if not a week. Real researchers can get themselves occupied with work but ordinary folk will get bored and then go insane. Of course I am assuming they can get through few months flight to the planet
And actually Satellite TVsignals and other high bitrate density stuff are not spread spectrum
As for Mars, most people will get bored on Mars within a month if not a week. Real researchers can get themselves occupied with work but ordinary folk will get bored and then go insane. Of course I am assuming they can get through few months flight to the planet