Status Updates From Starbound: Interstellar Tra...

Motivation: we have found, to some surprise, that of all reasons to make the trip, not one has withstood scrutiny—no good reason to go

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora (2015)
KSR wrote essay concluding: “multigenerational starship travel is simply very very very unlikely to succeed. If the odds are something like a million to one should we try it? Maybe not.”

Ethically: not a problem as long as transit gens who didn’t choose it are given humane, stimulating, diverse environment to live in—ppl don’t choose to be born where on earth either but have opportunity; to deprive unwilling gens of would be immoral

Financially: cost of interstellar voyage is incalculable given no parameters can even be guessed at—ship size, duration, propulsion— any $ be underestimate

Biological: serious health consequences primarily due to radiation but also weightlessness; reproductive viability in space is unknown; suspended animation doesn’t appear to be feasible; collisions w/interstellar matter

Psych & socially: dangers of crew boredom, conflict & factionalism, sleep disturbances, cognitive impairment & depression

There are 7 categories of problems facing starflight: physical, biological, psychological, social, financial, ethical & motivational…

Physical: there is no realistic, practical, proven design of a ship; no current/realistic means of propulsion (fusion, antimatter, laser-propelled, ramjet); mechanical breakdowns over decades/hundreds of years; there is no earth-like exoplanet we know of, or if so prohibitively far

…the core dogma, that humans must leave the earth & colonize the stars, exists w/o a plausible foundation. W/o exception, all the arguments we have considered in favor of that viewpoint lack an adequate underpinning in reason & logic. It may be that some other argument or group of then provides a sufficient basis…But equally there may be no such justification or proof at all, now or in the offing.

One issue not discussed by interstellar travel advocates is whether human procreation in a deep space setting is a viable undertaking across hundreds of years of travel time— radiation, microgravity, stress, isolation, sleep disturbance— this particular unknown constitutes a potential barrier to the entire enterprise of multigenerational interstellar travel.

The idea of a multigenerational spacecraft…raises a moral problem, at least for the generations that will have been born upon the ship. The problem is that none of those to be born on the spacecraft will have given their consent to be confined inside it for their entire lifetimes. The only gen that will have given their consent is the crew that initially boards the ship…voluntarily.

Even in the face of all the difficulties mentioned above…we have seen no reason to think that interstellar travel is impossible in principle, or that it will never happen…A journey to the stars does not appear to violate any known law of nature. It is therefore entirely possible in theory. The question is whether it is possible in practice, in a reasonable, doable, feasible, real-world & practical sense.