Interstellar Travel Challenges

There are many hurdles to travel between stars at relativistic velocities, such as collision avoidance, radiation, ship geometry, armor, and point-defense. We will also look at some of the possible engine types and discuss realistic maximum speeds they offer.
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Cover Art by Jakub Grygier: www.artstation.com/artist/jak...
Special Thanks to Liam Davis of Lombus, for use of the song "Hydrogen Sonata", available here:
lombus.bandcamp.com/album/spa...

[@nubeees]

"Spaceship designs are never going to look very cool." OBJECTION! Anything with a rotating habitat is cool.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Okay, fair enough, but they look pretty boring from the outside

[@cptray-steam]

@@isaacarthurSFIA but... but... It's what's on the inside that matters. Lol jk

[@Mr.Nichan]

I think your ideas about what looks cool are not very universal. I think many of us won't much need to change our idea of what looks cool.

[@Ian_sothejokeworks]

It's like a ferris wheel in space!

[@tragic_solitude7992]

I wouldn't mind the ships from Halo's UNCS industrial look but without windows. Let it have drones so we can look outside.

[@graemebird8137]

7:20 "The science officer is a bit of a long winded fellow, and takes 20-40 minutes to get to the point" Lool

[@Hubba404]

I lost it t that point!

[@nogland8916]

I've always wondered who specifically was in the picture of the science officer was but intuition and this quote may have given me a bit of a clue. :)

[@BlackEpyon]

"All systems are normal, meatbags!"

[@annoyed707]

A successful test of the self-deprecation humor subsystem.

[@chrisschembari2486]

And, uhhh, who plays the Captain in the photo? She looks like she has a really commanding presence. And is that Michelle Dockery sitting next to her? If so, hope that's a Downton Abbey nod, because the flight where Michelle Dockery played a flight attendant didn't turn out so well...

[@MarkTuchinsky]

I like how you mentioned the Super Admiral now has hundreds of years of experience and still needs this stuff explained to her.

[@romulusnuma116]

New ideas and technology happen all the time.

[@bozo5632]

And you'd think Watson would have learned something after all those years hanging out with Holmes, but Holmes still needs to explain everything to him (and the audience).

[@calvingreene90]

The commander is both female and smart/experienced enough to want a review of all the options from an expert before making her decision public.

[@barghestblue731]

Just for my curiosity, what does the Captain being female have to do with anything?

[@calvingreene90]

It is the way that men and women brains differ from each other. That is why a women will tell the story including the name and what the person was wearing who changed her tire when she had a flat to explain why she got home late and a man will say "I had a flat tire."

[@fleiteh]

These videos are like meditation for me

[@Cartoonicus]

It's the music. LOL

[@UNSCPILOT]

To me it's both soothing to listen too, an inspires considerable optimism and excitement for the future. I can only hope we solve aging soon so that we don't miss any of this!

[@nicholaz1600]

Absolutely

[@kinguin7]

I'm putting this video on to help get to sleep.

[@SoulDelSol]

good closed captions, good visuals, charts, using characters to introduce physics and propose solutions, that's a like from me. clearly you put a lot of time and effort into your work

[@tarstarkusz]

Why is slowing down a problem with lasers using laser propulsion against a solar sail? It is just as easy to put the solar sail behind the ship as in front of the ship.

[@ITILII]

Another great video by Isaac as always....though the characters at the table should be: "Isaac, you're the greatest physicist of all time, you must be at the table" from Isaac Asimov to Isaac Newton "Isaac you're the greatest science fiction writer of all time, you must be at the table" from Isaac Newton to Isaac Asimov....but we need another person to join us, someone with intelligence, wisdom, judgment, humor and compassion....who should it be? To which Asimov and Newton reply "Who better, than Isaac Arthur!" The 3 Isaacs..talk about a dream team !!!

[@resonanceofambition]

And I still love your accent so much. It's perfect to listen to while sipping whiskey and eating snacks.

[@jasontoddman7265]

You have a talent for making even the fantastic seem like an easy and mundane thing (in a good way that is) that is bound to happen eventually. Gives me hope for the long-term future of Humanity.

[@theuncalledfor]

+Jason Toddman More like, exposing the seemingly fantastic as actually plausible and near-inevitable, while exposing the seemingly plausible as likely to be pure fantasy for all eternity. In other words, straightening out our perceptions of plausible and implausible.

[@pussywran]

Thanks Isaac Arthur for the hours of great videos, i remember the first video i watched it was the fermi paradox video that was like 2 years ago. love the longer videos the best, i feel you can explain more detailed and are much more informative, i actually see tones of stuff in movies and anything where they refrence something i have learned from your videos and its nice to have that understanding. THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR AMAZING VIDEOS!

[@pussywran]

i would also like to add if i can contibute a donation (i know i can on patreon, is that where i should or do you have another way) or if you have shirts or anything for sale i would be all over that

[@drumcrazy100]

Shawn Barbour He has a Patreon account www.patreon.com/IsaacArthur

[@Blair.Piggin]

www.paypal.me/IsaacArthur

[@Blair.Piggin]

check out issacarthur.net, and under "donate" you will find that link

[@fishsquishguy1833]

Shawn Barbour One of the most entertaining channels on KZbin. I really look forward to Thursdays to see what he'll be talking about. Jim

[@matbroomfield]

You're as funny as you are entertaining and enlightening. A truly superb body of work. Great job Isaac!

[@galahad1st]

Isaac, I love and hate your videos. On one hand they are informative, interesting, and funny. On the other hand, any time I try to watch other futurism/space channels I feel like they are explaining things to me like I'm a basic idiot. What I mean to say is thanks for actually adding some depth to your videos and not just spewing out 5 minute long videos that don't really teach or say anything. I have had more than my fill of bite size bullshit that is all over the internet these days.

[@HuntingTarg]

Ay-men to that, sir, Ay-men.

[@vijayvaddi1482]

Yeah, plenty of Quantum physics under five minutes videos here. With scripts along the lines of "Everything is weird, nothing is real, we don't know what's what". Like, share and subscribe.

[@Justaguy5678]

Oh yeah. Most stuff out there is mass-produced, populist garbage.

[@tribiz6762]

Vijay Vaddi they say the word super position and explain schödingrrs cat and are like “quantum explained 😎”

[@donaldhobson8873]

If you are sending out probes to new star systems, getting them to 99.9% light speed takes a huge amount of energy. But remember if your probe arrives 1 year sooner, your dyson sphere can be built 1 year sooner. So the energy invested in getting your spaceship to those speeds is more than repaid in that extra year of energy from the dyson sphere.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I wouldn't try for that fast, even for probes or tiny seed-ships I really don't see any advantage to a gamma above 2 or 3. You are right though, the energy wasted by that star during a year delay more than pays off the investment of arriving sooner.

[@JohnStephenWeck]

How long does it take build a Dyson sphere?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Impossible to say, hypothetically grey goo might be able to do in days or weeks, I usually assume it to be a multi-century task though

[@Molb0rg]

@John Weck It depends on what you start with, how much you start with. But 1-10 years pretty reasonable even without gray goo. The problem is the same exponential problem as with Unity arriving at destination and preparing to the next journey. A bit about that there www.reddit.com/r/IsaacArthur/comments/5h8r4g/this_weeks_video_001_2808_life_in_a_space_colony/dazxykp/

[@donaldhobson8873]

However long it takes to build your dyson sphere, getting the probe there quicker gets it finished quicker. Don't send one probe, send many tiny probes and accept that if they hit a speck of dust they are blown up. Launch billions of milligram weight probes, mostly antimatter with a tiny nanobot payload at the front, and some of them will make it.

[@andrewwright64]

I love how you set the scene for this video, it was super helpful and as a writer it's great to hear it as more narrative and less plain data.

[@fishsquishguy1833]

Issac Arthur, with all the crazy news lately, your channel is such a nice escape! Thanks for not being political. Jim

[@insig91]

Agreed. I find a comforting level of normalcy when tuning into Isaac. This channel has grown so fast but it still has that small channel feel, I hope it never loses that.

[@mycinematics8948]

I agree. However there is a sub issue right now. Some channels have gone into the minuses with their subs.

[@mycinematics8948]

I came here almost right away praying it hasn't had an effect. Funnily enough the content on this channel is so good people don't unsub very often.

[@larrymonske8086]

can you imagine being an astronaut on the way home goes blind what now?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I seem to have avoided that sub-deletion thing, but hopefully all the regulars know the episodes come out every thursday morning and would check if they miss a week or two. I'm not really concerned about the total subscriber quantity, I don't advertise, so I mostly only care about retaining active viewers and getting new ones. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep the small channel feel, I've been straining to keep up with the comments for months now and some community building to augment that but it is a bit of a losing battle, sadly.

[@MetaNerdzLore]

7:20 Amazing

[@HuntingTarg]

A couple very sage points are made at the end; FTL travel enthralls us because of our mortality and our desire to see and do things elsewhere in the cosmos. If we lived hundreds of years FTL speeds would not seem so fascinating or necessary. If we could accept time dilation discrepancies and longer time dealys in communication than even the age of sail, humanity could comfortably become an interstellar civilization without it.

[@robertweidner2480]

I remembering hearing someone once say that for interstellar travel, if you're not going to travel at at least 10% the speed of light, you might as well stay home. If you leave for a distant star, and travel at a slower speed, then you'll be overtaken by the descendants of the people you left behind who will have better technology, and travel faster than you, overtake you on the way there, arrive at the destination before you get there, possibly by centuries, establish themselves, and you'll end up entering a solar system with a well-established civilization that's hundreds if not thousands of years old. It would be like Christopher Columbus leaving Spain in 1492, and sailing into New York Harbor in 2017.

[@josephedmond3723]

So ironically waiting longer to start your trip gets you there sooner.

[@swarlson]

Sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman! I just discovered your channel, and already plan to watch every single video.

[@lemmysverruca]

Rumor has it the girl at 1:23 is still climbing the escalator.

[@troymehlenbacher4365]

Love your stuff Isaac. Great to see the production value going up and most of your topics are just fascinating. Thanks!

[@winpcapper]

I love you, Thursday. Lightest work load of the week, so I can catch up on paperwork. Also, Space Engineers updates and Isaac Arthur videos! Life could not get any sweeter.

[@212th]

I like the way you do these videos. Great job!

[@dhoffman4994]

Hey Isaac Arthur, Love your vids. I'm a subscriber. Just wanted to say I have ZERO problem with your minor speech impediment. I understand you 100% without using captions. Keep up the great work. You make people think.

[@die4europa280]

Isaac Arthur, I just want to thank you for putting so much work & effort into creating these very informative & enjoyable videos. Your channel is truly a hidden gem, which I'm extremely glad I found. I have PTSD, and TBI, these physical injuries put great stress on my daily life, but I'm able to relax more than usual watching your videos ^^!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thank you, glad to hear its helping with that too, amusingly a few of my friends have a tendency to call me up when there's is hitting kind of bad on the grounds I have a relaxing voice and make distracting commentary :)

[@StepBackHistory]

I love the spaceship CN tower.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

:) I came across it doing a search through public domain sources for "spaceships" and did a doubletake and thought 'heck why not?", the outrigger lasers I show are actually a photoshopped ferris wheel, I was being a bit lazy this week I suppose.

[@StepBackHistory]

These are the voyages of the USS Toronto

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I do love that building :)

[@AvailableUsernameTed]

HMCS Toronto please (Her Majesty's Canadian Starship)

[@hedgehog3180]

The ferris wheel looks an awful lot like the London Eye.

[@VoytEngineering]

The quality of the intellectual material is on par with the best in the field. btw you need not suggest subtitles or explanations, your communication is better than most people without an impediment. please slow down and explain some heavy parts, we love hour long videos. Thank you so much, Isaac , great work!

[@trevorclive]

This is my first time watching one of his videos. While it is true that his speech is easy to understand, I (like most people) am used to hearing professional voice actors, so it would have been weird if he did not acknowledge it. His disclaimer changed my opinion from "this guy thinks he can do voiceover work?" to "this guy is doing his best, probably because he loves what he's doing." Without the disclaimer, I might have dismissed the whole video within the first minute.

[@JAYFULFILMZ]

Trevor Clive your a dick! Excuse my language Arthur! 🤦🏾‍♂️

[@I_leave_mean_comments]

I love these videos. They're some of the best on youtube.

[@casacara]

It's really pleasing to see serious discussion of topics like this on youtube. Thanks for your work.

[@jamessanderson4749]

Can i just say, your videos are amazing. Being able to see a topic and explore it in the depth and intellect you apply is something greatly lacking on the internet. Thank you and i hope you continue to explore these topics that i personally find interesting and have thought about myself. Often presenting sometimes a greatly different view point than one i had previously considered. Keep it up mate. From one of your Australian Fans :)

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks James! I rather wish I was down under today, lots of snow up here in Ohio.

[@dff1286]

Thank you for another fantastic episode.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks for watching!

[@dff1286]

always. I am attempting to write my first Sifi story and your videos are research gold.

[@LaserGuidedLoogie]

I finally realize what those "deflector dishes" were for on the Star Trek vessels. But anyway, the laser constantly flashing out to "vaporize" micrometeoroids along the way would incur a continuous stream of power. What is the percentage of available power needed to perform that task over 60 (or 120 ) years?

[@owenbelezos8369]

It would act as a propellent against the ships' momentum, not very much for lower speeds but would still need to accounted for. And as you got faster that laser would need to be more powerful and thus produce more thrust against the ship.

[@1DanConnors]

Passive protection against dust sized particles in interstellar space might be possible. A super thin balloon filled with gas at less than .01 atmosphere might vaporize small grains of sand fairly efficiently. With a possible length of hundreds of miles, with the mass of an air bag one mile long at normal atmospheric pressure, it would need no lasers at all, simplifying the ship. The question would be how long the millions of tons of gas. would last. Would the gas mass used be made up by the vaporized dust, or would it need to be replaced?

[@j7ndominica051]

I love this episode. Your explanations were accessible without too much math and narrated at the right pace. I've been curious as to why space ships have the shapes that they do. Looking forward to watching about life extension next. Immortality!

[@Simurgh1000]

Thanks Isaac, another amazing video. It poses many important questions about the future of humanity. This has also been one of the clearest explanations I have seen regarding the rocket equation. I also appreciated your analysis on collision avoidance and alternative means of propulsion. Looking forward to your video next week on life extension and immortality. As always your thoughts are very comprehensive and I would like to see how you approach the subject from myriad angles. Hopefully it will happen within our lifetimes so we can see and experience this incredible future!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks! I was worried about the rocketry

[@scottseaver1113]

hmmm... a kilometers long generation ship in the shape of an unsharpened pencil captained by a centuries old badass of a woman who only looks to be in her 20s... Why do I suddenly have an urge to go read through Knights of Sidonia again... Also, thanks for all the awesome videos.

[@jamesodom4980]

Thanks for being reasonable with the ads. There’s some similar channels out there who seem to be abusing it.

[@johngeverett]

Thorough, practical, and well-done! as usual...

[@robheusd]

Finally some scientific narrater that takes into count real physics for the design of ships that can go interstellar. The ship would need to take the shape of a needle. But some other thing I was thinking about for a spaceship that travels interstellar that it won't be a single ship but a fleet of ships. They could be smaller ships deployed from the main ship set out a regular intervals, or just (unpropelled_ probes - for instance for relaying data and/or as part of the interstellar highway - but in a mission profile where you want to stop at the destination and decelerate around half the travel time, probes you deploy at the topspeed are going to arrive there much sooner then the main ship (even when not further propelled) and can give a look close by on the destination long before the main ship arrives. Further, a manned interstellar ship would want one or several unmanned crafts in front of it to clear the way and provide for a way to avoid collissions with debris. So an interstellar space journey would likely not just be one singular ship but a fleet of ships and/or probes for various reasons and functions.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I tend to agree that a fleet makes more sense, in most cases, it will kind of depend on the specific techs available and mission parameters, but frankly its a single ship here for convenience.

[@TripedalTroductions]

I'm quite thankful I stumbled across your channel. By far the best and most realistic/rational channel on futurism and modern space exploration concepts. It's a shame you're not in charge of NASA! We would already have a tangible presence in the solar system if you were.

[@HuntingTarg]

Being a futurist isn't the same as being a leader in science or industry. However, I think that once we form an IASA, they would be well-advised to take IA and his forum compatriots on as advisers.

[@tylersizelove7521]

This one was a blast to watch, and your example scenario made it easy to understand. Great material and diligent research!

[@lazerone6737]

I really like your videos, they’re great for anxiety and help me relax. Thank you Isaac

[@poeslaw1648]

I have a new space drive. I call it 'lost and won't ask directions'. It has a married couple in a small uncomfortable room. Around 2-4 hours in it will activate and the ship will be in some unknown location. As of yet I have not been able to target the new location. I've found adding a small child decreases the time to activation. But this usually just returns the ship to the starting destination, still useful for the return trip though.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

lol

[@colonelgraff9198]

"Wascally Wabbits!" LMFAO Nice......

[@gardendaily]

Another great episode. This one and the way it used a dialogue from the ship's crew perspective was cool.

[@SashaXXY]

Awesome as always! Thank you!

[@mrnice4434]

Man I was born 200 years to early :(

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I know right? But better now than 200 years ago I suppose.

[@mrnice4434]

Oh absolute it could be worst and I think I have like 40-50 years to go, so who knows what will happen in that time.

[@L_mattox]

Mr Nice Now don't make fun of me for being religious, but let's just say, I think that anyone who is born in this day and age, was born so for a reason. That reason being. We were born in this day and age, to progress ourselves to space. Our great grandchildren and their great grandchildren will either thank us or curse us, our choice.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I don't think anyone would make fun of you for that Liam, the channel doesn't really attract that sort of crowd even ignoring that a large chunk of the audience are religious themselves. I know of several clergy members who hang out here.

[@katrinal353]

A couple of centuries ago, at least we'd be able to explore earth. I guess we have to be the generation of dreamers!

[@EvolBob1]

Objects traveling faster than 4 mps release all its energy on impact, and don't leave long holes. Just a minor point :)

[@soreff]

I was going to make the same point. Many thanks for covering it!

[@fantom9574]

Evol Bob can you explain that pls

[@EvolBob1]

Isus Krist It is one of those mysteries where some meteorites couldn't be found even though there was this huge crater. What happened was, if the speed of the object hitting the ground was higher than 4 miles per second it simply vaporized. Probably due to the amount of kinetic energy released.

[@cynthiaayers7696]

So this kinetic energy is a bond between atoms? Like its own gravity.

[@thefran901]

I read that as 4 meters per second and was confused, like "that's pretty slow". Then I realized it was miles lol

[@InFltSvc]

I find your narration completely fascinating! and I love to listen to your voice and learn from your videos. Thank you so much for uploading them

[@wolf1066]

A great video on the ISM. Years ago my mates and I were discussing space travel at relativistic speeds and I pointed out that space isn't truly empty and even a grain of sand hitting the ship at a decent percentage (>50%) would do serious damage and that the likelihood of that happening would be extremely high as, at >50% of c, they'd be carving through a fair bit of space each second. Absolutely brilliant episode. Great work, Isaac, keep it up.

[@seanb3516]

The amount of work poured into these videos is surprising. Thanks for the great videos!!

[@MisterTutor2010]

Light Speed is too slow. We have to go straight to LUDICROUS SPEED!!!!!! :)

[@HuntingTarg]

Yes, he talks about mega-huge city-state ships and I immediately visualize Spaceball 1. Apparently Mel Brooks knows a few things about futurism...

[@greanstreak04]

It's Spaceball 1, they've gone PLAID!

[@robhosken2351]

Okay, why the worry about carrying fuel to accelerate when we’ve already covered laser propulsion and stellasers? Just need on-board fuel to maneuver and slow down, right?

[@ericjohnson1811]

This is excellent! Thank you for posting!

[@theinte11igent1]

I just watched the DNews video on interstellar colonization they just uploaded, and it so non-rigorous and uninformative compared to this. Definitely the best future science channel out there. Thanks again man.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks!

[@lup4634]

What's the impact of dark matter in interstellar traveling?

[@TheBasqueWasp]

Love your videos, thanks for sharing.

[@stefa168]

Fantastic episode, as always. I hope you'll keep doing the outros as they are now, they are awesome!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

lol, I wonder at folks disliking the other outro, it is just for the Alien Civs series, it's not a new outro, like I did for the FTL series. Anyway the alien civs intro/outro took like 4 hours to render on my computer and the music was composed by a friend, so I'm rather partial to them :)

[@stefa168]

It isn't that the other outro isn't good, but just that this one feels more like a movie :o

[@Vorpal_Wit]

Still probably worth sharpening "the pencil" Increasing the cross-section of the armor without adding mass is probably desirable. Thanks, panzer tech!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yes you probably would

[@kukulroukul4698]

depends a lot how the magnetic shield would going to look. Sharp pencils + magnetic field = bad ideea

[@ArcherWarhound]

Yes, I was thinking the same. I would think to provide the most protection to the rest of the ship behind the point you would actually want it to not only be a cone but one with a wider diameter than everything behind it (other than the telescopic laser array arms), just like the rocket shown at 27:23.

[@3er24t4g1]

Why not use mass drivers to launch fuel tanks ahead of the ship? Then the ship could catch up and refuel as its speed increases

[@bengersbootlegs]

How would you catch them? Matching speed would cost more fuel than youd probably get from the tank

[@hypatiaatheiria5868]

@@bengersbootlegs prob just a matter of engineering - but would you need to? - interstellar space is probably littered with modest size icy bodies which you could collect for fuel

[@UNSCPILOT]

@@bengersbootlegs the idea would be to launch the tanks into the right position and speed so that the ship could catch it with minimal to no effort, the ship's course will be largely known ahead of time and they will be getting communications between the launch site and ship to verfy where the ship is and where the tanks are if they need to compensate for dodging, I wouldn't be surprised of the ship had a few smaller "Tugs" that went out to intercept the fuel tanks and push them into possition

[@johnwang9914]

Launching material ahead with a mass driver would also be like firing retro rockets, a bit counter productive.

[@jebes909090]

@@bengersbootlegs you could have them explode ahead of your ship, then scoop up the contents as you fly through the clouds of gas. Yes you wouldn't get 100% of the fuel, but if you are launching hundreds or 1000s of fuel containers ahead, it probably wouldn't matter so much. Another thought that just occurred to me is that you could use this method to help decelerate too.

[@DarrinBell]

Great episode, can't wait till next week's.

[@dt28469]

This is amazing! For a long time ive looked for a show or channel or something that would describe the technicalities of just this type of thing. Im impressed.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks!

[@jeffm6651]

Rockets are highly impractical for interstellar space travel.

[@calvingreene90]

Depends on the rockets; a circular particle accelerator that can release particles in a controlled direction with them moving at maximum speed is a rocket.

[@ozdergekko]

[sci officer] "...needs 20 to 40 minutes to get to the point." :-D chicken or egg... I once was a scientist and always am long-winded.

[@robertbruce5489]

I strongly prefer long-winded highly detailed answers myself, short and "to the point" answers just leave me with a million more questions instead of just a couple hundred lol

[@RafaelHernandez-ho5by]

At 22:00,the content of this video in concert with the music took me on a trip I wasn't expecting, good stuff!

[@Ribs351]

I just found this channel not too long ago when a friend of mine directed me to one of your videos. Ended up watching a few more and found out that you don't have an accent, but that's beside the point. I love your videos and the interesting things it brought about, great work, you've earned another subscriber!

[@zelpa.]

well he does have an accent in addition to the speech impediment

[@Staroy]

I love you videos, binge watching for 10 days straight now! You seem to cover every part of science and "futurology" that I find interesting. What do you and have you worked as? What kind of education do you have? I remember you mentioning working for the military for several years but I would like to know more, if you feel like sharing. Not only out of curiosity but I would like to become more like you and I feel like this information could get me on the right path. I would also greatly appreciate if you would recommend some really good books, I am sure that any topic you pick will interest me!

[@shronemor]

Is there a danger in what becomes a Generation ship that the following generations come to see the ship as their home and after a generation or two will be either unwilling or indeed unable to physically colonise the world they arrive at?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Unable? Probably not, tech decay is popular in fiction but not really supported by history, the Dark Ages is more myth than reality. Unwilling? Probably, but keep in mind that colony ship is so big and could support so many people that even if just 1% wanted to get off somewhere they would have a very functional colony of thousands.

[@shronemor]

I suppose when I mean unable I was thinking along the lines of the more sterile environment of the colony ship in relation to the new world and their bodies may not be able to naturally handle it... for a large percentage anyway. I know medical technology may be able to compensate but it is an interesting thought exercise for me.... would we end up like the Martians from War of the Worlds, our bodies defeated by underdeveloped natural immune system I am really loving your videos and look forward eagerly to seeing more. And I want to offer a heartfelt thanks for all the hard work you put into them

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Oh you mean alien bacteria as opposed to the various micro-ecosystems the ship probably has. The ship wouldn't be sterile, part of the reason that ship is so enormous is that it part farm, part garden park, and part ark. And yes quite possibly an alien world would screw up our immune systems unless it was incredibly simple, but in general worlds hosting alien life would be off limits for colonization. They're not valuable for anything but the life on them, and exposing yourself to the local biology seriously endangers it, not just yourself.

[@johnwang9914]

I believe that's why it's a gardener ship seeding multiple colonies. Some of the population decided to stay and colonize Tau Ceti and some decided to refit the ship to travel to Eridanis. Whenever you have a population of people, you will have some divergent views. Personally, I don't see such ships colonizing planets and moons at their destinations but building O'Neill Cylinders, Bernal Spheres and Stanford Toruses which in themselves might refit themselves as interstellar generation ships. The inhabitants may think it strange to live exposed on the surface of the planet, it isn't rational to make such a long journey with the prospects that a habitable planet or moon may not meet your expectations and such large space habitats can provide more Earth like conditions than many habitable planets and moons plus there's always the option of them becoming interstellar ships themselves.

[@capnbilll2913]

@@shronemor You will have crew that likes exploring, as well as some who become tired, and just want to settle down.

[@jonathanhensley6141]

Love how explains the dangers of traveling up to the SOL because the damage would destroy the ship. Wish we had hard science fiction shows that dealt with the science and engineering he talks about. Another great video.

[@bryantgyt]

This is my first viewing of one of you videos. Fantastic! ...Love the level of detail. Thanks

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks Bryant!

[@unclegrim]

I dunno man, fighter jets look cool as heck.

[@bigdaddymohurricane9936]

Uncle Grim lol f22 to the moon

[@danieldrake1061]

Fancy meeting you here. ;D

[@mgscheue]

And cars! Tell me a Ferrari 250 GTO isn't cool. :)

[@3er24t4g1]

Why do we need to track it? just use a massive wide beam laser the diameter of the ship?

[@shahafzm]

not all of the particals will travel in the same direction you are traveling so paritcals could hit you from any direction (not including the back)

[@thetraitor3852]

that's very unlikely at that speed. Actually it is very unlikely to happen even to an air plane.

[@johnwang9914]

The advantage of a laser is that you can focus the energy on a small space hence be enough to vaporize the target. Spread out the beam and you just light them up instead of vaporizing anything. When you burn an ant with sunlight through a magnifier glass, do you concentrate the light or spread it over a large area?

[@DinQuay]

I love your videos, I have learned so much

[@NightWanderer31415]

Awesome videos, I discovered your channel a couple months ago and it is really good content. Congrats mate

[@highlandrab19]

I will sit in a cannon and go to the stars!

[@Khannea]

Where are Niven stasis fields when you need em eh? I'll email aubrey about your next vid :)))

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Those would be handy :) I only mention him and SENS briefly, I think I quote him once and mention links to SENS in the video description a couple times. I'll probably play some SENS sub-categories as background slides too but at the end of the day they've already got very nice animations and talks there so I mostly bypassed it. I didn't want to focus on just one aging theory or treatment path and it was more about ramifications.

[@robfogg7459]

Narrators accent is evolving as is technology

[@plurallove2661]

Awesome, Isaac!

[@michaelkiddle3149]

If they put a supercomputer on the ship lets not call it Hal 9000.

[@calvingreene90]

Why? All you have to do is make sure he doesn't get ordered to lie. besides HAL is an AI.

[@DavidChipman]

Someone's read 2010, I see. *thumbs-up*

[@mikeloeven]

Fun fact most modern operating systems run HAL. This software layer is called the Hardware Abstraction Layer or HAL and It handles resource allocation and communication between physical devices and the software running on the computer.

[@adamdavies1068]

Michael Kiddle "Why not Dave?"

[@HuntingTarg]

+Mike Loeven Fun fiction fact; in the series, HAL stood for Heuristic Algorithmic Logic. In the movie 2010 Dr. Chandra had a prototype on earth called SAL, for Sequential Algorithmic Logic.

[@stefanblandin]

Hey Isaac! I'm a 3D artist specializing in spacecraft. Would you want a hand with modelling/rendering/texturing this stuff?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I'm always grateful for any graphics or special effects sent to the channel :)

[@stefanblandin]

Great to hear! However if I were to make actual content for you to use I'd need a bit of warning.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I can imagine, even my overly simplistic stuff often take hours to do, its why I use so much stock material. Besides the next aliens episode in two weeks, where basically any spaceship is handy, the next space material will be revisiting some of the topics from the early megastructures episodes. Space Stations, skyhooks, hypersonic craft, mass drivers etc. if any of that takes your interest. You can reach me at: [e-mail]

[@SkepticalZack]

Thanks for the amazing work!

[@michaelstreeter3125]

Isaac, this is brilliant! This is a real step change in sophistication compared with everything before. You must be very pleased with this. Well done.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

lol, actually like a lot of the episodes where I tried something a bit new I was worried it was a train wreck :)

[@adaptone9777]

if a grain of sand size object hits you with the force of a nuke, couldn't you just absorb that as kinetic energy and use it as fuel instead of trying to vaporize them?

[@templebrown7179]

Absorbing the kinetic energy would slow you down, not speed you up. An analogy would be hitting a stop-sign in a car. Even if you then threw the stop sign behind you by some mechanism, you had to absorb its inertia to handle it.

[@adaptone9777]

+Eisen Faust my thought process was they could use probes that fly in front of the ship that absorb the energy, then transmit it back to them. I saw something on shark tank a while back. It was a device that collected the kinetic energy from ocean waves and underwater earthquakes to use as electricity to power cities. If that tech is available right now, I would imagine that it would be far more advanced by the time we have kilometres long ships flying through space at large percentages of light speed. And we could just use whatever method of beaming the energy back to the ship that we would use in dyson swarm tech.. that way the ship itself doesn't ever actually have to take the impact, and the probes could even rotate and fly back to the ship for repairs or recycling. They could maybe even transmit the energy that way instead of beaming it back.

[@MrElectricVibration]

You'd Still have to deal with the probe being thrown of course , on earth we can build shock absorbers i imagine in space the shock absorbers would be lasers from the main ship. Who in turn have to deal with expenditure from fuel to fire those lasers ... but if you solve all these problem you could possible turn a piniata probe in a battery :D

[@stardude692001]

It's not that the objects you hit have energy, most of them are relatively motionless. The energy you are wanting to tap is energy already in your spaceship, hitting a stationary object converts some of your kinetic energy of your velocity into thermal energy in the explosion like event that is hitting these objects.

[@bozo5632]

+stardude692001 - Exactly.

[@kaczan3]

The biggest challenge will be keeping gender quotas away from the captain's chair.

[@robhosken2351]

This is the episode I was waiting for!

[@DigitalJedi]

I like how I can watch these videos in 144p to avoid it buffering on my terrible network and still not feel a drop in quality. These videos have stunning visuals, but I can just listen while I do my work and still be engaged.

[@trustin.p9504]

i am really enjoying your channel Isaac. i look forward to each new video. my thamks and all the best.👍

[@7bitryan848]

These videos are great keep it up my man

[@wallstreetoneil]

absolutely love your videos - bravo

[@gerardopalma6215]

Great job! Don't stop!

[@Verrisin]

I love this format! ^^

[@dustinshadle732]

I love your videos and humor. I got my brother in law and my ten year old nephew watching your videos and that kid soaks up stuff and surpirses his teachers with things he's learned from you!

[@buzzee9961]

Thanks for the great videos! Time is the only obstacle.

[@scotth6814]

best discussion I've ever watched on the issues of realistic interstellar travel

[@sparksmacoy]

Awesome video, you provided a lot of answers here to something I've been wondering about for a while. I get this is a channel about the far future but it would be cool if you did a video on what sort of structure we could cobble together in space in a seveneves type scenario in the near future (say within 10 or 20 years) as a way of contrasting what is possible with what is possible in the distant future.

[@mikebrennan5802]

Thank you for making these shows they are excellent… very well done I have learned so much from you. Thank you for spreading ur knowledges

[@36thorn]

I find I can make you out clearly enough without closed captions. Really enjoy your videos

[@wissamabdallah7279]

Amazing work!!

[@annoyed707]

I still like the notion of blasting the occasional cloud of dust particles ahead of the ship during the cruise and deceleration phases to knock larger particles out of the way, while also cutting a bit of mass that you would have slow down anyway.

[@gammaechofoundationproductions]

Issac, I completely agree with you that what we define as cool in terms of spacecraft design from sci-fi starships will change over time as we technologically advance to designing more realistic types of starships. Once again, another excellent episode! :)

[@swillm3ister]

I just want you to know, I really appreciate your work, sir.

[@swillm3ister]

Wild to come back 6 years later and see my comment... So much has changed. Got a fiance, then lost her to suicide... Then feeling the same myself.... Coming back here puts things into perspective. Thank you for all the great videos Isaac.

[@AustGamingAG]

I'm liking this channel alot