Fastest Possible Interstellar Ship Construction and Launch

[Admiral_Ritt]

So how about that When Worlds Collide Scenario, but with a twist.

A low mass black hole is inbound at tremendous speed. (it was part of
a double star and the other star went NOVA and sent companion
black hole loose.) There is window of 10 years before the black
hole arrives and it's course comes close enough to shred our SUN.

What would be the fastest way to save the most people
either on many ships or one big one, using nuclear pulse propulsion.

The target destination is up to you, however you must keep the
refugess alive until they can rebuild and build a sustainable existence
at their destination.

 

[Artlav]

We're screwed.

There are no known habitable worlds outside Sol, there is no conceivable way of bulk interstellar travel buildable in a decade, there is no conceivable way of terraforming a planet within a life time of any hardware we can make.

To escape we need to build something large enough to sustain generations, or fast enough to get there within a lifetime.
Neither is very feasible.

Better stay on Earth and weather the storm - if black hole hits square on, the sun will go nova, and a few light years of distance won't help anyway, if the impact is tangential, then the sun would coalesce and reignite over time, and hopefully the planets won't be thrown too far out of their orbits.

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

I think it would be possible to save about 3,000 persons all adults and
older teens.


All on one "ship"

we would need find a small dirty icy asteroid in the Belt. <1km> size.
deviate so comes closer to earth so we may transport equiment
to it without using so much fuel.

Dig using heat and hollow out toruses to create living accomodations.

The big needs that have to be transported there

are:
Nuclear Power Plants Small, but quite a few
Nuclear fuel and breeder infrastructure
Organics/Soil
Plastic extrusion molding tech, to separate insulate from ice.
Refinery processing, crude oil.
stock pile of Rare elements that are neccesary for technology or life systems.
small industrial plants that can churn out various processed materials.
Loads of die cutting, CAD, infrastructure.
Solar planels, (you never know)
Loads of nuclear bombs/propulsion and the infrastruture to make more.
Radiators/ You will need to vent some heat, or your home will evaporate.
Heat Sinks
bring extra genetic material

Reusable Reentry vechicles, though they wont be needed for a thousand
years atleast. build their shell.

you willl also need to spin the ice ball
and you will need to assemble a pusher plate at the poles of said ice ball.

If you pick the right dirty ice ball it will provide you will alot materials

We could not bring any large animals unless in embryo form
so nothing bigger than a house cat. And I am not sure I would bring
a breeding cats. Fish and Nutria would probably be our protein menu.

The target star ?? Closest that has rocky plane& sun similar to ours.(G,K)

lenght of voyage, Hopefully not 70,000 years. more like 2-3,000 yrs
at .01 C where does that leave us as far as targets? I leave that
out there.......

 

[jedidia]

I think it would be possible to save about 3,000 persons all adults and
older teens.

Even if possible, It is very questionable if this is a large enough gene pool to restart the human race. Given they survive the journey at all.

 

[garyw]

10 years? Not possible. First of all the gravitational effects of the black hole will be felt years before hand - assuming that it's 10 years before those effects hit Earth it'll still take 7 years to even come up with a launcher capable of assembling a ship big enough to carry 3,000 plus. Look how long the ISS took to build and that can sustain 6 all the time - 14 at a push.

The best hope here is a Delta II with an ion probe and several thousand DNA samples and hope that panspermia is real.

Even if possible, It is very questionable if this is a large enough gene pool to restart the human race. Given they survive the journey at all.

I believe the minimum number required is 36. This provides a sufficiently diverse gene pool to avoid issues of genetic illnesses.

 

[T.Neo]

The best hope here is a Delta II with an ion probe and several thousand DNA samples and hope that panspermia is real.

Where do you send this ersatz hope of survival? DNA samples alone do not constitute a viable transmittance of life, and most of space is desolate. Even more of it is empty...

 

[garyw]

And that is a good question - Several probe launches to different parts of the void? maybe one towards a super Earth. It's a billion-to-one chance but it's the only hope as I see it.

 

[APDAF]

If there is a black hole near the solar system then any probe will most likely be sucked into the said black hole.

 

[garyw]

If the black hole is that close then the gravitational tide effects on Earth will be so strong we won't even be launching probes. At that point it's GAME OVER with no lives left.

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

Okay, let say it's 11 years, Because even a 10 solar black hole would
not disturb the inner system for quite a while. after all this hole is traveling
at 2,000,000 Mph Or 2000 days for 1000 AU,

I think we would have around 4 years to get a ground launched
nuclear pulse base ship, since I think you guys are right, the
human crew would have to depart BEFORE, the asteroid is made
ready. probaly just a few tunels at start. the crew + ship
+ asteroid have to LIGHT OUT OF THERE FAST, or it gets pulled
along with debris of the solar system.

Since there is little time to build such a ship.
how about using Modified CRUISE ships something 5 of them near
a coast, Drag them on to a pusher plate and secure.

 

[APDAF]

:facepalm:

 

[Ark]

10 years? Not possible. 20...maybe. Forget about a coordinated worldwide survival effort, it will be country by country and faction by faction. China is not going to divert huge amounts of resources to support a missile that will save a few Chinese people, they'll hoard everything and build their own. Same for the US or Russia or the parts of Europe that control the resources necessary.

The US would dredge up the Project Orion blueprints and go for broke with one or two ships. We might pack ours with living people because it would be required to secure loyalty and funding to make the project happen (think packing the ship with children of generals and industrialists in Baxter's Ark). The Chinese would have a skeleton crew and a load of Han Chinese frozen embryos or something. I could see them playing the really long game and sending multiple ships in different directions at relatively slower speeds.

Destination may be left undetermined and up to the ship's crew. We can identify possible suitable planets, but probably couldn't confirm the conditions until the ship is relatively close to a target. Alternatively...who the hell says it needs to be another Earth? The goal is for the species to survive the Sun going nova. Why can't we just limp over to Alpha Centauri at a few percent the speed of light? Find some rocks to colonize? We could build a civilization on an airless body, sci-fi writers have been coming up with ways to make the Moon independent for decades. We don't have to fly hundreds of light years to another Earth, just land someplace that has the basic raw materials to sustain civilization, and continue to evolve and develop.

 

[garyw]

Okay, let say it's 11 years, Because even a 10 solar black hole would
not disturb the inner system for quite a while. after all this hole is traveling
at 2,000,000 Mph Or 2000 days for 1000 AU,

Wrong. Even out at the Oort cloud it would disrupt the debris flinging it inwards. Some will hit Jupiter and some other words - like Earth. A black hole transiting the solar system would have devastating events long before it affected Earth. The gravitational waves even a 10 solar mass black hole would be giving off would spell the end for Earth years before it reached us.

I think we would have around 4 years to get a ground launched
nuclear pulse base ship,

Based on what and why nuclear pusher plate? Even ignorning safety it'll take 6 years+ to get the tech in place to launch one of these.

since I think you guys are right, the
human crew would have to depart BEFORE, the asteroid is made
ready.

using what?

probaly just a few tunels at start. the crew + ship
+ asteroid have to LIGHT OUT OF THERE FAST, or it gets pulled
along with debris of the solar system.

I have no idea what this means. You've lost me.

Since there is little time to build such a ship.
how about using Modified CRUISE ships something 5 of them near
a coast, Drag them on to a pusher plate and secure.

Hang on. Do you cruise ship as in the Queen Mary? That beauty weighs in at 148,528 tonnes and.... well, I'm not even going to list the issues because it's just not an option.

 

[orbitingpluto]

I have the solution!!!

Take a submarine and hook it up with Dean Drives. Crew it with a wacky band of international misfits and outcasts, and to captain the ship send a bland Everyman-type guy. Naturally arm the submarine with lasers and a few nukes, because there is bound to be some malevolent force behind the black hole speeding towards us. Naming the ship would be tough though, as it has to be symbolic and awe inspiring, but it can't be something blatantly nationalistic like Canada or Rus. Terra is the only thing that comes to my mind, but it isn't awe inspiring enough.

It might not matter though. Given the climate nowadays, the crew might become so bitterly divided not even the Captain can hold them together, or they may triumph for a moment before a space whale comes out of nowhere and eats them. Such is real life these days.

 

[Linguofreak]

Wrong. Even out at the Oort cloud it would disrupt the debris flinging it inwards.

I doubt it. Supernova remnants (stellar mass black holes and neutron stars) tend to have quite high velocities (several hundred km/s), so our incoming black hole wouldn't be in the neighborhood of any one comet for long. It would thus have to pass quite close to a comet to scatter it inward.

The gravitational waves even a 10 solar mass black hole would be giving off would spell the end for Earth years before it reached us.

A solitary black hole would not give off any gravitational waves (except in its formation). It's only effect on the solar system would be the effect of its normal gravitational field on the orbits of solar system objects.

Velocities on the order of 100's of km/s correspond to velocities of at least 20 AU/year, which means that the point where the black hole's gravitational influence on Earth (for a 10 solar mass hole) exceeds the Sun's will come at most 6 months before it passes through the inner system. So there's not really going to be a lot of disruption "years before", unless a comet actually does get scattered insystem and hit a planet (and even then, the effects will be limited to the hit planet).

 

[Hlynkacg]

Realistically?

Don't waste time and resources building a spaceship.

If the disaster is big enough to utterly destroy the earth and or solar system you aint going to outrun it with anything short of FTL.

If the disaster isn't enough to utterly destroy the earth and or solar system...

Instead treat the scenario like old school nuclear apocalypse. Spend your time digging shelters burying infrastructure setting up hydroponic gardens etc... so that at least the survivors will have a chance of rebuilding.

 

[Admiral_Ritt]

Staying in the solar system or on Earth is a non-starter.
As the black hole shreds the sun, intense X-rays and Gamma rays would bathe all bodies near-by. Unless you make a base deep under the oceans, but wait.....geologic disturbances will crush your base
due to techtonic activity. If you dig mines on a solid rocky moon, it's too big to spin it up for gravity, assuming you need at least 2/3 G for healthy human habitation. If you migrated to planet/moon where calculations show it would be cut loose of the solar system is no good either, probably woudn't move
fast enough to get away from the radiation, and not to mention you cant choose your destination.

No gentlemen and raspberry section: Leaving and leaving fast would be the only viable option. But what all of you say is true, it would be a long shot, and alot things would not be ready, you would need
people who are the definition of thinking on your feet and out of the box thinking type minds.

I do think using modified cruise liners and placing them on pusher plates for a ground launch is the only solution that has a chance of working in the time alloted, then fly to a dirty ice ball get it moving at a significant speed, and make a home of it.

The long shot, Is not in the preparation and launch,
its' the damn journey. the list of death modes could fill an old thumb drive.

 

[Artlav]

As the black hole shreds the sun, intense X-rays and Gamma rays would bathe all bodies near-by.

Which are shielded against by AIR of our planet.
If they are strong enough to penetrate that, a few dozen meters underground will attenuate the rest (but the chemical mayhem would render the surface more than inhospitable).

You should be more worried about the heat and light flux than radiation.

I do think using modified cruise liners and placing them on pusher plates for a ground launch is the only solution that has a chance of working in the time alloted,

These are not pressurized. They have no structural integrity along the vertical axis.
Making one space-worthy would be a project comparable with building one anew.

then fly to a dirty ice ball get it moving at a significant speed, and make a home of it.

So, the ship have to pack up everything you want to have on the ice ball, including everything to make the iceball's engine?
How do you imagine that to work?
Why even bother with the iceball - just set off on the ship.


Then, why leave far?
Just get far enough away to weather the storm, then come back.
There will still be something star-like there to provide heat, and lots of rocks and materials to start with.

Decimated solar system is as good a place as any other star system, only it would be much closer.

 

[Ghostrider]

Why bother sending anyone somewhere in space? Make use of that black hole and send a ship back in time. That way you'll be in a position to actually do something.:idea:

 

[T.Neo]

No way out of the solar system, no way for mass transit off the planet, no way to sustain large numbers of people over significant timescales without access to a biosphere, and no way to do it in ten years.

Of course, even if you could build an interstellar ark, and it could work, and it could be done in ten years... where do you send it? We simply do not know enough about the planetary neighborhoods of nearby stars to select any worthwhile targets. We think there's debris belts and some outer gas giants around Epsilon Eridani, a close-in super Earth around Gliese 674, and a super Earth and some gas giants around Gliese 876, and that's pretty much it within 15 light years. You simply can't send a colony ship to a star system on the chance that there's a habitable planet there, because such a planet will most likely be absent.