Do you think a world with immortality would be a world without children?

I thing downloading something from an Earth-based server when you're half-way to Alpha Centauri could be problematic.

Expensive. Definitely expensive.

You still need food. And power. I think the current "we should go to other stars community" designs involve an external powersource, simply because you can never bring enough with you.

If that's true, build an orbital superlaser array. use the light to power the ship. Fire the light in pulses in such a way that it acts as a datastream too. Downloading stuff while it propels your ship too. Can't fail.

A) onboard fusion reactor + bussard ramjet = WIN.
B) Immortality may or may not mean you don't need food depending on how you define it.

Yea the ramjet was kicked out. Turns out it creates more drag than thrust. I can spend hours debating this, but it boils down to: The distance is orders of magnitude above anything in the solar system. Nothing we have can really take us there in a reasonable amount of time. Things like older starships being overtaken by newer ones is part of the problem. It's complex.

Though the easiest solution so far seems to involve a black-hole powered craft.

To be honest, I still think there is a loophole for our energy problems waiting to be discovered in the woodwork. Trouble is, we haven't found it quite yet.

Otherwise, we'll be beaten over the head by Physics post-docs about how we can't go there because we don't have the energy.

We'll just capture a Tardis, harness it's hidden power, and somehow manage to keep an ancient warrior with technology so advanced it looks like magic from stopping our meddling.

It's only a 3 step process! I passed the KISS test!

But he's Scottish and has mad eyebrows!

I forgot about those...... Dammit

Yep. It only involves creating Von Neumann robots, stripmining mercury for it's resources, creating a few billion square meters of solar panels around the sun, creating a massive spherical gamma laser array and firing it to create a black hole. Stick a blast shield on one end and you have a ship.

Oh we do have the energy. The problem is that a chemical rocket going to the next star would have to be the size of our solar system. Even a small nuclear powered craft would have a mass ratio (fuel:actual ship) in the hundreds. So you're sending a gargantuan fuel tank bigger than any craft we've ever built. All you can stick on it is a smartphone.

It would require nothing short of a series of breakthroughs in every engineering aspect of it to get there. the next star is a few hundred solar systems too far.

Exactly like I said. The post-docs eating us alive with cynicism.

Nah. The main thing is that Sci Fi has made it look way too easy.

I know this. I've researched into Astrophysics and Q Mechanics quite a bit. I still think we are missing something.

The fact that two of the most successful scientific theories in history contradict each other is a pretty obvious clue.

94% of the cosmos is made of stuff we cant see and don't understand.

the capabilities of a type II civilization

EDIT: sorry that's unreasonable. I would consider a post-I civilization enough. given it's logarithmic scale it's a bit difficult to convey, but essentially a I-1/2 civilization. As far from being a pure I as it is from being a II.

Being able to harness the energy of multiple planets within one solar system.

#wordsmakeiteasier

HE'S RUSSIAN.