Comments on: Starship Troupers https://www.isegoria.net/2016/11/starship-troupers/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Fri, 26 Jun 2026 21:34:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Slovenian Guest https://www.isegoria.net/2016/11/starship-troupers/comment-page-1/#comment-2511948 Slovenian Guest Sun, 13 Nov 2016 11:41:43 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=41070#comment-2511948 But the moon is close enough, and positioned just right, so that we could build an Earth-Moon Tunnel!

]]> By: Kudzu Bob https://www.isegoria.net/2016/11/starship-troupers/comment-page-1/#comment-2511892 Kudzu Bob Sun, 13 Nov 2016 04:30:01 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=41070#comment-2511892 Freeman Dyson once remarked that interstellar flight is a problem not of engineering but of biology. My sense is that he was thinking in terms of suspended animation or of radical life extension for the crews of very long space voyages, but another way that the matter could be approached is to use genetic engineering (which we seem to be getting better at) to boost IQ significantly. If we produce super-genius humans, then they might figure out a way for us to reach the stars.

]]> By: Scipio Americanus https://www.isegoria.net/2016/11/starship-troupers/comment-page-1/#comment-2511845 Scipio Americanus Sun, 13 Nov 2016 00:16:04 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=41070#comment-2511845 Ross, it turned out that the drag from the magnetic particle collection field is bigger than the thrust produced even if the system is perfectly efficient. There are some alternative designs that don’t slow the collected matter down so much or use antimatter to catalyze the fusion reaction, but it’s a thornier engineering problem (not that the basic ramjet wasn’t already!).

That said, with respect to “But they have not answered the question of why anyone would want to go to all the trouble of building one” the answer is that a planetary civilization probably wouldn’t. However, for a solar civilization utilizing a decent percentage of the solar-system’s industrial resources and having a population of trillions or tens of trillions spread across habs and colonies throughout the system, it’s much more reasonable.

]]> By: Ross https://www.isegoria.net/2016/11/starship-troupers/comment-page-1/#comment-2511818 Ross Sat, 12 Nov 2016 21:50:08 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=41070#comment-2511818 No Bussard love? Interstellar ramjet?

]]>