Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-09 00:08:09

The first part is to get a laser sail to Alpha Centauri, for that you need a 26 terawatt laser array, a Fresnel zone plate lens, a 100 km wide decelerator stage light sail, and a 30 km wide payload stage. This is the conventional part. We'll assume the payload stage carries nanotech assemblers, the light sail, once it reaches the Alpha Centauri system, sails around using starlight, once it matches velocity with the system, and it look for an asteroid of the right type. From that asteroid is assembles a laser receiver about 100 km wide, replicating itself a number of times to do this job, it then transmits back to the Solar System the location and orbit of the receiver so its location can be predicted ahead of time.

Now comes the time to transmit the first astronaut to Alpha Centauri.
First the astronaut undergoes a process called "reversible biostasis", his body is flooded with nanoassemblers which halt all biological processes in his body at the cellular level, while preserving all the information needed to restart that process later, that information is then uploaded to a computer and transmitted to the 26 terawatt laser, which then becomes a communications laser, it beams the cellular information of that astronaut to the awaiting laser receiver in the Alpha Centauri system, then the biostasis is reversed, the astronaut wakes up as if nothing has happened to him, he goes on to live his live on Earth or in the Solar System as usually. About 4.37 years later, the laser signal is received, the information is downloaded to a bunch of nanoassemblers that use that information to make a copy of that astronaut in biostasis, the assemblers then reverse that biostasis, and a copy of that astronaut wakes up in the Alpha Centauri Sytem ready to do some exploring.

What do you think of this idea? It would be a lot cheaper than bringing the original astronaut to the Alpha Centauri system. From the astronaut's point of view, he has a 50/50 chance of either waking up in the Solar System or at Alpha Centauri, as far as either version of him is concerned, he is the original and the other is a copy, both have the exact same memories and personality when both wake up, one 4.37 years after the other.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-09-09 00:09:47)

Antius · 2016-09-09 04:24:20

26TW is the amount of power produced by 20,000 PWR or BWR nuclear power plant units. If you can build those units for $2billion each, the power supply alone would cost $40trillion. And there is insufficient uranium mining capacity of Earth for fuel them at present. Whilst your proposal is technically possible, don't count on it being financed within your lifetime. We would need some very impressive space manufacturing capability to mount this sort of effort, something that a space based civilisation might do. We should concentrate on getting that going at a basic level, before blowing too much time on interstellar flight.

Last edited by Antius (2016-09-09 04:26:22)

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-09 07:57:31

It requires nanotech to happen, Nanotech can also get us into space and even mine the Uranium.

Terraformer · 2016-09-09 12:21:27

Why bother making a copy of a human, since you have some very potent AI anyway (how else are you going to manage the infrastructure build out)? Even if you insist on that, why beam the instructions instead of sending them with the ship?

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-09 12:32:41

Sending information is cheaper than sending matter, as you don't have to accelerate the light up to near the speed of light, it is already traveling at the speed of light. The actual "travel time" is the light speed distance, plus the time it takes to transfer the file containing all the cellular positioning, state, and connection information of the human body you wish to transfer, the original is not destroyed in this process, so a duplicate is made at the destination star. If you agreed to undergo this process, from your point of view, you would stand a 50/50 chance of being either the duplicate or the original when you woke up. Either the copy or the original would have a legitimate claim of being you, since both would have all the memories that you have, since those memories are part of your cellular data.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-09-09 12:33:25)

SpaceNut · 2016-09-09 21:08:44

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion

http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-scient … -in-3-days

The sail concept is light weight and has to be so as mass is the reason for our current methods of chemical propulsion over distance. The laser is a particle accelerator for photons artificially created but its the power source that would make them effective that is heavy and defeat the means to travel fast. I was reading that if we could sent power via microwave beam to the laser antenna tranciever then that now makes the sail a possible if we are in range of the unit at all times as beamed power does drop off as distance increases.

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-09 23:36:13

The thing is, you could send multiple people through digitization, one after another, while the same beam would have to be focused on a light sail for years.

100 trillion
The human body, consisting of about 100 trillion cells, carries about ten times as many micro-organisms in the intestines. The metabolic activities performed by these bacteria resemble those of an organ, leading some to liken gut bacteria to a “forgotten” organ.

I believe this is the level of complexity that defines who we are, so we would have to upload this information, transmit it by laser across 4.37 light years, and then reconstruct it at the other end. I think a laser that is 100 km wide is capable of doing this. Whether the person on the other end is the same person is an interesting question, if he has the same memories as the original, he would think he was.

Terraformer · 2016-09-10 07:28:33

But you're already sending matter. Why not send the instructions etched in, what, a single gram of diamond with multiple redundancy?

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-09-11 01:52:54

You could, but then you can transmit more through the laser, it becomes a portal to another star system, that is the point!

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#1 2016-09-09 00:08:09

Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#2 2016-09-09 04:24:20

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#3 2016-09-09 07:57:31

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#4 2016-09-09 12:21:27

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#5 2016-09-09 12:32:41

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#6 2016-09-09 21:08:44

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#7 2016-09-09 23:36:13

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#8 2016-09-10 07:28:33

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

#9 2016-09-11 01:52:54

Re: Laser Sail to Alpha Centauri, followed by human upload and download

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