Saturday 21 April 2012

"A Wilderness of Stars"

Even with faster than light spacecraft, science fiction (sf) characters rarely venture outside their home galaxy. While traveling within the galaxy, Poul Anderson's David Falkayn sees "...a wilderness of stars...," including the Milky Way, its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, and its sister galaxy in Andromeda. (1) These names evoke a few other sf works. Both Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven present an entire species fleeing from the Milky Way to a Magellanic Cloud. Asimov's non-human beings, few in number, need only a hyperspace ship or two whereas Niven's beings, an entire population, travel at sub-light speeds in a Fleet of Worlds.
 
In James Blish's Okies tetralogy:

New York flies to the Greater Magellanic Cloud;
Mayor Amalfi of New York becomes Mayor of the Cloud;
the dirigible planet He flies from the Milky Way to and through the Andromeda galaxy, then to the Greater Magellanic;
Hevians, accompanied by Amalfi and other New Earthmen, fly He to the Metagalactic Center where they briefly survive a cosmic collision;
the concluding one and a quarter volumes are, unusually, set entirely outside this galaxy.

Although Falkayn, while viewing the Magellanic and Andromeda galaxies, makes only a comparatively short interstellar journey, he addresses cosmic issues, like the aftermath of a supernova, that match those presented by Blish. Falkayn does not expect to travel much further:

"...the Magellanic Cloud and the Andromeda galaxy made small and strange by distances he would never see overleaped." (1)

Centuries after Falkayn, human beings have travelled around two or three spiral arms but remain within the galaxy. 
 
Elsewhere, Anderson does present:

faster than light intergalactic travel by human beings in The Avatar;
an intergalactic civilization in World Without Stars;
slower than light (STL) travel as far as the Magellanics and the Andromeda by self-programming artificial intelligences in Genesis; 

relativistically accelerating STL flight between clusters of clusters of galaxies and into the next universe in Tau Zero.

In World Without Stars, human beings no longer die of old age or disease and spaceships can make instantaneous jumps across intergalactic distances albeit with time-consuming spatial journeys between jumps. There is therefore both time and capacity for intergalactic exploration and for trade with the "Yonderfolk" of other galaxies although most of the action of the novel occurs on a planet orbiting a lone star located between galaxies. Anderson's attention to details and to scientific precision ensure that his works match the sometimes more spectacular-sounding events of Niven's Known Space or Blish's Okies.

(1) Poul Anderson, Mirkheim, London, 1978, p. 59.

9 comments:

tonyon said...

...interstellar travel constant acceleration (times to reach light-speed)... 1g (9.8 mts/sec²)=354 days ... *... 0.5g (4.9 mts/sec²)=1.94 years ...*... 0.25g (2.45 mts/sec²)=3.88 years ...*... 0.1g (98 cms/sec²)=9.7 years ...*... 0.01g (9.8 cms/sec²)=97 years ...*... 0.001g (9.8 mms/sec²)=970 years ______ Huge constant acceleration the ship, living areas to 1g: inside the living areas..."the same as going submerged in water"...<>... 2g (19.6 mts/sec²)=177 days ...<>... 10g (98 mts/sec²)=35.4 days ...<>... 100g (980 mts/sec²)=3.54 days ...<>... 1000g (9.8 kms/sec²)=8.5 hours ...<>... 10000g (98 kms/sec²)=51 minutes ...<>... 50000g (490 kms/sec²)=10.2 minutes ...<>... 100000g (980 kms/sec²)=5.1 minutes ...<>... 1 million G (9800 kms/sec²)=30.6 seconds... ((typewrite: interstellar travel constant acceleration))

Sean M. Brooks said...

Greetings, tonyon!

I'm impressed and I don't pretend to understand your mathematics! And I only wish we had at least a practical STL drive!

Sean

tonyon said...

(2b)...interstellar travel (thousands G of constant acceleration)... electromagnetic force creating artificial gravitational force: "electrogravitics" effect, electric currents very high voltage using Tesla/Brown electromagnets and capacitors...gravitational transformers... They say that secret Tesla coils are so powerful that bend the same Gravity and the Ships and crews do not feel sudden accelerations or directional trajectory changes. So perhaps instead of antimatter rockets, in the future Spacecrafts will use Tesla anti-electromagnetic field impulse...

tonyon said...

...interstellar travel not acceleration constant (graphene: planet errant)... every bit a Terraformed planet errant into a bubble graphene how diamond transparent...with fusion reactors which will give the light and heat how an artificial sun, encircling an antigravitational field Tesla/Brown "electrogravitics" prevents objects collision against the "blue-arch of heaven"... Who need already a star...

tonyon said...

...electric cars (charge in street lamps)... every street-lamp of the World with e.g. 4 standard electric-plugs 220 v.ac. Each electric car exits from factory obligatorily with 2 electric-plugs 220 v.ac, one of entrance and other of exit. ENTRANCE PLUG: the car´s inverter adapts the network-current to the adequate voltage of the car. EXIT PLUG: available for whichever car that arrives after and cans connect in line one another. When a car finishes its charge, disconnects and goes away, the others go advancing towards the street-lamp and connect again one another. So nobody have that wait for. How the GRAPHENE BATTERIES Have Not Memory Effect, they can disconnect/connect without problem. If government has that give money for that electric-charge to each one, can do it applying a money-charge by kms/year declared. Electric car´s charge solved the problem. Have to put already the plugs in all street-lamps around the World, and the factories to put those 2 electric-plugs to all cars, finished the electric-charge´s actual problem, for electric cars.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, tonyon!

Thanks for your comments, even if I don't always understand your discussion of scientific matters. And I like the possibility that electro/gravitics might be practical!

What I do feel able to comment on is my skepticism about the alleged value, at least for now, of electric cars. How are Tesla cars, for example, going to do any if, first, they are far too costly to buy for most of us; and secondly, does not actually reduce use of fossil fuels if the power generating plants uses them?

Sean

tonyon said...

OBVIOUSLY USING TECH-ARTEFACTS DRONES, BALLOONS, RELIGIOUS-MISERABLES-RELIGIOUS ARE BURNING THE FORESTS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Tonyon.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, tonyon!

Regrettably, I don't understand your comment.

Sean