We're not going to travel beyond the solar system, according to Leonard Susskind. And neither are aliens, coming to visit us.
We may not be alone, but we are stuck here for, essentially forever.
1. The nearest star is 4.24 light years away. The fastest spacecraft ever built would require 6,600 years to get there.
2. Surely we can just build faster spacecraft. The problem is to get to anywhere close to the speed of light, we need exponentially more energy.
3. Chemical rockets will just not work. Even fusion rockets won't work. Even 10% of the speed of light is not achievable. The Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation prevents it.
4. Interstellar dust becomes hand grenades when traveling anywhere close to the speed of light. Ships break.
5. Space radiation will kill us over the time need to travel interstellar distances. Impossible to protect without massive shields, which require massive energy to accelerate and de-accelerate.
Without a frontier, there's a strong likelihood that we devolve into mouse utopia
This is why space exploration is far more important than most people realize
Announcing ARC-AGI-3
The only unsaturated agentic intelligence benchmark in the world
Humans score 100%, AI <1%
This human-AI gap demonstrates we do not yet have AGI
Most benchmarks test what models already know, ARC-AGI-3 tests how they learn
@A_J_Higgins@loudoggeek what is a "sufficient" amount? from my understanding, their current bottleneck is demonstrating fusion conditions in pfrc. is the major cost driver magnets?
@A_J_Higgins@loudoggeek chemical propulsion won't ever break the launch window dependence, you'll still need some form of continuous thrust trajectory for that
NASA is building SR-1 Freedom, a nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft, launching to Mars in 2028.
We are proud to announce this during the 250th year of the United States, the mission’s name reflects the spirit of American innovation and exploration.
This mission will bring America’s nuclear power capabilities to space and deliver the Skyfall payload of Ingenuity class helicopters to explore the Red Planet.
Nuclear power and propulsion will be the key to undertaking crewed missions to Mars and exploring the outer solar system.
Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom will make the next giant leap and accomplish a key component of President Trump’s National Space Policy, bringing nuclear to space alongside @Energy.
We’re saying goodbye to the Sora app. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.
We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work. – The Sora Team