44 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
44 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "The Generation Ship Problem"
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tags: ["Volatile Mediums"]
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date: 2021-03-19T15:00:00-04:00
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draft: false
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---
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After talking about the hardware and software problems of
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digital permanence, I'm struck by a classical Sci-Fi
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motif with a conundrum: the **Generation Ship**; a ship
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outfitted with all of the technology, infrastructure, and
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storage to support lightyear-scale human travel.
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But what about that technology on the ship? If we build
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one of these ships, we need to accomplish one of several
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things in regards to information storage:
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### 1. Innovate to the point where the lifetime of the storage devices is able to support lightyear scale travel.
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That's a tall order, given where we are right now with
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physical storage devices. As I mentioned in one of my
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previous posts, the average lifetime of physical storage
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devices is less than 100 years, no matter if it is a hard
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drive, solid-state drive, etc.
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### 2. Provide the facility to create new storage devices to replace the failing old ones.
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Again, in my mind a tall order, since it would require
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facilities on the ship to create storage devices. The
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problem of having materials is at least solvable by just
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sending the ship with all of the materials it needs in
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advance.
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### 3. Provide the facility to revitalize storage devices.
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One of the main reasons I'm even thinking about this is
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because I'm an individual with limited resources.
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Accordingly, I think about things in terms of
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broken/working, on/off, etc. With enough resources, there
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is a much larger chance of being able to repair, re-purpose,
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and otherwise revitalize storage devices, increasing their
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lifetime. E.g., if the only failure in the hard drive is the
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control circuit, that is an "easy enough" repair.
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I like to toy with the idea of a generation ship a lot in
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my head, but I think it's really fun to think about the
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technical possibilities and needs of a ship like this.
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