Projects enduring multiple generations

There is a thought or question the article "Aliens Apart" ( www.space.com/searchforlife/071206-seti ... apart.html ) is causing me - but which was fragmentally thinking about several times ago already.

The article says .

What are we missing at present to controll, keep and maintain such a project that would endure up to hunredes or even thousands of generations?

What kinds of methods and techniques might be required to enable such projects? Beyond PCs, Internet, Number Crunches and Supercomputers?

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Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Perhaps we change the rules and make the generations longer?

http://io9.com/345728/geneticists-disco ... -800-years

You would need a legal structure that kept out of the way and was difficult to change.

In the U.S. something like a black prject created by a constitutional amendment or something. Apollo took a presidential martydom.

Or an isolated environment, operated by machines. Think intergalactic voyage.

For it to be plausible here on Earth, or in any environment with humans, we would need a lot more stability than what today's technological and political turmoil offer. If we can't even predict what will happen 15 years into the future, how can we make plans to last 100 times that?

We already have space projects "enduring multiple generations". For example Voyager 1+2 and Pioneer 10+11 are (or were for those who are no longer transmitting today) already that long underway that their original constructors are dead or retired.

Or get the Rothschilds to build it.

According to myth, it took Noah 100 years to build his ark.

One way to maintain a long construction process is to have it wholey owned by a wealthy family.

I do hope that was a joke @idiom

Problem nowadays is government and lack of societal cohesion. Plus, every single person has a different 'best interest' and different things he or she (dis)likes.

So yes, expanding life to biological immortallity is one way to do it. Or maybe as the old family businesses did it. Create offspring and train them in every which way as your follow-up.

But then again, old rules don't apply in an ever renewing world.

Hello, Minthos,

knowledge about what will happen in 100 years or a million years is not required to do and control projects lasting lots of generations because it is possible already to consider alternative scenarios. In Enterprise Economics there are principles and methods to plan even for times not known much about.

Another point is that I don't apply the term "project" for construction only - the term has a wider meaning. For example when all construction of a probe and its insturments is done and ready and the probe has been launched into interplanetary space the interplanetary research project it's doing isn't termineated yet - it's just starting to be done. In other words - missions are project.

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Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Once the thing is operating it is easy to keep operating because of the perceived investment. Witness the ISS and the Shuttle.

However a lot of projects have been abandoned at 95% completetion.

In principle ther were no real projects yet that lasted several generations. A generation seriously at work lasts no longer than 50 years in Germany which is the time between leaving school and retiring from having to work all day.

So a project lasting several generations would last significantly longer than 50 years - 100 years at two generations, 150 years at three generations and so on.

The Voyager project lasts 30 years up to now - and I am not that sure if it really fits into what I have in mind here.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

The United States of America is one project that has lasted over many generations. The University of Texas is another that comes to mind right away. There are a lot of projects that have been in progress all over the world for generations guy's

Monroe

I don't know that we could build Cathederals today. We would build them a lot faster, the literal cathederals.

But there are few people willing to embark on a project they know they will not see completed.

Terraforming Mars springs to mind. 700 years from now a Terraformed Mars would be an amazing return on investment.

Ideals are the driving force for generational projects not Ideas. With a sufficent Ideal funding is less important because the hearts and minds come together in Ideals. I hate to bring Hitler into this but his Ideal was quite powerful. And Kenedy had an Ideal as well about going to the moon. A visonary with a compelling enough Ideal and the drive to present it and enough ability to transmit it from the proper platform could do almost anything.

Monroe