Predictability ?

| Build | 30 yr to 200 AU |
| --- | --- |
|  | 50 yr to 1000 AU |

30 yr to 200 AU
Medium

| Tech & Build |  |  | Transit Centauri |  |  |  | Delay | Transmit Data |  |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Technology |  |  |  |  | Build |  |  | Transit Centauri 10%c |  |  |  | ? | Data |
| AI Asc?e nsion |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| 2020 | 2030 | 2040 |  | 2050 |  | 2060 |  | 2070 | 2080 | 2090 | 2100 | 2110 |  |

Transit Centauri
?
History Lessons
Rocket equation �︎ Liquid rocket
23 60, Nuclear science �︎  Grid power 70, Light bulb �︎  ENIAC 100, Steam-era & Verne’s moon fiction �︎ Apollo

[Figure: Fig. 3. Timescale of Interstellar Missions and Historic Technology Advances]

Side note: TVIW 2016 estimated it would take 4-centuries to build a world ship
There will also be unpredicted impacts from ancillary advances, such as from Artificial Intelligence (AI). Predictions of when AI will eclipse the capacity of the human mind (measured in "operations per second") span from 2030 to 2050 [42]. Speculating, will the AI advancements solve the challenge of fully-autonomous probe operation? Will AI processors become able to more quickly (and impartially) devise and test "grand unification" theories—perhaps resolving the unknowns of new propulsion physics? Either of these would be a significant, positive impact. If such desired functionality is pursued, it will at least offer a more optimistic path for when AI eclipses human abilities.
Millis 2018 Grant NNX17AE81G_for_CR.docx

pg 15 of 69

Another ancillary advancement that might impact the priorities behind interstellar flight is transhumanism, which means the continued merging of technology into the human body to enhance performance. Transhumanism has fewer scholarly articles from which to extract predictions and implications, yet it is already happening. Examples include dental fillings, eye glasses, hearing aids, pacemakers, replaced joints, cochlear implants, etc. Will this expand to making humans able to tolerate indefinite periods at low gravity, or able to enter synthetic hibernation to endure long space voyages? While only crude speculations at this time, the potential impact to watch for is a shift in priorities from probes to human journeys.
As much as continuing advances in science and technology will make it easier to launch an interstellar mission, these advances also create a quandary, the "Incessant Obsolescence Postulate"—no matter when an interstellar probe is launched, a subsequent probe will reach the destination sooner and with more modern equipment. This is only a postulate, not a theorem nor even a principle. It is presented here not as an immutable constraint, but as one of the assumed impediments for pursuing interstellar missions.
As an aside, the term, Incessant Obsolescence Postulate, was first coined by the author around 1999 [5 p.157]. This same notion has been called “catch me if you can” [43], the "incentive trap," by Andrew Kennedy [44] and "Zeno’s paradox in reverse," by David Brin (a term possibly originating during the 1994 workshop; “Interstellar Robotic Probes–Are we ready?” [43]) Although this Incessant Obsolescence Postulate might appear valid, it will eventually expire. Due to the combination of the nonlinear nature of both advancement trends and relativistic spaceflight, there will be a point where an optimum launch opportunity occurs [44,45]. Waiting longer does not get you to the destination sooner. Kennedy dubbed his optimization calculation the “wait equation” [44]. Approximately when missions begin to take less than a generation (20-30 years), there is no need to wait longer [45]. Conversely, when mission times are much longer, then investing in technology to improve mission time is a credible strategy.
In addition to the eventual expiration of incessant obsolescence, the most significant factor that renders it irrelevant is if the motive is something other than being first, such as technology development.