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On the Question of Interstellar Travel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

John H. Wolfe*
Affiliation:
Ames Research Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Abstract

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Arguments are presented which show that motives for interstellar travel by advanced technological civilizations based on an extrapolation of Earth's history may be quite invalid. In addition, it is proposed that interstellar travel is so enormously expensive and perhaps so hazardous, that advanced civilizations do not engage in such practices because of the ease of information transfer via interstellar communication.

Type
Section VII. The Fermi Paradox and Alternative Search Strategies
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1985 

References

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