Interstellar Wide Web

It is human imagination that got us this far, as we build on ideas, so much farther we will go. Over the next few years, we will have discovered dozens of planets that are earth-like. They are earth-like in that they are of similar size, as well as distance from their sun. We probably won't be able to know for sure if they have life, but of the dozens we will have founds, surely some of them will have life. And if life has existed their for a long time, there is a strong likelihood that intelligent life that possesses knowledge equal to or beyond our own will exist.

What has been discouraging is the fact that most of these planets we will find will be anywhere from several light years to hundreds of light years away from Earth. A light year is 5.88 Trillion miles, so the likelihood of us travelling that distance in one person's lifetime is not very good. And the idea of putting people is ships in hibernation is probably not something that people are going to be ready to do anytime soon, especially since we have not communicated with any other living species or found another planet that is sufficiently suitable for life.

But I propose something should help us toward that end, and increase the speed at which we can reach other planets and communicate with other life. What we need to begin to build is an "Interstellar Wide Web" (or IWW).

Already we have been able to create an amazing internet or World Wide Web here on Earth, and with some modification, we should be able to expand that web into outer space, and even include nearby solar systems. Obviously, the bandwidth and speed of communication will be slow initially, but as the network expands, there will be more of a "web" where a given message can travel via the fastest path, and get around bottlenecks.

Supposing we set a goal to launch several spacecrafts per year, there will always be a certain number of crafts within a few million miles. If we are consistent and continue to make launches, and of course have a method for each craft to communicate with the others, in a matter of a few years, we will have quite a network that expands millions or even billions of miles from our Earth.

Because we will likely have some good candidates for planets that contain life we will surely want to focus many of the craft on certain destinations. In some case we may be able to find stars, large asteroids or other planets where the craft can either orbit or land, and hopefully increase the lifespan of the craft.

Surely, over time we will get better at building the craft, as well as create a variety of different craft, and do so efficiently. Some craft may contain strong telescopes to help scout the galaxy. Others may serve as communication hubs. Others may have what is needed to perform a landing. Others may serve to backup data that is collected. 

It may takes a few years or even a few decades, but at some point, following this course, we are extremely likely to find ourselves communicating with beings from another planet. If we are lucky, these beings will be able to share information with us, and we will be able to work together to increase the ability to communicate in the Interstellar Wide Web.

This scenario is much more likely the way we will discover intelligent life. And once we discover it, surely it will be many more decades before we actually make first contact in likely a most humble way. Hopefully, we will find that we have friends that will help us understand ourselves better, and even solve some of our worst problems.

I hope that the IWW can at least be started in the next few years, as it could provide so much for humanity.

Written by D DuVal of Link Spectacular

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