Re: Fermi's Paradox and FTL drives

Allen Thomson <thomsona@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:75c0ad96-61a2-4ca1-8fce-36462eff9e77
@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 

> On Feb 3, 12:28 pm, Gene Ward Smith <g...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
wrote:
> 
> 
>> What the hell is feeble-grade FTL?
> 
> Effective speed of 1000 c or less.

Compared to what? Where you left? Where you arrive? The cosmic 
background radiation?

>> Why, if it can't handle  other galaxies, can it handle 
ours--or is
>> that out also? 
> 
> Interstellar distances are a lot less than intergalactic 
ones. 

Not really. The Milky Way is 100,000 or so across.  The Canis 
Major Dwarf galaxy is 25,000 ly away, the SagDEG is 70,000 ly 
away, the Large Magellanic Cloud is 160,000 ly away, the Small 
Magellanic Cloud 200,000 ly away. The Andromeda galaxy, even 
larger than our own, is 2.5 million ly away, and Triangulum 3 
million ly.

> gets you a decent-size interstellar empire that can be 
crossed in a
> couple of years and contains a bunch of stars.

That's fine if we are talking science fiction, but we are not.