The Stardrive Report -- Edition 6: Dr. Kevin Knuth on Constraints on Breakaway Societies Engaged in Relativistic Interstellar Travel

Recently, I was invited to join what I consider to be one of the most interesting and worthwhile groups on Facebook, the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program, or AATIP Group. In course of monitoring discussions on the group, I came across a post by Dr. Kevin Knuth. After an exchange of replies, Kevin graciously sent me a slide show that he was going to use in his upcoming presentation at the Anomalous Aerospace Phenomena Conference (AAPC) hosted by the Scientific Coalition for Ufology (SCU) held near the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Kevin’s talk was titled, “Constraints on Societies Engaged in Relativistic Interstellar Travel.

I was mesmerized by his slide presentation. Kevin tied a number of questions together I’ve had about interstellar travel since I was a teenager. He presented an ‘if’ ‘then’ scenario of how travelers from a society that developed the means to travel at extreme relativistic velocity would function. The closer one travels to the speed of light, the further one travels into the future of the planet they departed from. In other words, interstellar travel is essentially one-way travel. You can’t go back home. And if these interstellar travelers are flesh and blood biological, emotional beings, then this is a hugely significant issue.

\Dr. Kevin Knuth is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University at Albany (SUNY) and is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Entropy (MDPI). He is a former NASA research scientist having worked for four years at NASA Ames Research Center in the Intelligent Systems Division designing artificial intelligence algorithms for astrophysical data analysis. He has over 20 years of experience in applying Bayesian and maximum entropy methods to the design of machine learning algorithms for data analysis applied to the physical sciences. His current research interests include the foundations of physics, quantum information, inference and inquiry, autonomous robotics, and the search for and characterization of extrasolar planets. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed publications and has been invited to give over 80 presentations in 14 countries.