Spacetime
It occurred to me that, when the “meek shall inhert the earth”, and the un-meek must leave, that those immortals on their interplanetary journey will have no more use of Earthtime, seconds, minutes hours. days, months or years. I therefore propose that the only time unit they have in common with the earth they have left is the SECOND. The rest of the units can the be divided decimally, as all sensible numbering systems use. Here are some suggested equivalents:
| Second | Minute | Hour | Day | Week | Month | Year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earth | 1 | 60 sec | 60 min 3600 sec | 24 hours 1440 min 86,400 sec | 7 days 186 hrs 10,080 min 604,800 sec | 30 days 720 hrs 43,200 min 2,592,000 sec | 12 months 365 days 8760 hrs 525,600 min 31,536,000 sec |
| Space | 1 | 100 sec | 100 min 10,000 sec | 10 hours 1000 min 100,000 sec | 10 days 100 hrs 10,000min 1,000,000 sec | 10 weeks 100 days 1000 hrs 100,000 min 10,000,000 sec | 10 months 100 weeks 1000 days 10,000 hours 1,000,000 min 100,000,000 sec |
| Earth Equivalent | 1 | 1.4 minutes | 140 min | 1400 min 14 Hours | 14,000 min 233 hrs 9.7 days | 56,000 min 932 hrs 39 days | min |
Of course I have ignored leap years and chosen a 30 day month for simplicity in the table above. The day should be divided into 5 hours of light and 5 hours of darkness. It might be coordinated with the rotation of the craft, giving an artificial sun rising and setting each day. Equivalent to approximately 14 hours of daylight and 14 hours of darkness, sufficent for work and rest. I suggest a work day of 3 space hours (8.298 eath hours). As they journey begins there will be a LOT of work to do. At some point, perhaps after 1 spaceyear, as major projects are finished and a routine is established, a 10-day workweek could be reduced to 9, and, at every anniversary, reduced by one day until the spacefarers work perhaps 3 days out of 10.
Of course, a major emergency in space, such as a major collision, would mean no time off until the problem is resolved. The rest of their time should be spent pursuing the arts, or any pursuit not essential to the operation of the ship. Or there might even be a movement to sleep longer and longer, making this, after a few generations, a true “sleeper ship”. It would make everything easier if spacefarers slept twice as much as they were awake.
The ten space months should have names that would remind the voyagers of where they came from. Sol, Terra, Luna, might be a good start. Maybe include names of abbreviations of the leaders of the voyage Maybe September, October, November and December could actually mean 7, 8, 9, 10 as they did in Roman times (an historical reminder). If they wish, there could be Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter if such designations were appropriate for the agriculture they have brought with them.
Since anything at sub-light speeds will eventually take tens of thousands of years to reach a destination star (even a close one), there might be a memorial on earth about the voyage with the Spacetime of the craft and the equivalent Earthtime, and perhaps a third clock showing the earthtime since they left. It should include interactive displays of the individual voyagers, their history before and after the journey starts. As we will communicate with them by Quantum Entaglement, we can update the records in the memorial to show births, deaths, marriages, key events etc.
It is a curious question to know if earth will maintain this memorial for the entire voyage and if we will know about the travelers at all by the time they arrive at their new home. We still have vague records back 5,000 years to the Egyptians,
Babylonians, Phoenicians and similar societies. We have evidence of carvings and structures (such as Gobekli Tepi) back 11,000-12,000 years With long-term electronic archiving, this may not be a problem. The real problem will be if we care, if we wish to remember them.
Of course, if things become impossible on earth, there may be many such ships setting out in different directions, toward different stars, into the Great Unknown. A good science fiction novel might be about the LAST ship to leave earth. Who was on it and who not? Where it was headed? How many ship preceeded it? Was it remembered or forgotten? What if there was a mutiny and some of them returned home instead?