How long time will pass before Mankind start colonizing planets?
We have several serious claims:
-Russians and Chinese are planing Moon base by 2030.
-US are planing man to Mars until 2040.
What do you guys think? My opinion is that we won't colonize Moon or Mars until 2100, maybe somewhere in the middle of 2100's.
And we won't colonize other stars until we find some FTL technology that can give us some reasonable time to get to the nearest star ( less than 4 years ).
So what do you think?
It seems likely that we will need to resort to planatary colonisation, however getting people to another solar system seems like something for the grimm darkness of the far future.
Haonn wrote:It seems likely that we will need to resort to planatary colonisation, however getting people to another solar system seems like something for the grimm darkness of the far future.
I concur, but recourses of this planet are going very fast. It will not be long before we start lacking all the recourses.
On the other hand if we see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale we can see that our civilization isn't even type I ( we are now type 0.72 ). Witch is not surprising with the fact that we still use dead animals and plants as fuel for almost everything.
I suspect/hope we will invent FTL travel before we start true colonisation of other planets.
(True Colonisation being the moving of civilians to other planets, not just scientists, etc.)
So the first planets we colonise will not be in this Solar System.
n0t_u wrote:My opinion is about 80-100 years away as well, but not in the poll.
This is my guess too. With the technological singularity (technically, the next singularity, as the appearance of a vertical line comes solely from one's frame of reference; compared to ten thousand years ago somewhere around the middle of the nineteenth century was a singularity, if not sometime in the first or second century BC) set to come around in 40 years or so, I can't see serious colonization efforts being more than a hundred years away. The main barrier to it now is there's no physical benefit, there's a great deal of risk, and a great deal of cost in it; a post-labor society would have none of those concerns, and would have the resources to spare on such awesome but pragmatically frivolous endeavors.
n0t_u wrote:My opinion is about 80-100 years away as well, but not in the poll.
This is my guess too. With the technological singularity (technically, the next singularity, as the appearance of a vertical line comes solely from one's frame of reference; compared to ten thousand years ago somewhere around the middle of the nineteenth century was a singularity, if not sometime in the first or second century BC) set to come around in 40 years or so, I can't see serious colonization efforts being more than a hundred years away. The main barrier to it now is there's no physical benefit, there's a great deal of risk, and a great deal of cost in it; a post-labor society would have none of those concerns, and would have the resources to spare on such awesome but pragmatically frivolous endeavors.
I would also like that, my dream is to be space explorer and to claim planets in the name of Humanity. But the reality is that no country or man would invest millions in something they wont have any income back. And there is also a problem that no country can claim any territory outside Earth, so there is a lack of interest even with countries.
I think it will take some centuries to find a planet suitable for colonization, and getting there will take a while too. But then again, it´s impossible to know how fast our technology will advance over the next decades.
Until we have the capability to successfully terraform planets (because none of the other planets in our solar system are habitable without having some sort of base to perform basic tasks, such as recycling air and generating gravity), then I don't think colonisation in the sense of some of the Earth's populace moving to these planets is likely.
It would take a very long time for us to travel to a planet that is already habitable, and communication with that planet would be an issue.
I'd say we've still got a good few hundred, if not thousand years before the colonisation of planets is going to be much more than building an artificial base there and hoping nothing goes wrong with it.
Assuming the nature of mankind, colonization will only occur when they HAVE to change, or face death etc. It would be cool in our lifetime if we could go into zero-g in some economic matter.
I think colonization in the sense of "establish a breeding, self-sustained population on another world" will be feasible within a few decades, and will happen in about two to three times that, once it's cheap and reliable enough. It'll never be a source of resources for Earth or a means of reducing overpopulation, though, only the dissemination of humanity throughout the solar system, then the galaxy.
Murray wrote:Assuming the nature of mankind, colonization will only occur when they HAVE to change, or face death etc. It would be cool in our lifetime if we could go into zero-g in some economic matter.
Well we all know that we are going to ran out of recourses soon. And the planet is being little by little populated. I say the sooner we start this - the better. But we don't have the tech yet to do something like that.
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Sir Pseudonymous wrote:I think colonization in the sense of "establish a breeding, self-sustained population on another world" will be feasible within a few decades, and will happen in about two to three times that, once it's cheap and reliable enough. It'll never be a source of resources for Earth or a means of reducing overpopulation, though, only the dissemination of humanity throughout the solar system, then the galaxy.
That's right, one scientist even said once: "In 100 years scientist will look at us like we are idiots. They will say: "They planed to Terraform Mars with trees".". The problem is that it will not be cheap as soon as we hope so...
I think we'll get to a point eventually where the last survivors on Earth pile onto a big spaceship and head off in the direction of a potentially life supporting system. They won't get there though...
We could do it now, we should do it now. But we wont for the same reason we wont in a hundred years or more.
Political will. The will to invest is lacking and will remain lacking because of human short sightedness.
The most likely group to break the barrier is a 'space cult'. It would have to be run as a commune and invested in by individual philanthropists. Lots of money but all for materials; the assemblers, scientists and astronauts would be working for a poor or non existant wage. That can work. Getting educated people to work for nothing and live communally to afford to do so is possible, cults do, and this is an educated cult, whose dogma is: 'send mankind to the stars, before it is too late'. All the lack of a wage packet would do is weed out the non committed not starve you of quality recruits, I do believe lots of people would sign up for this and of those many will have the skills or physique needed.
Yes your space/shuttle station building commune will need land, your philanthropist can see to that, permits will be harder to get. Also a good percentage of the personnel will be involved in support. The commune will need money so it can run a business, it will need medical staff as part of its key staff so medical and dental can be done in house. Families would be encouraged, and allowing for who the commune accepts levels of education would be good. So long as everyone is a volunteer and knows what they sign up for this can work, and the standard of living would be reasonably high, not as high as the best minds could get in private business or medicine but good enough to secure a comfortable life a good education for your kids health security. Children born to commune members while given a top education, for free, to degree level (if the commune is still on earth at that time), they are encouraged to join, but are free not to and may leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere and not have to repay for their invested education. Some may return of their own free will.
I think it would work, and we can do it now. The only danger of that not working would be again from scared self-serving governments.
The alternative is commercialisation. Richard Branson is opening that door, and good luck to him. But to get and actual space program to truly work you need more money that any billionarire can give if it is to be done fiscally, and if the corporate mogul wants his share said builder scientist and astronaut will want it too. As you need those people in the thousands to make your space civilisation start its not a practical way.
Orlanth wrote:We could do it now, we should do it now. But we wont for the same reason we wont in a hundred years or more.
Political will. The will to invest is lacking and will remain lacking because of human short sightedness.
The most likely group to break the barrier is a 'space cult'. It would have to be run as a commune and invested in by individual philanthropists. Lots of money but all for materials, the assemblers, scientists and astronauts working for a poor or non existant wage. That can work getting educated people to work for nothing and live communally to afford to do so is possible, cults do, and this is an educated cult, whose dogma is: 'send mankind to the stars, before it is too late'.
I think it would work, and we can do it now. The only danger of that not working would be again from scared self-serving governments.
The alternative is commercialisation. Richard Branson is opening that door, and good luck to him. But to get and actual space program to truly work you need more money that any billionarire can give if it is to be done fiscally, and if the corporate mogul wants his share said builder scientist and astronaut will want it too. As you need those people in the thousands to make your space civilisation start its not a practical way.
That's the big problem, no one want's to invest in that. And there is one more bigger that this - we are not united. As long as we are waging wars against one another or we are looking into this planet recourses - we are not going to advance toward space age.
Orlanth wrote:We could do it now, we should do it now. But we wont for the same reason we wont in a hundred years or more.
Political will. The will to invest is lacking and will remain lacking because of human short sightedness.
We could probably do it with creative application of modern technology, but at this point it's too unstable, costly, and risky to do so, not to mention the profound lack of infrastructure to deploy it. We need a dry dock in orbit before full interplanetary travel becomes viable, as well as cheaper ways of getting into orbit than rockets.
Right now, space is just a novelty, so to speak. Aside from communication and navigation satellites, there's little practical use for it. We also wouldn't be able to produce a long-term unsupported colony on another planet, in all likelihood, and certainly not one able to sustain a healthy breeding population of humans. Literally anything short of something that obliterates the planet, or at least a significant portion of its crust, will be friendlier to human life than any other planet in this solar system. A thermonuclear holocaust would be survived by those in hardened bunkers and remote locales, and the resulting radioactive winter would be infinitely more conducive to humans than Mars is. An "extinction event" meteor could hit Earth, and we'd have enough warning to know where it will hit, and build bunkers and backup infrastructure in those areas safest from it, and the charred waste it left behind would still be easier to live in than Mars.
With any other planet, you're looking at having to live in tunnels and airtight structures, run some form of agriculture, keep air purification equipment running, recycle everything, including biological waste, and have either no resupply in case something important breaks to a point you can't fix, or else at least a year of waiting for a new part to arrive. A multi-trillion dollar facility on Mars could support a dozen people, all of whom would have to be trained engineers, and all of whom would be guinea pigs for the equipment they're counting on just to survive. The worst disaster on Earth would just fill the air with toxic smoke for a few months or years; on Mars there is no breathable air to start with, so you'd never have any more than what you brought with you. The Earth's ozone layer could be stripped away, and you'd still be better off than on Mars, where there's not the more-important magnetic field to keep the really nasty radiation at bay.
The most likely group to break the barrier is a 'space cult'. It would have to be run as a commune and invested in by individual philanthropists. Lots of money but all for materials, the assemblers, scientists and astronauts working for a poor or non existant wage. That can work getting educated people to work for nothing and live communally to afford to do so is possible, cults do, and this is an educated cult, whose dogma is: 'send mankind to the stars, before it is too late'.
They'd be kind of like a weirder version of Seasteaders: unhinged, unfunded, and hopelessly unable to accomplish anything (only even more so than Seasteaders).
The alternative is commercialisation. Richard Branson is opening that door, and good luck to him. But to get and actual space program to truly work you need more money that any billionarire can give if it is to be done fiscally, and if the corporate mogul wants his share said builder scientist and astronaut will want it too. As you need those people in the thousands to make your space civilisation start its not a practical way.
There's absolutely no commercial benefit to colonizing other worlds, mostly due to logistical costs: there's no way to extract valuable resources and send them back to Earth, at least not without spending millions of times as much as just gathering it on Earth would cost; there's no feasible way to have tourism outside of orbit, on account of the astronomical costs and time of transit, to say nothing of the risks involved; and lastly, there's no "better life" colonization options, which were what drove commercial emigration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as life would harder than that of all but the meanest of third world peasants currently face, and they don't have the funds to escape even that, let alone pay billions to go to Mars and fund the construction of their habitat, not to mention lacking the skills to keep things running once there.
Commercialization may very well lead to the orbital dry dock and cheaper methods of attaining orbit that we need for government backed colonization to be remotely viable, however. By that point, we may very well have gotten propulsion methods that enable us to reach Mars in a few months, instead of in excess of a year, at which point sinking money into establishing a test colony, and later a larger, self-sustained population become reasonable expenses, for PR reasons, as well as staking a claim to Mars. Hopefully it won't be China behind it, since sabotaging something like that is pretty risky, and China can't be allowed to establish a foothold offworld...
Heres what we need to do. Make a giant vaccum cleaner type contraption, and use it to suck say...... hydrogen/helium/methane and other important gases from the planets that are many times the size of ours and can afford to let us suck it out. We then make a new automotive industry built around using these gases to power their cars, charge a premium for it but say it gets 100mpg and has 0 emissions. Thatll get us out there, and we will obviously need colonies out in space for some middle man reason. Problem solved. Vote KC for President
KingCracker wrote:Heres what we need to do. Make a giant vaccum cleaner type contraption, and use it to suck say...... hydrogen/helium/methane and other important gases from the planets that are many times the size of ours and can afford to let us suck it out. We then make a new automotive industry built around using these gases to power their cars, charge a premium for it but say it gets 100mpg and has 0 emissions. Thatll get us out there, and we will obviously need colonies out in space for some middle man reason. Problem solved. Vote KC for President
Do this, but over Venus. There's plenty of inert and volatile gases for us to exploit there. And when we're done sucking out all the methane, venus might actually be a hospitable planet
My feeling is, any planet out there is going to be a hell of a lot less friendly to human life than Earth. Consider how much of the surface of Earth we have not colonised- the ocean floor, the surface of the ocean, antartica, the vast deserts. These areas, inhospitable and difficult to colonise as they are, are still several orders of magnitude less to deal with than a completely alien world, with alien gravity, alien atmosphere and likely variances in radiation levels. "Terraforming" technology is far more likely to be developed in drips and drabs here on Earth. I am not a pessimist with regard to the future of the human race- I think we will continue to prosper on Earth barring some huge catastrophe like a large asteroid impact.
As an ex-agricultural ecologist, I do sometimes wonder at how people percieve science. Agri research gets far, far less funding and attention than say, diabetes research, or space research. We automatically have less impact (which means limited employment chances) compared to immunological studies (especially HIV). And yet, agri research is in many ways vital to our continued survival. Think about the scourge of resistant bacteria in humans. It's expensive as hell to develop a new drug to treat these infections. The margins in veterinary pharma are much much lower- if a major pest becomes resistant to our methods of treating it, it is unlikely a new drug will be developed by a private agency.
Just food for thought. I'd love to walk on another world, but I think we'll be here on Earth for a long time yet.
Da Boss wrote:Agri research gets far, far less funding and attention than say, diabetes research, or space research. We automatically have less impact (which means limited employment chances) compared to immunological studies (especially HIV). And yet, agri research is in many ways vital to our continued survival.
Because the people who matter in regards to those decisions have the issue of having too much food, and their population growth has slowed to a crawl, or become negative. Even the vast majority of impoverished people have enough food, with only a small (small on account of the understandably limiting factor of starvation) number in places exactly no one who matters cares about, like the very worst parts of Africa, actually starving. I mean, it's currently in vogue to eat food grown only in more primitive, no-longer widely viable methods, ridiculous as that is. A lot of people are scared senseless about advanced agriculture, generally for insane, silly reasons, and rarely for rational but still extremely misguided or ill-informed reasons.
While what you say is true, current farming practices are far from long term sustainable, and we do desperately need new ways of doing things. I'm sure we will sort it out, but even though large swathes of people aren't currently starving to death (those that are are generally starving due to poltics, not science), the balance is quite delicate and we are pushing a bit too far in one direction, currently. (Think about how many minerals that are useless to us but vital to plants that we gak out every day, to have that sewage generally incinerated and made into clinker blocks for housing. Then we have to import mineral fertilizers at great expense! It's madness.)
Orlanth wrote:We could do it now, we should do it now. But we wont for the same reason we wont in a hundred years or more.
Political will. The will to invest is lacking and will remain lacking because of human short sightedness.
We could probably do it with creative application of modern technology, but at this point it's too unstable, costly, and risky to do so, not to mention the profound lack of infrastructure to deploy it. We need a dry dock in orbit before full interplanetary travel becomes viable, as well as cheaper ways of getting into orbit than rockets.
Your first error is thinking human colonisation = find a planet.
Human colonisation is better off in space stations, because then you control your own environment. The moon is a good resource point as it has a pathetically low gravity well to escape from.
As far as costly is concerned, the entire cost is reserved for land rent on earth for the launch site and community center, and raw materials. Thats about it. 'Cults' can do a lot with a little because the human resource pool is free and committed, a space commune has those two advantages but adds enlightened and educated to them.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
With any other planet, you're looking at having to live in tunnels and airtight structures, run some form of agriculture, keep air purification equipment running, recycle everything, including biological waste, and have either no resupply in case something important breaks to a point you can't fix, or else at least a year of waiting for a new part to arrive. A multi-trillion dollar facility on Mars could support a dozen people, all of whom would have to be trained engineers, and all of whom would be guinea pigs for the equipment they're counting on just to survive. The worst disaster on Earth would just fill the air with toxic smoke for a few months or years; on Mars there is no breathable air to start with, so you'd never have any more than what you brought with you. The Earth's ozone layer could be stripped away, and you'd still be better off than on Mars, where there's not the more-important magnetic field to keep the really nasty radiation at bay.
Irrelevant, see first point. By the time colonist make a crack of inhabiting mars they will come in one of their space stations and drift out over the course of a few years. at first it will just be an orbital relocation nothing more.
They'd be kind of like a weirder version of Seasteaders: unhinged, unfunded, and hopelessly unable to accomplish anything (only even more so than Seasteaders).
Wierder? quite the opposite. You aren't looking to recruit long haired hippies and cultists. Space has its own attraction, and remember that for the first generation or so building space station communities will be the norm. Personnel will move up and down the gravity well from the space station(s) to the spaceport on the ground. I can see dedicated educated people committing to that life, wierdos would to, but they wont pass selection.
Seasteaders are not a valid comparison, they are either hippy dreamers or isolationist entrepreneurs. Both are entirely earth focused, the former are useless and you describe them well. They share the same fate as the rest of us, can accomplish their communal goals better with a plot of land and their 'sovereignty' is not respected. The isolationist entrepreneurs are a different breed, Sealand being a good example. Roy Paddy Bates is not a mad hermit, Sealand is an investment tax dodge and home, a lot of the time he wont be there and within reason he can play hard and fast with international laws, but only as a savvy extension of our society not as a hippy commune FU to it..
The alternative is commercialisation. Richard Branson is opening that door, and good luck to him. But to get and actual space program to truly work you need more money that any billionarire can give if it is to be done fiscally, and if the corporate mogul wants his share said builder scientist and astronaut will want it too. As you need those people in the thousands to make your space civilisation start its not a practical way.
There's absolutely no commercial benefit to colonizing other worlds, mostly due to logistical costs:
Back to your first error. To get to a world you need to get to space. Space itself is worth living in as you create your own environment.
there's no way to extract valuable resources and send them back to Earth,
In general yers but some niches occur, certain pharmaceuticals benefit from microgravity production and will be 50x more efficient to harvest. Sending finished produce down the gravity well is easy, and cheap.
there's no feasible way to have tourism outside of orbit,
Lunar tourism is possible. as any space colonisation will require lunar mining to generate the bulk resources it would be a side issue to send tourists to the moon, yes you could even build a hotel for them to stay in.
on account of the astronomical costs and time of transit, to say nothing of the risks involved; and lastly, there's no "better life" colonization options, which were what drove commercial emigration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
Here I disagree. the 19th century colonisation efforts involved land grabs and dispossession. which cannot occur today as all land is taken and held, with the curious exception of Western Sahara and Antarctica and even that has claimants. People 'head west' for freedom and opportunity. There is a reason O'Neil called his book the High Frontier as it recreates the pioneer age but with fresh 'territory' avialable (orbit levels and lagrange points being the 'territories').
life would harder than that of all but the meanest of third world peasants currently face,
a members only commune with high entry requirements, educated people good cause, no I dont think so.
Commercialization may very well lead to the orbital dry dock and cheaper methods of attaining orbit that we need for government backed colonization to be remotely viable, however.
Completely wrong, government funding equals government interference and government economics. People are going to the edge of space right now, on the principle that a visionary elite with the skills base and raw materials can explore space more efficiently than government. It is no coincidence that the Soviets but bypassing most economic realities had the most successful space program.
Hopefully it won't be China behind it, since sabotaging something like that is pretty risky, and China can't be allowed to establish a foothold offworld...
I think it will be China or Europe/Russia. The former under the communist half of the capitalist/communist state latter being a politically accepted commune on the grounds described above. It is impossible without some level of government backing, if private individuals want to explore space and the word government don't like it they will find a legal pretext to shut the project down.
Either way space is likely to be 'red' on some level or other.
KingCracker wrote:Oh badass! BADASS!!!!!!!!!!! Im gunna set my DVR then!
They haven't announced the date officially, but it is supposed to be this month. I can't wait! BTW, I saw something the other day that let you order one of those golden airplane pens like the guy with the "hair" has. I will see if I can find it...
I put it at 400 years for full blown "every day" colinisation of the planets, with specialised colinisation within 100 years, more general colinisation of near space within 200 years.
Orlanth wrote:We could do it now, we should do it now. But we wont for the same reason we wont in a hundred years or more.
Political will. The will to invest is lacking and will remain lacking because of human short sightedness.
We could probably do it with creative application of modern technology, but at this point it's too unstable, costly, and risky to do so, not to mention the profound lack of infrastructure to deploy it. We need a dry dock in orbit before full interplanetary travel becomes viable, as well as cheaper ways of getting into orbit than rockets.
Your first error is thinking human colonisation = find a planet.
Human colonisation is better off in space stations, because then you control your own environment. The moon is a good resource point as it has a pathetically low gravity well to escape from.
Everything that can be done in a space station can be done better on a planet. You could do that here on Earth if you wanted to, it would just be really silly in most places. In space you have to worry about lack of gravity, the extreme pressure difference between inside and outside, the radiation, and the fact that you're constantly hurtling through space with nothing to anchor you, and no atmosphere of any sort to shield you from foreign objects, of which ones as small as a paint chip can achieve velocities that give them as much kinetic energy as an artillery shell.
Irrelevant, see first point. By the time colonist make a crack of inhabiting mars they will come in one of their space stations and drift out over the course of a few years. at first it will just be an orbital relocation nothing more.
See above.
Wierder? quite the opposite. You aren't looking to recruit long haired hippies and cultists. Space has its own attraction, and remember that for the first generation or so building space station communities will be the norm. Personnel will move up and down the gravity well from the space station(s) to the spaceport on the ground. I can see dedicated educated people committing to that life, wierdos would to, but they wont pass selection.
Seasteaders are not a valid comparison, they are either hippy dreamers or isolationist entrepreneurs. Both are entirely earth focused, the former are useless and you describe them well. They share the same fate as the rest of us, can accomplish their communal goals better with a plot of land and their 'sovereignty' is not respected. The isolationist entrepreneurs are a different breed, Sealand being a good example. Roy Paddy Bates is not a mad hermit, Sealand is an investment tax dodge and home, a lot of the time he wont be there and within reason he can play hard and fast with international laws, but only as a savvy extension of our society not as a hippy commune FU to it..
Conceptually weirder. Seasteaders are just an eccentric offshoot of traditional "go where them gubmints can't take the sweat o'yer brow!" types, 'Spacesteaders' would be tinges of that with mixed with doomsaying and probably a liberal dab of trekky.
Back to your first error. To get to a world you need to get to space. Space itself is worth living in as you create your own environment.
Again, you can create your own environment on Earth, only safer and cheaper. You could build a biodome larger than a football field on the bottom of the sea cheaper than you could make a habitat the size of a mobile home in orbit, not to mention the former would be safer and more accessible.
there's no way to extract valuable resources and send them back to Earth,
In general yers but some niches occur, certain pharmaceuticals benefit from microgravity production and will be 50x more efficient to harvest. Sending finished produce down the gravity well is easy, and cheap.
Even if that is true, it could be done easier and cheaper with automated equipment than with humans present, if one somehow made the trip up (for raw materials) and down less expensive than any benefit gained in efficiency.
there's no feasible way to have tourism outside of orbit,
Lunar tourism is possible. as any space colonisation will require lunar mining to generate the bulk resources it would be a side issue to send tourists to the moon, yes you could even build a hotel for them to stay in.
The moon is technically still in orbit, and if it weren't we'd have bigger troubles than sending people to it...
on account of the astronomical costs and time of transit, to say nothing of the risks involved; and lastly, there's no "better life" colonization options, which were what drove commercial emigration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
Here I disagree. the 19th century colonisation efforts involved land grabs and dispossession. which cannot occur today as all land is taken and held, with the curious exception of Western Sahara and Antarctica and even that has claimants. People 'head west' for freedom and opportunity. There is a reason O'Neil called his book the High Frontier as it recreates the pioneer age but with fresh 'territory' avialable (orbit levels and lagrange points being the 'territories').
I was talking more about impoverished peasants emigrating to foreign cities, and the business of taking all their money to get them there. Expansion and colonization in the past also involved primarily agricultural interests or trade routes, and all instances in modern history have specifically involved agricultural colonization of arable land populated only by hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, and the related trade, hunting, and service industries. There is no land more arable than currently unoccupied land on Earth in space, and in fact there is no land in space, period, when one is not referring to planets. Further, agricultural colonization is no longer economically viable, as the midwestern US alone contains more than enough arable land to feed the entire population of the planet several times over, barring new agricultural techniques that increase the possible production even further, to say nothing of the similar plains in Europe and India.
One could colonize the oceans a thousand times easier than one could colonize near-Earth orbit alone, and one could actually survive if one knew what one was doing. Not even the Seasteaders really think this is preferable to living in civilization, or they would actually go out and do it (well, rather they don't have the funds to do it in style; I wouldn't mind owning/living in a sufficiently luxurious floating island, because it's like a cross between a private island and a giant yacht, and sadly as expensive as both ten times over (I'd still settle for a smallish yacht, though ) ; simply something one could survive on for extended periods of time would likely be cheaper than the average home, but also extremely uncomfortable, a constant maintenance battle, and with no tangible improvements over just living in society, or running off and living in the woods somewhere (which would even easier and more survivable)). Honestly, one could colonize the bottom of the sea easier than one could orbit, or Antarctica, or the Sahara. There are at least some of the resources one needs to survive in all of these places, and then there's gravity and the shielding atmosphere (its breathable qualities are covered under "resources"; in the case of the seafloor, there's also a shielding ocean, though the "breathable" part becomes a bit trickier) and magnetic field. There is none of this in space, and almost none of this on other planets.
life would harder than that of all but the meanest of third world peasants currently face,
a members only commune with high entry requirements, educated people good cause, no I dont think so.
Harder as in "more ascetic, labor intensive, and stressful".
Commercialization may very well lead to the orbital dry dock and cheaper methods of attaining orbit that we need for government backed colonization to be remotely viable, however.
Completely wrong, government funding equals government interference and government economics. People are going to the edge of space right now, on the principle that a visionary elite with the skills base and raw materials can explore space more efficiently than government. It is no coincidence that the Soviets but bypassing most economic realities had the most successful space program.
No one has the resources or clout to establish a genuine colony other than governments. Eccentric billionaires aside, no one with money, or who has been deemed competent enough to control money, realistically sees economic gain to be had colonizing space (the eccentric billionaires don't see economic gain either, they see the "because SPACE!" that the rest of us do).
Hopefully it won't be China behind it, since sabotaging something like that is pretty risky, and China can't be allowed to establish a foothold offworld...
I think it will be China or Europe/Russia. The former under the communist half of the capitalist/communist state latter being a politically accepted commune on the grounds described above. It is impossible without some level of government backing, if private individuals want to explore space and the word government don't like it they will find a legal pretext to shut the project down.
Either way space is likely to be 'red' on some level or other.
Honestly, if either China or Russia were to try, it would end in malfunctions killing everyone involved, due to lax/imaginary safety standards, and if it's China then everyone who worked on the project will be executed, and then they're back at stage one. To discount the possibility of sabotage of the project, or outright shooting it out of the sky or invading the colony once it's established, if open military action is deemed feasible at that point.
The irony of this is I'm about 99.9% sure I argued your position exactly when I was in highschool, after reading a bit too much Heinlein. Eventually I came around, though I've naturally never lost the "we must colonize space, because SPACE!" bit. Even though it's not a viable idea yet, and won't be any time soon, I don't think it's healthy to lose that particular bit of optimistic idealism.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Everything that can be done in a space station can be done better on a planet. You could do that here on Earth if you wanted to, it would just be really silly in most places. In space you have to worry about lack of gravity, the extreme pressure difference between inside and outside, the radiation, and the fact that you're constantly hurtling through space with nothing to anchor you, and no atmosphere of any sort to shield you from foreign objects, of which ones as small as a paint chip can achieve velocities that give them as much kinetic energy as an artillery shell.
Blatantly not true. For a start you are bound by the gravity of the planet, a space station gives you 1G in centrifugal gravity.
Also impact damage is a lot less worrisome than you claim. Dust is a problem, but you shield against dust, you will need shielding anyway. Any asteroid can either be blown up deflected or seen long enough ahead to be dodged, and those events are rare anyway. Even a 1 metre rock/iceball is rare.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Conceptually weirder. Seasteaders are just an eccentric offshoot of traditional "go where them gubmints can't take the sweat o'yer brow!" types, 'Spacesteaders' would be tinges of that with mixed with doomsaying and probably a liberal dab of trekky.
Again quite untrue. Some muppets might like two write off space pioneers that way, but we have nonwhere else to go, and are quickly turning this planet into a dungheap. We only have two long term prospects, sustainability or space program. The former requires evertyone, not just a few visionaries to get on board, it requires even handec policing internationally and honest government, and noone taking more than they need. Green policy government is considered laughably unworkable, but at the rate we are harvesting resources, increasing our population and governing ourselves a human orchestrated doomsday is pretty much inevitable. Its not a matter of if but when and how big.
Space colonisation is the only option that is workable and doesnt rely on us all getting on and forgetting our differences. In realpolitik terms its perhaps the smarter option.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Again, you can create your own environment on Earth, only safer and cheaper. You could build a biodome larger than a football field on the bottom of the sea cheaper than you could make a habitat the size of a mobile home in orbit, not to mention the former would be safer and more accessible.
In other words do nothing, live as we do. Thats the majority choice, the long terms choice is simple. Part of our society, get rapeed with the rest. When the resources dry up your biodome and its resources belong to the closest armed faction, your descendents either have to join that faction or more likely be kicked to the gutter in the resource rush. Even undersea and antarctic colonies would not survive.
Up the gravity well you have a chance, though in the closing years of peace while our saociety lasts you need to slwoly quietly arm, or get some distance fro the coming fall, a bit like the Eldar really.
Thats all long term of course, your biodome in the desert/on the ice will last for your lifetime and possibly for the lifetime of the next generation or two.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
I was talking more about impoverished peasants emigrating to foreign cities, and the business of taking all their money to get them there. Expansion and colonization in the past also involved primarily agricultural interests or trade routes, and all instances in modern history have specifically involved agricultural colonization of arable land populated only by hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, and the related trade, hunting, and service industries.
A space station building commune isnt made of navvies and peasants but visionaries and scientists. Big difference, those who start the cutlure will need to have means and also restrict entry so they dont get caught up being a welfare state for hippies, dreamers and freeloaders.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
There is no land more arable than currently unoccupied land on Earth in space, and in fact there is no land in space, period, when one is not referring to planets.
In ojne respect you are correct, however you are thinking from an unexpanded midsert in relation to the futuire of ther High Frontier. The land, and it is useful habitable quality of land is equal to the surface area of the inside of a cylinder which could be up to many miles in scale. On aside while I agree with O'Neils vision, I disagree with his designs, one of the rwasons he faileed was because his actual space station designs were unworkable even from a science theory point of view. Island 3 is a physicists joke.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
One could colonize the oceans a thousand times easier than one could colonize near-Earth orbit alone, and one could actually survive if one knew what one was doing. Honestly, one could colonize the bottom of the sea easier than one could orbit, or Antarctica, or the Sahara.
Actually its harder, high pressure is much harder to shield against than zero pressure, contstruction is far more complex and projects are way easier to sabotage when in situ. Surface colonies have thier own problems, but are likely even liable beneficial, mostly as tax havens. The better projects are not rigs or sea forts but large ships that never dock anywhere. Actually a space station would be cheaper than an underwater city of comberable size. The only real advantage you get is that if you make good enough submarines you can trade as a 'nation' with existing commerical ports and raditation is not a problem.
Sahara would be good, but you would need an armny quickly and it might be seen by the UN and will be seen by Morocco as an invasion/illigal immigration. Antarctica is possibler but there are actually laws against permenant human settlement signed by enough nations would would be willing to kick you off. There is oil there for a start.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
There are at least some of the resources one needs to survive in all of these places, and then there's gravity and the shielding atmosphere (its breathable qualities are covered under "resources"; in the case of the seafloor, there's also a shielding ocean, though the "breathable" part becomes a bit trickier) and magnetic field. There is none of this in space, and almost none of this on other planets.
A lunar mining camp can priovde all raw materials for building, and a fair amount of water too.
Harder as in "more ascetic, labor intensive, and stressful".
Taking the trail west was stressful but worthwhile. get motivated people, and they will make a good start, and you always have your spaceport on earth, at least initially before you have good safe long term 1G loving conditions for large numbers of people and a working biosphere.
No one has the resources or clout to establish a genuine colony other than governments. Eccentric billionaires aside, no one with money, or who has been deemed competent enough to control money, realistically sees economic gain to be had colonizing space (the eccentric billionaires don't see economic gain either, they see the "because SPACE!" that the rest of us do).
While Scientology is normally a bad example of anything, look at what the Sea Org do, and the Jim Jones cult, ignore the evil controlling aspects for now. Now take that back to the Pythagorean Brotherhood of ancient Greece, it was a invitation only 'cult' of philosophers and entrepreneurs, it basically worked. Now the difference being that a space commune would have the conhesion of a cult but no megalomaniac guru and duped followers. The reasons are clear and set out, you join eto dedicate your life to building a human civilisation in space, in stages based on sound scientific and industrial achievement; not because the leader promises you a religious benefit if you become their personal fanatic. You are free to leave and can possibly be kicked out and can withdraw resources equal to what you donated when you joined (the orignal Pythagorean Brotherhood let you withdraw twice what you put in) this would potentially hurt if a rich philanthropist put in his fortune and got cold feet, but can be explained awasy by the fact that the Brotherhood was enlightened and worked on an invitation only principle. They wsouldnt recruit anyone who would or might behave like that.
You can accomplish much with free labour, educated dedicated free labour can do one hell of a lot.
The only difference between a company that makes commercial satellites and a commune doing it are the wages and the flag. The skills tree is the same.
Can you get the scientists to join though? Yes I think you can, the idea of a space commune is by no means unique, and has been floated many times. Stephen Hawking for one is all for it. Mostly they look to government, but elsewhere thery are beginning to look to each other. Such projects as the X-Prize are examples of this sea change in thinking.
Honestly, if either China or Russia were to try, it would end in malfunctions killing everyone involved, due to lax/imaginary safety standards, and if it's China then everyone who worked on the project will be executed, and then they're back at stage one. To discount the possibility of sabotage of the project, or outright shooting it out of the sky or invading the colony once it's established, if open military action is deemed feasible at that point.
Ok. China has a viable launch rocket, its also moon capable. They used it as a manned launch vehicle, once, just as a test. China is ready but is waiting for whwen thev technology needs to be used.
The Russians know what they are doing, the first two Soyuz had problems, there was even a death in the 60's, the 1700+ launched afterwards have been flawless. Space Shuttle however has had two major failures resulting in total loss in about 60-70 missions total. Space Shuttle is about 97% resuable, 3% explody. The Soviets don't look so backward now dont they.
Currently Soyuz is the only launch vehicle currently servicing the ISS and launch facilities have been expanded with a new launch and construction site in French Guiana.
The irony of this is I'm about 99.9% sure I argued your position exactly when I was in highschool, after reading a bit too much Heinlein. Eventually I came around, though I've naturally never lost the "we must colonize space, because SPACE!" bit. Even though it's not a viable idea yet, and won't be any time soon, I don't think it's healthy to lose that particular bit of optimistic idealism.
I am not basing this on any hysteria, but on cold logical grounds. We will feth this planet up, thats the safe money. Either turn Green or turn to the sky, and the world will not listen to greens, they applaud the policy but will want everyone else to do it, not themselves for industrial/economic/political/personal reasons. Those with power when the gak gets too bad will use it to grab what other weaker neighbours have, we have seen the 'beginning' of that in the conquest of Iraq and in the smaller gloabal village, we are all neighbours now.
The very worst we can do to this planet, a combination of letting china continue unchecked followed by a global thermonuclear holocaust, will still leave this planet more hospitable to human life than anything you will find elsewhere in the solar system. Day to day survival in such an environment would still be easier, and resources more abundant, than the best of days in space. Space itself, as in the void in particular, is the single most hostile environment short of trying to land on the sun, in addition to offering no reason for humans to try to live in it, outside of whatever crops up on a theoretical orbital port or dry dock: there are no resources in the void, one is surrounded on all sides by a short, painful death, one is bombarded constantly with radiation far in excess of what one receives on the surface of a planet, and one is a single paint-chip sized fleck of debris away from annihilation at all times.
Next to the void, the moon, or Mars, or even Venus seem downright friendly, and they're each a greater challenge to survival than every single place on the surface of Earth that humans do not currently occupy, short of the inside of an active volcano (except in the case of Venus for that last one).
Short of some miraculous new propulsion technology, resources in space will never surpass those deposits found on Earth; the only one we're in any hurry to run out of is oil, of which projections range from anywhere around several decades to in excess of a century, and long before we run out we'll have advanced the matter of synthesizing it to the point of economic feasibility. Technology marches on, and its ability to provide will outmatch the availability of resources in space for centuries, until it delivers them as well, and I have no doubt that said miraculous propulsion tech will come about some day.
Even with such, I don't believe it would be the better option for a long time, though it would become feasible to colonize for the sake of colonization, which for many centuries to come will remain the only sane reason for extraterran colonization, and indeed the dissemination of humanity throughout the galaxy is a necessary hurdle to undergo. But right now, it's like trying to fly a WWI fighter plane to the moon in a steam-powered diving bell. Only less awesome and more wires and bone loss accompanied by atrophying muscles. And cancer.
Brother Coa wrote:How long time will pass before Mankind start colonizing planets?
We have several serious claims:
-Russians and Chinese are planing Moon base by 2030.
-US are planing man to Mars until 2040.
What do you guys think? My opinion is that we won't colonize Moon or Mars until 2100, maybe somewhere in the middle of 2100's.
And we won't colonize other stars until we find some FTL technology that can give us some reasonable time to get to the nearest star ( less than 4 years ).
So what do you think?
Defining colony might be hellpful.
It will be a long time indeed though. The cost is hyperimmense, for no benefit. In case no one has noticed both the USSR and USA have substantially pulled back from their space programs. A new power might try something, but it will be a long time.
I don't really see it being a reality until there is some proven obvious benefit to it. As it is right now, there is no real drive to live in space and no economical benefit. It is vitally important that we keep doing the research to make it a possibility, but there are so many unanswered issues with supporting an independent colony in space or on another planet.
Frazzled wrote:
Defining colony might be hellpful.
It will be a long time indeed though. The cost is hyperimmense, for no benefit. In case no one has noticed both the USSR and USA have substantially pulled back from their space programs. A new power might try something, but it will be a long time.
Why do you need defining of a colony? Colony is small settlement, some are self sufficient, who represent the first step in forming presence in the area.
Not benefir? Moon surface is full of Helium 3. And of course USSR and USA pull their space program. What could you do with Helium 3 in the '70? And what can you do now with it? or in 10 years ( Fusion power )?
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Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The very worst we can do to this planet, a combination of letting china continue unchecked followed by a global thermonuclear holocaust, will still leave this planet more hospitable to human life than anything you will find elsewhere in the solar system. Day to day survival in such an environment would still be easier, and resources more abundant, than the best of days in space. Space itself, as in the void in particular, is the single most hostile environment short of trying to land on the sun, in addition to offering no reason for humans to try to live in it, outside of whatever crops up on a theoretical orbital port or dry dock: there are no resources in the void, one is surrounded on all sides by a short, painful death, one is bombarded constantly with radiation far in excess of what one receives on the surface of a planet, and one is a single paint-chip sized fleck of debris away from annihilation at all times.
Next to the void, the moon, or Mars, or even Venus seem downright friendly, and they're each a greater challenge to survival than every single place on the surface of Earth that humans do not currently occupy, short of the inside of an active volcano (except in the case of Venus for that last one).
Short of some miraculous new propulsion technology, resources in space will never surpass those deposits found on Earth; the only one we're in any hurry to run out of is oil, of which projections range from anywhere around several decades to in excess of a century, and long before we run out we'll have advanced the matter of synthesizing it to the point of economic feasibility. Technology marches on, and its ability to provide will outmatch the availability of resources in space for centuries, until it delivers them as well, and I have no doubt that said miraculous propulsion tech will come about some day.
Even with such, I don't believe it would be the better option for a long time, though it would become feasible to colonize for the sake of colonization, which for many centuries to come will remain the only sane reason for extraterran colonization, and indeed the dissemination of humanity throughout the galaxy is a necessary hurdle to undergo. But right now, it's like trying to fly a WWI fighter plane to the moon in a steam-powered diving bell. Only less awesome and more wires and bone loss accompanied by atrophying muscles. And cancer.
I agree, to explore space as safely as we can we must:
-develop FTL technology.
-shield technology.
-artificial gravity technology.
-terraforming technology.
-replicating technology ( to replicate food, water and supplies ).
And all that is still sci-fi. But airplanes where once sci-fi to...
Brother Coa wrote:
Not benefir? Moon surface is full of Helium 3. And of course USSR and USA pull their space program. What could you do with Helium 3 in the '70? And what can you do now with it? or in 10 years ( Fusion power )?
We didn't pull the pgroam in 1970. WE pulled it this year if you haven't been keeping up on current events.
I agree, to explore space as safely as we can we must:
-develop FTL technology.
-shield technology.
-artificial gravity technology.
-terraforming technology.
-replicating technology ( to replicate food, water and supplies ).
And all that is still sci-fi. But airplanes where once sci-fi to...
Oh thats all. crap why didn't you say so. Shazzam!
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The very worst we can do to this planet, a combination of letting china continue unchecked followed by a global thermonuclear holocaust, will still leave this planet more hospitable to human life than anything you will find elsewhere in the solar system.
Three big problems with that. First while we will always have an atmosphere and 1G gravity that might be the extent of our benefits. You can with a little preparation have those on a space colony, and protect what you have got long term. Second you miss out the unmitigate political hell an eventual unchecked future might bring. You may well be better off free in sopace than living in chains in a resource stripped ravaged earth.
Third you are pointing thre finger at China. China has problems but the USA is far more likely to bring about a horrid end to mother earth. The USa consumes resources like no other, you travel far for simple things using resources unavailable in Europe let alone the third world. How will you respond collectively as a nation when things get tighter? Say we cannot afford to live as we did, we are all as Africans now and must share what little remains, or say free market and democracy must survive, what little africa has left must be stripped to provide for ourselves. A look a recent history will show the trend.
Communism brutal as it is is survivable by th planet, the Chinese can simply tell its people to make do without and often do. The West in general and the US especially has yet to learn or even be able to say that to its own citizens, and will not until way past the point of no return.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
in Day to day survival in such an environment would still be easier, and resources more abundant, than the best of days in space.
The best of days in space would have both, as the space program will have to happen when times remain good.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Space itself, as in the void in particular, is the single most hostile environment short of trying to land on the sun, in addition to offering no reason for humans to try to live in it, outside of whatever crops up on a theoretical orbital port or dry dock: there are no resources in the void, one is surrounded on all sides by a short, painful death, one is bombarded constantly with radiation far in excess of what one receives on the surface of a planet, and one is a single paint-chip sized fleck of debris away from annihilation at all times.
Space itself, as in the void in particular, is the single most hostile environment short of trying to land on the sun, in addition to offering no reason for humans to try to live in it, We do and always have done so. planet earth is a space station in space, it receives only sunlight to sustain it. It needs nothing else. A proper space habitat is similar, vast heavily fortified and containing a paradise within, its also expandible by useage of raw materials from the moon.
there are no resources in the void, Lunar mining is a given, also trade with Earth in good times.
one is surrounded on all sides by a short, painful death, One is always surrounded by death. Trust in the metres of soil hydroplastic and heavy material between you and it.
one is bombarded constantly with radiation far in excess of what one receives on the surface of a planet Hydrogen foam is a very good radiation insulator and is very light. Earth will possibly have to live with massive radiation too someday, when the dwindling resources bite harder and someone goes a step too far. Peaceable united Green is another valid option to the space program, but is the only other one, and such a future would have to involve a society either reduced or legislated into being peacable and globally factionless. Allowing for your inability to see the 'wests' long term failings plus a 'blame China' mindset I can see you are not yet learning to go down the only alternate long term path. Hug China might have been better, but no less naive from the point of view of someone who prefers to try the space society route as a way forward.
and one is a single paint-chip sized fleck of debris away from annihilation at all times. Ok so your not listening, I will try a second time.
A paint chip sized fleck will not endanger a space habitat. Only a fairly large boulder will do that, habitats will be able to move themselves or deflect or destroy a boulder.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Short of some miraculous new propulsion technology, resources in space will never surpass those deposits found on Earth;
No they will not, but the remenant society in space is already adapted to doihng without. Man did without before, by living more simple lives, but are you will ing to give up your cars and extravagent lifestyles and live as a villager. Anything post Amnish techno0logy wise is ultimately unsustainable. After all its one of the reaasons why many people in the thirs world still live as we did centuries ago, not because technology isnt there but because it isnt proliferated, and cannot be so because for everyone to share an above subsistence standard of living too many people in the west and China and other important countries will have to make do with less, and we are not prepared to do so.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
the only one we're in any hurry to run out of is oil, of which projections range from anywhere around several decades to in excess of a century,
Well will run out of trees and fish for a start. Cod is going to be extinct unless fishing is controlled, as that requires everyone to be on board that wont work, as the few who cheat get extera beaucoup profits and the natiojns they come from *cough* Spain *cough* turn a blind eye to the blatant disregard of fishing protocols. The rainforests will disappear before oil does, and we are fethed when they do. Sure some protected trees might remain, but possibly not enough to do its job. Human population growth is not expected to peak until late this century, barring some huge plague, expect big and nasty resource wars by the 2040's 50's.
Regarding oil reserves lasting a century usually means oil fuel. Oil also drives the plastics industry and is largely wasted as fuel. You want to give up your car, for life to buy a better future for all. No? Didnt think so. I have met only one who has, for those reasons other than for failed driving tests personal finances or ill health.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
and long before we run out we'll have advanced the matter of synthesizing it to the point of economic feasibility. Technology marches on, and its ability to provide will outmatch the availability of resources in space for centuries, until it delivers them as well, and I have no doubt that said miraculous propulsion tech will come about some day.
Thats more pie in the sky than any space station, even O'Neills ideas. Sure technology will increase but few technological increases are gifted to the planet, the last major technology to be deliberately exempt from patent was the Jet Engine. Synthetic oil will likely be someones money pit, just as the crop yield improvement technologies are. So on its own you still get a big resource conflict.
However you are also counting on even policing, which wont happen some will take more and the sustainability benefits will be lost. Then some or others will get angry and swords will be drawn and technology marches on in armaments faster than anything else. We have had the tech to rape whole nations for decades and now dont even need 'The Bomb' to do it.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Even with such, I don't believe it would be the better option for a long time, though it would become feasible to colonize for the sake of colonization, which for many centuries to come will remain the only sane reason for extraterran colonization, and indeed the dissemination of humanity throughout the galaxy is a necessary hurdle to undergo. But right now, it's like trying to fly a WWI fighter plane to the moon in a steam-powered diving bell. Only less awesome and more wires and bone loss accompanied by atrophying muscles. And cancer.
As stated before the technology for full sized human settlement in space already exists, all that is lacking is the political will. The biggest room for improvement is in launch vehicle technology, we need more specific impulse to get bigger payloads with smaller rockets up the gravity well. everything else from shielding to materials to design is already made and ready to go.
Assuming I had a company big enough to afford to buy material assets and a magic teleporter that will go from here to orbit and back, and no other tecvhnology beyond what can be made or bought in 2011 we could build a space city now. The only hard reality is regarding launch vehicles, they require a lot of basic raw materials, notably raw fuel which can be expensive and most of all they need a launch site which requires a political presence strong enouygh to keep ther site running and free from interference. That is the only downside, a project like this would launch so infrequently that funding would dry up before peole would see the benefits, or slowly enough for some governments to get worried about the conserquences of people in space outside their control who can very easily scupper and entire space program without ever themselves leaving the ground. After all government is goveernment and the idea of the space civilisation is to be able to avoid the fate of the rest of the population, and more critically to them, will stick the finger to earths governments as they get tetchy over the upcoming resource problems when they occur.
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Andrew1975 wrote:I don't really see it being a reality until there is some proven obvious benefit to it. As it is right now, there is no real drive to live in space and no economical benefit. It is vitally important that we keep doing the research to make it a possibility, but there are so many unanswered issues with supporting an independent colony in space or on another planet.
Thats the problem, when the oceans are empty of fish and the rainforests cut down and the oil running out and the population 10 billion and growing its too late to invest in a space colony. Now a society building a space colony might have a political problem maybe even a rersource problem, then it will have insurmountable problems, resources might be rationed too severely and too many factions might be waging war over them. A launch site is very easy pickings.
Thats the problem, when the oceans are empty of fish and the rainforests cut down and the oil running out and the population 10 billion and growing its too late to invest in a space colony. Now a society building a space colony might have a political problem maybe even a rersource problem, then it will have insurmountable problems, resources might be rationed too severely and too many factions might be waging war over them. A launch site is very easy pickings.
I don't think you can look at space as a solution to these problems though. It's not like a closet that you can just shove things into. I mean people in space have too eat too right? In many ways I think it's pretty silly to take our problems to space with us. We need to try to fix the issues here first, if humanity isn't stable on earth, it would be much harder to supply that stability in a place where resources are even harder to come by.
As stated before the technology for full sized human settlement in space already exists, all that is lacking is the political will.
And Capital! Even a small space colony would be astronomical right now, and that's just to build. Resupply? $$$$$$$$$$$$$. Your asking for a planet that is already strained in resources to waste them. The solution is to continue to expand our knowledge until we can develop the technology to make it efficient and affordable. Right now you are asking Columbus to go to American in triremes. Actually that would be easier because at least there were resources to survive on in America. Its just not prudent with today's technology, the money can be better spent actually developing better technology than wasted using the inadequate kit we have now. It can be spent even better in developing technology that actually helps the earth with it's problems before we move out to much more hostile areas.
Orlanth wrote:Ok so your not listening, I will try a second time.
A paint chip sized fleck will not endanger a space habitat. Only a fairly large boulder will do that, habitats will be able to move themselves or deflect or destroy a boulder.
There are two risks in space due to debris: wear and direct damage. Small items like paint flakes etc. create wear, slowly degrading parts that will have to be replaced. The second, direct damage, results from items significantly smaller than a boulder. For example, the ISS is at substantial risk for anything larger than about 1cm in diameter. While future technology may improve protection, there's a wide range of potential impacts that you're hand-waving away.
Orlanth wrote:Thats more pie in the sky than any space station, even O'Neills ideas. Sure technology will increase but few technological increases are gifted to the planet, the last major technology to be deliberately exempt from patent was the Jet Engine. Synthetic oil will likely be someones money pit, just as the crop yield improvement technologies are. So on its own you still get a big resource conflict.
I hope you're aware that grants of patent are for a limited term, and generally don't exceed 20 years (absent special circumstances). Also, the airplane jet engine was patented in 1921 by a French inventor (FR 534,801).
Orlanth wrote:As stated before the technology for full sized human settlement in space already exists, all that is lacking is the political will. The biggest room for improvement is in launch vehicle technology, we need more specific impulse to get bigger payloads with smaller rockets up the gravity well. everything else from shielding to materials to design is already made and ready to go.
I think you're missing Sir Pseudonymous' larger point, that any resources spent to manufacture, build and transport a space station are better (and more inexpensively) spent on Earth.
Say you're building a self-contained capsule that utilizes solar energy to power everything and allows for 100% recycling. Would it be easier to build this capsule in space or on Earth? For any imaginable condition (defense, pressure differential, construction, access to new materials) it's easier and better to build the capsule on earth than it is in space. Even if built in the middle of the Gobi desert, an Earth-based self-contained capsule would be superior to a space-based capsule.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think you can look at space as a solution to these problems though. It's not like a closet that you can just shove things into. I mean people in space have too eat too right? In many ways I think it's pretty silly to take our problems to space with us. We need to try to fix the issues here first, if humanity isn't stable on earth, it would be much harder to supply that stability in a place where resources are even harder to come by.
Actually thats the beauty of the project, to succed on earth you have to get everyone on board one way or another having even handed policing and resource distribution. it isnt going to happen. The soace colony is initiated by believers in the project, who are all environmentalist realists, environmentalists because tht it what they want, realist s because they know that other people will not play to the need to provide sustainability so long as there is a % for not doing so.
Andrew1975 wrote:
And Capital! Even a small space colony would be astronomical right now, and that's just to build. Resupply? $$$$$$$$$$$$$.
You can only come to this conclusion if you didnt read the posts you critique. Reread and you will understand.
1. The society building the space station would run on a minimum cost level its human resources, the single largest contributory factor. It can alsio run businesses with the rest of human society within the bounds of this phiklosophy to fund other projects. This will bypass most capital requirements.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Your asking for a planet that is already strained in resources to waste them.
Try reading what you critique, you build your space station now or in the near future before the real resourse shortages bite. Unless you are counting todays resources as strained which they are not actually, most shortages in western society are artificial, the materials are still there. Price rises are 90% greed 10% necessity, later when the genuine shortage occurs, it will be far nastier.
Andrew1975 wrote:
The solution is to continue to expand our knowledge until we can develop the technology to make it efficient and affordable. Right now you are asking Columbus to go to American in triremes.
Unless your projected technology fixes politics and economics themselves I dont think it will be enough. Too many people, not enough x and y and too many people demanding more than they needs for an expected quality of life we expect of ourselves. I am yet to even hear of a devise that cures greed or provides shielding against inflation. technology can help multiply existing resources, but we are expanding too rapidly now that unles everything expands technology at the rate computer hardware does we are going to be stuffed.
Andrew1975 wrote:
the money can be better spent actually developing better technology than wasted using the inadequate kit we have now. It can be spent even better in developing technology that actually helps the earth with it's problems before we move out to much more hostile areas.
Sure but what of our projected self sufficiency society. They make their biodomes in the desert rather than cyclinders in space. But only they have stored up for the future. The overpopulated masses or the politicians who rely on the for votes, or the military will ultimately say , "nice biodome, we'll have it." They might even be as 'generous' enough to appropriate it for fair distribution at the most reasonable, but the results will ultimately be the same as if they descended on it like a plague of locusts.
If you are building for a future where man will not learn until too late, if ever, you need to build you piece of sustainable land beyond the paws of those who will take it from you. With a global reach possible there is only one place left to go.
biccat wrote:
There are two risks in space due to debris: wear and direct damage. Small items like paint flakes etc. create wear, slowly degrading parts that will have to be replaced. The second, direct damage, results from items significantly smaller than a boulder. For example, the ISS is at substantial risk for anything larger than about 1cm in diameter. While future technology may improve protection, there's a wide range of potential impacts that you're hand-waving away.
The ISS design would not be adequate for the purposes of a space station certainly not one with rotational gravity. You need several metres of shielding. This can be aquired for 'free' and launched cheaply, once you have a lunar mining camp.
Current technology is already improving protection. One good solution is to have two shaped plastic bags fill the inner one with air to aquire a shape, fill the outer one with ceramic foam aerated with hydrogen. Hydrogen is as light as it gets and it also is excellent shielding against radiation. Two plastic bags and three cylinders one air, one hydrogen one foam matrix and you have a small habitat right there. From this production method you can store up lining material hydrogen and foam matrix for a much bigger structure. Line that with materials mined etc etc and you have an embryonic space station of a type big enough to start thinking about sending up a biome for self sufficiency.
Orlanth wrote:I hope you're aware that grants of patent are for a limited term, and generally don't exceed 20 years (absent special circumstances). Also, the airplane jet engine was patented in 1921 by a French inventor (FR 534,801).
Non working patents are invalid or fusion engines would already be fully patented. we digress anyway.
biccat wrote:
I think you're missing Sir Pseudonymous' larger point, that any resources spent to manufacture, build and transport a space station are better (and more inexpensively) spent on Earth.
I hear him ok, but he hasnt grasped the point. If those resources are spent for human betterment in any way and the guys next door are still overpopulating consuming not listening and looking for the next resource and arming themselves to take what you have built with diligent hands will be ijn theirs, briefly, before it is consumed and they move un in desperation to find the next resource.
The ONLY other solution to a space program is to get everyone aboard with peaceable green living and sustainability. Politicians talk sustainability all the time, none with access to power will deliver. For the US to be sustainable you would have to slash at least 60% of your resource consumption, private cars gone or heavily green taxed, energy at least 8x the current price, no nuclear no packaging, high taxes on meat, closure of much of the nations industry, population limits and above all even policing to make sure everyone complies. I cant expect that from you unless North Korea takes over, and even communism wont work, as what it saves from the people the party squanders.
You wanna go Amish, you want to tell the rest of Europe and America they must go Amish too? If you dont we have a century tops, and that still involves a lot of saving to last that long. If however we do stuff like look at immediate economic nees rather than emission levels.
If any individual subgroup tries to sustain all it will do is provide a little larder for some armed group that doesn't later. Unless that group builds its larder in space.
biccat wrote:
Say you're building a self-contained capsule that utilizes solar energy to power everything and allows for 100% recycling. Would it be easier to build this capsule in space or on Earth? For any imaginable condition (defense, pressure differential, construction, access to new materials) it's easier and better to build the capsule on earth than it is in space. Even if built in the middle of the Gobi desert, an Earth-based self-contained capsule would be superior to a space-based capsule.
Nope because your solar energy high tech wonderland will belong later to someone else who didn't save up for it and has lots of hungry buddies who didn't save either. Singing hippy songs and saying why not learn and be green like us will not work. People don't listen especially when they are 'hungry' and they have guns and you have food. Most likely it wont go that far, whwen resources bite regislation gets hard, government might force you to share what you have at unsustainable levels in attempts to stave off shortfalls elsewhere, for the immediate term, which is as far as most can think.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think you can look at space as a solution to these problems though. It's not like a closet that you can just shove things into. I mean people in space have too eat too right? In many ways I think it's pretty silly to take our problems to space with us. We need to try to fix the issues here first, if humanity isn't stable on earth, it would be much harder to supply that stability in a place where resources are even harder to come by.
Actually thats the beauty of the project, to succed on earth you have to get everyone on board one way or another having even handed policing and resource distribution. it isnt going to happen. The soace colony is initiated by believers in the project, who are all environmentalist realists, environmentalists because tht it what they want, realist s because they know that other people will not play to the need to provide sustainability so long as there is a % for not doing so.
And eminently vulnerable to nuke strike. Of course why do you think this will be a beauty? All we need is for colony commander Bob to get a little big in the head and then its "wump! no oxygen for you!" Everything that has happened before will happen again, even in space.
1. The society building the space station would run on a minimum cost level its human resources, the single largest contributory factor. It can alsio run businesses with the rest of human society within the bounds of this phiklosophy to fund other projects. This will bypass most capital requirements.
I just think creating this Utopian society would be harder than actually creating the technology to live in space of fix the problems of earth. So I kind of just ignored that part. The talent that you would need to push the technical and scientific boundaries does not want to work for free.
Here is an example! I lived in a dormitory in Volgograd Russia on an exchange program. It was a gakhole! Everything was breaking and built rather shoddy, i just put this down to poor soviet construction. One day while on a tour of the school they showed us pictures of it's construction, they explained with great pride that IT WAS BUILT BY THE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS! Yeah that's right! It was if I remember correctly a 17 floor dormitory designed by the architecture department, a construction crew was on site for the heavy machinery, and guidance, but the labor was all student and teachers! A shinning example of the communist dream, and why it will never work.
Needles to say, I almost crapped my pants! No wonder nothing worked, there was exposed wiring everywhere, water leaks all kinds of stuff. I mean American college students have a bad image, Russian students were for the most part the drunkest group of screw ups I had ever seen! (SO FUN THOUGH!) I NEVER SET FOOT IN THAT RICKETY LOOKING ELEVATOR. I lived on the 4th floor and always took the stairs. During a good storm, I feared for my life! My only comfort was the it had stood up for the last 18 years and most of the top floors were empty.
No think about that, I mean really imagine it. ............Now imagine it in space where there is exactly 0 tolerance for mistakes.
I'd be worried that you are going to get a whole generation of the intellectual elite killed. Then I realized that if they were really so smart, they would never set foot on that thing.
I seriously mean no offense. Maybe I got the wrong idea. But how do you expect to get this project done.
Orlanth wrote:
Actually thats the beauty of the project, to succeed on earth you have to get everyone on board one way or another having even handed policing and resource distribution. It isn't going to happen. The soace colony is initiated by believers in the project, who are all environmentalist realists, environmentalists because that it what they want, realist because they know that other people will not play to the need to provide sustainability so long as there is a % for not doing so.
And eminently vulnerable to nuke strike. Of course why do you think this will be a beauty? All we need is for colony commander Bob to get a little big in the head and then its "wump! no oxygen for you!" Everything that has happened before will happen again, even in space.
Yes very 'vulnerable' which is why to train the anti-asteroid defences to pay particular attention to nuke shaped asteroids, boarding parties dodgy shuttles etc.
The only real weakness I see to this project is that a government is not too unlikely to allow you to build then find a pretense to nationalise before it is ready and complete it for themselves. After all they will have read the times and the politicians will want somewhere to go even if everyone else burns. The only countermeasure is to arm quietly and make sure the project is more ready than it looks so it is survivable and independent while it still appears to be just a building site and the governments are still allowing construction to continue bercause for now they are getting for free that which will cost money later.
Asd for the colony turning dodgy, eminently possible, but the third generation law accounts for that. The first generation of recruits is genuine and dedicated, they are giving up finanacial carreers to join and build a new future. The second generation is born of them and raised by them and other like them are still being recruited, the third generation seals the 'culture'. get that far and you can cement a culture that basically works. This is why some pacific islands populations learned to follow certain rules at all levels of their culture and have a sustainable culture with boats even on small island homes. While the Easter Islanders didn't learn this chopped down all their trees and starved. Isolated pacific islands have been populated by generation of people who had every means to destroy their habitat the way Easter Islanders did, but did not. There must have been a time on Easter Island when trees were getting rare and some might have though why not preserve what we have, someone else obviously thought otherwise and power usually prevails over sense, the immediate over the short term.
You could ask then, why cant we learn too and be like metaphoric tree preserving islanders rather than island ravishing islanders. the answer can be found in phrases like, economic growth, quarterly statement, fiscal responsibility, profit margin, bonus shares, opinion polls etc. Our culture isnt set up to learn, and we though adverttising if nothing else encourage everyone else to emulate us in taking far far more than is possible for even short term survivability.
frazzie we are westerners living in the golden age. People will look back on our years weith envy and rage, they will watch our movies and our good times and wish they know them, or will screram at long dead persons to change lest the future be barren.
As for waiting until we have better technology before trying to move on, sounds plausible too. but space colonisation is really about survival not expansion, and is mostly an escape clause, an option to get away. Perhaps the colonists will hope indeed to terraform a planet. In all likelhood that planet will be earth after humanity has burned itself out to a remnant by one means or other.
If however we wait for technology to catch up and bring us new options we run the gauntlet of time, and time is beginning to run out. While the truth will likely be somewhere between the two which of these two future is the more likely if we wait long enough (taken by general cultural theme not actual universe background):
Andrew1975 wrote:Orlanth. Don't get me wrong, I read your post.
1. The society building the space station would run on a minimum cost level its human resources, the single largest contributory factor. It can alsio run businesses with the rest of human society within the bounds of this phiklosophy to fund other projects. This will bypass most capital requirements.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I just think creating this Utopian society would be harder than actually creating the technology to live in space of fix the problems of earth. So I kind of just ignored that part. The talent that you would need to push the technical and scientific boundaries does not want to work for free.
they wont work for free, they woerk without profit/pay, there is a big difference. Once accomodation is sorted out medical and dental etc things will be fine, communes can and do work long term, monasteries are a good example of this, and most monasteries wont have an attached business that is bringing in a fair amount of goods to make the members lives comfortable.
Andrew1975 wrote:
Here is an example! I lived in a dormitory in Volgograd Russia on an exchange program. It was a gakhole! Everything was breaking and built rather shoddy, i just put this down to poor soviet construction. One day while on a tour of the school they showed us pictures of it's construction, they explained with great pride that IT WAS BUILT BY THE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS! Yeah that's right! It was if I remember correctly a 17 floor dormitory designed by the architecture department, a construction crew was on site for the heavy machinery, and guidance, but the labor was all student and teachers! A shinning example of the communist dream, and why it will never work.
There is a 99% difference between a socialist utopia made of volunteers and a socialist utopia as imposed by the party.
Andrew1975 wrote:
No think about that, I mean really imagine it. ............Now imagine it in space where there is exactly 0 tolerance for mistakes.
Not zero tolerance, mistakes cost lives and mistakes will happen. This may sound strange to comfortable people like you and I but the commune space program feeding the space station may not have a sterling track record of safety, not that it should stop them.
This shuttle is Challenger, taken on one of her early flights, later she blew up and the whole space program was grounded because of it.
Here is another flying object made by the same nation that also had a tendency to suddenly blow up in some situations.
We had something similar. Did we stop sending bombers just because some blew up when Germans shot at them? No, because the cause was considered worthwhile. A national space program might not be able to afford these forms of human economics, but a society dedicated to space exploration can. The astronauts in the project would have to sign up like bomber crews or not go at all, I still do not think there would be any shortage of quality volunteers. This is a cause worth risking your life for.
If that sounds incredulous remember that Columbus's ships were not sufficient for the task, and he ran out of food before he ran out of Atlantic. had Columbus the longevity to wait until proper ships qworthy of the crossing were made he would have to have waited fifty years, and that is even with the hindsight of these ships being made for specifications for a journey he had made.
As for health and safety legislation as the British government has been hanging us over here with in recent years. Had they been around when the Pilgrim fathers sailed they would have been forced to stay in Plymouth, after all not only was safety provisions almost entirely absent, but horror of horrors there was no wheelchair access either!! However they did sail, and the rest as they say, is history.
Andrew1975 wrote:
I'd be worried that you are going to get a whole generation of the intellectual elite killed. Then I realized that if they were really so smart, they would never set foot on that thing.
I seriously mean no offense. Maybe I got the wrong idea. But how do you expect to get this project done.
Volunteers, visionaries also the best scientists are designing rockets and building rockets, aerojocks get to fly em.
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Frazzled wrote:Again you're attempting to describe a utopia in space. Its sweet, but its a dream designed to fail.
B5 made it because it was a key port. It was not self sustaining. It had gobs of crime plus was involved in that whole interstellar war thing.
I am comparing Babylong 5 and The Road as opposite themes the first a space society built after we discovered all the tech requirements first, the latter a human fethstorm because we couldn't stop fething up the planet. Babylon 5 had decks of crime because the polotwriters wanted it that way. Clamping down and cleaning out scum would have been easy as it was centrally controlled.
Saying that the utopian space colony will not want too much centralised control, that leads to your 'Commander Bob'. It need never have it either, if we look at how isolated societies can tailor their culture to sustain or ravish their homes adn how some do, others dont.
A space station is a port in itself, trade from earth (if possible) the moon and other space communities. also it is self sustaining, just as planet earth is. You get sunlight to power it, you have an atmosphere plants animals etc. Its not just a city, you need a biome too, you also want this for quality of life. Now you are not 100% self sufficient though you can do without supply for extended periods of time. Assuming your seals are good all you need outside material for is rocket fuel for your own thrusters and to supply your own cargo fleet. everything else is just basic raw material from the moon. Assuming the seals are not good and you cannot manage full recycling, you still have lunar minin g to handle most stuff, and once all jkey ingeedients from ther planet are taken up the well, can provide 100% of anything left. So long as you can provide a soil, base metals in sufficient quantities and synthesise fuel and atmosphere, all of which can be got from the moon then you can be 100% sufficient from earth at least.
In my opinion, I think we'll move onto planets within our own solar system quite easily before 400 years are up.
But for other solar systems? Maybe 1000, or whenever we create close to light speed travel.
Hey, if you think it's possible, I say good luck to you, keep reaching for the stars.
they wont work for free, they woerk without profit/pay, there is a big difference.
You need the best people, best materials, best production facilities possible to have a prayer of this working. The best people rarely strive for sufficiency.
I just think until things get really sporty down here on earth it is going to be hard to find people with the drive/desperation that is needed to attain this project. Just getting your hands on the required materials much less the state of the art production facilities, without having to pay the kings ransom that they would expect in return is a pretty loft goal.
I suppose anything is possible, and I'd like to believe that humanity could unite in such a way, history however is against you.
Andrew1975 wrote:Hey, if you think it's possible, I say good luck to you, keep reaching for the stars.
they wont work for free, they woerk without profit/pay, there is a big difference.
You need the best people, best materials, best production facilities possible to have a prayer of this working. The best people rarely strive for sufficiency.
I just think until things get really sporty down here on earth it is going to be hard to find people with the drive/desperation that is needed to attain this project. Just getting your hands on the required materials much less the state of the art production facilities, without having to pay the kings ransom that they would expect in return is a pretty loft goal.
I suppose anything is possible, and I'd like to believe that humanity could unite in such a way, history however is against you.
History is in fact with me. Human large scale politics its what is against me. A communal scientific brotherhood is a concept which has not even been explored but successfully engaged, best example being the Pythagorean Brotherhood. You do not need many people to share the vision, given good charismatic leadership it could well work. Some are already thinking on broadly similar lines, this thought is not unique to me, though I worked out my version myself before I found others I am not alone now, so why should the charismatic who proports this be alone later.
I never made it out to be easy by the way, I would sign up. It takes less commitment than being a monk, and some people still become monks.
True, but this endeavor would be larger than anything attempted before. You are talking mass scale! You can get a small group of individuals relatively easy, well compared to the actual hard part. If you really think you can keep costs down through volunteer or sustenance labor, getting all the grunts together that you are gonna need for material acquisition, production and support would be much much harder.
You are basically gonna need to create NASA, but without the cost. Again, I wish you luck.
Look at how hard Richard Branson has to work just to break orbit, and he's got truckloads full of money and spends it freely. You are basically going to have to have cult followers, and those aren't always the best out of the box thinkers, not to mention the issues that those type of people tend to attract.
Granted, no good project was ever easy. So this being a project on a human planetary scale, expect planetary scale problems.
Problem: in the past, colonists are usually those with little/nothing to lose, so they'll gladly take the government's offer of a new home and some free assistance. In today's society, those with little to lose are generally educated to, say, a high school level (or an english major in college ). Do we want to send these people out in rockets?
Orlanth wrote: A communal scientific brotherhood is a concept which has not even been explored but successfully engaged, best example being the Pythagorean Brotherhood.
I think most people would call the Pythagorean Brotherhood a religious cult, not a scientific brotherhood.
Andrew1975 wrote:True, but this endeavor would be larger than anything attempted before. You are talking mass scale! You can get a small group of individuals relatively easy, well compared to the actual hard part. If you really think you can keep costs down through volunteer or sustenance labor, getting all the grunts together that you are gonna need for material acquisition, production and support would be much much harder.
You are basically gonna need to create NASA, but without the cost. Again, I wish you luck.
Look at how hard Richard Branson has to work just to break orbit, and he's got truckloads full of money and spends it freely. You are basically going to have to have cult followers, and those aren't always the best out of the box thinkers, not to mention the issues that those type of people tend to attract.
Granted, no good project was ever easy. So this being a project on a human planetary scale, expect planetary scale problems.
That is no more than I would expect of a thinking man.
While visionaries might say, this can be done, not everyone need be visionary. A project like this will need more level thought and other thought besides, some people have vision, others organisation skills, others practical horse sense, three different ways of thinking complementary not contradictory.
All I would expect is wellwishing and the thought: 'it ought to be done, so how?', not the thought: 'it can be done, so do'. The former sees the need and the pitfalls looks to ways to fulfill the mission, the latter is a sheep who unthinkingly agrees with the cause and in effect can provide little beyond crude labour.
Someone who likes the idea but is sceptical may through good science be a great asset in this sort of undertaking, such people may make up the bulk of the scientific ventures, and when free thinking men look for ways oftimes they find solutions.
That is no more than I would expect of a thinking man.
Someone who likes the idea but is sceptical may through good science be a great asset in this sort of undertaking, such people may make up the bulk of the scientific ventures, and when free thinking men look for ways oftimes they find solutions.
Did we stop sending bombers just because some blew up when Germans shot at them? No, because the cause was considered worthwhile. A national space program might not be able to afford these forms of human economics, but a society dedicated to space exploration can. The astronauts in the project would have to sign up like bomber crews or not go at all, I still do not think there would be any shortage of quality volunteers. This is a cause worth risking your life for.
Yeah, see now I just feel you are setting me up to be one of those test monkeys that get shot into space. I wish you luck, but I'm not anybodies guinea pig.
Slarg232 wrote:Correct me if I am wrong, but it took us what, 75-125 years after the discovery of Flight to launch something into space, yes?
Still probably have 50 some years before a Space Colonization happens, being 100% optomistic.
Well with the speed of progress the space programs have been going that is very optimistic. The space shuttle was first launched over 30 years ago. We haven't made any great leaps since then. Well not manned anyway.
Maybe we have a lab on the moon if 50 years, but that will just be the first step in a very long and expensive R&D project. When you think of all the hurdles we need to pass to get to a self sustainable space colony, well, we are very very far away.
Slarg232 wrote:Correct me if I am wrong, but it took us what, 75-125 years after the discovery of Flight to launch something into space, yes?
Still probably have 50 some years before a Space Colonization happens, being 100% optimistic.
Well with the speed of progress the space programs have been going that is very optimistic. The space shuttle was first launched over 30 years ago. We haven't made any great leaps since then. Well not manned anyway.
Maybe we have a lab on the moon if 50 years, but that will just be the first step in a very long and expensive R&D project. When you think of all the hurdles we need to pass to get to a self sustainable space colony, well, we are very very far away.
Actually its not optimistic enough, sometimes crises cause growth to spurt, otherwise great projects that capture thre imagination.
Proof of each:
In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew at kitty Hawk, in 1915 just twelve years later there were dogfights over the Somme involving fairly large numbers of aircraft.
In 1961 Kennedy launched an appeal to go to the moon, in 1969 the goal was achieved and repeated as Saturn v vehicles remained until 1972.
We have not progressed since because there was either no crisis nor any notable vision. Space shuttle had vision but politicans like the odd bit of show but then move on because the public has moved on, only scientists or businessmen have any eye for consistency. So we are back to either private venture or a scientific commune. Motivate a core of people with the vision to try again and human flight will take yet another leap forward, in all likelihood quicker than expected. Somebelive that the Apollo program was a piece of the mid twenty-first century in the mid twentieth. I can believe that, and I can even believe that mid twenty-first century may be too optimistic. Obama has just effectively shut down NASA, his focus is elsewhere, Russia is too poor to continue etc. The only good news is the Russian/EU deal to build and launch Soyuz in French Guiana. An equatorial launch site will help Soyuz considerably and the richer EU will benefit from the tied and tested technologies birthed in the Soviet Union.
Orlanth wrote:Yes very 'vulnerable' which is why to train the anti-asteroid defences to pay particular attention to nuke shaped asteroids, boarding parties dodgy shuttles etc.
The hilarious part is where you assume that your ponderous spinning space station, which you've quite clearly stated would have no need of resupply from Earth, would have the fuel to dodge even unguided relativistic projectiles, let alone a missile moving in excess of Mach 10, that's probably hit you before you've even noticed that it's heading towards you.
Orlanth wrote:
Actually its not optimistic enough, sometimes crises cause growth to spurt, otherwise great projects that capture thre imagination.
Proof of each:
In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew at kitty Hawk, in 1915 just twelve years later there were dogfights over the Somme involving fairly large numbers of aircraft.
In 1961 Kennedy launched an appeal to go to the moon, in 1969 the goal was achieved and repeated as Saturn v vehicles remained until 1972.
You realize that in both cases the driving force behind growth was public capital, yes?
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Orlanth wrote: Somebelive that the Apollo program was a piece of the mid twenty-first century in the mid twentieth.
No, it was a piece of the twentieth century, because that's when it happened. You're speaking like a bad 50's serial.
The romance of the space age is dead. We went out there and didn't really find a good reason to keep going. It just costs too much. There are really only a few motivating factors that spur technology.
In no particular order.
1 Resources. There aren't any, well none that would pay off to spend a but load to get yet.
2 War. We have basically declared space a weapons free zone.
3 Porn. We have that in abundance here. So until the fabled 6 breasted women of Dengar 8 show up, I don't see this being an issue.
Because it is there is great for climbing a mountain, but not for spending the GDP of most countries to get there.
I think one day we will figure out how to do it cost effectively, until then I think we better figure out a way to be better custodians of this rock.
Orlanth wrote:Yes very 'vulnerable' which is why to train the anti-asteroid defences to pay particular attention to nuke shaped asteroids, boarding parties dodgy shuttles etc.
The hilarious part is where you assume that your ponderous spinning space station, which you've quite clearly stated would have no need of resupply from Earth, would have the fuel to dodge even unguided relativistic projectiles, let alone a missile moving in excess of Mach 10, that's probably hit you before you've even noticed that it's heading towards you.
Hilarious? You any idea how easy it is to spot a launch, and radar works in space you know, and is very hard to stealth up. You cannot stealth nukes anyway, too many dense materials at the core.
Laugh away though, the world would be a boring place if everyone had vision.
As for dodging, this was worked out. Either you shoot down incoming projectiles or if unguided you move the colony up to half its own smallest facing dimension in the time between minimum detection range and estimated impact. Projectiles dont travel at relativistic speeds outside of soft SF, you may as well 'fail' the project as it has no shielding against phasers and photon torpedoes, it makes as much real life sense. Asteroids have an appreciable travel time and can be detected some way off. Missiles are more of a problem, but you would'nt dodge missiles, even if they appear unguided they may simply switch off attitude thrust until terminal guidance to conserve fuel. Assume all incoming missiles will have sufficient delta-v to place it in impact trajectory and destroy it.
dogma wrote:Good, someone else saw the error.
Which error dogma, or are you back to your old tricks of rejection without critique.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Actually its not optimistic enough, sometimes crises cause growth to spurt, otherwise great projects that capture the imagination.
In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew at kitty Hawk, in 1915 just twelve years later there were dogfights over the Somme involving fairly large numbers of aircraft.
In 1961 Kennedy launched an appeal to go to the moon, in 1969 the goal was achieved and repeated as Saturn V vehicles remained until 1972.
You realize that in both cases the driving force behind growth was public capital, yes?
How did you come to that conclusion?
Actually early airforces were underfunded until 1916 at least aircraft manufacture was a cottage industry and largely laughed at by the general of the time as a waste. Apollo however was not underfunded, but obviosuly dosesnt correlate wirth early WW1 aircraft production.
The consistent point was not public money but political will. The will was there to take to the air and fight. Look what happened to Apollo once the political will ebbed away, it got cancelled, with three rockets Apollo 18-20 already built and paid for. Admittedly one saturn V rocket got turned into Skylab, but two others didn't fly and became multi billion dollar paperweights. Why cancel when two more trips could be made for a relatively small sum compared to existing investment in the two Saturn rockets, it makes little fiscal sense to waste them, but politcally it made sense as the public was no longer enthralled and much of the work was already done. Also by then the US was in a growing malaise over Vietnam and Apollo felt like whistling while drowning to a disgruntled population.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote: Some believe that the Apollo program was a piece of the mid twenty-first century in the mid twentieth.
No, it was a piece of the twentieth century, because that's when it happened. You're speaking like a bad 50's serial.
Actually I am closely paraphrasing a quote from a NASA official from the Apollo program control room staff who gave interview in a documentary about the Apollo program. I found his words helpful, however perhaps dogma knows better than him, perhaps not.
It was out of synch with the 20th century because it did advanced stuff that wasn't done before or since. Other than Apollo you may consider the fact that no other manned lunar expeditions have been launched and none are currently planned beyond open concepts of 'might go by certain date'. No other manned exploration of apace ventured more than approx 300m miles altitude, Apollo was unique in many respects and noone has yet gone remotely as far since from 1972 to 2011 and counting. As none of the moon return dates hypothesises are in the first quarter of this century and may well be postponed further I think it fair comment.
However if dogma says it isnt and that Apollo was just another standard event in the 60's like everything fore and since then dogma can think that if he wishes.
Andrew1975 wrote:Hey, if you think it's possible, I say good luck to you, keep reaching for the stars.
they wont work for free, they woerk without profit/pay, there is a big difference.
You need the best people, best materials, best production facilities possible to have a prayer of this working. The best people rarely strive for sufficiency.
I just think until things get really sporty down here on earth it is going to be hard to find people with the drive/desperation that is needed to attain this project. Just getting your hands on the required materials much less the state of the art production facilities, without having to pay the kings ransom that they would expect in return is a pretty loft goal.
I suppose anything is possible, and I'd like to believe that humanity could unite in such a way, history however is against you.
Actually it means many many people have to slave so that a few can get ito space. Thats pretty much the opposite of Utopia.
I could think of no greater crime against another planet than to subject it to our presence.
How long after the "colonization" of Mars before the first Wal-Marts and McDonalds begin to speckle it's surface?
Orlanth wrote:
Which error dogma, or are you back to your old tricks of rejection without critique.
The logistical one regarding your rapture-esque rotational space habitat.
Orlanth wrote:
Actually early airforces were underfunded until 1916 at least aircraft manufacture was a cottage industry and largely laughed at by the general of the time as a waste.
If you're going to argue that aircraft progressed from experiment to wide use a rapid pace it is not a good idea to use an example which illustrates the role public capital played in realizing the event in question. Underfunded or not, the use of public funds is what made aircraft manufacture really take off, as the concept of private airlines didn't really take hold until after World War II, and it isn't like planes are an often sought consumer good.
Orlanth wrote:
The consistent point was not public money but political will.
No, that's incorrect. There was no significant political will to use aircraft in war, as you yourself have just said, however public funds were directed towards the purchase of aircraft anyway. This infusion of cash, while small compared to the overall military budget of the purchasing nations, still was a massive boon to aircraft manufacturers; who now found themselves with their first truly reliable clients. NASA, on the other hand, was the beneficiary of Kennedy's space race, and the overall competition with the Soviet Union. This made it possible for massive amounts of public capital to be poured into the Apollo program.
Truthfully, your examples don't have much of anything in common, and don't do much to illustrate your point.
Orlanth wrote:
Why cancel when two more trips could be made for a relatively small sum compared to existing investment in the two Saturn rockets, it makes little fiscal sense to waste them, but politcally it made sense as the public was no longer enthralled and much of the work was already done.
I don't see why that doesn't make fiscal sense. Not launching the rockets meant not spending more money, its that simple. Moreover, the majority of the 185 million 2005 USD per launch price tag was, if I recall correctly, tied up in fuel, not the rocket itself.
Orlanth wrote:
Actually I am closely paraphrasing a quote from a NASA official from the Apollo program control room staff who gave interview in a documentary about the Apollo program. I found his words helpful, however perhaps dogma knows better than him, perhaps not.
Then he was also speaking like a bad 50's serial. But hey, he wasn't paid to be articulate when it came to describing the nature of the program he was working on, so it isn't a huge issue.
Orlanth wrote:
It was out of synch with the 20th century because it did advanced stuff that wasn't done before or since.
How can something be "in sync" with a period of time? Either it happened during a given period of time, and therefore characterizes that period of time, or it didn't. Everything else is just an expression of awe that something could have happened in a particular period of time, and is therefore irrelevant.
Orlanth wrote:
However if dogma says it isnt and that Apollo was just another standard event in the 60's like everything fore and since then dogma can think that if he wishes.
Apollo is an event of note, obviously, but its still an event which took place in the 60's. Even if its a unique event, its still an event that happened in the 60's.
FITZZ wrote: I could think of no greater crime against another planet than to subject it to our presence.
How long after the "colonization" of Mars before the first Wal-Marts and McDonalds begin to speckle it's surface?
Probably right as soon as we get it to support life; those bastards want to be everywhere....
FITZZ wrote: I could think of no greater crime against another planet than to subject it to our presence.
How long after the "colonization" of Mars before the first Wal-Marts and McDonalds begin to speckle it's surface?
So I should buy the rights to Martians of Walmart then?
FITZZ wrote: I could think of no greater crime against another planet than to subject it to our presence.
How long after the "colonization" of Mars before the first Wal-Marts and McDonalds begin to speckle it's surface?
So I should buy the rights to Martians of Walmart then?
Oh most assuredly ...get in on the ground floor now.
With Wal-Marts propensity for sprouting up like boils on a Plague Marines ass, you (or your offspring) will have enough cash to keep you in Ray-guns and flying cars for ten lifetimes.
The one other thing that get me worried about space colonization is planet loyalty.
I agree that Mars, for example, would be loyal in the beginig ( after all the settlers came from Earth ). But what if mars became self-sufficient? Will it ask the Earth for independence? And what would be the outcome of that war be?
Brother Coa wrote:The one other thing that get me worried about space colonization is planet loyalty.
I agree that Mars, for example, owuld be loyal in the beginig ( after all the settlers came from Earth ). But what if mars became self-sufficient? Will it ask the Earth for independence? And what would be the outcome of that war be?
KingCracker wrote:Looking back on History....that WILL happen. It seems to work out for the better most the time lately but uh....it hasnt always ended well
We're going to blow up Mars again? Haven't they suffered enough?
Self-sufficiency on Mars will be interesting since it will basically depend on when the initial settlement of Mars occurs. If settlement is in the near future and intersteller mining and transport of material isn't economically feasable (i.e. Earth still has plenty of resources), then Mars' self-sufficiency will be a good thing since it will reduce the draw from Earth. At that point the Earthians probably wouldn't have a problem with Mars seceding.
But if Mars is settled in the far future as a mining colony, Earth would take great offense to a self-suffiency movement on Mars, especailly if Earth is dependent upon Martian shipments for basic resources.
KingCracker wrote:Right, so they will get blowed up..... no if I were in charge Id poison them all, dont want to ruin those valuable resources now do we
...And that's pretty much Earths colonization of any planet in a nutshell...how can we exploit what's there to benefit us.
EDIT: Seriously...any life on other worlds will rue the day the populace of Earth seeks to "branch out and expand".
KingCracker wrote:Looking back on History....that WILL happen. It seems to work out for the better most the time lately but uh....it hasnt always ended well
We're going to blow up Mars again? Haven't they suffered enough?
Self-sufficiency on Mars will be interesting since it will basically depend on when the initial settlement of Mars occurs. If settlement is in the near future and intersteller mining and transport of material isn't economically feasable (i.e. Terra still has plenty of resources), then Mars' self-sufficiency will be a good thing since it will reduce the draw from Terra. At that point the Terrans probably wouldn't have a problem with Mars seceding.
But if Mars is settled in the far future as a mining colony, Terra would take great offense to a self-suffiency movement on Terra, especailly if Terra is dependent upon Martian shipments for basic resources.
FITZZ wrote:Seriously...any life on other worlds will rue the day the populace of Earth seeks to "branch out and expand".
Should that stop us from branching out and expanding? What deference do we owe to other species "right to exist"?
Oh of course not, after all, we as a species have spent eons perfecting the art of fething each other over in one way or another...no reason our "Manifest Destiny" should remain Earthbound.
Agreed. If anything, we could teach other species the art of back stabbery. Kindda like missionaries but instead of peace its about how to get as much out of others for yourself as possible by doing as little as possible.
Im also with Melissia, 200 years we will have some folks living on the moon. Thats plenty far enough out to say itll happen, unless something terrible happens to the Earth zombie APOC style. Fingers are crossed. Toes too
I'm really interested in when people think we'll achieve FTL travel.
We've never been able to predict the future, particularly when it comes to technology; we should be cruising around in flying cars by now, according to 50's serials.
We seem to advance quicker in areas which make money (consumer electronics) than things which may be of potential use to the advancement of mankind.
As I said, it's hard to predict. The cynic in me thinks we won't have FTL travel ever. The slightly less cynical part reckons a thousand years. But the one who's come to expect the unexpected reckons it may only be 100 years....
KingCracker wrote:Looking back on History....that WILL happen. It seems to work out for the better most the time lately but uh....it hasnt always ended well
We're going to blow up Mars again? Haven't they suffered enough?
Self-sufficiency on Mars will be interesting since it will basically depend on when the initial settlement of Mars occurs. If settlement is in the near future and intersteller mining and transport of material isn't economically feasable (i.e. Earth still has plenty of resources), then Mars' self-sufficiency will be a good thing since it will reduce the draw from Earth. At that point the Earthians probably wouldn't have a problem with Mars seceding.
But if Mars is settled in the far future as a mining colony, Earth would take great offense to a self-suffiency movement on Mars, especailly if Earth is dependent upon Martian shipments for basic resources.
The secret is to make them dependent on oxygen. Its all about the oxygen baby.
Didn't the Arnoldator teach you anything?
GazzyG wrote:I'm really interested in when people think we'll achieve FTL travel.
We've never been able to predict the future, particularly when it comes to technology; we should be cruising around in flying cars by now, according to 50's serials.
We seem to advance quicker in areas which make money (consumer electronics) than things which may be of potential use to the advancement of mankind.
As I said, it's hard to predict. The cynic in me thinks we won't have FTL travel ever. The slightly less cynical part reckons a thousand years. But the one who's come to expect the unexpected reckons it may only be 100 years....
Flying car has been possible for years. It's just not really practical. Think about it, every time there is car accident or a car on the road. In a flying car you are not going to be able to pull over to a nice stop and your gonna crash into something pretty good.
The biggest problem with space colonization is that it's really expensive to do and there isn't much reason to do it. People move where there is opportunity (usually economic) for them, they don't try to expand just to arbitrarily fill space - there are plenty of ghost towns in the Western US and cities like Detroit with huge swathes of unoccupied buildings, but you don't see lots of people packing up to move to those spots. Having people live on mars or in an orbital hab is cool, but unfortunately just doesn't make sense to do on any large scale.
GazzyG wrote:I'm really interested in when people think we'll achieve FTL travel.
FTL travel would require throwing out a lot of current physics and adding a lot of completely new physics. It's not a matter of just sorting out some minor problems, or refining an old theory in a new domain, you have to completely trash a huge chunk of established knowledge to manage practical FTL. It's not just 'oh, find a way around relativity', even with just newtonian mechanics and a perfectly efficient engine you need a ship with around 95% of it's mass as fuel just to accelerate up to C and back down again one time. "Achieve FTL travel" is really "achieve a way to create really incredible amounts of energy out of nothing" for anything that's not some sort of teleportation.
Unfortunately, FTL is really just wishful thinking, it's not just a matter of refining something we can already do until it's good enough.
We've never been able to predict the future, particularly when it comes to technology; we should be cruising around in flying cars by now, according to 50's serials.
It's perfectly possible to make flying cars, the problem is that they're wildly impractical. They're way more expensive than conventional cars to make, use an order of magnitude more fuel, require far more traffic control, require lots of new infrastructure (landing pads and the like), are far more dangerous in an accident, and are far more useful as a terrorist weapon. It would probably be possible to power one with nuclear power like they did in a lot of old SF, but that's expensive to develop, dangerous, and EXTREMELY politically unpopular.
They're really one of those things that sound really cool to think about but just don't work in practice. It's like video phones - the technology is there, cheap, and readily available, but actual video calls are rare. People prefer to just talk or text (which is really a throwback to telegraphs), we don't want video for every conversation the way old SF did.
For colonization of the moon, I would say within 70 years. (Not like cities, but maybe some permanent stuff like research bases.) For actual cities, etc, I would say 150 for the moon, 200 for mars, or maybe even sooner.
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Brother Coa wrote:How long time will pass before Mankind start colonizing planets?
We have several serious claims:
-Russians and Chinese are planing Moon base by 2030.
-US are planing man to Mars until 2040.
What do you guys think? My opinion is that we won't colonize Moon or Mars until 2100, maybe somewhere in the middle of 2100's.
And we won't colonize other stars until we find some FTL technology that can give us some reasonable time to get to the nearest star ( less than 4 years ).
So what do you think?
There is the idea of a generation ship for interstellar travel. Just throwin that out there. (Generations of crewmembers live and die aboard the ship before it reaches it's destination.)
GalacticDefender wrote:There is the idea of a generation ship for interstellar travel. Just throwin that out there. (Generations of crewmembers live and die aboard the ship before it reaches it's destination.)
The thing about that is there's no need to bother with a destination. Since a generation ship is just a space habitat with engines, why not make the ship your home and just make stops once in a while to replentish supplies? If you've got a ship comfortable enough for people to spend their whole life on board, it doesn't seem like you need to stop and make a 'permanent' home somewhere else.
I think that the typical SF 'find planets and colonize them' just isn't going to happen, even if we manage to get easy FTL. I think space habitats and things like permanent generation ships are far more likely, since they have so many advantages. You can build them a bit at a time, can merge and split units based on political changes, it's easier to collect solar power and minterals from the solar system, space travel is way easier with no gravity well, and so on. This is even more true if, as it appears, planets earthlike enough that you can survive in jeans and a t-shirt are rare or nonexistent.
GalacticDefender wrote:There is the idea of a generation ship for interstellar travel. Just throwin that out there. (Generations of crewmembers live and die aboard the ship before it reaches it's destination.)
The thing about that is there's no need to bother with a destination. Since a generation ship is just a space habitat with engines, why not make the ship your home and just make stops once in a while to replentish supplies? If you've got a ship comfortable enough for people to spend their whole life on board, it doesn't seem like you need to stop and make a 'permanent' home somewhere else.
I think that the typical SF 'find planets and colonize them' just isn't going to happen, even if we manage to get easy FTL. I think space habitats and things like permanent generation ships are far more likely, since they have so many advantages. You can build them a bit at a time, can merge and split units based on political changes, it's easier to collect solar power and minterals from the solar system, space travel is way easier with no gravity well, and so on. This is even more true if, as it appears, planets earthlike enough that you can survive in jeans and a t-shirt are rare or nonexistent.
Energy is limited. You couldn't sustain an entire society indefinitely on one ship. You would have to time it just right, so people don't run out of resources for survival halfway though the trip or something. You could last for an extremely long time on one ship, but not forever. It is also a heck of a lot easier to settle down on some rock somewhere than to build everything yourself. The main structure you need (the surface of a planet) is already there. And millions or even billions of people I just do not see living on a space habitat. (maybe millions, but not billions). Planets are just easier to colonize than open space. (providing they have at least partially good conditions. I'm not saying colonizing venus would be easier than building a free floating colony)
Although I do think colonization for the sake of colonization is unlikely. There would be a reason of some sort, like mining or even cultural differences.
GalacticDefender wrote:Energy is limited. You couldn't sustain an entire society indefinitely on one ship. You would have to time it just right, so people don't run out of resources for survival halfway though the trip or something. You could last for an extremely long time on one ship, but not forever.
You can't sustain anything indefinitely anywhere, eventually the 2nd law of thermodynamics catches up to you. You can put your ship into orbit around a star and use solar power or gather hydrogen to power fusion engines and last as long as any society orbiting that star can, then when the star nears the end of it's life you just move on to another one. There isn't any limit to how long you could last on one ship, because nothing stops you from bringing power or materials back to it.
It is also a heck of a lot easier to settle down on some rock somewhere than to build everything yourself. The main structure you need (the surface of a planet) is already there. And millions or even billions of people I just do not see living on a space habitat. (maybe millions, but not billions). Planets are just easier to colonize than open space. (providing they have at least partially good conditions. I'm not saying colonizing venus would be easier than building a free floating colony)
From what we've seen, rocky planets are more like venus or mars than like 'an ecosystem completely compatible earth's that produces an atmosphere with just the right amount of oxygen for us and no toxic byproducts but with no intelligent life'. Even on earth, there's very little area that you can live year round with just 'the surface of a planet' as a structure, you need shelter from storms, cold, and the sun, so I really don't think having some rock in another solar system would help. You're going to need places to grow food, recycle air, recycle water, generate power, manufacture goods, and so on - all of which you need to create whether you're on the ground or in space. I don't see anything that's actually easier about colonizing a planet than space unless the planet is absurdly close to earthlike. And to top it off, if you're able to travel to another planet, you're going to be traveling there in a working habitat, which gives you a place to start!
Making one gigantic habitat and trying to shove billions of people into it would be pretty dumb with realistic materials, but there's no reason to stick to one single structure. With millions of orbiting structures, you can support populations up to the point that you start to run out of metals in the solar system for building habs.
BearersOfSalvation wrote: Unfortunately, FTL is really just wishful thinking, it's not just a matter of refining something we can already do until it's good enough.
No-one said it was. But with quantum science advancing every day, who knows whether a lot of current physics rules won't be well and truly rendered obselete in the near future? The rules of physics don't govern what happens, they describe what we observe to happen. If what we observe changes, then the rules have to be rewritten to accommodate this. To assume that this will never happen is to assume that we currently know everything. Which, you'll have to agree, is laughable.
It's perfectly possible to make flying cars, the problem is that they're wildly impractical. They're way more expensive than conventional cars to make, use an order of magnitude more fuel, require far more traffic control, require lots of new infrastructure (landing pads and the like), are far more dangerous in an accident, and are far more useful as a terrorist weapon. It would probably be possible to power one with nuclear power like they did in a lot of old SF, but that's expensive to develop, dangerous, and EXTREMELY politically unpopular.
They're really one of those things that sound really cool to think about but just don't work in practice. It's like video phones - the technology is there, cheap, and readily available, but actual video calls are rare. People prefer to just talk or text (which is really a throwback to telegraphs), we don't want video for every conversation the way old SF did.
I don't know why people are seizing upon this literally. It was thrown in there as an example of how people in the past saw the future and how wrong it was. Nothing more. I could've picked on food pills, travelators, hoverboards, ray guns - you name it.
Personally, I'm quite an optimist when it comes to mankind's ability to discover and create. Current physics doesn't allow FTL travel - I heartedly agree with this. But 150 years ago, respected scientists thought that travelling faster than 30mph would cause you a heart attack. Nowadays we laugh at such notions. As we, in turn, shall be laughed at in the future for our inability to see the obvious.
In danger of becoming labeld as a non beliver in this mather, I voted that we will destroy ourself before we managed to get to another world. But hey, we do need a new thing to waste money& time on so go ahead.
Trondheim wrote:In danger of becoming labeld as a non beliver in this mather, I voted that we will destroy ourself before we managed to get to another world. But hey, we do need a new thing to waste money& time on so go ahead.
I don't know that we'll destroy ourselves (though I suppose it's possiable), I just think we have more than enough " Earthbound" problems to attempt to solve before we worry about "Who get's to play Capt. Kirk" and spread " Humanity" to the stars.
GazzyG wrote:No-one said it was. But with quantum science advancing every day, who knows whether a lot of current physics rules won't be well and truly rendered obselete in the near future? The rules of physics don't govern what happens, they describe what we observe to happen. If what we observe changes, then the rules have to be rewritten to accommodate this. To assume that this will never happen is to assume that we currently know everything. Which, you'll have to agree, is laughable.
The smart money is not on all of current physics being rendered obsolete in the near futre. The problem is that science is build up by describing lots of things that we observe, it's not just that some guy thinks up an idea, other scientists say 'that's cool', and they slap it into a textbook. Science fictional FTL travel runs utterly counter to lots of observations about how the universe works, and not just obscure theoretical stuff that doesn't do anything, but really basic things like 'conservation of mass-energy', and theory used to come up with numbers to make GPS work. It's just not a matter of discovering a little edge cases are slightly different and so need some special handling.
Current physics states clearly that there are things we don't know yet, so even if we assume current physical theories are 100% accurate in what they describe, that's wouldn't be an assumption that we know everything.
Personally, I'm quite an optimist when it comes to mankind's ability to discover and create. Current physics doesn't allow FTL travel - I heartedly agree with this. But 150 years ago, respected scientists thought that travelling faster than 30mph would cause you a heart attack. Nowadays we laugh at such notions. As we, in turn, shall be laughed at in the future for our inability to see the obvious.
That's a load of crap, 150 years ago people had been riding horses for millennia, and no one with any sense thought that taking a horse to a gallop would cause you to have a heart attack. The argument of 'well, because people used to believe this silly thing all scientific knowledge is wrong' doesn't work when the silly thing is something no one believed, or one fruitcake said, or someone sort of said but the quote was badly out of context, or someone said 'we don't understand how this works' instead of 'that's impossible', or someone said 'we can't make something that does that' instead of 'that's impossible.'
Um, no the idea that traveling faster than a horse would kill a person was accepted. Y'know, cause trains and cars would create such a shock that the heart would stop. And babies be stillborn, and etc etc.
OT I voted 200 as I think the tech will get there and human greed will follow.
GalacticDefender wrote:There is the idea of a generation ship for interstellar travel. Just throwin that out there. (Generations of crewmembers live and die aboard the ship before it reaches it's destination.)
Why would it be a generation ship? We'll have solved the pesky degeneration from aging thing long before we reach the point of feasible interstellar travel, seeing as how the former could come as soon as the next couple of decades, while the latter is closer to a century off, at the least.
BearersOfSalvation wrote:
GalacticDefender wrote:There is the idea of a generation ship for interstellar travel. Just throwin that out there. (Generations of crewmembers live and die aboard the ship before it reaches it's destination.)
The thing about that is there's no need to bother with a destination. Since a generation ship is just a space habitat with engines, why not make the ship your home and just make stops once in a while to replentish supplies? If you've got a ship comfortable enough for people to spend their whole life on board, it doesn't seem like you need to stop and make a 'permanent' home somewhere else.
I think that the typical SF 'find planets and colonize them' just isn't going to happen, even if we manage to get easy FTL. I think space habitats and things like permanent generation ships are far more likely, since they have so many advantages. You can build them a bit at a time, can merge and split units based on political changes, it's easier to collect solar power and minterals from the solar system, space travel is way easier with no gravity well, and so on. This is even more true if, as it appears, planets earthlike enough that you can survive in jeans and a t-shirt are rare or nonexistent.
Expansion wouldn't be about finding more territory to live in, but about disseminating humanity throughout the Galaxy. Having a physical presence on planets would be part of that, though the notion of colonization as we think of it now might be far obsolete, so such a presence could be largely or entirely mechanical labor, harvesting resources or reshaping the face of a world for the controllers' amusement. The romantic idea of nomads or weary settlers trying to start a new life is rather unrealistic compared to the far more likely scenario that the humans in question would be closer to living gods (sufficiently advanced technology and all that) than they would be to modern humans, and so would have rather unfathomable goals by modern standpoints. Assuming humans are still around and it's not just a living god created by them that's spreading itself through the galaxy, of course, which would make its motivations even more unfathomable.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Expansion wouldn't be about finding more territory to live in, but about disseminating humanity throughout the Galaxy. Having a physical presence on planets would be part of that, though the notion of colonization as we think of it now might be far obsolete, so such a presence could be largely or entirely mechanical labor, harvesting resources or reshaping the face of a world for the controllers' amusement.
But why would anyone care about having a physical presence on planets? If your goal is spreading throughout the galaxy, you can do that better without wasting time on planetary surfaces. You've already solved the problems involved in living in space by the time you get to another star system. On the low end of technology it's just extra work to go down into and out of a gravity well and deal with weather and earthquakes and the like, you're better off harvesting what you need elsewhere. On the high end, a planet is a very inefficient structure, you can get much more use out of it by disassembling it and making a bunch of engineered things instead of one gigantic ball of rock (and breaking up a planet for parts is probably easier to pull off than most SF terraforming projects).
I just don't see significant colonization (or other sorts of presence) on planetary surfaces unless you force it by making up carefully tuned technology. Once you can live comfortably in space, you can expand and trade and play and whatever else you want to do there. I agree with the rest of what you've said, the problem for most SF is that writing about godlike transcended humans is a bit difficult and doesn't offer much connection with modern-day humans.
mrwhoop wrote:Um, no the idea that traveling faster than a horse would kill a person was accepted. Y'know, cause trains and cars would create such a shock that the heart would stop. And babies be stillborn, and etc etc.
1832: The American No. 1 was the first 4-4-0, the first of its class. It was capable of regular speeds of 60 mph with its 9.5" by 16" cylinders. Designed by John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer for the Mohawk & Hudson.
30mph is just a galloping horse, the fastest horses actually get up to the low 40s, so 30mph is just 'as fast as a horse', not faster than a horse. The speed record for a human sprinting is something like 27mph, so 30mph is only a little bit more than 'faster than a person can run'. Respected scientists who worked with biology or physics didn't believe that riding a fast horse would kill you. I'll certainly believe that idiots may have published or said nonsense, and that some of the idiots might even be scientists in unrelated fields, but there's no way that scientists who's science had anything to do with the topic believed that.
Just doing a quick google search for train speeds shows that 49 years before 150 years ago there were trains capable of a regular speed double the 'instant death' speed that you claim scientists believed in, and in England in the 1860s (the decade before 150 years ago) average train speeds were 35-40mph without mass deaths.
Good, I see that you are deciding between Mass Effect and Fallout. I personally thing that we won't destroy our-self, and if nothing else we will just progress....
If you wan't prof - just see 1963. We could destroy our civilization back then. Now we can only progress forward. And why do you think that Warp Barrier is impossible to breach? Same thing they said about men fly, and see now.
Brother Coa wrote:Good, I see that you are deciding between Mass Effect and Fallout. I personally thing that we won't destroy our-self, and if nothing else we will just progress....
If you wan't prof - just see 1963. We could destroy our civilization back then. Now we can only progress forward. And why do you think that Warp Barrier is impossible to breach? Same thing they said about men fly, and see now.
Estimates for creating warp travel on a power basis are something like half the power generated by all the suns in this galaxy. I know those history channel episodes on Star Trek Tech would come in handy!
Brother Coa wrote:Good, I see that you are deciding between Mass Effect and Fallout. I personally thing that we won't destroy our-self, and if nothing else we will just progress....
If you wan't prof - just see 1963. We could destroy our civilization back then. Now we can only progress forward. And why do you think that Warp Barrier is impossible to breach? Same thing they said about men fly, and see now.
Estimates for creating warp travel on a power basis are something like half the power generated by all the suns in this galaxy. I know those history channel episodes on Star Trek Tech would come in handy!
What? All Suns? Where did they finish their school It's not that hard, you only have to make space around you push you across space, and if you can get past that you are on the horse.
There is so much we need to learn to understand space, we didn't get past our moon and we are already debating about what's in the 50'th galaxy from ours....
Only time will tell if they are right or no...
I think within the next century well see a semi independent moon base at least as a forward base to send ships across the solar system. As it is its woefully inefficient for every ship to have to escape earths orbit just to start their journey. Of course as others point out this could happen faster or slower depending on how willful governments and corporations are to spend big investment to make it a reality and feasible.
Brother Coa wrote:Good, I see that you are deciding between Mass Effect and Fallout. I personally thing that we won't destroy our-self, and if nothing else we will just progress....
If you wan't prof - just see 1963. We could destroy our civilization back then. Now we can only progress forward. And why do you think that Warp Barrier is impossible to breach? Same thing they said about men fly, and see now.
Estimates for creating warp travel on a power basis are something like half the power generated by all the suns in this galaxy. I know those history channel episodes on Star Trek Tech would come in handy!
What? All Suns? Where did they finish their school It's not that hard, you only have to make space around you push you across space, and if you can get past that you are on the horse.
There is so much we need to learn to understand space, we didn't get past our moon and we are already debating about what's in the 50'th galaxy from ours....
Only time will tell if they are right or no...
Pssh yea, we ONLY need to make space push/pull us through space! I mean, cmon man...thats like....easy to do. I do it with my toaster. The space travel not sex.
, and use it to suck say...... hydrogen/helium/methane and other important gases from the planets that are many times the size of ours and can afford to let us suck it out. We then make a new automotive industry built around using these gases to power their cars, charge a premium for it but say it gets 100mpg and has 0 emissions. Thatll get us out there, and we will obviously need colonies out in space for some middle man reason. Problem solved. Vote KC for President 
) ; simply something one could survive on for extended periods of time would likely be cheaper than the average home, but also extremely uncomfortable, a constant maintenance battle, and with no tangible improvements over just living in society, or running off and living in the woods somewhere (which would even easier and more survivable)). Honestly, one could colonize the bottom of the sea easier than one could orbit, or Antarctica, or the Sahara. There are at least some of the resources one needs to survive in all of these places, and then there's gravity and the shielding atmosphere (its breathable qualities are covered under "resources"; in the case of the seafloor, there's also a shielding ocean, though the "breathable" part becomes a bit trickier) and magnetic field. There is none of this in space, and almost none of this on other planets.
" Or "Lord of Boom SHAKLAKA"
