Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
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.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/06/02 14:08:05
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/06/02 14:33:32
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/06/02 15:48:27
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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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.
"I don't have principles, and I consider any comment otherwise to be both threatening and insulting" - Dogma
"No, sorry, synonymous does not mean same".-Dogma
"If I say "I will hug you" I am threatening you" -Dogma
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 )?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
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...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/06/02 18:37:31
For Emperor and Imperium!!!! None shall stand against the Crusade of the Righteous!!! Kanluwen wrote: "I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army."
"Pain is temporary, honor is forever" Emperor of Mankind:
"The day I have a sit-down with a pansy elf, magic mushroom, or commie frog is the day I put a bolt shell in my head."
in your name it shall be done" My YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/2SSSR2
Viersche wrote:
Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
the Emperor might be the greatest psyker that ever lived, but he doesn't have the specialized training that a Grey Knight has. Also he doesn't have a Grey Knight's unshakable faith in the Emperor.
The Emperor doesn't have a GKs unshakable faith in the Emperor which is....basically himself?
Ronin wrote:
"Brother Coa (and the OP Tadashi) is like, the biggest IoM fanboy I can think of here. It's like he IS from the Imperium, sent back in time and across dimensions."
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!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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!
For Emperor and Imperium!!!! None shall stand against the Crusade of the Righteous!!! Kanluwen wrote: "I like the Tau. I just don't like people misconstruing things to say that it means that they're somehow a huge galactic threat. They're not. They're a threat to the Imperium of Man like sharks are a threat to the US Army."
"Pain is temporary, honor is forever" Emperor of Mankind:
"The day I have a sit-down with a pansy elf, magic mushroom, or commie frog is the day I put a bolt shell in my head."
in your name it shall be done" My YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/2SSSR2
Viersche wrote:
Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
the Emperor might be the greatest psyker that ever lived, but he doesn't have the specialized training that a Grey Knight has. Also he doesn't have a Grey Knight's unshakable faith in the Emperor.
The Emperor doesn't have a GKs unshakable faith in the Emperor which is....basically himself?
Ronin wrote:
"Brother Coa (and the OP Tadashi) is like, the biggest IoM fanboy I can think of here. It's like he IS from the Imperium, sent back in time and across dimensions."
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.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
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.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2011/06/02 19:31:40
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
"I don't have principles, and I consider any comment otherwise to be both threatening and insulting" - Dogma
"No, sorry, synonymous does not mean same".-Dogma
"If I say "I will hug you" I am threatening you" -Dogma
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.
Don't need to. I remember watching them on TV. I also just watched the, what last?, space shuttle mission.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2011/06/02 22:08:21
"I don't have principles, and I consider any comment otherwise to be both threatening and insulting" - Dogma
"No, sorry, synonymous does not mean same".-Dogma
"If I say "I will hug you" I am threatening you" -Dogma
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):
or
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/06/02 22:25:27
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
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.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2011/06/02 22:47:33
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
) ; 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.
For Emperor and Imperium!!!! 
"Pain is temporary, honor is forever" 
in your name it shall be done" 
" Or "Lord of Boom SHAKLAKA"
