15 Years to Evacuate Planet Earth- could we do it?

[Larban]

Okay, so lets say a cataclysmic cosmic event has been forecast for sometime in the near future, lets say 15 years so 2028, and it has been declared to be unavoidable, i.e. we can't go up there Bruce Willis-style and detonate a nuke on it. Would it be possible for the inhabitants of Earth, including every country, to innovate, design and build an evacuation plan and hence craft to evacuate and sustain the entire global population away from Earth; in the space of 15 years? It would have to take every man pulling together, for wars to be stopped and for debts to be forgiven, for even the slightest chance of accomplishing such a mammoth task, but the driving force is for the good and the ultimate survival of humanity, a common cause for everyone. Could this be achieved, of course with obstacles such as water, oxygen, and food production being overcome? What do you think?

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

Developing Mars in this timeline? lolnope for sure

The best we can expect is to live in floating artificial microbiomes in the Venusian atmosphere (breathable Terran air floats in a place about as hot as Rio de Janeiro - just less cool when cool and not very significantly less warm when warm -, with a variation between ~25°C and ~40°C), but we don't have the technology for such, and losing most of Earth's natural biological resources in the meantime would be very ultimately bad for us.

[Baltic Fennia]

No. There are too much people who would claim that as science bullshit, heresy and whatnot and keep attached to their fantasy world of Jesus and crosses.

[Avenio]

Not in the slightest. Expect to see, at the absolute most, a couple of million of the most 'valuable' (ie rich, white Westerners) get onto the evacuation ships, but everyone else gets to burn with the Earth.

[Quintium]

We wouldn't be able to.

Not in the slightest. Expect to see, at the absolute most, a couple of million of the most 'valuable' (ie rich, white Westerners) get onto the evacuation ships, but everyone else gets to burn with the Earth.

I know you hate wealthy white people, but even they wouldn't be able to save themselves.

[Neo-Achaemenid Empire (Ancient)]

Not in the slightest. Expect to see, at the absolute most, a couple of million of the most 'valuable' (ie rich, white Westerners) get onto the evacuation ships, but everyone else gets to burn with the Earth.

^

[Aeken]

We wouldn't be able to.

Not in the slightest. Expect to see, at the absolute most, a couple of million of the most 'valuable' (ie rich, white Westerners) get onto the evacuation ships, but everyone else gets to burn with the Earth.

I know you hate wealthy white people, but even they wouldn't be able to save themselves.

They could easily put their money collectively and flee together. Simple.

But yes, it would be impossible for the world to save itself in such a scenario.

[Christmahanikwanzikah]

We COULD gather some of the Earth's children and shoot them off in all directions in rockets.

That usually works.

[Risottia]

Okay, so lets say a cataclysmic cosmic event has been forecast for sometime in the near future, lets say 15 years so 2028, and it has been declared to be unavoidable, i.e. we can't go up there Bruce Willis-style and detonate a nuke on it. Would it be possible for the inhabitants of Earth, including every country, to innovate, design and build an evacuation plan and hence craft to evacuate and sustain the entire global population away from Earth; in the space of 15 years?

No.

We need 15 years to design and launch a fucking probe to Mars, no return ticket. Taking 2 people to the nearest barren dwarf planetoid for 2 days and getting them back home took us 10 years.

We can't move 6 billion people to space colonies in 15 years. Even moving 6 million people to another country is a hell of a problem!

[Madenia]

Okay, so lets say a cataclysmic cosmic event has been forecast for sometime in the near future, lets say 15 years so 2028, and it has been declared to be unavoidable, i.e. we can't go up there Bruce Willis-style and detonate a nuke on it. Would it be possible for the inhabitants of Earth, including every country, to innovate, design and build an evacuation plan and hence craft to evacuate and sustain the entire global population away from Earth; in the space of 15 years?

No.

We need 15 years to design and launch a fucking probe to Mars, no return ticket. Taking 2 people to the nearest barren dwarf planetoid for 2 days and getting them back home took us 10 years.

We can't move 6 billion people to space colonies in 15 years. Even moving 6 million people to another country is a hell of a problem!

Keep in mind that is only because NASA is so low funded.

I'm sure we could do it quicker putting in all our resources.

[Larban]

We COULD gather some of the Earth's children and shoot them off in all directions in rockets.

That usually works.

As happened in Knowing..except there were aliens involved.

[Risottia]

No.

We need 15 years to design and launch a fucking probe to Mars, no return ticket. Taking 2 people to the nearest barren dwarf planetoid for 2 days and getting them back home took us 10 years.

We can't move 6 billion people to space colonies in 15 years. Even moving 6 million people to another country is a hell of a problem!

Keep in mind that is only because NASA is so low funded.

I'm sure we could do it quicker putting in all our resources.

Not even remotely quick enough.
AND, you can't put all resources on that. You've got to survive while you prepare for evacuation.

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

No.

We need 15 years to design and launch a fucking probe to Mars, no return ticket. Taking 2 people to the nearest barren dwarf planetoid for 2 days and getting them back home took us 10 years.

We can't move 6 billion people to space colonies in 15 years. Even moving 6 million people to another country is a hell of a problem!

7.2 billion as of 2013... Unless someone profits from the time to plan a mass extermination of some sort and gains wide public support for such possibility, the possibility of which I wouldn't doubt.

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

Not even remotely quick enough.
AND, you can't put all resources on that. You've got to survive while you prepare for evacuation.

I think social darwinism would gain WIDE support in about every place. And those in the outskirts of civilization would become very desperate and violent criminals so that they can plan getting in.

The safest continents would be Oceania, followed by [very paradoxically and ironically] South America.

[Larban]

No.

We need 15 years to design and launch a fucking probe to Mars, no return ticket. Taking 2 people to the nearest barren dwarf planetoid for 2 days and getting them back home took us 10 years.

We can't move 6 billion people to space colonies in 15 years. Even moving 6 million people to another country is a hell of a problem!

7.2 billion as of 2013... Unless someone profits from the time to plan a mass extermination of some sort and gains wide public support for such possibility, the possibility of which I wouldn't doubt.

You wouldn't need mass extermination programs, sadly no doubt there would be a lot of suicides in the lead up to the end, from people who know they have know hope of getting a space.

[The Corparation]

Not a snowballs chance in hell. An evacuation plan would eat up half the time and the other half would be spent in R&D. You'd dead by the time you had anything more than a prototype.

Unless you went with city size Super-Orions, but I doubt you'd get people on board with them, nor be able to uild enough to save more than a fraction.

We COULD gather some of the Earth's children and shoot them off in all directions in rockets.

That usually works.

Plus the planets they land on will get Super Heroes to defend them from evil!

[Haydn]

No. Impossible. The population increases too quickly.

[Benuty]

Give us two centuries and something might come out of it.

[Hydronium]

Nope.

But, if you're interested in this kind of thing, you should watch the nat geo special "Evacuate Earth."

[Merconitonitopia]

Come on, I don't think we're that smart.

[Regnum Dominae]

No.

A 70 kg person requires over four gigajoules to escape earth's gravitational potential well.

Multiply that by seven billion and you get 28 exajoules.

And that's just the weight of the people. If we assume that removing each person requires one tonne of rocket to leave earth (not the fuel, but the rocket itself), then you have (1000/70) ~ 14 times the weight of the people. 15 * 28 = 420 exajoules.

And don't even get me started on the fuel.

But of course, if we were to build a space elevator...

[Axonic]

Well, It would Take Every Nation Cooperating, But that won't happen. So... No.

[Fralinia]

Yeahno. This isn'tm going to happen. The US and Russia aren't going to just slash defense budgets,. they're too proud. China isn't going to just turn around all their factories and start making rocket parts. The EU isn't going to work cohesively enough to pick up the slack. The Middle East isn't just going to up and stop causing problems. There would be religious insurgency by those who believe that we should not try to stop "the Rapture". Just on a national scale, this is impossible.

I would expect the private sector to build a number of rockets and get a good deal of millionaires into space, but the tiny projects wouldn't last long independently of each other. And terraforming Mars or Venus during a 15-year time period, or even just establishing self-sufficient colonies? Forget it.

[Haflin]

Im sure only a few would survive but the majority would cling to the old world and die with it.

[Hetalian Indie Rio de Janeiro]

You wouldn't need mass extermination programs, sadly no doubt there would be a lot of suicides in the lead up to the end, from people who know they have know hope of getting a space.

I'm not saying we need. I'm saying we will likely commit both before and during the cataclysm.