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

[Neutraligon]

No. How are we supposed to have the resources to actually survive after we leave earth (which wouldn't happen anyway)

[Northwest Slobovia]

Why is it 15 anyways, why not 100, give us a chance as well man.

It was meant to represent a future where astronomers have found an unstoppable cosmic object which is bound for Earth, or a hypothetical other situation. I'm not sure how far ahead scientists can observe in terms of an impact but I wouldn't expect it to be 100 years.

Depends on what sort of catastrophe you want. A dinosaur-killer? Probably; NASA's Sentry program for Earth-crossing asteroids goes out that far; you're basically asking for a Torino 9 or 10 oopsie. I don't think anybody tracks weirder things (outer system body kicked into a new orbit by collision or gravitational slingshot).

Huge volcanic eruption (Deccan Traps)? Maybe; vulcanology isn't my thing. Runaway greenhouse warming? Probably, but a) none of the models predict anything like that and b) trying prevent it is very likely easier than trying to go elsewhere. Nearby nova/supernova? Pretty much, and they've ruled out Betelgeuse going out with a bang any time soon. (Damn, I was hoping for a hell of a light show. )

With anything less than most of a century, you might as well just kiss you ass goodbye. We lack both the technology and the economic power to move people that fast, and nowhere good to send them. With 50-100 years, I think we might be able to manage enough people in O'Neill colonies to repopulate the Earth after the oopsie and have some hope that they a) will have some technology greater than the neolithic and b) won't have genetic bottlenecks that will doom our species sooner or later.

[The IASM]

If we were forced to space station could easily be built.

And then everyone dies after few years because there is no food or other vital materials.

Actually if they bothered to add hydroponics facilities, it would be rather easy.

[The yoshin empire]

And then everyone dies after few years because there is no food or other vital materials.

Actually if they bothered to add hydroponics facilities, it would be rather easy.

That and a cryostasis unit

[Ermarian]

Evacuate, as in get everybody out? Over seven billion people? lol no.

If the entire world's industry were devoted to a single concerted effort, I think fifteen years might be enough for a fleet that can get, at the most, a total of a few million people into orbit. Whether they could get anywhere else, or even build a long-term habitat, is a different question.

And I suppose you couldn't get the masses of people who would be needed to even build craft for several miilion, knowing that they couldn't probably get a place onboard

It's not like they have their own ship they could be working on instead. For most of them, it'd be a choice between spending their last fifteen years working on the greatest engineering project in the history of humanity, or partying. I think there'd be plenty of people left who pick the former.

[Larban]

And I suppose you couldn't get the masses of people who would be needed to even build craft for several miilion, knowing that they couldn't probably get a place onboard

It's not like they have their own ship they could be working on instead. For most of them, it'd be a choice between spending their last fifteen years working on the greatest engineering project in the history of humanity, or partying. I think there'd be plenty of people left who pick the former.

I have to say, if I had the choice of getting a place on the ship with limited others, for a price that isn't unreachable, yet most of humanity remained on Earth, I think I would choose to stay and go down with my planet. I'm proud to be an Earthling:P

[Northwest Slobovia]

And then everyone dies after few years because there is no food or other vital materials.

Actually if they bothered to add hydroponics facilities, it would be rather easy.

Heh. We really don't know much about maintaining closed environments. Existing hydroponic farms are pretty small and grow a trivial amount of the world's food. They require constant inputs stuff from the outside (fertilizers, most importantly) and we don't know how maintain them as closed-loop biomass recycling systems. Mostly, we rely on natural processes we only partially understand.

The most successful closed environments we've built are nuclear subs. They can stay submerged for years at a time, which is a good start. But... they have tiny crews compared to the number of people we'd need to move, don't recycle anything but their own air, and are dependent on the outside world for spare parts, food, and ultimately, fuel. For keeping people in space or on the surface of any other body in the solar system -- even with a century, we're not going very far -- we need to develop a whole host of technologies we don't have.

Going back to the hydroponic gardens... OK, so do we launch them fully-stocked, build them in orbit, or something in between? It's not an obvious choice, since they all have advantages and disadvantages. Do we try to grow plants in zero-gee, or do we spin the ship to provide the illusion of gravity? The latter seems better, but we don't actually have any experience with spinning manned structures in space...

Sure, we can figure out how to make those choices and build the gear we need, but with only 15 years, the clocking is ticking down mighty fast. We not only have to develop the hardware and get people trained on using it, but then also mass produce ships/bases/whatever to accomodate incredible numbers of people compared to what existing vehicles move. I don't think it can be done. Putting just a few men on the moon took the US a decade (start of project Mercury to "the Eagle has landed") and that's a far simpler problem.

[The Nihilistic view]

Actually, doing a Bruce Willis is probably statistically more likely than evacuating earth in it's entirety in 15 years and building enough ships and taking enough supplies to get us to an inhabitable planet to settle on.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

Yes.

Right after a nuclear holocaust the population of Earth would be dramatically decreased, send survivors to the moon.

It's the perfect plan.

[Pandeeria]

No, we would ultimately be fucked. Maybe the extremely rich will be able to get off earth, but with extremely little biological resources, they would in the end die. We would ultimately be doomed.

[SaintB]

The rich might make it, the rest of us are fucked. We're fucked anyway.

[Imperializt Russia]

We can't send the balance of our unmanned probes to Mars. Those that make it there, don't survive getting onto Mars.
We still struggle to get our unmanned missions off of Earth.

Not going to happen.

[Republic of Greater America]

150 year maybe, but definitely not 15.

[The Uncompromising Purveyors of Light]

Nope. Maybe in 100 years, but no-one would pay attention to the news and we would all die.

[Slafstopia]

Actually if they bothered to add hydroponics facilities, it would be rather easy.

That and a cryostasis unit

Freezing a body doesn't make it immune to harsh radiation, y'know.

[Imperializt Russia]

That and a cryostasis unit

Freezing a body doesn't make it immune to harsh radiation, y'know.

It'd probably be even more vulnerable, since that would actually kill the self-repair mechanisms.

[The Corparation]

We can't send the balance of our unmanned probes to Mars. Those that make it there, don't survive getting onto Mars.
We still struggle to get our unmanned missions off of Earth.

Not going to happen.

We really aren't struggling to get our missions of earth anymore. At least not anyone that has half decent rockets. Rockets are becoming more reliable then ever. Its easy for us to get our rockets into orbit. The hard part of space travel isn't the space travel its the politics of the production and financing of your missions.

[Northwest Slobovia]

We can't send the balance of our unmanned probes to Mars. Those that make it there, don't survive getting onto Mars.
We still struggle to get our unmanned missions off of Earth.

Not going to happen.

We really aren't struggling to get our missions of earth anymore. At least not anyone that has half decent rockets. Rockets are becoming more reliable then ever. Its easy for us to get our rockets into orbit. The hard part of space travel isn't the space travel its the politics of the production and financing of your missions.

He said "to Mars" (emphasis added in quotation).

In terms of manned spaceflight, I guess the only country with half-decent ships is Russia, since the Soyuz has been operational (in various models) for decades. The US, by contrast, shut down its manned ships after a pair of accidents made keeping the other two going too expensive. But even if the Shuttle were still flying, it's a tiny ship compared to what's needed for the OP's question.

[Breadknife]

Sorry, late to the thread... Gone two pages in, and although some calculations have been given nobody (by that point) had appeared to directly reference http://what-if.xkcd.com/7/ regarding the launch energies required.

Now to read further, 'scuse me...

(edit: Darn. Page 4. Well caught, that Iffy)

[Guadalupador]

No, not even the rich would get off the planet. There wouldnt be enough time to develop the amount of spacecraft needed to ferry everyone off of "Little Blue." Also the technology of trying to terraform another planet is still science fiction, we'd be pooling all the world's money into a concept that could take decades, even centuries to develop.Not to mention the lack of international cooperation, you think that the Israelis and Palestinians or the Indians and Pakistanis would actually work together to help save humanity? I'm doubtful of that.

[Breadknife]

In reference to the stargate idea- if 3 people went through at once and it took about 4 days for 3 million to go through- it would take almost 7 years alone to get everyone through OF THE CURRENT population- thats not even accounting for the millions upon millions perhaps billions of babies that will be born in that time.

...especially given the hookups that might happen while everyone's idly waiting in the queue.

[Guadalupador]

In reference to the stargate idea- if 3 people went through at once and it took about 4 days for 3 million to go through- it would take almost 7 years alone to get everyone through OF THE CURRENT population- thats not even accounting for the millions upon millions perhaps billions of babies that will be born in that time.

...especially given the hookups that might happen while everyone's idly waiting in the queue.

Simple solution to that, contraception.

[Breadknife]

Anyway, back to the space-ships we're using. Don't call any of them the "Icarus". Definitely do not call its inevitable replacement the "Icarus II".

You've probably also got to avoid "Discovery", "Event Horizon", "Palomino"/"Cygnus" or (despite the best of intentions) "Valley Forge".

And don't even think of using "Titanic", "Mary Rose", the "Flying Dutchman" or "Marie Celeste"... Even as a joke.

[Gauthier]

Anyway, back to the space-ships we're using. Don't call any of them the "Icarus". Definitely do not call its inevitable replacement the "Icarus II".

You've probably also got to avoid "Discovery", "Event Horizon", "Palomino"/"Cygnus" or (despite the best of intentions) "Valley Forge".

And don't even think of using "Titanic", "Mary Rose", the "Flying Dutchman" or "Marie Celeste"... Even as a joke.

How about "Botany Bay"?

[Jamjai]

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?

No.