Should Humanity expand to the Stars? II

[VoVoDoCo]

This should have a poll.

[Pax Nerdvana]

This should have a poll.

That's a good idea, but I have no idea how to do a poll.

[Bluelight-R006]

This should have a poll.

That's a good idea, but I have no idea how to do a poll.

Go and edit your first post on this thread (starter post) and you should see a option below the ‘type in message’ table to create a poll. If you don’t see it, it’s okay. You don’t have to make one.

If we can stop destroying this one, of course.

Good news is that nations are attempting to reverse the current effects of the planet such as Global Warming and Climate Change. Bad news is that we’re still doing what causes the effects. We can only hope the future is better than now.

[Equality of Nations]

This is a reboot of an old thread I created that was locked for not having a long enough OP.
Ok. Here we go.
Humanity needs to expand to the stars. If we don't, we're going to probably die out. Whether it's through nuclear war, or famine or disease, or whatever. Should we focus on developing FTL, or something else, like launching ships with the crew all in stasis towards a far star, or something along those lines. Currently, we have all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. A single war could wipe us out. Or an outbreak of disease. In my opinion, the only direction we can go is up. What do you guys think about this? What do you guys think we should do?
Just as a reminder, no flaming or trolling.

We won't die if we decided not to expand. We will only die if we weren't able to keep our planet secure from the effects of the sun, meteors, runaway moons, planets and such. And also from our own stupidity of course.

FTL won't help save us from ourselves. It might only allow the opposing parties to put some distance between one another but unless Earth is destroyed, nobody will want to leave it behind.

Launching colonization missions to distant starts will be extremely risky. Because the light we receive is showing us that distant stars past. There's no way of knowing if that system can still support human life. Because of this, i think we should develop our own solar system first and leave distant colonization missions for later. The very first thing that we must do is to figure out how we can advance scientifically without harming our planet and our kind.

[Vyzhva]

I say we explore our planet to the fullest before we start to look elsewhere, but sure, limited space exploration is acceptable in my eyes.

[Ethel mermania]

This should have a poll.

And one of the options needs to relate t9 David Hasselhoff.

[Pax Nerdvana]

That's a good idea, but I have no idea how to do a poll.

Go and edit your first post on this thread (starter post) and you should see a option below the ‘type in message’ table to create a poll. If you don’t see it, it’s okay. You don’t have to make one.

Thanks.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Why is he so obsessed with mars...what's up there he's not telling us about?

Titan isn’t good and Venus is just... well, bad.

The first one was too cold, and the second was too hot, but the third planet was just right.

Mars is more suitable than any other planets in the Solar System except Earth.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "suitable". There's a bunch of tradeoffs depending on why one is living there.

For example, one can't live on the surface of either the Moon or Mars because of the radiation load.* Alas, no domed cities! Both have ores of value on Earth. Mars has a trace of an atmosphere, which is both good and bad relative to the Moon: protection from micrometeorites, but more annoying landings and launches. The Moon is a lot closer and has lower gravity than Mars, both of which are good or bad depending on why people are there. Etc, etc.

*: If you want to live in the open and like nifty things in the sky, try Ganymede. It has its own magnetic field, so it's shielded from both cosmic rays and Jupiter's exciting radiation belts. And for a added bonus, Jupiter fills a big hunk of the sky, so you watch the pretty weather change! It's not clear why people would live there, though.

[Pax Nerdvana]

Titan isn’t good and Venus is just... well, bad.

The first one was too cold, and the second was too hot, but the third planet was just right.

Mars is more suitable than any other planets in the Solar System except Earth.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "suitable". There's a bunch of tradeoffs depending on why one is living there.

For example, one can't live on the surface of either the Moon or Mars because of the radiation load.* Alas, no domed cities! Both have ores of value on Earth. Mars has a trace of an atmosphere, which is both good and bad relative to the Moon: protection from micrometeorites, but more annoying landings and launches. The Moon is a lot closer and has lower gravity than Mars, both of which are good or bad depending on why people are there. Etc, etc.

*: If you want to live in the open and like nifty things in the sky, try Ganymede. It has its own magnetic field, so it's shielded from both cosmic rays and Jupiter's exciting radiation belts. And for a added bonus, Jupiter fills a big hunk of the sky, so you watch the pretty weather change! It's not clear why people would live there, though.

Io could be used for thermal power. Europa supposedly has an ocean under the ice. I dunno about Callisto or Ceres.

[The Greater Siriusian Domain]

I do believe that we should expand to the stars eventually... but that's running before we can walk, and on top of that we've yet to even crawl. Let's start with a sustainable outpost on the moon first, then work our way up to planets within our own solar system. By the time we run out of places to colonize here, we'll probably already have a method of FTL travel whether it involves warping space and time or taking shortcuts.

[Pax Nerdvana]

I do believe that we should expand to the stars eventually... but that's running before we can walk, and on top of that we've yet to even crawl. Let's start with a sustainable outpost on the moon first, then work our way up to planets within our own solar system. By the time we run out of places to colonize here, we'll probably already have a method of FTL travel whether it involves warping space and time or taking shortcuts.

I think that this thread came to a consensus that something along those lines is our best option.

[Exogenous Imperium]

Which means you can never, ever, stop living cooped up in a tin. That is not good for people's mental health.

I don't think you understand the proposed scale of these rotating habitats. There could well be nothing above the inhabitants heads. If you are going to convince people to leave and go and live somewhere else then that place will need to be at least as comfortable and spacious as the surface of planet Earth.

The problem is that it puts much larger stress loads on just about everything. And also the above-mentioned issue about mental health.

Advanced engineering techniques will be used to cope with material stress on the station.

Unless your space stations, as a whole, are entirely self-sufficient, you're gonna have to drag something up those gravity wells on a regular basis, and that's stupid expensive. If they are entirely self-sufficient, then... well, quite frankly, if we could do that, we'd have already fixed almost all of the problems with earth that we're setting these things up to get away from in the first place.

Yes, you want to avoid building stuff inside of deep gravity wells. You want to build either entirely outside of such a well like on an asteroid, comet or micro-moon or inside of a smaller gravity well like the Earth's moon or on mercury. Material goods can be shipped or just flung through space between the planets and space stations.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Which means you can never, ever, stop living cooped up in a tin. That is not good for people's mental health.

I don't think you understand the proposed scale of these rotating habitats.

@Salandriagado, take a look at the Wakipedia page for O'Neill cylinders:

An O'Neill cylinder would consist of two counter-rotating cylinders. The cylinders would rotate in opposite directions in order to cancel out any gyroscopic effects that would otherwise make it difficult to keep them aimed toward the Sun. Each would be 5 miles (8.0 km) in diameter and 20 miles (32 km) long, connected at each end by a rod via a bearing system. They would rotate so as to provide artificial gravity via centrifugal force on their inner surfaces.

The problem is that it puts much larger stress loads on just about everything. And also the above-mentioned issue about mental health.

Advanced engineering techniques will be used to cope with material stress on the station.

No more advanced than lets a skyscraper stand under the "larger stress loads" it has bearing its own weigh and resisting being blown over by wind.

Unless your space stations, as a whole, are entirely self-sufficient, you're gonna have to drag something up those gravity wells on a regular basis, and that's stupid expensive. If they are entirely self-sufficient, then... well, quite frankly, if we could do that, we'd have already fixed almost all of the problems with earth that we're setting these things up to get away from in the first place.

That doesn't follow. These things aren't cheap to build*, so even if they're self-sufficient and relatively cheap to operate, there's a hell of an initial investment.

*: Just as a very crude estimate by covering the outside area with oil tankers gives me something over a trillion bucks a pop. That's why we don't have any. (Oil tankers are cheap per unit volume, but the wasted material in the design is a start at making up the much higher cost of materials and labor needed for spacecraft.)

[Northwest Slobovia]

If you want to live in the open and like nifty things in the sky, try Ganymede. It has its own magnetic field, so it's shielded from both cosmic rays and Jupiter's exciting radiation belts. And for a added bonus, Jupiter fills a big hunk of the sky, so you watch the pretty weather change! It's not clear why people would live there, though.

Io could be used for thermal power.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Europa supposedly has an ocean under the ice. I dunno about Callisto or Ceres.

As far as I know, all are suspected of having oceans under a mile or more of rock and or ice. I'm not sure what we'd do with them, though.

[Tengania]

I disagree with having all crew in statis, if we can’t develop FTL or find an alternate, smaller dimension. What if something goes wrong with the ship? And while statis slows the life cycle, it most likely won’t stop it completely. Do you want to live your entirety life, birth to death, asleep?

[Zanera]

I disagree with having all crew in statis, if we can’t develop FTL or find an alternate, smaller dimension. What if something goes wrong with the ship? And while statis slows the life cycle, it most likely won’t stop it completely. Do you want to live your entirety life, birth to death, asleep?

Depends on what kind of dreams I get...

[Equality of Nations]

I disagree with having all crew in statis, if we can’t develop FTL or find an alternate, smaller dimension. What if something goes wrong with the ship? And while statis slows the life cycle, it most likely won’t stop it completely. Do you want to live your entirety life, birth to death, asleep?

We'll have to use cryogenic systems for distant travels at some point. But, if we're able to develop some sort of FTL drives, those systems will no longer be as necessary. If something goes wrong, the personnel that can handle that situation will be awakened and after the situation has been handled, they'll go back to their pods if they can reinitialize their cryogenic sleep chambers.

[Pax Nerdvana]

I disagree with having all crew in statis, if we can’t develop FTL or find an alternate, smaller dimension. What if something goes wrong with the ship? And while statis slows the life cycle, it most likely won’t stop it completely. Do you want to live your entirety life, birth to death, asleep?

Depends on what kind of dreams I get...

Preferably not a nightmare.

[Salandriagado]

I don't think you understand the proposed scale of these rotating habitats.

@Salandriagado, take a look at the Wakipedia page for O'Neill cylinders:

An O'Neill cylinder would consist of two counter-rotating cylinders. The cylinders would rotate in opposite directions in order to cancel out any gyroscopic effects that would otherwise make it difficult to keep them aimed toward the Sun. Each would be 5 miles (8.0 km) in diameter and 20 miles (32 km) long, connected at each end by a rod via a bearing system. They would rotate so as to provide artificial gravity via centrifugal force on their inner surfaces.

Now calculate the torque requirements, and note that it will explode.

Advanced engineering techniques will be used to cope with material stress on the station.

No more advanced than lets a skyscraper stand under the "larger stress loads" it has bearing its own weigh and resisting being blown over by wind.

Unless your space stations, as a whole, are entirely self-sufficient, you're gonna have to drag something up those gravity wells on a regular basis, and that's stupid expensive. If they are entirely self-sufficient, then... well, quite frankly, if we could do that, we'd have already fixed almost all of the problems with earth that we're setting these things up to get away from in the first place.

That doesn't follow. These things aren't cheap to build*, so even if they're self-sufficient and relatively cheap to operate, there's a hell of an initial investment.

*: Just as a very crude estimate by covering the outside area with oil tankers gives me something over a trillion bucks a pop. That's why we don't have any. (Oil tankers are cheap per unit volume, but the wasted material in the design is a start at making up the much higher cost of materials and labor needed for spacecraft.)

Building them isn't the point. The point is that such perfect recycling gives functionally infinite resources, and means that you can spread humans out however you like without any logistics problems, at which point even space isn't really scarce.

[Virginia Confederacy]

If people were to leave Earth, I wouldn't. I ain't got the slightest clue why. I guess I've become attached to my home and don't want that major change.

[Trotskylvania]

Now calculate the torque requirements, and note that it will explode.

No it won't. O'Neil was exhaustive in his calculations. The loads are well within tolerances even for mundane materials like steel and reinforced concrete, even at one-gee rotation.

Building them isn't the point. The point is that such perfect recycling gives functionally infinite resources, and means that you can spread humans out however you like without any logistics problems, at which point even space isn't really scarce.

You don't start with the Island Three. Island Three is the kind of habitat you build once you already have millions of people living and working in space, and it's intentionally designed to use in situ resources from Lunar colonization.

[Salandriagado]

Now calculate the torque requirements, and note that it will explode.

No it won't. O'Neil was exhaustive in his calculations. The loads are well within tolerances even for mundane materials like steel and reinforced concrete, even at one-gee rotation.

Mundane, but crazy heavy, and needing to be launched from earth. Like "20 years of launch capacity" heavy, being generous about growth rates.

Building them isn't the point. The point is that such perfect recycling gives functionally infinite resources, and means that you can spread humans out however you like without any logistics problems, at which point even space isn't really scarce.

You don't start with the Island Three. Island Three is the kind of habitat you build once you already have millions of people living and working in space, and it's intentionally designed to use in situ resources from Lunar colonization.

I'm beginning to doubt your honesty here, so I'm going to suspend my usual practice of assuming people to have a modicum of intelligence and explain this in absurd levels of detail.

There are exactly two options:


1) Your space habitats (as a whole) are perfectly self sufficient, able to recycle absolutely everything with zero loss.
2) You need to launch supplies out of a gravity well on a regular basis.

#1 is a bare minimum requirement to avoid #2 (it comes straight from basic mass conservation). It isn't sufficient (populations grow, and people want improving quality of life, and both mean you need more mass), but it is necessary.

If you have #1, then you have lossless recycling, and so functionally infinite resources on earth (and are living in a science fiction world). If you have #2, then you haven't fixed the problem. There is no third option.

[Northwest Slobovia]

You don't start with the Island Three. Island Three is the kind of habitat you build once you already have millions of people living and working in space, and it's intentionally designed to use in situ resources from Lunar colonization.

I'm beginning to doubt your honesty here, so I'm going to suspend my usual practice of assuming people to have a modicum of intelligence and explain this in absurd levels of detail.

There are exactly two options:


1) Your space habitats (as a whole) are perfectly self sufficient, able to recycle absolutely everything with zero loss.
2) You need to launch supplies out of a gravity well on a regular basis.

#1 is a bare minimum requirement to avoid #2 (it comes straight from basic mass conservation). It isn't sufficient (populations grow, and people want improving quality of life, and both mean you need more mass), but it is necessary.

If you have #1, then you have lossless recycling, and so functionally infinite resources on earth (and are living in a science fiction world). If you have #2, then you haven't fixed the problem. There is no third option.

I'm not sure how you get from 1 to "functionally infinite resources on earth", because as you say, that's not sufficient... but is the status quo here on Earth. Other than things we've shot into space and materials we've transmuted in fission reactors, everthing that started on Earth is still here. (Other than quibbles about natural fluxes involving incoming comets, etc.)

Nor are those the only choices, as you say. A colony could import materials to meet growth, which may or may not be regular, or to meet increased demand on the same basis.

Moreover, Earth's gravity well is the big one we worry about. Importing materials from the Moon is (on a potential energy basis) much easier. But that's not such a big deal, since one reason people are seriously considering expanding into the solar system is to import materials from elsewhere (asteroidal platinum-group elements, for example). So, in that sense, an O'Niell colony is no worse than living on the ground. "Close enough" recycling, plus imports to meet population growth and increasing material wealth may be good enough.

[Equality of Nations]

If people were to leave Earth, I wouldn't. I ain't got the slightest clue why. I guess I've become attached to my home and don't want that major change.

Because life without earth would be unbearable unless it's needed to help, advance our civilization.

[Salandriagado]

I'm beginning to doubt your honesty here, so I'm going to suspend my usual practice of assuming people to have a modicum of intelligence and explain this in absurd levels of detail.

There are exactly two options:


1) Your space habitats (as a whole) are perfectly self sufficient, able to recycle absolutely everything with zero loss.
2) You need to launch supplies out of a gravity well on a regular basis.

#1 is a bare minimum requirement to avoid #2 (it comes straight from basic mass conservation). It isn't sufficient (populations grow, and people want improving quality of life, and both mean you need more mass), but it is necessary.

If you have #1, then you have lossless recycling, and so functionally infinite resources on earth (and are living in a science fiction world). If you have #2, then you haven't fixed the problem. There is no third option.

I'm not sure how you get from 1 to "functionally infinite resources on earth", because as you say, that's not sufficient... but is the status quo here on Earth. Other than things we've shot into space and materials we've transmuted in fission reactors, everthing that started on Earth is still here. (Other than quibbles about natural fluxes involving incoming comets, etc.)

Nor are those the only choices, as you say. A colony could import materials to meet growth, which may or may not be regular, or to meet increased demand on the same basis.

Moreover, Earth's gravity well is the big one we worry about. Importing materials from the Moon is (on a potential energy basis) much easier. But that's not such a big deal, since one reason people are seriously considering expanding into the solar system is to import materials from elsewhere (asteroidal platinum-group elements, for example). So, in that sense, an O'Niell colony is no worse than living on the ground. "Close enough" recycling, plus imports to meet population growth and increasing material wealth may be good enough.

As you may notice, we are exhausting resources on earth. That is not an option in space. The moon has shit all resources of use. It's either Earth or Mars for most things.