When do you think Humans will start colonizing other planets?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Geronimo


On the contrary severe and accelerating climate change would make it happen far sooner.

We are destroying our planet... let's go live on an even more barren, desolate and uninhabitable one!

[Dr Strangelove]

In order to move a significant portion of the Earth's population to another planet we'd need to be able to terraform it. As I've said in previous threads that's going to be a lot harder than many assume. It's not just a matter of generating oxygen in sufficient quantities, there's also the matter of keeping it in the planet's atmosphere and adding an inert gas to dilute the oxygen enough to make it breathable for a long term. Exposure to pure oxygen for long periods of time is not good for the lungs. We are in fact adapted for a nitrogen - oxygen atmosphere.

There's no evidence that any planet has any raw material that we can't get more easily here on Earth. OTOH we migh some day place a long term research facility on the moon or Mars.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Sandman
Artifical energy sources

Like. What.



Liquid water is vanishingly rare on Mars.

The nanobots could carry a chemical energy source that would be artificaly created (think food, you don't make it, plants do, but it still keeps you runing ), specialised power-plants of various sizes could make these chemicals with energy from any con- or un-conventional energy source (fusion and fission reactors, wind-solar power and more exotic power sources that advanced civ's will have like anti-matter or something.




Have you heard of melting ice and pressuriazed water tanks?

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
In order to move a significant portion of the Earth's population to another planet we'd need to be able to terraform it. As I've said in previous threads that's going to be a lot harder than many assume. It's not just a matter of generating oxygen in sufficient quantities, there's also the matter of keeping it in the planet's atmosphere and adding an inert gas to dilute the oxygen enough to make it breathable for a long term. Exposure to pure oxygen for long periods of time is not good for the lungs. We are in fact adapted for a nitrogen - oxygen atmosphere.

There's no evidence that any planet has any raw material that we can't get more easily here on Earth. OTOH we migh some day place a long term research facility on the moon or Mars.

We don't need to teraform a planet to support a million or two people on it. And a million or two is douzens of times more than what is needed for the survival of the species.

[_BuRjaCi_]

And with advanced technology all you basicaly need is water and energy on a planet, you can mine the rest on other planets.
Plus, why change a planet, why not change us( gene splicers that's what we need ) and while we're at it lets make us smarter and prettier ( if we are aparently willing to go through surgery for it ).

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by General Ludd



We are destroying our planet... let's go live on an even more barren, desolate and uninhabitable one!

more or less. The idea being to live someplace where there is no environment to destroy. I think future generations will be extremely frustrated at how difficult it is to accomodate the enivronment in a way that doesn't constantly endanger a wide spectrum of species. Disruptive climatic change will reduce the relative unnattractiveness of off world settlements, either on barren planets or large space stations.

[Az]

all of this presumes that we maintain current level of enviromental engineering knowledge, though. With abundant energy from new sources, and breakthroughs in enviromental engineering, we might have some amazing stuff in the way of changing the world. We might as well create that paradise on earth we dreamed of for so many years...

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Az
all of this presumes that we maintain current level of enviromental engineering knowledge, though. With abundant energy from new sources, and breakthroughs in enviromental engineering, we might have some amazing stuff in the way of changing the world. We might as well create that paradise on earth we dreamed of for so many years...

We certainly could engineer the climate on earth and do so even more easily by far than on other planets. The problem is that we could not make such climatic changes, even ones that are environmentally benneficial in the long term, without endangering countless species in the transitional period of the changes. Climactic change in pretty much any direction will always be traumatic for established species.

The advantage to doing this on other planets is that all the species on a planet like mars appear to already be extinct if they ever existed at all.

[Az]

We certainly could engineer the climate on earth and do so even more easily by far than on other planets. The problem is that we could not make such climatic changes, even ones that are environmentally benneficial in the long term, without endangering countless species in the transitional period of the changes. Climactic change in pretty much any direction will always be traumatic for established species.

The advantage to doing this on other planets is that all the species on a planet like mars appear to already be extinct if they ever existed at all.

I agree that a thorough collection of specimens of all species should be done before any such endeavor, however, the shift in animal and plant habitat is a worthwhile sacrifice.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_

The nanobots could carry a chemical energy source that would be artificaly created (think food, you don't make it, plants do, but it still keeps you runing ), specialised power-plants of various sizes could make these chemicals with energy from any con- or un-conventional energy source (fusion and fission reactors, wind-solar power and more exotic power sources that advanced civ's will have like anti-matter or something.

Have you heard of melting ice and pressuriazed water tanks?

So they'd need a pressurised habitat, a supply of food and some sort of energy source. Just like humans.

[DanS]

Even though currently this would be a prohibitively expensive endeavor, it doesn't need to be that way. It could happen in 20 years, if the cost to launch stuff to Low Earth Orbit were brought down by one or two orders of magnitude. Whether this will happen soon is a big unknown. We have some startup companies here in the US who have the means to do this, so we'll just have to wait for them to run through their business plans to see if they are successful.

The Apollo Program proved that we had the engineering capable to colonize other planets 40 years ago. But Apollo was curtailed because of the extreme expense.

[DanS]

I think you're missing the point. No one is gonna invest tremendous money, resources, and energy to colonize another planet just cause its cool and they've seen too many Star Trek episodes.

This is true, but never underestimate ideology as a reason to do some things. There are some out there who might get it into their fool heads that their religion tells them to spread life to the cosmos in general, or to a specific celestial body.

Others might believe that their religion or other belief is being persecuted here on Earth and that the cosmos offers freedom.

Still others might take a more practical approach that if the Earth is hit by a meteor or whatever and destroys humanity, then the group with offworld settlements will be the sole survivors and that their ideology will win.

[Az]

DanS: It's true, but generally, currently, the market doesn't see the return in this investment. It's like currently people have far less kids because they don't get rewarded - and societies sadly don't realize or see any benefit in investing in another society in space or another planet, though personally, I think that there are some awesome psyche advantages to be had by all.

As to the problem of raising stuff to NEO, I think that the current propulsion methods (rocketry) have reached the limit of their abilities.

[DanS]

We don't know if chemical propulsion has reached its natural limits. Certainly, doing it like we did with Apollo -- with hundreds of thousands supporting the program on a full-time basis -- is not feasible.

The problem is continuing to attract attention and non-trivial capital, so we will see.

[Dr Strangelove]

Yes! Yes! The Z engine! The Z engine is the wave of the future which will usher in the golden age of man!

The week before last Bush announced that the US was on the verge of a breakthrough on a revolutionary new energy source which would amaze the world. I wonder if he was referring to the Z engine.