MagnaCool--Habitable Exoplanet!

[Ecthy]

Yeah we covered your Robin-ness already.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I thought we covered that bit of it already.

xpost

Covered what bit?

[Kuciwalker]

togglecaps deflectors won't do anything against uncharged particles

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Yeah we covered your Robin-ness already.

I can't be Robin - KH is the gay one (seriously, have you seen him flirt with Asher?)

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
togglecaps deflectors won't do anything against uncharged particles

I'm not even as worried about the unchargedness as I am about the fact that my half-gram of nickel-iron has about a tenth as much kinetic energy as the blast at Hiroshima.

[Ecthy]

@ super hero gayness

Damn can't find that Superman cartoon ("Bite the pillow, kid...")

[Sandman]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
You hollow-out the interior of the asteroid and inhabit it. You don't have to transport as much material to the asteroid if you have robotic factories there already working on converting materials into useful stuff. You're largely protected from external radiation due to the mass of the asteroid (that's why scientists say our first outposts on the moon and Mars ought to be buried). Why would you bother with Earth-bound industries when you can just send robots to the the heavy initial work in zero-g? We went over all of this in the other thread, but thanks for being an ass like Kuci.

You're reading too many sci-fi novels and playing to many strategy games. Let's mine for ore to build our base!

[Caligastia]

How fast can the fastest probes we currently have go? Even at half the speed of light, that's 40 years one way.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Hey, this isn't a comment for the doctors, this is one for the molecular biologists amongst us, in my opinion:

Ummm...no

I think the ability of anybody to predict future progress out beyond a couple of decades is extremely poor. If someone wants to talk about technology a hundred years in the future I think in most cases it's pretty laughable when people pretend their current expertise allows them to make an informed assessment of it's chances of occurring. I'd make exception for some techs that are ruled out by some of our current understanding of physics but there isn't a leg to stand on to say people 100 years from now will probably still be incapable of 160 year life spans.

There are too many possible developments in other fields that could monkey wrench their assumptions of bottlenecks in current methodologies to make their guesses worth much more than anybody elses.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
The Orion is belived to be about a zillion times more viable then the Busard Ram Jet. Orion would almost certainly work ware as the Ram Jet almost certainly would not.

We have no practical experience with a planet in the Earth - Neptune mass gap, these planets are totally unrepresented in our solar system. I've read that planetary accretion models show a tipping point over about two earth masses ware a planet starts to acrete large quantities of gases and becomes a "Gas Dwarf" with an atmosphere Hundreds of miles thick comprising a significant portion of the total mass. Even if the effect isn't that severe I would still expect an unbreathable thick atmosphere at the bottom of which Venus like temperature would be found. The chance of habitability is likely far less then our chance of Terra-forming Mars.

Don't models show huge amounts of atmosphere being blasted off of planets so close to their primary early in the stellar evolution unless the planet is substantially larger than this one?

In any case earth is somewhat more massive than Venus and yet has a much thinner atmosphere. I don't think we can make much of a prediction of how thick the atmosphere would be based only upon the information given.

Granted, the star is much dimmer than the sun, but this planet is very close to it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sandman
Oh, and asteroid idiocy . The world economy is mostly services and consumer goods. As if asteroids will help with that.

"Here you go, Jimmy, I bought you a cubic kilometer of low-grade iron for your birthday".

In value its mainly goods and services. Theres still plenty of iron ore being mined, and iron being recycled. Of course from 1970 or so to 2000 and so we did a pretty good job of making the world economy less iron intensive. Both by the sectoral shift to services, and by material substitutions, etc. But IIRC the price of iron has gone up in reaction to the growth of China, mainly. OTOH it may still be way too low to justify mining asteroids.

Is there anything in the development of space that would make iron more important, though? Would large near earth space colonies be built of iron/steel, or of other materials? Would that make it worthwhile to mine asteroids?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Sandman


Frozen eggs and sperm. You could even go further and just send machines to create colonists from scratch.

Oh, and asteroid idiocy . The world economy is mostly services and consumer goods. As if asteroids will help with that.

"Here you go, Jimmy, I bought you a cubic kilometer of low-grade iron for your birthday".

I think it's about reducing environmental footprint on earth by allowing alternatives that could eventually allow banning or taxing out of existence mineral extraction on earth. While their at it they could move the manufacturing off world as well.

When people talk about the huge environmental footprint of people in the first world the vast majority of that isn't consumption related it's production related.

[edit of course reducing the environmental footprint this way requires some sort of low energy cost transport system like a space elevator.]

[Provost Harrison]

Do you have any idea of the staggering amount of energy required to transport an object from the ground into orbit. I am sure KH will do the calculations for you...I would but I am enjoying some kung po chicken at the moment

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Do you have any idea of the staggering amount of energy required to transport an object from the ground into orbit. I am sure KH will do the calculations for you...I would but I am enjoying some kung po chicken at the moment

I added that a moment too late. A space elevator would be vital.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Do you have any idea of the staggering amount of energy required to transport an object from the ground into orbit. I am sure KH will do the calculations for you...I would but I am enjoying some kung po chicken at the moment

btw, where do you get your conviction that 100 years from now it will still be impossible to expand the human health span to 160 years?