MagnaCool--Habitable Exoplanet!

[Eli]

Originally posted by Guynemer


Ummm... no.

A too conservative estimation for you ?

[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.

Eventual telescopic observation made possible by the next generation of optical telescopes should be able to confirm or refute my speculations. If it looks even remotely habitable I'm sure we will begin planning a probe or probe fleet. An Orion style un-maned probe seems the only likely endeavor without any radical new technology being developed. As their will likely be more planets found in the neighborhood and they will present better chances of habitability their could be a series of such probes sent out late in this century. Their will not be any colonization attempts until a probe hits absolute pay dirt with an easily terra-formed planet. Also by this point our mastery of genetics will be such that modifying ourselves to live in the new environment will be easier and more practical then altering the planet and will be the main facilitator of colonization.

P.S. Bringing thousands of frozen Embryos or Eggs along will solve any issues of genetic diversity, frozen embryos last practically forever and would be implanted gradually as the population grows, just a handful of pregnancies would need to be from these embryos to keep a healthy genetic diversity.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
sigh

Oh stuff it, Wesley.

[Ecthy]

Kuci is like a Robin version for KH, and this one's already lame

[Kuciwalker]

I hate people who repeat the garbage in science journalism.

[Ecthy]

Because you're such a true scientist.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't talk about **** I'm clueless about.

[Ecthy]

Fine. Be good now.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
There are no known ways or processes of doing this successfully with Humans short of killing them and freezing their corpses. And you need more than a handful of colonists for a successful colony: Not just the practical consideration of having a diverse genetic pool (remember, it took a looong time to get to the planet without FTL), but also having enough people to actually run the colony in the first place.

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".

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I hate people who repeat the garbage in science journalism.

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I don't talk about **** I'm clueless about.

Here's an idea Kuci: Blow me.

http://www.scitech.ac.uk/PMC/PRel/STFC/shield.aspx

Shields for the Starship Enterprise: A Reality?
A team of scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council) are set to construct an experimental magnetic shield that would protect explorers in their journeys between the planets.


In the last year space agencies in the United States, Europe, China, Japan and India have announced their intention to resume human exploration of the Solar system, beginning with the Moon and perhaps ultimately moving on to Mars. But travel beyond the immediate vicinity of the Earth carries significant risks for astronauts, not the least of which is the exposure to sometimes high levels of radiation. Now a team of scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council) are set to construct an experimental magnetic shield that would protect explorers in their journeys between the planets. Dr Ruth Bamford will present this idea in her talk on Wednesday 18 April at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Preston.

Cosmic rays and radiation from the Sun itself can cause acute radiation sickness in astronauts and even death. Between 1968 and 1973, the Apollo astronauts going to the moon were only in space for about 10 days at a time and were simply lucky not to have been in space during a major eruption on the sun that would have flooded their spacecraft with deadly radiation. In retrospect Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step for Man’ would have looked very different if it had.

On the International Space Station there is a special thick-walled room to which the astronauts have had to retreat during times of increased solar radiation. However on longer missions the astronauts cannot live within shielded rooms, since such shielding would add significantly to the mass of the spacecraft, making them much more expensive and difficult to launch. It is also now known that the ‘drip-drip’ of even lower levels of radiation can be as dangerous as acute bursts from the sun.

On the surface of the Earth we are protected from radiation by the thick layers of the atmosphere. And the terrestrial magnetic field extends far into space, acting as a natural ‘force field’ to further protect our planet and deflecting the worst of the energetic particles from the Sun by creating a ‘plasma barrier’.

Now scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire plan to mimic nature. They will build a miniature magnetosphere in a laboratory to see if a deflector shield can be used to protect humans living on space craft and in bases on the Moon or Mars.

In order to work, an artificial mini-magnetosphere on a space craft will need to utilise many cutting edge technologies, such as superconductors and the magnetic confinement techniques used in nuclear fusion.

Thus science is following science fiction once again. The writers of Star Trek realised that any space craft containing humans would need protection from the hazardous effects of cosmic radiation. They envisioned a ‘deflector shield’ spreading out from the Starship Enterprise that the radiation would bounce off. These experiments will help to establish whether this idea could one day become a practical reality.

Issued by RAS Press Officers:
Robert Massey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 4582
Mobile: +44 (0)794 124 8035
E-mail: rm@ras.org.uk

Anita Heward
Tel: +44 (0)1483 420 904
Mobile: +44 (0)7756 034 243
E-mail: anitaheward@btinternet.com

National Astronomy Meeting Press Room (16 - 20 April only):
Tel: +44 (0)1772 892 613 or 892 475 or 892 477

RAS Web site: http://www.ras.org.uk/

RAS National Astronomy Meeting web site: http://nam2007.uclan.ac.uk

CONTACT(s):

Dr Ruth Bamford
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Space Science and Technology Department
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Tel: +44 (0)1235 446 517
Mob: +44 (0)77 87 37 47 50
E-mail: r.bamford@rl.ac.uk

Professor Robert Bingham
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Space Science and Technology Department
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
R.Bingham@rl.ac.uk
Mobile: 07769657148

Dr. Mike Hapgood
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Space Science and Technology Department
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
M.A.Hapgood@rl.ac.uk
Tel:+44 (1235) 446520
Mobile: +44 (789) 9908780

Dr Kieran Gibson
Sackville Street Building
University of Manchester
Manchester M60 1QD
k.gibson@manchester.ac.uk
Tel:+44 (0) 161 306 3927

Tom Todd
EFDA-JET
Culham Science Centre
Abingdon
Oxfordshire OX14 3DB
Tom.Todd@jet.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 46 5399

Luis Gargate
Centro de FÃsica dos Plasmas
Instituto Superior Técnico
1049-001 Lisboa
PORTUGAL

Professor Luis Silva
Sackville Street Building
University of Manchester
Manchester M60 1QD
NOTES FOR EDITORS

The 2007 RAS National Astronomy Meeting is hosted by the University of Central Lancashire. It is sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.

This year the NAM is being held together with the UK Solar Physics (UKSP) and Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial (MIST) spring meetings. 2007 is International Heliophysical Year.

IMAGES:

These are available directly from Dr Bamford and will be posted on the RAS NAM website at www.nam2007.uclan.ac.uk/press.php and also at http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/~ian/pres...g_diagram.html

Caption:

An artificial magnetosphere could be generated around manned space craft en route to the Moon or Mars to protect the occupants from the potentially lethal radiation in space from the Sun. A superconducting ring on board such a space craft could produce a magnetic field, or mini-magnetosphere, similar to the Earth’s, which would create a Star Trek like ‘deflector or plasma shield’.

[Kuciwalker]

I saw that, togglecaps, and new it was what you were talking about. The article is junk - especially in that it bears no relation to the title.

The idea it mentions is a pretty old one, too. This isn't rocket science.

[DRoseDARs]

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".

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.

[KrazyHorse]

Solar radiation and dust grains are two wholly separate beasts.

Some punk-ass plasma agglomeration held in place by a tiny little magnetic field isn't going to stop a half-gram of nickel-iron coming in at 0.2c

[Ecthy]

Tell that to Robin.

[Kuciwalker]

I thought we covered that bit of it already.

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