Sid Meier Interview

[binTravkin]

So let's just all sit down there, f^ck err, I mean multiply like rabbits and wait while some wise ass invents something which would allow interstellar travel in a matter of hours or days, not years and millenia!

[Kataphraktoi]

i had expected some harsh critisizm of my 2000\acre comment

no no no bin while f^king like rabbits is part of the plan,we will turn those guys into thinkers for 1\3+ and make super science citys. sure to get FTL soon then
and i thought you knew how to pop boom

[Darkstar]

Humm... Ok, if you can build bean stalks, that doesn't do squat for your Venus capabilities. The pressures for Venus are extreme. We can deal with that, eventually (and very expensively). The corrosive nature of it, though, that we would have to really research.

We'll more likely go to Mars before Venus. Indeed, there are now 2 corporations that are functional and are working on a permanent Mars colony by 2025.

Now, if you have SF nano, we won't have any problems. SF Nano makes all things possible. Your own personal genie. Of course, reality will be something different. It turns out that Nano changes so many rules. For instance, many innocent material when "nanoized", we've discovered recently, are extremely toxic and cancer causing. Whoops! But, we don't have the nano-machines that will repair us yet. If ever.

Personally, it doesn't look like it will ever be possible to build medical nano-machines that are useful beyond one or two specific task. Why? We just can't put any serious computing or information storage into them. We can design bucky balls that will cage special drugs and only release them inside a pancreatic tumor, but it turns out that the bucky balls cause brain tumors. So you'll trade your pancreatic cancer for brain cancer. Can we really over come it? Maybe. But there are only certain materials that will bond and form the nano-structures we need to do certain things. So, maybe not.

Think about it. We've had nano-tech since the 12th century. We just didn't know it.

As for carbon tubes... there's coal on the moon? That's news to me. That's what they are looking to make the bean stalk out of. Carbon nanotubes. Those only occur naturally in certain forms of coal, last I read.

Just jerking your chains. However, the promise of nano-tech seems tremendous. But the reality of it will fall short of that promise. As all technology always falls short. The question is, how much will it fall short?

Oh... if we can get economical Artificial Gravity, well... things really become interesting then. Much more so then with small, specialized nano-machines.

[binTravkin]

Those only occur naturally in certain forms of coal, last I read.

You should do some reading again.
They're now produced industrially without the need coal to be the source (oil and many other substances fit as well).

Humm... Ok, if you can build bean stalks, that doesn't do squat for your Venus capabilities. The pressures for Venus are extreme. We can deal with that, eventually (and very expensively). The corrosive nature of it, though, that we would have to really research.

Ever heard about chemistry?
Even now it is possible to transform a vapor into a liquid or solid by a chemical reaction.

Personally, it doesn't look like it will ever be possible to build medical nano-machines that are useful beyond one or two specific task. Why? We just can't put any serious computing or information storage into them.

Where did you get the idea nano will have any computing or information storage capabilities?
It is long been discussed that making nano possible would also require a very powerful external computing and control unit.
What'd you think they're building those quantum computers for?!

We'll more likely go to Mars before Venus. Indeed, there are now 2 corporations that are functional and are working on a permanent Mars colony by 2025.

This is one nasty bit of official propaganda whom everyone tend to believe.

1.Mars is further away.
2.Mars is too cold.
3.Mars has less gravity (a major point for human biology!)
4.Mars has very little water (you might say that Venus has none, but Venus has enough O and H on it).
5.Mars has very little organic (read carbon) material
6.Mars has no atmosphere (also a very important point because if it had at least materials for it in abundance, it could be made, but it has not and transporting wouldn't come cheap! Also Mars atmosphere will be slowly depleting due to lowered gravity)

The only positive point I can see being on Mars is it's spin rate. If you can, name others.

The biggest difference will be gravity - if a human living on Venus will be able to come to Earth without serious consequences and vice versa, then a person born on Mars will be almost or completely unable to come to Earth, yet one still has to prove he will be born ok under the lowered gravity.
Only after Artifical Gravity I see Mars, Moon and other nice places possible.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by binTravkin
1.Mars is further away.
2.Mars is too cold.
3.Mars has less gravity (a major point for human biology!)
4.Mars has very little water (you might say that Venus has none, but Venus has enough O and H on it).
5.Mars has very little organic (read carbon) material
6.Mars has no atmosphere (also a very important point because if it had at least materials for it in abundance, it could be made, but it has not and transporting wouldn't come cheap! Also Mars atmosphere will be slowly depleting due to lowered gravity)

The only positive point I can see being on Mars is it's spin rate. If you can, name others.

1. It's a mere 10 million km difference on perihelium. Besides, todays' spaceflight to Mars should be less mass-intensive due to the lower amount of fuel needed to brake in -and out of orbit of Mars compared to Venus.
2. It's easier to warm things up then to get rid (permanently) of heat. Also, the sun will continue to warm up in the future, so whatever effort is made to make Venus habitable, it is doomed anyway.
3. If that is a major concern, then humanity should forget all about going to space anyway. If giving birth in lower gravity-fields shows viable, simply a new subrace will see the light. Plenty of people would take the chance I think.
4. I don't see H nor O in this comparison list of Earth and Venus. Can you give a link to your info.
5. Do you expect organic material on a sterile world? Both planets are in that situation.
6. An insulating atmosphere could be made for Mars with local materials, but it would be of the wrong kind for breathing. The 'depleting' of a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere is a longterm issue, we're talking about ten thousands of years here, providing such an atmosphere can be kept warm enough. And I think for both planets transportation costs must be kept in mind, nitrogen and probably ice for Mars, at least ice for Venus. The most accessible place I know are the Saturn rings. [/QUOTE]

The biggest difference will be gravity - if a human living on Venus will be able to come to Earth without serious consequences and vice versa, then a person born on Mars will be almost or completely unable to come to Earth, yet one still has to prove he will be born ok under the lowered gravity.
Only after Artifical Gravity I see Mars, Moon and other nice places possible.

Again, without a subgroup living in lower/zero gravity, extensive spaceflight -and industry isn't viable. Take that away and there's no way colonisation of other planets will ever be feasable.

[Kataphraktoi]

2. It's easier to warm things up then to get rid (permanently) of heat. Also, the sun will continue to warm up in the future, so whatever effort is made to make Venus habitable, it is doomed anyway.

heating up takes energy.cooling simply needs you to take the energy source away or block it

3. If that is a major concern, then humanity should forget all about going to space anyway. If giving birth in lower gravity-fields shows viable, simply a new subrace will see the light. Plenty of people would take the chance I think.

subrace? this 'subrace' would have less strength and likely to not be able to return to earth. have you been in space? you would go crazy after awile.

Again, without a subgroup living in lower/zero gravity, extensive spaceflight -and industry isn't viable. Take that away and there's no way colonisation of other planets will ever be feasable.

remote controlled 'bots. drop a worker into an area,it uses raw materiels to make another,both of them build 2 other etc etc although matierl must be dropped into them.after awile they could setup a factory and resource proccessing equipment and begin local construction. and localaized artifical gravity feilds could make it viable for humans.

4.Mars has very little water (you might say that Venus has none, but Venus has enough O and H on it)

since when did venus have O on it?

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Cataphract887
heating up takes energy.cooling simply needs you to take the energy source away or block it

Indeed, "just" dim the sun or put a let's say 15000 km shield in front of Venus.
Energy is readily availabe in space till about the orbit of Mars, after that it's cost-effectiviness decreases with present solar panels.

subrace? this 'subrace' would have less strength and likely to not be able to return to earth. have you been in space? you would go crazy after awile.

Well, alot of the people which went into orbit can't wait for their next time. Some crazyness eh? And what's the use of 'strength' in a medium one simply doesn't need one? Think the other way around, Earthlings would for such people look ridiculous with their awkard ways of moving around in low-gee.

remote controlled 'bots. drop a worker into an area,it uses raw materiels to make another,both of them build 2 other etc etc although matierl must be dropped into them.after awile they could setup a factory and resource proccessing equipment and begin local construction. and localaized artifical gravity feilds could make it viable for humans.

I'm thinking of todays -or near-future tech. Todays 'bots can't do this, and for sure can't maintain themself. The only artifical gravity we can create is by spinning things around. But for space alot of applications would need to be done in zero-gee anyway to get purer and better materials/equipment. There will always be people needed to get near such plants or for transporting them around.

[Kataphraktoi]

I'm thinking of todays -or near-future tech. Todays 'bots can't do this, and for sure can't maintain themself. The only artifical gravity we can create is by spinning things around. But for space alot of applications would need to be done in zero-gee anyway to get purer and better materials/equipment. There will always be people needed to get near such plants or for transporting them around.

todays or near future tech cant get us there in the first place. we need a btter movement than chemical engines. we have some better designs but space program cant get enough $$$

Indeed, "just" dim the sun or put a let's say 15000 km shield in front of Venus.
Energy is readily availabe in space till about the orbit of Mars, after that it's cost-effectiviness decreases with present solar panels.

plenty of solar energy reaches mars. but it all just bounces back off again. if a one way space window was built the place would be sizzling in no time. greenhouse gasses could be

Well, alot of the people which went into orbit can't wait for their next time. Some crazyness eh? And what's the use of 'strength' in a medium one simply doesn't need one? Think the other way around, Earthlings would for such people look ridiculous with their awkard ways of moving around in low-gee.

earthlings could go anywhere their lower gee versians could and better.with more inherent strength they could do more in space and elsewhere. reducing your abilities to match your enviroment is stupid

[binTravkin]

GeoModder, I must repeat the call for Chemistry.
Please, your link provided me with 2 things:

Venus has clouds 50 to 70 km above surface containing H2SO4 (sulfuric acid).

I hope I don't have to tell that sulfuric acid constitutes of SO3 or sufluric oxide and H20 or water.
They can be divided again easy enough.

and

C[b]O2[/b]      0.0003      64

and regarding organic material I put "(read carbon)" in brackets and the answer again is:

[b]C[/b]O2      0.0003      64

Indeed, "just" dim the sun or put a let's say 15000 km shield in front of Venus

Don't be funny GeoModder, SMAC itself has a concept of Solar Shade which is very viable and Earth had felt ir earlier (hence the death of dinosaurs).

It would be a LOT harder to heat Mars than to cool Venus.
Cataphract887 is completely correct on the fact that to take away is much easier than to put into.

since when did venus have O on it?

I believe I answered this unless you guys have problems with chemistry.

Again, without a subgroup living in lower/zero gravity, extensive spaceflight -and industry isn't viable. Take that away and there's no way colonisation of other planets will ever be feasable.

Well, that's your thoughts, but take the fact that artifical gravity is before such concepts as travel in zero time or travel in "hyperspace" or mass teleporting and you're sure to come to conclusion by the time this "great colonisation" happens, we will have enough gravity to stay as we are.

Space-based industry needs lo-zero gravity subrace?
Akhem, sorry, but this is bull****.

1. It's a mere 10 million km difference on perihelium. Besides, todays' spaceflight to Mars should be less mass-intensive due to the lower amount of fuel needed to brake in -and out of orbit of Mars compared to Venus.

Okay the difference is not so big, but by the time we'll be going there the fuel won't matter as well because it'd be some new way of propulsion.

I'm thinking of todays -or near-future tech. Todays 'bots can't do this, and for sure can't maintain themself. The only artifical gravity we can create is by spinning things around. But for space alot of applications would need to be done in zero-gee anyway to get purer and better materials/equipment. There will always be people needed to get near such plants or for transporting them around.

I think you grossly overestimate human possibilities.
Colonisation will be possible only when all those "todays -or near-future tech" will be something only grannies use.

greenhouse gasses could be

This is not a bad thought, but the downside is that most of those gasses are toxic to human.
The natural percentage of CO2 in air is <0.05%
At percentage 0.1% it becomes toxic to human, thus CO2 it surely won't be.
Even if people manage to keep those gasses in the upper levels of atmosphere, still they might occassionally come down and pollute atmosphere making it unbreathable.

An insulating atmosphere could be made for Mars with local materials, but it would be of the wrong kind for breathing.

That one on Venus can be made into right kind.

[binTravkin]

Ever heard about this reaction:

CO2 + H2O + solar Energy = CH2O + O2

So to make our needed organic materials out of Venus we need 2 main reactions (they actually form a chain of reactions bu the results could approximately be as I describe):

H2S04 -> SO3 + [b]H2O[/b]

CO2 + H2O + solar Energy = [b]CH2O(carbohydrates and other organic material)[/b] + [b]O2[/b]

[Kataphraktoi]

I believe I answered this unless you guys have problems with chemistry.

yeah

in all seriousness,just not enough to argue about it.

This is not a bad thought, but the downside is that most of those gasses are toxic to human.
The natural percentage of CO2 in air is <0.05%
At percentage 0.1% it becomes toxic to human, thus CO2 it surely won't be.
Even if people manage to keep those gasses in the upper levels of atmosphere, still they might occassionally come down and pollute atmosphere making it unbreathable.

there is a variety of non toxic gasses in our atmosphere trapping sunlight. why not use a model based off that on mars?

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by binTravkin
GeoModder, I must repeat the call for Chemistry.

Well, since I'm not familiar with chemistry, I'll give you that shot. But of course the same counts for Mars, IF the 'material' is there.

Still, the comparison between water levels (liquid and vapor) with Earth is quite large.

Don't be funny GeoModder, SMAC itself has a concept of Solar Shade which is very viable and Earth had felt ir earlier (hence the death of dinosaurs).

It would be a LOT harder to heat Mars than to cool Venus.
Cataphract887 is completely correct on the fact that to take away is much easier than to put into.

Heat would continue to go into Venus' atmosphere, whatever content it has. And what's so funny about a 'shield'? I've read scifi where a sort of shield panes are put in front of both planets, close the levers, and no sun or less goes through. Put them towards each other in certain angles and it increases the 'strength' before letting the light go through. The same thing can be used to cool down or heat up it's 'target'

Space-based industry needs lo-zero gravity subrace?
Akhem, sorry, but this is bull****.

Read again, Bin. I didn't say that space-industry needs such people, only that it is inevitable that they will develop in due time if they're up there long enough.

I'm thinking that we're talking about different time-scales here. You seem to envision this in a more or less far future, while I was thinking closer to our age.

[Chaos Theory]

Having some knowledge of chemistry and physics, I feel obliged to inject a dose of reality.

First, colonization of Mars is possible without doing a thing to the atmosphere. The same can't be said of Venus. The conditions on Mars are, apart from the air, akin to the Antarctic. Since airtight structures aren't particularly difficult to build, the "only" added difficulty on Mars is the need to produce oxygen, rather than obtain it from the atmosphere. Compare this to Venus, where structures would need to, rather than contain a fraction of an atmosphere, keep out nearly a hundred atmospheres (surmountable), with high concentrations of corrosive chemicals (near-future insurmountable). There's a reason some probes we've sent to Mars's surface have lasted over a year and the probes we sent to Venus's surface lasted minutes or maybe hours.

A Martian habitat would need to produce its own heat or more effectively trap the Sun's and its own. A Venusian habitat would need gigantic chillers, as even if it could perfectly reject the environment's heat, it would need to expel heat generated within it. Lowering the temperature of Venus itself is much harder than covering Mars with airtight buildings. It is much easier to generate or contain heat than get rid of it.

Martian soil contains plenty of iron oxides, and I expect Martian rock contains silicon oxides. Estimates of the availability of water vary, but there is certainly some present at least at the polar caps.


Regarding comments on O2 and CO2 tolerance:

http://thelances.org/hr3/badair.html

By these charts, a partial pressure of O2 of as low as ~.12 atmosphere could be tolerated, presumably by someone acclimatized to sea level Earth. Mountain climbers can survive days, though not indefinitely, on O2 concentrations at Everest's height, which would be less than .07 atmosphere. CO2 pressure is normally .0003 atmosphere, but pressures as high as .005 atmosphere are trivial. As high as .03 atmosphere can be tolerated occasionally, without conditioning. With conditioning, at least .06 atmosphere can be tolerated.

[cal_01]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Ever heard about this reaction:

CO2 + H2O + solar Energy = CH2O + O2

So to make our needed organic materials out of Venus we need 2 main reactions (they actually form a chain of reactions bu the results could approximately be as I describe):

H2S04 -> SO3 + [b]H2O[/b]

CO2 + H2O + solar Energy = [b]CH2O(carbohydrates and other organic material)[/b] + [b]O2[/b]

Um, bin? That formula should be the other way around. SO3 and H20 readily combine to form sulphuric acid readily in solution, but its decomposition is H2SO4 -> SO2 + H2O + 1/2 O2. This process also take a lot of energy too (ie. you can't simply boil concentrated sulphuric acid), so it's not very economical or viable.

[cal_01]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Having some knowledge of chemistry and physics, I feel obliged to inject a dose of reality.

First, colonization of Mars is possible without doing a thing to the atmosphere. The same can't be said of Venus. The conditions on Mars are, apart from the air, akin to the Antarctic. Since airtight structures aren't particularly difficult to build, the "only" added difficulty on Mars is the need to produce oxygen, rather than obtain it from the atmosphere. Compare this to Venus, where structures would need to, rather than contain a fraction of an atmosphere, keep out nearly a hundred atmospheres (surmountable), with high concentrations of corrosive chemicals (near-future insurmountable). There's a reason some probes we've sent to Mars's surface have lasted over a year and the probes we sent to Venus's surface lasted minutes or maybe hours.

A Martian habitat would need to produce its own heat or more effectively trap the Sun's and its own. A Venusian habitat would need gigantic chillers, as even if it could perfectly reject the environment's heat, it would need to expel heat generated within it. Lowering the temperature of Venus itself is much harder than covering Mars with airtight buildings. It is much easier to generate or contain heat than get rid of it.

Martian soil contains plenty of iron oxides, and I expect Martian rock contains silicon oxides. Estimates of the availability of water vary, but there is certainly some present at least at the polar caps.


Regarding comments on O2 and CO2 tolerance:

http://thelances.org/hr3/badair.html

By these charts, a partial pressure of O2 of as low as ~.12 atmosphere could be tolerated, presumably by someone acclimatized to sea level Earth. Mountain climbers can survive days, though not indefinitely, on O2 concentrations at Everest's height, which would be less than .07 atmosphere. CO2 pressure is normally .0003 atmosphere, but pressures as high as .005 atmosphere are trivial. As high as .03 atmosphere can be tolerated occasionally, without conditioning. With conditioning, at least .06 atmosphere can be tolerated.

I would also like to add that the human body primarily uses CO2 receptors to activate normal breathing responses. A higher CO2 content is likely going to make the person breathe faster, but not necessarily kill them.

Hmm. I wonder if it's possible to grow trees on Mars. There's definitely clouds of water vapor on Mars, too.