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Old 05-20-2014, 05:05 PM   #1
Doppleganger
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How to colonize space

This isn't a true debate in the sense of 'we talk about controversial issues and express personal views!' but is intended to be a discussion about how to make this feasible, given the collective intelligence of UPN.

Why colonize space? The first reason is the population pressures and diminishing resources of planet Earth, both of which have a amplifying effect on one another: more people leads to faster resource drain. Colonizing space, especially the asteroid belt, means we gain access to a lot of the natural resources freely available in the solar system, prolonging the existence of the human species.

Some might say we don't have the technology for this yet. I disagree, we've had the technology since the 1960's, but the premature end of the space race and a lack of interest is what lead to a 'progressive stagnation' in technology. Arguably, things like the iPod and similar convenience items don't reflect progression, but merely cosmeticizing currently existing technology. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that the dramatic changes in technology (including the use of computers) haven't nearly been as sharp in the last 25 years of the 20th Century than they were in the first 25, even considering advances in medicine and infrastructure.

So where to begin? The first is there needs to be (1) political will, the second is we need (2) a method to navigate the solar system quickly, and (3) we need a realistic plan for colonization with tangible benefits for doing so.

(1) - Political Will

I don't think there would be much support in the United States or even other countries to invest heavily in a space program, given the benefits are long-term and won't affect individuals directly for even longer. The 1960's was the last window of opportunity I think for the current first world nations to be interested in space. The easiest solution, I think, is to thus modernize the continent of Africa and create a unified supernation, and raise the next generation of citizens living there to have a cultural appreciation of space through media and teaching. This way, one gets both the enthusiastic support of a billion people, and the national resources and political clout to get it done. So, going to Africa, educating the citizens, raising people out of poverty, promoting economic stability and unifying the continent politically seem like the easiest, most direct and least expensive way to get a nation permanently interested in space.

(2) - Transportation

Here you go. Nuclear powered space-ships have been available since the 1960's, but fear of nuclear fallout has lead to them not seeing use.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Later studies indicate that the top cruise velocity that can theoretically be achieved by a Teller-Ulam thermonuclear unit powered Orion starship, assuming no fuel is saved for slowing back down, is about 8% to 10% of the speed of light (0.08-0.1c). An atomic (fission) Orion can achieve perhaps 3%-5% of the speed of light.

At 0.1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9.8 m/s2). At 0.1c, an Orion starship would require 100 years to travel 10 light years. The astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that this would be an excellent use for current stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
For comparison, traveling from Earth to Pluto (which has little practical relevance for space colonization) would take a little more than 2 months using the atomic Orion, traveling at .05c. We could get to the inner planets Mars, Venus, and even Jupiter in days/weeks.

(3) Realistic plan for colonization with tangible benefits

There isn't a lot we can do with Mars right now, as it's a relatively inert planet, but we could colonize Venus fairly well: Venus' upper atmosphere is very similar to Earth, barring some sulphuric rain storms, but oxygen/nitrogen (which we breath) floats on top of the dense carbon dioxide gas, so we could have floating cities similar in appearance to Cloud City, acting as balloons suspended and circling the planet. With sufficient size, one could impart a centrifugal spin onto the city to correct for the differences between Venus and Earth's gravity. We can use these floating cities, thus, to not only conduct research on Venus, but provide a port to mining the asteroid belt and exploring Mars. No need to spend hundreds of years on speculative technology to terraform Mars or get over its lack of a magnetosphere, we can handle all that from Venus with pre-existing tech, as well as provide a anchor to do research on space, the sun and other areas of interest.

In my view, the modernization of Africa will probably take the longest time, but it's very possible and easier to accomplish than parts (2) and (3), but it makes parts (2) and (3) much easier. I don't have much evidence, just personal opinion, but I think humans could be using floating cities on Venus within the next 50 years if we pursue this route. And the world would be a lot better place too (since Africa wouldn't be as economically downtrodden as a necessary per-requisite). It would be quite a bright future, and I would die at age 76 fairly content that the human race is going to live on after me.
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Old 05-20-2014, 05:32 PM   #2
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Re: Political Will
I think that the biggest drive for the owners of our society to fund Martian and Jovian missions will be desire for fuel on Earth. If it was already known that one of Jupiter's moons was basically an orb of petroleum we would've already been there by now. But we do know about a variety of other energy candidates there, and really the only reason we haven't gone to fetch them yet is that the costs don't outweigh the benefits projected out by (say) 50 years. If we get to a point where 50-year projections show that the benefits will indeed outweigh the costs, then it's on to Jupiter we go. (First stop, Mars. Second stop, Jupiter.)

I think your talk about making all of Africa a bunch of space dreamers is a little delusional, Doppel, and frankly insulting to the African people. :\ ^^; You're treating them like monkeys in a Skinner box instead of like people as savvy to propaganda and brainwashing bullshit as the rest of the world's peoples. If you're not going to be able to brainwash the bottom 50% of Chinese or the bottom 50% of Indians to go to Jupiter, if you're not going to be able to brainwash the bottom 50% of Americans to go to Mars, then what makes you think you're going to be able to convince Africans that space is somewhere they'd rather be than Earth? And -- once race and nationality rear their hideous heads into the debate -- what honestly makes you think that the angry white man is going to just sit by and let the Africans have space whilst Henry Saville IV, Esq. inherits the Earth? You've essentially described a whites vs. blacks spin on Mobile Suit Gundam. I don't think we're going to ever deliberately go in the direction of Mobile Suit Gundam.
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Old 05-20-2014, 05:47 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I think your talk about making all of Africa a bunch of space dreamers is a little delusional, Doppel, and frankly insulting to the African people. :\ ^^; You're treating them like monkeys in a Skinner box instead of like people as savvy to propaganda and brainwashing bullshit as the rest of the world's peoples. If you're not going to be able to brainwash the bottom 50% of Chinese or the bottom 50% of Indians to go to Jupiter, if you're not going to be able to brainwash the bottom 50% of Americans to go to Mars, then what makes you think you're going to be able to convince Africans that space is somewhere they'd rather be than Earth? And -- once race and nationality rear their hideous heads into the debate -- what honestly makes you think that the angry white man is going to just sit by and let the Africans have space whilst Henry Saville IV, Esq. inherits the Earth? You've essentially described a whites vs. blacks spin on Mobile Suit Gundam. I don't think we're going to ever deliberately go in the direction of Mobile Suit Gundam.
If the rest of the world was savvy to propaganda, it wouldn't be effective anymore, no? The big difference between the space culture development and trying to persuade say Indians/Chinese to vote a certain way is one would be simultaneously raising the economic minimums for those countries, along with increasing their education. If space colonization were a bad idea, increased education would empower people to recognize how obsolete it is - much like how there's a negative correlation between religion and education. I want to leave the door open, to avoid 'tunnel vision' as it were where people close their minds to space colonization because of the lack of immediate, tangible benefits. It's an appeal to logic, rather than an appeal to emotion as true propaganda is. And cost-wise, it wouldn't really impart a lot of marginal cost like modern-day election campaigns do for their own promotional materials. If we were to have a TV station, for example, air science fiction-based shows and use science fiction examples when teaching mathematics or science.
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Old 05-20-2014, 06:11 PM   #4
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What I'm saying is, any nation or race you target for your desired space exodus is going to fire back at you the decades-old question:

"If space colonization is so great, why don't you do it? "

In many ways, it is a valid criticism. We're the ones who already have the resources and the infrastructure to get people into space and to build colonies on other worlds. (Or, if we don't, we're certainly the closest. Closer than any 3rd world nation is!) So why don't we lead the charge instead of asking the Africans to step up to the plate? No matter how you dress it up, Doppel, your plan reeks of deportation.

Rather than try to indoctrinate an entire continent of human beings into believing that they ought to go colonize Mars (seriously, Doppel, do you not understand how offensive this sounds? ), I think it would be far better to be upfront with people and to recruit from amongst Earth's nations any and every able-bodied, able-minded man, woman, and child to go into space. Be they American, be they Russian, be they Ghanan, be they Pakistani, whomever. Be they black, white, yellow, red ... be they rich, poor, or in between ... be they male, female, both, or neither ... we should be recruiting willing volunteers without propaganda rather than trying to indoctrinate a generation of impoverished third-world citizens into getting the fuck off of Whitey McWhiterson's big blue rock.
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Old 05-20-2014, 08:50 PM   #5
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1: Wait for aliens to discover our loudmouth speck in space.
2: Make contact with said aliens and ask about technology.
3: ???
4: Profit!

In more seriousness, people have become much more self-centered nowadays. We're still trying to sort out our own problems, we can't afford to spend time and money on stuff that is a tad beyond our scope. I'm sure there are plenty important discoveries to be made out there, but there is a large technological gap between us now and to being able to travel to other stars. *sigh* If only...

Going along at 0.1c can only get us so far, even going up to the full speed of light is still rather limiting. One can dream, though even theorizing about stuff like this is a bit beyond our scope. Still, one must start small.
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Old 05-20-2014, 08:54 PM   #6
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The Venus idea sounds interesting, but what about the scorching heat and the crushing pressure? I don't know if the atmosphere really is hospitable to settlement.
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Old 05-20-2014, 10:45 PM   #7
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Why would we go to Venus at all?

As you say, the planet's surface is impossibly deadly due to the high carbon dioxide content in addition to the sulfuric acid storms and 90 times the air pressure crushing us. Why would we bother to make a floating city over a death planet rather than just a floating city over the Earth. There's no distinct proof that Venus has any natural resources and the task of obtaining them is virtually impossible due to the weather or of an extremely high cost. We can barely even manage safety of mines on Earth, how are we supposed to convince people we could do better on a infinitely more hostile planet.
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Old 05-20-2014, 10:47 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
What I'm saying is, any nation or race you target for your desired space exodus is going to fire back at you the decades-old question:

"If space colonization is so great, why don't you do it? "

In many ways, it is a valid criticism. We're the ones who already have the resources and the infrastructure to get people into space and to build colonies on other worlds. (Or, if we don't, we're certainly the closest. Closer than any 3rd world nation is!) So why don't we lead the charge instead of asking the Africans to step up to the plate? No matter how you dress it up, Doppel, your plan reeks of deportation.
Deportation? How?

There isn't a unique response to that question, because more broadly it's addressed as the "why should we care about the future, i.e. anything that extends beyond our own lifetime?". To the average joe shmoe, life is all about enjoying the 70 odd years he has on the planet, because the humans of 100 years from now won't even be a matter to him. Concern for the well being of the species isn't something innate to humans, or if it is it's several degrees removed from direct impact. For example,

Pleasure seeking → Sex → Reproduction → Species preservation

Evolution has incentivized perpetuating the long term by making sex pleasurable and programming animals with biological, which antagonizes another instinctive program to seek out pleasure (since children impart a burden that limits it in the long term). Humans themselves are aware enough of those connotations. That's why birth control and similar contraceptives are invented: all the pleasure without any of the punishment.

These are facets of human nature that have gone unchanged since antiquity. Since history has been recorded we've seen humans murder, steal, and deceive for mostly the same reasons. This behaviour CAN be tempered somewhat, as we saw with the dominion of the Roman Catholic Church at its peak, pre-Reformation and Renaissance during the Middle Ages.

Absence of a crisis (like the Cold War) that forces humans to self-sacrifice, or a totalitarian government to force a doctrine on people (like the Third Reich), a grassroots cultural change is probably the best way to form a cohesive group of people with a shared ideology and an ability to enact political action. Trying to do the same in the United States isn't feasible because of the number of viewpoints, political/economic roadblocks and ultimate intangibility one has to overcome to do it.

History has shown in my view that some things done during the right window of opportunity can have somewhat permanent effects on a country. For example, a lot of the stuff that happened during the founding of the United States in the 18th century, while initially just convention, have been codified into tradition-based law in the US (such as the term limits for the presidency). FDR served multiple terms, but the ultimate impetus for formally force a president to 2 terms was a desire for tradition derived from Washington, not for a fear of despotism (as FDR showed that he was no tyrant, and used his powers well to serve the country).

I personally think that window is largely closed for the US, and was open during the 1960's. It's unlikely the country will re-open the space race when we're so far removed from the era of exploration, many climatic wars and boundary changes and countries across are accustomed to the modern consumer lifestyle.

Africa, in my view, is a country that is politically unstable enough, and poor enough, that the citizens of many nations there would be open to new ideas that come hand-in-hand with aid. This is why so many missionary groups are going into the country - and largely failing, since they have no long-term plans for solving the continent's recurring problems. Unlike with India and China, one can't just parachute in paramilitary, corporations and industry without the governments there flipping their lids. With many African nations, especially the poorer ones, it's possible to bargain with them and even hold office in those countries so long as you're helping the people out.

I guess in a sense, there is some degree of 'exploitation' going on, but it's hardly more morally dubious than a lot of other stuff that's going on there right now. Ultimately, it's to help both the people there and humanity as a whole in direct ways.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Rather than try to indoctrinate an entire continent of human beings into believing that they ought to go colonize Mars (seriously, Doppel, do you not understand how offensive this sounds? ), I think it would be far better to be upfront with people and to recruit from amongst Earth's nations any and every able-bodied, able-minded man, woman, and child to go into space. Be they American, be they Russian, be they Ghanan, be they Pakistani, whomever. Be they black, white, yellow, red ... be they rich, poor, or in between ... be they male, female, both, or neither ... we should be recruiting willing volunteers without propaganda rather than trying to indoctrinate a generation of impoverished third-world citizens into getting the fuck off of Whitey McWhiterson's big blue rock.
And where are you going to get the money to fund this? Where are you going to get the nuclear material to power the Orion spaceships? To launch the spaceships from Earth without triggering a bunch of EMPs that will fry all computers and electronics within a hundred mile radius, the rockets have to blast off from the North or South Pole, ownership of which is in contention with various other nations and the US. Many of these nations are signed on to the treaty supporting nuclear detonations above ground, i.e. are against use of nuclear spaceships.

Attempting a cultural change in the United States might be more 'moral' but it's also far less certain of going off. There have been many efforts to fund initiatives for exploring space and they haven't gained any traction. Even the personal assets of a few billionaires wouldn't be enough to fund the initiative to build a floating city on Venus (not terraform Mars, that's still within the realm of science fiction) or assemble the talent necessary to take it from the imagination to the drawing board.

It's much easier if a whole country (or continent) is devoting the majority of its industry and manpower into such a thing, since the GDP of a country grossly exceeds even Bill Gates' wealth, and the best scientist and engineers in the country are available to call on to develop the technology to make it possible. That's why I suggest, build a country from the ground up, and give it a shared love of space - that bypasses a lot of the economic, immediate self-interest and conflict-of-interest problems that currently plagues other pro-space initiatives.

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There's no distinct proof that Venus has any natural resources and the task of obtaining them is virtually impossible due to the weather or of an extremely high cost. We can barely even manage safety of mines on Earth, how are we supposed to convince people we could do better on a infinitely more hostile planet.
I already addressed this somewhat, but this describes a lot of the natural resources available on Venus. Having a floating city there would allow access to a lot of materials common there but rare and expensive on Earth.

You also can't have a floating city on Earth, because at sea level we have breathable gas. The whole physics behind it on Venus is Venus' surface has a thick layer of carbon dioxide, while breathable air floats above it. Thus, you can have a city float over the carbon dioxide clouds and be breathable because of the differences in density. The only problems are the sulphuring storms which can be solved with silicon architecture (or Roman concrete with the proper volcanic ash/lime ratios) and the gravity difference can be solved with rotation of the city.
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Last edited by Doppleganger; 05-20-2014 at 10:57 PM.
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Old 05-20-2014, 11:37 PM   #9
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I don't think we can have a sensible conversation regarding your OP post's first point if you're going to retort with stuff like this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
And where are you going to get the money to fund this? Where are you going to get the nuclear material to power the Orion spaceships?
and act as though it magically doesn't apply to or that it magically wouldn't be harder for broke-as-fuck, diseased-as-fuck, wartorn-as-fuck sub-Saharan Africa.
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Old 05-21-2014, 12:04 AM   #10
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Except that's a gross distortion of what I said. Before you can get to step (2), you have to build up each African country unite the nations into an economic superpower that has the political will to colonize space, which is your solvency for the problem of economics, political clout for forcing one's way into the North/South Pole, and nuclear power.

This isn't unrealistic. It's happened many times and all over in the 20th century, with Japan going from feudalism to world power in the span of a few decades, the remnants Ottoman Empire modernizing, and China emerging from Mao Zedong's commune crazy to an economic superpower. Individuals and corporations with the proper connections and resources can make it happen, even without the direct support of governments. Weapons more powerful than Soviet-era machine guns and soldiers more skilled in modern warfare are freely available to paramilitaries to be able to thwart coup attempts.

African is poor, diseased and wartorn, but instead of spending money on elections and the like, or just donating money to those countries where economically it's shown to not really help them escape the Malthusian Trap, you can build up the continent to the point that even if the new superpower doesn't link you to (2), you still have done a lot more for the world than say fail to promote a grassroots pro-space initiative with private investment.
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Old 05-21-2014, 08:25 AM   #11
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What I'm saying is:
  • it costs x money for America to do it
  • it costs x money for Super Africa to do it and it costs y money for Africa to become Super Africa
You're proposing the equivalent of Africa researching particle physics, arguing that Switzerland doesn't have the money to do it, and wildly ignoring the obvious fact that if CERN-bearing Switzerland couldn't afford to do it then how could CERNless Africa afford to do it?
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Old 05-21-2014, 12:15 PM   #12
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We don't have the tech.

Sure, we can get to Mars or Titan or Enceladus or wherever. We currently have satellites and rovers doing cool stuff elsewhere in the Solar System and, depending on your definition, in interstellar space. We've got a space station. But practically speaking we can't colonise anything yet. We don't know enough about what truly long term exposure to different gravity does to us, we don't have the capacity to do a lot of modern medicine off world, we can't replicate the magnetic field effect that is absolutely critical, we lack the capability to build the kind of orbital facilities that would be needed to properly service a colonisation effort i.e. drydocks.

Also for the love of God let's never ever go to Venus.
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Old 05-21-2014, 02:58 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
What I'm saying is:
  • it costs x money for America to do it
  • it costs x money for Super Africa to do it and it costs y money for Africa to become Super Africa
You're proposing the equivalent of Africa researching particle physics, arguing that Switzerland doesn't have the money to do it, and wildly ignoring the obvious fact that if CERN-bearing Switzerland couldn't afford to do it then how could CERNless Africa afford to do it?
Switzerland and the US have the technical capacity, but there's always an opportunity cost, and in this case it's other domestic spending. Take the 2013 US budget:

Spoiler: show



When NASA was at its peak in the 1960's, it was operating on 4% of the US budget with a relatively simple, focused mission that resulted in several catastrophic failures. Colonization plans would require a far higher operating income than that, and would come at the cost of cuts in other areas of spending (like defense) that would put a lot of people out of work, hurting the economy.

Space colonization is a high input, high (but not immediate!) yield industry. You need a lot of brains and money to get it to work (unlike defense) and there's political backlash if there are failures. It's certainly possible to get the US, Switzerland or other countries to devote time and effort into the space program, but it's more unlikely and fragile than what I'm proposing due to the high opportunity costs which don't exist for a supercontinent that hasn't yet formed or industrialized and so isn't accustom to those expenditures.

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We don't know enough about what truly long term exposure to different gravity does to us, we don't have the capacity to do a lot of modern medicine off world, we can't replicate the magnetic field effect that is absolutely critical, we lack the capability to build the kind of orbital facilities that would be needed to properly service a colonisation effort i.e. drydocks.

Also for the love of God let's never ever go to Venus.
-rotating the floating city solves the gravitation problem, and even then Venus at altitude is operating at 1 atm and .94 g. That is almost perfect Earth conditions and the centrifugal force can easily correct for the .06 g difference between Venus at altitude and Earth at sea level.
-Venus has an induced atmosphere and the clouds protect against solar radiation. Acid rain is the only legitimate concern for a floating city and that can be solved with proper architecture
-we have the technology to build a space station and a rocket ship to get to Venus quickly. Getting a station to float in the Venusian atmosphere is just a step beyond getting one to float in orbit or be suspended at a Lagrange point
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Old 05-21-2014, 03:08 PM   #14
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I admire your enthusiasm for space colonization but you seem to have very unrealistic impressions about how close we are to making colonization a reality. Like Loki has already pointed out to you, we can't even produce floating cities on Earth to combat the rise in population density. 70% of this planet is covered by water yet we have very nearly 0% of our population living on the surface of the seas at any given time. If relocating people to cities that ebb and flow with the ocean waves still hasn't been done, what makes you think that sky cities (which require immense amounts of energy to keep them airborne) are even easier to accomplish?

If a sky city were to fail, who knows how many millions of people would die as it fell. And there go all of the materials, to the planetary surface that more closely resembles Hell than it does Earth. We can't afford to lose a Venusian city. And because of that, even were we planning to set up cities on Venus (which I doubt we will do in the next century) you'd best believe we'd only do it after having had extensive experience with sky cities on Earth. "Extensive experience" meaning decades, possibly centuries of research and perfection.
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Old 05-21-2014, 03:10 PM   #15
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I suspect your impression of what Venus is actually like is a mite idealistic. We really have absolutely no hope of doing anything there for decades at the very least.
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Old 05-21-2014, 03:26 PM   #16
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While Venus could be the best candidate for terraforming in terms of geography, assuming the runaway greenhouse affect is in any way reversible, the main problem with settling there is that it is the only planet that rotates clockwise, meaning that a Venusian day is longer than a Venusian year. Unless we also develop the technology to reverse a planet's rotation, I don't think it's ever going to be feasible to terraform Venus.
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Old 05-21-2014, 03:32 PM   #17
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Quote:
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I admire your enthusiasm for space colonization but you seem to have very unrealistic impressions about how close we are to making colonization a reality. Like Loki has already pointed out to you, we can't even produce floating cities on Earth to combat the rise in population density. 70% of this planet is covered by water yet we have very nearly 0% of our population living on the surface of the seas at any given time. If relocating people to cities that ebb and flow with the ocean waves still hasn't been done, what makes you think that sky cities (which require immense amounts of energy to keep them airborne) are even easier to accomplish?
We could making cities floating on the ocean, but why? Terrestrial cities have evolved vertically to accommodate population concerns, increasing the density of population on the same plot of land without limiting spatial access to food or water. Otherwise, we end up with Malthusian limitations where population can't exceed the ability of the land to sustain it. Not to mention floating cities have little practical value, because:

-they're at the mercy of storms
-they don't have any way to self-sustain

A floating city on Venus is closer to a balloon floating in the air on Earth, rather than a ship floating over liquid water. It's suspended in a gas and is carried by the wind currents on the planet.

Also, I don't know if you read what I linked to about the floating cities, but they don't require any energy to remain airborne. You know how a balloon filled with helium floats? The cities on Venus would just float in the air above the carbon dioxide layer on the planet's surface. The cities just need to be filled with breathable air to suspend themselves. It shouldn't be too tough to get a circulation system out where carbon dioxide sinks and breathable air rises, and even if there are energy concerns Venus gets so much solar energy you could employ solar panels there (hopefully to not shield the planet enough to cool it) to get as much electricity as needed.

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If a sky city were to fail, who knows how many millions of people would die as it fell. And there go all of the materials, to the planetary surface that more closely resembles Hell than it does Earth. We can't afford to lose a Venusian city. And because of that, even were we planning to set up cities on Venus (which I doubt we will do in the next century) you'd best believe we'd only do it after having had extensive experience with sky cities on Earth. "Extensive experience" meaning decades, possibly centuries of research and perfection.
Centuries, no. Decades, maybe. I set a timetable of my lifetime (50 years) and I think it's possible given what we saw in the 20th Century with focus. There's almost no research into the feasibility of this kind of thing right now despite the availability of similar technology. Not to mention modernizing Africa as a pre-requisite is going to take a lot of time and manpower if done simultaneously, or a lot of time if done one-by-one.
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Old 05-21-2014, 03:46 PM   #18
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As a resource, Carbon is fairly bountiful on Earth when you consider we can get it without flying to an incredibly hostile planet and set up an immensely expensive station to harvest.

And considering we on Earth have H2O covering 70% of the world's surface, a resource which could potentially be separated into Hydrogen and Oxygen to be used to power everything instead of fossil fuels and we don't even bother to use that, a FUEL that could help the current fuel crisis and we don't even bother to harvest it (for various reasons), why would we go to Venus, 162 million miles away for Carbon?
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Old 05-22-2014, 08:58 AM   #19
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>Loki

The reason we don't split water into hydrogen and oxygen then power stuff with that is that it wouldn't work. The energy from burning hydrogen (and anything else) comes from the differences in bond energies. The energy you need to put in to break those bonds in the first place is the same as the energy you'd get out from recombining them by burning it - except you can't be 100% efficient in either the separating stage or the energy capture stage, so you'd end up using more energy than you get out. If you could get out more energy than you put in to separate it in the first place, you could just have a tank of water and sit there splitting and recombining it for magic free energy - a massive violation of conservation of energy.
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Old 05-22-2014, 09:22 AM   #20
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Apparently my alma mater is weighing in on this topic. Writes HowStuffWorks.com:
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One group from Purdue University is hot on the trail. They've come up with a process to split hydrogen from water that requires little or no energy input. Adding water to a composite metal (alloy) made of aluminum and gallium separates water into its component molecules. The composite attracts oxygen, but not hydrogen, leaving the former element free and separated.

The Purdue researchers are still developing the technology, and it may be awhile before you find it under your hood. If you can't wait to run your car on water, you could always order a conversion kit in the meantime.
Can't find too much on the subject and it looks like most articles are three to seven years old, but here at least is one semi-recent article that explores the subject. Quote:
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Speaking to Science Daily, [Woodall, the lead researcher] stated that by immersing the new alloy (which contains aluminum, gallium, indium and tin) into water, you can create a spontaneous reaction that splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The hydrogen can then be used to fuel power cells, while clean drinking water is produced in the form of steam.
It sounds too good to be true. But Purdue University is a reputable engineering school; it would be lunacy for them to support a cold fusion charlatan. Unfortunately, the trail seems to go deathly cold circa 2010, 2011. This university statement from 2010 is the most recent one I could find. Surprising. I'd expect to have either found a "HE'S A FRAUD! " or a "HE'S DONE IT! HE'S REALLY DONE IT! " article from 2012 or 2013, let alone the nearly half-done 2014. But nope. Nothing.

EDIT: Well, I said that, but then I told Google "NO U! " and asked it to give me returns from the past year only. And in so doing I discovered that while Woodall is apparently still in the news from time to time:
  1. he's left Purdue for UC Davis
  2. it doesn't sound like anything major happened between 2010 and 2013
Not sure what the circumstances are for the move from Purdue to UC Davis. Did Purdue kick him out? (And if so, why would UC Davis want him?) Did UC Davis snatch him away? (And if so, why wouldn't Purdue have fought harder to keep the man who could quite possibly be offering the closest thing we have to the promises of cold fusion in the 1980s?) Was it Woodall's decision to leave Purdue? Did he leave for himself or for other reasons? (Wife, children, sick and tired of Indiana winters ...) No idea.

Anyway, getting a bit off topic there. The relevance to this thread is that there appear to be claims of using a simple metal alloy to split water. "If it's too good to be true, it probably is," they say, so I guess what I'd say is look into whether other universities have been able to replicate Woodall's reported findings or not.
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Old 05-22-2014, 02:16 PM   #21
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Will address Loki later, but UCD has the one of (the only?) hydrogen fuel cell station in the United States. Arnold famously went there to get his hydrogen hummer fueled up back in 2003.

I never understood one aspect of hydrogen powered vehicles though...aren't they basically rolling IEDs?
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Old 05-22-2014, 11:30 PM   #22
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Yeah I know hydrogen's inefficiency is a major factor for why we don't use it, but the problem still remains: How can you ask us to commit heavy amount of resources in order to get something which isn't fuel and will cost even more fuel to properly extract and refine into a proper and usable material.

If the plan was to say go to to Planet X and get some fuel- Okay. The fuel we spend will obtain for us even more fuel which we then use to obtain other materials for continued space colonization. But that's not Venus.
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Old 05-23-2014, 12:06 AM   #23
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If we were to take fuel, we'd be using Venus' proximity to the sun to charge solar cells to create electricity that wouldn't otherwise be available from Earth. We'd have to set up orbiting solar shields to do that in our own orbit to that degree.

The idea with Venus though is that colonizing Mars is too far beyond humankind's capabilities both technologically and economically. Sure, we could build an outpost on Mars, but it would be completely dependent on imports from Earth - it can't sustain itself with Mars' own natural resources. I don't really have any projections, but intuitively to me it seems like an outpost totally dependent on Earth is unlikely to be mining minerals worth more than the upkeep of maintaining it. On Venus at least, the Earth-like temperatures and breathable air are provided, so the only problem is getting water.

Ideally, we'd want to mine the asteroid belt (where Mars is closer proximity) which has a lot of the rare minerals on Earth so desired, but it's not like Venus' surface isn't devoid of minerals itself since it was formed largely the same way as Earth, with evidence of heavy asteroid impacts, and the floating city works as a base of operations to deploy machines and refine the materials for importing back to Earth.
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Old 05-27-2014, 04:30 PM   #24
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I'm confused why you think solar cells would be better on Venus.

Mars soil is actually quite fertile. Plants have been shown to grow in soil that mimics the chemical makeup of Mars' soil. Getting a facility set up there is not a matter of setting up transport (though that is definitely a concern) or setting up supplies or making money, it is a matter of being able to survive on Mars at all (even in a bubble or something).

I don't think you quite understand what Venus really is, though.

1. Clouds are evil. They are literally evaporated sulfuric acid.
2. You can melt lead on the ground
3. The temperature that is not 600 degrees C (aka above the clouds) is something like -40 degrees C.
4. VENUS IS HOSTILE.

There's a reason nobody's talking about colonizing Venus: We took a closer look at Venus.
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Old 05-28-2014, 02:11 PM   #25
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I'm confused why you think solar cells would be better on Venus.
It's closer to the sun and receives far more radiant energy than Earth or Moon does. Not to mention setting up large solar panels in Earth's orbit has drastic effects on Earth's own temperature, because setting up solar panels impacts the energy that reaches Earth (think cloud cover).

One of the links above noted that we can actually terraform Venus if we set up enough solar panels by virtue of cooling the entire planet down, although it would be sufficiently gradual that it wouldn't pose a threat to anyone bobbling in the atmosphere.

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Mars soil is actually quite fertile. Plants have been shown to grow in soil that mimics the chemical makeup of Mars' soil. Getting a facility set up there is not a matter of setting up transport (though that is definitely a concern) or setting up supplies or making money, it is a matter of being able to survive on Mars at all (even in a bubble or something).
Mars doesn't have an atmosphere. It's also extremely cold. Nothing's going to grow on the Martian surface.

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I don't think you quite understand what Venus really is, though.

1. Clouds are evil. They are literally evaporated sulfuric acid.
2. You can melt lead on the ground
3. The temperature that is not 600 degrees C (aka above the clouds) is something like -40 degrees C.
4. VENUS IS HOSTILE.
This isn't even analysis, and I already addressed the first three above extensively.
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