Which is more viable for space colonization? (poll)

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Much as I'd love colony ships filling the galaxy, I'm not sure it'll ever be feasible.

I think the space stations will be possible (we've had a couple of primitive ones already), but they E probably difficulties in getting them to the size of something like Elysium.

Tera forming is an awesome concept, but most versions seem to need millennia at the least, so maybe a back burner issue.

However i think we could make some awesome dome colonies on Mars, Mercury and the larger dwarf planets in the asteroid belt.

So that's how I interpret a mixed answer.

Very true, on all counts. It's incredibly unlikely that colonizing another planet with human live will be easy. Although I do think that making a planet's atmosphere breathable, by Earth standards, would probably be the best form of terra-forming that we could accomplish.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I vote for F) none of the above.

Listen, it ain't gonna happen. We have one planet here, and are only chance is to make this planet work.

There are a couple places on earth that have a better chance than a colony in space. Antarctica, floating rafts at sea, underwater colonies, undergound cities, and floating platforms in the air all have a better chance than a colony in space.

In Tucson years ago they built a large biosphere hoping to have plants, animals and humans living together in a totally isolated environment. It didn't work. Within months the oxygen levels were too low, and they had to vent the biospere for the rest of the experiment. In the dessert, if the air inside is unsafe, you can open the window. You can't do that in space.

It would also require immense quantities of energy to transport people and supplies to a new colony. Earth is running to a shortage of its most valuable energy source, petroleum, and no other source can readily step in to propel rockets.

I think we are stuck on earth, and had better do what we can to make this planet work.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I vote for F) none of the above.

Listen, it ain't gonna happen. We have one planet here, and are only chance is to make this planet work.

There are a couple places on earth that have a better chance than a colony in space. Antarctica, floating rafts at sea, underwater colonies, undergound cities, and floating platforms in the air all have a better chance than a colony in space.

In Tucson years ago they built a large biosphere hoping to have plants, animals and humans living together in a totally isolated environment. It didn't work. Within months the oxygen levels were too low, and they had to vent the biospere for the rest of the experiment. In the dessert, if the air inside is unsafe, you can open the window. You can't do that in space.

It would also require immense quantities of energy to transport people and supplies to a new colony. Earth is running to a shortage of its most valuable energy source, petroleum, and no other source can readily step in to propel rockets.

I think we are stuck on earth, and had better do what we can to make this planet work.

Well, aren't you a barrel of laughs, eh?
So we should just not bother with any sort of space exploration then? If Mars has materials that could help us with our energy, we should just not bother with it?
And there's a difference between living in a biosphere and living in a contained colony. There would be ventilation equipment, oxygen recyc. We're not talking about a small biome, we're talking about either a large town or even a small city built under a giant dome, which would require an entire different style of engineering and construction to accomplish.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Well, aren't you a barrel of laughs, eh?

Happy to entertain you.

So we should just not bother with any sort of space exploration then? If Mars has materials that could help us with our energy, we should just not bother with it?
And there's a difference between living in a biosphere and living in a contained colony. There would be ventilation equipment, oxygen recyc. We're not talking about a small biome, we're talking about either a large town or even a small city built under a giant dome, which would require an entire different style of engineering and construction to accomplish.

Have you ever seen Tom Murphy's excellent blog, Do the Math? He is a physicist that has done a lot of interesting analysis of the human predicament. At http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/#more-417 he deals with the problem of starting a colony in space. At http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/stranded-resources/#more-470 he deals with the problem of mining space for resources. Both are quite relevant to this thread.

I think if you will read those two posts, you will see the immense problems with trying to transport materials to a space colony, and with the huge dangers that would face people in such a colony. If your dome gets a leak, and oxygen leaks out, how would you ever replace it?

Why would we colonize space? Why leave earth to go to a place so inhospitable?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Have you ever seen Tom Murphy's excellent blog, Do the Math? He is a physicist that has done a lot of interesting analysis of the human predicament. At http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/#more-417 he deals with the problem of starting a colony in space. At http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/stranded-resources/#more-470 he deals with the problem of mining space for resources. Both are quite relevant to this thread.

I think if you will read those two posts, you will see the immense problems with trying to transport materials to a space colony, and with the huge dangers that would face people in such a colony. If your dome gets a leak, and oxygen leaks out, how would you ever replace it?

Why would we colonize space? Why leave earth to go to a place so inhospitable?

It's funny that you would have to say about leaving Earth to somewhere inhospitable, since your first source says that the Earth's water will reach boiling point in 400 years. So we're screwed if we stay on Earth anyway. In fact, it seems that H.G. Well's vision on Earth in The Time Traveler seemed more feasible (minus the Morlocks and the Eloi of course).

And do you not think really think that engineers would come up with a contingency plan in case something like that happens? Although off the top of my head, I'd say an automatic shutter system capable of forming a hermetic seal.

But I have to ask: why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we try? Why should we just sit still and not actually try it? If the Earth's main form of subsistence on the surface is doomed to disappear within the span of human existence, as your first source says, why should we not try and actually have some form of insurance?
As H.G. Wells said, "The choice is the universe... or nothing."

 

[Gene2memE]

If we have the chance to get some of our eggs out of the one basket we're in, I say we take it. It's difficult to imagine with current levels of technology though. Or with near future (say 15 year horizon) technologies as well. 30 to 40 years hence, who knows?

My favourite option is colonisation of near earth asteroids like 433 Eros and 1036 Ganymed via a multi-stage von Neumann machine route.

Fire some semi-autonomous robots at asteroids during near earth passes and have the robots prep the asteroids for human arrival. Essentially dig into them and then hollow them out, while collecting/sorting/storing the materials dug out. On the next pass, fire a different set of semi-autonomous robots to start building a space marginally habitable by humans. Get humans on site on another of the near earth passes, have them start prepping proper habitation and building an industrial base, update/maintain the robots and then bring them home. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum until you've got an industrial manufacturing base/bases outside of earth's gravity well.

Expensive, time consuming and probably futile, but just possibly worth the effort if things go mammaries skyward done here.

 

[crjmurray]

Why would we colonize space? Why leave earth to go to a place so inhospitable?

There are posters here who live in Australia.....

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I would think sticking our heavy industry on the moon and constructing space stations in orbit would be the most feasible, based on distance alone.

In the long run though, the best option would be to construct a Dyson sphere around the sun in the habitable zone. Perhaps if we harvest asteroids and so forth for materials. I read a book long ago that argued that Jupiter could be disassembled for materials as well, but I am far more sceptical of this.

 

[Shemjaza]

I would think sticking our heavy industry on the moon and constructing space stations in orbit would be the most feasible, based on distance alone.

In the long run though, the best option would be to construct a Dyson sphere around the sun in the habitable zone. Perhaps if we harvest asteroids and so forth for materials. I read a book long ago that argued that Jupiter could be disassembled for materials as well, but I am far more sceptical of this.

I'd love to live long enough to see the glittering of cities in the shadowed area of the moon.

Even better world be living in one. But I doubt I'll live to see that.

 

[timewerx]

Listen, it ain't gonna happen. We have one planet here, and are only chance is to make this planet work.

Sadly, it's far too late for that....

We are simply far too overpopulated to even try to make this planet work.

Do you want to reduce garbage problems, land/air/sea pollution, scarcity of land, etc, etc? The most effective and practical means of doing it is to enforce a one-child policy for the next hundred years as well as other policy changes globally.

Once a global population of 100 million is reached, it would become easily possible to re-develop cities and relocate people away from regions of the planet that have become too hot for comfort, mainly in equatorial regions.

At the same time, it becomes an opportunity to segregate people by culture/religion.

 

[Armoured]

Dyson Spheres! Ringworld! Invade Kzin, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity!

 

[doubtingmerle]

But I have to ask: why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we try?

Why shouldn't we colonize space? I will answer that with a question: Why should we? I haven't heard a good reason why we should put colonies into space.

Should we go to space to mine resources and bring them back to earth? Too expensive, per the link I provided.

Should we do it to allow the population to expand? Population is growing at a billion people every decade, so unless your plan involves mass construction projects and migration of people on that scale, it is not doing much to allow population to expand. Who would pay for that? Do you want to be taxed to build a world for billions to travel to, with little coming back to earth in return? Why not rather stop population growth?

Should we go to space in case we trash this planet? It seems to me that it would be far easier to save the earth, than to trash the earth, terraform Mars and move everybody to Mars. Has our throw-away mentality developed to the point where we want to trash planets and move on until we run out of planets?

Should we do it because some day the sun will burn out? Now that is what I call thinking ahead! The sun will be fine for another billion years. I can't understand why that should be bothering us now.

So unless I hear a good reason to colonize space, I can't imagine doing it.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Dyson Spheres! Ringworld! Invade Kzin, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity!

To infinity and beyond!

 

[Armoured]

To infinity and beyond!

That too.

 

[timewerx]

Should we do it to allow the population to expand? Population is growing at a billion people every decade, so unless your plan involves mass construction projects and migration of people on that scale, it is not doing much to allow population to expand. Who would pay for that? Do you want to be taxed to build a world for billions to travel to, with little coming back to earth in return? Why not rather stop population growth?

Like what I have said earlier, only solution is population reduction by globally enforced one-child policy for many decades until a sustainable population has been reached.

When our waste products are killing scores of animals, even driving some of them to extinction, unnaturally high costs of living, we should realize by now we are now way past beyond sustainable and into the realm of utter stupidity.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Like what I have said earlier, only solution is population reduction by globally enforced one-child policy for many decades until a sustainable population has been reached.

When our waste products are killing scores of animals, even driving some of them to extinction, unnaturally high costs of living, we should realize by now we are now way past beyond sustainable and into the realm of utter stupidity.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

Do you realize what a lightning rod that topic is?

See http://www.christianforums.com/threads/population-control-anyone.7605921/ .

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Why shouldn't we colonize space? I will answer that with a question: Why should we? I haven't heard a good reason why we should put colonies into space.

Should we go to space to mine resources and bring them back to earth? Too expensive, per the link I provided.

Should we do it to allow the population to expand? Population is growing at a billion people every decade, so unless your plan involves mass construction projects and migration of people on that scale, it is not doing much to allow population to expand. Who would pay for that? Do you want to be taxed to build a world for billions to travel to, with little coming back to earth in return? Why not rather stop population growth?

Should we go to space in case we trash this planet? It seems to me that it would be far easier to save the earth, than to trash the earth, terraform Mars and move everybody to Mars. Has our throw-away mentality developed to the point where we want to trash planets and move on until we run out of planets?

Should we do it because some day the sun will burn out? Now that is what I call thinking ahead! The sun will be fine for another billion years. I can't understand why that should be bothering us now.

So unless I hear a good reason to colonize space, I can't imagine doing it.

Yes to all points, except for the population control since that's just inherently... well, evil.
And I'm not going to take the writer of the posts you gave as the sole expert. Those are just the opinion, learned opinions I will grant, yes, but still the opinions.

And saying that we should have an insurance policy in having either a Lunar or Martian colony is not a having a throwaway mentality. It's called having a back-up plan.
I do agree that we should try and fix Earth. But what if we fail at that? Then what? We're screwed. Unless we have an escape plan.

I will repeat what H.G. Wells said: "The choice is the universe... or nothing." And I'd much rather go with having something than nothing.

 

[doubtingmerle]

If we have the chance to get some of our eggs out of the one basket we're in, I say we take it. It's difficult to imagine with current levels of technology though. Or with near future (say 15 year horizon) technologies as well. 30 to 40 years hence, who knows?

Uh huh. And in 1968 we thought in 30 to 40 years we would be living in a 2001 Space Odyssey. Let's just say that progress in space has been disappointing.

My favourite option is colonisation of near earth asteroids like 433 Eros and 1036 Ganymed via a multi-stage von Neumann machine route.

Fire some semi-autonomous robots at asteroids during near earth passes and have the robots prep the asteroids for human arrival. Essentially dig into them and then hollow them out, while collecting/sorting/storing the materials dug out.

Uh huh. And how do you power such robots? This is going to require enormous amounts of energy.

If robots are able to do things like this in the future with no human intervention, heck, let's just put them to work on earth and sit back and have a beer. Why send them out to space?

On the next pass, fire a different set of semi-autonomous robots to start building a space marginally habitable by humans.

OK, but you haven't yet refined the minerals. Setting up and powering mills to do this requires a huge effort.

Get humans on site on another of the near earth passes, have them start prepping proper habitation and building an industrial base, update/maintain the robots and then bring them home. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum until you've got an industrial manufacturing base/bases outside of earth's gravity well.

Uh huh, and why? Who benefits from this?

And who finances this? Private corporations? Would you like to get on a rocket to live in an asteroid ruled by a private firm that is trying to make money off your work, with little hope of ever coming back to earth?

Why bother to send humans if robots have already done all the hard work? Why not just leave them up there doing all the work, and sending all the goodies back to earth?

Expensive, time consuming and probably futile, but just possibly worth the effort if things go mammaries skyward done here.

If things go mammaries skyward down here, I would rather take my chances in a dome in Antarctica, an undersea world, or an underground city, than flying off to an asteroid. All of those options sound like a better way of surviving in a world gone bad.

 

[Shemjaza]

The ability to migrate from system to system gives the potential for humanity to live till the last star burns out... but the space involved is s vast and the time so long.

We still have a couple of billion years till the Sun starts to make life difficult. I doubt we'll live that long, but we really don't have any idea as to what our future holds.

 

[Oafman]

Unless someone invents some kind of terra-former which can make the planet's atmosphere breathable to humans and plants, then we introduce plants in to the soil, then we work from there.

Although looking it up, even Mar's atmosphere is 10 times thinner than Earth's, it is 95% CO2 (well, 95.32%). Although I'm not sure how much an impact such a high amount of CO2 would have on plants.

Terraforming models usually include a significant increase in atmospheric density, as a product of the greenhouse effect (check out Venus if you don't believe them!). But none of this solves the radiation issue. Mars has no magnetosphere to speak of, and inhabitants would have to spend most of their time underground to avoid excessive doses of radiation

In the long run though, the best option would be to construct a Dyson sphere around the sun in the habitable zone.

Is that really a better option that developing easy nuclear fusion?!

The most effective and practical means of doing it is to enforce a one-child policy for the next hundred years as well as other policy changes globally.

Once a global population of 100 million is reached

Experts think it should plateau below 10 billion: http://www.geek.com/science/the-education-effect-global-population-to-plateau-by-2070-1607645/