Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web.

While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous.

Join our community today!

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
[Rant] Why I dislike Space Enthusiasts; Even though I arguably am one?
Topic Started: Jan 15 2012, 11:14 AM (3,278 Views)
Kamidio
Member Avatar
The Game Master of the SSU:NC
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
lamna
Jan 19 2012, 06:55 PM
I need countryside.
My Massive O'Neill Cylinder: Virtual Reality is Magic.
SSU:NC - Finding a new home.
Posted Image
Quotes
WAA
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Suzy
Member Avatar
Fetus
 *  *
T.Neo
Jan 15 2012, 11:14 AM
Well... here's the story. I was once was a "Space Enthusiast". Perhaps I am mixing the term up with "Space Advocate"; i.e. someone who advocates for space colonisation and the use of space. Either way, the only ones I've actually had contact with (and been myself) never actually advocated anything to anyone but their own online community(s), and/or unfortunate family or forum members.

The thing is, and this is the part that really irks me, is that these people seem to be so loyal to the idea, that they support it just for the sake of it rather than any actual validity it might or might not have. It becomes like a sort of religion or cult, and if you ever question the idea in front of these people, they start to imitate a swarm of bees...
[...]

[/rant]
Oh, I've been feeling much the same way in the last few years - increasing disillusionment with some of the opinions space advocates have, that all humanity's problems can be solved by space colonization. The attitude is of treating Earth as a disposable planet. People won't be leaving Earth in great numbers anytime soon, maybe not before the end of this century (if ever), barring any radical technological advances in propulsion. Also most people would not want to leave Earth to spend their lives in an artificial habitat (if colonizing the Solar System). Space travel is not analogous to colonizing other continents on Earth, as these still have easily-attainable resources.

Quote from a book:

Quote:
 
Exoplanets as safety valves for excess populations or as new resource-providers are a non-starter on numerical grounds, quite apart from any technological, financial, physical, humanitarian or sociological objections that there may be. At most, at enormous cost, we may within the next century or two establish small inhabited outposts on the Moon, Mars and perhaps some of the asteroids or a moon or two of Jupiter (which would at least though, provide some refuges against dinosaur killers). Even if it were to be possible, the emigration of excess population to other planets can only postpone the moment by a few centuries when the population of all planets exceeds the capacity of those planets to support it. Neither can exoplanets be expected to provide replacements for dwindling terrestrial resources. Even within the solar system the cost in terms of the consumed resources of (say) mining a small asteroid would exceed the value of any useful products by a large factor. The same comment would apply a million million million times over to any attempt to provide any supplies of any material items from even the nearest exoplanet.

- Chris Kitchin, Exoplanets: Finding, Exploring, and Understanding Alien Worlds


"Can Space Colonization End Overpopulation?" at HardSF gives a good overview on why space is not a solution to overpopulation.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
lamna
Member Avatar


Indeed, you can't justify giving up all that space just for civilized folk when there are those who can easily cope with living in a city.

And virtual reality is virtual. No matter how good it is, it's not real.

Living Fossils

Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
T.Neo
 
Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
[flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash]
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
Oh, I've been feeling much the same way in the last few years - increasing disillusionment with some of the opinions space advocates have, that all humanity's problems can be solved by space colonization. The attitude is of treating Earth as a disposable planet. People won't be leaving Earth in great numbers anytime soon, maybe not before the end of this century (if ever), barring any radical technological advances in propulsion. Also most people would not want to leave Earth to spend their lives in an artificial habitat (if colonizing the Solar System). Space travel is not analogous to colonizing other continents on Earth, as these still have easily-attainable resources.


Yeah, I generally agree. It isn't as if living off of Earth is impossible, it's just that it's far more difficult and expensive. I don't think people realise how rich the Earth is as an environment.

It isn't just advances in propulsion, it's everything- the cost of the vehicles, the cost of operating the vehicles, the cost of the hardware needed to survive in those environments, etc. If we saw a triple order of magnitude reduction in launch costs immediately, the rate of satellite launches wouldn't go up all that much, because they'd still cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

I don't think the resources problem is severe enough to put a damper on spaceflight operations though- there are really impressive amounts of resources used in spaceflight, but in the grand scheme of things it is very minor. Cost reductions in space launch would reduce the amount of resources required, but it could be a different story with a considerable industry for space lift/space utilisation.

The resource issue also depends on how efficiently the resources can be utilised. If resources were utilised effectively enough, the Earth could hypothetically support a population in the many tens or even over a hundred billion. It just isn't a desirable outcome.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ànraich
Member Avatar
L'évolution Spéculative est moi

lamna
Jan 20 2012, 02:37 AM
Indeed, you can't justify giving up all that space just for civilized folk when there are those who can easily cope with living in a city.

And virtual reality is virtual. No matter how good it is, it's not real.

That's incorrect. If virtual reality is indistinguishable from actual reality then for all intents and purposes it is reality. What is reality? Please, define it for me, because apparently the common definition is incorrect. Reality is our perception of the environment through our senses, nothing more. Take a brain and hook it up to a computer, then use that computer to simulate the room the brain is in down to every last detail; what you see, what you smell, what you hear, what you feel, etc. Now, is the room the computer simulated any less "real" than the one the brain is actually in? Of course not, to the brain they are exactly the same. The fact that the sensory stimuli it is receiving come from a computer is of absolutely no consequence, it is just as "real" as the actual hypothetical room, or you and me for that matter.

Just because you say its not really real doesn't mean it isn't actual reality. Do you know for sure that right now, at this very instant, you are in what you call "reality?" How do you know you're not already inside virtual reality? Or a dream for that matter? Or even someone's imagination? In fact can you even prove to me that you yourself are real? The only way you know you're real is you think, therefore you are. But I can never prove you're actually thinking (I can prove you're intelligent, but I can never know for certain you have conscious thoughts as obvious as they may seem), short of somehow hearing your thoughts. And if I cannot prove that you think, I cannot prove that you are.



So to shorten what I've said; lamna doesn't exist therefore his argument is invalid.

EDIT: A good reason for space exploration and colonization would be to preserve the life on Earth you seem to enjoy so much T. Neo. Predications say that by 2050 humanity will require two planets worth of resources to continue living in, well, civilization (modern anyways). See a problem with that? I'll give you a hint, it involves the number of planets humans live on and exploit resources from.
Edited by Ànraich, Jan 20 2012, 02:12 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

Tree That Owns Itself
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Oh no, not one of those arguments... if one says reality and a simulation are indistinguishable, one can pretty much say whatever one wants for anything to be whatever one wants.

Reality isn't what we percieve, because what we percieve is often at odds with reality. This would be the case in a Brain in a Vat situation; to that person's best knowledge, what they percieve would be real. Doesn't mean it is. If you say that it's real just because it is percieved, things start down a dangerous, slippery slope that ends up in a really bad place, i.e. hallucinations are supposedly real, etc...

Quote:
 
EDIT: A good reason for space exploration and colonization would be to preserve the life on Earth you seem to enjoy so much T. Neo. Predications say that by 2050 humanity will require two planets worth of resources to continue living in, well, civilization (modern anyways). See a problem with that? I'll give you a hint, it involves the number of planets humans live on and exploit resources from.


Ignoring for a moment the fact that this is an article from the Guardian around something made up by the WWF, as opposed to say, a scientific publication...

We only have one planet. There is no second planet. It does not exist.

Space colonisation/utilisation will not magically create a second planet for us. The reasons for this have been stressed repeatedly and explained at length. The only way we would be introduced to another Earth of resources is if there was another Earth we had access to- sadly such a planet does not exist.

Also, they're probably assuming utilisation of resources as efficient as what we do now. If modern society used resources with the efficiency that it did say, 100 or 200 years ago, we'd probably be well over carrying capacity.
Edited by T.Neo, Jan 20 2012, 02:50 PM.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kamidio
Member Avatar
The Game Master of the SSU:NC
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Parasky
Jan 20 2012, 02:10 PM
lamna
Jan 20 2012, 02:37 AM
Indeed, you can't justify giving up all that space just for civilized folk when there are those who can easily cope with living in a city.

And virtual reality is virtual. No matter how good it is, it's not real.

That's incorrect. If virtual reality is indistinguishable from actual reality then for all intents and purposes it is reality. What is reality? Please, define it for me, because apparently the common definition is incorrect. Reality is our perception of the environment through our senses, nothing more. Take a brain and hook it up to a computer, then use that computer to simulate the room the brain is in down to every last detail; what you see, what you smell, what you hear, what you feel, etc. Now, is the room the computer simulated any less "real" than the one the brain is actually in? Of course not, to the brain they are exactly the same. The fact that the sensory stimuli it is receiving come from a computer is of absolutely no consequence, it is just as "real" as the actual hypothetical room, or you and me for that matter.

Just because you say its not really real doesn't mean it isn't actual reality. Do you know for sure that right now, at this very instant, you are in what you call "reality?" How do you know you're not already inside virtual reality? Or a dream for that matter? Or even someone's imagination? In fact can you even prove to me that you yourself are real? The only way you know you're real is you think, therefore you are. But I can never prove you're actually thinking (I can prove you're intelligent, but I can never know for certain you have conscious thoughts as obvious as they may seem), short of somehow hearing your thoughts. And if I cannot prove that you think, I cannot prove that you are.



So to shorten what I've said; lamna doesn't exist therefore his argument is invalid.
Hell, the person imagining him might be the figment of another persons imagination.

We might all be imagined versions of ourselves, imagined by mush bigger versions of us. Though some of us are actually being imagined by someone we're imagining, so it forms a feedback cycle.




EDIT: Neo, real and reality are two different things.
Edited by Kamidio, Jan 20 2012, 03:29 PM.
SSU:NC - Finding a new home.
Posted Image
Quotes
WAA
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
lamna
Member Avatar


Quote:
 
That's incorrect. If virtual reality is indistinguishable from actual reality then for all intents and purposes it is reality.

I've never been keen on that kind of thinking. Too much like philosophy for me. But I'll grant it's true for this.

The problem here is the context, we are talking about using it to make a space station a nicer place for people to live. That means I'm not immersed in it all the time, so I know it's not real. It's just me on a station, creating the Masai Mara on the Holodeck. I know it's not real, so it's just a game to me. I enjoy my games, I care about them. But I still don't matter to me as much as real things.

Moving into space isn't going to save earth, even if aliens came and gave us a machine to make 0.99 lightspeed drives, there is no way we could get enough people off the earth and established to help. Long term it's a nice idea, rewilding our home as we spread out into space, but we are talking billions of people.

Unless we've got a stargate and a abandoned developed planet waiting on the other end, space isn't a place to put our surplus.
Living Fossils

Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
T.Neo
 
Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
[flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash]
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Zerraspace
Member Avatar
UD Needs You!
 *  *  *  *  *
Is this the real life? :/ Is this just fantasy? >.< Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. :huh?: Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see… O.o (sorry, I couldn’t resist that ^_^ )

There is no permanent solution to overpopulation, Suzy, barring the extinction of the human race. So long as the resources allow (and even after they don't), mankind will continue to reproduce until it consumes all those available and reaches equilibrium with its environment. It's the same as with any population, human, animal or even plant; it's a law of nature. The difference between us is that we can produce more of them, and should we ever exhaust one we hone in on the nearest substitute (or pay for our hunger the hard way). Even if there were millions of Earth-like planets in our own solar system they wouldn't sate us for long. Population growth is roughly exponential, and the sad truth is that people really love love-making (if you'll pardon the expression). Unless you deliberately cull select individuals or set birth control programs (both of which run into moral concerns and sow dissent amongst the populace involved), we'll quickly outstrip all methods of support and containment. That being said, if population does constantly increase (or at least try to), demand for resources will similarly increase (this is not always true; the resources in question might change with time, and rising efficiency might temporarily lower demands, but ultimately this is a good generalization) and people will search for new means to sate said demand. It all comes down to whether demand is high enough to justify the cost, and right now it doesn’t seem that way...

T. Neo, you mention that the radiators of necessity would be a lot heavier than the 40 tons calculated – do you have any idea by how much? In short, could we possibly fit all this equipment in a 1000 ton craft, and is the MCV as listed currently plausible (or must I shrink it to achieve better results)? For that matter, are you assuming optimistic values for emissivity and the like, or are these something expectable?

Again you mention that slower flight times are preferable. The current MCV design requires over a year and a half to complete both halves of the journey, much too long if it provides the sole source of profit for the responsible corporation and certainly too long for modern business models (at least not without the benefit of several other similar vessels, but you seem to think them too expensive to construct). Is there a particular solution you have in mind?

For that matter you don’t seem to mind high mass ratios, even though the cost of lifting fuel (which you considered optimistic) made powering even my relatively “efficient” design almost prohibitively expensive. For the figures given by Atomic Rockets for a high gear VASIMIR (exhaust velocity of 294000 m/s), the mass ratio is a staggering 3.122, which translates into 61760 tons of fuel for a single MCV trip. At the expense of $220 to raise a kilo, that’s a full $13.59 billion (probably a good bit of the worth of the spaceship). How on Earth (or off it, I suppose) do you intend to deal with that? I’m guessing you intend to gather the fuel in orbit, but that automatically requires you had a cheaper scheme at hand before doing so, and such stations will probably only be set up once there’s sufficient demand for them, which again implies that some sort of lighter industry preceded it…

I can understand the argument that imagining something does not make it possible, but power generation aside you never did explain your objections to the industrial concepts farther than that, while I provided reasons for my proposal. What is inherently wrong with the principles?

Terraforming would be enormously profitable, T. Neo, even with its abhorrent costs, but only in the extremely long term, and that’s the underlying problem! Suppose it takes the world’s entire economic output to terraform Mars – roughly $60 trillion at the current (none of the schemes I’ve seen thus far are this expensive, they suggest something closer to $200 billion – this source may be somewhat outdated but it gives some good estimations – and suffice to say we can’t pay for anything higher). Mar’s surface area is roughly 144 million square kilometers, and even if we could only use 10% by the end of the process that’s around the area of Russia, with the monolithic economic potential and room for a population to match (particularly if the population density were closer to China’s than Russia’s). One figure gives the lifetime of a terraformed Mars at 100000 years before the atmosphere is lost to the solar wind without maintenance; even assuming a thousand years are spent building up the infrastructure to create a profitable economy, with a following GDP of ten billion dollars a year or more (a figure most of the world’s countries can best), Mars would pay for the price of its transformation in multiples. However, convincing any nation to part with even a fraction of that sum without any less than an immediate return is… well, suffice to say, more difficult than the terraforming process itself (although given some of those prices, it would probably be a better use of our money than the space program itself…) :r
Edited by Zerraspace, Jan 20 2012, 05:30 PM.
Have you got what it takes to beat back hostile alien forces and vicious Space Mafia agents to defend liberty and justice for citizens across the galaxy? Join Universal Defense NOW (for more information, please enlist)!

Quote:
 
That is how we first set foot on the planet we have come to know as Zainter, the world that would change our lives forever.
- Remake of Zainter
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
lamna
Member Avatar


That population growth thing is nonsense. Japan and Germany's populations are already declining, and the UK is just ticking over.
As living conditions improve, people have less kids. Eventually we'll get to a point where most people live comfortably, and then populations will stabilise.

Terraforming only pays off if you keep at it for a long time. Assume it would take 500 years, which is pretty optimistic. We've had 23 monarchs in the last 500 years (counting Cromwell), the USA could potentially have 125 presidents. Even if all presidents served two terms you would still have over 60.

Getting so many people to agree to something so expensive over so long would be damned hard. Plus there is a fact that terraforming is a all or nothing thing, either it works and the planet is habitable, or it does not. You can't partially terraform, or only do a little at a time.
Living Fossils

Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
T.Neo
 
Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
[flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash]
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Sexual intercourse isn't really linked with reproduction in humans anymore (unless people are unable, unwilling, too uneducated, or too stupid to use birth control). Limiting the population isn't necessarily a big issue; a good example is the decline in population growth rate (and even negative growth rates) in developed countries.

Quote:
 
T. Neo, you mention that the radiators of necessity would be a lot heavier than the 40 tons calculated – do you have any idea by how much? In short, could we possibly fit all this equipment in a 1000 ton craft, and is the MCV as listed currently plausible (or must I shrink it to achieve better results)? For that matter, are you assuming optimistic values for emissivity and the like, or are these something expectable?


I don't know if it could all fit into a 1000 ton vehicle. There is so much that would need to be accounted for- the rest of the fusion drive (the lasers/electron guns, pellet injector, magnetic coils, cryogenic cooling for superconducting components), propellant tanks, the support structure that holds the entire vehicle together, any radiation shielding necessary, etc...

I don't know if my emissivity figure (for the radiator, I'm not so sure about the albedo of the interior of the engine hemisphere) is optimistic. I wouldn't think so- perhaps it is quite conservative.

The issue is that the coolant will, well, cool as it flows through the radiator. Which means the entire radiator won't be operating at 1300 Kelvin, and most of it could be operating at a much lower temperature. Since just a small change in temperature has a major effect on the efficiency of a radiator, this means that the radiator in reality would be much larger- and much heavier.

Also note that I didn't count in the mass of the coolant needed. Or the associated hardware to contain and pump the coolant, or any secondary thermal shielding, etc. Nor did I do any assessment as to whether the radiator would be able to withstand the loads required of it- I just picked a figure at a guess, basically.

Quote:
 
Again you mention that slower flight times are preferable. The current MCV design requires over a year and a half to complete both halves of the journey, much too long if it provides the sole source of profit for the responsible corporation and certainly too long for modern business models (at least not without the benefit of several other similar vessels, but you seem to think them too expensive to construct). Is there a particular solution you have in mind?


I really do not see why it is impossible to sustain a proper business with a single flight a year. Why can't you accumulate your goods, and sell them throughout the year?

Quote:
 
For that matter you don’t seem to mind high mass ratios, even though the cost of lifting fuel (which you considered optimistic) made powering even my relatively “efficient” design almost prohibitively expensive. For the figures given by Atomic Rockets for a high gear VASIMIR (exhaust velocity of 294000 m/s), the mass ratio is a staggering 3.122, which translates into 61760 tons of fuel for a single MCV trip. At the expense of $220 to raise a kilo, that’s a full $13.59 billion (probably a good bit of the worth of the spaceship). How on Earth (or off it, I suppose) do you intend to deal with that? I’m guessing you intend to gather the fuel in orbit, but that automatically requires you had a cheaper scheme at hand before doing so, and such stations will probably only be set up once there’s sufficient demand for them, which again implies that some sort of lighter industry preceded it…


A mass ratio of 3.122 is nothing. You should see launch vehicles. Mass ratios of... 7 or so, are low, for a rocket stage. Ratios of 10 or more are common. ;)

A mass ratio of 3.122 at what dV? If you went slower, you could reduce mass ratio.

Of course if higher exhaust velocities are possible, you could also reduce mass ratio that way. Don't know if it's possible though.

Quote:
 
What is inherently wrong with the principles?


Nothing, it's just that no purpose has been discovered that is powerful to lead to this kind of industrial application (that I know of, I'd love to be proven wrong).

Quote:
 
Terraforming would be enormously profitable, T. Neo, even with its abhorrent costs, but only in the extremely long term, and that’s the underlying problem! Suppose it takes the world’s entire economic output to terraform Mars – roughly $60 trillion at the current (none of the schemes I’ve seen thus far are this expensive, they suggest something closer to $200 billion – this source may be somewhat outdated but it gives some good estimations – and suffice to say we can’t pay for anything higher). Mar’s surface area is roughly 144 million square kilometers, and even if we could only use 10% by the end of the process that’s around the area of Russia, with the monolithic economic potential and room for a population to match (particularly if the population density were closer to China’s than Russia’s). One figure gives the lifetime of a terraformed Mars at 100000 years before the atmosphere is lost to the solar wind without maintenance; even assuming a thousand years are spent building up the infrastructure to create a profitable economy, with a following GDP of ten billion dollars a year or more (a figure most of the world’s countries can best), Mars would pay for the price of its transformation in multiples. However, convincing any nation to part with even a fraction of that sum without any less than an immediate return is… well, suffice to say, more difficult than the terraforming process itself (although given some of those prices, it would probably be a better use of our money than the space program itself…)


A terraformed Mars could last much longer than that. It also depends on how you take care of the place (and, of course, what estimates to use).

Here's the issue: I'm pretty sure, that you need far more than $200 billion to terraform Mars.

Ignoring the Paul Birch PDF here for a second (partially because of TL:DR and that it's got some weird stuff going on inside it), here's the major problem;

Partial terraforming of Mars is easy. In other words, liberating the CO2 locked up within the crust and polar caps. You'll even put extra water vapour into the air- and raise the pressure enough so that liquid water is stable on the surface. You'll raise the temperature a bit too, but much of the surface will still be bitterly cold. People could survive outside habitats, if they had adequate clothing and breathing apparatus.

To get an actual, habitable, "fully terraformed" Mars, you need to introduce considerable amounts of oxygen and nitrogen into the atmosphere. Nitrogen is tough because it is fairly rare (and locked up in minerals). Oxygen is tough because it's locked up with other elements: with hydrogen as water, with carbon as CO2, with metals, silicon, etc as oxides in the crust.

In addition, since a "fully" terraformed Mars will have less CO2 in the atmosphere (also, you'll have to remove significant amounts of that too, since humans and animals don't like breathing it), it will have less greenhouse potential. Which you will then have to counter with artificial greenhouse gases- like perfluorocarbons. Fluorine and chlorine are also not that abundant. And they're very tightly combined with other elements.

It then becomes a huge big juggling act. You then have to look at the albedo. Oceans and forests will help to reduce the albedo. But icefields and clouds will increase the albedo- ideally, you want a lower planetary albedo. You want to use CFCs with long lifetimes in the atmosphere, which could rule out methane or ammonia, for example. You don't want them to damage the ozone layer, if you have created one. They must not be in high enough concentrations to be toxic.

I'm not saying it's impossible, not by any stretch. Just that it's tough to figure out.

Anyway, back to the 'partial' terraforming bit (which some people have called proteroforming, after the proterozoic eon), you could "tip the balance" fairly easily by for example introducing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or perhaps by dusting the polar caps with dark material (promoting CO2 sublimation), or both. Using this 'terraforming calculator', we can see that a single microbar of CFCs (whatever these CFCs are supposed to be) can warm the planet enough to liberate over 300 millibars (roughly a third of a bar) of CO2, which will warm the planet further. This leads to a mean planetary temperature of -1.5 C, and roughly 60% of the surface being "habitable", whatever that is meant to entail.

Here's the problem though: to get a single microbar of pressure over the entire surface of Mars, you need 0.027 kilograms of mass per square meter (this is due to the gravitational force of Mars- in fact, Mars needs more mass of atmosphere per square meter than Earth does for a comparable pressure, due to the lower gravity). This is, if my math is correct, 27 000 kilograms (or 27 tons) per square kilometer. The surface area of Mars is 144 798 500 km^2. This equates to 3.91e12 kilograms, or 3.91e9 tons- nearly four billion tons of gas.

On Earth, fluorine production is 4 million tons a year, chlorine production is 50 million a year (according to this list). Even if we assume that the production of this atmosphere takes a whole 100 years, that is still 40 million tons of chemical a year. The elements have to be extracted from the minerals in which they are bound up, and the chemicals have to be created from them (through whatever chemical reaction, or process of reactions, is deemed suitable). Keep in mind the production figures on Earth most likely do not relate to pure chemicals, and this is an operation with no immediate economic motivation.

That is just to create a single millionth of a bar of an atmosphere. That isn't creating tens or even hundreds of millibars in oxygen and nitrogen. That is several orders of magnitude more depressingly difficult.

And then the issue is, creating a chemically, ecologically stable environment... populating it with life, making it a viable ecology, also likely hugely problematic.

There are other options, like throwing asteroids at Mars... but the results of such actions could be difficult to predict, and this scheme could have other problems. And the soletta is a really problematic, difficult structure. It would be incredibly heavy, incredibly expensive, and incredibly... light (in other words, photon pressure from the Sun could easily push it offcourse).

Of course, some sort of self replicating technology may be able to reduce the price to the point where it skims the edge of sanity, at the very least. It doesn't have to be "magic nanotech", it could be engineered organisms for example. Or even macroscale replicating machines. Of course, the relative cost of such concepts would have to be quantified as well.

Terraforming is astronomical in the utterly literal sense of the word. The numbers can truely be terrifying.

[/walloftext]

Quote:
 
Getting so many people to agree to something so expensive over so long would be damned hard. Plus there is a fact that terraforming is a all or nothing thing, either it works and the planet is habitable, or it does not. You can't partially terraform, or only do a little at a time.


Yeah, that's also a big problem.

You can partially terraform a planet though. It's just that you won't make it habitable in the proper sense of the word- just more habitable than it already was.
Edited by T.Neo, Jan 20 2012, 07:43 PM.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

T.Neo
Jan 20 2012, 07:39 PM
Of course, some sort of self replicating technology may be able to reduce the price to the point where it skims the edge of sanity, at the very least. It doesn't have to be "magic nanotech", it could be engineered organisms for example. Or even macroscale replicating machines. Of course, the relative cost of such concepts would have to be quantified as well.
Could some kind of technology along these lines be useful in asteroid mining? Like some kind of Von Neumann-style machine that used a fraction of the resources it harvests to make it's own infrastructure and more mining machines? Whilst it would be slow going at first, couldn't it in the long run produce exponentially larger returns for a relatively small input cost? :ermm:
Quote Post Goto Top
 
T.Neo
Member Avatar
Translunar injection: TLI
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
You could utilise the same technology on Earth's crust, with the benefit of not having to deal with the required dV of asteroid mining. Why use it in space? Why not use it on Earth? Space isn't special, the processes and concepts used there can be used on Earth too.

Also, it's very difficult to seriously discuss, since it can easily devolve into "mah supertechnology can do whatever I want it to lulz!!!!".
Edited by T.Neo, Jan 20 2012, 08:44 PM.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
lamna
Member Avatar


What I meant is that there are limits to what humans can live in, even if you created some sort of enhanced Tibetan there is a limit on what they can endure.

A partly terraformed Mars would be helpful for other kinds of colonisation, but that's going to be hard to justify economically.

I just don't see it happening unless there is some major threat to earth. And I can't think of one where we can't do anything about it, but Mars is fine.
Living Fossils

Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
T.Neo
 
Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
[flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash]
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Zerraspace
Member Avatar
UD Needs You!
 *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
That population growth thing is nonsense. Japan and Germany's populations are already declining, and the UK is just ticking over.
As living conditions improve, people have less kids. Eventually we'll get to a point where most people live comfortably, and then populations will stabilise.

Quote:
 
Sexual intercourse isn't really linked with reproduction in humans anymore (unless people are unable, unwilling, too uneducated, or too stupid to use birth control). Limiting the population isn't necessarily a big issue; a good example is the decline in population growth rate (and even negative growth rates) in developed countries.


Right now that seems to describe more people than not. According to the 2006 UN Report, population growth was positive in 204 countries, 130 of those with growth rates above 1%, while only in 25 nations were these negative. In general less developed countries have higher population growth rates but there were several important exceptions to the contrary - in particular many of the well off Arabic Gulf States (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates) count amongst the top 50, all with rates above 2%, putting them on par with several African nations, and they all similarly have HDI over 0.75, again, putting them in the top 50. Of these, the Emirates has the highest growth rate (2.85%) and the highest HDI (0.846, putting it almost on par with the UK). This may be attributable to high populations of immigrant workers, but there could be a cultural impetus, and these are projected to change: all I'm saying is that it is not a simple correlation between living standards and population growth. There are also a number of major political and economic factors keeping these standards from visibly increasing reasons in regions that most need it, and you'll need greater production of resources and sounder distribution of them for any of this to happen. Most of what gains we will make will end up going to the most developed nations anyway...

Quote:
 
I really do not see why it is impossible to sustain a proper business with a single flight a year. Why can't you accumulate your goods, and sell them throughout the year?

Quote:
 
Factoring in expenses is a whole lot better way of... factoring in expenses, than just saying "bah humbug, we can't do it, let's just assume some nebulous figure". That said, it can of course get quite complex... but the basic concepts are fairly easy to understand.

It is important to realise that there are various different things that are included both in "cost" and in "price";

1. Fixed costs (overheads, etc).
2. Marginal costs (cost per flight, for example cost of building a set of hardware, actually preparing it for launch, launching it, the propellants, etc).
3. Payload integration costs/other services- payload integration can be a large part of the cost- in the tens of millions.

This is why the cost for the hardware of a vehicle, or even the cost to launch a vehicle, can be so far removed from a launch price for a certain mission.

It's also important to note that surprisingly little of government space programs are actually done by the government. They are actually done by contractors; the shuttle was not built by NASA, but by Rockwell (which merged with Boeing). Likewise the external fuel tank was manufactured by Martin Marietta (later Lockheed Martin). The launch operations were done by contractors, too- see United Space Alliance. Even development of things like STS was done not entirely by NASA, but in cooperation with contractors.

Of course in this case it would have to be done privately. It will also have to turn a profit. That's very difficult.


I believe you answered your own question there. We only discussed fuel prices but even at an acceleration of only 1 milligee and mass ratio 1.08 the MCV can hardly pay for its own propellant (at least, not with its current cargo), and there is the matter of paying employees even while they’re idling. Like I asked, how do you intend to deal with the prices?

Quote:
 
In this case, being able to carry many multiples of its own mass in propellant is no boon, but a hindrance (though a necessary one, physics demands it- though it depends on your trajectory). If you need something like 10 000 tons of propellant, that's a huge amount of mass- and a huge amount of money to truck it to orbit (even at your rates of $220/kg).

Quote:
 
A mass ratio of 3.122 is nothing. You should see launch vehicles. Mass ratios of... 7 or so, are low, for a rocket stage. Ratios of 10 or more are common. ;)

A mass ratio of 3.122 at what dV? If you went slower, you could reduce mass ratio.

Of course if higher exhaust velocities are possible, you could also reduce mass ratio that way. Don't know if it's possible though.


I've seen figures Project Daedalus - 50000 tons of fuel to power a 54000 ton spaceship, for a mass ratio of 13.5, and that's only for a one-way journey. Past a mass ratio of 1.588 the mass of fuel required to propel the MCV will outweigh both ship and cargo combined (it does because this is a two way journey, and the cargo is only loaded for the return home), and any increase in propellant will mostly be to contend with pushing the propellant itself. Unless the cargo is extremely valuable, it’s simply a waste of mass and money.

As for the VASIMIR scheme, I considered the dV to be the same as for the MCV when moving at an acceleration of 1 milligee and heading to the same asteroid – 200843 m/s one way – with 60% engine efficiency and effective exhaust velocity of 294000 m/s, in hopes of minimizing mass ratio. At $13.95 billion to fill, you’re going to need more than 8000 tons of nickel and cobalt to pay up (for 95% nickel and 5% cobalt, that translates into $282.7 million of nickel and $18.9 million of cobalt, aka $301.6 million of metal). Refining various rare and precious metals should cover the costs quite handily, but given their low concentrations even in asteroids it’ll take quite a while to find sufficient quantities of those.

Quote:
 
I'm pretty sure, that you need far more than $200 billion to terraform Mars.


I'm only quoting figures here - I was pretty skeptical of only $200 billion (note the figure I did choose). What I’m trying to say is that yes, the numbers are mind-boggling, but the returns would be more than worth if we were willing to put up the commitment. I don’t see anybody giving such commitment, however…

Quote:
 
Getting so many people to agree to something so expensive over so long would be damned hard. Plus there is a fact that terraforming is a all or nothing thing, either it works and the planet is habitable, or it does not. You can't partially terraform, or only do a little at a time.

Quote:
 
However, convincing any nation to part with even a fraction of that sum without any less than an immediate return is… well, suffice to say, more difficult than the terraforming process itself


When did I say anything to the contrary? I'll give you I didn't say how long it would take...
Have you got what it takes to beat back hostile alien forces and vicious Space Mafia agents to defend liberty and justice for citizens across the galaxy? Join Universal Defense NOW (for more information, please enlist)!

Quote:
 
That is how we first set foot on the planet we have come to know as Zainter, the world that would change our lives forever.
- Remake of Zainter
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create your own social network with a free forum.
Learn More · Sign-up Now
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · General Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply