Green Baron

Interesting config proposal. Fortunately the definition is good enough to handle these hypothetical cases: The first half are moons of Earth then, the second half are still asteroids or dwarf planets that, one by one, are cleared out of Jupiter's path as time goes by, flung out or in or incorporated as moons or trojans or may even become eaten up. Nope, they are still planets. Earth gained moons and Jupiter does his job clearing his path. I'd love to see the show in time lapse, guys ! Precisely. If it orbits together with others of its kind it'll be a dwarf planet at first. If it manages to play 8 ball with them and send them elsewhere, it'll indeed become a planet. ~4.7 billions actually. You are right. The current definition is much closer to your requirement than the one before was. :-)

Who brought that self propelling machine up ? I would say we all here are aware that a greenhouse needs energy from outside as well as a constant supply of nutrients or an initial charge that lasts so far or a connection to a machinery that recycles the waste that was produced in the the process of digestion of its products or, most probably, a combination of those. Or aren't we ;-) ? Edit: oh, i see. There is a misinterpretation here: @DerekL1963 wrote: "The ability to be self sufficient in manufacturing underlies the solution to all problems." That means, if i am not mistaken, that for a colony to function independently from earth, it must be able to produce and maintain everything it needs on its own. Of course (unnecessary to mention) in the given physical limits. Hope i am not too impertinent with pointing that out, and ready to be corrected if i misunderstood.

The IAU definition is quite reasonable and accepted. Even if 200 years ago it wasn't, since 2006 it is. Until replaced by something newer, should the need arise (am thinking of other solar systems or stuff in between). The definition wasn't introduced to annoy anybody but to categorize solar system objects in a reasonable way. And, btw., a proposal that would have added Ceres, Pluto, and others was discarded. They had their chance. Here we are, with 8 planets (for now), even if some feel the urge to debate ;-)

Second best idea. Waiting for a phase angle, doing a transfer, aligning inclinations, ... can take a few million years if you've just missed one ...

The first observer will dub it, such is the ritual ;-) The naming mess is really annoying. Planet X, in the above paper, corresponds to Planet 9, IOC (inner Oort cloud) objects to ETNOs (extreme trans neptunians). Though the Oort cloud is much farther out and they only "touch" it when near aphel. Costs time to browse over a paper and find out what is meant with what. Keeps us occupied :-)

Seeing the title i thought "oops, another epitaph ?". nb: gb suggests bc, ok ? :-)

Yep, there is a certain inertia in such a system. But even a large system with a lot of inertia, balanced as good as possible, will run out of all sorts of equilibrium states and the contained cycles will suffocate or starve. How long this takes depends on how well balanced it starts and how well the states can be monitored and controlled, i. e. stuff (be it nutrient, energy, control units, construction material, ...) taken out or re-filled. More concrete: if people are able to run such a greenhouse with an initial load for 2-3 years, that would be more than we can expect now. I hope we'll get a report 2020. And then there is still the open question if greenhouse veggies alone can keep people healthy for a long time. The protagonists say "It is much batter !", the other side says "too much consumption is one cause for sicknesses", and normal people say "it doesn't taste as good as fresh veggies" (which is true ;-)). I am not sure if i understood you right, the point is that, as long there are no production facilities for all the needed high tech nicknack, an extraplanetary colony remains a dream. Right you are (imo) :-) Btw., haven't we been there 2D12 times before ? :-)

I find that cool. It is already in here:

I totally share Jaron Lanier's opinion about what to think of and what to do with social networking. ---------------- That made clear :-), the method described is non intrusive. All the participants were aware about what was going on. The signal received was either a flash ("phosphene") or none, that was the receiver's decision making basis for "rotate a piece" or "do not rotate a piece". So far, so good. Until now that is perfectly fine for me. But how this develops in the future and what is done with it, we must see. Is the sudden hunger when walking past a pizzeria my own one and real ? Is my decision to make a cross somewhere my own decision ? Is the will to own a thing my own will ? I think, you get it. Future generations will have an ever harder time telling between rl and vr, i think. I am having a hard time finding a positive application for that. When was the power to influence ever used for a "good" cause ? Edit: will construct a Faraday helmet as a shield. Or metal woven into hairpieces for the vain :-)

@Cassel: i loose the mood to discuss with you if i get scoffed at for trying to provide you with information. You could as well be curious, dig into it and try to find an answer to your questions and hints where to find more material. Maybe after being through you can present to us what you have found out. I mean, you can see, we admittedly have no immediate answers for you, use that and become an expert for future discussions since that question pops up every other month. No, i have only taken a brief look and it seemed suitable to me to present to you as a possible information source. To the dino-killer thing: discussion sways forth and back on how much the impact really wiped out the dinosaurs. In conjunction with broad magmatism and the loss of large connected landmasses since the Jurassic (Pangaea breaking up) it surely was the "final blow" for many species.

There was a publication where they did the math to find out if a single encounter could have caused the uproar under the KBOs. The outcome was that the probability is terribly low iirc. The study may be linked over in the Plant 9 thread ...

Hehe. There is another terribly catchy one album wise: ... it is too early for me for "Yes" right now :-)

Drawing the fence around Planet 9 narrower ... :-)

But that is not what the text you linked says and afaik it is not what medicine men and women tell their customers. The text says that even vegan women can give birth to normally developing children, if they do some nutritional planning. Millions of vegetarian women have quite normally developing children. My little sister has three of them. I don't know any vegans, though. And i am no expert in this. Some more info i found: https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/hydroponics I suppose you mean energy efficiency ? I found this, but i cannot comment more since i am not an expert: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4483736/ That implies the use of solar arrays. You need ~double the area than on earth. And somebody with broom every now and then ;-) It will have little outcome near the poles, same as on earth. No idea. Maybe you can find an answer in the link above. See the eden-iss experiment. Probably not many (1 or 2) if technology does not fail. Else 0. On mars ? Not initially. Much must be imported at first. There will certainly be a degree of self sustenance and recycling of vital elements in such greenhouse, the eden-iss experiment is due to end in 2020. We will hopefully have some nice publications afterwards, or at least a report. Idk. But it is not only the initial load, elements are used up and must be replaced. Or, if possible, taken from the consumers once they have dealt with them ;-) But a true closed cycle will not exist, some must constantly be replaced. People are not that far yet to be able to answer all these questions in detail, i am sorry ...

To keep you all entertained, i just learned what a spoonerism is (Thompson & Thomson). Which reminded of a former professor who lectured about hydrocarbons in diet until someone in the auditory could not bear it anymore "Mr. xyz, do you mean carbohydrates ?". He did.

Just learned about spoonerism. Linux Apache MySQL PHP ? *doubtfullook* :-)

This reminds me of Thompson & Thomson. I mean, we're on a party, so why not smalltalk :-)

I think i am going to miss dinner today ...

Payment in beer was a thing during pyramid construction in Egypt, the use of a pyramid as a brewery not. Traces of brewing installations are far more easily lost in time than a pyramid. Nevertheless breweries have been dug out and residual analyses were done. The ancient Egyptian brewing process seems to be similar to recent brewing e. g. in Sudan. But i don't have the time for a search now. @Scotius, i am not sure if brewing beverages was a monopoly, at least at some times. Though of course this might have changed from time to time. And we know people can be inventive if their little joys are taken from them ;-)

Earth's magnetic field is a real mess and constantly changing. Annoying local anomalies and the fact that it doesn't coincide with earth's geometry is another drawback. Currents in the ionosphere and magnetosphere in the order of literally milliseconds would not make such an orientation thing for a low flying satellite really a realistic choice. Also, i would expect (but don't know) that the ratio of weight needed for magnets, batteries, power generation to force exerted isn't really good, compared to chemical puffs every now and than. But i may be wrong on that one. Edit: partly ninja'd by @p1t1o :-)

Good questions. I can't answer any of these, i am not a biologist nor a hydroponics farmer. I doubt any one can since nobody knows about the availability of water and nutrients on Mars yet. I would not want to consume soy beans alone. I am an omnivorous organism i am :-)

Those rocks <1km don't impose any global risk. Here is a statistic (NASA Center for NEOs) that shows the curve for boulders >1km is nearly level, there are only very few new discoveries. The curve for the ones in between 1km and 140m, which could potentially have regional consequences is beginning to turn east as well. The smaller ones ... well a reminder like Chelyabinsk every now and then might keep people enthusiastic at work :-)

This is a nifty thing. Finally a spacecraft the pleases the eye equally as at serves a purpose. I mean, really :-)

The pyramids are a water pump is really the style of the great grand master of conspiracy and pseudoscience: Erich von Däniken. He is so ... occult ... you can't even type his name because "they" have banned the key from the keyboards. Only very few, initiated to the "First Ring" have the ability. But we must not tell ... we would all be devoured by the aaaarrgh ... ... ... ... ... Sorry, that wasn't exactly necessary. But i just could not resist :-) Pyramids are tombs. All of them. This is verifiable. Demonstrable in many cases. Which has nothing to with "monster" ...

I doubt it. A real closed loop is - at least in the scale of a human lifetime and in the size of a city - an illusion. Energy is needed and waste must be disposed of. Both can be minimized by recycling and high efficiency, but still, a little loss is always.