SargeRho

Clickbait is probably the single most annoying Internet trend yet. They convey no information what so ever, and their only purpose is to attract as many clicks as possible. It's what you get when you combine sensationalism with shallowness and sleazy-salesmanship. Sensationalist science articles are, I think, unethical journalism. They are a disservice to the public, and usually completely misrepresent the science. ---- I disable my ad-blocker on sites that I want to support, as well as for certain youtube Channels that I also want to support, like TotalBiscuit and Sargon of Akkad. Content creation is just as honest of a job as any other, and takes a lot of time and effort to do properly.

And it would have happened had they been allowed to continue after Apollo 17.

A mini-SSTO can quite comfortably do that. I think a Laythe-and-back SSTO can do that too.

We have, in the past, quite successfully crossed the Indian and Atlantic, and possibly Pacific oceans with Canoes, colonizing South America. Long before the age of sail, or even any sort of powered ships existed. We can wait until we have better technology and possibly not go for another century or two, if ever, or actually work towards developing said technology. and actually go within a decade or two. The resources used for and by Rockets is minuscule compared to just about every other large project. The amount of Kerosene burned by a Falcon 9 on its way to LEO is similar to what a 747 burns on a 10 hour flight.

You cannot create an action without a reaction. Even a photon drive is a reactive engine, being accelerated by the fore produced by the production of photons.

I would think that a race that can send a probe across interstellar space can build it out of non-corrosive materials.

The rate at which an RTG decays isn't controllable, increasing the power draw won't make it decay faster, since an RTG's heat comes from radioactive decay, not fission.

14 years at least.

We already have a design for a fusion engine, parts of which have already been tested though: (On the right) It requires an external power source though, which solar panels can do in the inner solar system. Also I wonder if these new superconductors would provide a meaningful improvement for Beamed Core Antimatter Rockets over what would be doable with current SCs.

tl;dr: They bought wide enough rubber bands to contain the jello that is the Plasma

As far as I understand it, a universe dominated by matter and dark matter could go through cycles, but not one dominated by dark energy. Our universe is dominated by dark energy, and thus will continue to expand at an accelerating pace, or even "rip" open.

For colonization, probably in North America or Central Europe. For research purposes, probably close to the Amazon Rain Forest, or somewhere in South-East Asia. Also Antarctica and Greenland to study the climate history.

I remember reading about doing that actually, a small sat would essentially "jump" from piece of debris to piece of debris, throwing each piece out of orbit.

Half Life of Tritium? It's undoubtedly going to be an important element even for very advanced species.

Because people don't know how to pronounce Uranus and assume it's pronounced "Your anus", and everyone who does know how it's pronounced, knows that. Ad Astra - To the stars

I don't think it warrants a new thread, but it'd be more easy to keep track I suppose.

The original question has been answered already: Yes, it is, in principle possible to create self-sufficient space colonies. But I think it's worth, and I'd also argue on topic, to discuss how to make them possible and/or desirable.

Is it? We are discussing a, at this point, mostly hypothetical set of scenarios that aren't going to happen for at least half a century. That does of course mean that technologies will be involved in such endeavors that don't exist yet, or are only in the early stages of development. Consider the advancements in the last 50 years.

It takes something like 200 MW to launch a 1 ton payload though, so a dedicated fusion reactor might be a good idea

The problem isn't so much the amount of energy, but how (in)efficiently it's being used. There are means to use energy (and vehicles) more efficiently relative to the payload, that are currently being developed. Escape Dynamics' microwave-thermal rocket, SpaceX' reusable rocket and possibly the BFR, Skylon, part of which has already been tested, the precooler, and the SABRE engine for it has been deemed viable by both ESA and the US Air Force. A Boeing 747 on a 10 hour flight uses about as much Kerosene as a Falcon 9 uses RP1 in a launch. Unlike a 747, the Falcon 9 has to carry all of the oxidizer, though, so a 747 gets over half of its energy from the ambient air. A microwave thermal rocket gets all of its energy from the ground station, and could get a mass fraction under 72%, in an SSTO no less. Materials like Carbyne could potentially make a space elevator possible, since CNTs fall just barely short of being strong enough for a space elevator, and Carbyne is significantly stronger. Carbyne is unstable though, so more research is needed there. Obviously using expendable launch vehicles isn't going to get millions of people into Space, since it'd be like trying to do today's air traffic with single-use planes.

39 is nowhere near dangerous for a computer. Even twice that isn't.

You're forgetting things like colloidal ion engines (to be deployed on the LISA Pathfinder), and also the Cubesat Ambipolar Thruster, which runs on Water.

For the sake of nitpicking, the image DBowman linked was a Bernal Sphere, not an O'Neill Cylinder.

An EML-5 space station might make a good sort of "trade hub" for lack of a better word. You're not all the way into Earth's gravity well, or out of Earth's gravity well, solar-electric cargo craft can more easily transport things from there to other planets, or from other planets/asteroids to there than to Earth, while more specialized spacecraft can transport things between a Lunar space elevator, and low earth orbit or possibly even an Earth Space Elevator. Within Cislunar/Cisterran space, you could use similar cargo craft, but using higher-energy propulsion systems, since you can beam power from the Moon, Earth and other space stations to those craft without having to worry about dispersion nearly as much as with interplanetary distances. At the same time, a rotary station there would provide accommodation for anyone traveling from Earth to other places, or just simply as space hotels. At the EML-1 or EML-2 points, such a station could be even more viable, since you then have the possibility of direct access to the lunar surface via space elevator, while still having the ease of access to Cisterran space. The other advantage that colonies in space, rather than on planet have is that they have laughably weak gravity wells, so instead of having to spend several km/s of deltaV to land on them, you only need the d/v to rendezvous with them and dock. Also if you want to produce things that are to be used in Space, produce them in space. This would probably be a major economic activity for such a station, or even the main activity. I don't know if it's truely the case, but I'd think building a geostationary satellite, say, an EML-5 station, and sending it down using electric propulsion is going to be cheaper than building it on Earth and sending it up using a Falcon 9. It's also a plot point in several sci-fi games, shows and universes in general, where space industry is in space, and "ground industry" is on the ground, ie Elite's Coriolis stations, and EVE's giant space cities, the Babylon 5 station IIRC also had some industry.

On a ring or cylinder space station with 1g inner wall acceleration and a decent metal hull, having children in space would be no issue at all. Embryonary experiments will have to be done on Mars (or in a centrifuge simulating .3g) to see how 1/3 earth gravity affects fetal development.