Outer moon colonization

[Spaceception]

We've talked about putting near-term colony's on the Moon, Venus, and Mars (Especially Mars), but where is the Outer moon colony love?

Personally, Titan would be by far the best outer solar system colony.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Spaceception

[Nibb31]

Why colonization again ? Can't we just settle for something that could actually happen in our lifetime, like a small outpost or even just a manned landing?

It's way too early to think about colonization. We hardly know anything about these places. Lets land a rover on Titan or drop a drone-blimp on Venus and see what those places are like before we even start hypothesizing about science fiction silliness.

[Spaceception]

Just now, Nibb31 said:

Why colonization again ? Can't we just settle for something that could actually happen in our lifetime, like a small outpost or even just a manned landing?

It's way too early to think about colonization. We hardly know anything about these places. Lets land a rover on Titan or drop a drone-blimp on Venus and see what those places are like before we even start hypothesizing about science fiction silliness.

It was just something fun to think about, not everything space-related has to be short-term, to me, space is about long-term big thinking, it's more fun to think about it that way.

[insert_name]

titan, that way if someone invades them it will be attack on titan

[Spaceception]

Just now, insert_name said:

titan, that way if someone invades them it will be attack on titan

Plus, because of it's extremely thick atmosphere, and weak gravity, we could fly!

[Mitchz95]

20 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Why colonization again ? Can't we just settle for something that could actually happen in our lifetime, like a small outpost or even just a manned landing?

It's way too early to think about colonization. We hardly know anything about these places. Lets land a rover on Titan or drop a drone-blimp on Venus and see what those places are like before we even start hypothesizing about science fiction silliness.

What's wrong with thinking big? Just because something isn't achievable in the near term doesn't mean we shouldn't bother thinking about how it could be done.

But I do agree we need to know more about these places before we can seriously talk about sending people there. Europa would probably be a good place to start because it's closer and has a lot of water, but the high radiation environment is a pretty tough sell. Hopefully we'll have developed some kind of countermeasure by the time a manned mission is within reach.

[SargeRho]

Titan.

Or the underside of Ganymede's Ice crust.

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, SargeRho said:

Titan.

Or the underside of Ganymede's Ice crust.

Titan love!!! Titan is probably the coolest (Or at least one of the coolest) moons out there).

[Evanitis]

Voted Europa, for it's lovely color and for all the puns it would lead to.

Ah, and it has water so I could cook, and oxygen so I could fly around on jet-engines and make SSTOs.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Evanitis

[Spaceception]

12 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

Voted Europa, for it's lovely color and for all the puns it would lead to.

Ah, and it has water so I could cook, and oxygen so I could fly around on jet-engines and make SSTOs.

Um... I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but Europa's atmosphere is way too thin for jet engines.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Spaceception

[Spaceception]

Oooooooh, I just found this AWESOME website: http://colonyworlds.com

[SargeRho]

34 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Titan love!!! Titan is probably the coolest (Or at least one of the coolest) moons out there).

The reason I say Titan is out of purely utilitarian motives: It's full of hydrocarbons, and has lakes of Methane. Rocket fuel and black gold all at once. Considering how insanely versatile oil is, I can see Titan being given some freedom and democracy soon

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, SargeRho said:

The reason I say Titan is out of purely utilitarian motives: It's full of hydrocarbons, and has lakes of Methane. Rocket fuel and black gold all at once. Considering how insanely versatile oil is, I can see Titan being given some freedom and democracy soon

Personally, I'd only use the methane/ethane for rocket fuel, it's high time we kick the bucket for fossil fueled electricity.

[SargeRho]

10 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Personally, I'd only use the methane/ethane for rocket fuel, it's high time we kick the bucket for fossil fueled electricity.

I'm not referring to oil as a fossil fuel, but as an extremely versatile resource, since we make just about everything from Oil.

[Spaceception]

4 minutes ago, SargeRho said:

I'm not referring to oil as a fossil fuel, but as an extremely versatile resource, since we make just about everything from Oil.

Oh, all right.

[peadar1987]

Hydrocarbons aren't much good as fuel without oxidiser. You'd still have to bring that.

I voted Callisto. Lower radiation environment, higher gravity, suspected undifferentiated interior with water ice. Good environment to teleoperate drones exploring Jupiter's other, more death-y moons. What's not to like?

Edited January 14, 2016 by peadar1987

[Spaceception]

3 minutes ago, peadar1987 said:

Hydrocarbons aren't much good as fuel without oxidiser. You'd still have to bring that.

I voted Callisto. Lower radiation environment, higher gravity, suspected undifferentiated interior with water ice. Good environment to teleoperate drones exploring Jupiter's other, more death-y moons. What's not to like?

It doesn't have a thick atmosphere like TItan. No, but seriously, Callisto would be a really good colony choice for when we're ready to go to Jupiter.

[peadar1987]

18 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

It doesn't have a thick atmosphere like TItan. No, but seriously, Callisto would be a really good colony choice for when we're ready to go to Jupiter.

I can't imagine us going to Saturn before Jupiter. Longer transit time, more delta-V, less sunlight for power, it's just a far riskier mission. Otherwise Titan would be amazing.

[Kaos]

On many space related topics I am for far fetched plans, but colonizing the outer moons of the solar system should not happen before we have managed to construct at least one more or less self-sustaining colony on Mars, Moon, Venus or a near Earth asteroid, in my opinion.

The outer moons combine a set of disadvantages against these closer targets: Much less solar power, more complicated to reach, more complicated to come back, longer communication delay to earth, we know less about them.

Given a time where we already have several colonies at the closer celestial bodies, we should study them much closer to get more knowledge about them, before we make that a far-reaching decision, it will need a lot of effort, we should choose wisely.

So at the moment, all of the decisions are equivalently taken without deep knowledge, so I choose Europa, because it has at least water and because of the film Europa Report.

[Bill Phil]

The outer system is great for a few reasons: Jupiter, Jupiter's Trojans, and the moons of the gas planets. Jupiter is a great resource, since it has a lot of gravity and that can help out a lot for outer system maneuvering. Jupiter's Trojans are a great resource, too. But the moons are the best. They provide a lot of water, and other lighter elements and compounds.

[Spaceception]

28 minutes ago, peadar1987 said:

I can't imagine us going to Saturn before Jupiter. Longer transit time, more delta-V, less sunlight for power, it's just a far riskier mission. Otherwise Titan would be amazing.

True, but again, we can fly!!

25 minutes ago, Kaos said:

On many space related topics I am for far fetched plans, but colonizing the outer moons of the solar system should not happen before we have managed to construct at least one more or less self-sustaining colony on Mars, Moon, Venus or a near Earth asteroid, in my opinion.

The outer moons combine a set of disadvantages against these closer targets: Much less solar power, more complicated to reach, more complicated to come back, longer communication delay to earth, we know less about them.

Given a time where we already have several colonies at the closer celestial bodies, we should study them much closer to get more knowledge about them, before we make that a far-reaching decision, it will need a lot of effort, we should choose wisely.

So at the moment, all of the decisions are equivalently taken without deep knowledge, so I choose Europa, because it has at least water and because of the film Europa Report.

4 words: Long-term Big thinking.

13 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

The outer system is great for a few reasons: Jupiter, Jupiter's Trojans, and the moons of the gas planets. Jupiter is a great resource, since it has a lot of gravity and that can help out a lot for outer system maneuvering. Jupiter's Trojans are a great resource, too. But the moons are the best. They provide a lot of water, and other lighter elements and compounds.

Yea!!! Saturn is cooler though, because... rings, and Titan. But Jupiter is better because is has more larger moons.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Why colonization again ? Can't we just settle for something that could actually happen in our lifetime, like a small outpost or even just a manned landing?

It's way too early to think about colonization. We hardly know anything about these places. Lets land a rover on Titan or drop a drone-blimp on Venus and see what those places are like before we even start hypothesizing about science fiction silliness.

Agree, colonization require an reason past just science, economical is most obvious. 
Here we have Moon, LEO, perhaps GEO and the asteroids. Orbit is an way-station from lifter to deep space and service to orbital infrastructure think port. Moon and astroids are mining. 

Mars and Venus then we think about teraforming, this is megaprojects who will require lots of people Venus will require an class 1 civilization so we wait with it. 

For larger science base think south pole, yes the base would be more independent, producing their own fuel and perhaps some food too but this is only to make it cheaper and easier to run. 
 

[fredinno]

8 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Um... I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but Europa's atmosphere is way too thin for jet engines.

It's basically non-existant..

7 hours ago, peadar1987 said:

Hydrocarbons aren't much good as fuel without oxidiser. You'd still have to bring that.

I voted Callisto. Lower radiation environment, higher gravity, suspected undifferentiated interior with water ice. Good environment to teleoperate drones exploring Jupiter's other, more death-y moons. What's not to like?

You can make Oxidizer from the oxide rocks on Titan. Be sure to bring a LOT of power, though, to do that...

7 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

The outer system is great for a few reasons: Jupiter, Jupiter's Trojans, and the moons of the gas planets. Jupiter is a great resource, since it has a lot of gravity and that can help out a lot for outer system maneuvering. Jupiter's Trojans are a great resource, too. But the moons are the best. They provide a lot of water, and other lighter elements and compounds.

We haven't even sent probes to the trojans yet!

You forgot Miranda, and Charon of Uranus and Pluto, respectively.

 I mean look at this thing!

[DECQ]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

It's basically non-existant..

You can make Oxidizer from the oxide rocks on Titan. Be sure to bring a LOT of power, though, to do that...

We haven't even sent probes to the trojans yet!

You forgot Miranda, and Charon of Uranus and Pluto, respectively.

 I mean look at this thing!

Man, I think for some colonization was successful

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, DECQ said:

Man, I think for some colonization was successful

LOL, I basically went on a forum posting spree tonight.