Surviving Seveneves: What would you do?

[RuBisCO]

In the book Seveneves the moon blows up (not really a spoiler as this happens in the first few pages) something hits it, micro-blackhole, who knows what the "agent" was, point is that within days people determine that within a few years the exponential increase in pulverizing debris will start impacting the planet at such a rate as to incinerate all life on the surface of the earth (called "white sky" event). Forget what the book does from this point on, lets say you have 4 years until white sky, with the that last year not very productive from earth due to infrastructure loss from ever increasing rate of impacts and ever increasing social chaos. What would you do to save humanity?

[Temstar]

I stand up and yell "Mein Führer, I can walk!"

[RuBisCO]

21 minutes ago, Temstar said:

I stand up and yell "Mein Führer, I can walk!"

So underground eeh? Frankly the surface will be too hot for life for millennia, and the atmosphere won't be breathable ever again without terraforming, aah, re-terraforming. 

Edited January 15, 2016 by RuBisCO

[Temstar]

10 minutes ago, RuBisCO said:

So underground eeh? Frankly the surface will be too hot for life for millennia, and the atmosphere won't be breathable ever again without terraforming, aah, re-terraforming. 

The problem is the time frame is really too short to do anything useful. What does the book suggest?

[steve_v]

Vaults, most likely. I recon you could house a lot more people in a dirty great hole than you could ever get into space - the life support requirements would be similar, but without the mass constraints inherent in getting stuff to orbit.
Besides, rocks bombarding the planet means rocks whipping about in orbit too, not a very nice place for a space-station.

Good book BTW.

[RuBisCO]

18 minutes ago, Temstar said:

The problem is the time frame is really too short to do anything useful. What does the book suggest?

Well the book suggest with all of humanities infrastructure dedicated to any solution a lot can get a lot done fast. In the end they were launching rockets at an insane rate of one very couple of hours, failures were common but the rate makes up for the hast. The death toll is high, but few care because everyone is going to be dead anyways. If you want me to spoil it though, the escape to space option was hinted at being a cover for a few to go Dr. StrangeLove or "Full time to floatin’" somehow it works though.

I would think that with all of humanities economy dedicated Kamikaze, a lot could be done even with 4 years.

[fredinno]

44 minutes ago, RuBisCO said:

Well the book suggest with all of humanities infrastructure dedicated to any solution a lot can get a lot done fast. In the end they were launching rockets at an insane rate of one very couple of hours, failures were common but the rate makes up for the hast. The death toll is high, but few care because everyone is going to be dead anyways. If you want me to spoil it though, the escape to space option was hinted at being a cover for a few to go Dr. StrangeLove or "Full time to floatin’" somehow it works though.

I would think that with all of humanities economy dedicated Kamikaze, a lot could be done even with 4 years.

Why launch into space, with all that debris flying around from the explosion of the moon? (not to mention it would be a lot harder than digging underground...)

Edited January 15, 2016 by fredinno

[Ralathon]

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

Why launch into space, with all that debris flying around from the explosion of the moon? (not to mention it would be a lot harder than digging underground...)

They estimated that debris would keep raining down for thousands of years. So space is the best option. If you manage to get into a high orbit the debris won't move that fast and you can easily expand your base by mining the former moon. If you go underground you'll get cooked after a few centuries and you have no way to expand your base (Where would you leave the excavated material without opening a hole to the surface?).

[RuBisCO]

It is not hard to dodge debris.

I did not like the mining the former moon idea, because the moon is short on volatiles.

[Robotengineer]

9 hours ago, Temstar said:

I stand up and yell "Mein Führer, I can walk!"

And then start playing the nuke song (We'll meet again) as the bolides come down. 

The issue with the space based option, or at least the space based option as presented in the book is that it gives individual vessels too much leeway to breakaway from the formation. 

[Darnok]

10 hours ago, RuBisCO said:

What would you do to save humanity?

I would save myself and my family building bunker or large ship and bought lots of guns.

[tomf]

I'm not convinced the human race could survive seven eves, space is going to be full of too much debris for solar panels to last long and too little munufacturing for them to be replaced, underground you aren't going to be able to have enough power for 10,000 years and underwater you have no easy access to resources, power or manufacturing.

Edited January 15, 2016 by tomf

[Nibb31]

10 hours ago, fredinno said:

Why launch into space, with all that debris flying around from the explosion of the moon? (not to mention it would be a lot harder than digging underground...)

Because the author wanted an epic story where humanity pulls together to build big space ships. So he came up for a reason for humanity to pull together and build big space ships.

[RuBisCO]

1 hour ago, tomf said:

I'm not convinced the human race could survive seven eves, space is going to be full of too much debris for solar panels to last long and too little munufacturing for them to be replaced, underground you aren't going to be able to have enough power for 10,000 years and underwater you have no easy access to resources, power or manufacturing.

I don't agree with seveneves thinking they could stay in earth orbit for any time either, but outside earth space the amount of debris would be consequential.

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, RuBisCO said:

I don't agree with seveneves thinking they could stay in earth orbit for any time either, but outside earth space the amount of debris would be consequential.

...and the Delta V requirements would be much higher.

[problemecium]

Save humanity? Pshh. Humanity can go [REDACTED BY KERBFLEET SECURITY].

I'd try to save myself and perhaps some important friends (there'd be at least a few girls involved in case of a need to repopulate). So far my best idea is Ye Olde Bomb Shelter. Hopefully no large, ground-penetrating debris will happen to land right on top of us, and hopefully we can survive long enough in there to come out after the impact rate has tailed off some and we can try to start a self-sustaining colony.

[silversliver]

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Spoiler

IMHO the idea of underwater bases was the best idea as demonstrated by the Pingers.

 

[Laie]

16 hours ago, fredinno said:

Why launch into space, with all that debris flying around from the explosion of the moon? (not to mention it would be a lot harder than digging underground...)

At best it's a long shot, at worst a distraction.

All humans big and small are walking dead, material riches and even social station lose any meaning -- the book doesn't dwell on the effects, but occasionaly hands out a few ideas and leaves it to the reader to think them through, if so inclined (IMO you're missing a lot if you let these moments slip). The basic assumption, though, is that most people want to remain civilized, and will try to keep their act together as long as there is still something meaningful for them to do.

--

@parameciumkid: The worst problem are not the impactors (although there are many) but the sheer number of shooting stars creating light and heat. The whole sky will be on fire, sterilizing the planet below. The scenario prescribes that this state of affairs will last a few thousand years.

Digging underground is no longer the obvious solution. Growing your food, storing consumables, recycling anything and everything... You'll have all the problems of a space station and then some.

I think a submarine environment would be even worse than space. Corrosive, and soon no source for food either.

There's no solution I'd believe in, but a space station seems to be the least unbelievable option. Espaciall as they happen to have some limited experience with redirecting an asteroid and in-space manufacturing. It's all very limited and rudimentary, but they have a lot more to work with than we do IRL.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Laie

[RuBisCO]

4 hours ago, fredinno said:

...and the Delta V requirements would be much higher.

Yeah but earth orbit was a deathtrap, even in the book, also getting to a NEO would in fact take very little delta-v, no more then getting to a piece of moon debris.

[Ogcorp Squirrel]

ROB A BANK AND BUILD A ROCKET, DUH!!

[Rdivine]

I would attach the largest rockets to earth and increase earth's rotation until it matches that of orbital velocity  

(Then we can all float around and avoid flying space rocks)

Edited January 16, 2016 by Rdivine

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, RuBisCO said:

Yeah but earth orbit was a deathtrap, even in the book, also getting to a NEO would in fact take very little delta-v, no more then getting to a piece of moon debris.

I meant more than LEO.

1 hour ago, Rdivine said:

I would attach the largest rockets to earth and increase earth's rotation until it matches that of orbital velocity  

(Then we can all float around and avoid flying space rocks)

Is that you, Jebadiah?

[Findthepin1]

I think I'd build a sort of vault like the one in Svalbard, but containing DNA and other important cells/whatever from just about everything that other things like this don't contain. It'd have a detector for atmosphere and when things cool down on the surface, if it's still breathable I'd clone everyone from the DNA and things to recolonize the planet.

Either that or move as many people as possible to the rest of the solar system and hope that by the time Earth is fine the offworld colonies will have enough people to repopulate.

BTW Earth might have a ring by then, yay

[Beowolf]

The author wrote a sweet story, but skipped over all sorts of problems that would have kept humanity from surviving.

10 hours ago, Findthepin1 said:

if it's still breathable I'd clone everyone from the DNA and things to recolonize the planet.

But the story was set now, not in the near future. When we clone mammals today, they need a host mother. We can do whatever we want with a fertilized egg cell, but it takes a cow to turn it into a calf. The advantage we get from cloning would be only needing a few host mothers to recreate all different types of cow.

 

[peadar1987]

Has to be underground. Block off the ends of major tunnels and caverns, like mines, the Channel Tunnel, the LHC, and metro networks. You don't need a perfect hermetic seal, because the air outside isn't going to be toxic, just very hot, you just need to make sure there's not much transfer between the two. Then fill up the space with life support. You're going to need CO2 scrubbers, bright lights, water reclamation systems, tonnes of fertiliser, a load of 3D printers, lathes, milling machines, and feedstock for them. Power it with multiple redundant systems, most likely geothermal, as it is long-lasting and most importantly, can be made rugged and easy to maintain, unlike the other option, nuclear. Mass-produce whatever you can

The London Underground, for example, has 180km of tunnels, about 3.5m in diameter, which gives 630,000 square metres of real estate, not including the stations. With hydroponics, that's enough to feed thousands of people. Repeat for every tunnel and metro system you can find. Paris, Tokyo, New York, all the road and rail tunnels in the Alps and Norway, every mine in Africa, South America and Australia... Get a lot of baskets, and some of them will survive until the bolides stop falling. Then the earth will eventually cool down, we can seed the seas with algae and try and get a breathable atmosphere once again.