Colonizing other planets

[Spaceception]

Just now, fredinno said:

Titan's rocket fuel is useless until you can drill deep enough to get water for oxidiser- and by then, it'dbe better to use H2 O2, since boil-off is minimal at Saturn Orbit.

There's plenty of water on Titan, which you can extract oxygen from, which I pointed out in a earlier post. Plus, methane is easier to store than hydrogen.

[sevenperforce]

41 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Vesta is a little big tomove  

Coward!

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, tater said:

I agree, but I would argue that a "back up" of humanity on another world (or deep space colony) is a rational reason, even if we agree that it's not remotely a short-term possibility.

Please, not the backup of humanity fallacy again.

Backing up humanity by colonizing space is like backing up your computer by saving a couple of files to an old floppy disk and then storing it on top of a loud speaker.

[insert_name]

3 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Please, not the backup of humanity fallacy again.

Backing up humanity by colonizing space is like backing up your computer by saving a couple of files to an old floppy disk and then storing it on top of a loud speaker.

as opposed to what?

Id like to see your brilliant idea

[Bill Phil]

48 minutes ago, insert_name said:

as opposed to what?

Id like to see your brilliant idea

Let's go contract Vault Tec.

First off, in the event of an apocalypse, most of humanity will die, not all. And the number of survivors can be increased with good planning, without anything on Mars at all.

11 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

Titan! Or Venus. Both have their challenges, but consider the advantages over Mars:

- Free rocket fuel!

- No pressurized garments required!

Furthermore, Venus has higher gravity and is easier to access, so no worries about low-gravity health problems. And on Titan, you can fly. Who doesn't want that?

Callisto also works. Mercury requires too much delta-v, Europa and Io are too radiated, Ganymede would give you cancer if you stayed too long, and everything beyond Saturn takes too long to get to.

Except that Titan is enormously cold and Venus, even in the upper layers, is very dangerous that it requires a suit, albeit not necessarily pressurized.

[tater]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

Please, not the backup of humanity fallacy again.

You disagreeing does not make it a fallacy.

 

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

Backing up humanity by colonizing space is like backing up your computer by saving a couple of files to an old floppy disk and then storing it on top of a loud speaker.

Read what I described. By definition, a fully self-sufficient human settlement outside of earth is a backup copy of humanity provided the population has sufficient genetic diversity. Nothing else is required to fulfill this. It doesn't need to be a clone of Earth, it just needs the seeds of a new humanity that can actually survive.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to present a straw man (an actual fallacy). Are you saying that a fully self-sufficient, human colony of sufficient genetic diversity to be a healthy population anywhere outside Earth is NOT a backup of humanity? If so, what is your exact definition of a "backup?" 

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, tater said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to present a straw man (an actual fallacy). Are you saying that a fully self-sufficient, human colony of sufficient genetic diversity to be a healthy population anywhere outside Earth is NOT a backup of humanity? If so, what is your exact definition of a "backup?" 

Probably colonies around other star systems with planets, although that won't work because there isn't a 'decent' business case for it, so until pigs fly and unicorns taxi us between cities, it's not happening.

[insert_name]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Let's go contract Vault Tec.

First off, in the event of an apocalypse, most of humanity will die, not all. And the number of survivors can be increased with good planning, without anything on Mars at all.

Except that Titan is enormously cold and Venus, even in the upper layers, is very dangerous that it requires a suit, albeit not necessarily pressurized.

a self sufficent colony in space would be able to expand during different apocalyptic conditions that vault style colonies. ie immunity to almost all war, asteroid impacts, ecological collapse. by having multiple types of backups the likelihood of extinction goes down

[Spaceception]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Let's go contract Vault Tec.

First off, in the event of an apocalypse, most of humanity will die, not all. And the number of survivors can be increased with good planning, without anything on Mars at all.

Except that Titan is enormously cold and Venus, even in the upper layers, is very dangerous that it requires a suit, albeit not necessarily pressurized.

That's near-sighted, even the most elaborate of planning won't save us from everything on Earth, sooner or later, we're gonna need to spread out among the solar system and beyond, and I'd rather it be sooner so we don't have to worry about humanity going extinct anytime soon. There may not be a very good chance of humanity going extinct tomorrow, but you don't know everything.

That's assuming the survivors know how to grow enough food for a genetically diverse colony that can last hundreds of years until we can re-reach current technology (Also assuming we planned for that situation), colonizing other planets would be much less stressful.

They're still better than Mars in some ways (Long-term) and I'd like to know, what's better? Living in a nuclear wasteland and/or Ice-age w/o tech and food, or living on a planet where you have to wear warming or cooling garments?

[Bill Phil]

16 minutes ago, insert_name said:

a self sufficent colony in space would be able to expand during different apocalyptic conditions that vault style colonies. ie immunity to almost all war, asteroid impacts, ecological collapse. by having multiple types of backups the likelihood of extinction goes down

Except you can't make it self-sufficient. It will rely on imports from Earth, and many other colonies, forever.

[Bill Phil]

6 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

That's near-sighted, even the most elaborate of planning won't save us from everything on Earth, sooner or later, we're gonna need to spread out among the solar system and beyond, and I'd rather it be sooner so we don't have to worry about humanity going extinct anytime soon. There may not be a very good chance of humanity going extinct tomorrow, but you don't know everything.

That's assuming the survivors know how to grow enough food for a genetically diverse colony that can last hundreds of years until we can re-reach current technology (Also assuming we planned for that situation), colonizing other planets would be much less stressful.

They're still better than Mars in some ways (Long-term) and I'd like to know, what's better? Living in a nuclear wasteland and/or Ice-age w/o tech and food, or living on a planet where you have to wear warming or cooling garments?

Not really. The best way to survive any apocalypse is to know it's coming and have smart planning. Even if we have space colonies.

I think space colonies will be founded, but not to ensure our survival. We're already ensured. There's more than 7 billion of us on one planet. Enough to out live any apocalypse. In fact, it already happened quite some time ago.

Colonizing anything in space will be hard. We have to make nature. That's no cakewalk.

You're asking the wrong question. Mars and Venus are already apocalyptic. Even an Ice Age Earth, a nuclear fallout filled Earth, is still a 1.0 on the ESI, and enormously more habitable than any other location in our solar system. You also assume technology is an inherently good thing, which is not necessarily the case.

What's better than any other location, even our homeworld? Free floating colonies. But that's for a variety if reasons that make planets kind of useless...

[Spaceception]

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Except you can't make it self-sufficient. It will rely on imports from Earth, and many other colonies, forever.

There's pretty much all you need to survive on (Sorta, kinda) The Moon, Mars, probably Mercury, Maybe Ganymede and Callisto, and Titan, i.e. Water for Air, Drinking water, Fuel cells, rocket fuel, Methane (On Mars and Titan) for better rocket fuel, Nitrogen for buffer gas, metals have been found on these bodies, which can be used for building more habitats, and the regolith can be used as radiation protection.

[Bill Phil]

Just now, Spaceception said:

There's pretty much all you need to survive on (Sorta, kinda) The Moon, Mars, probably Mercury, Maybe Ganymede and Callisto, and Titan, i.e. Water for Air, Drinking water, Fuel cells, rocket fuel, Methane (On Mars and Titan) for better rocket fuel, Nitrogen for buffer gas, metals have been found on these bodies, which can be used for building more habitats, and the regolith can be used as radiation protection.

All you need is there, but there's not a few thousand years of infrastructure development. There's no factories on Mars.

There's very few metals in the outer solar system, and not as much lighter element in the inner system either. Most of the water in the inner system likely originates from the outer system.

All the resources are there, but you have to put them together. And that's hard.

[Spaceception]

Just now, Bill Phil said:

All you need is there, but there's not a few thousand years of infrastructure development. There's no factories on Mars.

There's very few metals in the outer solar system, and not as much lighter element in the inner system either. Most of the water in the inner system likely originates from the outer system.

All the resources are there, but you have to put them together. And that's hard.

Advanced 3-D printing and robots will speed things up, it will likely take 50-150 years to properly set up a small colony (200k-1 million) regardless, but you have to start somewhere.

[RocketSquid]

28 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

All you need is there, but there's not a few thousand years of infrastructure development. There's no factories on Mars.

There's very few metals in the outer solar system, and not as much lighter element in the inner system either. Most of the water in the inner system likely originates from the outer system.

All the resources are there, but you have to put them together. And that's hard.

Didn't the scenario earlier involve the technology level of earth dropping drastically, and potentially the near-complete destruction of the biosphere?

[tater]

2 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Probably colonies around other star systems with planets, although that won't work because there isn't a 'decent' business case for it, so until pigs fly and unicorns taxi us between cities, it's not happening.

So to be a backup it must be around another star, along with the other requirements I mentioned (clearly you need a healthy human breeding population, and they obviously have to be capable of surviving without imports from Earth)? I'd say the other star bit is extraneous for the next long while, though Earth is still at risk from catastrophic events. As I stated very clearly, the technology to actually colonize space sufficient to create a viable backup comes with the capability to divert most threats, which makes the colony sort of redundant regarding that particular rationale ("backup"). That said, the idea of a backup is entirely rational, even if (as I said at the start) it is not going to happen in the foreseeable future, if ever.

[kerbiloid]

Most of terrestrial mineral resources are the result of not just geological processes, but of hydrothermal and sedimentary flows of matter.

So, in the depth of the mantle, hydrates and carbonates are being decomposed due to enormous pressure and temperature, releasing water and carbon dioxide.
Both of them are then being pressed out up to the surface, dissolving numerous entities scattered in the mantle rocks.
When the water solution reaches the surface, the water dissipates, while sulfates, carbonates, etc. are concentrated as a sub-surface spot of highly concentrated mineral resource deposit above an empty rock.

Again, when some mainstream lifeform consumes, say, carbon or another chemical element, then its corpses or feces cover the bottom of the sea, also creating a spot of highly concentrated mineral resource deposit.

So, most of the Earth mineral resources have appeared in technologically reasonable amount only due to billion-years liquid hydrosphere and biosphere.
No other planet/moon in the Solar System doesn't have anything similar.
"There are traces of water and layers of clay on Mars! What a luck!" - that's all you can meet on any planet except the Earth.
Even if, say, Mercury or an asteroid contains billions of platinum - what's the use of it, if there are no high-concentrated spots of it, and it's average concentration is less than waste rock has?

Titan has hydrocarbons much more than the Earth has - so what?
Just compare the difference of potential energy between 1 kg of methane on Saturn orbit and on the Earth orbit with an energyu production of the same 1 kg of methane.
And you realize that it's much easier to synthesize that methane right on the Earth from water and CO2 than to even try to deliver it from Titan.
In terms of energy, not economy - so nothing changes even if you have a torch ship, FTL and so on.

So, forever all significant resources will be produced on Earth and then delivered to other planets.
So, the only purpose of extraterrestrial bases is "observation and scientific outpost".
In the best case - antimatter factory somewhere beyond the Neptune.

P.S.
And of course, ice on Ceres because Expanse.

Edited February 17, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Hannu2]

I think that there are extremely low number of scenarios which would turn Earth worse than any other celestial body. Maybe a huge collision which melts whole crust. "Normal" asteroids, geologic catastrophes, climate changes etc. can not change Earth worse than Mars. If we can build colony to Mars we can make isolated caves and artificial food production in Earth with much less cost.

But it will be some kind of curiosity and technical ambition which will motivate to build space colonies. There have been huge building projects without straight profit thorough history. I think and hope that current extreme capitalism where income of next quarter year is only thing that matters for powerful people and possibility to buy loads of cheap, practically useless and fashionable stuff and entertainment is only thing that matters for common people is just short period of mankind's history and after couple of generations humans have again more noble and ambitious objectives, like colonization of solar system.

[tater]

I never said the threats were likely, a collision with a large asteroid (large enough to be spherical) would likely be sufficient, but incredibly rare. A "backup" as I define it is difficult enough as to rule out the possibility for a long, long time, but that doesn't make it impossible. I'm not even arguing it's a good rationale, just that it's a legitimate rationale  for someone with particularly long-distance foresight  . That's the trouble with a useful definition of a backup, it's not 50 Mars One nuts, it requires 10s of thousands of people at the minimum (for genetic diversity) and as I said, complete self-sufficiency. On earth self-sufficiency is easy, it's far harder in space, you need every advanced resource extraction and technology manufacturing capability that exists on earth---with redundancy. Not impossible, just very, very difficult. Our 10th-great grandchildren will likely be having the same conversation.

Economics (trade, etc) just makes no sense at all as transport costs would never be lower than just hauling something like an asteroid to orbit.

 

[Hannu2]

It is clear that self-sufficient space colony takes hundreds or thousands of years to develop. It is never economically sane project, because generations which invest money to it get never any profit. It has to be rationalized by other means. However, it is probable that colony is needed to backup after several millions of years. It is certainly self sufficient and mankind has probably expanded to whole solar system before that.

[tater]

I said as much regarding timing.

Yeah, not happening any time soon, largely because unlike terrestrial colonization, it is so very much harder to do, and there is no economic driver. Antarctica would be vastly more sensible (and easy) to colonize than Mars, for example, if living space was the goal. There are likely even economic drivers possible for Antarctica, where none exist for space.

The one aspect we cannot predict well is technology. Look at the huge blind spot science fiction gave us regarding computing. I think AI, 3d printing, materials science, and nano science will have impacts that throw the timing off anything we can predict on timescales longer than 100 years.

[fredinno]

22 hours ago, Spaceception said:

There's plenty of water on Titan, which you can extract oxygen from, which I pointed out in a earlier post. Plus, methane is easier to store than hydrogen.

Yes, you either drill to the liquid water layer, or heat up the "rock" so much it turns back into liquid water.

17 hours ago, Spaceception said:

There's pretty much all you need to survive on (Sorta, kinda) The Moon, Mars, probably Mercury, Maybe Ganymede and Callisto, and Titan, i.e. Water for Air, Drinking water, Fuel cells, rocket fuel, Methane (On Mars and Titan) for better rocket fuel, Nitrogen for buffer gas, metals have been found on these bodies, which can be used for building more habitats, and the regolith can be used as radiation protection.

There's also pretty much everything you need in the asteroid belt. 

17 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

All you need is there, but there's not a few thousand years of infrastructure development. There's no factories on Mars.

There's very few metals in the outer solar system, and not as much lighter element in the inner system either. Most of the water in the inner system likely originates from the outer system.

All the resources are there, but you have to put them together. And that's hard.

Well, lacking in volatiles is a much bigger problem than metals...

[tater]

Another thing to consider with a "colony" vs some self-sufficient "base," is that the colonists would grow in number due to births. So not only would such a colony need to meet all its own needs (say a genetically diverse seed population of 20,000+), but it would need to be able to grow, and in the case of a "backup" level colony, would need to be able to grow in population indefinitely (this is obviously subject to what your definition of such a colony is, mine is that it is healthy from a genetic standpoint, and can grow with no external inputs at will).

Look at ISS for a moment. There are about 6 people there at any given time I think, max. If we include the Earth as part of the ISS "closed" system (i.e.: ISS is self-sufficient, including Earth, lol), we could see how many people,and how much industry is required to keep them alive. It's a lot. Start with the 18,000 NASA employees, and add the Russian space program employees to that. Include the employees and industry of SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and other commercial crew outfits. Computers? We need at least one complete set of computer hardware, so Intel, plus all the other industries and employees required for you to go to the store and buy a computer. Food? All the farmers, and food processing people that create the meals shipped there. Oil workers for the oil/chemicals needed to fuel rockets, and plastics---and a plastic industry. Those 6 people are the tip of a logistical iceberg that likely has hundreds of thousands of non-ISS crew members. Luckily a colony would absorb many of these people as the actual colonists, but it starts giving us a rough idea of how many people would be required for a minimally populated colony that has a floor of say 20k to start, but must be able to sustain growth. It's a LOT of people. 

That pushes the possibility well out into the future, and it in fact might require some new, enabling technologies (near molecular level 3d printing?) for such a colony to bootstrap itself. This is yet another reason why the Mars One nuts are, well, nuts.

 

[PB666]

On 2/16/2016 at 1:38 PM, fredinno said:

 

Good luck getting NPP ships running any time soon.

Titan's rocket fuel is useless until you can drill deep enough to get water for oxidiser- and by then, it'dbe better to use H2 O2, since boil-off is minimal at Saturn Orbit.

Vesta is a little big tomove  

 

So? An atmosphere can just use convection to pull heat away instead.

Typically nuclear reactors have chill water ponds associated with them.

[AngelLestat]

On 17/2/2016 at 6:01 PM, PB666 said:

Typically nuclear reactors have chill water ponds associated with them.

Yeah, and that is why nobody notice the biggest drawback on mars...  "energy cost".
I need to think a bit more on this.. But I guess mars will be the place with the energy bill more expensive of all ....
Enceladus, Titan, Asteroid Belt, Venus, Moon, Mercury...  all can produce energy more cheaper than mars.

Edited February 19, 2016 by AngelLestat