10 years to evacuate Earth

[coyotesfrontier]

Let's say an interstellar object is discovered heading straight for Earth's position in exactly 10 years from now. Due to its size and extremely high speed, its impact will melt the Earth's crust and kill all life. You have control of every government on Earth, and your job is to create a plan to save as many people as possible. Additionally, you must ensure that humanity is able to be self-sufficient once in space, and not rely on supplies that will eventually run out. While you have unlimited funding, you are still limited by resource availability. Go!

Edited September 22, 2020 by coyotesfrontier

[Miguelsgamingch]

Build 1,000 Starships And Put 1 Million People For Each Starships

 

LAUNCH

 

GO to Mars

 

Colonize

 

GO CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

 

And Watch Earth Die

 

louis armstrong wonderful world starts to sing

 

 

...

 

Fin, Goodbye Earth

 

[Okhin]

10 years to have most of governments on the world working together ?

Nope, can't do it :p

Not even because they won't agree to work together. They probably would. Some of them at least. But then, you need to have commitees up and running to decide who does what, what protocols to use to share science, who will be in charge of what, which people will go up (because not all of them would, so you need to chose who will survive, and I do not think it can end well). And given how much bureaucracy you need to decide how much salmon Canada will exports to the EU per year, I do not believe anything can be done on a planetary scale at this point. Not in ten years.

After that, the most effective plan I can think of, will be to be in charge of a country with enough power to be able to seize aluminum, steel and fuel in abhorrent quantities and to launch whatever the biggest ship I have at this time, as often as possible, like once a day. I cannot convert the industrial line to produce only rocket part. That part alone would probably takes 10 years. So I have to do with current capabilities (I can probably boost them a bit), but I'll end up launching one, maybe two starship-like a day. That's not a lot, and already feels like a lot

The closed loop environment is way harder than it seems. Hydroponics are nice, but you need a full fledged ecosystems, able to recycle everything back to nitrate, oxygen and water, while protecting yourself from radiations and stuff. And you need enough people to breed without too much inbreeding too. Or genetics patching facilities (hey, let's go down the eugenics way at this point). You better have nailed it down, because if the environment fails, then all you have a space tomb. WHich is kind of cool too, but still. Vat grown food still needs intrants.

And the closer you'll get to the date of impact, the less people will agree to help you back on earth. Because most of them won't make it to the surface. Organized crime will probably be emerging from lottery rigging to get people ion the list and sell tickets, corruption will sky rocket with politicians and program employee wanting to save their families, and in the end you'll be less and less effective.

So, my personal plan, would probably to lean back and enjoy the last ten year on Earth, beofre having the best party ever while everything else collapse and explode in fire.

[coyotesfrontier]

3 hours ago, Okhin said:

10 years to have most of governments on the world working together ?

Nope, can't do it :p

Not even because they won't agree to work together. They probably would. Some of them at least. But then, you need to have commitees up and running to decide who does what, what protocols to use to share science, who will be in charge of what, which people will go up (because not all of them would, so you need to chose who will survive, and I do not think it can end well). And given how much bureaucracy you need to decide how much salmon Canada will exports to the EU per year, I do not believe anything can be done on a planetary scale at this point. Not in ten years.

After that, the most effective plan I can think of, will be to be in charge of a country with enough power to be able to seize aluminum, steel and fuel in abhorrent quantities and to launch whatever the biggest ship I have at this time, as often as possible, like once a day. I cannot convert the industrial line to produce only rocket part. That part alone would probably takes 10 years. So I have to do with current capabilities (I can probably boost them a bit), but I'll end up launching one, maybe two starship-like a day. That's not a lot, and already feels like a lot

The closed loop environment is way harder than it seems. Hydroponics are nice, but you need a full fledged ecosystems, able to recycle everything back to nitrate, oxygen and water, while protecting yourself from radiations and stuff. And you need enough people to breed without too much inbreeding too. Or genetics patching facilities (hey, let's go down the eugenics way at this point). You better have nailed it down, because if the environment fails, then all you have a space tomb. WHich is kind of cool too, but still. Vat grown food still needs intrants.

And the closer you'll get to the date of impact, the less people will agree to help you back on earth. Because most of them won't make it to the surface. Organized crime will probably be emerging from lottery rigging to get people ion the list and sell tickets, corruption will sky rocket with politicians and program employee wanting to save their families, and in the end you'll be less and less effective.

So, my personal plan, would probably to lean back and enjoy the last ten year on Earth, beofre having the best party ever while everything else collapse and explode in fire.

I was thinking you'd have control of every government on Earth, somehow. I've edited the topic to indicate this.

Edited September 22, 2020 by coyotesfrontier

[Guest]

With unlimited funding and no politics to interfere? Russia will build the world's biggest nuke, US will build the world's biggest launch vehicle (might use an Orion drive, a bit of fallout is nothing for humanity's survival), China will provide materials for all this, Europe and African countries will build an equatorial launch site in an unpopulated part of Africa, and we'll all send the nuke to meet whatever's coming for the Earth at a safe distance.  

In the present day, we're far better equipped for blowing up Earth-sized objects than for evacuating them. I'd say, if countries of the world banded together like that, it'd take more than flying space rock to stop us.

If we really have to evacuate, forget Starship, go straight for Orion-powered ships. We're going to lose the planet anyway, so contamination and destruction is irrelevant, we might as well use up the nuclear arsenal. They could be built like buildings, over large holes in the ground in which the first nuke would be placed, and with infrastructure built around them. It'll get obliterated on launch, but we don't care, anything we don't take with us is lost anyway, so anything that doesn't go onto one of the arcs is disposable and should be treated as such. Those ships could be built so big that entire cities' worth of people could be loaded on them, and the others would carry modular habitation, landers and all the other stuff needed for Mars colonization. Genetically engineer crops and possibly even terraforming bacteria, try to get fusion power working to a degree that we'll be able to replicate it on Mars, and  (Uranium will be needed for power at the start, but it'll run out eventually), use the current tech to send crews to Mars to prepare ground, and build a genetic Noah's ark so that we can recreate most notable species from Earth if we want to, later on.

As for the challenges of building a large Orion so quickly, they'd have to approach this Starship-style. Which means firing off a lot of nukes, but again, it's all going to blow in 10 years, so we don't care.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Guest

[Okhin]

Well, even in this case, you'll still have local politics issues and an overhead for working on this scale (man, the chain of information would be messy). Also corruption. I think that what makes it impossible is the emergency. It would require a lot of resources just to maintain enough of a dedicated workforce to build the thing and run the lottery* that you'll probably end up in an industrial authoritarian worldwide government.

However, one thing that can makes it a bit easier to function is preexisting infrastructure. If you already have colonies in space, even if they're non purely closed loops system, they have some reliability in them and can probably be assembled in a bigger and more reliable system. That's what's being done in The 100 (at least, that's the opening of the series), and it did not last long. It lasted long enough though.

So, if you already have part of your population airborne, with orbital industrial facilities, then you can focus on sending people up there, and have those orbiters manage to build the breathing space needed. You'll get more people up there but you'll have over crowded life support systems. Which can be figured out on the go.

So yeah, my plan for that is to rely on what's being done up until now. That's the whole Musk plan with the Mars colony. And the whole reason a lot of people are working on having space program, to be able to have that pre existing infrastructure before needing them in an emergency. So my plan would be to get fundings for space agencies, before we're in that kind of situation.

* Because in the end, I think that lottery is the most efficient way to get enough diverse people and skillsets up there. The other option is to send people you know up there, which gives your project a bit more reason to be hated

[Guest]

Why lottery? Orion designs have been proposed up to 20000T. If we could build a few hundred of those, we'd have enough space to evacuate everyone. Nuclear pulse propulsion has its problems, but it's simple, powerful, and overall great at boosting large payloads into orbit. Giving them enough pulse units to reach Mars orbit wouldn't be too hard, either.

Of course, you'd need a global authoritarian government (staffed with very competent people, at that) to build that many, that quickly, and get nations to donate their nukes and uranium processing facilities to make propellant for them. Something like this threatening the whole Earth could possibly do just that, but OTOH, we're in the middle of a global crisis right now, and it doesn't exactly inspire confidence...

[DDE]

12 minutes ago, Okhin said:

* Because in the end, I think that lottery is the most efficient way to get enough diverse people and skillsets up there. The other option is to send people you know up there, which gives your project a bit more reason to be hated

 

12 minutes ago, Okhin said:

you'll probably end up in an industrial authoritarian worldwide government.

These don't tend to care about niceties, and do love to play with test tubes.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/06/07/russian-military-seeks-upper-hand-with-genetic-passport-for-soldiers-top-scientist-says-a65927

[Miguelsgamingch]

Im Confused, Have i done something bad or what

[kerbiloid]

Start collecting DNA pool from clinically healthy persons.
Develop an incubator and manufacture several hundreds of them.
Develop an orbital station to place incubators there. Lifespan ~several hundred years. As currently they can fly for decades, it's probably possible. Build several of them. Equip them also with the engineering equip.
Train the orbital incubator personnel and the engineers.

Create a set of orbital arks made of the listed above and send personnel there.

Keep enjoying playing KSP while you can.

When the Earth cools down, recolonize it.

P.S.
Culture-schmulture is on DVD.

Nobody is to be saved except the incubator personnel and their engineers.
(Nobody - means nobody. Only adult specialists, age of ~30, to last as long as possible before the next generation gets required.
Sterilized, btw, so no romantics. Because of the radiation, and because they are not necessary best donors of DNA.)

P.P.S.
As the space station is not the best place for growth, a DNA replicator is greatly appreciated, to grow one relatively healthy specialist out of a thousand of embryos.
It can take several generations to wait while the Earth cools down.

Edited September 22, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, DDE said:

These don't tend to care about niceties, and do love to play with test tubes.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/06/07/russian-military-seeks-upper-hand-with-genetic-passport-for-soldiers-top-scientist-says-a65927

TBH, I'd rather have military do a genetic aptitude test than a corporation use this data to "improve" their ads and their ability to stick them in my face (which, no matter how "improved" they are, never seem to get any less obnoxious).

This is only the first step, though. Before you know it, they'll be taking genetic code from Hero of the Russian Federation awardees, fighter aces and such, and splicing it into the rest of the force...

[Okhin]

17 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Start collecting DNA pool from clinically healthy persons.
Develop an incubator and manufacture several hundreds of them.
Develop an orbital station to place incubators there. Lifespan ~several hundred years. As currently they can fly for decades, it's probably possible. Build several of them. Equip them also with the engineering equip.
Train the orbital incubator personnel and the engineers.

Create a set of orbital arks made of the listed above and send personnel there.

Keep enjoying playing KSP while you can.

When the Earth cools down, recolonize it.

P.S.
Culture-schmulture is on DVD.

Nobody is to be saved except the incubator personnel and their engineers.
(Nobody - means nobody. Only adult specialists, age of ~30, to last as long as possible before the next generation gets required.
Sterilized, btw, so no romantics. Because of the radiation, and because they are not necessary best donors of DNA.)

P.P.S.
As the space station is not the best place for growth, a DNA replicator is greatly appreciated, to grow one relatively healthy specialist out of a thousand of embryos.
It can take several generations to wait while the Earth cools down.

Well, the project is supposed to be about saving as much people as you can, not about building a gene-seeded cryo arch that will automate itself to rebuild life on earth :p. But if I were to do that, I would probably send some of these arch toward other star system, you know, just in case.

Also sterilized does not means no romantics. On the contrary, it means as much romantics as you want, without any long lasting consequences, except for the emotional ones.

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, Okhin said:

the project is supposed to be about saving as much people as you can

Yes, several thousands.

6 minutes ago, Okhin said:

not about building a gene-seeded cryo arch that will automate itself to rebuild life on earth :p

If it was about the automated cryo arks, there would be 0, to use the resources spent for the life support.
But unlikely they can develop it in a decade.

6 minutes ago, Okhin said:

But if I were to do that, I would probably send some of these arch toward other star system, you know, just in case.

With almost zero probability of success, so it's a waste of time and resources.

6 minutes ago, Okhin said:

Also sterilized does not means no romantics. On the contrary, it means as much romantics as you want, without any long lasting consequences, except for the emotional ones.

That's what is a master-class of positive thinking!

Edited September 22, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Okhin]

5 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

That's what is a master-class of positive thinking!

Well yes.

Also, I wonder what might be the mindset of the people going up there. I mean, you want them to survive on the longest time possible, so not getting suicidal too fast. They will have lost all their relatives and friends, and being stranded up there with strangers (but skilled ones), so you might want to avoid some specific psychological profiles. You probably want to pack some shrinks in your crews, and other kind of people to help with coping with the trauma of losing several billions of people just under your eyes.

So, you'll have to have ways to blow some steam. Which will likely involve altered states of consciousness. Meaning, being high on drugs and/or hormones somehow and then being able to work on your trauma. So of course you'll have party up there.

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, Okhin said:

Also, I wonder what might be the mindset of the people going up there. I mean, you want them to survive on the longest time possible, so not getting suicidal too fast. They will have lost all their relatives and friends, and being stranded up there with strangers (but skilled ones), so you might want to avoid some specific psychological profiles. You probably want to pack some shrinks in your crews, and other kind of people to help with coping with the trauma of losing several billions of people just under your eyes.

So, you'll have to have ways to blow some steam. Which will likely involve altered states of consciousness. Meaning, being high on drugs and/or hormones somehow and then being able to work on your trauma. So of course you'll have party up there.

Intraverted nerds, videogames, routine chores, atmosphere of post-trauma reabilitation center.

Also, I guess, the lost of billions does not differ from the lost of a ten but the closest. Others are statistics.

Edited September 22, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Okhin]

Not sure if intraverted nerds are the best kind of people for teamwork and lng term isolation. Because you do not have online socialization anymore, everyone being dead, even the bots, you'll only have the people living around you to talk to. And even intraverted people need to talk to others at some point, I mean, even I, after what's almost 6 month with seeing only my housemates, I'm starting to miss human contact.

Or you'll have pets. But pets in zero-G might be weird :p And you need to reproduce them, because they tend to die faster than humans. So maybe engineer and train them a bit too have them running parts of the maintenance stuff and they'll be able to take over when humans will die.

A whole generation of cryo babies raised by fluffy animals. What could go wrong ?

[kerbiloid]

19 minutes ago, Okhin said:

Because you do not have online socialization anymore, everyone being dead, even the bots, you'll only have the people living around you to talk to. And even intraverted people need to talk to others at some point, I mean, even I, after what's almost 6 month with seeing only my housemates, I'm starting to miss human contact.

Lock the rooms and unlock weekly.

Actually, organize them in shifts.

And assign a boy for beating, to let them hate that jerk instead of each other. Say, an overseer.

Edited September 22, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Okhin]

While I'm at it, Becky Chambers, in her book Record of a Spaceborn Few describes the Exodus fleet, which basically is the result of a common effort to evacuate Earth. But I'm not sure they did it in ten years (it was more like fifty years iirc), or what was the technology already known to them when they started it. The Homesteader class ship are built around taking care of each inhabitants, and do with what you have at hand, meaning a lot of recycling, even corpse are turned into soil to grow stuff. At some point they make contact with other civilizations, but I do not remember them being able to move their ships past a certain point, they're orbiting a star in their Homesteaders.

Becky Chambers made the assumption that, faced to the emergencies, people would set aside their differences to be able to work together. I think their was a government collapse involved in that, and the project was the result of mainly engineers and scientists cannibalizing what was left of nation based space program. That is definitely a more optimistic view of human being than mine, and for once that's a civilian space project, not a military one.

But agin, not sure if the Exodus Fleet was built in ten years or more. That's a tight schedule, and what you can do basically depends on what exists when the ten years clocks fires up.

[tater]

"The moon blew up without warning, and for no apparent reason."

 

 

[kerbiloid]

35 minutes ago, Okhin said:

Becky Chambers made the assumption that, faced to the emergencies, people would set aside their differences to be able to work together.

I'm afraid, too few people are required to develop the spaceships, so their differences would play not much role.
The ISS didn't require a billion of people, just several largest countries.
Also unlikely somebody would wait for international agreements, probably any collaboration would be suggested just once, before the force actions.

[Okhin]

Few people are needed to develop and launch them, yes. On the scale required to evacuate as much people as possible ? That's another issue. The evacuation part of it would be nightmarish. We're barely able to evacuate small town when faced with fires and floods, I do not want to think of the logistics of a plan to take billions of people in space, or even millions. I mean, evacuate a town like NYC or Paris and sent its population to space ? Good luck with tha. Can be done, but that would involve a lot of diplomacy, yelling and waiting in lines for days with no real source of food nearby.

Those earth evacuation project are not much an engineering project as they are a population and crowd control one on a planetary scale.

But then, people are also able to gather in pack for days and listen for music, so maybe setup some giant concerts with drug and food distribution at the spaceport for evacuating everyone will makes things easier for everyone. Instead of having them just waiting in line (I suppose the most angry people will eventually get calm and starts to talk to people while facing boredom and / or extinction, but those first days will be hard core)

[DDE]

17 minutes ago, Okhin said:

That's another issue. The evacuation part of it would be nightmarish. We're barely able to evacuate small town when faced with fires and floods, I do not want to think of the logistics of a plan to take billions of people in space, or even millions. I mean, evacuate a town like NYC or Paris and sent its population to space ? Good luck with tha. Can be done, but that would involve a lot of diplomacy, yelling and waiting in lines for days with no real source of food nearby.

Challenge accepted.

[kerbiloid]

10 minutes ago, DDE said:

Challenge accepted.

These are just plants with employees. Not a whole city.

Also they are just moved for several thousand kilometers by railroad, not put in LEO.

Edited September 22, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Okhin]

What was the amount of population moved ? And the population density at startup and destination point ?

I mean, moving machinery is easy compared to move population. Also, you do not need to feed the machine, and there was no buffer zone for stacking hundred of thousands of people while you send the up there hundreds by hundreds.

Not to diminishes the work being done there, soviets seems to have a good comprehension at logistics (since they were kinda resources limited, they needed too, US would probably have built new plants elsewhere and sabotaged the old ones). That's a feat I knew happened (thanks to Heart of Iron IV), but never really red about before

Also, related : https://what-if.xkcd.com/7/

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, Okhin said:

What was the amount of population moved ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_in_the_Soviet_Union

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Эвакуация_в_СССР_во_время_Великой_Отечественной_войны

~16 mln people and ~1500..3000 factories in officially several months, but unofficially maybe some of them preliminarily.

8 minutes ago, Okhin said:

And the population density at startup and destination point ?

Like everywhere else, as they were mostly evacuated from populated areas to populated areas.

9 minutes ago, Okhin said:

I mean, moving machinery is easy compared to move population.

When you can easily unmount it and mount again there. While people need mostly place and water, and sometimes food and doctor.