/sci/ - Science & Math

Tiny mirrors in orbit around it

change its orbit

nuke it

seed it with bacteria

op here,
my idea?
use lots of filtered salt water from earths oceans to obtain large amounts of hydrogen and oxygen gasses through Electrolysis. freeze gasses in cryogenics labs. store oxygen blocks in space (so they stay cold) for later time. bombard Venus with frozen hydrogen. thus reacting to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creating elemental carbon (graphite) and water by the Bosch reaction.

It's simple, we just move most of its atmosphere to mars.

There is no flaw to this plan.

It's too close to the sun.

It can't sustain any known life.

it's too late for venus,

unless there is a way to suck out all the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Be NICE to it so that it cools down and is nice.

Venus doesnt have a magnetic field like the earth, you would have to create one.

The surface temp is to high due to proximity to the sun and greenhouse gasses, the atmosphere would need to be changed and it would need to be shielded from the sun.

There is no water or hydrogen to make water on Venus, go figure on how to fix this.

Surface pressure and gravity are close to earths.

Technology to create hydrogen from carbon or oxygen would be necessary. Something would have to be placed in orbit inbetween venus and the sun.

>>3047693
seed it with bacteria

We can't even terraform Arizona. How would be terraform Venus?

>>3047693
that's what my idea does
>>3047687
mars has much lower gravity then Venus so the gas will mostly be eroded by solar winds and it wouldn't be habitable anyways.
>>3047688
It's only that hot because of the runaway greenhouse gases. by taking gas out of the atmosphere it can be cool enough to live on. as it is now hire levels of the atmosphere are cool enough for floating cities.

>>3047720

We dont need any of your fancy science. You engineers could go terraforming each other all day for all we care.

>>3047720
We aren't doing it =/= we can't.

>>3047694
It's been a while since my rabbits were babies, but that one is basically in a "I'm going to fuck your shit up" stance. What did you do?

>>3047757

no... we CANT terraform Arizona. its not as if we haven't tried

Isn't it too hot to land on? We can put atmosphere on Mars even though it will escape eventually. Won't any atmosphere we try to implement on Venus be too thick and heated?

>>3047762
We science bunnies are FIERCE for science!

and we find bedspreads tasty.

>>3047774
Alright, I'll bite. Show me where large-scale terraforming projects have been tried and failed in Arizona.

>>3047783
yeah, why IS Venus' atmosphere so thick? What's with the pressure?

>>3047757

Then how would you do it.

>>3047793

>imply something's possible
>get called out
>you prove to ME that it ISN'T possible
>thatllshowem.jpg

>>3047797
One of the options here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus

>>3047787
N'aaaw

>>3047806
You made the claim "We can't terraform Arizona." Your claim is your responsibility. I don't have to back it up for you.

>>3047797
1. Import lots of top soil
2. Import plants that can survive in hot climate
3. import water
4. ????
5. PROFIT

>>3047822

>plants that can survive 900 degrees F

>>3047794
lots of clouds, volcanic gasses building up in the atmosphere and trapping more sunlight. Planet gets hotter, pressure builds as more gasses escape the volcanos.
more informed anon wanna add their data in here?

>>3047833
it does not get to 900+ degrees in Arizona...

>>3047840

You have never been to Arizona then

>>3047787
N'awed hard

>>3047840
I think he thought that was for Venus, like they were going to import topsoil to venus and that would fix the problem.

>>3047822
>solar power plants
>tap groundwater deep underground
>plant mass amounts of desert-dwelling plants in small area
>compost those plants into local soil
>plant second generation plants in new soil
>enjoy Arizona-grown fruits
>

>>3047871
Also, you could rework the terrain into large hills to lessen the amount of water that evaporated.

It's really not possible given our current technology, I don't see why this is so hard to understand. And the tech required to actually terraform venus is a long ass time away from where we are now.

>>3047909
Maybe we could use neutron bombs to carve out the desert floor? No radiation, bury the bombs underground and BAM

>>3047939
are you suggesting we nuke the arizona desert?

>>3047948
>nuke it again
yeah, provided we can use bombs that don't irradiate the ground in the process. wern't there some tests in the 60s for nuclear-excavation?

The greater the energy from fusion (as opposed to fission), the cleaner the nuke. The Soviet record was 97% with Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever developed. The American record is 95.2%, achieved by one of the weapons in the Hardtack Poplar test.

>>3048003
What's the estimated half-life of any radiation given off by such bombs? Are they 'safe' enough to move into ground zero after a few months or a year?

>>3048014
Let me see if I can find out. This might interest you as well, if you haven't seen it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

>>3047913
op here

if your talking about arizona then true, but i dont see whats stoping us from terraforming venus. this was actually proposed in the 60's.

Ah, this might help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_product#Fission_products_in_nuclear_weapons

>According to Jiri Hala's textbook,[5] the radioactivity in the fission product mixture (due to an atom bomb) is mostly caused by short-lived isotopes such as I-131 and Ba-140. After about four months Ce-141, Zr-95/Nb-95, and Sr-89 represent the largest share of radioactive material. After two to three years, Ce-144/Pr-144, Ru-106/Rh-106, and Promethium-147 are the bulk of the radioactivity. After a few years, the radiation is dominated by Strontium-90 and Caesium-137, whereas in the period between 10,000 and a million years it is Technetium-99 that dominates.

I live in Arizona.

Yes it does get over 9000 degrees. I had to mop up my dog this morning after she melted. I like to garden, but its hard to water my plants enough when all our water is instantly turning into steam. The only solution is more water.

>>3048040
Ah yes, I knew there was a program to use nuke's to excavate earth, just couldn't remember it's name.

>>3048077
From my limited study of the information there, it looks like the main issue with the alpha- and beta-emitting substances is ingestion. Alpha and Beta radiation are pretty easy to stop, but can cause serious damage if any radioactive material gets into your body.

Mining with very clean fusion weapons will greatly reduce the amount of fission products present, but, even after several years, the danger of inhaling or ingesting radioactive elements remains. That will have to be accounted for in any mining plans.

>>3048082
people arent supposed to live in arizona. you spend your summers like astronauts, couped up in boxes because the outside is inhospitable

>>3048067
>can't terraform several miles of home planet
>gonna terraform whole world closer to sun
There was alot of stuff proposed in the 60s that turned out not to be accurate or possible.
Personal jetpacks and flying cars, anyone?

>>3048111

Its true. I hear people say constantly "I cant imagine what it must have been like living here before air conditioning."

With that said, Ive learned to live with the heat. In the last week I moved home from university for the summer. And I basically set up camp in the garage where is 90 degrees all the time. Its not so bad honestly.

>>3048119
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/flying-car2.htm
you were saying?

>>3048120
I'd never live in an inhospitable wasteland like that.
No offense.
>pic related, my assumption of July in AZ

>>3048161
Where's the commercial application? Even business appliactions, or millitary?
It exists, doesn't mean it's viable.
>badass if it was though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

Why can't Arizona?

>>3048182
>mfw this existed a long time ago

>>3048182
>>3048207

Yeah, but we dont have any of that wind stuff here.

>>3048222
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/maps_template.asp?stateab=az
http://wind.nau.edu/maps/
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/05/12/20090512biz-windfarm0512.html

If there's enough for windmills, there's enough for windcatchers.

>>3048222
>we don't have any of that wind stuff here
do you live here by any chance?

>>3048234

All lies. Propaganda and showy stuff. On that first link, the highest potential area in Arizona was ranked "fair" the rest of it was ranked poor. There is practically no wind here.

At Arizona State University we have a building called the sustainability building that has windmills on the roof. Ive seen them spin just once. There is no wind in arizona.

I love sustainable technology but windmills will never work. Its like using solar power in england. Speaking of solar, why arent we using solar in Arizona? We have days sunny enough to burn our silouttes onto walls for the whole year, but no solar energy? Shit is crazy.

>>3048248
You have sunlight? You don't say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooling

Same principle, but you make the wind yourself. I'd find it really hard to believe Arizona doesn't have any of this either.

>>3048252

>mfw

Since when am I the bad guy here? Im not saying everyone in Arizona should roast to death. There are lots of really cool technologies. Do we use them? Thats a different subject! But I am saying wind, wind based cooling, and wind power dont exist here.

But now I will talk about technology. Evap coolers arent popular here. Yes, they are efficient here, but I think they are still old technology. Houses and buildings use modern electric A/Cs. Im not sure how they work. But they arent swamp coolers. I used to work in a warehouse. They had some portable swamp coolers, but they were basically thought of as old inferior technology. If I had a swamp cooler in my room, it could probably chill the fuck out of the room. But not an entire warehouse. Not even close.

Anyway, to sum up, Ive been in Arizona my whole life, and Ive only seen two swamp coolers in my whole life. I live in Arizona, and Ive only seen 2 adobe houses my whole life, despite the fact that they are superior in terms of thermal efficiency too.

>>3047701
the amount of energy to change one substance back to a previous one is comparable to the same energy required to one into the one after it.

Venus should be colonized, but not fully terraformed.

The tl;dr before we even start, is that Venus is the most habitable planet in our solar system, besides Earth.

At an altitude of 50-55km's the air pressure and temperature are more or less Earth-normal. In addition to this, our air mix is actually a lifting gas, so you don't even necessarily need hydrogen or helium. The atmosphere also provides adequate protection against the sun's radiation, and winds in the upper atmosphere will carry you around the planet approximately every 24 hours. On top of all that, the gravity is almost Earth-normal at 0.91g

The clouds at the 50-60km altitude are also quite reflective, so you can actually point solar panels both up at the sun, and down at the clouds. The greater solar flux means solar panels provide much much more energy than they do here on Earth.

The atmosphere also contains a fair amount of Sulfuric Acid which can be mined out of the atmosphere by any colony present and turned into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The Oxygen can be used for breathing, the Hydrogen as a lifting gas for your colony, and both can be used as rocket fuel. Or you can combine them and get water.

We can colonize Venus with literal floating cities. Without any need for removing the heat or atmosphere.

And the technology to do all of this? It pretty much already exists. We have corrosion resistant materials that can handle Sulfuric Acid no problem, we know and understand how buoyancy works, we've built plenty of airships here on Earth already.

>>3048511

Whoa! Thats really cool!

>>3047684
Or you could us an ice moon.......

-- Requires ~2075AD level technologies (robotics, precision coilguns, asteroid mining, easily replicable factories, advanced strength ultra-lightweight carbon materials)

- Place robots to convert near-Venus asteroids and mine and refine their materials to build a lightweight, photovoltaic and lightproducing adjustable opacity sunshield to be placed little by little covering all of Venus and leaving a hole for entry and exit by spacecraft at the poles. Opacity at 0% to begin freezing out of Venus' atmosphere

- Few decades later Venus' atmosphere is now condensed as dry ice. Robots are sent down and make factories for more robots and coilguns. New robots are tasked with scooping up the majority of the dry ice to fire it in lightweight metal canisters into space, for the collection and partial release on other terraforming projects such as Mercury, Luna, Mars and potentially Ceres. After only 4 atm of CO2 is left, turn the sunshield opacity to about 15%, to stabilize a temperature of approximately -35'C or so. releasing the CO2 from its frozen state.

- Kuiper belt comets are deflected inward and shrouded by an ultrathin large reflective fabric so as to not melt half of the comet away as it approaches the sun. These are guided into the polar holes. The sunshield will be fairly high above the planet so it will not do much harm to it when the debris rises.

Continued.....

>>3049221

-----

- Once the approximate amount of ice that would cover half of Venus is deposited, the sunshield increases its opacity to raise the temperature to a couple degrees above Earth-standard.

- Due to liquid water over much of Venus' surface, oxygen-producing bacteria and algae that have been bio-engineered to be little gas dynamos can be spread via robots across the planet. Also, this will begin trapping the excess of carbon dioxide, transforming it into carbonaceous minerals

- Due to Venus' extremely long day and night cycle, the sunlight absorbed by the photovoltaics on the dayside need to be transferred to the nightside to produce artificial sunlight. The sunshield needs to emulate day and night on a 24 hour clock. Also the sunshield produces a magnetic field around itself strong enough to deflect the shitty solar wind from harming anything on the planet

>>3049221
>covering all of venus
why? more cost-effective to shield just the sunward hemisphere.

>the sunshield increases its opacity to raise the temperature
I guess you mean DECREASES its opacity

100% opacity means no light goes through, 0% opacity means all light gets through

>>3049242
>why? more cost-effective to shield just the sunward hemisphere
First, cost does not matter. Robots reproduce and are only limited to the amount of available asteroid materials for construction of more of them and more of sunshield.
Second, the sunward sunshield would have to be held up or propelled sunward because the solar wind would be pushing on it as well as Venus' gravity pulling on it. To counteract this it would have to orbit, meaning exposure to searing 103 million kilometer distance sunshine. And the nightside would have a constant die-off of plants as there would be no grow-light sunshield shit.

>I guess you mean DECREASES its opacity
Do I? I know if I have a black brush on Photoshop and decrease the opacity, I can see more though it.

>>3049264
Disregard
>Do I? I know if I have a black brush on Photoshop and decrease the opacity, I can see more though it.
Re-read your post and facepalmed thoroughly.

Hey.

Inurdaes.
You should some awesome terraformation / transhumanism / whatever-the-fuck-it-is-that-you-are-into-links to the /sci/ guide.
I have a feeling that you have some cool popsci resources.

>>3049280
Sent a few links already, will do. Thinking of putting up my website again and writing lengthy articles on those things and others that I have researched that interested me.

None of these ideas are economically feasible.

Also when it does become economically feasible then chances are we will have the technology to create life that can survive on venus, not necessarily biological.

>>3049286
Correction, none of these things are economically feasible 'right now.'

>>3049290
If we have the technology to flood space with solar panels for the energy to counteract the natural forces at work on Venus we wouldn't waste all those resources on making Venus habitable for evolutionary throwback fleshbags like us.

So no. Venus will never be terraformed, it will be colonized by nano-machines or something. So we should focus on advancing feasible technology instead of wasting it all on white elephants.

>>3049290
If we had the technology to flood space with solar panels for the enormous amount of energy needed to counteract the natural forces at work on Venus we wouldn't waste all those resources on making Venus habitable for evolutionary throwback fleshbags like us.

So no. Venus will never be terraformed, it will be colonized by nano-machines or something. We should focus on advancing feasible technology instead of wasting it all on white elephants, popsci fantasists are holding research back, they are intellectually disgusting luddites who should probably be murdered.

>>3047783

We pump the atmosphere from Venus and put it onto Mars. Job done and we have two habitable planets.

>>3049280
>>3049285
>popsci
No.

>>3049306
>>3049307
All those technologies that I mentioned are all feasible within the century most likely. It's the fact of organizing a large effort to hang around and control and monitor the processes as well as putting them all together albeit on a far larger scale.
Why so mad?

>>3049307
>mfw colonising venus embodied in an army of nanorobots

>>3049264
If you build a rotating spherical shell around venus, it would have to be arbitrarily stiff so the poles wouldn't sag and crash on the atmosphere. Even worse if it's non-rotating.

What I'd do, would be to build two series of solar mirrors, smaller ones that orbit venus, and the big sunshade that keeps stationary between the sun and venus.

The orbiting mirrors concentrate light on the nightside as needed, but also on the dark side of the statite, to keep it stationary.

While this requires sophisticated networked control, it can be made more error-resistant by building a surplus of orbiting mirrors.

With usage of microgravity technologies, the need for ultra-stiff(or actively-stiff) materials is eliminated.

>>3049266
^_^

>>3049307 butthurt highschool fag detected

lrn2science

>>3049310
LFTRs, space-based solar and terraforming are hardly pop-sci.

< This guy is the definition of pop-sci

>>3049313

Or you design the shell to have a level of flex in it.

Nothing is 100% /stiff/, especially not on a large scale.

>>3049316 unrealistic nonsense = popsci

>>3049310


Dog... Just shut up.
That was a nod to you... Not to Inurdaes.
I was acknowledging the interesting nature of his ramblings while also, simultaneously, dismissing them as not but popsci.

Don't worry anon, the "real science" sections of The Document will not be contaminated... I will put this stuff in the other sections.

>>3049313
Your idea is better, however I just realized that you don't need to keep propelling it away from Venus, you can just put it at the point between Venus and the sun where it is attracted by both sides almost equally (slightly sunward because light pressure and solar wind). Lagrange point perhaps?

>>3049317
No, you don't want flex. If it has any significant flex, it will sag, at the poles if it's rotating, everywhere if it's not.

>>3048511 The tl;dr before we even start, is that Venus is the most habitable planet in our solar system, besides Earth.

>>Living in a bath of H2SO4

I don't think most of you realize the implications of being able to make extremely advanced AI as we will in about 20-30 years.

Singularity or no singularity, doesn't matter. Extremely advanced self-teaching robots will be a fact by 2040 that can autonomously build new robots. This will be *IMMENSE* for space exploration and will actually make terraforming very feasible.

As long as you can properly program a few robots of this calibre and send them into space, they will be able to construct new robots with materials on other planets, moons and/or asteroids. Once you've got the budget to build a few of these (which probably would be expensive, but not prohibitively so), they will find and utilize the resources to do the rest in space.

I doubt we will have fully terraformed, newly habitable planets within our lifetimes, but the process will definitely start before most of us are even in our 50s.

PopSci is awesome. It's scientific concepts for non-scientists... So long as it's not inaccurate, who gives a fuck? It's certainly better for the public to be watching Kaku (And giving us funding) than for them to spend that time staring at a rerun of Jersey Shore....

>>3049319
I see you have no argument against the feasibility of any of those yet you dismiss them.
Get the fuck off my /sci/.

>>3049325 Don't want flex

If there is no flex the system will fail. You HAVE to incorporate it into the design.

>>3049327

AI and advanced robotics (not necessarily nano-robotics) are will allow the creation of Von Neumann machines.

Von Neumann machines are the ultimate tool and with them colonising the solar system will be a trivial feat.

>>3049331

Terraforming = lol. We're a fucking long way from constructing a livable atmosphere and environment.

Space based solar = Omfg the losses and the giant arrays required says no.

LFTR = Meh, probably. Still needs billions of research.

>>3049324
I thought about that, but then the sunshade would have to be a lot bigger, and then we again run face first into the problem of material strength. The bigger an object is, the more different areas will experience differential accelerations, especially with solar wind.

Another approach could be to launch a cloud of small semi-independent shades, but the chaotic nature of co-shadowing might again pose too much problems.

The double-mirror design is a kind of compromise between the two extremes. Keeping the technological requirements relatively low while at the same time balancing the control issue.

>>3049326
Ok then, lets look at the alternateves

Mercury - no gravity, hot as fuck during the day, cold as fuck at night, no magnetosphere to protect you from the suns radiation (which would deliver a lethal dose in seconds that close to the sun)
Mars - No atmosphere, little gravity, no magnetosphere
Asteroid belt - some asteroids are large enough for a small base, but still no gravity or magnetic field (although these could be solved easily)
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune - self explanitary
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune's moons - too cold, various other hazards
Pluto - I wouldn't even try

Venus is looking pretty god isn't it? considering we already know how to deal with all the issues faced there

>>3049313

What makes you think a shell will just collapse on itself?

Yeah if the material is too thin it will but that's the definition of making it wrong.

Where will the material for something so large come from?

How about we start with ISS-style structures on our Moon before moving on to other worlds?
>inb4 GTFO, i'm pumped to colonize space too, just doubt our abilities to change entire planets. At least not for a few centuries.

>>3049342
>Terraforming = lol. We're a fucking long way from constructing a livable atmosphere and environment.
youmustbenewhere.jpg

>Space based solar = Omfg the losses and the giant arrays required says no.
I'll give you that one. At the current technological standard we are at it would be impractical. But technologies improve.

>LFTR = Meh, probably. Still needs billions of research.
Give me $500,000, two nuclear engineers, and a ton of raw Thorium.

>>3049335
read again
>significant flex

Significant flex in this case being on the order of hundreds of kilometers.

>>3049353 Venus - Living in an acid bath

Mars is easier.

>>3049355
fucking this. Why are we trying to colonize fucking mars when we have a perfectly viable location right next to us? The cost would be 1/3 of that to colonize mars, and it would give us a base from which to launch future missions to mars. Fucking Bureaucracies, how do they work?

>>3049311
>>3049312
>>3049315
I'm only so mad because of all the stupid. I very quickly go through the thought processes and came to the conclusion we should be focussing on the 100s of other better possibilities for technology yet you're still dwelling on it.

1: We should be open minded and there is nothing wrong with speculation as long as you understand it's limitations so let's look at this.
2: Micro-organisms can't survive and so can't convert the atmosphere in the same way earth's early atmosphere was converted.
3: A dyson swarm of microfabric to prevent the sun heating up Venus would require too much energy.
4: Building factories to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere or transporting trillions of tons of material from earth is also prohibitive.
5: A combination of all 3 is also unfeasible.
6: If we had the technology to do any of these chances are we wouldn't waste the resources on making venus habitable for humans.
7: Even if we do find the technology to do so and we do decide to make it habitable for humans, it is still more practical at this present juncture in time to focus on technology that yields the most results instead of some distant misty daydream.

>>3049355
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/

Robotics is the underpinning of all these predictions. Imagine having a few billion hands at a few million asteroid factories producing the materials for the sunshield 24/7. Just attempt to picture that in your mind.

>>3049359

Anything the size of a planet is going to expand and contract hundreds of kilometers and there's nothing you can do about it.

>>3049355
Yup. Also gives us a good place to initiate further space missions, since the energy required to leave the moon is far less than to leave the Earth.

>>3049357 Give me $500,000, two nuclear engineers, and a ton of raw Thorium.

You severely underestimate the cost of research and development. That 500k will buy you dick all.

>>3049364
Zubrin has already showed that if right now, there was a completely constructed moonbase with a refilling station for Marsward spacecraft, and it gave away fuel for free, it would be more expensive and more fuel would be expended than directly to Mars.

He also outlines why the moon is relatively shitty.
http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-colonize.html

>>3049377
I'll hire David Hahn.

>>3049378
>gave away fuel for free

are you a fucking communist?

>>3049376

Only a benefit if the 'further' missions are manufactured and launched from the moon.

If you are launching materials from earth and landing them on the moon before sending them off on their own mission then you've lost any benefit from a moon base.

>>3049311
>>3049312
>>3049315
I'm only so mad because of all the stupid. I very quickly go through the thought process and come to the conclusion we should be focussing on the 100s of other better possibilities for advancing technology yet you're still dwelling on this.

1: We should be open minded and there is nothing wrong with speculation as long as you understand it's limitations so let's look at this.
2: Micro-organisms can't survive and so can't convert the atmosphere in the same way earth's early atmosphere was converted.
3: A dyson swarm of microfabric to prevent the sun heating up Venus would require too much energy.
4: Building factories to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere or transporting trillions of tons of material from earth is also prohibitive.
5: A combination of all 3 is also unfeasible.
6: If we had the technology to do any of these chances are we wouldn't waste the resources on making venus habitable for humans.
7: Even if we do find the technology to do so and we do decide to make it habitable for humans, it is still more practical at this present juncture in time to focus on technology that yields the most results instead of some distant misty daydream.

>>3049366
despite the potential, I doubt feasibility until prototypes show they can get the job done. I'm not holding my breath for any kind of physical 'sun-shield', like, ever. By the time we need something like that, I imagine we'll have an energy-based solution, or maybe a host of automated satalites acting like a Dyson Sphere in reverse.

Speaking of automation though, some prototypes have been demonstrated that scoop up lunar regolith and sift out the silicon, melting it into a panel and printing out solar circuits on them. We could chuck a few dozen of those at the moon, hop out for a drink while they make solar cells then go up there and hook up our shit. Hell, we could beam excess power to earth as microwave radiation even.

>>3049377
>the cost of research and development

nope.jpg

The R&D on LFTRs is pretty rock solid. That money would get you a working prototype.

>>3049390

Setting up manufacturing infrastructure on the moon is also a mega costly challenge

No planet will ever be terraformed.

It's a long term project with massive investment and little pay off for those involved in it. Humans are not good at multi generational projects with no short term payout.

It's far more likely that humans will simply perfect space habitats.

Imagine a ring of space habitats orbiting the sun in the goldilocks zone. Not a dyson sphere but billions of individual habitats that collectively take the shape of something like a dyson sphere.

You'd get far more living space than a terraformed planet and the habitats have the benefit of giving immediate short term benefits to those who are building them.

>>3049391
Not understanding the bit about the sunshield 'requiring too much energy'

>>3049392
>Speaking of automation though, some prototypes have been demonstrated that scoop up lunar regolith and sift out the silicon, melting it into a panel and printing out solar circuits on them. We could chuck a few dozen of those at the moon, hop out for a drink while they make solar cells then go up there and hook up our shit. Hell, we could beam excess power to earth as microwave radiation even.
Link?

>>3049393 underestimating the cost of engineering

>>3049408
>overestimating the cost of a working LFTR prototype

>>3049397
>no planet will ever be terraformed
>outlines a plan for billions of O'Neill cylinders in a 300 million kilometer-wide circle that would require the same technologies that would make terraforming feasible

Also you assume that humans will never invent any form of life extension.

This isn't a zero-sum game, mars/Venus/Mercury/Luna can be terraformed and loads of space habitats can be constructed at the same time.

This would be akin to the Puritans trying to colonize Antarctica.

>>3049397

>Humans are not good at multi generational projects with no short term payout.


Ohai there

>>3049413
>prototype

>>3049403
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6892-lunar-colony-to-run-on-moon-dust-and-robots.html

It's an older link sir, but it checks out. I was about to erase it.

>>3049397
>everyone lives in space
wouldn't our muscles atrophy within a generation?

>>3049403
Maybe not the astronomical amount of energy needed for your ideas but still too much in the real world.

>>3049450
Centrifuges

>>3049456
that helps a bit, but having the entire species in floating cubicles? that sounds like a recipe for Pandorum.
Humans will always need to run in open spaces, breath fresh air and have open sky above them. We can tolerate going without these things, as any astronaut or submariner will tell you, but we'll always need a planet of some kind or another.
Preferably several, along with homes on moons/asteroids/floating in orbit

>>3049451
>Maybe not the astronomical amount of energy needed for your ideas but still too much in the real world.
That just automatically word-filtered in my mind to 'but it requires energy we cannot produce yet'

I never said this was going to be done in the next 50 years. Terraforming of Venus and Mars will likely not even be widely discussed as a serious solution until around 2100.

>>3049472
>Humans will always need to run in open spaces, breath fresh air and have open sky above them.
>implying this is true
>implying humans won't be surpassed and space will be colonized by a giant sapient quantum computer in control over trillions of machines and subordinate computers with conventional, nano-mechanical, biological and chemomechanical components.

>>3049490
or we'll merge with our machines, and continue exploring terrestrial planets because they appeal to us.
>bet you $100 you can't raise a child from birth to death in space without it wanting to stand on a planet's surface at least once
>yfw our instincts are still strong in us

>>3049501
>wanting something one is not aware even exists
simple answer: never tell them about earth.

>>3049488
>but it requires energy we cannot produce yet
Well it should, because this is the third from last step in my thought process.
3: We might be able to accomplish these in the future.
2: But technology is by definition what we know, so we're not sure about what our technological capabilities might be in the future.
1: So speculating about this is less productive than speculating about the potential for up and coming technologies that are under development as we speak such as genetic modification or nano-technology, once these are up and running and the faster they are up and running we will have a clearer view about the potential for things like colonizing venus with humans or things that are more important like biological immortality. Which is what we should be focusing on if we want to create a fruity futuristic utopia.

>>3049518
that sounds terrible...
every human deserves to look up and see the sky, to look down and feel the dirt.
>inb4 philosophyfag

>>3049537
every human deserves free health care, clean water and food to eat. But not every human gets that. Such is the price of progress

>>3049501
Sure I can, I'd just do a fritzl, keep them locked up, to them the entire universe is the space station they float around in. I will tell them they will be crushed by the gravity of planets, and they probably would haven't spent their entire lives in 0 g.

>>3049501
Sure I can, I'd just do a fritzl, to them the entire universe is the space station they float around in. I will tell them they will be crushed by the gravity of planets, and they probably would having spent their entire lives in 0 g.

>>3049472
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Three

Large cylindrical space colony, rotating to provide standard Earth gravity. Enormous amounts of open space. A microgravity environment at the axis.

No one said we were going to be living in personal plastic bubbles.

>>3049501

I don't think that a post-human being will still have the same instincts as a human being.

Humans will only survive in space once large scale modifications have been made to the human body.

>>3049537

Once we create artificial gravity we could live in giant ships easily.

>>3049557

Exactly.

Large scale space habitats will be more like a small enclosed country.

>>3049417

If humans are able to invent life extension then they will be able to modify the human body.

At that point is easier to modify humans to live in hostile environments than it is to modify entire planets.

>>3049543
touche'.
>>3049552
>terrified for your future space-fritzl children
>>3049557
I think we'll hold on to some of our instincts, to be honest. Fight or flight, based in the ancient reptillian portion of our brains, is still in full effect when it's called upon, just to name one. Even in Homo-Superior (fuck you magneto, transhumans are claiming it!) some instincts will remain, even if mainly vestigal.
I like that...reminds me of the space colonies from Gundam Wing....standing in one you could barely tell you wern't on a planet, to the point that even the sky was blue to simulate our home. I'd be gung-ho about that.>>3049562

>>3049557

Artificial gravity by rotational velocity must be very weird. How will fluids in such an environment?

>>3049611
Depends on their position. The false-gravity effect decreases in strength as you move toward the center of the cylinder. At the edge, provided it is rotating at the necessary speed and is large enough, there is no readily apparent difference between it and a planet's surface.

So... The same, as long as you stay close to the "ground."

>>3049611

>>3049611
As far as rotational fictitious forces go, it would be like being on the equator of the Earth. It would be a little different being on the inside instead of the outside however.

There would be a gravity gradient with radial distance from the axis of rotation, but in a large station that won't cause any significant effect. It would be cool to have a "mountain" in the enterior, upon which gravity is noticeably different.

too fucking hot there

>>3049629

Shear forces in the fluid would stop them accelerating properly. I can't imagine being able to pour water in that environment.

>>3049611
Speaking of which... if we were to have a body of water inside a large cylindrical station, what kind of weather might we see? Surely weather would be really odd, with the gravity falling off rapidly with heigh?

>>3049435
>>3049435
>>3049435

>It's an older link sir, but it checks out. I was about to erase it.

>>3049647
It's pretty heated in this thread too, yet somehow people survive here.

>>3049369
Yes, and if you didn't notice, that was part of the reason why I advocate a different approach.

>>3049657
Explain.

>>3049658

You'd probably get fog and some very mild rain. I've been in some very large building which have there own weather (massive air craft hanger) and it doesn't go beyond that. There would be no room for wind to be generated and the temperature is to controlled for storms or snow.

(Unless the people inside the space habitat desired to artificially create weather patterns of course)

>>3049698

Fluid towards the outside of this cylinder will experience greater displacement per rotation compared to fluid towards the center. This displacement will cause it to tear.

I'm not grasping this whole rotational gravity thing.

What happens if you throw a ball in the air? You cancel out its angular momentum to get it away from you, what force is acting on it to return it back to you?

It's not physically touching the walls of the cylinder anymore so there's nothing to accelerate it again.

>>3049755
>there's nothing to accelerate it again
the air is mostly coupled with the rotation of the cylinder

>>3049755
Inertia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force

>>3049755

Half fill a bucket with water. Now swing the water above your head.

The water will not fall out because of the centrifugal force throwing it to the bottom of the bucket.

It exactly the same principle. The space habitat spins around and the things at the edge of the habitat are thrown to the bottom.

I'm not sure how to simplify that any further.

>>3049769

Take your bucket of water and rotate it about its axis. Shit's not so simple.

>>3049774
Yes it is. If you rotate the bucket along its axis fast enough, the water will be pressed to the edges.

>>3049755
you are, and always have been moving at thousands of miles per hour. it's relativity, isn't it?

>>3049764

Is air resistance really enough though? I can imagine it causing turbulence in the air with slow acceleration resulting in the ball being really far away by the time it returns to the outside.

>>3049779

Earth has gravity to return my balls.

>>3049778

What about the vortex?

Ignoring the vortex created getting it up to speed anything you do will disturb the fluid in an unnatural way (in comparison to regular gravity).

>>3049803
What about the vortex? There's no sense in filling a colony's lakes and rivers before it's spinning.

What are these unnatural disturbances you're concerned about?

♩ ♪♩ ♪ I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see them bloom..... for me and you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world. ♩ ♪♫ ♬

>>3049789
>return my balls

>>3049769

When you spin the bucket like that you have tension in your arm creating the gravity effect.

Spinning it axially won't do the same thing.

The more I think about it, the more a cylindrical environment rotating about its axis won't work.

Everything would tumble/move as you accelerate it and to get on and off the whole thing will need stopped.

Need new solution.

Spinning it with a counterweight could work but starting and stopping it could be a bitch.

>>3050328
Welcome to the idea of spinning spae stations I am Avina. Let me be your guide.

First of all: you don't sop the spin, not ever, until you dismantle the whole station for being obsolete.

You enter and exit at the hub.

The station is built stationary, spun up to a fraction of design speed for finishing the interior and then spun up to full speed for a final test before the inhabitants arrive and bring their stuff with them.

>>3050355
*space

>every human deserves free health care, clean water and food to eat. But not every human gets that. Such is the price of progress

So the price of progress (which gives us hi-tech health care) is that someone doesn't have access to it ?

Fucking logic, how does it work ?

>>3050355

>climbing into a washing machine that's turned on

>>3050355
neat

>>3048537
yeah. we just go and grab one of those and fly it into a planet. Will probably work.

>>3049353
big drawback to colonizing venus:

NO WATER.
We'd have to import the equivalent of 15% of the current earth's total water to make it even mildly livable.

Mars already has water, tied up in ice in the planet's mass.
Mars could have a magnetosphere if we gave it an atmosphere.

>>3050540
theist solution: pray for rain

also, are there any drawbacks to terraforming mars rather than venus?