/sci/ - Science & Math

Why don't you calculate the distance and time it takes to travel from Earth to Europa and get backed to us? As well as the budget, might I add.

>>3600761
If we don't start colonizing planets soon there won't be any humans left to spend money on.

Asteroids.

Start building a ship

>>3600774
Why is it people only care about fighting and material goods, when we have the chance to discover life on anther world?

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA.

ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE

europa is smalltime

set sail for enceladus

>>3600784

Religion

>>3600784
Because natural selection selected for primates that placed resource acquisition as a top priority in their family groups.

>>3600761
It isn't very far, you just have to launch it at the right time. The distance varies on where earth and Jupiter are in their orbits around the sun.
It can take up to, 1 1/2-7 years, more or less. But if we went there on something like a rocket or space shuttle it would go faster than that of a exploration probe.

>>3600769
Dude, we only just have started to try and push a bill that allows us to build a moon base by 2020, and there's a good chance that won't even go through until the latter part of this century, and even that we'll barely be capable of colonizing Mars to a significant degree for another century. These things take time.

>>3600784
Because Americans.

>>3600808
The moon is just a giant dead piece of rock. who gives a shit about it.

>>3600752
Because we don't have a space program anymore, America voted against it's budget recently, so whatever future space programs we had now is pretty much gone.

Because if there is life on Europa, we cannot ever send humans for fear of contamination. Even if there's just bacteria, we need to study it without allowing any organisms from earth to cause false positives.

>>3600822

It's full of Thorium

>>3600822
There's a HE3 on it with a likely chance that there's enough of it to be mined out and transferred back to Earth, which would do wonders for alternative energy market and in turn our economy. Sad part is: The Russians are already more ahead in obtaining that HE3 than what we've bothered to prepare for.

Existing life is more a reason *not* to colonize. There are plenty of thoroughly dead rocks (and icebergs) in the Solar System so that we don't need to displace or interfere with any existing life-forms.

Mars is perhaps an "uncreative" answer, but it seems to have a better mix of things we might want. It has water (ice), more substantial gravity, building materials and ores of various kinds, and it's subjected to less radiation (Europa gets nuked by Jewpiter pretty hard).

What about terraforming Venus?

just out of curiosity, how the hell do you get Raw materials through Earths atmosphere? Thousands of small Drop pods? or a stupidly large Space Shuttles?

>>3600853

Have fun cooling it down

>>3600860
>Terraforming Venus requires two major changes; removing most of the planet's dense 9 MPa carbon dioxide atmosphere and reducing the planet's 450 °C (723.15 K) surface temperature. These goals are closely interrelated, since Venus' extreme temperature is thought to be due to the greenhouse effect caused by its dense atmosphere. Sequestering the atmospheric carbon would likely solve the temperature problem as well.

Nigga we just gota get some hybrids in dat bitch

>>3600866

So plant a few trees

>>3600855
I like the drop pod idea.

>>3600761
Only ten times as far as Mars. If you finally stop crying about nuclear rockets, I will give you the beginnings of a true interstellar imperium.

>>3600860
If we could engineer a microbe that sequesters carbon and can survive in extreme temperatures it wouldn't be too hard. Of course thats only one part venus is thought to have no water on it all so we would need to fix that somehow.

>>3600866
Not just that, but it's close to the fucking sun.

>>3600891
>go to asteroid belt

>get fuck huge asteroid made of ice

>send towards venus

>???????


>WATER

>>3600866

Just need to Tow Pluto into close proximity and it will cool itself down

>>3600905
And nothing of value would be lost.

>>3600855
The shuttle doesn't really have much use for engines for the landing. Attach some control mechanisms and a crude autopilot and do a water-skid landing.

>>3600917
But you need to get the shuttle back into orbit to do another delivery

>>3600752
It's already inhabited. Look at all those irrigation ditches.

>>3600919
No, you don't use an actual shuttle in this, you fashion the landable raw materials into a one-shot lander.

Any upward trip is easier to do with the help of catapults and/or spaceplanes anyway.

>people still talking about space like its relevant
>2011

This is getting old. I like space just as much as the next guy.
But you'd have to change the mindset of a whole society or even the world.
And most people don't care about space.
It shows with the NASA budget being declined.

You want to go to space? Fund it yourself or go into the media or get in with the bankers that run the country and change he mindset of society.
Thats the only way itll happen.
Unless of course we find aliens (or they find us) or something else drastic happens.

>>3600940
the*

>>3600940

Go back to your church group

>>3600940
>But you'd have to change the mindset of a whole society or even the world.

>>3600960
Forgot my pic

>>3600940
>you'd have to change the mindset of a whole society or even the world
And your kind of thinking doesn't exactly help, now does it?

Talking about it spreads the awareness.
If showing genuine interest has a chance to ignite the spark in even one in a hundred people, the chances improve.

Being pessimistic and going "It's useless since it's never gonna happen" does the opposite.

>>3600952
>church group

>>3600968
I used to talk about it a lot.
Then i ran into one too many brick walls of people that absolutely think space is not necessary and a waste of time.
It gets tiring having the same arguments with people you normally think are smart and open minded and they end up being just as ignorant as everyone else.

But i guess you're right i'll let up on the pessimism on /sci/.
I just don't think its possible with the way society acts today. Change that and i'll turn into an inurdaes.

>>3600984
Sweet, my job is now to make clones.

>>3600984

People in their 40's think space is so important because they were inspired by the Apollo missions. We need somehting like that to inspired the kids of today. The Space Shuttle was too humdrum

>>3600992
Reading about the ISS, and its research and how the world was jointly working on it was what got me into space.
I thought it was going to be the first step into the world working together to make space factories and a moon base.

Then in the last 3-5 years all of that came crashing down.

>>3600984
Two Inurdaes'?
Uh...

But yeah, I understand how you feel. I felt the same way back in school. Even the people that were interested in science were less than enthusiastic about space.

One thing that helped for that was a clear night sky and a small telescope.

>>3601004
I wasn't meaning i'd literally turn into him.
I'd just go to the level of his enthusiasm, in a different way.

And yes i sometimes take my telescope about a mile away from my house to a field on clear days.
No lights interrupting. Only gotten like 3 friends to actually enjoy doing it.

I love space and all, but reentry scares the living shit out of me

>>3601019
See? Three people already.

If they later teach some of their kids and/or friends...

>>3600940
>>3600984

This is just my own pet theory, but I think improvements to human lifespan will be the catalyst to getting us thinking seriously about space. Space is and always has been a "long view" proposition. People took the long view in the past because they were willing to think in terms of "the national interest." These days, that mentality is gone. If you get people living longer, healthier lives, they will be willing to consider the future of the species as something imminent and relevant.

>colonize Europa

Because of the radiation belt surrounding Jupiter, colonizing Europa would be very stupid. The only hope for life is somewhere where the radiation isn't strong, which is why we want to drill through the ice to search for life on Europa.


I won't even mention the distance.

The temperatures on Europa alone make it both technically very difficult and unappealing!

We need another cold war and space race, Unfortunatly China isn't doing enough

>>3601004
you just introduced me to phet. my god. how awesome is this? i dont want to get my hopes up if its lame.

>>3601034
China makes all it money from the west.

>>3601034

lol

China can put a man on mars for all we care. The U.S. isn't going to care now.

>>3601039
they could do it for $3.00 a rocket. and theyd make 6 million of them in sweatshops.

>>3601035
It's pretty limited, but it passes the time.

The best use I've gotten from it has been showing how orbital momentum is exchanged between close-passing objects.

It's not economical, we can't even colonize antarctica yet even though there's tons of oil there and as you may be well aware we are willing to go to great lengths for oil.

>>3601056

They'll never get the oil form Antarctica, unless they can go underneath it and leave the icesheet intact.

>>3601056

> we can't even colonize antarctica yet

What is this, if not a colony?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed08siB6BOE

A population of over 200, with its own hydroponic greenhouse, recreation center, etc.

Were you not aware this place exists?

>>3601075
>On Christmas 2007, two employees at the base got into a drunken fight and had to be evacuated

Are they filming a fucking reality show?

>>3601095

The south pole is some real-ass shit, brother. Learn to fight or get out of the snow, that's how they roll.

>>3601095
Put a lot of people into a confined location. Keep them there for an extended period. Then squeeeeeze.

Keep that up and sooner or later something gives.

That's the recipe for how horror writers make their books and films.

We have, we're on Europa now living in a 20 by 20 mile bubble generated by a benevolent alien race

>>3601104
There's no evidence that the location is any more prone to fights than anywhere else. It's just that when you get beat up elsewhere, you don't have to be evacuated across an ocean.

ok, heres how it would work.
>moon
>mars
>jupiter moons
>ceres
>saturn moons

something like that.we havent even colonized our own moon yet. its basically a massive amount of real estate practically given to us. we should be grateful we got so lucky having a moon so close, and so big.

>>3601136
More like this
>Moon
>Mars Moons
>Mars
>NEO Mining
>Jupiter moons
>Ceres
>Saturn moons

>>3601136
>>3601150
>Mars
>Moon
>Phobos/Deimos
>Polar craters of Mercury (Power transmission)
>Jovian moons
>Ceres/Vesta
>Saturnian moons
>Venusian high-altitude habitats

>>3601136
>>3601150
>>3601162

Idiots. Idiots everywhere.


>Earth
>Earth
>Earth
>Funding for moon colony gets cancelled
>Earth
>Earth

Continue for next 100 years.

>>3601150
>>3601162
you guys mean the tiny meteors orbiting mars? the ones where when you jump 1 foot on earth, you would go 1300 ft on them? you want to colonize those?

>>3601098
i think this dude has a good idea about the ocean. if the surface gets overpopulated, the sea could be a good start if we made the housing smart.

>>3601162
>>3601150
>>3601136

>Moon
>Mars
>Phobos/Deimos
>Jovian Moons
>Ceres/Vesta
>Saturnian Moons
>Jupiter high-altitude habitats
>Saturn Ring
>Saturn high-altitude habitats
>Neptune high-altitude habitats
>Uranus

>>3601170
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Rotation

>>3601170
Not colonize, Mine. It could be done entirely with Robots

I have a question, If you build a planet sized spacestation (Death Star), would it produce its own gravity?

>>3601181
Deimos will likely be moved into a geosynchronous orbit for the Martian space elevator, so it's likely there will be a large spaceport there.

>>3601184

Circa. 3143

>>3601184
So likely infact I've invested in magic wands.

>>3601179
yeah. on the inside though. if you are thinking about that, they would probably break up from a combination of the spinning, and the holes in it from being hollowed out for colonization. also, that dusty thing doesn't exactly look airtight, and it would just be more economically efficient to put those types of things on earth, or even mars.

>>3601183

Size does not equal mass.

>>3601183
If it had enough mass it would simply have a gravitational pull...be pretty big if you're thinking of earth-like gravity, perhaps about the size of earth.

An easier way would simply be to accellerate it in one direction quickly enough, or in an orbit with one side always facing the direction it is moving in orbit, and that producing enough drag to stand. Einstein said it's theoretically possible, good luck getting something that heavy to move that fast.

Just get velcro-shoes like in 2001

>>3601183
Yes, some gravity.
Ceres is what, ~1000km in diameter, and it's own gravity has pulled it into a spherical shape.

But remember that both Death Stars were only some hundreds of kilometers across and mostly hollow, so their mass-gravity would be pretty low. Not a big deal in a universe with artificial gravity generators.

>>3601192
Yeah, but compress a heck of a lot of mass into a small point like that and you could end up noodling yourself.

>>3601207

Would towing Ceres into L1 or L2 effect the Earth or Moon?

>>3601183
The emperor fell pretty slowly...

>>3601223
Since Ceres has a very large mass of water ice on its surface it turning into a comet wouldn't help. As for gravitational influence, not sure but neither do I want to find out.

>>3601223

>>3601223
Yes it would. Too tired to simulate it right now, though I'd expect it would impact with the earth or the moon sooner or later owing to the orbital instabilities.

Why don't we colonize Venus?

it's closer than any other target and launch windows come up frequently
it has an abundant atmo made of fuel components
it has earth-norm grav
sunlight packs literally twice the punch at Venus orbit.

Venus atmo is so dense that some sort of cloud city would be necessary at first for both mining and terraforming but there is no reason that said cloud city could not be inhabited while it does this. It would be necessary in the long haul for keeping the damned thing from falling apart.

> Why don't we colonize Europa? it has water, oxygen and potentially life.

It has water, radiation, more radiation, even more radiation. Seriously, it's like 5.5Sv/day (note: Sv, not mSv or uSv); FIVE SIEVERTS A DAY.
You'd be dead before you even got into orbit around Europa.

In practical terms, anywhere within a few million kilometres of Jupiter is an absolute no-go zone for higher-order organic life. Single-celled organisms might thrive on the mutation rate, but anything complex is just going to be one big tumour in no time.

>Why don't we colonize Europa
My god you're right OP, let's load up the magic fucking schoolbus and fly there

>>3600752

First we have to explore it and see if there's life.

To colonize I think we should start from the Moon (oxygen and water from regolith).

We aren't going anywhere in space as long as we've got this horrible recession.

Western governments just can't afford space programs and once China no longer has anybody to compete with (the US has all but dropped out) they won't want to bother with it either.

There is just no incentive to go into space anywhere beyond low Earth orbit.

Columbus didn't sail across the Atlantic to to explore, he did it hoping to earn great wealth. His financial backers approved the mission because they expected a return on investment.

Space doesn't offer that any time soon. The start-up and operating costs are tremendous. Nobody wants to spend money that they will never get back.

If we ever do colonize the Moon, Mars, and other planetary bodies it will be centuries from now. It won't happen until we develop an economy that demands resources from space (why would we do that?) or we develop a technology which makes launching payloads into orbit significantly cheaper.

>>3601957

Space tourism, at the beginning.
If we'll be able to build a self-sustainable colony on the Moon (able to produce oxygen, water, food) it would be at least a very great place for it.

Technological progress depends on economic progress, yes I realize we spend far more on wars and social security than science but this doesn't change the fact that there are other technologies with more potential and other objectives that are more feasible that we should be spending on. Once these are complete then the new technology and more effective economy will make projects like this closer to becoming a reality.

So ironically the best route to begin colonization of space is to ignore it for a while.

>>3601957
> We aren't going anywhere in space as long as we've got this horrible recession.

We aren't going anywhere in space as long as we've got these puny organic bodies.

Im not all fancy shmancy sciency, but I do think that sooner or later, humans WILL need to occupy and then colonize space (unless we find a way to constantly produce most or all of the materials we use today at a rate that gives us plenty of surplus with the said materials, which is probably a lot harder than colonization). We cant just jump into it, though. We still have a few years with Earth the way we're running it, and with more scientific advances, Im sure we can buy even more time, and after THAT, I think we can start thinking space. Personally, I think we need to start studying nuclear power more, or more efficient forms of solar. Nuclear power is powering the Sun, if we can get anywhere near maybe even just 1% of the Sun's output, we'd definitely have a shot at using nuclear power to get us into space. Likewise, if we can make more efficient and easy-to-use forms of solar energy (solar panels on earth is DEFINITELY not going to cut it), then we could probably use that, too.

>>3601995
Ah, but are these "puny organic bodies" really all we have? If that were the case, we'd still be trying to kill animals with our bare hands and feet. Our brains and ability to invent tools for ourselves is what got us out of hunting and gathering food, and it will be those same mechanics of the human race that will get us into space when we need to be there.

>>3601998
> unless we find a way to constantly produce most or all of the materials we use today at a rate that gives us plenty of surplus with the said materials, which is probably a lot harder than colonization.

Nope. Remember, unless those materials are being used as fuel for nuclear reactions (fission or fusion), they don't actually go anywhere. There's no inherent reason (as in, violating laws of physics) why we can't just recycle the same elements over and over again.

Also remember that at "crowd" densities, the entire human race could fit on Rhode Island. There has to be a practical limit to the per-capita amount of physical objects we can actually use, so I just can't see how the human race can actually need more raw materials than currently exist on earth without increasing its numbers by a couple of orders of magnitude.

And in the last 50 years, the proportion of the planet which has gone from population growth to population decline has steadily increased. In another 50 years, it's entirely feasible that population could be in decline everywhere on earth.

>>3601998
> I think we need to start studying nuclear power more, or more efficient forms of solar. Nuclear power is powering the Sun, if we can get anywhere near maybe even just 1% of the Sun's output, we'd definitely have a shot at using nuclear power to get us into space.

1% of the Sun's power is a dozen orders of magnitude more than we could ever use. Humanity's entire annual energy consumption (including energy required by photosynthesis for growing food, lumber, etc) is less than what is provided by sunlight per day. And only a miniscule fraction of the energy emitted by the sun hits the earth.

> Likewise, if we can make more efficient and easy-to-use forms of solar energy (solar panels on earth is DEFINITELY not going to cut it), then we could probably use that, too.

Solar panels on earth could easily cut it. Covering 1% of the earth at random with solar panels (at current efficiency) would provide more energy than is currently derived from all sources (coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables). 1% of the earth is a lot, but both concentrating solar power near the equator and efficiency improvements would reduce this. What won't cut it without vast leaps in technology is space solar. Putting solar panels into space currently requires several orders of magnitude more energy than they will ever produce.

>>3602009
> Our brains and ability to invent tools for ourselves is what got us out of hunting and gathering food, and it will be those same mechanics of the human race that will get us into space when we need to be there.

However, unless we need the actual meat sacks to go into space (i.e. colonisation for the sake of not putting all the eggs in one basket), improvements in robotics and AI will be far easier and cheaper than improvements in life support for the foreseeable future.

And the only thing that's going to allow humans to go within a million miles (literally) of Jupiter is the ability to launch craft with thousands of tonnes of shielding, which will require a radical advance in launch technology.

>>3602076
I'm a little confused as to what your first paragraph meant, but I think that you were saying that it'd be much easier to use robots in space than humans, am I correct? If that is the case, then I absolutely agree with you. We cant send humans into space without doing research of how we are going, how we are arriving, and where we are going. To do that research, we should use robots.

>>3602076
Oh, and about the "radical advance" needed, I also agree. But the time when we need to start launching things into deep space for our survival is also not in the forseeable future, unless all of a sudden we become absolutely retarded and give up all efforts to advance pretty much anything in science.

>>3602028
I think that we can both agree that if the population is declining, that is certainly not a growth in our species. Sure, maybe after a decline, a species can grow even more, but why can't that be now?

Because we really don't have enough resources. Oh, sure, Earth still definitely has enough resources for our survival AND our growth, but we cannot get all of those resources quite quickly. That is something we need to work on, and we also need to work on spreading the wealth of resources better (Africa, anyone? But this isn't politcal, so I'll end it at that.).

And to recycle all of these elements efficiently enough to support human growth up to the point where trillions (but not actually trillions, just a figure of speech to show how much humans can POTENTIALLY grow) of humans are on Earth (compared to trillions of humans on other bodies in space) would be quite a hefty feat, even if all of a sudden we are using all of the earth's resources and have a perfect efficiency with recycling the wastes back into usable materials. And besides, if we are using exactly 100% percent of all the Earth's materials, then there is no more materials that can be used for extra growth to the population, AKA, we're capped.

It is definitely a long way away from now where the Earth can't give us everything we want to use so that we can expand, but when that comes, we'd either need to make the stuff out of thin air, or get the stuff from space.

And totally unrelated, why the fuck are 4chan captchas way harder to figure out compared to other captchas?!

>>3602099
> I think that you were saying that it'd be much easier to use robots in space than humans
Correct.

> To do that research, we should use robots.
To do anything in space, we should use robots.

The only rational reason to send people (flag-planting doesn't count) is as insurance against an extinction event on earth. But that only makes sense once we can construct a self-sufficient colony, which is probably somewhere between centuries and millennia away.

For a start, we either need to find somewhere which can be made habitable or genetically re-engineer humanity, or some combination of the two. It isn't enough that people can survive for a few years or even decades; they have to be able to create healthy offspring. And we don't even know how far off from earth's conditions we can get before the mortality/defect rate goes through the roof.

>>3602139
I 100% percent agree, and with that, I think there isn't any more argument to be presented here. Smiles all around!

>>3602057
Yes, I agree with you, 1% of the Sun's energy is absolutely ridiculous, and if we could be able to make 1%, we'd have no energy crisis for a VERY long time.

And, again, I really am not any super smart guy, I just like to think logically, so I really dont know much about solar power.

I think I've gone off on the wrong tangent in my original statement, so I'll try to just write again what I initially meant to say.

Currently, no one is thinking of space largely because to start using space usefully would be way to hard, technologically and monetarily. I think being able to use more efficient power sources would help in both technology and money. This is because finding a good power source would stop money being fed into looking for power (we have just found it), and can be put into space. Likewise, people can stop focusing on the newfound source of power and can start focusing on space.

If anyone thinks I'm wrong, please tell me.

The reason I brought up nuclear and solar power was that I think (perhaps ignorantly) these could be the newfound power that we can use. You can clearly see that no one has enough money to start finding new technologies, and without these technologies, we cannot hope for space exploration.

>>3602224

Imagine in 2000 years when we've got 100% of the suns energy at our disposal

>potentially life
This. We could easily corrupt it and destroy it. Research over there would be nice, but we shouldn't establish any steady settlement.
Also, it's a fuckton more expensive than going to Mars and not possible with today's technology