/sci/ - Science & Math

Basically, it seems we can comfortably support a total human population of 1x 10^14 with just the resources available in this system. All at levels comparable to middle class 1st world citizens today. And that’s WITHOUT any major technological advances; just fancy engineering based on current science. Admittedly, a fusion reactor is a LOT of fancy engineering but we know it’s possible. I’m looking at a great big one outside my window now.
I wanna warp drive too but a population of 1,000,000,000,000,000 taxpayers and consumers is going to make that a lot easier to pay for.
Thomas Jefferson speculated it would take the American people 1.000 years to populate the West coast of N. America but 200 years later L.A. was bigger than NY. Once we get started this will happen amazingly fast.
Please don’t nitpick this thread with little engineering problems that we have centuries to work out; offering solutions to those problems is quite welcome.
Don’t just post “Not possible” without explanation. That just tells us you don’t have the imagination for this conversation.
My big question; assuming the whole sol system is accessible except the Gas giants and Earth (we are still using it) where is the “bottle neck? What element will we run out of first? Oxygen and hydrogen? Silicon? Carbon?

Correction:
The Oort cloud has an assumed mass of 3×10^25 kg, not 3x1025

Unless there is a large portion of money invested in green energy then i don't think we would ever get to that stage. i think it is possible but the governments are too busy spending most of the money they take on wars and not science where it should be spent - if NASA had the budget the military has we would already be setting up larger colonies on mars and titan etc. none of this Mars one with most of the money spent on just sending 4 people over. pic unrelated

>>6131038
We're born in the wrong era mate. Feelsbadman.jpg

>Not building a ringworld
You should think big!

>>6131074
>not inventing Scrith first
Material Engineers are you even trying?

Suppose we can pay to create a small, self sufficient space colony. Just 200 poor bastards stuck out in the asteroid belt. They have 2-3 small habitats, a hydroponic garden, chickens, some solar panels and a dozen little putt-putts to go from rock to rock. They have what they need to survive indefinitely but if they want to grow they gotta dig for it. Need more electricity? Mine and build more solar panels.
If we just got that far I think the same maniacal pioneering spirit that allowed such rapid expansion across Australia or the Americas would take over.
Before you knew it there would be a billion of them.
This seed colony could be done today with just a few trillion dollars.
Yes, I understand the irony of typing “just a few trillion dollars”.

>>6131020
Yes, but it'd be incredibly expensive.

However, keep in mind that using only existing technology, we can reach efficiencies far greater than 3 acres of land per person. High-intensity farming uses more energy, but it can reach productivities ten to a hundred times greater.

>>6131074
Well, let's take it one step at a time.
Start with the seed colony:
>>6131084
Then the swarm of habitats, the the nivin/dyson models.

If we spread the habitats out along the path to another star (this assumes fusion or some other big energy source) then interstellar travel would be as safe and comfortable as a US highway; you can pull over and get gas/food/lodging at any off ramp. We just have to keep shipping hydrogen or other fuel toward the middle of the route.
Of course it would still take many years.

>>6131086
>High-intensity farming uses more energy, but it can reach productivities ten to a hundred times greater.

Well yes. we will use that. My goal with all the "wasted" space is that life on the habitats should not be meager compared to life on Earth; avoiding becoming space ants who work and sleep in the same coffin.
I would hate for some habitat kid to come back from visiting Earth and say. They have so many trees, there must be a hundred of them! And I actually met a read dog. He was nice. `

>>6131020
>Go ahead. I would like my descendants to have to option to stand on a planet’s surface. Call me sentimental.
Just genetically engineer them to the old format them.

In my opinion, the first step we should make is to increase our presence in Earth's orbit, namely making a space-shipyard. Minerals mined from asteroids and comets could be stored in big silos in orbit and used for the manufacture of stuff in space.

With this you won't have to fly everything to space, only ferry people and special equipment up and down (this is where a reusable spaceplane comes in).

That coupled with a mining colony on the moon will give us a solid footing to expand and build the stuff your post is about.

>>6131174
I like the idea of a spaceport on the moon. A mining station-shipyard-small habitat for workers.
Id hope it'd get some name after an important port in earths history.

>>6131174
Excellent first step.
I believe there are a few near earth objects that we could dig into to get the bugs out of the equipment as well.
Orbital and lunar bases are a must.

>>6131020
>>“Why not genetically engineer ourselves for zero gee and synthetic diets and just turn into creepy pathetic space ants?”
Because our genetic engineering is currently not good enough to facilitate that. Plus space ant colonies would still likely radiation shielding, air, and food. That's not too different from the requirements of a human colony aside from the need for gravity.
>>6131074
>>ringworld
The ringworld is unstable!

>>6131201
>>6131185
>>6131174
That was the plan, when NASA was planning to make space colonies so we could make solar power satellites and end the energy crisis until the sun burns out.
http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/

>>6131084
>>They have what they need to survive indefinitely
To stay alive indefinitely they need enough of an industrial base to maintain a habitat.

This means enough of an industrial base to make everything in the habitat, including itself. One would have to make things like precision machinery, microchips, motors, etc to keep the colony running.

One would probably need more than '200 poor bastards' for this industrial base.

However one would need 0 'poor bastards' if we made an automated industrial base that was capable of self-replicating itself, IE, self replicating mining robots.

>>6131240
Continued:

Now estimates of development complexity for a self-replicating robot place it in about the range of a modern microprocessor(pentium 5)

In addition, seed mass is estimated to be around 6-100 tons. And since the systems estimated are primarily designed to work on the Moon, it'd probably cost about as much as 0.5-7 Apollo launches to send the seed to the moon.


At the very most the whole system would cost a couple billion dollars to send up and develop, this is three order of magnitude less than sending up 200 poor bastards.

>>6131240
>One would probably need more than '200 poor bastards' for this industrial base.

Yeah, that's pretty optimistic.Even at 2,000 you would need people qualified to do several jobs. Although some would not be that demanding; i.e. machinest who doubles as hydroponics gardner. Suergon who
> However one would need 0 'poor bastards' if we made an automated industrial base that was capable of self-replicating itself, IE, self replicating mining robots.
I have the most faith is sort of "cyborg systems". For example an AI that can do real-time responsive traffic control for a major city is outside of our current capacity but six guys who consider C++ their native language and all the right tools could do it.
So, how about 1,000 poor bastards with a few dozen mechanical hands each?

>>6131319
Make multiple colonies with a small population in each. If some accident happen in an isolated colony it will be doomed, in a complex of multiple colonies the other can help in case of emergency.

>>6131328
Also all them must allow a much higher population than they usually hold so if half of them have to be evacuated they would be able to move them all tot he remain ones.

>>6131287
That's good work.
If the whole thing can be made safe and comfortable before any humans even go up there then their presence is simply increasing efficiency.
Note: my initial number of 200 people for a completely independent colony is simply a little above the number needed to prevent the worst of inbreeding. Of course there are things like frozen sperm and eggs we can do to help that too.

>>6131331
This too.
I think that keeping quality of life high is important for several reasons. one is so that you have somewhere to fall down to when shit goes wrong.

>>6131319
>>AI that can do real-time responsive traffic control for a major city is outside of our current capacity
Not really, the main obstacles in this are lack of good data and the fact that we can't predict traffic behavior because we can't predict humans.

If we take humans out of the loop(self driving cars), things get simpler and we just route cars like we do packets.

>>6131340
Individual humans are hard to predict but big groups of humans aren't.

Anyway I don't think we will have enough cars in space colonies. To need traffic control.

>>6131360
current traffic models still suck though

>>6131240

>A kalpana one render

Oh gosh, thank you, it's beautiful.

Stupid 1970s era O'neil colonies with their wide open expansive grasslands on the most expensive real estate ever conceived.

>>6131360
>Anyway I don't think we will have enough cars in space colonies. To need traffic control.

I was just using traffic control as an example of a huge stack of little problems that human+machine can solve better than either alone.

>>6131390
>Stupid 1970s era O'neil colonies with their wide open expansive grasslands on the most expensive real estate ever conceived.
>>6131104
My goal with all the "wasted" space is that life on the habitats should not be meager compared to life on Earth; avoiding becoming space ants who work and sleep in the same coffin.
I would hate for some habitat kid to come back from visiting Earth and say. "They have so many trees, there must be a hundred of them! And I actually met a read dog. He was nice."
Space colonists want dirtsiders to look up to them figuratively as well.

>>6131390

ah, spoke too soon, I googled they rest of the renders and the artist made an expansive oneill type interior.

Shit's filled with levels yo!

>>6131408

>my goal with

1. life will be meagre in space, any thought otherwise is buying into deluded naive propaganda.

here's the dirty secret of space colonization: the standard of living will be worse. On Earth you get biosphere for free.

I get ahead of myself, space colonization is a non starter in the first place.

2. Since shit has costs, wants don't factor in. You take what you can get. Welcome to the real world. Or: I'm sure you and I both want to live in a mansion with hot babes, but wants dont always transfer into gets.

>>6131393
Automation and machinery could make food production for an entire colony be run by one family. They don't even have to worry about rain, weather or whatever because everything will be artificial. A machine will plant, no one have to take care of it and some time latter a machine harvest it. Pest control wouldn't be a problem since you can exterminate all pests in the colony once and thrive on the enviroment free of pests.

For repairing the colony i think humans and machines working together would be more reliable but still won't need much people for that either.

I think you could make something like 10 colonies with 100 people in each. People could go from one colony to the other with certain regularity (maybe once a day the colonies would allow traffic between colonies) this way each individual colony don't need to have schools for every field but instead people would move to different colonies to study for different jobs. Also, online classes.

>>6131408

Look to Earth at what happens when land prices get expensive and people still need to live and work there: skyscrapers. The inside of O'neill type colonies will look like the insides of skyscrapers; built up; a space colony will be an arcology not the american west recreated. Earth will have the same technology and more so, and the Earth does not have the parasitic drain of maintaining a working gravity rich biosphere, ie, the standard of living on Earth is superior. Not that I'm saying we're headed toward an arcology rich future on Earth. The same problems apply to Mars. Better to live as an ordinary king on Earth than to be stuck in a tube dug under the ground of Mars as you begin to realize it's not what it's been hyped up as.

But I get ahead of myself.

>>6131430
>Since shit has costs, wants don't factor in. You take what you can get. Welcome to the real world. Or: I'm sure you and I both want to live in a mansion with hot babes, but wants dont always transfer into gets.

No, I want to live in a quiet, comfortable little home with the mother of my children and I do.
One thing I have learned in my 55 years in the real world is to always have extra, a plan "B", more than you need. Scraping by means you have already made some bad decisions and it leaves you vulnerable to bad luck.

Planning and hard work transfer into "gets" and insuring you have lots of room and resources will make the individuals and the colony as a whole stronger.
Of course it will be hard; 16 or more hour workdays from the cradle to the grave. Colonists have decided to trade comfort for a more meaningful life. But that choice deserves a big soft bed and an inefficient, wasteful little flower garden.
Don’t plan to eat algae mush, just be ready to when something else goes wrong.

>>6131393
but traffic control is one of those problems that's better solved by removing the human element. The very problem with traffic control is that we can't model traffic, because humans are unpredictable, even in large groups.

>>6131390
that's a design for a later habitat to be built once we have enough industrial base in space to make building large space colonies cheap.

>>6131430
>>1. life will be meagre in space, any thought otherwise is buying into deluded naive propaganda.
Initially, yes, it will be very bad. Colonists won't be able to have hamburgers or pork and will have to live off of a hippy diet of freshly grown fruits and vegetables, granola, algae, fish, goat's milk, chicken eggs because pigs and cattle require too much land and resources.

Colonists will also have to recycle all their clothes and cloth like fucking hippies or wear clothes made out of beta-cloth(cloth made from glass) because growing cotton to continuously turn into clothes will eventually fuck over the colonies biosphere.

Because it's expensive to send stuff up from Earth colonies won't be able to drink Budweiser and will have to brew all their own craft beers like hippies!

Same thing with razor blades, it will be expensive to send them up, so people will grow their beards out and have hairy legs like hippies!

But worst of all, movies will probably be released later than on earth, magazines will have to be faxed up black and white(porn will suck!), colonists will have to listen to the same music over and over, because it's expensive to send up records, and ....

Wait, WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT THE 1970s? Everyone has a computer now? They can use this computer to 'download' books, movies, magazines, and music?

So, some of these thing here may no longer be applicable, because I'm getting them from a 1970s book on space colonization.

>>6131483

You've confused the fact that because you reached for something commonly attainable, and good, I am not disputing that, that that means that anything is within reach. Or: finding a wife on earth is easy and common, no human being has traversed the boundary to live in space like you imagine.

You've also confused margin as being specially applicable to unattainable wanton excess. The meager existence can have margin built in too. The meager existence can afford more margin. The meager existence can support more people for given capital. More people = larger economy. Larger economy = more resilient and larger output. Larger economy, perhaps larger than minimal viable economy.

Just a thought, but wouldn't a built-up colony be more expensive than an open-air one? If you're filling all that interior empty space with buildings, you're going to have to ship up a lot more mass.

The "Skyscrapers" approach works on Earth because we charge for land by the square meter, so building up makes sense - it results in more people living on the same square foot of expensive land.

In a space colony - because the restrictive cost is materials and pressurized volume - living space would be charged by the cubic meter. So building up your colony's interior gives it the ability to support more people, but the reduction in cost-per-person may be relatively slight; depending on how much value people put on empty space it may actually be worth it to just build another colony.

Also, note that for O'Neill cylinders you basically can't build up to skyscraper heights - the gravity as you approach the center quickly gets too low to be long-term habitable, and the tidal forces get uncomfortable.

>>6131516
I'm pretty sure insects will be part of the daily diet in space colonies.

The Black soldier fly larvae are edible to humans. The larvae are highly efficient in converting proteins, containing up to 42% of protein, and a lot of calcium and aminoacids. In 432 hours, 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs turns into 2.4 kilograms of protein.

When the larvae are done growing, they enter a stage called "prepupae" wherein they cease to eat, they empty their gut, their mouth parts change to an appendage that aids climbing, and they seek a dry, sheltered area to pupate.[6] This prepupae migration instinct is utilized by grub composting bins to self-harvest the mature larvae. These containers have ramps or holes on the sides to allow the prepupae to climb out of the composter and drop into a collection area.

So you not only solve the problem of organic trash and shit but you also get a highly nutritive source of food. Their shit can be used to feed the red Californian earth worm thus producing even more food.

The only problem is that they aren't good looking so we might have to grind them and mix them in other food to make them less disgusting.

>>6131552
Yes, but the basic idea is that very little will be shipped from Earth, most stuff will be mined from asteroids/comets.

>>6131552
ALSO ALSO note that a larger mass of material/person - more open air, more open water - make an ecosystem MUCH more stable. Biosphere II was so unstable because it was so small; a larger volume of "wasted" space makes the biological closed-ecosystem component of a life-support system (and we WILL need a biological-ecosystem component; food chemicals are too complex to synthesize) more stable, enhancing the safety of the people there.

So, there's negative effects at work here - not only does greatly increasing the population density of the interior of an O'Neill cylinder not have a correspondingly large decrease in the cost of living per person, it also reduces the value of the real estate- the amount people are willing to pay- because it makes life there both less safe and less pleasant

Is it possible that these effects might cancel out, and there might actually be a plausible economic argument for relatively open-air space habitats?

(Alternatively, is it possible that either way, life in space will be too expensive for people to bother with?)

>>6131566

non residential space is still usable for other purposes like industry and agriculture.

this can add to biosphere quantity: imagine additional levels of forest or whathaveyou or aquaculture as opposed to empty air.

>>6131566
I think a space colony shouldn't be heavily populated.

First because you need extra space for when things go wrong, second because of what you said, stability.

I also think it should be divided in many segments so if one segment gets damaged you can lock it and save the rest of the colony.

>>6131483
>>6131516

don't let me discourage you from writing your space colony book.

>>6131457
>>6131457
>look like the insides of skyscrapers
Not quite. Pic related is what an early space colony could look like on the inside, notice how everything is green on the inside and there aren't very tall buildings?

>>built up
in O'neill colonies, one can't build up, because as you build up, gravity reduces rather dramatically, which is why there aren't any tall buildings in pic related

Plus, to support more people, it makes sense to just to build another colony. Once you mine the moon or asteroids and have a bunch of space infrastructure for processing materials


>>Earth does not have the parasitic drain of maintaining a working gravity rich biosphere
of course on Earth, we're parasitically draining the biosphere

>>the standard of living on Earth is superior.
Except that one can build huge structures in space, use novel production processes in space, access large amounts of solar energy in space, in short, one's a lot less restricted in space than in a planet's gravity well.

My main concern is how do we protect us from space radiation? Does placing them in the orbit of Jupiter would protect us with its magnetosphere?

>>6131583

>pic related

A type of propaganda.

Greenland wasn't green, for instance.

>because as you build up, gravity reduces rather dramatically

bad example since building up the inside of the standford torus is a non issue.

as i mentioned in an earlier post for other colony types the gravity poor space can be used for other necessary purposes.

>>6131566
It's too expensive.

The Stanford torus, as an example, would weigh 10 million tons (most of which is the radiation shield, a 1.7 m layer of lunar soil.)

Right now, the lowest cost of space transportation is $2,200 per kg, from Earth to LEO. Since we're shipping from the moon, with mass drivers rather than rockets, let's cut that price by a factor of 100 - $22 per kilogram. (Since 95% of the material involved is literally Space Dirt, we'll assume the cost of gathering it is negligible.)

So, at this price, the habitat will cost 200 billion dollars to build - discounting labor costs, or the other 5% of material, which will be much more expensive and may have to be shipped up from Earth.

So: 200 billion dollars, to support 10,000 people.

What can these people do to pay that enormous cost back?

They can't mine, or farm, or produce resources - their ecosystem is closed-cycle, opening it up will bleed them to death.

Perhaps they have some manner of industrial capacity, then - an orbital shipyard, or something. Mineral refining from the Moon. A fuel depot for spaceships. Solar power collecting and beaming, something.

Maybe this actually makes them enough money to be self-sufficient: I don't know. I don't think anybody can really do those calculations as anything more than wild guess, right now.

But it is obvious that a Stanford torus, or one of these other habitats, can't possibly support itself by selling real estate - If we go by that 200-billion estimate, which we know is wildly wrong - in the optimistic direction, the real number is worse - if it has to pay itself back in 30 years, it'll cost each of its residents 670,000 dollars a year.

>>6131591

an exterior of rock is built around the colony. rock shielding. it needs a whole lot of it, obscene amounts.

you guys should track down the kalpana one PDF, it is most informative. im pretty sure it invented levels in oneill colonies, not me.

>>6131615
How will you keep it in place since it is rotating fast enough to create Earth like gravity? They would be tossed in all directions if left loose, if you tie them to the structure you will need an absurdly strong structure

>>6131619
You don't actually need absurdly strong materials for that. Ordinary Earth steel is enough.

>>6131591
>>Does placing them in the orbit of Jupiter would protect us with its magnetosphere?
No, Jupiter's magnetosphere traps radiation, making it a dangerous place to be.

>>My main concern is how do we protect us from space radiation?
A layer of dirt around the outsides and some special mirrors to let the light in without letting cosmic rays in.

Pic related shows the special mirrors

>>6131615
Then how do you grow crops? Seems like overkill, it's only the high energy radiation we want to shield not the usable IR/VL/UV range.

>>6131633
You use mirrors to reflect light in, and the mass of open air also provides a fairly significant amount of shielding.

>>6131614
I think we will have the minimum of people there to keep it running.

One purpose is as a stop point for refueling/resources. The people from the colony will be responsible with asteroid mining and fuel production, they won't really go on space suits to mine asteroids but they will control robots from the colony since control robots from Earth would have a considerable delay.

Another function is as a mankind backup. In case some serious shit wipes humans from Earth we would have a population to start again.

>>6131633

we grow crops like suburban marijuana growers do here today, with artificial lighting.

http://www.plantlab.nl/4.0/

>>6131633
like pic related.

These are all solved issues on space colonies.

>>6131628
To hold the content of the colony and the material shielding it?

>>6131527
A couple of excellent points, thank you.
I am simply in the habit of providing myself room for failure and it serves me well. It would much more important in an environment like that.
Of course I have made a couple of unspoken assumptions such as that if a habitat is built in a place where environmental control is not to energy intensive (not to hot or cold) then building and maintaining a 1,000 cubic meter habitat costs little more than a 500 cubic meter habitat. Farming plankton would require little more than a big plastic bag full of water hung outside the habitat, etc.

>>6131651
Nevermind, i was reading and seems like the shell and the atmosphere would be enough to shield it

>>6131643
One doesn't need artificial lighting when one has continuous sun, artificial lighting is inefficient.

>>6131651
yes, now go read "Colonies in Space":
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/

>>6131038
>green energy

Oh shut up, We need nuclear energy not feel good "green" energy.

http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Kalpana/KalpanaOne2007.pdf

http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Kalpana/KalpanaOne.html

enjoy

>>6131652
>>habitat is built in a place where environmental control is not to energy intensive (not to hot or cold)

It's space, you've got large amounts of solar energy, and you can build large radiators for dumping heat, heating and cooling aren't much of a concern.

>>6131660
Actually advancing in solar energy would be useful since solar energy is abundant and continuous in space.

>>6131652
Actually, because you're building a habitat in the form of a volume enclosed by a shell, habitable volume goes up as the 2/3 power of cost.

This means that building a habitat with twice the volume costs about about 1.5 times as much - not counting the cost of the air. which you'll need twice as much of.

So it's more cost-efficient per cubic meter of space to build a larger habitat, but it's not "little more" when we're talking about costs in the billions.

>>6131680
Wouldn't a bigger habitat needs to rotate faster to keep the same gravity?

>>6131691
Other way around - a bigger habitat needs to rotate more slowly.

http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/

>>6131693
Angular yes, tangencial no.

>>6131703
Yes, but when talking about the speed something is rotating at, it's assumed you mean angular velocity. If you're talking about tangential, you have to specify that.

What do u guys think of this?

http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/colonized-interstellar-vessel-conceptual-master-planning/

>>6131615
>kalpana one
http://alglobus.net/NASAwork/papers/2007KalpanaOne.pdf

>turn ourselves into creepy pathetic space ants

Bitch, I'mma turn myself into a solar-powered space whale and swim in the sun.

Think BIG!

>>6131721
Okay, one, the fuel tanks on that are WAY too small. They need to be much, much bigger - like, comparable to the size of the ship bigger.

Two, where's the light for all of those bays coming from? If you're going interstellar, you'll need to bring it yourself - which means you'll spend HUGE amounts of energy on lighting all those big open spaces to sun-brightness. High-intensity farming ain't cheap energy-wise either.

>>6131660
In space solar panels would be pretty much maintenance free.
This is they are chosen for long range spacecraft.
We will need many small, independent systems. We are not going to run power lines between asteroids.
Fusion is probably the best option for the central power grid of a very large habitat but there will be an absolute need for lots and lots of PV cells.

>>6131743
Actually, in space, solar panels aren't chosen for long-range spacecraft because out past Mars's orbit the sun's dim enough that they really, really suck.

For long-range spacecraft, we choose nuclear generators, usually in the form of RTGs.

>>6131849
Why do you think so? I don't have any work, the bugs do all the work, my only work is feed them with waste. Or do you plan on having bacteria feeding them with waste?

>>6131604
>>a type of propaganda
That's an artist's depiction of something that has been carefully calculated and planned out.

>>6131614
>>Since we're shipping from the moon, with mass drivers rather than rockets, let's cut that price by a factor of 100 - $22 per kilogram.
mass drivers are quite a bit cheaper than rockets, especially on the Moon. The cost of launching stuff from the moon with the mass driver specified in NASA's space colonization summer study is around $0.92 per kilogram inflation adjusted.

And much of the cost there is in the energy required to throw lunar regolith really really fast.


>> Solar power collecting and beaming, something.
that was the plan when NASA was designing space colonies

>>6131859
So you plan to convert solar energy into electrical energy, use it to get hydrogen, feed bacteria with hydrogen to produce sugar, give sugar to plants that can't make their own sugars and them produce food? You know that with every conversion there is a lot of lost energy right?

Your system is solar>electric>chemical>bacteria/artificial>plants>food

In contrast with solar>plants>food

You lose a lot of enegy in conversions and your system clearly have much more losses.

>>6131852
Probably when we start mining asteroids we will have a lot of material available to use. Send platium and other rare metals to Earth, use the iron on space.

By the time we're doing this, "growing crops" won't be a concern.

We'll have efficient synthesis of sugars (perhaps a genetically engineered bacteria that feeds on hydrogen, perhaps a more direct non-biological synthesis), similarly straightforward processes to convert them to required nutrients, which we'll be able to make into all of our familiar processed foods, and engineered plants that take in sugar through their roots for energy, rather than depending on photosynthesis. And, of course, vat-cloned meat.

So you won't need a big spread-out space and lots of inefficient lights, you'll just have a little food factory module that takes in energy and processed waste and makes food.

>>6131861
Was thinking more along the lines of
>getting an optimal nutritional composition
>metabolic efficiency
We can genetically engineer the former, while microorganisms in general tend to excel in the latter

>>6131870
I'm wondering if it would be plausible with some kind of enzymatic macrosystem. Has a few problems, though
>a way of generating the proper enzymes efficiently and in sufficient amounts
>the photosynthesis process makes use of membranes with various proteins. Idk if this is completely necessary, though.
In the end it'd probably just be easier to use plants, or better yet, algae. We don't really have a need for a structural component if there's no competition for sunlight

>>6131782
I don't really think this is very realistic... Plants already are very efficient in producing food, also they recycle the air, keeps life quality and are full of micronutrients that are vital for population health.

>>6131891
Most of the available food algae have problems. Heavy genetic engineering could make them work, though.

Pure sci-fi question here:

What about some kind of cyborg algae? The metabolic process of life is driven by an ion gradient - could it be possible to build some kind of fully-synthetic hybrid system, driving organic metabolism directly off of an electric potential difference?

>>6131563
it'll probably be more efficient to genetically modify some bacteria to carry out that work for you.

It's all very possible. The one problem.... money. pesos. dosh. moolah. Doing shit like making a brand new eco-system, dismantling a planet, putting ourselves into place, etc, would cost well beyond a few trillion dollars. You would need to wait until the technology becomes cheaper.

>>6131845
Photosynthesis is actually not very energy efficient, and agriculture just takes too much space. Plants didn't evolve to get the most out of the power available, but the best return on their own investment.

We'll want a new system in space.

>>6131896
>cyborg algae
Haha, I love this. And I don't see why not. Means we can use a more convenient power source than solar energy, as well

>>6131727
>Bitch, I'mma turn myself into a solar-powered space whale and swim in the sun.

Don’t forget to make all your tech open source so you can get space bros and a hot space leviathan waifu out there.

>>6131020
>why not genengineer ourselves

because we don't want to get murdered by the catholic church 10,000 years in the future?

>>6131913
Would it actually be possible to create an organism that could survive in space? We can talk about making a closed-cycle ecosystem - could, with advanced bioengineering and cyborg systems, that closed-cycle metabolism be brought into one body, with a huge photosynthetic solar-collector for power?

>>6131913
>hot space leviathan waifu

>>6131920
>organism
It would need to be capable of self-replication, for it to be a proper lifeform. Seems pretty implausible, as far as that goes. The lifeforms of today that are capable of surviving vacuum/radiation do it by essentially shutting off all metabolism, but who knows what's possible. We haven't really had any evolutionary pressure to evolve functions like that

...I'm thinking some huge space-blob that replicates by splitting itself in two, like a cell. just floating through space. fuck, that would be awesome

>>6131928
Radiation wouldn't be impossible to handle - just like how long-distance spaceships would be shielded by containers of water or polyethylene or other low-Z materials, the creature would be wrapped in a layer of blubber and a water-storing sac, and outside of that would be hard carapace, perhaps covered in velvet like a deer's antler to help with growth and the radiation of waste heat. Plus, it would likely have a lot of DNA-repair mechanisms.

Metabolism would be slow, but just as a spaceship's passenger can have a working metabolism, this hypothetical Space Whale could have one as well.

Reproduction, and the re-supply of nutrient stores, could be tricky, though - you'd need some way for the Space Whale to actually eat, and it would quite definitely not be designed to live within an atmosphere or planetary gravity well. While it would rely on sunlight alone for metabolic energy, to repair wounds and make up for inevitable losses and wastage some re-supply of organic materials and nutrients would be necessary, and it'd need a lot of extra material to re-produce. Some materials it could perhaps scoop up by dipping into the very fringes of Earth's atmosphere, picking up traces of CHON, but I can't think of any way to work it without the Space Whale being dependent on resupply.

>>6131934
Seed the asteroid belts with Dyson trees. They'd feed on the carbon and ice in outer C-type asteroids, creating oxygenated breathable spaces for habitats and coincidentally supplying a food source for Space Whales.

>>6131934
The Space Whale's "fins" would be huge layers of photosynthetic, high-melanin tissue, backed with a layer of mirrored graphene and a reticulated network of lymphatic cooling veins and structural ribs. These massive, although inefficient, gossamer wings would act as solar collector, solar sail, and radiator for the being.

Space whales are cyborg, symbiotic life-forms, relying on both their own genetically-engineered organic components and replicating-machine Von Neumann factories to reproduce- for instance, they communicate both through coded flashes of their mirrored fins, and implanted radio.

>>6131934
>dependent on resupply.
No getting around that in terrestrial (real) organisms either. Suppose a migratory cycle between the Oort cloud when they can feed on gasses, organics, small amounts of other elements they need from comets and other small bodies then they drift in toward the star where they use the energy collected to metabolize all this (gassing off some shielding on the trip maybe) and then slingshot around the star back out to the cold, comfortable outer system. The reproductive cycle would have to be synched up with this too of course.
About that, don’t forget some of the tricks organisms use to support reproductive efforts; the shell around an egg while it matures, a nest built by parents to protect the very young. “Milk” (whatever that might mean in this context)
Pure science fiction at this point but the space whale is certainly not impossible.

>>6131943
I'd say a migratory trip to the asteroid belt, not the Oort cloud. Less distance, and C-type asteroids are estimated to have plenty of resources needed to support considerable biomass.

>>6131941
>high-melanin tissue
When used as a solar sail which would be better; absorbing or reflecting? You may want to steal a trick from the chameleon.

>>6131947
Reflecting, but you're also going to want a considerable area of absorbing area to generate energy from sunlight and power the Space Whale's metabolism. For the reflective portion of the sail, it might be best to just make that an artificial material, like graphene with a thin aluminum film.

>>6131945
Cool, that saves a half a light year round trip.
I'm thinking of a big mouth that takes in whole asteroids so they can be "digested" inside and the unwanted part ejected.

What ever happened to gnuspace?

http://youtu.be/Br0nFNiyKDI

>>6131949
Specifically, assuming a charitable value for our Space Whale's metabolic rate (about as much as a small whale), an unusually high efficiency for photosynthesis, and assuming it generally hangs around the asteroid belt, it's going to want about 720 square meters of absorbent area.

>>6131958
At asteroid-belt distances, solar radiation pressure is only 1.01 microNewtons per square meter. This gives us something like 16.5 square kilometers of mirrored-graphene sail area for an acceleration of 0.01 milligee, assuming Space Whales are anything like as heavy as Ocean Whales.

This is, needless to say, impressive, but somewhat silly.

>>6131955
>gnuspace
http://gnuspace.undefinedsymbol.org/
Look like it has not been updated. Still written for explorer

>>6131028
It's also spread out over a fuck-huge volume, and would be extremely difficult to mine.

Mercury is a shitty planet and should be used for materials unless were going to build the city of Terminator on it.


Has anyone else read those books?

>>6131955

The project is on pause.

>>6131996

Also the project entails the need for a working 3D printer that prints metal parts.

>>6132008
sintering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering

>>6131903
But in the SOLAR system SOLAR energy is the most convenient power source.

>>6132161
Only if you're close in to the sun! The further out you go, the weaker it gets - which is why the Cassini probe ran on plutonium, not photovoltaics. And if you're going further out, you have no Sun at all.

Also, photosynthesis is incredibly inefficient - only 11% absolute maximum. If you could run plants off of solar panels, it'd still be a massive net gain in productivity.

>>6132175
But solar panels convert light into electricity. Them you have to convert electricity into chemical energy. Now how efficient that would be? You lese energy twice with solar panels for food.

>>6132193
And you can genetically engineer plants that can produce even in low light conditions and are more efficient in space.

Also,
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature12575.html

>>6132193
The process of natural photosynthesis ALSO involves a conversion of light->electricity step, between the absorption of light and the production of sugars.

>>6132219
In molecular level what you call electricity are chemical bonds and ionizations

I'm a Belgian 17year old student, am INTP and I have IQ of 146, though I am not very disciplined when it comes to studying matter. I'm a newfag on /sci/, but the few threads I have encountered so far really got my attention, this thread being the far most interesting I have yet read. So in my search for motivation I'd really like to know what is required of me in order to go work for NASA.

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

>>6132247
See? Chemical reactions activated by light.

>>6132250
>17year old student, am INTP and I have IQ of 146,

oh god, stop

>>6131870
>So you plan to convert solar energy into electrical energy, use it to get hydrogen, feed bacteria with hydrogen to produce sugar, give sugar to plants that can't make their own sugars and them produce food? You know that with every conversion there is a lot of lost energy right?
First of all, not every space habitation is going to be in Earth-intensity sunlight all of the time. We need systems that work in lunar night, in the outer solar system, and in interstellar space.

Secondly, even when they're in sunlight of appropriate intensity, concentrated solar power is going to take much, much less mass, system complexity, and vulnerability to damage than exposing plants directly to natural sunlight in space.

>Your system is solar>electric>chemical>bacteria/artificial>plants>food
electric>synthetic-chemical>fruit>food

>In contrast with solar>plants>food
electric>light>leaf-chemical>fruit>food

As I previously pointed out, the light>plants step is particularly inefficient. Chemical>plants isn't a real additional step, since plants already use this step in transferring energy internally from the leaf to the fruit.

Of course, not all of the synthesized sugar is going to go through plants. Some is going to be used to make synthetic processed food. Some will be used to grow cloned meat (which has the potential to be much, much more efficient to produce than feeding plants to animals).

Also note that unlike sunlight, you can store chemical energy, so if you have engineered plants that grow from a sugar feed, you can have fresh fruit and vegetables produced from long-term storable supplies. This technology will have obvious relevance on Earth.

>>6132250

You should probably grow up.

>>6132291
>First of all, not every space habitation is going to be in Earth-intensity sunlight all of the time. We need systems that work in lunar night, in the outer solar system, and in interstellar space.
First we have to establish ourselves in Space and probably we will do it in the habitable zone.

>Secondly, even when they're in sunlight of appropriate intensity, concentrated solar power is going to take much, much less mass, system complexity, and vulnerability to damage than exposing plants directly to natural sunlight in space.
You use one window to illuminate a great area. We are and the glass/plastic will probably be very thick and resistant.

>>Your system is solar>electric>chemical>bacteria/artificial>plants>food
>electric>synthetic-chemical>fruit>food
You don't just put electrodes in water and CO2 and get sugars.

>>In contrast with solar>plants>food
>electric>light>leaf-chemical>fruit>food
>As I previously pointed out, the light>plants step is particularly inefficient. Chemical>plants isn't a real additional step, since plants already use this step in transferring energy internally from the leaf to the fruit.
I stand with solar power.

>Of course, not all of the synthesized sugar is going to go through plants. Some is going to be used to make synthetic processed food. Some will be used to grow cloned meat (which has the potential to be much, much more efficient to produce than feeding plants to animals).
Produce protein from waste with black soldier fly and earth worms.


>Also note that unlike sunlight, you can store chemical energy, so if you have engineered plants that grow from a sugar feed, you can have fresh fruit and vegetables produced from long-term storable supplies. This technology will have obvious relevance on Earth.
We stock chemical energy as starch and vegetable oil for consumption already.

Most projects for space colonies (orbital, moon, mars) rely on solar energy and plants. They studied it and all reached to similar conclusions.

>>6132291
>>6132328
Continuing...

You have hopes for an artificial system that doesn't exist and expects it to have greater efficiency. Maybe this could be used if for some reason you want to make a colony in distant areas of the Solar System but I don't see enough reasons to make them so far away.

Probably we will keep them between Mars and Venus and diverge some asteroids to mine them

the problem is you would only need one space terrorist or loony to blow the whole thing up, killing everyone. So any thing that is not earth like, is never going to work.

>>6132428
A loony could. Also send a meteor in the direction of Earth, your poin?

>>6132328
>Most projects for space colonies (orbital, moon, mars) rely on solar energy and plants. They studied it and all reached to similar conclusions.
This shit is done by starry-eyed space cadets who aren't thinking at all realistically about when, how, and why we'd build space habitats. This is all "it's the 50s and we expect nuclear powered flying cars" stuff.

>>6132336
>You have hopes for an artificial system that doesn't exist and expects it to have greater efficiency.
Nothing about a space colony works without "artificial systems that don't exist".

The technology of advanced food production will be developed for use on Earth long before anyone attempts to build a space colony. The potential for superior energy efficiency and other practical advantages are obvious, if you actually educate yourself on the processes involved.

Biotechnology and practical chemistry are areas of technology that are advancing much faster than spaceflight.

this thread is poo and nick is the best

>>6132027
amazing idea, only it means the ship needs to bring molds, no new design can be created. Unless, and that is a total shot in the dark, the molds can produce modular parts(like legos).

Reminder of objectives:
-escape Earth
-land without blowing up
-gather resources
-turn resources into power source
-begin rover reproduction
-begin building space port
-begin producing life-supporting supplies
-begin making lunar shelter
-prepare ship building capabilities for asteroid mining
-build ships for settlement of Mars

Gnuspace

>>6132485
>Biotechnology and practical chemistry are areas of technology that are advancing much faster than spaceflight.
We don't need much improvement in space flight tech, what we need is manufacturing and mining in space.

>>6132485
>This shit is done by starry-eyed space cadets who aren't thinking at all realistically about when, how, and why we'd build space habitats. This is all "it's the 50s and we expect nuclear powered flying cars" stuff.

Isn't that better than letting "serious businessmen in suits" take all the people's money to kill Arabs?

>>6132485
>This shit is done by starry-eyed space cadets who aren't thinking at all realistically about when, how, and why we'd build space habitats.
Oh, that's why they are studying your method in the International Space Station and not planting vegetables... Nope!

Crew members aboard the International Space Station have been growing such plants and vegetables for years in their "space garden."

A space station study is helping investigators develop procedures and methods that allow astronauts to grow and safely eat space-grown vegetables. The experiment also is investigating another benefit of growing plants in space: the non-nutritional value of providing comfort and relaxation to the crew.

"Growing food to supplement and minimize the food that must be carried to space will be increasingly important on long-duration missions," said Shane Topham, an engineer with Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University in Logan. "We also are learning about the psychological benefits of growing plants in space -- something that will become more important as crews travel farther from Earth."
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/10-074_prt.htm

>>6132703
The ISS is a big joke. Seriously.

They just do random shit up there, trying to justify the insane cost.

>Answer: You make a disturbingly good point. Go ahead. I would like my descendants to have to option to stand on a planet’s surface. Call me sentimental.
So, assuming we are all not eager to stop being human as we know it…

A human that wants to stand on another terraformed planet is not a human- hes a sickly neckbeard posting rubbish on 4chan

>>6132747
Do you have better sources? Or are you going to continue saying that you are right and me, NASA and the ISS are wrong?

>>6131614
Check this out
http://ssi.org/2010/SM14_presentations/101030_SSI_Curreri-Detweiler.pdf

http://www.ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20100017101_2010017706.pdf

>>6132618
Using selective laser sintering, you don't need a mold. That's the way we 3D print metal parts today - you sinter the outline of one layer of a metal part into a bed of metal powder, lower the build platform and layer on another layer's-worth of metal powder, sinter THAT, welding it with the heat to the first layer...

And then eventually you fish out the completed part from a box filled with metal powder.

Alternately, fused-deposition modeling 3D printing - the kind used by stuff like the Makerbot- can be used to create the molds using ceramic printing, and metal parts can then be casted from those molds.

>>6132836
What NASA is doing for science projects on the ISS is not by any stretch of the imagination a guide to the long-term future of how we're going to do things in space.

Growing vegetables on the ISS is a cute little science project that people can easily understand.

>>6131028
>The Oort cloud has an assumed mass of 3×10^25 kg,
>>6131990
>It's also spread out over a fuck-huge volume, and would be extremely difficult to mine.

It would be extremely slow to mine.
Consider: robots putting around out there with a big telescope to tell them where the good rocks are.
They go to it, grab it and throw it toward the inner system.
In the inner system someone scoops it up,
Replacement parts and other support for the Oort cloud machines are sent via solar sail.
The scheme has modest tech requirements (in this context).
It has very low energy expenditure but a very long time frame.

>>6132250
I know he's gone but i would have told him that I worked for NASA, ( I'm a federal contractor who has also worked for USDA, DOD and a few others. )
NASA is the only federal agency with less money than they had 20 years ago. They are running on a shoestring.
Good news: improvements in tech make projects that were estimated at 50 million USD ten years ago are now estimated at 10 million.
Also, they are insanely dedicated; they are going to Mars even if they have to get jobs at McDonalds and do it with shit the buy at Radio Shack and Home Depot.

>>6132998
Buying things from RadioShack: no one does that in the industry. You are unmasked you preposterous troll.

>McDonalds
I don't even. GET OUT!

There is nothing more that I want (personally) than to go to space. Too bad the number of people who do is so low and it could be hundreds of years until the first settlement.

>>6132907

Those are both great. Thanks.

>>6133154
hes joking. its a hyperbole for how little funding they have.

>>6133154
Do you have literal Aspergers?

>>6133154
I think he was exaggerating for effect.
I've seen it a million times.

>>6133154
I think he was exaggerating for effect.
I've seen it a billion times.

You should not be so literal minded.
It makes you look dumb as a rock.

Did you catch it that time?

>>6133154
IN OTHER NEWS:

Local man gets seriously upset over man's declaration to be so hungry he could "eat a horse" , berates man over health risks, moral issues with eating horses.

>>6132960
What was in the end of the article about growing plants in the ISS

"I don’t see future space crews leaving the Earth for long durations without having the ability to grow their own food," said Topham. "The knowledge that we are gaining is enabling us to extend our exploration and future colonization of space."

They are doing it with plans for space colonization

>>6133247

>he can't tell PR from statements of fact.

The nerds want to do it because it fulfills the prophecy of science fiction, but the people who pay the bills know that 20 billion dollars can be spent other places like universal health care or social security.

Play democracy 3 and try to get a space program going.

>>6133262
So video games are your source of information? I see...

>>6133262
(Not who you were speaking too)

While I can see your point my first day with that game I turned Australia into a socialist utopia with no religion, public transport so good there were virtually no cars, healthcare and life expectancy to the max, poverty eradicated and a fully funded space mission.

Vote for me, now.

>>6133285

No, but i figure that it would be a very effective way of teaching people who have no idea how the government works or how policies are put into place.

Ironically, you often get assassinated for investing so heavily in something that has no financial returns. Running away to join the circus to solve all our problems would bankrupt the people left on earth, which is all of them.

>>6133292
That's australia.

>>6133200
Me again.
And to show how dedicated and resourceful they are.
I was just in facilities at NASA Langley Reaearch Center in Hampton VA. in 2011.
To save money they canged the custodial contract so the restrooms were only cleaned twice a week. like a gas station.
They all brought in their own Toilet paper and some buildings started a pool, they bought in bulk together and stocked it themselves.
They are focused only on their real goals.

>>6133310
I can see NASA starting a Kickstarter now.

>>6133331

>$126,453 collected out of $40bn needed!

>platinum donors get their name etched on part of the lander!

We sure are a pathetic species.

>>6133340
Selling shit like that might not be a bad idea. Not from a kickstarter, but just having it available. If something can be sold at a profit without interfering with anything else, why not let it help fund?

>>6133340
Many kickstarter projects make millions. I could see the. Making a kickstarter to develop a robot, latter another one for the engine, another one for other mechanism and so goes on.

>>6133353

Because if anything is ever going to change there has to be a cultural acceptance of investing in the future and not just your own life or ego. Moral Posterity has to become a thing, or this is as good as the world will ever get.

>>6133357
well let me bring up the example of video games. many kickstarter games make thousands or a few million, star citizen, which has sold alpha slots and other such shit far beyond its kickstarter campaign, has gotten 26 million.
>>6133369
Thats a far bigger problem to solve than 'how can we market some simple symbolic shit to fund us a tad more than our stingy government does'

>>6133376
>than our stingy government does'

See, now if you understood how policy is implemented and how everything interacts, you would never make such a statement.

Socrates was right. Opinion breeds ignorance.

>>6133408
I don't think you are talking to the person you think you are talking to.

>>6133262
Here they clearly state that they plan on having plants and even going to keep CO2 levels higher to maximize photosynthesis.

>The level of carbon dioxide should be maintained below the OSHA standard (ref. 32), which specifies that pCO2 be less than 0.4 kPa (3 mm Hg). At the same time the CO2 levels will be high enough to permit maximum rates of photosynthesis by crop plants. Trace contaminants should be monitored and controlled to very low levels.

http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/75SummerStudy/Table_of_Contents1.html

But of course, you know better than them. They should be work on alternate dimensions and headcrabs defense.

>>6133408
>than our stingy government does'
Im not saying anything but that NASA isnt very well funded by what it gets from the government, asshole

>>6133408
There is no profit to be made anywhere anymore if what you are trying to say is that the government funds only profitable things any more.
No more profit. The 1% have already made it all. The money is locked in private funds forever. We will never get off planet Earth.

>>6133559
this man is right

>>6133608
I agree

>>6133612
So do I

>>6133608
>>6133608
>>6133615
I disagree with the part of never get off Earth. We won't go by government efforts. Private initiative will control space.

I think it will start with asteroid mining, them they will settle a small colony and expand. In future satellites won't be produced and launched from Earth, they will be built and set in motion from space.

>>6133559
>The money is locked in private funds forever
"Forever" as in "Rome will rule forever." or "Britiania forever". or "I will love you forever."
By "forever" you mean somewhere between 2 and 200 years.
OK, foreward looking people were here before Rome and will be here after "forever" has passed.
We may need to wait that long.
Everything dies son, even humanity unless we go to space.

>>6133645
>We won't go by government efforts. Private initiative will control space.

Maybe.
Or....
Consider that a king 1,000 years ago could not have imagined the current international corporations being in power anymore than a Neanderthal alpha male could imagine a man who is king over thousands.
Space may be finally conquered by a social construct that does not yet exist.
Bonus work: imagine explaining social media and things like Kickstarter to someone just 50 years ago.

>>6133804
We do it all the time.

But apart of that I think there are good chances that some big corporations might want to start exploring the space and expand there before all the others. The one who do that first will make satellites, telescopes, space travel and many more for a fraction of the costs of doing that on Earth and sending it to space. The main problem is the huge investment needed before start profiting.

>>6133804
>imagine explaining social media and things like Kickstarter to someone just 50 years ago.

So, 50 years into the future, people will socialize and give each other money to do things they think are neat. And they'll do it with computers working as electronic note-passers, like a very fast telegraph system that can send photographs and film clips and cheques as well as typed text.
>...
Yeah, there's no flying cars.
>...
Well, there are some much more surprising and interesting things in the future, but the guy who sent me back in time to talk to you made me promise to talk about this one fairly dull and unsurprising thing.

>>6133837
I was supposed to tell you about a thing called kickstarter but give this box to the oldest son of your oldest daughter when he completes 18

>>6134268
Kickstarter: It's an investment scheme which works in the form of a pledge drive; people set up a message laying out their goals, asking for money, and providing rewards for certain-sized pledges. Kind of like a radio pledge drive, but you get to see pictures and video, and often the money is used to support - "kickstart", like a car -the creation of some new product. Because of the way the Internet interlinks everybody and enables word of mouth to spread incredibly fast and far, millions of people can see and donate to these "Kickstarters" and the most popular ones can raise funds in the tens of millions of dollars.

2013 dollars, anyway. There's been a lot of inflation. Still a lot of money, though.

>>6133837
>like a very fast telegraph system that can send photographs and film clips and cheques as well as typed text.

As one of the few people around here from that era (admittedly, i was a little kid 50 yrs ago,) I would liken it to the telephone "party line" except with millions of people on the same line.
>>6133837
>one fairly dull and unsurprising thing.
Again as a quazi-contemporary, what would be surprising is not the technology but its success.
The old Bell telephone party line was used only by "deviants": beatniks and wife swappers.

I repeat this thread is poo and nick is the best

>>6132618
Glorious!

Would fund/10

>>6131736
...It's nuclear power, not fucking gasoline. The fuel tanks are just fine.

>>6131020
I think we're closer to space life than anyone could possibly imagine.

>>6131049
Yep. Too late to explore earth, too early to explore outer space

>>6133198
Anytime. I love this stuff.

>>6133559
Aren't you fun

>>6135355
I wish you could have talked to the guy I did. I am still a little convinced he is just a crazy old guy but he made so much sense. He said we're less than 10 years away from leaving our galaxy. And not just our machines. Us.

>>6135376
He is crazy.

The only way to leave galaxy in 10 years is by reaching godlike state and saying "FUCK YOU!" To physics laws.