/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3209049]

Let's discuss space colonization, interesting colony concepts ect.

[Anonymous No.3209058]

Why because you are a delusional aspie?

So far there are no satisfying means of space travel in existence. Get a life brother.

[Anonymous No.3209059]

I think a small-scale Stanford torus will probably be the first multi-generation colony design.

[Anonymous No.3209110]

I think that confining space colonization to planets is stupid. Let's create an offshoot of humanity with genetic engineering who can live comfortably on space stations.

1. Short stature (less food required)
2. High subdermal fat gradient (insulated from heat/cold)
3. Leathery/scaly skin (radiation resistant)
4. Extremely strong lungs, eyelids and round body-shape (comfortable in very different degrees of pressure)
5. Large eyes. Possibly sensitive to a wider spectrum of colours (comfortable in low-light conditions)
6. Able to "speak" and "hear" radio signals.

These super midgets wouldn't need a planet. A hollow sphere of metal or rock would do.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209126]

[Anonymous No.3209132]

>>3209058

You're an arrogant prick. So because there's no "satisfying means of space travel" NOW, means there never will be? On that note, let's shut down the space program. All those stars and planets and junk are just too far away and we won't reach them in this life time, so what's the point?

Right /sci/?

RIGHT?

[Anonymous No.3209138]

>>3209110

>1. Short stature (less food required)
>2. High subdermal fat gradient (insulated from heat/cold)
>3. Leathery/scaly skin (radiation resistant)
>4. Extremely strong lungs, eyelids and round body-shape (comfortable in very different degrees of pressure)
>5. Large eyes. Possibly sensitive to a wider spectrum of colours (comfortable in low-light conditions)
>6. Able to "speak" and "hear" radio signals.

These strangely all sound very similar to the typical traits of "grey" aliens.

Big heads, big eyes, some degree of higher mental ability, leathery, rigid skin, and short.

Until now, the whole idea of the grey aliens being even remotely real seemed ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.3209141]

There's no satisfying means of doing something currently, so let's stop thinking about it in our leisure time.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209142]

>>3209110

You might as well make them robots.

Why the fuck not?

[Anonymous No.3209145]

>>3209132
The space program is just dicking around testing stuff until a physicist invents a better way to move through space than our current ones.

[Anonymous No.3209148]

>>3209142
Intelligent robots are much harder to make then modified humans

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209149]

>>3209145

>physicist invents a better way to move through space

Are you implying FTL now? Or just better engines?

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209153]

>>3209148

Take the humans, cyborg them, put them in spacecraft; rather than making AI from scratch.

[Anonymous No.3209155]

>>3209049
No love for the super colony in Blame! that stretches from earth to jupiter?

[Anonymous No.3209156]

>>3209149
Better. FTL would be optimal however it's ya'know impossible.

[Anonymous No.3209157]

>>3209142
Exactly what I was thinking.

Also, in your picture, I think the one you added is just a zoomed-in version of the "bracelet of god" idea.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209163]

>>3209156

>FTL would be optimal however it's ya'know impossible.

Good my blood pressure spiked for a second there.

>>3209157

"Bracelet of God" is a Banks Orbital, the one above is the Ringworld from Orion's Arm: A banks orbital has no center. It just orbits a planet or Sun.

The Ringworld stretches all around the orbit, with the Sun in the centre.

[ႼЋïŁႣƧტƿḩЄƦṥ !Scone2booQ No.3209179]

>>3209110
>6. Able to "speak" and "hear" radio signals.
I hear radio waves

[ႼЋïŁႣƧტƿḩЄƦṥ !Scone2booQ No.3209186]

>>3209163
That doesn't sound stable to me. Seems it could drift closer to the star on one end without changing the potential energy of the entire structure.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209207]

>>3209186

In The Ringworld Engineers it was revealed that the structure had whole Bussard Ramjets attached to its surface to push it away from the star.

The biggest problem is the material: A Banks Orbital can be built by jetting fullerenes into space and weaving them into a strip. A Ringworld is quite impossible, though the glorious aspies at Orion's Arm worked out that magnetic monopoles could do it, if they exist.

[Anonymous No.3209208]

>>3209186
Yes, ringworld is naturally very unstable.
But really it's the smallest problem it has.
Any civ that can build one can make it so that it doesn't collide with the star.

[ႼЋïŁႣƧტƿḩЄƦṥ !Scone2booQ No.3209209]

>>3209207
Well, they'd have to be pretty powerful jets, considering it would be a larger mass than a planet. If we had jets that could move planets, we might as well just move our planet into the most habitable places as our sun evolves.

[Anonymous No.3209216]

>>3209209

Except an orbital ring provides a few million times the habitable surface of a planet.

[Anonymous No.3209222]

>Bank's Orbital
too big, needs unobtanium to not rip itself apart.

>Halo
still too big, also: it either needs to spin once every 70 minutes for 1g, or you need trek-like artificial gravity for a comfortable 24h rotation period

the bishop ring is already stable with todays carbon nanotubes and has an artificial light source for earth-like day-night cycles.

[Anonymous No.3209224]

>>3209209
Also, the whole thing is gravity neutral, meaning the gravity of the star has no effect on it.
Because of that even "gentle" pushing is enough when aplied to long term trajectories

[Anonymous No.3209236]

>>3209207
Banks' Orbitals were just as magic as Niven's Ringworld. The Orbitals needed the magic force field tech for initial construction ("Plates") and presumably to hold it all together once complete. Although Star-Trek-nifty, Banks' universe is predicated on magic (free energy, FTL, force fields) just like all other space operas.

On topic, the first space colony that has the remotest chance of being built are bolos, because they can be built piecemeal. All the other colony designs require more mass than mankind has ever put into orbit in total (around 30,000 tons btw) since the dawn of the space age!

I like the idea of adapting our biology: radiation resistance and ability to thrive in microgravity. A lot of designs are easier if you don't have to rotate for centrifugal gravity and provide extra mass for radiation adsorption.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.3209246]

>>3209236

Yeah, I was thinking about the Bishop Orbital/Ring. That's the one that can be built with nanotubes, I think the maximum diameter is a mere thousand-kilometers.

[Anonymous No.3209304]

>>3209149
You don't need FTL just a massively strong engines. The truth is that as you approach speed of light time dilatations starts to play it's role. So although you'll be travelling 100 years for you, you will get older by less. So effectively the radius where you can reach in a lifetime expands and your perception of speed remains increasing despite your speed getting asymptotically closer to c.
So yes if you are advanced enough you can cross a galaxy in a lifetime, it will take you thousands of years but you will still perceive it as much less.

[Anonymous No.3209314]

>>3209304
And in the process produce artificial cosmic rays out of the interstellar medium that'll fry you and your ship.

[Anonymous No.3209316]

>>3209304
I know bad formulation but was hurrying since someone was calling me.

[Anonymous No.3209329]

>>3209314
Well yes undoubtedly you have a good point, though it can be partially suppressed via field emission. Also do you know the density of space between stars so we can compute how strong will be the radiation (or what effect will have collision with space dust)? - Just in case if it turns out to be negligible.

[Anonymous No.3209382]

Space stations are cool and all, but to really increase our odds of long term survival as a species we have to colonize other moons and planets in the long run.
Keeping a small space station completely self sufficient is difficult; Keeping an entire world self sufficient really isn't.
The ringworld idea would require disassembling most of the non-stellar mass in a solar system, and would probably require Type 1 civilization tech, not to mention energy; We already have a nearly habitable world less then a few AU away that we could have terraformed and ready for unmodified terrestrial life within a few hundred years.

Why not start now?

[Anonymous No.3209387]

Seasteading is a stepping stone to space colonization. Many of the technologies and logistics are similar. Seasteding is a near-term feasible step that would serve to encourage that 'frontier-expanding' mindset found also in space colonization.

I encourage anyone interested in space to take a look at seasteading.

http://www.google.com/search?q=seasteading

[Anonymous No.3209391]

>>3209316
>Timmy! Come down. Lunch is ready!

[Anonymous No.3209408]

>>3209387


no

[Anonymous No.3209422]

>>3209382
I prefer 1g environments.

Also, Mars has no magnetic field. And any newly introduced atmosphere would eventually dissipate into space through solar winds and its low gravity.

[Anonymous No.3209424]

>>3209391
Something like that.

[Anonymous No.3209442]

Dyson spheres are where it is at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#Dyson_shell

[Anonymous No.3209468]

>>3209422
Yes, it would, eventually.
On the scale of hundreds of millions of years.
Needless to say, that's many many times longer then an average human lifespan. Long enough that we can continue to operate low-level atmosphere replenishing efforts to keep it's atmosphere at a level comfortable for human life.

And given that very long timescale, I can see how we could build an artificial magnetosphere to keep the atmosphere from blowing off, far off in the future after we've settled the place.

As for radiation? A thick atmosphere works wonders for that, believe it or not. An ozone layer is a pretty good shield against UV.

[Anonymous No.3209475]

Let's talk about Alpha Centauri, /sci/.

Currently, there are three competing groups attempting to determine whether or not Alpha Centauri A and B have planetary systems using the radial velocity method. (http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/12/-the-planets-of-alpha-centauri-the-hunt-for-a-pandora-
.html) The hunt requires 4-5 years to positively confirm or dismiss the existence of planetary systems, and the earliest study was launched in Marh of 2008, meaning we could potentially have confirmation of a terrestial planet orbiting our closest neighbor as soon as next year. The studies themselves are given merit due to numerous simulations indicating the probable formation of 3 or more terrestrial, earth-to-super-earth sized planets orbiting within 2 AU's of their parent star, just near enough to prevent the companion star from disrupting their orbits. Gien the nearly identical spectral and metallic qualities of both A and B (similarities favoring A due to B's lower luminosity), and the fact that the system is though to be roughly 5 billion years old, there is a very distinct possibility of life already existing within the habitable zone of either star.

Now, somebody more intelligent than I am tell me why I shouldn't be excited about this.

[Anonymous No.3209487]

So, say we discover a habitable planet around a nearby star. Would it be possible to create an orbital launch loop speed a probe to, say, 75% of c and to check things out and then send a put-put Project Orion style nuclear propulsion generation ship to build a colony off of if habitable conditions are confirmed?

[Anonymous No.3209489]

>>3209329
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Fluff

[Anonymous No.3209499]

>>3209422
Cend Ceres over, give the thing a moon to produce tidal forces and restart the Core's Dynamo. Hell, crash Vesta into it to launch it there and add 90% of the asteroid belt's mass to the equation.

[Anonymous No.3209515]

This Endymion Cantos, think ousters. Similar concept.

[Anonymous No.3209534]

>>3209499
>Ceres melts on the way to Mars
AWWWW deeerp derp deeeeerp...

[Anonymous No.3209542]

>>3209156
>Better. FTL would be optimal however it's ya'know impossible.

If by FTL you mean literally traveling at a relative velocity greater than c, yes. But there may be ways to circumvent that.

[Anonymous No.3209543]

>top 3 are all from halo.

>colonization
>mfw

[Anonymous No.3209560]

>>3209543
Additionally, I bet no one in this thread is even intellectually capable of building a rocket.

[Anonymous No.3209563]

>>3209543
Nope, one is from Mass Effect.

[Anonymous No.3209573]

>>3209543
>Iain Banks
>Mass Effect

>from Halo

you sure are a video game connoisseur

[Anonymous No.3209574]

>>3209560
My rocket is built out of hopes and dreams and it works just fine.

[Anonymous No.3209575]

1. Stable brown dwarf
2. Cylindrical colonies made of synthetic diamond or nanotubes spun for gravity
3. ?????
4 PROFIT

[Anonymous No.3209579]

>>3209560
You wouldn't even need one. Just convert the Earth into a Globus Cassus

[Anonymous No.3209598]

>>3209579
I bet I could
it wouldn't work, but it would be a rocket

[Anonymous No.3209600]

>>3209543

Halo invented orbitals, rings, tubes and spheres.

[Anonymous No.3209616]

>>3209600
>invented
nope

[Anonymous No.3210087]

>>3209616
Are you kidding me?

Halo invented space travel and sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.3210166]

>>3210087
Not to mention that Halo invented FPS.

[Anonymous No.3210611]

>>3210166
No, Captain King did.

I vote for the midgets >>3209110
Should add webbed feet though, so they can "swim" in a zero-g atmosphere