/sci/ - Science & Math

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Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:25:48 2013 No.5565717 [Reply] [Original]

Riddle me this /b/

Why not Terraform the Moon?

Yes, I know about "muh gravities" and "muh escaping atmosphere", but, hold on. How fast is that process actually? Because I remember having seen something on the subject some when, and the conclusion was that even if the conclusion was inevitable, but it could still last for 3000 FRIGGEN YEARS.

Now, I understand that for a geologist, 3000 years are like "lol, not even a moment" and might be shrugging it off, but hold on. That's actually a pretty okay amount of time in my books.

P.S. As a case study, think of Titan! Tiny when compared to planets, yet Atmospheric pressure greater than Earths!

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:26:48 2013 No.5565721 Why put that much work into something that would only last 3,000 years?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:29:03 2013 No.5565729 The gravity is probably too low for long term human habitation.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:30:18 2013 No.5565734 Depents on the amount of work. The assumption would be that you can generate a runaway greenhouse thingy, so that it, gets to melt gasses and such trapped below the surface. Not transfer them from earth obviously.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:32:02 2013 No.5565742 >>5565717 Maybe because humans can't into terraforming? Maybe because it would cost billions to even have a small settlement?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:32:18 2013 No.5565744 >>5565721 assuming science moves as fast as it has over the past 3000 years, there would hopefully be a more long term solution thought of at some point.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:33:33 2013 No.5565747 Mars would be more suitable for humans once you plant trees

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:34:47 2013 No.5565748 There are so many things wrong with this that I don't even want to touch it.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:37:03 2013 No.5565761
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Not OP, but this thread would be so much better if people start dumping actual stats. Like how much it costs to get a pound out of LEO.

Seriously, this could be a good thread if people actually put some effort into it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:37:34 2013 No.5565760 It's easier to terraform mars or venus than it is to terraform moon, of course moon will be pretty much next on the list after one those.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:38:03 2013 No.5565765 File: 80 KB, 1122x608, LightLaunch.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5565761

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:39:48 2013 No.5565766 >>5565760 >terraform venus We can't even fucking land on Venus, what are you talking about?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:40:48 2013 No.5565771 >>5565761 >>5565765 So we buy a ton of shitty Ukranian or Russian rockets and call it a day

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:42:03 2013 No.5565783 >>5565766 Just freeze the athmosphere, land and contain or eject the extras. It's not that hard.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:42:48 2013 No.5565781 >>5565761 let's do the calculations. it's not rocketscience. stay tuned.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:42:48 2013 No.5565782 >>5565766 Drop a water rich asteroid on the planet, set up a sunshade, and voila. Not something we can do with our current technology, but we can't exactly terraform the moon either.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:44:49 2013 No.5565791 >>5565766 Venus has shitty rotation. It can be fixed, but in the amounts of time it would take to do so, probably it will be easier to just transfer your conciousness on a planet appopriate body/ies than bother to do so.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:45:03 2013 No.5565798 >>5565783 Refrigiration is much harder than heating up things. We are becoming in fact a bit of an expert on heating up things, no matter what luddite-conservatives say.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:45:18 2013 No.5565799

>>5565782

No. I know you said it's not something we can do now, but you are underestimating the shit out of what a pain in the ass venus is.

>Drop a water rich asteroid on the planet

Where are you going to get it? What country has experience directing asteroids? You realize how huge it would have to be? I.e. how many of them you would need to catch out of space.

>set up a sunshade

This one is, by magnitudes, more ridiculous than your first statement.

>set up a sunshade

Lol really, just throw some tinted Oakley's on Venus and call it a day?

Also, I am not sure how much dropping some water on there would do, considering that the whole atmosphere is poison gas and all.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:45:33 2013 No.5565795 >>5565783 >>5565782 >much science-bereft fictions said it were easy! kids these days.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:45:33 2013 No.5565796

>>5565783
Except that Venus is still fucking exploding from the inside.
Sure, say we harden everything on the surface. That doesn't change the fact that 500 volcanoes will pop out almost immediately and destroy our work.
Face it, Venus is far to volatile right now for Earth-like habitation. Specialized Mustafar-esque bases, yes. Suburban houses? No.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:46:04 2013 No.5565804 >>5565795 >Easy in relation to terraforming the moon >Easy These things are not the same, babby.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:48:03 2013 No.5565808 because no EM field. why terraform when solar flare = fuck you.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:48:34 2013 No.5565810 >>5565804 everything is easy when you let your brain fall out of your head and forget that economics and limits to science exist. This isn't a doctor who thread. Not everything can be done. Grow up.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:48:48 2013 No.5565806 >>5565796 I am unaware of any evidence for current volcanic activity on Venus. Is this a new discovery?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:50:03 2013 No.5565816

Also, keep in mind that we can actually get shit to the moon relatively fast. We can to the moon in a couple of days - it takes more than half a year to get to Mars. Keep that in mind.

I am:

>>5565761
>>5565765
>>5565799

The moon is still, by far, the most "realistic" option - so let's focus on that for now.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:50:19 2013 No.5565817 >>5565808 It's the moon inside Earth's protective magnetic whatsamathingy?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:50:33 2013 No.5565819 >>5565798 >Refrigiration >denying sunlight One only needs aluminium, guess witch?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:50:49 2013 No.5565813 >>5565799 >What country has experience directing asteroids? Every single country that has experience in terraforming the moon.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:51:18 2013 No.5565823 >>5565817 *isn't

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:51:18 2013 No.5565824 >>5565810 >economics and limits to science exist. Except when it comes to the moon, right? We can terraform that overnight. >Not everything can be done. Yeah. The moon being one of them.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:51:33 2013 No.5565825 >>5565819 The witch on the broom?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:51:34 2013 No.5565821 >>5565813 Not sure if trolling or really that dumb.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:53:50 2013 No.5565830 >>5565821 Can you deny that it is true? Show me a counterexample. Name one country which can terraform a moon but can't redirect an asteroid.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:53:50 2013 No.5565832

>>5565816
once you have the cabability of constructing an athmosphere in moon the extra distance to mars looses it's meaning, already most of the energy is consumed in getting in orbit.

Then you have to add the fact that you need less tech to terraform a planet like mars, we could already start working on it today with bacteria seeding programs.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:53:50 2013 No.5565835 >>5565824 No i'm saying it's stupid, wasteful, and pointless to terraform any of the planets in the solar system. Shipping things into and out of a gravity well is just a retarded waste of resources.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:54:50 2013 No.5565841 >>5565832 >i read fiction that has what can laughingly be called science in it a lot can you tell.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:55:50 2013 No.5565842 >>5565835 Well I'm not arguing with you, dipshit. X is easier than Y does not imply that X is easy.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:56:50 2013 No.5565845

>>5565830

What are you even talking about. My point is that neither re-directing asteroids, nor terraforming anything are feasible at this time.

>>5565832

we could already start working on it today with bacteria seeding programs.

Do you realize the enormous scale on which this has to be done? You think you just dump half a million pounds of bacteria on the surface and they make an atmosphere for you?

>>5565835

Eventually we have to do it to develop space travel in general.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:57:50 2013 No.5565850
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I'd like to point out btw, that an earth Space Elevator is still a pipe dream. And yes, that includes your precious "carbon nanotubes", they don't behave under tension as good as you think.

On the other hand, Lunar space elevators are already possibly (Kevlar fibers can already do it I think).

Hmmm

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:57:50 2013 No.5565853 >>5565841 >i argue with greentext and insults. Are you really this mad?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:57:50 2013 No.5565855

>>5565835
> unlocking a small planet's worth of resources
> wasteful
If you could actually put enough biomass on there to support a big human population we would inevitably come even at some point, and protection from extinction is also almost priceless.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:58:50 2013 No.5565861 >>5565850 10/10 would live on

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:58:50 2013 No.5565864

Moon beings would look like all the humans in Wall-E after a few hundred years on the moon because of the low gravity. It would be fatal to return to earth. Bones wouldn't have enough density to support breathing, much less walking or sitting up.

But there may not be any reason to return to Earth if a permanent settlement was established. And evolution plus the human body's natural adaptive mechanics would make long term life possible.

As dumb an idea as it is, I would never shut a discussion of it down. Terraforming another planet (or more likely, a very small part of it) is progress towards the stars, the next necessary step in human evolution...uh, even if we never get there. We have to try.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 16:59:50 2013 No.5565867

>>5565845
>are feasible at this time
>implying any one is implying that

>Do you realize the enormous scale on which this has to be done?
yes

>You think you just dump half a million pounds of bacteria on the surface and they make an atmosphere for you?
Do you know how to read? Did i claim this at any point? Why don't you stop making up arguments for me and start focusing what my posts say.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:00:50 2013 No.5565876

>>5565845

Well if you read carefully I never claimed that redirecting asteroids was easy. I claimed it was easier than the moon. And I stick by it. If you want to make the moon liveable, you need an atmosphere on it. Where are you going to get that atmosphere? Ship it from Earth? The costs of escaping the gravity well would be astronomical in comparison to redirecting an asteroid. So it's not unreasonable to assume that if you have the capacity to get enough shit on the moon you can budge an asteroid's orbit.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:07:50 2013 No.5565902

Mars:

Heug planet, somewhere far far away, haven't even done a manned flyby yet. Landing is a bitch. Awkward launch windows since sometimes it might be on the other side of the system. Less sunlight. Needs a GIGANTIC industry to terraform it and the "fasters" methods I haven't see about it, would still take 3000 years.

Moon:
Close and nice. Small. Fun & shallow gravity wall. Cheaper to go to. Can see the results with the naked eye to get inspired. No need to wait for launch windows since it rotates around us. Same sunlight as earth, so less messing about on what will be able to feed on it. Probably its going to a much faster process. Bonus: Epic Trees! Like, 6x times the size or something.

Why wouldn't you Terraform the Moon? Even if it lasts for only 3000 years.

(After that, we will have probably moved on from these bodies anyway.)

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:08:50 2013 No.5565903 >>5565850 wouldn't about %50 of the surface be frozen at any time because of the long nights?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:11:50 2013 No.5565913 Um guysss, guysss, wouldn't radiation totally fuck anyone trying to live on the moon or mars without massive shielding? (I am not even considering terraforming, because not feasible)

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:12:50 2013 No.5565916

>>5565903
Hm. Crap.

That's actually the first serious, not merely economics-pessimist argument that needs to be taken into account.

Earth-like (or at least "litte-engineered") plants aren't going to cut it during 29 days long nights.

No epic trees ;_;

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:13:50 2013 No.5565919 >>5565853 You just used greentext. I guess you're exponentially mad.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:14:50 2013 No.5565922 >>5565913 athmosphere protects from most of the radiation Individual buildings can be shielded or maybe just use underground living. also >I am not even considering terraforming, because not feasible >considering being on mars >ishygdt

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:15:50 2013 No.5565926

>>5565855

Let me guess. You don't believe in the existence of chemical burning engines being used in space? You think everything is magic warp drives and other free energy?

It's wasteful on fuel to go all the way down to a planet, dig off several billion tons of regolith and get at the minerals below, when you could just mine asteroids at a billionth of the cost.

Stop reading whatever it is that calls itself science fiction. You have lost all perspective of pragmatism.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:16:50 2013 No.5565928

>>5565864
>Terraforming another planet (or more likely, a very small part of it) is progress towards the stars, the next necessary step in human evolution...uh, even if we never get there. We have to try.

Science is not a religion. Stop stapling a destiny to it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:17:50 2013 No.5565932 >>5565926 What kind of minerals is the moon even supposed to have, other than lolHelium3?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:18:50 2013 No.5565933 File: 896 KB, 225x225, output_4XvKeV.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5565799

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:18:50 2013 No.5565937 >>5565926 You are the first one to meantion warp drives and free energy in this thread also you seem to imply that asteroid mining is not one of the core techs you need before terrafoming and that they are mutually exclusive.

Moon Terraforming Alienus Tue Feb 26 17:19:50 2013 No.5565942

Actually terraforming on the moon might have gravety issues:
the lunar-gravity is thus low that any environmental gasses (required for air and sun-radiation protection) would just 'float' away into space.
hence, the moon is not suited for traditional terraforming.

going science-crazy:
I'd say lets build a giant 'coating' / orb around it from moon sheetrock or steel. Or make some spacedocks and hatches to seal of the inner mineshafts and hollow the moon out for a giant space base ^^. (in case the earth gets destroyed we got a space-ship Yay.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:20:50 2013 No.5565945

Something that could destroy Earth, thus necessitating colonizing the moon, could also very well cause damage to the Moon as well.

If we're going to go through the trouble of making a planet habitable, at least make sure it's far enough away that debris from an exploding, meteor-filled earth or expanding sun won't cause its immediate death.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:21:50 2013 No.5565947 >>5565937 Hell. We ain't getting all the water in the blue moon pictures from the moon probably. So start tossing 'em ice asteroids.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:21:50 2013 No.5565948

>>5565932

Pretty much just helium 3, and that will never be valuable because fusion will never be cost effective IF we can even make it breakeven.

RTG's are the only practical power source in space. How the hell could it ever be pragmatic to replace the fusion reactors of all your space ships every few years due to transmutation?

>>5565937
If we mine asteroids and make sufficiently large habitats in space, how would it be cheaper to then do it all in an energy-sucking medium like a gravity well? Anything you can manufacture in space would cost thousands of times more to manufacture on a planet. Why do you think we've never had anything return from the surface of mars?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:21:50 2013 No.5565949 >>5565928 >Science is not a religion I wasn't putting the hopeful spread of humanity to the stars in religious terms at all, you moron.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:23:50 2013 No.5565954 >>5565948 >RTG's Why do you hate Thorium reactors? ;_;

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:24:50 2013 No.5565955 >>5565949 You said it was a necessary step in human evolution. There is no such thing. You are ascribing a destiny to us. That is religious thinking.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:24:50 2013 No.5565957 >>5565954 I wasn't aware that thorium was not a radioisotope. Oh wait. It is.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:25:50 2013 No.5565960

>>5565717
>Why not Terraform the Moon?

Major question you skipped over, OP:
why do it?

Consider that your answer has to overcome all these thresholds:
expense of getting off Earth
massive resources need to be taken there (and given up here)
vast political issues
significant damage here by doing it
significant control issues, policy, and reward expectations

I should say I am specifically in favor of a large manned base there, but these are very significant barriers to getting stuff done -- and they all have to be surmounted before starting!

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:26:50 2013 No.5565963 >>5565948 Just because somethnig seems more protibably doesn't it mean that other profitable thigs won't never happen. Planets have their advantages and while space habitats orbiting earth come first at some point terraforming becomes a reality

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:28:50 2013 No.5565969 >>5565867 >Did i claim this at any point? If you are OP, I guess you did not. Which means you have done nothing to acknowledge METHOD. That's a bigger failure than knowing of one potential method.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:29:50 2013 No.5565973 Does Mars have any resources?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:30:50 2013 No.5565974

>>5565963
>Planets have their advantages and while space habitats orbiting earth come first at some point terraforming becomes a reality

What advantages do planets have that outweighs the fact that all resource management will cost thousands of times more than a space colony?

How will a mars colony ever turn a profit? Say they ship up solid gold bars. Will the fuel to lift that into orbit and to whereever it needs to be actually be more than the worth of the gold? If we assume no magic fuels, then shit no. There is no commodity that could be made or mined on mars that would outpace the cost of getting that good into space.

It's simple economics. You don't need nearly the fuel or the machines to move things around different orbits in space.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:30:50 2013 No.5565975 >>5565969 Is it just my reading comprehension or doesn't your post make any sense. Care to rephrase that.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:35:50 2013 No.5565996

>>5565974
>thousands of times
How

>ship up
why would they ship up anything other than information, enterntainment and consumer/luxury products in the later stages.
If you terraform a planet it's not just a mine you know, that is what asteroids are for.

Gravity doesn't pose any major costs that are not comparatible to zero-g cost when manufacturing consumer products/metals or
chemical products. I would argue that manufacturing in gravity wells can even be considerably cheaper than in zero-g with certain products.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:36:50 2013 No.5566000

>>5565974
Real estate is a "resource" too.

In fact, I hears they don't make much land any more.

Concidering the prices houses in London go for nowdays, 'tis my inevitable conclusion that, yes, soon it will be cheaper to get a house on Mars, factoring in the fuel And terraforming cost, than here :P

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:39:50 2013 No.5566008

>>5565974

At some point, gold may be worth thousands of times more than it is now, and fuel may be worth thousands of times less.

Alternatively, there could be a more valuable as yet undiscovered compound which naturally occurs on a planet which is prohibitively expensive to make on Earth.

We just don't know, which is why we need to explore space.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:39:50 2013 No.5566010
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>>5566000

Why in god's name would anyone want to live on mars? What job opportunities are there? Who would want to live in a dome all their life?

Again, how could it be possible to make a colony base on mars for cheaper than you could make a similar sized space colony? Ever hear of O'Neil cylinders? Real estate won't be an issue, and people usually choose to live in an area that's close to work. We don't even need o'neil cylinders.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:40:50 2013 No.5566011 Fun Moon fact: If you are a woman and live on the moon, your boobs are going to shag less.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:43:50 2013 No.5566023

>>5566008

>At some point, gold may be worth thousands of times more than it is now, and fuel may be worth thousands of times less.

This is not how economics works. gold can be mass produced in nuclear reactors while fuel will only go up in price as the demand increases.

>Alternatively, there could be a more valuable as yet undiscovered compound which naturally occurs on a planet which is prohibitively expensive to make on Earth.

This is how comic books work. This is not how chemistry works. The S and R process has left the inner planets of the solar system with almost identical mineral composition. No matter what we find on mars, we will find more of it, more easily mined, on asteroids.

colonizing planets is just a vehicle for science fiction stories. It's not practical at all.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:44:50 2013 No.5566027 >>5566023 >gold can be mass produced in nuclear reactors wat

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:44:50 2013 No.5566029

>>5566010
It's a planet with a population capacity of something like 5B with current earth standars. It has every job opportunity that earth currently has.

It doesn't matter if space colony is cheaper, a planet is still profitable and hence it will be colonized.

Also it's a pretty big assumption that you can make similar sized artificial living area with the terraforming costs a planet.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:45:50 2013 No.5566030 >>5566027 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesis_of_precious_metals#Gold

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:45:50 2013 No.5566033 >>5566027 Gold can be synthesized. So can diamonds. So can many other rare metals, minerals, and gases. Resources is limited by fuel and efficiency.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:48:50 2013 No.5566039 >>5566023 >gold can be mass produced in nuclear reactors while fuel will only go up in price as the demand increases. Are you for retarded? You do know that making gold requires quite a bit energy also know as fuel

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:48:50 2013 No.5566040

>>5566023

Fuel doesn't necessarily mean fossil fuel. You cannot base your long term future plans on the status quo - if we were arguing about this in the 1500s, we'd be saying that horses would always be a measure of a man's wealth because of how expensive they were. Then oil came along and oil is the new horse.

I never said anything about the mineral composition, I said compound. Different gravitational and atmospheric conditions acting on the same elements can produce different chemicals - see carbon graphite/diamond.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:51:50 2013 No.5566049

>>5566000
>Concidering the prices houses in London go for nowdays, 'tis my inevitable conclusion that, yes, soon it will be cheaper to get a house on Mars, factoring in the fuel And terraforming cost, than here

SOON it will be cheaper, even after the totally unknown terraforming costs?

You are making a ridiculously stupid statement there.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:51:50 2013 No.5566050

>>5566030
>Gold can currently be manufactured in a nuclear reactor by irradiation either of platinum or mercury.

Ah, the cheap stuff. :p

Ok. You are bombarding, heavier than gold stuff, in order to make gold. It makes sense, but it also sucks from an economic-cosmological point of view (yes, I just made that term up).

In the end of the day, heavy elements are precious. They have been created by the original supernova(s) that made all such in our system, and the only way to make them again is with fusion. (And concider we can't fuse hydrogen into helium yet properly, any idea of fusion beyond that is super-totally-laughable)

Now. Yes, floating asteroids are delicious. In the long run we will be gathering all of them.

But in the end of the day, the biggest amount of solid mass in the system, remains the friggen planets! Even the "poor scraps" in the crust of things like the Moon & Mars are still going to be billions and billions of tonnes of delicious, irreplaceable, not being made any more materials.

You just don't think long term enough.

That's because your brain is tiny.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:51:50 2013 No.5566054

>>5566029

>Also it's a pretty big assumption that you can make similar sized artificial living area with the terraforming costs a planet.

If you take any structure or machine of size and cost X, you add the cost of getting it into mars's gravity well. So no matter how big the space station is, since it doesn't have to have it's mass lowered into a gravity well, it will be less expensive to build.

Might i add that while there is room for 5b people on mars, there is no practical physical limit to how many people can live in space. You can make more pure metals and other goods, and you don't need to worry about dust getting in or an asteroid hitting the thing because it can move and space is very, very large. Not to mention that the space colonies could rotate and produce exactly 1g as opposed to the side effects of living on the moon or mars.

An IRL example would be: why would you spend the money to dig a hole 100ft down and then carve out a house when you can just build a house on the surface?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:52:50 2013 No.5566058 >>5566039 And since we currently do it on earth i would assume that the energy costs of transmutation are cheaper than a two-way trip to mars? By an order of magnitude?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:53:50 2013 No.5566064 >>5566000 Real estate is still using x by y dimensions. Once we come to a situation where acreage becomes that limited we will turn to a cubic measurement. We can make more space.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:54:50 2013 No.5566075

>>5566023
>colonizing planets is just a vehicle for science fiction stories. It's not practical at all.

This is a VASTLY ridiculous and unsupported statement.
I venture to say IGNORANT.

Your entire judgment seems to be about what you can take AWAY from the planet. You seem to think 'colonize' means 'mine for Earth.'

So -- what if, as the word 'colonize' suggests, the people are going to STAY?
Is it worthless for them to have a place to live?
If the population grows, is it still worthless to make a habitat larger?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:56:50 2013 No.5566080 >>5566029 >It's a planet with a population capacity of something like 5B with current earth standars. This is ridiculous, too; you can't put numbers to it without wholly unsupported quantities to calculate from.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:56:50 2013 No.5566081 Shit's never gonna happen as long as we are still bound to our social structures and money and stuff.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:57:46 2013 No.5566087 >>5566023 >No matter what we find on mars, we will find more of it, more easily mined, on asteroids. How is mining an asteroid easier than plowing up with a shovel and smelting in place?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:58:15 2013 No.5566090

>>5566075

Because other planets aren't frontier towns where it just takes a wagon train to reach.

It would cost trillions of dollars to establish any kind of outpost on mars. To make it industrially self-sufficient would take further trillions.

Those investors will not be living on mars, because so much of earth is just a better place to live. So the money will have to return somehow.

It's a non-start. If you want to colonize something planetish, go with Ceres. The gravity well cost is too great for the big rocks of the solar system.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 17:59:31 2013 No.5566091

>>5566075
That.

Naysays btw should keep in mind that it is to their advantage for the species to have as higher a number (but not shitty living conditions, as to trigger war, religions and epidemics and crap) as possible.

If a brain represents a X amount of computational power. Then to have 7 billion (Earth) and 3 Billion (Mars), is better than having a mere 7 billion Earth.

More brains = more computational power to work on problems, discover cures, extent life etc.

And yes, A.I.s might one day do it better but this a) is also totally science fiction right now, b), more two planets covered with computers would also be better than one planet covered with computers

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:01:16 2013 No.5566100 >>5566087 Because you don't need a giant rocket system to escape an asteroid gravity. The return trip is easier and more profitable.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:01:16 2013 No.5566101

>>5566090
>Because other planets aren't frontier towns where it just takes a wagon train to reach.
>It would cost trillions of dollars to establish any kind of outpost on mars. To make it industrially self-sufficient would take further trillions.

>Those investors will not be living on mars, because so much of earth is just a better place to live. So the money will have to return somehow.
Excepting several factors:
people WANT to do this
people will need to do this
people LOVE the idea that someone is doing this

>It's a non-start. If you want to colonize something planetish, go with Ceres. The gravity well cost is too great for the big rocks of the solar system.
So, now colonization is acceptable?
All of your statements defeated everything except mining to return to Earth -- can you now say that colonization practicality is more of a choice of destination?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:01:16 2013 No.5566102 File: 38 KB, 599x273, fermi.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] I just want a planet I can fly under my own power

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:01:45 2013 No.5566103

>>5566054
You seriously think that we would build cities in orbit and ship them to mars? It's a planet you can build stuff there. A small space habitat is definitely cheaper as you can build just the amount you need but a terraformed mars for lets say 5B would be cheaper than space habitat for 5B.

The rest two are ance again off topic, habitat for 5B in mars would be cheaper than 5B in space, of course when mars fills up you got to space

And a better analogy would be why build floating cities in spain when you can just go to america, but that is still pretty retarded analogy.

Your posts seem to go from bad to worse as we go.

>>5566058
Don't know bout that but your original argument was that mars couldn't export gold, and it definitely could when it's terraformed. launching stuff is relatively easy if you are just throwing a chunk of gold into space. I would guess about an order of magnitude cheaper in energy costs.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:02:04 2013 No.5566110

>>5566100
And that's incidentially the advantage of colonizing the moon, over mars btw.

Look, just thinking it as a big "asteroid" ok? :P

However, if it can also be Terraformed as a side project, then why not? In fact, the entire point of this thread, is how much more realistic of a target it is, than Mars.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:02:15 2013 No.5566106

>>5566087

You need the equivalent of the space shuttle to get the stuff to mars and get the ore off of mars, while a small ship could get you to the asteroid and a good jump could get you off it again.

It's exponentially cheaper to move things around in microgravity, basically.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:03:30 2013 No.5566111 >>5566080 It was just a rough estimate with the surface area, in reality the number could be much larger. >>5566100 Why would you need a return trip if you use the stuff locally?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:04:00 2013 No.5566121 >>>/b/ I think you meant to go here.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:04:16 2013 No.5566116 >>5565955 as a religious guy, he's right. > le

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:04:47 2013 No.5566120 >>5566111 >Why would you need a return trip if you use the stuff locally? Because the population, industry and investors are here on earth.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:05:15 2013 No.5566123

>>5566100
>Because you don't need a giant rocket system to escape an asteroid gravity. The return trip is easier and more profitable.

Again; why do you assume something needs to be taken to Earth?
All those people mining on another planet need stuff, too -- they can use it in situ.

I know, you think it all goes back to some economic drive on Earth. It just doesn't have to be such a giant barrier as you imply.

I can justify my comment: the effort to get to the moon was without commercial justification. (That is also the closest similar project.)
(And I agree current capitalist trends make a moon effort like that impossible, by the way.)

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:05:47 2013 No.5566124 >>5566106 >get the ore off of mars For crying out loud why would you ever try to export ore from mars? Mars is not a mine asteroids are, mars uses ore locally, it's a planet.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:05:47 2013 No.5566125

>>5566101
>people(on the internet) WANT to do this
>people(on the internet) will need to do this
>people(on the internet) LOVE the idea that someone is doing this

How often do you talk to random strangers about these ideas and how often do they agree with you? Most people i know have no interest in anything off world because it doesn't really do anything to improve their lives. Living on mars would suck.

>So, now colonization is acceptable?

On a planetoid that has a lower gravity than the moon and no atmosphere, yeah. It's essentially a fuckhuge asteroid.

>All of your statements defeated everything except mining to return to Earth -- can you now say that colonization practicality is more of a choice of destination?

I don't know how you reached this concusion. Gravity wells multiply the cost of any logistics. Therefore avoiding them is more economical. It doesn't matter what joe loner on the internet wants. He isn't funding the missions.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:06:03 2013 No.5566128

>>5566054
>you don't need to worry about dust getting in or an asteroid hitting the thing because it can move and space is very, very large
That is very, very wrong.
A space station has no way to avoid tiny shit that hits it. It's really not a long term save solution.
If you got something small like the ISS, sure, but what you're talking about is gigantic in comparison.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:06:03 2013 No.5566129

>>5566111
>It was just a rough estimate with the surface area, in reality the number could be much larger.

In reality the number possible could be several -magnitudes- SMALLER, too.
That's why you should avoid giving numbers -- you have no justification for them.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:07:16 2013 No.5566130 >>5566124 BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO RETURN THE INVESTMENT OF THE INITIAL COST OF THE COLONY. You don't just make a colony for free or assume that a litany of billionaires all want to risk their lives to live on mars.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:07:16 2013 No.5566132 >>5566120 The entire idea of terraforming is that you have a planet that has it's own population. asteroids are mines, you drop that stuff back on earth, mars is an earth 2.0

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:08:45 2013 No.5566140

>>5566128
>A space station has no way to avoid tiny shit that hits it. It's really not a long term save solution.

Asteroids. Not micrometeorites. The station can move a tiny fraction and dodge them. Micrometeorite impacts can be repaired.

If an asteroid hits mars, it's fucked. There would be nothing the colonists could do unless they had godmode on and had infinite money to build a countermeasure system as well as an entire industrial base.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:09:00 2013 No.5566147

>>5566132

The entire idea of terraforming is a far-stretched notion of colonizing other continents.

It's really not a well thought out or pragmatic concept.

It just makes for good science fiction. Earth Vs. Mars is awesome even if it makes absolutely no sense.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:09:16 2013 No.5566142 >>5566132 Terraforming would only be profitable if we run out of real estate here on earth. Otherwise it's more economical and reasonable to simply mine everything around us and stay put here.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:09:46 2013 No.5566145

>>5566130
And you think that the best way of doing that is to export ore? How stupid are you.

It's a large urban development project, you are betting on the fact that the rent from 5B people among other things is enough to cover the construction costs, hint it will.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:11:15 2013 No.5566156

>>5566120
>Because the population, industry and investors are here on earth.

Uhm... we're back to the word 'colony.'
if you assume all things can only happen where they already are,
then you've defeated nearly everything that has made mankind expand or develop.

When you make a COLONY, you are trying to make things happen in a NEW PLACE.
Specifically, you WANT the resources to be in the colony.
You also want people and industry to want to come to the colony.

Earth already has those things: this is about an effort, specifically, to make those things appear in the colony.
There is plenty of motivation to do this; the first chip fab will be the only chip fab in a whole planet. The first new foodstuff will be the first for humans anywhere.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:11:15 2013 No.5566157 >>5566147 Mars wins

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:11:32 2013 No.5566159 >>5566140 Are you seriously arguing that a civilication that can terraform a planet can't deal with asteroids?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:11:46 2013 No.5566162

>>5566145

So in your hypothetical example, in the lifetime of a single investor 5 billion people are flash cloned on mars where they then do nothing but still have an income and they wirelessly send that income back to earth because.

Can you elucidate on how any of this would be set up or are you too fixated on how it would work hundreds of years after its inception?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:14:01 2013 No.5566173 >>5566159 I'm saying that it's impossible for all of this to happen at once.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:14:32 2013 No.5566170

>>5566156
>When you make a COLONY, you are trying to make things happen in a NEW PLACE.
>Specifically, you WANT the resources to be in the colony.
>You also want people and industry to want to come to the colony.

But mars colonies are too much an alegory of colonies on new continents. The difficulty and cost makes the two concepts wholly unrelatable.

There is nothing on mars that is worth more than the fuel that it would cost to get it.

people don't do things unless they see a profit. What company is suddenly going to decide to spend all of it's money to move off world just to corner a non-existent market when it's already doing well on earth?

It's like expecting a shark to evolve arms. It has no need for arms it's already perfectly adapted to the environment.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:15:16 2013 No.5566174

>>5566125
>>people(on the internet) WANT to do this
>>people(on the internet) will need to do this
>>people(on the internet) LOVE the idea that someone is doing this
>How often do you talk to random strangers about these ideas and how often do they agree with you? Most people i know have no interest in anything off world because it doesn't really do anything to improve their lives. Living on mars would suck.

You think I'm talking about my own experiences, and just the ignorant /4chan/ types?
This is a studied, many-decades-long evaluation of a psychological interest.

>>So, now colonization is acceptable?
>On a planetoid that has a lower gravity than the moon and no atmosphere, yeah. It's essentially a fuckhuge asteroid.
Then why can't you just swing the discussion that way, instead of insisting it's all fruitless nonsense? Good God, you are saying you SUPPORT this idea!

>>All of your statements defeated everything except mining to return to Earth -- can you now say that colonization practicality is more of a choice of destination?
>I don't know how you reached this concusion.
I just read it, above! YOU SAID IT, several times!

>Gravity wells multiply the cost of any logistics. Therefore avoiding them is more economical. It doesn't matter what joe loner on the internet wants. He isn't funding the missions.
Nobody is talking about people on the internet, except your spiteful comments above.
And you should have noticed by now, I'm not arguing that you are wrong about gravity well economics. It would be sweet of you, really, to stop talking down to your superiors.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:15:46 2013 No.5566175 >>5566157 Because it's the rebel against the authority story and most people really like that story.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:16:45 2013 No.5566182

>>5566162
You don't know how economy works don't you?

It's a long process and the basic principle is the same than with any random piece of land or collectors item, you are betting your money on the fact that you can sell the thing later with a profit. And you don't need to urbanize the whole thing in one go, you sell land as you go.

Also you are forgetting the fact that this kind of thing would be probably a government project making profit a secondary goal.

Instead of makig ridiculous hyperboles you should focus more on your own argumentation.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:17:15 2013 No.5566183

>>5566156
You can colonize a new continent because there is a bare essential for survival there. There is existing condition, foods, and environment that makes it liveable for anyone that colonizes it. Mars is completely inhospitable without continued efforts from earth they would die. Mars colonization is not expansion of an industry but an answer to real estate which we do not have an issue with now or anywhere in the near future.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:17:45 2013 No.5566185 >>5566183 >You can colonize a new continent because there is a bare essential for survival there. Thus Terraforming :3

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:18:16 2013 No.5566186 >>5566173 All of what? You are claiming that we could build a space station that can somehow dodge ateroids while simultaneously we would be unable to detect or intercept an asteroid that is heading towards a planet.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:18:31 2013 No.5566187
File: 116 KB, 423x237, Jim-Halpert-786091-1.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5566174
>This is a studied, many-decades-long evaluation of a psychological interest.

Then provide your data set. I'd like to see just how many people you surveyed.

>Then why can't you just swing the discussion that way, instead of insisting it's all fruitless nonsense? Good God, you are saying you SUPPORT this idea!

I have been saying this entire time that colonizing the large rocks is impractical because of the atmosphere and gravity wells. When those are absent, why wouldn't i support colonization? I don't see it being likely that we would have people living on ceres, but it's a hell of a lot more practical than having people living on that shitball mars.

>I just read it, above! YOU SAID IT, several times!

We may have misunderstood each other.

>It would be sweet of you, really, to stop talking down to your superiors.

mfw

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:19:33 2013 No.5566193

>>5566182
>a government project making profit a secondary goal.

wat. What government projects don't care about profit? You do know that nasa keeps getting it's budget cut, right? And that the ONLY reason we went to the moon was to beat the russians to it?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:19:46 2013 No.5566194 >>5566185 No it's cheaper to mine whatever you want and leave it an inhospitable rock.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:20:02 2013 No.5566196 >>5566185 >thus magic Fixed that for you.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:21:45 2013 No.5566199

>>5566170
>people don't do things unless they see a profit.

It's like you are saying we don't put up giant telescopes in space, visit the moon, send probes and robots to other planets (many times).

These are all profitless ventures.
But people want them to happen, so they do.
Yes, they cost money to do -- and while a Mars colony would cost vastly more, it also includes people who persistently get to participate.
That is exciting.

And no, it isn't just the /b/ 'neckbeards' and 'autists' and other useless denizens who talk about it and will spend money on it.
Please stop attacking every idea as shallow and unsupported and new.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:22:01 2013 No.5566207 >>5566187 >>It would be sweet of you, really, to stop talking down to your superiors. >mfw I only decided to write that after it made me smile a little. It's such a /4chan/ piece of junk criticism. •)

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:22:15 2013 No.5566203

>>5566186

If it fired it's reaction control systems in a single vector for a few seconds it would alter it's trajectory to dodge anything. Even a multi-kilometer long station has a lower cross section and gravitational influence than a whole damn planet. Yes in fact it would be exponentially easier to watch out for and defend a space station than a whole planet.

Space stations aren't the size of a planet.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:22:32 2013 No.5566204

>>5566193
Any government ever perhaps?
Gocenrments primary goal is not to make profit, it might be a secondary goal but it isn't usually the primary.

How nice to bring up one of the best eccamples of government spending a ridiculous amount of money with little to no profit and lots of dick waving.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:23:32 2013 No.5566208 >>5566194 mining a planet is extremely expencive, only way it's profitable is to use the resources locally.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:24:01 2013 No.5566213

>>5566199

>It's like you are saying we don't put up giant telescopes in space, visit the moon, send probes and robots to other planets (many times).

>These are all profitless ventures.

While i could be a dick and say that people do make money off selling prints of the hubble photos, yeah. those things weren't done for profit. Notice, however, how few and far between they are.

We only went to the moon to beat the russians and we stopped cold once we did. Nasa is a government organization tasked with studying space and it receives a stipend from the government to do so. It does not require profit in it's motives, but the R&D has produced many profitable items.

So you're comparing apples to oranges.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:25:15 2013 No.5566215 >>5566199 These are not profitless ventures. Do you understand how many sustainable jobs this creates and who pays to use these amenities? The reason these things are created are to attract potential industries and expedite progress.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:25:30 2013 No.5566217 >>5566203 defending is easy if you see asteroids coming, if you have the capability to detect an asteroid and build space habitats then you most definitely have the tech to deflect any and all asteroids.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:25:45 2013 No.5566219 >>5566208 That's why we would mine asteroids and leave planets alone until we have consumed the supply of asteroids.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:26:16 2013 No.5566220

>>5565835
>>5565926
unfortunately i have to agree with professor killjoy here.

it's econimically retarded to mine from a planet, though i still think we'll end up colonizing much of the solar system for other ventures. can't think of what exactly, maybe manufacturing?

>>	Inurdaes !FwKWcSlloY Tue Feb 26 18:26:31 2013 No.5566223 File: 190 KB, 604x453, 1361552641341.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >this entire thread

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:27:31 2013 No.5566225 Guy's what if we put a bunch of rockets on the moon and push it to earth so we can mine all of it's resource?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:27:31 2013 No.5566226 >>5566220 >maybe manufacturing I can't imagine why. Near-vacuum and microgravity of space will produce metals far purer than any terrestrial attempt. Fuck trying to keep things dust free on the moon or mars.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:28:46 2013 No.5566230 >>5566217 Except with a planet you would need the coverage area of a fucking planet. Space stations are smaller. Thus require less materials and investment to defend than a whole planet.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:28:46 2013 No.5566231 >>5566215 And you think terraforming a planet doesn't create sustainable jobs? This is exactly why i meantioned the government.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:30:46 2013 No.5566238

>>5566231

Not really no. Getting to the planet is already stupid expensive, trying to support a human population and paying them more than what they could have earned on earth is really pushing any sort of realistic budget.

All of this shit, just to do what we could do with space stations for a hundredth of the cost.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:31:46 2013 No.5566241

>>5566193
>wat. What government projects don't care about profit?
Well, I named a couple, and if we include countries that are not America there have got to be a few thousand examples (of smaller budgets, of course).

>You do know that nasa keeps getting it's budget cut, right?
Without a big project, that is appropriate. What would be silly is if NASA had a big budget and was not doing big stuff like this.

>And that the ONLY reason we went to the moon was to beat the russians to it?
Which tells us that people don't need a myriad of reasons to do a really big project.
It also shows that profitability is not the only factor.
It also shows that giant projects can get done in the short term, and this one doesn't have to be short-term.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:31:46 2013 No.5566242

>>5566230
you think that there would be some kind of shield or something? It's trivial to cover any area if you can spot the asteroids, which you definitely could if you can terraform and build space habitats.

Asteroids are not boogey men of space, the are lumps of rock and ice.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:34:01 2013 No.5566245

>>5566242

I meant a countermeasure system of missiles or lasers. You would only need a few of low power and fuel to stop an asteroid. You would need a fucking load more to have coverage over the entire sky of mars.

Think of it as a goalie net. What's easier to defend? a 2m net or a 2km net?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:34:46 2013 No.5566247

>>5566238
>Not really no.
really? It would create more jobs than any other project in the history of humanity, and once again profit is secondary goal, money has no meaning to a sufficiently large government
Apollo program is great example of govenrment spending money "just because" with the same amount of money invested in real R&D the retuns would have been greater but now we have visited the moon.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:35:00 2013 No.5566253

>>5566241
>What would be silly is if NASA had a big budget and was not doing big stuff like this.

You mean like the cancelled Constellation Program? Yeah, what a shock that not everyone cares about space.

>Which tells us that people don't need a myriad of reasons to do a really big project.
It also shows that profitability is not the only factor.
It also shows that giant projects can get done in the short term, and this one doesn't have to be short-term.

As long as the motivators are beating another superpower to the punch with the mindset of cold war era america. or War.

I really don't find it likely that that will occur again.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:37:16 2013 No.5566258

>>5566213
>While i could be a dick and say that people do make money off selling prints of the hubble photos, yeah. those things weren't done for profit. Notice, however, how few and far between they are.
Well, they are part of groups of projects that take many years to produce.
That is to say, they are absolutely constant, things we do at all times, every single day, for multiple projects.
Yes, notice how often we do them. We have never once stopped, at multiple projects. That's how determined people are, for this entirely, completely profitless type of venture.

>We only went to the moon to beat the russians and we stopped cold once we did. Nasa is a government organization tasked with studying space and it receives a stipend from the government to do so.
It receives operational costs, it does not make profit. That supports my argument.

>It does not require profit in it's motives, but the R&D has produced many profitable items.
Correct, most of which goes to the subcontractor that developed that tech, and to NASA< which is required to fold it into budget (it's a nonprofit govt entity).

>So you're comparing apples to oranges.
Hm? I'm saying people get these things done without having to require profits.
You just showed two ways that is true, and one indirect method someone does make profit.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:37:31 2013 No.5566261

>>5566245
The same missile does the job in both cases provided that you stop the thing early enough. the area you are defending doesn't matter.'
You only need that one and same defence platform in space that would be defending the space station.

And in your example the answer is that bot, when the goalie just uses a ball seeking missile.the missile doesn't care about the net

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:37:46 2013 No.5566262

>>5566247

It could create jobs but the planners would be trying to cut costs since it's already pushing many trillions of dollars and having a robotic workforce that only needs sunlight to operate and not lot a shitload of gasses and liquids and entertainment.

>Apollo program is great example of govenrment spending money "just because"

>I'm not that interested in space. I think it's good, I think we ought to know about it, we're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money. But we're talking about these fantastic expenditures which wreck our budget and all these other domestic programs and the only justification for it in my opinion to do it in this time or fashion is because we hope to beat them [the Soviet Union] and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them.

--JFK

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:40:01 2013 No.5566270

>>5566226
Yes, and free energy of space to do it; far better results in asteroids.

But then, where do you use all those resources?
It doesn't HAVE to be Earth, it just has to be where people are.

And, let's not pretend all resources are metals and that purity is the only thing that matters.
Tech products might be the most expensive, but they are very, very far from the most necessary or useful.

(Think wood, ceramic, food, liquids, and anything else within sight.)

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:40:15 2013 No.5566268 [DELETED]

File: 25 KB, 486x183, tysonrocket.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5566258
>That's how determined people are, for this entirely, completely profitless type of venture.

They work for a non-profit organization. Notice how the people who do this still get paid, however. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart.

riddle me this: Why are there only three people living in space if profit or cost isn't a factor with NASA?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:42:31 2013 No.5566275

>>5566217
>if you have the capability to detect an asteroid and build space habitats then you most definitely have the tech to deflect any and all asteroids.

I cannot accept this statement even in it's future intention;
this should not ever be necessarily true, and I'm not sure it can be perceivably true.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:43:01 2013 No.5566280

>>5566242
>Asteroids are not boogey men of space, the are lumps of rock and ice.

Correct, but they arrive in ALL sizes, at nearly ANY speed, from ANY direction, and there is neither anything to illuminate them enough nor signal their presence very early.

Assuming seeing something is the same as being able to control it seems ridiculous to me.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:43:15 2013 No.5566276

>>5566261

>The same missile does the job in both cases provided that you stop the thing early enough.

So you would use a missile with a range in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers to defend a space station that is only a kilometer across?

You do realize that a planet is larger than a kilometer and that a missile would have to travel farther from it's orbital placement to an asteroid unless you had the daisy chained in orbits 2km apart?

Please tell me you understand the fact that defending the cross section of a space station requires less energy than defending the cross section of a planet.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:43:46 2013 No.5566278 File: 226 KB, 800x565, 1311034241833.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >this is whole thread holy fuck this is the first time i've even been on /sci/ and this is awesome. how have i not been here before

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:46:46 2013 No.5566286

>>5566270
>But then, where do you use all those resources?

More space stations. For cheap, with the best possible metals.

It works out pretty well, profit wise. Shit if people truly love things from space, then who wouldn't want a hotwheels car made from starmetal?

>(Think wood, ceramic, food, liquids, and anything else within sight.)

Wood can be grown using genetic engineering tricks. Ceramics can be made from the silicas found on asteroids, food can be grown, but that'd be a waste of space. Hopefully we'll eventually make bacteria that are very dense for storage and can be eaten. asteroids can have water ice on them as well.

All without wasting gas on going down to a big shitty rock.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:48:31 2013 No.5566293

>>5566280
If you read my post you would have noticed that my entire argument revolved around two important facts:
1) You are clearly able to detect asteroids as you are able to dodge them with space stations kilometres acros
2) You are able to terraform a planet and build space stations

With those two facts defending agains asteroids is trivial

Anyway i'm out for the night, too late to continue and too much trolling to go around, will come back in 12H if this thread is still alive.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:53:45 2013 No.5566306

>>5566293

Never did i say that the space station would be able to detect and dodge 100% of all incoming objects.

I said that given the facts that the space station will be only a few km long, it will only have to defend a cross section of space equivalent to it's own cross section. Meaning that the vast majority of all spaceborne objects will straight up miss the thing because of how big space is and the fact that it doesn't posess a significant gravity well. Since you only have to scan a smaller part of the sky and move the station just a tiny bit, it is statistically likely that the station will never be hit by anything large and the countermeasures are just for backup.

But a planet is huge. It pulls asteroids to it. It has a fucking huge cross section for an object to hit it. You need to sight things from way far off to have any chance of diverting them and you would need to scan for a shitload of objects.

It's like the goalie can move the net when he sees the ball. Imagine how unfair that would be.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 18:57:16 2013 No.5566317 File: 78 KB, 520x377, 5708479_f520.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] So, I take it we all agree on Terraforming the Moon then?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:03:45 2013 No.5566337 >>5565729 Shouldn't be impossible to live there long term, but going back to Earth might be.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:07:31 2013 No.5566353 >>5566317 No, we are making a space station near the moon and funneling the resources back to earth. Fuck you rebel colonists. You space babies have no country.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:09:17 2013 No.5566360

>>5566245
>I meant a countermeasure system of missiles or lasers. You would only need a few of low power and fuel to stop an asteroid.

this is an amazing assertion;
it goes against everything I have ever heard from astronomers, military experts, and astronautics experts.

The problem isn't just about having A weapon.
The problem is that the weapon has to eliminate ANY size of target, and not just make it break, but reduce it to nothing significant. It has to do this between the time the rock is first verified as having a dangerous trajectory and impact. It has to decide to launch, launch, have whatever travel time, impact and resolve the fragmentation in that time.

Consider the recent Chelyabinsk incident;
the rock was PERCEIVED only after it caused a glow, and experts said they would have been evaluating it's trajectory in the time it smoked and exploded. That's ignoring the time to launch and travel for a missile, and the fact that a missile would only have broken it like it did, anyway.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:11:31 2013 No.5566366

>>5566261
>The same missile does the job in both cases provided that you stop the thing early enough. the area you are defending doesn't matter.'

Weird; other people would say that not every missile can do the job,
and that few objects are likely to be discovered very early, and that the flight time to a missile really does matter, when timing is part of every other factor.

Are you considering only the space station example for these statements?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:12:45 2013 No.5566371

>>5566317 >So, I take it we all agree on Terraforming the Moon then?

Fuck the Moon, straight to Mars is the answer.

Moonbases -
Required. If even just for using it as a space warehouse because the limited gravity will allow us to store/stockpile stuff without everything immediately flying away.
Mining the Moon? As far as I know there are no technologies/systems that allow this to be feasible yet. Eventually we will most likely require a source of helium; pending on the progress of superconductors. I don't think anyone will be happy using hydrogen in their MRI machines.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:15:01 2013 No.5566382

>>5566360

To be honest using missiles against asteroids is a bad idea. I don't know how the conversation got pushed in this direction.

Yeah, you would need different warheads. But the fuel payload for a space station missile would be lower because it doesn't take as much delta v to change orbits at very high altitudes.

Since you don't have to worry about gravity pulling the bits in, a small missile could fragment it a good distance from the station with the debris cone missing the station.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:24:02 2013 No.5566408

>>5566268
>They work for a non-profit organization. Notice how the people who do this still get paid, however. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart.

You're deflecting; those are not the people who spent the money.
yes, all workers get paid in any arrangement we are talking about. Workers are not the difference in either argument.
Neither is philanthropy my only argument.

>riddle me this: Why are there only three people living in space if profit or cost isn't a factor with NASA?
Simple; Because we only have smaller projects at THIS time.
While ISS is a big project, it is complete (mostly).

The number of people living at one time in space is not really telling the tale: the number of projects going on at this time is much more telling.

That is currently: the JWST, two more Mars recon projects, a Titan probe, a few more orbital satellites examining Earth, development of a Lagrangian project, and several projects regarding asteroid and Oort evaluation.
Private concerns are working in satellite launching, space tourism, moon marketing, and whatever the Chinese are actually doing when they claim 'space hotel.'
Academic projects are working on launch systems, propulsion concepts, habitats, health issues for long-term survival, psych testing, capsule materials, habitat materials, agricultural factors, and much more.

It seems ridiculous to me that people EVER say 'not much ever happens about space' by looking just at the public landings or launches.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:25:01 2013 No.5566414

>>5566276
>Please tell me you understand the fact that defending the cross section of a space station requires less energy than defending the cross section of a planet.

I'm not even sure he does.
I think he's just watched movies, and assume our teeny missiles can fly across a planet so fast that a two-minute warning of a rock is enough.
And, as most people seem to, that using explosives makes things go away completely, instead of just making them break.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:29:30 2013 No.5566425 >>5566225 why not put a bunch of powerful nukes in/on the moon, blow it into small pieces and then mine them one by one then?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:31:18 2013 No.5566429

>>5566286
>>But then, where do you use all those resources?
>More space stations. For cheap, with the best possible metals.
But not everything (I'd attempt to argue most things) that we need are not metal.
It isn't just stations we need -- furniture, food, toys, clothes FAR more.

>It works out pretty well, profit wise. Shit if people truly love things from space, then who wouldn't want a hotwheels car made from starmetal?
Agreed, lots of ancillary markets could become significant.

>>(Think wood, ceramic, food, liquids, and anything else within sight.)
>Wood can be grown using genetic engineering tricks. Ceramics can be made from the silicas found on asteroids, food can be grown, but that'd be a waste of space. Hopefully we'll eventually make bacteria that are very dense for storage and can be eaten. asteroids can have water ice on them as well.
Right, but I wasn't talking about raw materials, but the expenses of producing the useful stuff. Wood, food, is easy and cheap to grow planetside, particularly if your market is planetside.
If your market is in the belt, it will cost a lot more to produce the finished goods.

Notice I'm not saying it doesn't work out for the belters; just that it can work out for the planetside colony.

>All without wasting gas on going down to a big shitty rock.
It doesn't take very much fuel to LAND the materials.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:32:30 2013 No.5566432 >>5566353 >Fuck you rebel colonists. You space babies have no country. Oh, that's good, piss off people who could just toss their leftover rocks to wipe you out.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:32:48 2013 No.5566434

>>5566408

It's time to collate these projects into a huge faggy infographic dump.

One rule. Any infographic must be fully referenced with a link provided to a text file containing an expanded description of the image content and the reference information. File should be archived on a permanent storage service that isn't likely to disappear from the Internet in 10 years.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:33:31 2013 No.5566436 >>5566382 Correct, but the station would not be free to ignore the debris it created for the planet below (I'm assuming orbital station).

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:35:00 2013 No.5566443

>>5566382
>To be honest using missiles against asteroids is a bad idea.

The only good idea defending the planet, that we could actually do today, is deflect by attaching an engine.
Of course, that require immensely large early warning -- several months, at least.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:39:46 2013 No.5566455

>>5566425
>why not put a bunch of powerful nukes in/on the moon, blow it into small pieces and then mine them one by one then?

What kind of moron thinks we can do anything more than re-arrange the dust on the moon?

Nuclear weapons are impressive against people -- but if you look around where they are used, they aren't breaking giant cracks in planets.

Human weapons are BULLSHIT against any of those movie-type dangers. Just stop suggesting the damn things.

>>	sage sage Tue Feb 26 19:42:01 2013 No.5566462 MARS HAS NO USEFUL MAGNETIC FIELD YOU FUCKING RETARD.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:44:34 2013 No.5566467

>>5565926

And how are we going to cost-effectively mine these asteroids and bring the products back to Earth? Hmm?

We need the fucking asteroids to build the material required to harvest the asteroids so we can mine more asteroids and use asteroids for building. It's just not feasible, like building a mining colony/terraforming on the moon.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:44:45 2013 No.5566469 >>5566455 What if we drill into the moon plant explosives and blow out manageable chunks from it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:45:32 2013 No.5566473 >>5566462 True enough, but that isn't a barrier to doing what we are saying. With an atmosphere, radiation can be effectively blocked.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:45:46 2013 No.5566474 >>5566455 take it easy, dude. i was taking his ridiculous idea (use rockets to crash moon into earth), and giving it an equally ridiculous one to compare. stop taking every lame joke on the internet so seriously.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:46:32 2013 No.5566476 >>5565926 >dig off several billion tons of regolith and get at the minerals below Do you think useful minerals are always deep?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:47:45 2013 No.5566482 >>5566462 >MARS HAS NO USEFUL MAGNETIC FIELD YOU FUCKING RETARD. So what?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:47:45 2013 No.5566483 File: 14 KB, 250x233, mars_needs_moms_17478.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5566462 Wrong. http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/16/mars-radiation-levels-tolerable-to-humans/

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:48:32 2013 No.5566488

>>5566023

>Gold can be mass produced in nuclear reactors
YEAH MAN AND I CAN MAKE A LOT OF IT IN MY PARTICLE ACCELERATOR I'M GUNA BE RICH !!!!!!111!!!!one!1!!!!

It is not nearly as easy, cost effective, or efficient as you so mistakenly try to portray it to be.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:48:46 2013 No.5566490 >>5566476 Do you have any idea how much material usually is moved from even a small quarry?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:49:31 2013 No.5566493

>>5566474
>stop taking every lame joke on the internet so seriously.

I wasn't responding just to that; and that post (while ridiculous) wasn't nearly the most ridiculous I've heard from people who were being quite serious.

People really do assume a nuclear bomb is immensely powerful compared to almost anything at all.
People really do suggest blowing up giant objects, for practical reasons.
People really think that those kinds of reactionary ideas make sense,
and our job, as informed people, is (from a philosophical perspective, and from a strategic one) to correct them.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:50:46 2013 No.5566499 >>5566436 Very unlikely that the trajectory of an object passing up as high as a space colony would intersect the earth.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:51:30 2013 No.5566503 >>5566488 It's more cost effective to transmute gold than it is to get it off mars.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:51:45 2013 No.5566505 >>5566488 But what is being said is that synthesis of gold is possible. Fuel on the other hand is a much more limited resource currently.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:52:30 2013 No.5566510 >>5566493 >People really do assume a nuclear bomb is immensely powerful compared to almost anything at all. This is true. Nothing made of protons and neutrons can survive the center of an atomic bomb.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:52:46 2013 No.5566511

>>5566490
>Do you have any idea how much material usually is moved from even a small quarry?

Yes, (i've got family in mining) but what I asked was if you were aware that minerals can also be mined just by bulldozing them off the surface?

It sounded like you were implying everything useful is 100 M down, and that's not true.
Particularly if you are talking about mining on another planet.

It also brings up the difficulties of finding a good mineable asteroid, and then applying force to break it apart. You've given up the gravity force, and in microgravity your own movement and relative combined movement are additional problems.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:53:16 2013 No.5566512 >>5566510 energy can.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:54:31 2013 No.5566515

>>5566499
>Very unlikely that the trajectory of an object passing up as high as a space colony would intersect the earth.

I assumed you were imagining one in Earth orbit or one at a Lagrangian point.
Those are well within the gravity well, and if Earth itself didn't deflect them, they are probably pointing toward Earth, too.
It's a geometry thing.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:54:31 2013 No.5566516 >>5566512 energy is not a thing.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:55:31 2013 No.5566519 >>5566516 Bring evidence proving energy is not a thing.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:56:45 2013 No.5566523 >>5566519 Energy can be converted into mass, but it's not actually mass. Two different things.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:56:45 2013 No.5566525

>>5566515

>Those are well within the gravity well, and if Earth itself didn't deflect them, they are probably pointing toward Earth, too.

Thaaat's not how orbital mechanics works.

That DA142 or whatever asteroid came between us and the moon and carried on. If something is passing through the Lagrange points it could just as easily be a flyby. Blowing it up wouldn't alter its course at that altitude enough to make it intersect the earth.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:57:16 2013 No.5566529 >>5566519 It is a capacity to do work. Capacity is not a thing.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:57:31 2013 No.5566530

>>5566510
>Nothing made of protons and neutrons can survive the center of an atomic bomb.

Now the bomb's target is INSIDE the bomb?

Look, we've used atomic weapons before -- go look at a picture. Even brick buildings (which can fall over on their own) survive. Small stone bridges don't always fall. You don't have to go far to find human flesh that wasn't destroyed.
Atomic weapons are powerful compared to our other weapons, not compared to all of nature.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:58:46 2013 No.5566536 >>5566530 Then what if we tunnel to the middle of the moon and pack tnt into it?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 19:59:30 2013 No.5566544 >>5566523 Mass=Energy Energy=Mass. Your argument is invalid.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:00:31 2013 No.5566549

>>5566530

>Now the bomb's target is INSIDE the bomb?

What? No. Ground Zero is at the center.

>Look, we've used atomic weapons before -- go look at a picture. Even brick buildings (which can fall over on their own) survive. Small stone bridges don't always fall. You don't have to go far to find human flesh that wasn't destroyed.
Atomic weapons are powerful compared to our other weapons, not compared to all of nature.

So you're saying an explosion is weaker as the square of the distance increases? No surprise there.

Do you happen to have a picture of the solid steel stand used to hold the bomb up in the air? After the test?

The bonds between protons and neutrons have a limit and even a low yield atomic bomb breaks those bonds. Nothing baryonic can survive a nuke at ground zero.

Lord man, are you just looking for things to fight about?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:01:16 2013 No.5566551 >>5566544 Mass is not a thing. Go ahead. Show me a picture of pure mass with no matter.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:01:45 2013 No.5566552

>>5566525
>That DA142 or whatever asteroid came between us and the moon and carried on. If something is passing through the Lagrange points it could just as easily be a flyby. Blowing it up wouldn't alter its course at that altitude enough to make it intersect the earth.

Absolutely correct;
there is a band perpendicular to those two objects (the station and Earth) across which the gravity well does not have to pull all objects in.
Everything in above that band, away from Earth, has to be pointed _more_ toward Earth. It's speed and mass change the likelihood (and the width of that band).

However, that asteroid did _drastically_ have it's path altered.
It was a good example of what you mean, but it doesn't take much to see how different the path could have been.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:03:16 2013 No.5566559 >>5566536 Then you'll be distracted from your goal by the magical candy land, and lose interest in blowin' it up. Really, who doesn't want to think the moon has a magical land of weird resources inside it? It's a nice thought.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:05:31 2013 No.5566563

Introduce Big Ass Asteroid.

Now shoot a missile towards it, with a configuration that allows it to penetrate deep into the crust. The missile then explodes.

>Asteroid
>made of rock, water and dust
>mostly dust?

Does it now disperse like a fucking bowl of sand into space, or does it break into small or smaller pieces that fly off in every direction, before hitting important shit or ending up in Jupiter?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:07:47 2013 No.5566569 File: 61 KB, 500x382, xpatter_strip.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5566563 Both, actually. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/02feb_asteroidcollision/

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:09:01 2013 No.5566574 File: 434 B, 145x150, no_matter.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5566551 >picture of no matter Not that guy, but here.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:10:32 2013 No.5566575 >>5566559 If we tnt all that candy we would get delicious space caramel.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:12:31 2013 No.5566582 >>5566544 false. the two are proportional to each other. by that logic; Force = Mass Density = Mass

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:15:16 2013 No.5566598 >>5566574 Oh look it's not a thing.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:25:31 2013 No.5566638 >>5566598 It's a picture of dark matter. Mass with no baryonic matter. Isn't that what you wanted?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:30:33 2013 No.5566655 >>5566638 It's not a picture of dark matter it's just a black space.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:39:32 2013 No.5566682 >>5566655 How can you tell? Non-baryonic mass is non-radiating and mostly non-interacting. I'm telling you, that's a picture of a supercluster-sized clump of non-baryonic mass.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:41:00 2013 No.5566691 >>5566682 0/10

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:42:15 2013 No.5566692 >>5565717 >Hey guys, what dont we do <any large scale science project that its actually possible to do> Ask the jews. They got a free country to hide all their jewgold and they're not gonna lend it to terraform the moon or some shit.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 20:48:02 2013 No.5566715

>>5566511 >It sounded like you were implying everything useful is 100 M down, and that's not true.

That wasn't me, I got hooked on the dig off billions of tons comment because that's not unrealistic, a very large mass of material will need processed regardless of depth.

How do you do this without actively maintaining the machinery and without launching fresh replacement machines?

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:38:30 2013 No.5566894

>>5566563
>Does it now disperse like a fucking bowl of sand into space, or does it break into small or smaller pieces that fly off in every direction, before hitting important shit or ending up in Jupiter?

That's the problem; people want to have a definitive answer for this, and there simply is not one.

Comets are generally fairly loose, often quite icy.
Asteroids are generally solid, probably mostly metallic, but could be stone.
There is simply no reason to assume one kind or structure.

If it is stone, an explosion -might- have a decent chance to make gravel from it.
But meteorite samples suggest solid metal is pretty common.
Cometary stuff might be far less frequent, and icy, but might also be quite large.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:40:16 2013 No.5566901 >>5566575 oooh... I'm gettin' a stiffy. Moooon caramel could be smmmoooooth.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:41:46 2013 No.5566912

>>5566692
>Ask the jews. They got a free country to hide all their jewgold and they're not gonna lend it to terraform the moon or some shit.

Agreed.
If Israel wants to take part in science any more, they gotta cough up.
No more handouts, no more 'but we're fighting, we need yer weapons.'

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:42:02 2013 No.5566913 >>5565717 >Terraformed moon >Landmasses still the colour of regolith Whatever, it still looks kind of cool.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:47:46 2013 No.5566942

>>5566575

Can we use giant shaped charges with the ingredients for sweets attatched to coat a small to medium sized asteroid with a delicious layer of coloured sugar, from orbit?

Vacuum of space will keep it fresh forever

Ingredients include Sugar, glucose syrup, fruit juices from concentrate, fat, gelatine etc.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:50:31 2013 No.5566956

>>5566563
>Does it now disperse like a fucking bowl of sand into space, or does it break into small or smaller pieces that fly off in every direction, before hitting important shit or ending up in Jupiter?

Unpredictable clumps of every size that fly off in every direction.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 21:54:00 2013 No.5566977 >>5566956 More likely a cloud of rubble that disperses along the original trajectory.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:15:30 2013 No.5567056 This seems like a good place to ask. How would you go about reactivating the core of a planet, or the moon for that matter?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:17:02 2013 No.5567063 >>5566977 >More likely a cloud of rubble that disperses along the original trajectory. Except for the bits that have received enough momentum in the right direction to not do that.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:18:47 2013 No.5567065 >>5567056 >How would you go about reactivating the core of a planet, or the moon for that matter? Realistically, you don't.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:22:01 2013 No.5567083 >>5567056 Drop in a small black hole. Or put a large mass in low orbit around it, the aforementioned black hole for example. If the mass and orbit are properly calculated, both ways will cause the core to heat up.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:22:01 2013 No.5567085

>>5567065
>>5567063

Unrealistically you build a giant magnetic coil that encompasses the planet. You somehow generate a magnetic field strong enough for induction heating. Apply energy until core melts.

Carefully pulsed current could stir the core to get it moving again. I don't know how a vortex of molten core compares to Earth's current core.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:29:33 2013 No.5567106 File: 75 KB, 187x243, 1359334143115.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5567085 I really like this idea. Could you imagine induction heating the moon? That'd be sick.

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:31:52 2013 No.5567114 >>5566942 Oh fuck, murrica is going to eat the moon.

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:33:16 2013 No.5567120

OP and promoters of terraforming can't into
conservation of energy
limited amount of matter
inability to GENERATE atoms in the immense scale required for a new planet

EVERYTHING has to come from earth
The only way I see this possibly happening is if we extracted oxygen and hydrogen from the ocean (which requires alot of energy to separate such a large amount of H2O molecules)
This energy requirement means we need some huge breakthrough in efficient/cheap/unlimited fuel types or some super efficient way to generate energy from, say, matter, like a fission reactor (if that's even possible)

Also we'd drain so much of our ocean it's not funny, but it'd be pretty cool to see every shoreline go out an extra mile or two

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 22:57:47 2013 No.5567195 >>5565973 strawberry ice cream

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 23:16:45 2013 No.5567230 File: 100 KB, 1060x692, www.orderoftheplanets.org kuiper-belt.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5567120 >EVERYTHING has to come from earth >What is Kuiper belt? >Who built the asteroids?

>>	Anonymous Tue Feb 26 23:30:16 2013 No.5567249 File: 15 KB, 253x255, der.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5565717 >Why not Terraform the Moon? shitposting general? shitposting general I believe that it is a 33,34% chance of us terraforming any planet, it's basically a game of luck

Anonymous Tue Feb 26 23:36:02 2013 No.5567259
File: 203 KB, 635x540, 1360794144736.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5567120
>breakthrough in efficient/cheap/unlimited fuel types or some super efficient way to generate energy from, say, matter, like a fission reactor (if that's even possible)

>fission reactor

this brother's rockin it like it's 1888.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 00:05:30 2013 No.5567311

>>5567120
The main idea with 'em Terraforming projects, is that those bodies already contain inside them what is required to make a thick atmosphere, but it is unfortunatly frozen/locked into the ground.

You just need to begin warming it up, as to form a circle where the atmosphere starts to become thicker and then even warmer, which releases even more gasses making it even thicker and so on.

Somewhere during all this (if not at the start of it), you also intoduce your carefully selected bio-goo of choice to check & balance that amount of gasses.

For example, there is a lot of oxygen on the moon, but it is locked into the rocks (much as in Mars). If you find a lean bacterium thingy that likes to eat them, and fart out, say CO2, you get a way to release it. Then you introduce the other bacteria thingy which eats CO2 and craps O2 and so on. Bacteria = self-replicating nanobots in a way so the start up costs for them are actually quite small.

As for the moon crust itself, it is actually quite similar to the earth one. So similar that the main theory is that it got formed from earth crust that got ejected from the Earth after all. It's not alien inedible grey rock. It too has carbons, irons, calcium and so on.

I do admit that the idea that it has so much water locked inside it so as to make it blue, is probably a bit iffy.

But hey, that's what ice-asteroid bombardment is for! (such a thing in fact, might help with the heating process as well, since it will be introducing energy)

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 00:07:31 2013 No.5567314 >>5567311 Hey, for once I can actually make an informed post on this fucking board. >So similar that the main theory is that it got formed from earth crust that got ejected from the Earth after all. That shit was recently discredited.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 00:09:32 2013 No.5567324 >>5567314 Whatever.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 00:36:15 2013 No.5567401 Asteroids? rockets? gravity deflecting is the answer.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:15:46 2013 No.5567746
File: 70 KB, 462x704, 5710_616400841710172_519471351_n.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5567311
>But hey, that's what ice-asteroid bombardment is for!
What's the premium on an insurance policy to cover a project that might accidentally result in a new mass extinction?

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:17:01 2013 No.5567753 >>5567746 I don't know, why don't you ask the oil industry? Or the guys building more coal-fired power plants?

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:18:01 2013 No.5567757 >>5567753 >i hate forms of generating electricity that are cost-effective Then throw your computer out the window.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:21:01 2013 No.5567763 >>5567757 I advocate nuclear. You know, the one that doesn't put out CO2 like nobody's business?

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:26:01 2013 No.5567772

>>5567763

You advocate Dollars per kilowatt hour instead of cents?

We don't use coal because we like the black clouds, genius. We do it to keep costs down so people can have electricity. So fucking sorry that poor people want heat too. We can't all live in the ivory towers.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:27:47 2013 No.5567775
File: 24 KB, 358x334, monkey.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>These fuckin' threads
>Everyone says "The atmosphere would dwindle over time"
>It occurs to literally nobody that if you used atmospheric processors to create the atmosphere in the first place, you can just operate them continuously, at the level needed just for replenishment

Is everyone dumb?

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:28:46 2013 No.5567777 Why not Terraform the Earth?

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:29:47 2013 No.5567778
File: 239 KB, 800x800, mysides3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>5567772
>You advocate Dollars per kilowatt hour instead of cents?

I live in Oregon. 45% of our power comes from Hydro and we have the largest wind farms in the country. The local utility offers renewable-only electricity for $0.002 more per kwh than normal.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:30:00 2013 No.5567783 >>5567778 And for the places without lots of large rivers? Expensive wind? Expensive nuclear? Oh and just to be a dick, hydro has killed more people than nuclear.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:30:46 2013 No.5567782 File: 27 KB, 295x295, algaebloom.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5567777 >Why not Terraform the Earth? Some people are doing that. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/20/plankton-bloom

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:32:01 2013 No.5567788 >>5567772 Bad place for savings. You're buying today at the cost of tomorrow.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:32:01 2013 No.5567789 >>5567783 >And for the places without lots of large rivers? >Expensive wind? Expensive nuclear? OTEC, heliostats and small modular nuclear. >Oh and just to be a dick, hydro has killed more people than nuclear. Like I care.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:35:32 2013 No.5567795 >>5567788 That's how the world works.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:36:46 2013 No.5567797 >>5567795 The world is changing.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:36:46 2013 No.5567800 >>5567753 ? No answer from anyone, then?

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:38:01 2013 No.5567804 >>5567797 Don't make me laugh. Nobody is ever going to want to pay more now to help people they'll never meet.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:39:02 2013 No.5567805 >>5565717 the lack of gravity means you wouldnt be able to live there for months...cant terraform gravity, OP YOU FUCKING TARD

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:40:30 2013 No.5567808

>>5567804

Renewable energy is a growing, not shrinking, field. It has made revolutionary leaps and bounds in places like Germany, Spain, China, and increasingly the US. It is a thing. It will continue to be a thing. You will only see more of it. Nuclear too, in new forms. That is the future.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 03:53:02 2013 No.5567821 >>5567789 >>Expensive wind? u wot m8? http://phys.org/news/2013-02-energy-australian-farms-cheaper-coal.html#ajTabs

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 04:10:17 2013 No.5567833 >>5567821 you mean that using wind energy in a place with large open space is cheaper than using coal that has to be moved to that location first, and then massive taxes paid on it? amazing!

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 04:12:45 2013 No.5567836 Why not fly to Namek?

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 10:47:46 2013 No.5568319 >>5567746 If you cant aim an asteroid accurately then you cant into the whole "intelligent species" bit.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 14:49:31 2013 No.5568834
File: 50 KB, 450x297, biosphere202.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

I think the biggest problem with this is that "easy" as it might be to Terraform the moon, it is still always going to be "easier" merely "Terraform" a moon-base dome, or cave or whatever.

In other words. People interested to pay and do this, would also be interested in getting their results, right here, right now. If you are going to be introducing bacteria, and plants and crap, you might as well be doing so to a big greenhouse thing, which will be complete in 20 years or so and you will be able to see it being used. And when it runs out of habitable space -then- you expand it further, with the demant acutally being there.

Versus, waiting at least 500 years or so, for the Terraforming thing to be done, before someone, somewhen enjoys it.

Perhaps if the population of such moonbases reached several million they'd be interested in doing it as a sort of hobby, side project. However that event (reasons for the moon to have a population of millions), is so far into the future, I suspect Terraforming will be a meaningless concept. In the end, it will probably turn out to be easier to augment the bodies around our brains, rather than try to change the big honking balls of matter around to our (very limited) liking.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:17:16 2013 No.5568903 File: 1.10 MB, 280x280, 1361507681865.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5566434 Gnuspace

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:22:47 2013 No.5568925

Terraforming has downsides:

1) If it creates wild animals, they will probably suffer more than their lives are worth to them.
2) It is wasteful, compared to better ways to use the resources.
3) It is technologically harder than other ways to use the resources.

don't think ecosystems in space; think self-replicating life-support modules

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:24:47 2013 No.5568937 Why don't you do it then? Save your allowance. Maybe I'll come over when it's done.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:31:17 2013 No.5568956

>>5568834
>Terraforming will be a meaningless concept. In the end, it will probably turn out to be easier to augment the bodies around our brains, rather than try to change the big honking balls of matter around to our (very limited) liking.

Give it about 50 years I believe and singularity will make space expansion fast as fuck. None of this will matter because by then we will need less energy, less space, be less wasteful, need less physical stuff.

In the meantime though we will build a robotic moon base. It is happening.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:42:45 2013 No.5569007

>>5565717
Unless you're going Forerunner on that shit, make a case around the moon to prevent the air from leaking out. Make several transit points where air locks for craft to make it in and out.

Or fuck, let's do it the easy way and mine the fuck out of the planet, create interconnected dome cities from that shit.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:43:47 2013 No.5569012 >>5565747 >Trees Micro organisms of our oceans alone produce well over half of the oxygen in our atmosphere.

Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:48:30 2013 No.5569034

>>5565796
The only way that we would inhabit Venus is to pull a cloud city. Our air is lighter than Venus's, fill that city up, and buoyancy will work. Sure we'll have to make the cities resistant to the corrosive gasses, and the cities would have to be built in orbit and placed in certain locations, other than that. I'd say that it'll work and the carbon dioxide could be mined from the clouds for carbon nanotubes and so on.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 15:58:46 2013 No.5569082 >>5565903 The moon's tidally locked, and we can make insulation and add it to the cable to keep it going. Also that and there are other materials to consider as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 17:11:55 2013 No.5569358 >>5568925 >1) If it creates wild animals, they will probably suffer more than their lives are worth to them. What kind of liberal pussy are you. Life is worth the suffering. Otherwise we should just end all life on the earth.

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 17:15:40 2013 No.5569372 >>5568956 >>if i do nothing and keep fellating kurzweil, we will all star trek

>>	Anonymous Wed Feb 27 17:49:09 2013 No.5569467 >>5569372 Oh I am involved in Gnuspace though. Doing things, and shit..

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:01:30 2013 No.5571020

>>5569358
>What kind of liberal pussy are you.
Translation: I am a higher status primate than this other anonymous primate. Not going to play, sorry. We will never even meet.

>Life is worth the suffering.
This is an overgeneralized statement, and therefore meaningless. *What kind of* life is worth *what kind of* suffering. Wild animals suffer all the time, I don't think they are happy in a way that makes up for it. This doesn't mean you can't use the same resources to create happy life that doesn't eat each other or starve or freeze to death all the time. Terraforming is not the best way to do that.

>Otherwise we should just end all life on the earth.
1) We cannot 'just' end all life on earth.
2) I didn't write we should kill human civilization, just that *wild animals* probably suffer more than their lives are worth to them. Wealthy and healthy humans are usually quite happy, and we should create more of those.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:07:16 2013 No.5571022

>>5571020
>create happy life that doesn't eat each other or starve or freeze to death all the time
Please tell me you didn't actually mean that.

Pain is part of life.
Learning to avoid it is part of life. Trying to shelter oneself from all pain is denial of self and denial of the world, it's unhealthy to the extreme.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:18:16 2013 No.5571029

>>5571022
>Pain is part of life.
Meaningless statement in this context. You could write: Rape and torture are parts of life. This doesn't mean we have to make choices that are indifferent to the quantitiy of rape and torture they cause.

>Learning to avoid it is part of life. Trying to shelter oneself from all pain is denial of self and denial of the world, it's unhealthy to the extreme.
It is frustrating that people cannot take arguments for their own merit. I didn't suggest "trying to shelter ourselves from all pain". My entire statement was that wild animals probably suffer more than their lives are worth to them. They are thoughtless creatures who never gave informed consent to anything and who are incapable of learning to avoid pain, at least the pain of death they are forced to endure, such as from being eaten alive, starving to death, freezing to death, being killed by horrific diseases.

They don't even have aspirin.

Now, before you jump to all-or-nothing nonsense again, I didn't call for the end of all civilization, and no, you are not a higher status primate than other anonymous primates if you write HURR DURR ME NO FEAR PAIN

This is about making ethical strategic choices for the future. The resources should be used to create happy healthy and wealthy humans, not thoughtless animals eating each other alive.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:24:32 2013 No.5571035

>>5571029
>You could write: Rape and torture are parts of life.
Exaggeration.

>wild animals probably suffer more than their lives are worth to them
They can't make value judgements. Survival is an instinct, so extending human values to lives of animals is rather illogical.

>resources should be used to create happy healthy and wealthy humans, not thoughtless animals eating each other alive.
If the latter option offers a higher probability of survival(for my specias), then it's the preferred choice.

The species doesn't need us to be healthy, wealthy and happy. It just needs us to ensure our survival. If you can do it AND be happy, it's just a bonus.

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:33:31 2013 No.5571042 >>5569467 I just looked at gnuspace (never heard of it before), and their homepage has a link to their supposed repository at sourceforge but it's deleted. What's up?

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:35:16 2013 No.5571044 >>5565932 loads of thorium :DD fucking ignorants

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:36:16 2013 No.5571045

>>5571035
The species is not an entity of value. It is not even an entity of selection, so you can't even make the typical evolutionist bullcrap of "fitness is goodness", which is already non-sequitur.

>The species doesn't need us to be healthy, wealthy and happy. It just needs us to ensure our survival. If you can do it AND be happy, it's just a bonus.
If you want to call an abstraction like the species your god and worship it, be my guest. You can be as unhappy as you want while doing so. I of course will do no such thing.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:44:02 2013 No.5571050

>>5571045
Are you now seriously confusing instinctive imperatives with gods?

You also sidestepped the whole question of survival.

Let's make this question easier for you:
You are in the desert with a small cart and some stuff.
You can either fit into the cart a small a genny, a portable tv and a game console, or a canister of potable water.
Which will you choose to take with you if:
1. You know you're ten miles from ciilization.
2. You have no inkling how far you are from anywhere.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 05:58:16 2013 No.5571054

IIRC, Space elevators on mars are possible using current tech. The same goes for the Moon.

I can't imagine why y'all would want to make human colonies on a low gravity planet. I don't know about the rest of you but I'd prefer it if we avoided the creation of a new breed of weird humans adapted to low gravity, and unable to return to Earth or exist in habitats with Earthlike gravity.

The planets should only be viewed as a source of resources to build massive habitats in space, amongst other things.

Although it would be amusing to see what kind of life would evolve over time on terraformed planets, beyond the scientific value of such exploits I fail to see the point.

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:16:31 2013 No.5571066 why not blow up mars, and use the extra rocks and shit to make the moon bigger and then terraform that hurr riddle me that you double niggers it sounds logical to me

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:19:31 2013 No.5571068

>>5571050
>Are you now seriously confusing instinctive imperatives with gods?
Great question! So glad that you asked it. Because there's a very common confusion underlying it. Contrary to common belief, we don't actually have an instinctive imperative to facilitate the good of the species. We do have an instinct to survive, but that is just personal, for each individual. We also have an instinct to help our friends and family, to show loyalty to the tribe we're in. But it is only recently that the biological concept of "the species" has taken that place in human psychology.

>You also sidestepped the whole question of survival.
No, I already pointed out that I'm not calling for the end of civilization to avoid all pain. I am arguing against creating suffering wild animals for no reason. I would also be arguing against factory farming and animal testing, when we have researched ways to make good food and science without suffering animals.

>You are in the desert with a small cart and some stuff...
I would take the time to respond to this, except it has nothing to do with the question of terraforming. I personally don't value my own survival infinitely much; I would not go through torture to maintain it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:20:47 2013 No.5571069 You can terraform cheese now?

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:28:16 2013 No.5571073

>>5571068
>We do have an instinct to survive, but that is just personal, for each individual.
Oh wow, you really believe that? O_o

>creating suffering wild animals for no reason
Which isn't what was proposed. You're just assuming the lives of these animals will be full of suffering. Why? Because ebul humans always exploit innocent animals?

> I personally don't value my own survival infinitely much; I would not go through torture to maintain it.
Well, I doubt I'd value your survival much either after reading your enlighteningly contradictory posts.

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:31:01 2013 No.5571075 >>5571073 Your communication is disrespectful and your reading of my posts uncharitable. I'm done explaining my thoughts to you.

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:37:46 2013 No.5571080 >>5571073 lol ura faget

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:47:45 2013 No.5571088 >>5565955 True, but sooner or later it will certainly be a neccessary step.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 06:53:30 2013 No.5571092

>>5571075
I'm not being disrespectful, I'm giving you and your posts as much respect as I judge them to be worth.

If you can't in all honesty see any contradiction in what you have said here, or see how you have most disingenuously misunderstood other posters, then I can only assume that you have some sort of a cognitive problem.

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 08:14:46 2013 No.5571149 File: 106 KB, 554x439, 132942885117.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Terra-forming the moon is pointless if there are better candidates like mars, venus, titan, ganymede, callisto and europa

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 08:19:16 2013 No.5571153 >>5565955 How the is a logical prediction based demographic growth in anyway related to religion or destiny?

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 08:20:16 2013 No.5571157 >>5571069 the moon mice won't be happy about this

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 10:09:17 2013 No.5571279 >>5571066 Or we could blow the moon up and exchange it with the mars. We would move it with a giant space rocket, I have seen that in a superman comic.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 10:13:47 2013 No.5571290

>>5565955
>There is no such thing. You are ascribing a destiny to us. That is religious thinking.

It's axiomatic thinking. It assumes that we want to survive in the long term. The only thing this has in common with religion is that deciding that our goal is to survive longer than we otherwise would is essentially arbitrary if you look at it unemotionally.

But, it's also pretty pathetic that humans are the only species who need to be talked into survival. Ants don't need encouragement to preserve their species. Think about that for a bit.

Anonymous Thu Feb 28 10:16:31 2013 No.5571295

>>5566170
>There is nothing on mars that is worth more than the fuel that it would cost to get it.

You're thinking about it wrong. The purpose of the colony isn't to generate profit for Earth. It's to generate what's needed to survive on Mars.

>people don't do things unless they see a profit.

Not always true. Dennis Tito recently announced he will be funding out of pocket a manned Mars flyby. Under your model, how do you explain that?

>>	Anonymous Thu Feb 28 14:11:17 2013 No.5571873 >>5571042 It's happening: >>>/g/31911288

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