Here is Practical Explanation about Next Life, Purpose of Human Life,

Started by broken failures, September 21, 2017, 08:39:38 AM

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trdsf

Quote from: Unbeliever on October 03, 2017, 02:20:52 PM
We seem to be the victims of planetary chauvinism, but we can do without planets. It would be easier to start from scratch and build our own habitats in orbit around either sun or planets. All that terraforming is just too damned hard - and too time-consuming (likely centuries) and expensive. We could build some very nice living arrangements without all that hassle. Though that wouldn't be exactly cheap, either, it wouldn't cost what it would to make Mars or Venus into habitable places to live.


These habitats might look something like this:











They might look a bit like the Ringworld, but likely not as big.

I could live on one of those.  Mars would be nice, but anything that gets me off this ridiculous backwater planet will do.  I wonder if they could theoretically be built large enough to support more than a few tens of thousands of people.  Mars terraformed could support millions; a terraformed Venus would have at least comparable land masses to the Earth depending on how much water was brought in, and could theoretically support billions.

The other possibility is hollowing out an asteroid and living inside it rather than on its surface, since  leaving a sufficiently thick shell solves the problem of protection from cosmic rays and other DNA-unfriendly radiations.  Then spin it up (or down) to whatever rotational velocity will simulate the desired gravity on the inner shell, and there you go.

Now, these would have to be effectively closed ecologies, importing nothing but solar energy (and the surface of the asteroid could be covered with solar collectors from pole to pole if desired).  Certainly stringent birth control would be required, as well as aggressive mandatory recycling of pretty much everything.  However, between hydroponics and the development of myoblast culturing, they could certainly feed themselves.  If the water runs a little low, they can capture a comet -- if we're positing a technology that could hollow out and occupy the interior of an asteroid, I should think corralling a comet would be pretty straightforward.  And of course in the center of the sphere, they can do microgravity manufacturing.

I didn't intend to suggest that terraforming was the only option; it was just the one that came up.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Unbeliever

I just think planets are too difficult to make into homes for us and our flora and fauna. I've heard the asteroid idea before, and it sounds pretty good. I recall some sci-fi story where they used Ceres (I think it was) to do just as you've outlined. Many of the problems we can see in that solution might be solved with future technology. I'd love to be able to stay around long enough to watch it happen, but I'll be long gone by the time anything like that happens.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on October 03, 2017, 06:29:32 PM
I just think planets are too difficult to make into homes for us and our flora and fauna. I've heard the asteroid idea before, and it sounds pretty good. I recall some sci-fi story where they used Ceres (I think it was) to do just as you've outlined. Many of the problems we can see in that solution might be solved with future technology. I'd love to be able to stay around long enough to watch it happen, but I'll be long gone by the time anything like that happens.

Ceres is the largest, and so the most practical exploitable asteroid.

Terrorists will have lots of fun with space habitats.  I can only see such as being like your Antarctic stations ... military and science people only.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Blackleaf

Quote from: Unbeliever on October 03, 2017, 02:20:52 PM
We seem to be the victims of planetary chauvinism, but we can do without planets. It would be easier to start from scratch and build our own habitats in orbit around either sun or planets. All that terraforming is just too damned hard - and too time-consuming (likely centuries) and expensive. We could build some very nice living arrangements without all that hassle. Though that wouldn't be exactly cheap, either, it wouldn't cost what it would to make Mars or Venus into habitable places to live.


These habitats might look something like this:











They might look a bit like the Ringworld, but likely not as big.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jXTBAGv9ZQ
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on October 03, 2017, 02:20:52 PM
We seem to be the victims of planetary chauvinism, but we can do without planets. It would be easier to start from scratch and build our own habitats in orbit around either sun or planets. All that terraforming is just too damned hard - and too time-consuming (likely centuries) and expensive. We could build some very nice living arrangements without all that hassle. Though that wouldn't be exactly cheap, either, it wouldn't cost what it would to make Mars or Venus into habitable places to live.


These habitats might look something like this:











They might look a bit like the Ringworld, but likely not as big.

If we took apart Mars and spread it out evenly 50 miles thick, we could get a massive amount of sunlight there.  With solar panels and high edges, rotation could keep the atmosphere in the ring.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!