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Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#41

Post by patall »

hereonbusiness wrote: post #17

We expect human nature to stay the same. Human beings of the future will have the same drives and needs we have now. Practically speaking, their home must have abundant energy, livable temperatures and protection from the rigors of space, including cosmic radiation, which new research suggests is unavoidably dangerous for biological beings like us I would expect the complete opposite if we really want to colonize the…

Easier is the wrong word, you cannot just at a second pair of legs to a human as you would think from mechanical thinking. If you really want humans to live there you might have brains contained in an artifical container but adding some functionality to a complex organic system is hard, really hard. We may be able to do that in bacteria or yeast (and there these are billion dollar projects like the next-fuel incentives) but are not in multi-cellular organisms. Too many levels of control you have to cover, you do not only have to manage the status quo but also the embrional development and managment over 90+ years. And this with-out trials, at least if you are against human trials which would be massive and lead to thousand of dead trial persons. (I mean we are not able to do this in mice and even there every trial faces massive ethical opposition). Maybe in a hundred years (but who knows what will exist in a hundred years), everything else is blatant optimism.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#42

Post by w-ll »

ekianjo wrote: post #20
mirekrusin wrote: post #13

Does the colony really need to be on the planet? Why not start on the orbit? We already do it to some extent, can't we try to grow it? Is the spinning disk ok for artificial gravity or the diameter would have to be extremely large? Another alternative could be floating, suspended or at the bottom of the ocean colony. It's like doing test driven development.

radiation exposure becomes an issue on the longer term in space.

If we were to invest in building a underwater 'Sealab' on the bottom of some ocean floor, say at least 100m water deep, what kind of cataclysmic event could destroy it.

A few dozen of the underwater sea-colonies seams the most practical safety net for humanity that we can do today.

I completely for exploring and colonizing space, but we still haven't mapped our own oceans fully. And sadly, I don't think my generation, or even the next few will be any closer to being able to get ourselves off this rock.

If you are looking to build 'Arks' for humanity, i'd put my money on the ocean floor.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#43

Post by lazarus101 »

hereonbusiness wrote: post #17

We expect human nature to stay the same. Human beings of the future will have the same drives and needs we have now. Practically speaking, their home must have abundant energy, livable temperatures and protection from the rigors of space, including cosmic radiation, which new research suggests is unavoidably dangerous for biological beings like us I would expect the complete opposite if we really want to colonize the…

My thoughts exactly, instead of adapting planets for our current form we should try to adapt humans for extraterrestrial environments. We need to find a way to transfer our brains(or brain data) into a machine, then adapt this machine to the conditions of the planet. Easier said than done obviously, but colonizing Titan doesn't seem a very realistic option either. Besides flying humans safely to Titan we also need to fly enough technology for them to survive until proper housing can be built and to be able to harvest Titan's resources.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#44

Post by [deleted] »

david-given wrote: post #16
Entangled wrote: post #4

Terraform the moon. I want to look up to the skies and see a green moon every night. It is unfortunate we haven't spent a dime settling a moon base and studying the possibilities of creating a livable atmosphere on the moon being just a couple days away.

I've tried it: http://cowlark.com/flooded-moon/ The maths are interesting. I tried figuring out how thick the atmosphere would need to be, but I kept coming up with ludicrous answers --- one model I tried, in order to get breathable pressure on the surface, the atmosphere had to extend out at least two lunar radii. That would have made the moon just a simple white fuzzy ball in the sky, and you'd never see the sun fr…

[deleted]

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#45

Post by sliken »

oska wrote: post #36

> On Earth, we are shielded from GCRs by water in the atmosphere. But it takes two meters of water to block half of the GCRs present in unprotected space. Build a double-skinned geodesic dome with a 4 metre gap between the two shells. Fill the space between with water. Your 'sky' now has a water-shielding layer.

Seems hard to build, energy intensive, labor intensive, and materials intensive. Just land, start mining, and use the space left behind. Not to mention a few meter of earth is going to handle damage way better than a geodesic dome.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#46

Post by ape4 »

sgentle wrote: post #32

So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the way. I'm not convinced.

Hopefully we can develop some light materials for radiation protection. So we can have radiation-proof domes and suits on Mars.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#47

Post by natural219 »

sliken wrote: post #45
oska wrote: post #36

> On Earth, we are shielded from GCRs by water in the atmosphere. But it takes two meters of water to block half of the GCRs present in unprotected space. Build a double-skinned geodesic dome with a 4 metre gap between the two shells. Fill the space between with water. Your 'sky' now has a water-shielding layer.

Seems hard to build, energy intensive, labor intensive, and materials intensive. Just land, start mining, and use the space left behind. Not to mention a few meter of earth is going to handle damage way better than a geodesic dome.

well, a few meter of "titan"

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#48

Post by codingdave »

sgentle wrote: post #32

So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the way. I'm not convinced.

It wasn't a proposal -- it was a thought experiment.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#49

Post by babyrainbow »

gkafkg8y8 wrote: post #28
donatj wrote: post #6

I strongly believe we'll never permanently settle anything beyond earth, for reasons pointed out by this article among others. That said, please prove me wrong, I would be so very happy to be wrong.

The main two reasons we wouldn't settle anything beyond Earth would be: 1. Lack of interest. 2. Lack of time. #1 is the biggest problem as far as we know right now. #2 is a problem only if we destroy our planet to the point where we can't expend resources or time, or we overpopulate and run out of resources, or a natural disaster sets us back too far or kills us. We have sufficient resources right now, we're just not…

>If every government said, "You, need to change what you are doing and start helping us get off of this planet," and changed laws and regulations to encourage or enforce this, it would happen.

Would't be better if they tried to "fix the planet" instead? Boring, I know. But much more easier and possible and most importantly, proper.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#50

Post by sliken »

w-ll wrote: post #42
ekianjo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

radiation exposure becomes an issue on the longer term in space.

If we were to invest in building a underwater 'Sealab' on the bottom of some ocean floor, say at least 100m water deep, what kind of cataclysmic event could destroy it. A few dozen of the underwater sea-colonies seams the most practical safety net for humanity that we can do today. I completely for exploring and colonizing space, but we still haven't mapped our own oceans fully. And sadly, I don't think my generation…

If there's a nuke war, anything nuke resistant would likely be directly targeted. After all last thing your enemy wants is for the earth to be repopulated by their enemy.
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