Weird article. Why excavation on Mars would be a problem?
Presumably it would be energy intensive, especially at Mars' temperatures.
Let's Colonize Titan
71–80 of 508 posts
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't a proposal -- it was a thought experiment.
Let's do X is not a proposal?
No, that's the headline or title.
The final paragraph makes it pretty clear that it's really encouraging the readers to think about how precious our home planet is:
> There is no quick way to move off the Earth. We will have to solve our problems here.
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#73Earlier 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…
We sort of already have this. Nuclear submarines. I wonder if they've ever planned for repopulating the earth? They should carry frozen embryos on board.
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#74They almost had me until ... On the surface, vast quantities of hydrocarbons in solid and liquid form lie ready to be used for energy. Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice just below the surface could be used to provide oxygen for breathing and to combust hydrocarbons as fuel. Riiiight. And you're going to get the power to electrolytically split that water into hydrogen and oxygen where, exactly? (Whoever…
Elon Musk's ticket to Mars will be less meaningful (if we take the word 'colonization' seriously) unless somebody can stick several thousand people into a hermetic sealed box and they are still alive and thriving after 10 years. I've been disappointed with the lack of progress in closed loop systems to date. There was Biosphere 2, a great ambitious start. Then a few years ago there was Kamen's Slingshot (outcome unkn…
a magic box which would reliably and cheaply convert black/gray water to high quality drinking water and turn poop and organics into energy bricks to eliminate sewage plants and septic tanks seems like a technology we should have invented a long time ago.
We have invented such a "magic box" -- but it's large-scale: that's what municipal sewage farms mostly do (modulo the final step of turning poop into energy bricks: sewage is generally too contaminated to be economical to turn into safe biofuel without expensive treatment). Also, it relies extensively on bacterial fermentation and takes a lot of human intervention to control.
The ISS toilet that keeps malfunctioning is the American one, no? Because I seem to recall the USSR cracking the urine-to-drinking-water problem on Mir a couple of decades ago. (Not Invented Here is a besetting problem with NASA, which for political reasons isn't allowed to Buy Foreign.)
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#75We 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…
probably faster and cheaper to create human like machines In the near term that have none of the problems we have living in harsher environments.
Exactly! That's why I think we should keep building better AI. It'll be AI, which will be traveling out to the stars, not humans.
We could send a probe to a star and once it reaches it, we could simply beam the AI using a transmitter to the probe. Once AI has done its work there, it can be beamed back to Earth (it there is need for that). Build a network of probes and AI can travel between stars at light speed!
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Frankly, if you can solve the cosmic ray problem for the journey to Titan, you also just solved it for colonizing Mars. Martian gravity is also closer to Earth's, so Mars still seems like the better fit in the immediate term.
Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere), which makes solar much easier. So equipment, supplies, and solar could be on the surface, and the radiation sensitive humans could be a few meters underground. As you mine for water you could dump the useless stuff on the surface and use the emptied space for living quarters. Question is why live somewhere that's tougher than the top o…
>Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere)
Mercury, Venus, Earth, then Mars.
(Mars is further from the sun and gets ~60% of our sunlight)
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#77Alright, so currently we can't even predict how bad osteoporosis becomes after a flight to Mars (will astronauts break their hips on the first step out of landing module?), what would radiation exposure outside Earth's magnetosphere do to our bodies, yet we should hurry up to Titan. Currently even human space flight to Mars is a pipe dream, our practical knowledge constructing vehicles capable of reaching Moon and su…
Actually I think the big issue is expense and willingness to fund the expense. There are reasonably straightforward engineering solutions to most of the problems that have been tested for a while (gravity from teethered capsules was tested in the 60s as I recall; Radiation shielding is straightforward with sufficient quantities of water, power through naval submarine type nuclear reactors etc). The problem is these would require massive amounts of mass to be lifted out of our gravity well through rocketry & willingness to fund with potentially insignificant returns doesn't really exist, though I believe some significant fraction of the American military budget should be sufficient.
Don't forget that as early as 50 years ago - an era almost primitive by standards of technology available today - given enough money, a number of men visited the moon.
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#78The article says that the water ice could be used as a source of oxygen, needed to power the combustion of hydrocarbons as fuel. But the oxygen is trapped in water molecules, wouldn't it need to be freed from the hydrogen atoms first (which requires energy)?
I have looked it up, and it seems the combustion of methane produces more energy than the combustion of hydrogen. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen won't be 100% efficient though, and neither will be turning heat into useful energy, so I don't know if you'll still be energy-positive in the end.
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere), which makes solar much easier. So equipment, supplies, and solar could be on the surface, and the radiation sensitive humans could be a few meters underground. As you mine for water you could dump the useless stuff on the surface and use the emptied space for living quarters. Question is why live somewhere that's tougher than the top o…
>Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner atmosphere) Mercury, Venus, Earth, then Mars. (Mars is further from the sun and gets ~60% of our sunlight)
Mars vs Titan.
Re: Let's Colonize Titan
#80Good idea! There are some people I would encourage to go on the first trip!