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Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#301

Post by thescriptkiddie »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

I agree with you that we need to change the way were living before we screw up Earth, but that's a process that can be run in parallel with space exploration. In theory many of the technologies used for colonizing other worlds could be useful for making our existence down here more sustainable, and vice versa. It's not like there is a finite amount of science points and we can allocate them all to one thing anyway.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#302

Post by azernik »

c22 wrote: post #245
sliken wrote: post #38

Earlier 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…

But if you're only doing it to safeguard against extinction level events why not just set up multiple contingency populations underground here on this planet? They won't have to travel as far after the event.

All their surface infrastructure might not survive, whereas you do get that on Mars.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#303

Post by overgard »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

You're creating a false choice here. There's no reason we can't colonize other planets and also change local lifestyles. They're totally separate issues. Even if we treated the earth perfectly there's all sort of natural ways the planet could do us in or set civilization back a huge degree (asteroids, super volcanoes, etc.). Colonizing planets makes sense for the exact same reason insurance makes sense - shit happens.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#304

Post by mypalmike »

ferbivore wrote: post #197
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Do you seriously think that any of the following global political challenges: - convince everyone on Earth to implement changes that are bad for them, like not eating animal-based foods, with only the promise of "maybe in 200 years your descendants, should your line not be extinct by then, will benefit" as compensation - reorganise every single human settlement and/or social structure on Earth to put people closer to…

Yes.

It's not that Earth is a political utopia. It's that Titan is simply uninhabitable. Not just very difficult to colonize. Impossible.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#305

Post by anigbrowl »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

It's fine if pursuing these things is a higher priority for you than colonizing other planets, but I reject your argument for two reasons.

One, the whole notion that we shouldn't being working on something until someone else's preferred goals have been achieved first is arrogant tot he point of absurdity. I could just as well argue that she shouldn't waste any more funds on what might be a lost cause before we establish an emergency beachhead on another planet for backup purposes.

Two, this position has been expressed so often as to be a cliche. It's not helpful to trot out really timeworn arguments as if they were original, without considering the existing best arguments on both sides.

There are simple solutions to most of our issues.

Just because they're simple doesn't mean they're right. If things were really so simple we'd have arguably taken care of it already. As a general rule, any system that depends on everyone behaving a certain way is doomed to failure because there's abundant evidence in history that people frequently choose to put their individual interest above that of others. You can't just legislate that people will behave unselfishly; past attempts to do so seem to invariably end in totalitarianism. Likewise while I'm all in favor of reducing nuclear stockpiles the probability of a world with no nuclear weapons is close to zero because it's impossible to forget the knowledge that enables the construction of such a weapon, and the impact of nuclear force on an asymmetrical military conflict are simply too large of an incentive to overlook. In a world of billions of people clustered into hundreds of countries (which are semi-conscious aggregate entities imho), it's statistically almost inevitable that you'll have some actors that are militant, relatively weak, and give in easily to temptation.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#306

Post by overgard »

tehchromic wrote: post #266

I find the "colonize other planets" dream of the secular/scientific community to be most like the "you'll go to heaven when you die" idea in religious paradoxy. You would think we might have experimented with teraforming uninhabitable place here on earth - the bottom of the Mariana, or Death Valley. If that was a snap, then we might contemplate Moon or Mars or Titan. But in fact we are systematically rendering our ow…

This is such a weird argument. You're basically saying "our political wisdom has not caught up to our technological prowess, so we should avoid undertaking this great technological challenge." It just doesn't follow. If the 20th century taught us anything it's that technology doesn't wait for politics to catch up. If anything technology tends to drive political change (for better and worse), and so the notion that great projects should wait for some political utopia before proceeding is disconnected from reality.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#307

Post by stale2002 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #163
pavelrub wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes let's stop all scientific and technological progress which isn't directly related to achieving utopia on earth, until a hypothetical point in the future that will never come. Is everything you do and find important in life directly related to improving our ecosystem and eliminating nuclear stockpiles? Do you think it's ok to be interested, for example, in web development, but not in space colonization? Maybe inst…

If humans cannot live sustainably on Earth then what hope is there of existing in any form elsewhere?

Perhaps there are advantages that other planets have, that we don't have on earth.

There are certainly massive disadvantages, life support, ect, but there could be things like large amounts of plentiful fuel.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#308

Post by nkoren »

justinhj wrote: post #171
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Before agriculture and civilization as we know it, people lived all over the world. Their lifestyles were sustainable and included meat.

"Sustainable", if you conveniently forget about the extinction of the Woolly Mammoth, Woolly Rhino, Giant Sloths, Sabre Tooth Cats, Glyptodonts, Elephant Birds, Giant Lemurs, Giant Otters, Cave Lion, Cave Bear, Cave Hyena, Irish Elk, American horses, Diprotodons, Neanderthals, Denisovans etc.

It wasn't until we finished extirpating the majority of the non-African megafauna and apex predators and the totallity of all other human species that we could even be bothered to settle down and invent agriculture and civilization, et cetera.

All the indigenous people who we have any evidence of from historical times (eg. the last 5,000 years) are already living in a post-ecocidal world, where every species that could be rendered extinct with relatively simple technology already had been.

Sustainable, my ass.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#309

Post by banach »

blueprint wrote: post #189
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

> I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). What a horrible lie to spread. What you said is hardly the case at all. Scientists have known for many decades that Earth is already beyond its carrying capacity. Multiply tha…

I understand your concerns, but I am not taking my ideas out of thin air. Here are some references to corroborate my claims.

Ways to address climate change: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/people-still... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837709...

Way to address the supposed food crisis: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/aug/26/f...

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#310

Post by stcredzero »

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.

Red flag! It's a nonstarter to extract oxygen from water, use it to burn a hydrocarbon, then try to come out with more useful energy than you started with. This might have some use as an energy storage scheme, as storing hydrocarbons can be cheaper and more energy dense than storing hydrogen.

The weak gravity—similar to the Moon’s—combined with the thick atmosphere would allow individuals to aviate with wings on their backs. If the wings fall off, no worry, landing will be easy. Terminal velocity on Titan is a tenth that found on the Earth.

A 12 mph collision with solid rock or packed dirt is survivable, given the proper technique or circumstances. It's also still potentially fatal.

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