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Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#351

Post by kilpela »

acchow wrote: post #190
banach wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the pursuit of knowledge is a really good way to spend your time, but I do not like when simple solutions to real problems are sidelined in favor of the latest buzzword-oriented technology fetish. In times when the president-elect has announced that he is shutting down NASA's climate change research, ostensibly to fund space exploration, I think we need to remind ourselves that any work we chose to pursu…

I think we should colonize other planets because we can. Not as a solution to any problem. I will defer to The West Wing to explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUHnERJ0zs

What you are describing is inverse vandalism. If we ignore the problems of here and now, the realization of a future where we colonize the stars may never occur. Obligatory quote:

Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. - Dr. Ian Malcolm.

Our focus should not be on whether we can do something. We should carefully consider why we are doing something and ensure we aren't acting in a self-destructive way.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#352

Post by whybroke »

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 not just about survival economics and technologies.

We need to establish societies independent of an earth which might become dominated by unshakable planet wide tyranny at some point. Physical distances and gravity well energy requirements inside the solar system may be as adequate a protection for independent cultural survival as oceans were in the past centuries.

While this is obviously a long term result, it really should not be delayed unnecessarily.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#353

Post by samstave »

vacri wrote: post #290
samstave wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is to seed the extra planets BEFORE the ELE... If an ELE hits, few would be around to make even that short trip to the bunker.

What kind of event is in your mind that gives people less than, say, an hour's notice?

I am not an expert in ELEs -- so I do not know... but I suspect if we are using that term, then its an event large enough to screw with the stability of all life populations on earth, thus I state that I doubt that people can evac in an hour - have you ever seen a city evac for a hurricane? let alone for an ELE? Yeah, they're all gunna die.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#354

Post by samstave »

c22 wrote: post #344
samstave wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is to seed the extra planets BEFORE the ELE... If an ELE hits, few would be around to make even that short trip to the bunker.

You misunderstand, I suggest creating a self reliant population actively living below ground (or at the bottom of the ocean). They have to be able to survive indefinitely without help from the surface, but so would a martian colony to weather an ELE.

Do these populations currently exist? Or are you suggesting we build them?

Have you looked into or thought about "breakaway civilization"?

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#356

Post by ChuckMcM »

stcredzero wrote: post #310

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 d…

I don't disagree with your red flag, I do however note that there are other ways of getting electricity out of hydrocarbons without cracking water. Specifically a the use of fuel cells. If you feed methane to a Bloom Energy fuel cell after initially filling it with some liquid water, it will generate 250kW of power as long as you feed in methane.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#357

Post by IndianAstronaut »

sandworm101 wrote: post #257
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…

The very concept of colonization flies in the face of Utopian dreams. This isn't about sending our poor and huddled masses to colonize a new land. This is about investing gargantuan resources into a tiny band of elites. We are talking literally billions of dollars per person to get there, followed by maintenance costs on the order of millions of dollars per person-day. A Titan colony wouldn't be self-sustaining for y…

>That isn't Utopia. That's elitism

Vacations once upon a time were just for the elites. A trip from England to Greece was for the very upper crust. Now millions of people can easily make the journey thanks to modern technology. The whole idea is to develop something for the few and as it scales up, it becomes more widely available.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#358

Post by nkoren »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #315
nkoren wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Those large creatures added up to a tiny fraction of the ecosystem - almost a negligible portion. They're visible and interesting - fuzzy and dangerous etc - but of no significance to most of life on earth. Like insects, birds, worms, bacteria etc. Not to mention grasses, flowering plants and algae. No, most of life on earth never noticed the extinction of apex predators ( nor their invention either ).

You need to learn about trophic cascades. Here's a quick intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

This played out in the Pleistocene extinctions to a very significant degree, having tremendous effect on ecosystems everywhere. Here's an entire conference worth of the subject:

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/events/2014/megafauna-conference/ind...

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#359

Post by stcredzero »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #356
stcredzero wrote: post #310

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 d…

I don't disagree with your red flag, I do however note that there are other ways of getting electricity out of hydrocarbons without cracking water. Specifically a the use of fuel cells. If you feed methane to a Bloom Energy fuel cell after initially filling it with some liquid water, it will generate 250kW of power as long as you feed in methane.

That would be awesome for colonizing Titan!

http://www.bloomenergy.com/clean-energy/

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#360

Post by arikrak »

owly wrote: post #355

How about colonizing Earth with like minded people who are dedicated to saving it?

What will you do with everyone else? Sounds like they may cause problems. I think to save Earth we'll need to eliminate those who aren't like minded...

"Quick unplug the AI, it's gone bad!"

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