Let's Colonize Titan • Hacker News Board

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#461

Post by exergy » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #434

pavelrub wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that your notion of "real problems" is artificial. If our society prioritizes space colonization above eliminating nuclear stockpiles, and people are willing to accept the risk posed by the existence of those stockpiles, then there is no sense in continuing to refer to it as a "main issue facing our society". Maybe you consider it to be a main issue, but society doesn't. Or maybe society does consider…

> The problem is that your notion of "real problems" is artificial. If our society prioritizes space colonization above eliminating nuclear stockpiles, Nuclear stockpiles serve as a deterrent to aggression; the fact that the US and Soviet Union did not have a conventional WWIII between 1945 and 1990 is because both sides (and England and France) had nuclear weapons that made conventional invasions untenable. Getting…

I'm not sure I agree with that reasoning. This works until a future date when someone presses the trigger regardless, and then the nuclear winter arrives. I'm fairly certain you'll agree that past history isn't an indicator of how the world will look like in 20, 30, 50 years and so on.

Thinking of weapons of mass destruction, that HAVE been used in the past, as some forms of keepers of the peace just doesn't sit right with me.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#462

Post by babyrainbow » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

etangent wrote: post #402

babyrainbow wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>s 2016 had shown, we're well past the point where it was possible for a centralized (or even moderately stratified) entity to declare certain behaviors "uncool". Which event has shown? > Changing human culture without changing human nature introduces huge arbitrage opportunitie... What has "culture" to do with this? Behaviour is not the same as culture. Some one might have a habit of throwing garbage on the roads/pu…

> What has "culture" to do with this? Behaviour is not the same as culture. Correct, but the comment I made about culture applies doubly so to behavior. Yes, you can change behavior. Yes, you can make people ashamed of doing X. That is, until certain Mr. Y comes along and shows them how to feel better about themselves, how to improve their self-esteem and show the world a middle finger---by doing precisely X. You wil…

>That is, until certain Mr. Y comes along and shows them how to feel better about themselves, how to improve their self-esteem and show the world a middle finger---by doing precisely X.

Exactly. Thanks for proving my point.

>Oh sweet naive innocent child. You think consumerist capitalism is to blame. You're almost right... Almost.

I think you give me too much credit. My comment didn't not imply anything that deep.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#463

Post by lmm » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

Retra wrote: post #416

pmoriarty wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to terraform the SO2-clouds in to something more benign?

Like what? You've got three atoms in that molecule. Not many other stable configurations to work with.

Precipitate out the sulphur, leave it as oxygen? Not that oxygen is objectively benign, but we're used to dealing with oxygen atmospheres.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#464

Post by lmm » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

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.

To my mind the smart place to start with colonizing is Phobos or Demos. Small enough to be easy to land on, large enough for plenty of underground habitats.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#465

Post by pasquinelli » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

pavelrub wrote: post #159

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…

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…

"I would much rather live in a world where some people care about clean energy and sustainability, others about colonizing space, others about mathematics, and others about art, etc."

Right, if someone cares about something, they tend to talk about it. If they think it's important, they think it should be given priority over other things.

But then this is exactly what you're replying to and exactly what you're disagreeing with. As if somehow by saying, "I think other things are more important than colonizing space" stops anybody doing anything. The tyranny of someone with an opinion different from yours, voicing it.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#466

Post by babyrainbow » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

iainmerrick wrote: post #389

babyrainbow wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>s 2016 had shown, we're well past the point where it was possible for a centralized (or even moderately stratified) entity to declare certain behaviors "uncool". Which event has shown? > Changing human culture without changing human nature introduces huge arbitrage opportunitie... What has "culture" to do with this? Behaviour is not the same as culture. Some one might have a habit of throwing garbage on the roads/pu…

>s 2016 had shown, we're well past the point where it was possible for a centralized (or even moderately stratified) entity to declare certain behaviors "uncool". Which event has shown? I imagine they're talking about the recent US election, for one. For pretty much the whole campaign, including primaries, everyone pointed out all the ways in which Trump was a terrible, completely unsuitable candidate, and he won any…

I guessed that much. But that does not prove anything. US election cannot be compared to this. That is completely ridiculous.

Electing your leader is a very subjective, personal thing. Throwing your garbage out and driving an SUV is not. People does not actually care about doing any of those things.

They care about fitting in and looking cool. Change that and you can change everything.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#467

Post by isostatic » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:41 PM UTC

acchow wrote: post #251

paulryanrogers wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, if the Earth really gets that bad (e.g. the entire surface is all water, no land; or extremely destructive weather events; or too dark because sunlight can't reach our surface), it might actually be easier to set up self-contained (bubble) cities on another planet than on earth itself. But if you're talking about terraforming, then if we could terraform another planet we could probably re-terraform earth itself…

We'd still have protection from cosmic radiation. Antarctica is far more livable than anywhere else off earth, but I don't see us living there in a self-sustained fashion.

Space exploration and colonisation is important, but it's not an answer for the Earth's problems. It may lead to new technologies that will help on earth though - not least the requirement for sustainability.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#468

Post by Paul_S » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

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…

Any future that does not include bacon is not a future I want to live in.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#469

Post by intoverflow2 » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

ivan_gammel wrote: post #152

lossolo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding solution is not a problem, human nature is a problem. > stop eating animal-based foods Good luck with that. Sad true is that people don't want to change their life style. If you ask them for solution they will tell you exactly the same thing as you wrote, but most of them will not implement any of this solutions in their life. They want to eat meat, they want to consume, look at global warming, everyone know…

People want to live a comfortable life and they'll give up with natural meat if they'll be given good artifical alternative (especially, with genetically identical alternative). Green energy, effective water recycling, disposable packing materials and automatic sorting and processing of garbage are the things that, given the adequate technology, can make the sustainable life style smooth and easy. We don't need to ch…

Sad that tech types seem to take dystopian sci-fi as a blueprint not a warning.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#470

Post by teaearlgraycold » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #323

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…

That fallacy you point out in the first paragraph is sadly found in way too many papers related to clean energy and space exploration. Oh cool, look at all the atoms laying around! Let's ignore their energy levels and cook up some usecases....

In part I think it comes from the constant source of heat energy we're surrounded with on Earth. We're used to the idea of taking -300F materials and just allowing them to warm up. On Titan, that procedure subtracts from your minimal energy budget.