Colonize the moon first:
1. plenty of solar power
2. close to earth
3. easy to launch out of its gravity well
4. lunar base technology can be iterated far more rapidly
Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
41–50 of 393 posts
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#42Let's colonize LEO. You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere. You get zero G for funsies. You get a new perspective on earth and interesting new kinds of manufacturing. It's not too far away, so you can get there and back in a day. It's far enough in space that you need to improve your closed cycle systems. You might survive a number of different cataclysms. It seems like a good stepping stone.
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#43I am pretty sure the Martian congressional republic is not going to stop colonizing just Mars. They’ll have every incentive to push further, faster :-)
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. But does that actually matter in space? I am asking out of genuine curiosity here: does using fossil fuels in space have any real downside? There is no atmosphere, ergo no greenhouse effect. The vastness of space would seem to swallow up any sort of pollution.
That's... a different question. Where would you find fossils on other planets? The article says Titan has seas of hydrocarbon, but otherwise Moon and Mars, it's just not an option. One reason why Musk has invested so much in non-fossil fuel tech is not so much to save this planet but to operate things on other planets.
Sure, but my broad question was essentially: are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, or oil in space?
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#45What exactly is the problem that colonizing another planet or moon is trying to solve? This seems like a solution without a problem. And if that problem is that the earth becomes uninhabitable, what kind of moron thinks we can colonize a planet or moon when we can't even keep ourselves alive on earth?
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#46Two thoughts on this topic: 1. The film Gattaca (1997), in addition to being an excellent, inspiring film all around, centers on an aspiring astronaut's upcoming trip to Titan. Highly recommended. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZa83dTf4JA 2. The colonization of Venus is also a fascinating idea that isn't talked about much in comparison to the Moon or Mars. Essentially, the surface is too hot for colonization, but…
> The colonization of Venus is also a fascinating idea that isn't talked about much in comparison to the Moon or Mars. Essentially, the surface is too hot for colonization...
Nah, you're just not thinking big enough:
https://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/TerraformingVenusQuickly....
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#47Sincere question: Anyone know what would be involved in igniting Jupiter, and what kind of heating that would provide to it's moons?
Jupiter is not even a brown dwarf which starts at about 13 times the mass of Jupiter.
For upgrading Jupiter to a star, it would need 80 times its current mass.
There is nowhere else in the solar system enough mass to grow Jupiter but the Sun. Taking that mass from the Sun is in theory feasible but of course out of the range of our capabilities for quite some time.
That's for natural nuclear fission though which would waste a lot of energy going into space and not where we would want to have it (the moons).
It's probably more realistic to build small fission suns that orbit the moons that produce heat and light in a less wasteful, more directed manner. Still not possible today :-)
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#48Let's first ensure we do all possible things as a species and a collection of communities to restabilise Earth and give ourselves a 99.5% chance of healthful survival for the next 200 years, which is probably the reasonable timeline until we can establish more or less independent non-Earth habitats that can survive without Earth indefinitely. This is like expressing the wish of wanting to run while simultaneously ign…
I like how we're optimistic in terraforming and colonizing distant bodies with different gravity, pressure, atmosphere, temperatures, while equally panicking trying to control a few degrees of temperature on our home planet. But I think research on how to colonize other planets will help us in dealing with local climate change.
I think the optimism stems from not having a definite deadline for the colonization of distant bodies. Whilst climate change is a bit more pressing.
I mean, I don't worry about implementing a new feature at work by 2120. But I'd sure worry about having it ready tomorrow!
Also all those issues in dealing with colonizing space are, for most people, distant from their daily life. Climate Change is close to home.
But yeah, research on one might influence the other as you say!
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#49Let's colonize LEO. You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere. You get zero G for funsies. You get a new perspective on earth and interesting new kinds of manufacturing. It's not too far away, so you can get there and back in a day. It's far enough in space that you need to improve your closed cycle systems. You might survive a number of different cataclysms. It seems like a good stepping stone.
> You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere.
Only in very specific orbits (NOT the ones we are currently using, btw.) The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be irradiated.
> You get zero G for funsies.
And the medical issues.
> interesting new kinds of manufacturing.
There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.
To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better radiation shielding.
Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live
#50> It’s cold on Titan, at -180°C (-291°F), but thanks to its thick atmosphere, residents wouldn’t need pressure suits—just warm clothing and respirators. I'm no space colony expert but am I missing something here? -180°C sounds like constant space suit level, not "just warm clothing".
And here I am, with my (Mexican) wife mentioning almost daily how horribly cold it is here in Europe.
I'm also not sure what kind of warm clothing they'd mean lol.