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Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#71

Post by me_me_me »

WalterBright wrote: post #41

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

That is actually a cool idea. I have seen idea that you can use giant slingshots to hurl cargo out into orbit for cheap as those would use solar energy to prime.

If you think about it we could be doing so many cool things as species, if only we clean up the whole politicking and squabbling over resources and power.

Technologically it seems we are on the edge of being able to expand out into solar system.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#72

Post by kumarvvr »

Santosh83 wrote: post #3

Let'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…

Yup. Im all in for space colonization. But with the current state of humanity, we are not in a position to colonize anything in budget and on time.

Space colonization is a game to be played after we have made human life on earth fully sustainable.

Then we would have enough time and resources to think beyond.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#73

Post by russdill »

garmaine wrote: post #49
state_less wrote: post #42

Let'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…

And really, it's the atmosphere that does the bulk of the radiation protection work. Astronauts abort the ISS still experience their fair share of radiation. As mentioned though, their orbit is far from ideal and different orbits have less radiation.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#74

Post by 101404 »

muzani wrote: post #35
Santosh83 wrote: post #3

Let'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.

Stopping climate change isn't even hard, just place a large solar sail on a sun synchronous orbit to block part of the sun's energy from reaching Earth.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#75

Post by 101404 »

Santosh83 wrote: post #3

Let'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…

Because 7 billion people can only do a single thing simultaneously.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#76

Post by 101404 »

pyrale wrote: post #21
austincheney wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not do both?

Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. As long as it will be the case, we won't be able to start new, large scale projects without jeopardizing our ability to live on earth.

That's incorrect.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#77

Post by Retric »

Nimelrian wrote: post #29
cookingrobot wrote: post #9

Let’s colonize Mercury. It’s not actually hot at the poles - it’s shaded enough from the consistent low angle to the sun that there’s even water ice. And the planet is full of useful metals (more than earth), and as much solar energy as you can handle. The article dismisses Mercury out of hand as “too hot” but I think it’s our best bet. https://www.universetoday.com/130109/how-do-we-colonize-merc...

Getting stuff to mercury is hard though. IIRC it takes around 16,000 m/s of dV to get from LEO to the surface of mercury. Titan would take even more (19,000) but a huge chunk of it can be reduced by making use of aerobraking.

Solar sail or solar powered ionic thrusters are much more effective going to Mercury than Titan. So, total deltaV of the trip is not a great measurement of effort.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#78

Post by 101404 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #67
pyrale wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. As long as it will be the case, we won't be able to start new, large scale projects without jeopardizing our ability to live on earth.

SpaceX's new Starship uses methane, which can be created from CO2 and energy. That's how they're going to refuel them on Mars; there is no reason they can't do that on Earth too. If it is made from atmospheric CO2 and clean energy it is carbon neutral.

Methane is a "greenhouse gas" itself, worse than co2. Mostly a problems from cattle digesting food. So burning it actually reduces climate change.

Re: Saturn's largest moon may be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live

#79

Post by Symmetry »

WalterBright wrote: post #41

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

I think colonizing the Moon is a good idea must mostly just the south pole to start with. On most of the Moon you have 2 weeks of frigid darkness you where you're living off batteries followed by 2 weeks of intense sunlight. At the peak of eternal light at the south pole you can just slowly turn your solar array 360 degrees over the course of a month and have (nearly) continuous power.

There's a big difference between having to have 12 hours of battery power, as on Mars, and 336 hours on the Moon.

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