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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

#151

Post by linuxftw »

bregma wrote: post #117
muzani wrote: post #33

> 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".

A generous slathering of bear fat or whale blubber is all it would take. Maybe a vinyl outer suit so the viscious liquid methane rain doesn't dissolve your insulation. On second thought, some kind of heated space suit sounds more comfortable.

Heated space suit + liquid methane rain. Sounds intense.

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

#152

Post by entropicdrifter »

garmaine wrote: post #46
keiferski wrote: post #31

Two 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....

The thing is, if we were to develop the tech needed to cool Venus, it would be orders of magnitude cheaper to just use it here on earth to offset CO2/CO emissions and reverse the greenhouse effect.

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

#153

Post by hutzlibu »

aaron695 wrote: post #131
keiferski wrote: post #31

Two 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…

> floating cities We have decided on Mars, can we stop forking it. Have we learning nothing from Linux? But if you have to, could you hurry up and make a floating city on earth to practice ? People would pay a tonne of money for that, and having floating cities (In reality small communal groups, so more a village) would be very very neat.

"We have decided on Mars, can we stop forking it. "

Who is "we"?

I for example, have decided, that we colonize the moon first and then go on from there. But since I sadly do not operate a big space agency/company, my decision is not so relevant (yet).

But apart from that, yeah sure, lets build floating cities and (at least partly) self sufficient habitats on earth first, before we try it do it so far away we need at least 6 months to get there.

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

#154

Post by ufmace »

imjasonmiller wrote: post #40
fnord77 wrote: post #2

terraform venus. it's much closer, has a nice .9g and maybe a viable long-term project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus

The much weaker gravity and its effects on human health is something I rarely see mentioned. If one were to be born on a body with a much weaker gravity than Earth, e.g. Mars (0.38) or the Moon (0.17), wouldn’t this confine them to bodies where gravity is less than or approximately equal?

The best answer right now is that nobody has any idea what, if any, effect that would have on human health. It hasn't been tried yet, so we just don't know.

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

#155

Post by hutzlibu »

keiferski wrote: post #31

Two 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…

Venus has the very big advantage of having allmost earths g. That is a big deal.

The very big disadvantage except the atmosphere is the lenght of a venus day: 116 earth days and 18 hours.

So a science fiction solution is asteroid bombardment to make venus spin faster ..

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

#156

Post by Juliate »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #64
keiferski wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vincent dies on his way to Titan due to his "degenerate" heart. Vincent definitely doesn't die on his way to Titan. I'm not sure where you got that from. Jerome also self-immolates because he realizes that his purpose is now completed, not because he is cynical and depressed. His silver Olympic medal also turns gold in the fire, which is supposed to suggest that he has achieved his true purpose in life. In any case…

> Vincent definitely doesn't die on his way to Titan. I'm not sure where you got that from. It's alluded to a few times in the movie. Vincent never saves anything for the swim back. Vincent specifically mentions that he is living on borrowed time as he has surpassed the "number of beats expected of his heart". And there is the treadmill scene where he was barely able to hang on. Remember that the training was to sele…

I didn't see it either that Vincent dies, but thank you, your perspective of it is really opening & interesting!

Will re-watch differently the movie now! :)

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

#157

Post by tekkk »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #118
tekkk wrote: post #115

Hmm. I have always considered low-gravity to be quite a big issue for any planetary colonization. Unless some cure is invented like a genetic mutation, it would seem that there is no way of coming back to Earth after spending a lifetime in eg 0.2 G. This in mind I have always thought that Venus would make the best candidate in the solar system. With 0.9 G it would be as close as we could possible get to Earth yet how…

Mars is definitely the easiest place to colonize, by far. It's much closer than the gas giants, there's no craft capable of taking people to Saturn even devised, let alone constructed. Meanwhile, we have SpaceX actively building a rocket for Martian colonization. Second, the Venusian atmosphere is oppressive as hell, you'll not be solving that problem anytime soon, as we can't even solve Earth's much easier atmospher…

True Venus' atmosphere is quite hostile, but from what I briefly read Venus quite probably have had a similar atmosphere with Earth (along with Mars) in the early days, before the runaway green-house effect got the best of it, so at least in theory it should be possible to transform it back.

With autonomous robots perhaps it could be done in a span of million years. Maybe. A relatable analogue might be removing liquid from a glass with a tiny straw. Yet I'd think it is easier to remove, than to add material when speaking about terraforming.

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

#158

Post by JoeAltmaier »

saiya-jin wrote: post #135
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colonize the top of Mt Everest first? Even closer to Earth. Similar challenged. 250,000 miles closer to resupply. Very hard, a good test of colonizing technology.

Won't develop space travel and sustainment technologies much. With that logic, we can colonize oceans (and probably discover a thing or two about our origins and new life forms)

Why not? The top of Mt Everest is remarkably similar to Mars surface, for instance. I'd say, tackle the challenges a few at a time, instead of jumping in the deep end!

To go further: if you can't establish a colony on the top of Mt Everest, you haven't a prayer of doing it on Mars where there are all the problems and more.

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

#159

Post by dr_dshiv »

aaron695 wrote: post #131
keiferski wrote: post #31

Two 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…

> floating cities We have decided on Mars, can we stop forking it. Have we learning nothing from Linux? But if you have to, could you hurry up and make a floating city on earth to practice ? People would pay a tonne of money for that, and having floating cities (In reality small communal groups, so more a village) would be very very neat.

I'm imagining a way to use solar power to grow hydrogen filled mylar cells at scale in a lake or ocean. You could organically grow an enormous platform as a skyport, e.g., elevator up the cable a couple km, then take off from there. Hell, maybe you need these skyports to support the business end of a massdriver.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

Images (and calculations) in the deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6...

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

#160

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tekkk wrote: post #157
Dumblydorr wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mars is definitely the easiest place to colonize, by far. It's much closer than the gas giants, there's no craft capable of taking people to Saturn even devised, let alone constructed. Meanwhile, we have SpaceX actively building a rocket for Martian colonization. Second, the Venusian atmosphere is oppressive as hell, you'll not be solving that problem anytime soon, as we can't even solve Earth's much easier atmospher…

True Venus' atmosphere is quite hostile, but from what I briefly read Venus quite probably have had a similar atmosphere with Earth (along with Mars) in the early days, before the runaway green-house effect got the best of it, so at least in theory it should be possible to transform it back. With autonomous robots perhaps it could be done in a span of million years. Maybe. A relatable analogue might be removing liqui…

I've often wondered if crashing a metropolis-sized piece of ice into Venus might help? Deflected from Saturn's rings or some such. The water vapor could cool it/reflect sunlight.
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