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

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

#161

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

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....

That's an interesting article. I wonder how practical would it be to harvest hydrogen (protons, really) from solar wind using magnetic lensing. Tha same tech could be useful for Mars.

Depending on the shape of the parasol, the same support structures could be used for the lenses, focusing a stream of hydrogen nuclei on a small area of the planet. This focused plasma stream could also compensate some of the forces on the parasol (it'd need to be closer to the Sun than the Sun/Venus L1 point and balanced by light pressure) allowing the parasol to be smaller.

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

#162

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

entropicdrifter wrote: post #152

garmaine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That does nothing in terms of increasing Earth's surface area. Either we cap the population or we expand to other habitats.

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

#163

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #124

dntbnmpls wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You have to work pretty hard to take the perspective that Vincent dies. Vincent nearly fails the treadmill scene because he is on the edge of panicking under the stress of being revealed to be prime suspect in a murder case that might put him in jail wrongly and will blow his life's dream of getting to Titan. It doesn't matter if they check his ID at Titan, whatever that means. He commented he is outside the police's…

> Vincent nearly fails the treadmill scene because he is on the edge of panicking under the stress of being revealed to be prime suspect in a murder case that might put him in jail wrongly and will blow his life's dream of getting to Titan.

The impression that it was 'the stress of being found out' is a novel interpretation to me. I always thought it was about the fact that he has a 'garbage' heart and he's basically actually going at 200% while it appears on the outside as if he's only doing 60 bpm.

Right at the end of his run his real BPM comes out because the recording from Jerome (Jude Law) reached its end and that's when he stops the exercise.

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

#164

Post by hutzlibu » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

tiborsaas wrote: post #125

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…

> And you'd mostly spend your life in bunkers underground That's okay for many people knowing they are in the forefront of humanity's interplanetary expansion. Also, probably whatever they do will enter the history books as epic heroic acts.

Well yes. Here on earth there are indeed many people who think they want that. Mars one proved at least that.

But I am not so sure, if they will be also so happy on mars, if they really have to be underground allmost the whole time and teleoperate the robotic exploration and mining on the surface etc.

For me the dark winter already is every year challenging. But being in a dark winter so to say forever, would not be bearable for me.

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

#165

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

Unless you're planning to build a literal castle in the sky out of convenient gasses, this is completely unworkable.

Even at that altitude the cloud layer is still very turbulent and very toxic, and no structure will be absolutely gas-tight. And if the temperature is 75 °C outside, it's going to take insane amounts of energy to keep the inside of your hab cool - especially if it's made of metal and not rock. (A thin skin obviously isn't going to work.)

You can't mine Venus, and you can't explore the surface. All you can do is drift over the cloud layer.

So there's no point - except maybe niche tourism, niche planetary science, and possibly niche super-weapons research.

And after all that, you still have the problem of moving mass to/from your colony. 30-odd miles gives you a bit of an energy boost, but getting out the gravity well still isn't cheap or easy.

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

#166

Post by dylan604 » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

DarthGhandi wrote: post #113

Tepix wrote: post #26

The article argues that on Mars we'd have to live underground which requires a lot of construction of tunnels and excavation. It does not appear to take into consideration the huge lava tubes that are present on Mars (and even bigger on the Moon). These are estimated to be dozens of kilometers long and hundreds of meters wide. They could be very attractive for human colonies. On the other hand on Triton, even if you…

Shielding Mars is possible with current technology. https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmo...

Is it though? The link only discusses the theory of placing a large magnet in the Mars-Sun L1 point. It does not discuss the makings of that magnet. What's going to power it? Solar? Nuclear? So at the end of the day, I'm still left not knowing if we have the tech to be able to do this. This seems like a no-brainer of something should/needs/must be done to make humans living on Mars anything more than just a though exerciser.

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

#167

Post by xerox13ster » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #155

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 ..

I personally would bombard with comets. Bring down the temperature and deposit water on the planet.

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

#168

Post by marcusKral » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #89

marcusKral wrote: post #62

As a doctrine, colonization hasn't worked too well for humanity. It assumes an ethnocentric view where the colonizer has the right to take or use resources that they believe they "discovered". Just because there aren't any humans there, doesn't mean it doesn't already belong to someone. And just because we are able to take over a moon, doesn't mean we have the right to. Instead of colonizing, we should be talking abo…

Belong to who? All known solar space and beyond is literally devoid of any life at all. Are you assuming super aliens? Or perhaps a god of some kind, who pre-claims ownership? And if so, how did these beings get their "right" to have it?. What exactly countermands our right to the take over the moon or any other part of local space? Name some concrete thing, not just an arbitrary notion of rights. The obvious from th…

And that's exactly the problem... we don't know what we don't know. We are assuming life exists only in the form that we have encountered it on Earth. And we're assuming that just because we can't find something, that it isn't there. We are taking all things solely from our perspective and we are convinced that they can't be any other way. This seems extremely egocentric and could be disastrous when encounter something far outside of our narrow perspective.

And what if we find a bacteria on Titan that lives beneath the surface but is harmful to humans, will we exterminate it for our own sake? What level of intelligence is required before we attribute value to another species.

As far as rights are concerned, this is a real issue. If the first country to Titan plants a flag and then says, "This moon is ours". Does that make it theirs? Will countries fight wars to protect their perceived rights to a particular moon? It may be arbitrary but that doesn't mean it isn't real. National boarders are arbitrary but they are very real. But in the same case as with countries, what gives us the right as a species to go a moon and claim it. Is it a right based on force, an ethical right, a right of first claim? The very idea of colonization assumes certain rights. The question is what are those rights based on?

And no I'm not trolling. It's sad that we are prepared to discuss ideas without being prepared to discuss the underlying philosophies. I'm simply saying that before we consider what to colonize or how, we should consider whether the very notion of space colonization is valid. This isn't a moot point. If we're wrong, at worst it could mean the end of our species. All cases of colonization on earth have lead to genocide or war... no exceptions. Why do we think space colonization will be different?

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

#169

Post by egdod » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #45

What 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?

A random asteroid impact could end the human species next month. If we spread to other worlds, our chances of survival go way up.

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

#170

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

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…

> SpaceX actively building a rocket for Martian colonization.

It's unknown whether it is capable of protecting the human cargo on its way to Mars. Maybe a design with habitation encased in the propellant tanks is a better idea for longer transits.

In any case, Starship is well positioned for Earth and Moon travels, as well as for sending equipment to LEO and the Moon.