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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

#211

Post by mark-r »

tantalor wrote: post #120
Symmetry wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 betwee…

> slowly turn your solar array Sure that's nice but the angle of sunlight is very low so you are limited in that respect, e.g,. available surface area.

There's no atmospheric absorption though, so that would compensate a bit. Building very tall structures would be easy in the low gravity, and you wouldn't need to worry about earthquakes or storms.

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

#213

Post by athenot »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #140
3solarmasses wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Very few people get this. Fahrenheit is better for communicating temperatures in daily life. Plus we can be more precise in our language due to the expanded scale. e.g. We can say 62 degrees F, rather than 16.6667 degrees C.

> Exactly. Very few people get this. Fahrenheit is better for communicating temperatures in daily life. Literally the entire rest of the world disagrees with you I've never needed a less than 1 degree unit for describing temperature, except in scientific contexts, where using 2 decimal places is fine I don't see why "100 ~= body temperature (with fever)" is a useful scale point. Or why 32F = freezing is useful in dai…

Normal body temperature was defined† in Celsius, at 37ºC; this explains the decimal when used in Fahrenheit (98.6F). So even that argument of convenience doesn't hold.

† Yes everyone's baseline temperature is slightly different, but that just makes the decimal on the Fahrenheit scale look even sillier. And fever definitions are also keyed off of Celsius: 37º to 38º is "low grade". Sure, it's an arbitrary convention but it's the one adopted around the world, including in the US (98.6 to 100.4).

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

#214

Post by afiori »

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)

You just have to get there with a rocket

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

#215

Post by kjs3 »

beefman wrote: post #201

The dangers of radiation on Mars are greatly exaggerated. The dangers of low gravity on Titan and elsewhere are greatly understated, as is the immense distance between Mars and Titan. A floating habitat on Venus is harder and less attractive in every way than a rotating space station, which is clearly our next milestone in space. In terms of planets though, there's a reason Mars gets the most attention: it's obviousl…

Unless you think that the Moon is the obvious next milestone in space.

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

#216

Post by robotresearcher »

csunbird wrote: post #15
RangerScience wrote: post #11

Sincere question: Anyone know what would be involved in igniting Jupiter, and what kind of heating that would provide to it's moons?

Throw in more mass, than it will ignite itself and be the second sun. Actually, when you think about it, Jupiter is a good candidate for a dyson sphere.

Jupiter is around 1/79 the mass of a red dwarf. So it’s only 1/79 better than empty space as a place to build your new star.

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

#217

Post by kjs3 »

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…

Gattaca was ok, but the fact they were going to Titan was at best incidental to the plot. Could have been Mars, or Pluto, or Alpha Centauri, and it wouldn't have changed a single visual and only a handful dialog.

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

#218

Post by owl57 »

PeterisP wrote: post #141
lolc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'd like to know what you consider hard if launching a solar sail is not.

Mass change of human behavior is one option for solving climate change, but IMHO doing that takes much, much more coordination and effort, and is less likely to succeed than a "apollo project" to launch a lot of foil pieces / chaff in proper orbit to achieve a slight shading of the sun.

I fear the opposite. The Apollo project is a symbol of the era when the wealthiest states of the world were obsessed with rockets. They are probably more interested in mass psychology now.

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

#219

Post by blaser-waffle »

rbanffy wrote: post #162
entropicdrifter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or we mature enough to stop expanding exponentially

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

#220

Post by hutzlibu »

protomyth wrote: post #202
throwaway894345 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s sort that out on Earth first. :p

Why yes, let's test out something that can kill billions on Earth before trying it on an uninhabited area.

I think he meant, before we try to mess with a planet far away, we have a CO2 problem here on earth already urging to be solved in general. Not necessarily, to experiment wildly in the process here on earth.
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