Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system. • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#121

Post by rsheridan6 » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

The problem with this analysis is that it assumes people will only do things that make economic sense, and only if it will benefit themselves or their descendants in a short time frame. In fact, we've done all sorts of useless, expensive things "because it's there," and we spend money on things like radiation shielding for nuclear waste that will last thousands of years.

Granted, space colonization would be much more expensive than any very long-term or symbolic project we do now, but it's not out of the question that future societies would be more inclined to do stuff like that than 21st century anglophones. If so, none of Stross's barriers are necessarily deal-breakers.

For example, I don't think Hitler would have spared any expense to seed another world with Aryans, regardless of whether it made any economic sense (since when do humans only do things that make sense?), and the 420 year time frame wouldn't seem like much to a man who thought he founded a 1000 year Reich.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#122

Post by hackermom » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 1:15 PM UTC

mikk0j wrote: post #68

This one is gold: "As Bruce Sterling has put it: "I'll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people settling the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes "Gobi Desert Opera" because, well, it's just kind of plonkingly obvious that there's no good reason to go there and live."

The significant difference is that we have colonized this planet already. It's in the nature of our species to increase our reach and breadth, and settling in the Gobi Desert simply doesn't pander towards this call. The perspective put forward by Sterling is very naive and narrow-minded, as it entirely disregards this human trait. Remember, we went to the moon, and we want to go to Mars, too, for reasons that we all know can't be fulfilled by a trip to the Gobi Desert.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#123

Post by randallsquared » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 1:18 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #46

RomP wrote: post #39

A little over 100 years ago the humanity just learned how to overfly one football field. In space, today, we're in pre-aviation days: we're still using hot air balloons for transportation. We make them lighter than air (i.e. shoot them up in space) and let the wind (i.e gravity) to carry them places. Imagine the most educated human 120 years ago is being told about planes heavier than air, air transportation over oce…

A very valid anti-Darwinian argument was that if the sun was made out of something similar to coal (densest known energy source at the time) evolution would not have had the time to take place. Far to many generations are required. They even allowed a two or three orders of magnitude to account for possible unknowns (maybe the sun has super coal) and still were didn't have enough time to make rats into cats, nevermin…

Nine year old crack babies today are more literate than most of his learned advisors [...]

Lets not get too cocky.

Well, make up your mind. :)

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#124

Post by michaelcampbell » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 1:22 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #6

That's a good, grounded assessment of the scale of the problem. I too believe that the human colonization of space, even near-space (ie within the orbit of the Moon) is a long way off. The energy costs are simply too high and resources too cheap on the Earth to make it viable (in spite of typical SF fodder of asteroid mining). This is a problem because with 6.5 billion people we're using up resources. Fast. Anyway, I…

I think a more realistic scenario, at least in the short/medium term (for relative values of "short" and "medium"), will be to limit human population to a sustainable level. It will be ugly, but I think in a few generations' time we'll see it happening, either by explicit means or evolutionary. I'm thinking pandemics brought on by overpopulation, and the evolution of diseases, not our evolution, although that too may bring some solutions albeit on a longer timeframe.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#125

Post by netcan » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 1:25 PM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #123

netcan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very valid anti-Darwinian argument was that if the sun was made out of something similar to coal (densest known energy source at the time) evolution would not have had the time to take place. Far to many generations are required. They even allowed a two or three orders of magnitude to account for possible unknowns (maybe the sun has super coal) and still were didn't have enough time to make rats into cats, nevermin…

Nine year old crack babies today are more literate than most of his learned advisors [...] Lets not get too cocky. Well, make up your mind. :)

not a bad point

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#126

Post by troels » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #102

troels wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? I thought it was the mass that made a black hole - not the density ?

There is a minimum amount of mass necessary for an object to be able to collapse upon itself and form a black hole, such as a large star does when the outward pressure due to the internal fusion reaction stalls. However, any amount of mass can (in classical theory) be compressed far enough to obtain a Schwarzschild radius, from which light cannot escape. This has only to do with the density, not the total mass: a ver…

OK, now that we're already discussing this topic. I just read this quote from Wikipedia:

"""If one accumulates matter at nuclear density (the density of the nucleus of an atom, about 1018 kg/m3; neutron stars also reach this density), such an accumulation would fall within its own Schwarzschild radius at about 3 solar masses and thus would be a stellar black hole."""

I take that to mean that if I wanted to create a black hole of something with less mass than 3 suns, I would have to compress it beyond the density of an atom nucleus? Is this - even in theory - possible to do? Wouldn't you need some kind of "magic wand" (to stick with the articles authors choice of words?)

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#127

Post by scott_s » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 2:04 PM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #33

scott_s wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limits he talks about are fundamental. We would have to be very wrong about much of physics to invalidate his arguments.

It is virtually certain that we are very wrong about much of physics. Perhaps not in ways that solve these issues. But we're still almost certainly wrong about things we consider very fundamental.

Whatever we find out has to reduce to what we know now in the conditions we've already looked at. That contrains what we will discover in the future.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#128

Post by suprgeek » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 2:07 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #111

suprgeek wrote: post #107

It comes down to which side of the human spirit you are betting on. Do you think that no matter how hard and how smart we try in the next 200-300 years we will never overcome some of the fundamental challenges of space and time? Then yes, what Stross says would make sense. Personally I am an optimist on these things - in 1711 you could not have imagined regular Aircraft - something we take for granted today much less…

You're also assuming that this hypothetical Human Spirit is immune to E. O. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis (Otherwise it's not just human colonization you're talking about -- it's Terrestrial biosphere colonization , which is a vastly more complex matter than most people seem to be willing to contemplate.)

Thanks for the link. The hypothetical human spirit is the same mindset that drives the likes of this chap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes or the early (American) settlers. So barring an extinction level event there is better than even odds that Humanity will overcome the Gravity well of the sun en-mass to colonize another Solar system.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#129

Post by JabavuAdams » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 2:27 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #6

That's a good, grounded assessment of the scale of the problem. I too believe that the human colonization of space, even near-space (ie within the orbit of the Moon) is a long way off. The energy costs are simply too high and resources too cheap on the Earth to make it viable (in spite of typical SF fodder of asteroid mining). This is a problem because with 6.5 billion people we're using up resources. Fast. Anyway, I…

You'll want to read Alastair Reynold's Pushing Ice, if you haven't already.

Re: Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.

#130

Post by pavel_lishin » Fri, Jun 10, 2011, 2:28 PM UTC

troels wrote: post #126

Confusion wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a minimum amount of mass necessary for an object to be able to collapse upon itself and form a black hole, such as a large star does when the outward pressure due to the internal fusion reaction stalls. However, any amount of mass can (in classical theory) be compressed far enough to obtain a Schwarzschild radius, from which light cannot escape. This has only to do with the density, not the total mass: a ver…

OK, now that we're already discussing this topic. I just read this quote from Wikipedia: """If one accumulates matter at nuclear density (the density of the nucleus of an atom, about 1018 kg/m3; neutron stars also reach this density), such an accumulation would fall within its own Schwarzschild radius at about 3 solar masses and thus would be a stellar black hole.""" I take that to mean that if I wanted to create a b…

I have strep throat and may not be at my best right now, but iirc the chandrasekhar limit is 1.5 solar masses - it's enough to form a black hole because not only is there a lot of mass, but it's also falling into the center, compressing everything further. So one of your "magic wand" options is acceleration, I think.