181–190 of 393 posts
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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.
The ultimate weapon of imperialist terror! Why haven't we built this already?! "It's most unfortunate, and not only for your farmers, that you've chosen not to have sunlight this year... perhaps you should reconsider our demands?"
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The article is about human colonization, so Fahrenheit is more appropriate unit because it represents human compatible temperature ranges better than C or K.
> Fahrenheit is more appropriate unit because it represents human compatible temperature 0 being the freezing point of a mix of water, ice and ammonium chloride and 100 being almost the average human body temperature - or to put it another way, "a random number fixed to a variable". Neither of these are things I can instinctively understand as a human. Celcius on the other hand uses extremely hard to grasp concepts f…
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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 disagree on the foil pieces in orbit. Sure, that would be much easier than a single piece. But it would be impossible to correct or reduce the amount of "glitter" once it is in an orbit. A single piece (maybe spaced out with holes or cuts) can be removed or reduced as necessary.
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> 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…
since the film ends with him leaving we don't know if he dies or not, but outlook does not exactly look promising. Then again nothing of Vincent's life has ever looked promising.
Edit, to add: the name Vincent is derived from the Greek/Latin word for conquering/winning... so there’s that too.
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> 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…
Similarly if some caves are street sized, being there would not feel like being underground. Add to that better vr, and ability to jump really high due to low gravity and living in martian cave will be almost better than living in many cities here on earth (of course this is assuming 0.3g is high enough to prevent adverse effects astronauts see in 0g).
Serious question, since this is out of my swim lane. The Author keeps talking about the effects of Galactic Cosmic Rays, do we have any usable materials we can build habitats out of that can block them? I mean usable in the sense we can produce in scale and they are non toxic to humans.
There's a scene at the end when one of our future generation looks at the surface of Saturn while standing on a station floating atop a Saturnian moon.
Very motivational.
Other videos by Erik Wernquist are motivational too: New Horizons: https://vimeo.com/132183032
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…
> 1. The film Gattaca (1999), in addition to being an excellent, inspiring film all around, centers on an aspiring astronaut's upcoming trip to Titan. Highly recommended. Gattaca is one of my favorite films. I agree that it is excellent, but I'm not sure it is inspiring. Gattaca is about how the system, society, circumstances and expectations beyond your control are an albatross around everyone's neck and ultimately…
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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.