Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Let's Colonize Titan

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 508 posts

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#211

Post by chc »

blueprint wrote: post #189
banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

> I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). What a horrible lie to spread. What you said is hardly the case at all. Scientists have known for many decades that Earth is already beyond its carrying capacity. Multiply tha…

If we're able to survive on a planet with inhospitable temperatures and no ecosystem, why would climate change and ecosystem destruction be a problem? It's almost impossible to make our planet as inhospitable as Titan, where coming into brief contact with the air would leave grievous and permanent injury due to freezing, sunlight is so weak that it's basically incapable of supporting either solar power or agriculture, and there's no oxygen at all.

What cataclysm could kill life on earth if we have the ability to survive in a place like that?

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#213

Post by babyrainbow »

saganus wrote: post #132
banach wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not being sarcastic. Compared to terraforming, or even colonizing a planet to the point where it becomes a serious alternative to Earth, they are utterly trivial.

I think the issue is more with own human nature, as usual. Terraforming another planet is an engineering problem (of course, not only an engineering problem), and in the end it's something that in theory can be accomplished as long as we "work it out". Changing the human nature however, is not trivial by any measure. It's very hard for individuals to change, and even more so for groups and even more so for societies.…

>Changing the human nature however, is not trivial by any measure...

We don't have to change human nature. We just need to change human behaviour.

Changing human behaviour is very easy. Just replace every Ad currently in use with an eco friendly message.

Make eco damaging behaviours "uncool" and there goes our young generations eco damaging behaviours.

Facebook and google can do this in an year, if they put their minds to it...

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#214

Post by jonahrd »

Eerie wrote: post #146
IndianAstronaut wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A penny sized hole in a space suit on Mars could mean a quick death. The lack of an atmosphere on Mars would make it exceedingly difficult to set up a colony there.

>A penny sized hole in a space suit on Mars could mean a quick death. Also true for Titan (surface temperature -179 degrees Celsius).

thermodynamics isn't instant like that, and you'd be dressing in layers. It's much different than a hole in a pressurized suit

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#215

Post by pmoriarty »

lazarus101 wrote: post #43
hereonbusiness wrote: post #17

We expect human nature to stay the same. Human beings of the future will have the same drives and needs we have now. Practically speaking, their home must have abundant energy, livable temperatures and protection from the rigors of space, including cosmic radiation, which new research suggests is unavoidably dangerous for biological beings like us I would expect the complete opposite if we really want to colonize the…

My thoughts exactly, instead of adapting planets for our current form we should try to adapt humans for extraterrestrial environments. We need to find a way to transfer our brains(or brain data) into a machine, then adapt this machine to the conditions of the planet. Easier said than done obviously, but colonizing Titan doesn't seem a very realistic option either. Besides flying humans safely to Titan we also need to…

"We need to find a way to transfer our brains(or brain data) into a machine"

It's debatable whether that's a "transfer" so much as the killing of one life and the creation of another one.

To me that would be more of a creation of another intelligent being, with some eerie similarities to humans.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#216

Post by incongruity »

banach wrote: post #174
pavelrub wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes let's stop all scientific and technological progress which isn't directly related to achieving utopia on earth, until a hypothetical point in the future that will never come. Is everything you do and find important in life directly related to improving our ecosystem and eliminating nuclear stockpiles? Do you think it's ok to be interested, for example, in web development, but not in space colonization? Maybe inst…

I think that the pursuit of knowledge is a really good way to spend your time, but I do not like when simple solutions to real problems are sidelined in favor of the latest buzzword-oriented technology fetish. In times when the president-elect has announced that he is shutting down NASA's climate change research, ostensibly to fund space exploration, I think we need to remind ourselves that any work we chose to pursu…

Those "solutions" are only simple in theory, not in practice. Enacting that change would actually be exponentially harder than getting humans to Titan, IMHO. One requires massive social and economic change. The other requires sending a limited number of people to another part of the solar system. We roughly know how to do the latter but the former is on decidedly a longer timescale if it achievable at all.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#218

Post by babyrainbow »

banach wrote: post #106

I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecos…

Completely agree. It is a bit scary to see the enthusiasm of some people to just get off this planet..

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#219

Post by pdonis »

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #172
lossolo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding solution is not a problem, human nature is a problem. > stop eating animal-based foods Good luck with that. Sad true is that people don't want to change their life style. If you ask them for solution they will tell you exactly the same thing as you wrote, but most of them will not implement any of this solutions in their life. They want to eat meat, they want to consume, look at global warming, everyone know…

I would add that there is poor, and inconsequential information directed at people on how to mitigate the causes of climate change. For instance, I've seen in my surroundings a disproportionate emphasis on recycling. Whatever happened to reducing and re-using? While recycling reduces our need to extract more resources, it still requires energy to transport to processing facilities and process. The real issue is not c…

> regular and predictable commutes are best done with public transit.

In places where public transit has dense enough coverage to make commute times reasonable, yes. But that's not most places where Americans are commuting.

Re: Let's Colonize Titan

#220

Post by veli_joza »

tarr11 wrote: post #144

Evolution is the obvious answer for how we move into hostile environments. Hardening the environment seems inefficient. Seveneves is a fun book that explores this concept. E.g., probably better to evolve a few new species who can live in orbit around the earth for a few thousand years. They'd have a better time with all these issues (radiation, resources, etc)

Some scientists (Hawking, etc...) consider evolution to apply beyond biological context. In that sense, any usage of technology to solve this problem could also be considered evolution.

As example, in Accelerando by Charles Stross, human consciousness is transfered into virtual reality environment and sent several light years away in a can-sized probe.

Post reply on HN