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Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

nature.com

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Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#341

Post by Firmwarrior »

pharke wrote: post #325
AitchEmArsey wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because if we don't then some commie bastards will get there first." I am all for exploration and science for the sake of science, but any talk of colonies is just wasted breath at this stage. We need to first explore how to live within our means on earth.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I think we need to spread out as soon as possible because it's not clear we can ever completely future proof our civilization here. There are simply too many things that can go wrong, many of which are not within our control. Take the pandemic for example, if it had been 10x worse it could have collapsed our current global civilization. There's no way of preventing it from spreading to ev…

Big picture, I think all this pushing to make everything perfect for every person on the entire planet Earth before expanding to space is a TERRIBLE strategy

Imagine a StarCraft/Factorio player who hides out in his starting base, building it up more and more and more forever, while talking about "living within his means".

There are effectively unlimited resources right there for the taking! Let's go take them!

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#342

Post by GoblinSlayer »

politician wrote: post #332
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're not going to send 1M tons of cargo to Mars without a deployment plan. Can this happen? I imagine before we can settle on Mars we first should be comfortable flying there, and the latter should be sufficient for asteroid mining. But, right, our technology is just not at a comfortable level yet.

Comfortable comes much later than possible. When it's possible to go, that's the time to go. The early Atlantic crossings weren't comfortable, just possible.

Unlike Atlantic, Mars isn't habitable, you can't settle there with merely possible crossing. Maybe first establish a colony at 1km depth in the ocean; we are relatively comfortable going there, but what it takes to run a colony there and would it be possible with only possible crossing?

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#343

Post by raxxorrax »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #121
parksy wrote: post #4

Sweet let's crank up the generation ships. Of course picking a suitably inspiring name should be the first priority. Unity? Terra Nova? Gaia? On a more serious note is this a good candidate for JWST, would it be able to infer chemical composition from the planet's spectrum or something? Awesome though we went from (in my lifetime) learning at school that other planets have never been observed, to finding them sprinkl…

>> Sweet let's crank up the generation ships. Of course picking a suitably inspiring name should be the first priority. Unity? Terra Nova? Gaia? Titanic. Moribund. Lethe. Purgatory I-X. etc.

Titanic sounds good. We should also call it an unexplodable space ship.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#344

Post by qwytw »

ethbr0 wrote: post #309
qwytw wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it anymore ethically dubious than having more solar or wind power in first world countries? But no, I'm not necessarily saying that. I just disagree with the claim that if nuclear power continued growing at the same rate as it did prior to 1979 that would somehow have lead to higher proliferation of nuclear weapons.

It's ethically dubious because solar or wind power wasn't an option in the 50s-70s. So you're effectively gating the majority of the world off from nuclear power, enjoyed by developed economies. Which would have developed economies of scale (see: France) with the end result of developed countries having access to cheaper power than developing ones. And I'm confused. Your reasoning around why more reactors wouldn't ha…

There are relatively few countries which wanted to develop nuclear weapons over the past ~60 years and were unsuccessful in doing so. I see nothing wrong with banning the export of technology and equipment needed to develop them to those countries (AFAIK: Iran, Iraq & Libya). In fact that is already the case and Israel and US already used/are using military or clandestine means to prevent those countries from developing them. So basically I find it hard to imagine that the situation would be significantly different than it is now.

But lets I assume you're right and 'a' is somehow correct (I don't agree with the premise that increase in global nuclear power generation capacity would somehow automatically result in a higher risk of nuclear weapons actually being used) that would still mean that the western world, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and all other countries in their sphere of influence or aligned to them would have access to cheaper power (which is at least 80-90% of the global population). And I don't consider 'because Iran does not have access to nuclear power then it would be unfair for anyone else to have' to be very good argument.

In fact even if only developed countries had access to nuclear power (which is obviously not fair and not realistic anyway, good luck preventing Russia and China export their reactor to whoever they want) I still think that would be preferably to nobody having it.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#345

Post by AitchEmArsey »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #341
pharke wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I think we need to spread out as soon as possible because it's not clear we can ever completely future proof our civilization here. There are simply too many things that can go wrong, many of which are not within our control. Take the pandemic for example, if it had been 10x worse it could have collapsed our current global civilization. There's no way of preventing it from spreading to ev…

Big picture, I think all this pushing to make everything perfect for every person on the entire planet Earth before expanding to space is a TERRIBLE strategy Imagine a StarCraft/Factorio player who hides out in his starting base, building it up more and more and more forever, while talking about "living within his means". There are effectively unlimited resources right there for the taking! Let's go take them!

Bit of a straw man - nobody said anything about pushing for perfection at home, just "we can do better than this".

Also - "right there for the taking" gets to the heart of my objection as it is nowhere near true. Space is vast and delta-v is expensive - even if we get past the problem of deadly radiation outside the ionosphere, we are incredibly far from being able to make space travel anything other than an enormous sink for money and resources.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#346

Post by Tepix »

ncmncm wrote: post #271
mannerheim wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are certainly easier, but how useful are they? A base on Mars will bring down the fuel requirements to exploring and exploiting the belt and outer planets tremendously. Missions that are impossible or uneconomical to do from Earth could be made possible and cheap if launched from Mars.

Anything that seems easier from Mars is overwhelmingly easier without stopping at Mars first. Even Phobos would be a better choice. The only thing Mars has going for it is hype.

Mars offers quite a few things that make it more inviting for a manned base:

- 38% of Earth's gravity

- 24.5 hour days

- lots of resources such as iron, carbon, oxygen, water (ice)

- aerobraking in the atmosphere saves fuel

- it's big (same land mass as Earth's). There's enough room for growth.

- temperatures are better than elsewhere in space (-63°C to +20°C at the equator)

- Lava tubes that could offer protection against radiation and meteorites for habitats

- good potential of life / former life

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#347

Post by Tepix »

ncmncm wrote: post #284
mannerheim wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need some way to make fuel and propellant, though. Phobos would be a great choice for a launchpad, but in such a scenario you would do ISRU on Mars and lift fuel and propellant there - which will be much more efficient than on Earth, since there's less gravity and less atmosphere.

Any fuel you could generate on Mars would be overwhelmingly easier and cheaper to ship in from Earth; and you wouldn't need to land a million tons of freight on Mars first. A million tons of fuel delivered to LEO would take you quite a long way, and you could start immediately. If you want to go somewhere beyond Mars, stopping there and then starting again just sets you back. (Same goes for the moon, or lunar orbit.)…

> Any fuel you could generate on Mars would be overwhelmingly easier and cheaper to ship in from Earth

Source?

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#348

Post by Tepix »

mannerheim wrote: post #263
spaetzleesser wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are concerned about a launchpad for other missions the moon is much better. Lower gravity, easy to reach.

How would you produce fuel and propellant on the Moon? SpaceX plans on producing methane and lox from water and CO2 on Mars.

You could produce oxygen and hydrogen from the water ice and the carbon dioxide cold traps on the Moon.

There may also be more carbon below the surface, see https://phys.org/news/2020-05-carbon-emissions-moon-theory-b...

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#349

Post by Tepix »

mannerheim wrote: post #259
spaetzleesser wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then create one in the Sahara or the Atacana desert at 5000m elevation. Still way easier than Mars.

They are certainly easier, but how useful are they? A base on Mars will bring down the fuel requirements to exploring and exploiting the belt and outer planets tremendously. Missions that are impossible or uneconomical to do from Earth could be made possible and cheap if launched from Mars.

Also exploring Mars itself and establishing a base there (anywhere off Earth really).

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#350

Post by pharke »

AitchEmArsey wrote: post #345
Firmwarrior wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big picture, I think all this pushing to make everything perfect for every person on the entire planet Earth before expanding to space is a TERRIBLE strategy Imagine a StarCraft/Factorio player who hides out in his starting base, building it up more and more and more forever, while talking about "living within his means". There are effectively unlimited resources right there for the taking! Let's go take them!

Bit of a straw man - nobody said anything about pushing for perfection at home, just "we can do better than this". Also - "right there for the taking" gets to the heart of my objection as it is nowhere near true. Space is vast and delta-v is expensive - even if we get past the problem of deadly radiation outside the ionosphere, we are incredibly far from being able to make space travel anything other than an enormous…

Maybe I'm optimistic, but these are just problems to be solved. Space exploration is a big risk / big reward investment. Yes it would require a comparatively huge investment to mine an asteroid vs. open a pit mine in Brazil but "mining" an asteroid likely means carving off hunks of solid metal for transit back to the Earth's surface rather than processing megatons of rock by blasting, trucking, and smelting. Like many things about space, it boggles the mind that a single asteroid mining mission could produce more platinum group metals than have ever been mined on Earth throughout human history. How does the total amount of money and resources spent on mining those metals on Earth stack up against the cost of a single successful asteroid mining operation?

I think this argument extends to colonization efforts as well. What is the economic and cultural benefit of founding a new nation? It's not something that we are familiar with at this point in history so we are relatively blind to it. We just take it for granted that the nations in which we live have always been there since they have always been there for us. I have no doubt that once we begin colonizing Mars or the Moon or even just Earth orbit it will have as great of an impact as the colonization of the New World.

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