Is off-world colonization a reality, or just sci-fi?

[Gibsons]

The problem with the moon and Mars is the wild swing of temps. The moon in particular is crazy. 250+ degrees during the day and almost -400 at night. That's a swing of 650 degrees. The amount energy, engineering, insulation, and HVAC required to protect our fragile bags of flesh with those swings is insane. Plus that whole sticking point of not being able to create one of the vital substances on earth - water. We can't even make the stuff yet. Condensing doesn't count.

I'm sure we have the tech today to land somebody on there for a short period of time. But any sustained operations would just be logistically and financially unfathomable.

The approach would be to dig underground, that would take a lot of the temperature variance out. Not to mention radiation. You'd still need climate controls, and some really efficient water usage, and food production.

 

[Ken g6]

Earth is dying. Your team of scientists found a planet exactly like Earth 100 lightyears away. This planet would require no teraforming of any sort and would make an ideal new home. To get there on current tech would take generations. Knowing you need a ship(b) to fit at a 1000 humans (X) and enough food(Y) and water(a) to last the entire trip, find $.

Hm, if Earth is dying, then you won't mind exploding nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, will you? The best estimate there looks like about $4 trillion. Trip duration would be around 1,200 years.

 

[vi edit]

The approach would be to dig underground, that would take a lot of the temperature variance out. Not to mention radiation. You'd still need climate controls, and some really efficient water usage, and food production.

Yeah I thought that too, but question what would really happen given the still relatively high swings in temps. Mars for example in the most ideal climates around it's equivalent equator get up to 70 degrees during the day but still fall to over -100 below at night. I'm not sure if the heat up is long enough to overcome that massive cold.

The other thing I struggle with is the concept of power. Think of construction equipment. Every one of them today is powered by diesel engines. Internal combustion is out since there is no meaningful atmosphere to draw oxygen from.

The battery sizes needed to operate those types of machines would be insane. Plus you'd be fighting the temps to keep them at optimal storage capacity. The colder they are the less useable they are.

Fuel cells as we know them today would require oxygen and hydrogen to function and would need some sort of closed system to operate. Plus output is unknown.

I guess you'd have to go to some sort of compact nuclear power to run them, sort of like the ones in the rovers/satellites. But I don't know how well the power in them scales up. Plus at significant costs/risks/ect needed to run them given the radioactive nature of the solution.

Unless there was some sort of main power generator that could fuel enough things at once (nuclear plant for example) and you could run them off the largest extension cord made by man

It's the ability to power and maintain power that is the other big hurdle. I'm not sure solar would be effective enough on Mars for a large scale human occupation. You'd need some other way to sustain power without compromising other critical resorces (oxygen, water, safety, ect).

 

[Gibsons]

Yeah I thought that too, but question what would really happen given the still relatively high swings in temps. Mars for example in the most ideal climates around it's equivalent equator get up to 70 degrees during the day but still fall to over -100 below at night. I'm not sure if the heat up is long enough to overcome that massive cold.

On Earth, the temperature gets to a near constant once you go underground. You might need to go deeper, but same principle applies. Now, it might still be cold, so you'd need some heating, but the variance can be handled. Dirt isn't a great insulator, but make it 5 meters thick.

The other thing I struggle with is the concept of power.

This would be a big problem. Nuclear would be the way to go right now. Solar might be okay on the moon.

 

[mikegg]

Oh, minus a 100, that's not extreme at all. LOL


http://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html

Teraforming would be needed to live on Mars unless we develop the ultimate dome for life.

 

[John Connor]

Doesn't teraforming require water?

 

[mikegg]

Earth is dying. Your team of scientists found a planet exactly like Earth 100 lightyears away. This planet would require no teraforming of any sort and would make an ideal new home. To get there on current tech would take generations. Knowing you need a ship(b) to fit at a 1000 humans (X) and enough food(Y) and water(a) to last the entire trip, find $.

100 light years away is 600 trillion miles. If we use the fastest spacecraft we've ever created, it would take us 436,045 years to get there. A single generation is 60 years? If so, it'd take 7,267 generations to get there.

 

[mikegg]

Doesn't teraforming require water?

No idea, not an expert. I would imagine a combination of chemicals, plants/trees.

 

[John Connor]

Christ!

100 light years away is 600 trillion miles. If we use the fastest spacecraft we've ever created, it would take us 436,045 years to get there. A single generation is 60 years? If so, it'd take 7,267 generations to get there.

 

[John Connor]

No idea, not an expert. I would imagine a combination of chemicals, plants/trees.

I remember how they were teraforming in the movie Aliens.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Seems like undersea cities is a more realistic goal. You face similar challenges (a hostile environment that will kill you in minutes if the habitat breaks in any way), but submarines are a lot cheaper than rockets and you have a much better chance of survival if you have to abandon your life-support systems and you still happen to be on Earth. There wouldn't be issues adjusting to gravity because it would be basically the same as the surface. Plus, quicker access to important things like bourbon and porn.

So, you know, start there and see how it goes. Once you can build a modern Atlantis, you're ready to take that knowledge and apply it to a moon colony.

 

[mikegg]

If we have the technology to travel to other stars, then we will have the technology to teraform the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to live.

 

[Printer Bandit]

There are already colonies on the moon and mars.

 

[JulesMaximus]

It seems to me resources would be better spent developing technology to identify and travel to other earth-like planets rather than trying to live on a planet with a atmosphere toxic to us.

-KeithP

Well, we have a couple obstacles to that really. One, we haven't identified any earth-like planets (size and atmosphere capable of sustaining human life) yet and Two, we don't have any drive systems capable of propelling a spacecraft there within or anywhere close to within a human lifetime.

Those are pretty big obstacles and although I think we will identify earth-like planets soon we still don't have any way of travelling to them.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

We could go to Mars right now for cheap if our leaders would let us.

The leaders will let you. Go right ahead, finance it yourself and see if anyone tries to stop you. The leaders might actually encourage you to go. The leaders are just refusing to pay for this particular idiotic idea.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

possible? soon. practical? probably never.

the first issue is also the most vexxing - what's the point?

i think the largest technical hurdle would be getting the colossal amount of infrastructure necessary into earth orbit, followed by the flight and termination. i think a space elevator would be a prerequisite for very large operations. power would be the least of their problems - an RTG could last 100's, possibly 1000's of years, especially if coupled with a fission plant.

a grave concern would be the loss of consumables. even with hypothetical technology to recycle all waste products (solids, liquids, gases, skin flakes in the air filters, everything) into food, air, water, toilet paper, laundry detergent and everything else, there will always be some loss and that loss will be nearly impossible to recover.

even if the fluids and propellant miraculously hold out for a generation or 2, the colonists are doomed with no iron in their blood, electrolytes in their nerves, fluoride in their teeth, et cetera. i think even in the best-case scenario of what's realistic, nearly constant re-supply from earth is inescapable.

 

[SKORPI0]

One of the current obstacles is sustaining the health of the person traveling in extended space flights, >5 years. Loss of calcium in the bones is one concern.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/bone_loss.html
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast01oct_1/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995691

 

[dighn]

probably easier to transform humans than to build colonies or terra-form planets. virtualized humans 'living' in toughened computing modules (a la the matrix minus the bodies) deployed off-world, with tele-presence robots handling maintenance and physical economy.

as for setting up small colonies I believe we have the technology, it's just that the costs are astronomically high.

 

[DrPizza]

Unless physics finds a way to break the rules (not merely demonstrate that breaking the rules is possible - actually do it), colonizing other bodies in the solar system is both possible and pointless.

Mining: robots.
Saving mankind - virtually any solution that can be applied off planet can be done on Earth. "We'll dig tunnels on the other planets to avoid the radiation." Why not dig tunnels here?

Are we running out of space for humans on Earth? Here's an idea - we have an entire continent that is almost completely unsettled. There are probably at most a few hundred people on Antarctica at any point. What's that? Antarctica is too inhospitable to life?? It's 1000 times more hospitable to life than any other planet or moon that humans have the capability to travel to.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Unless physics finds a way to break the rules (not merely demonstrate that breaking the rules is possible - actually do it), colonizing other bodies in the solar system is both possible and pointless.

Mining: robots.
Saving mankind - virtually any solution that can be applied off planet can be done on Earth. "We'll dig tunnels on the other planets to avoid the radiation." Why not dig tunnels here?

Are we running out of space for humans on Earth? Here's an idea - we have an entire continent that is almost completely unsettled. There are probably at most a few hundred people on Antarctica at any point. What's that? Antarctica is too inhospitable to life?? It's 1000 times more hospitable to life than any other planet or moon that humans have the capability to travel to.

You make some decent points, and I imagine as global warming takes over whatever is left of those places will be overpopulated as well. The thing is that barring some global catastrophe killing a major portion of the population, we need to start looking to the far future. Earth will not always be here (physically).

The question is, are we only looking to solve a problem, or simply to explore and/or expand?

 

[DrPizza]

Also, I've done the calculation before, but I suppose my calculation may have made an error. Could someone do the calculation of how much energy it would take to reach (and stop) near a star 10 light years away, allowing 200 years for the journey, for a craft (say, the size of the International Space Station that can house half a dozen people)? Ignore having the mass on board for sufficient water & food for those 200 years. Let's presume magic takes care of that.

Now, as energy is a pretty important concern on Earth, how much energy is it that has to be expended to send such a craft to a nearby star (assuming there's a habitable planet there), expressed as a percentage (or multiple of) the annual amount of energy used by humans on Earth each year?

 

[John Connor]

We are like people in the 1500's with the technology we have now trying to sail to the new world. Give it another hundred years. We simply do not know what new technology will emerge in order to suffice colonizing a moon or planet. For all we know there could be the 2000 calorie pill. Or hyper sleep. Or perhaps quantum space travel based on quantum theory. In hyper sleep you would be injected with sustenance.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I suppose one needs to state expectations. I can come up with what I believe are realistic scenarios to establishing a permanent colony on Mars if we meet what I think are plausible technological goals. If we are talking being able to move people to reduce population pressures, no. This would be one of few "impossibles" for humanity.

I think that a few trillion dollars and 50-100 years could get us a decent and viable colony in the 500 to 1000 people range without material assistance from Earth.

One great unknown is if people can actually live long term on another planet. If we're bound to gravitational conditions too close to our world then everything just got immeasurably more difficult.

 

[DrPizza]

You make some decent points, and I imagine as global warming takes over whatever is left of those places will be overpopulated as well. The thing is that barring some global catastrophe killing a major portion of the population, we need to start looking to the far future. Earth will not always be here (physically).

The question is, are we only looking to solve a problem, or simply to explore and/or expand?

The great thing about exploring - we can do it safely by sending robots. We don't send humans to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, do we? Well, we've sent 3 people, more or less for the hell of it - to show that it can be done. Otherwise, there wasn't much of a reason. Likewise with human space exploration - the #1 purpose of manned moon missions was winning the Cold War. Sputnik went "beep beep" and we went "f*** you Soviet pig dogs!"

 

[vi edit]

The great thing about exploring - we can do it safely by sending robots. We don't send humans to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, do we? Well, we've sent 3 people, more or less for the hell of it - to show that it can be done. Otherwise, there wasn't much of a reason. Likewise with human space exploration - the #1 purpose of manned moon missions was winning the Cold War. Sputnik went "beep beep" and we went "f*** you Soviet pig dogs!"

I'm still in awe at the pure brilliance and culmination of engineering, technology and pure practicality in the space probes we shot into space in the 70's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2

Fucker has been out there there for longer than most people on this forum have been alive. It's amazing that these things can run for that long, haven't been destroyed into bits and are able to actually maintain communication to/from them.

It's just insane to me what we are able to accomplish when we put our minds to something.