Sci-fi: Credible Solar System Colonization

The Shaman · January 20, 2009, 11:54:12 PM

I think the seventh planet will be the very last to be colonized, because no one wants to list their address as "orbiting Uranus."

Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your server!

Koltar · January 21, 2009, 12:23:58 AM

Quote from: The Shaman;279510I think the seventh planet will be the very last to be colonized, because no one wants to list their address as "orbiting Uranus."

Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your server!

You forgot: "Try the Veal...."

- Ed C.
...just helping the cliche.....

RPGPundit · January 21, 2009, 12:14:47 PM

Quote from: The Shaman;279510I think the seventh planet will be the very last to be colonized, because no one wants to list their address as "orbiting Uranus."

Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your server!

Bah, by the 24th century people will be sick of those stupid jokes, and they'll hold a planetary vote which will at long last put an end to the silly humour by changing the name of the planet from "Uranus" to "Urectum".

RPGPundit

flyingmice · January 21, 2009, 02:04:05 PM

Quote from: jhkim;279287Just to be clear: I'm not saying that it's not economically viable in the sense that there is no way to accomplish. Yes, it is possible to mine asteroids for metals. With funding, our space programs could do lots of great things. However, there isn't a payoff to Earth to do so. If we want metals, it will always be much more expensive to mine asteroids than it is to mine here on Earth.

There are many uses for things in orbit, but as technology advances we will have less and less need to have humans in space to maintain those. We will keep up space habitats, but they will be funded by Earth's desire for them.

Obviously, if the Earth is wiped out by some disaster, then space may become the alternative. However, it would take a truly enormous disaster to make living on off-planet better than living on even the most inhospitable places on Earth (underground, undersea, or in Antartica, say).

Unfortunately, this misses the point. Whether or not it is comfortable or better than Earth is moot. It will be accomplished because there are people who desperately want to go there, and there are people willing to provide that service. I would give both nuts to live in a fricking closet in space with sixteen other people. And once people are there, it costs a lot more to boost materials up from earth than to mine and use materials already in orbit. Once that happens, it becomes more and more comfortable to live in space, and people like me will ride the bubble further and further out to live in our fricking closets.

-clash

-clash

jeff37923 · January 21, 2009, 02:06:25 PM

Quote from: flyingmice;279642Unfortunately, this misses the point. Whether or not it is comfortable or better than Earth is moot. It will be accomplished because there are people who desperately want to go there, and there are people willing to provide that service. I would give both nuts to live in a fricking closet in space with sixteen other people. And once people are there, it costs a lot more to boost materials up from earth than to mine and use materials already in orbit. Once that happens, it becomes more and more comfortable to live in space, and people like me will ride the bubble further and further out to live in our fricking closets.

-clash

-clash

Should I get there before you, I will save you some space in my closet.

And Uranus is probably a good place to scoop mine Helium3 for fusion power plants.

jhkim · January 21, 2009, 05:31:31 PM

Quote from: flyingmice;279642Unfortunately, this misses the point. Whether or not it is comfortable or better than Earth is moot. It will be accomplished because there are people who desperately want to go there, and there are people willing to provide that service. I would give both nuts to live in a fricking closet in space with sixteen other people. And once people are there, it costs a lot more to boost materials up from earth than to mine and use materials already in orbit. Once that happens, it becomes more and more comfortable to live in space, and people like me will ride the bubble further and further out to live in our fricking closets.

I'm basically not disagreeing with you -- that sounds basically like what I said in my first post. Realistically, the point when we'll start living outside Earth is when technology advances to the point that people can start living in very impractical places on whim -- aka a "post-scarcity" age. The colonizers will be motivated by ideology rather than profit. You may get a bunch of Mormons going to make their ideal world or find perhaps those other planets where women are all barefoot and pregnant, or other new religions or ideologies.

Sorry if you didn't like the Mormon comparison. The early American pilgrims would be another comparison.

flyingmice · January 21, 2009, 06:38:37 PM

Quote from: jhkim;279701I'm basically not disagreeing with you -- that sounds basically like what I said in my first post. Realistically, the point when we'll start living outside Earth is when technology advances to the point that people can start living in very impractical places on whim -- aka a "post-scarcity" age. The colonizers will be motivated by ideology rather than profit. You may get a bunch of Mormons going to make their ideal world or find perhaps those other planets where women are all barefoot and pregnant, or other new religions or ideologies.

Sorry if you didn't like the Mormon comparison. The early American pilgrims would be another comparison.

It's got nothing in particular to do with religion, and it won't take a post scarcity economy. People who want to go - and there's plenty of us - will endure any hardship and take any risk to go out there. Now that space access is being privatized, the genie's out of the bottle and eventually it will happen.

-clash

RPGPundit · January 23, 2009, 10:00:19 AM

Yes, there was always two reasons to go far away to risk your life colonizing a new and alien place:
1. Because you were being oppressed here.
(we'll call that the "Battlestar Galactica model")

2. Because its there. Because the nature of the human spirit is to want to go find what's new and different, and hopefully to kick the crap out of it and/or have sex with it.
(which pretty much expects the spectacular success of a certain starship captain as an archetypal figure of modern storytelling; so we'll call this one the "James T. Kirk model")

RPGPundit

riprock · January 30, 2009, 01:21:07 AM

Assuming no scientific leaps, the most important technology would be life support good enough to allow a high-tech existence without gobbling resources. E.g. advanced organic farming, high-tech solar power, advanced recycling, efficient use of Brown's gas fuel cells, etc.

All these technologies are available today, and if they were applied, the Earth could support many billions of humans. Thus if the life support were available to live on other planets, the Earth would be less ecologically strained, and there would be less motivation to colonize.

tellius · January 31, 2009, 12:11:27 AM

I'd imagine the primary impetus for any off-planet existence will be resources and whatever economic reasons will be around at the time. I suspect you would be looking at Hydrogen scoop mines around the gas giants and massive water harvesters heading out to the Oort Cloud to send back massive chunks of ice in the form of comets.

A personal favourite of mine would be something akin to a Dyson's Sphere or Niven's ringworld. Use the entire solar system as resources to make a massive endless supply of land around about 1AU out from the sun.