NationStates Jolt Archive

I think it is well though out that we could colonize our sister planet Mars. However could we with enough tech and time colonize Venus too? I know it would be a huge undertaking compared to a Mars colony. However how would the human race do it?

Another suggestion my 11 year old made as we were talking of this is if Mars and Venus could be brought into an orbit either on the same plane as Earth albeit in enough space to avoid collisions or close to Earths orbit to help simulate Earth like conditions? Sounds futuristic however do you think it would even be an option?


Trying to bring a different thread instead of the typical hashed out ones. ;)

Mars, with todays tech, might be possible, hard, but possible.

Venus... given that the pressure and the heat means that the current record for our probes surviving landing on it is about 3 minutes, I don't think we're gonna be able to use that planet for anything any time soon.

And I wouldn't even want to think of the mechanics needed to move an entire planet, not to mention what that might do to Earth's orbit if we did.

I like the thought on the thread idea.

Mars would be "easy" to colonize. All it needs is an atmosphere, assuming there's enough water frozen at the poles and under the surface to support a water cycle. If there isn't enough water, we could try moving comets and ice asteroids into impact, so we don't have to worry about affecting earth by trucking all that crap off of our planet.

Venus would be a tough one. Everything is possible on a long enough time frame, but I don't know about a planet where poisons run like rivers on its surface. It's atmosphere is really, really dense and toxic. Maybe we could scoop off enough C02 from that planet and move it to Mars, making both more inhabitable.

As to actually moving the planets, it would take a MASSIVE amount of energy to do it on a scale so as to be accomplished in a human lifetime. Plus, there's the added danger of moving something through Earth's orbit, possible affecting the gravitational interplay between our planet and the sun, throwing us off course. Although, if you can move two planets, you can fix the orbit of another one.

We just need a giant space vacuum to suck the atmosphere from Venus, then put it in reverse to spew it onto Mars.

Another suggestion my 11 year made as we were talking of this is if Mars and Venus could be brought into an orbit either on the same plane as Earth albeit in enough space to avoid collisions or close to Earths orbit to help simulate Earth like conditions? Sounds futuristic however do you think it would even be an option?

It's a funky idea. Mars or Venus should go on one of the trojan points or directly opposite, but on the exact same orbital. That would be stable.

Unfortunately, the energy requirements to change an orbit that much would be literally astronomical. I'll figure it if anyone is interested.

I can see colonizing Mars. but Venus is just different environment-wise.

as for moving a planet? that would never work. can you imagine the size of the mechanisim alone? it would be easier to build another planet in earths orbit than to move one.

We just need a giant space vacuum to suck the atmosphere from Venus, then put it in reverse to spew it onto Mars.

Like a giant beer bong?

We just need a giant space vacuum to suck the atmosphere from Venus, then put it in reverse to spew it onto Mars.

MEGAMAID!

It's a funky idea. Mars or Venus should go on one of the trojan points or directly opposite, but on the exact same orbital. That would be stable.

Unfortunately, the energy requirements to change an orbit that much would be literally astronomical. I'll figure it if anyone is interested.

Humans would have to construct a Dyson Sphere of sorts to power the project. If that is even what you would do it with.

Another random thought I had was to bring Mercury close enough to Venus to rip it's atmosphere off. Assuming we can move our neighbors which I think we could figure out. Would it have enough mass to be able to do this? My thought is a drive by of sorts. Then we could use Mercury as materials to construct other objects or even colonize it too as a moon of Venus or Mars.

I like the thought on the thread idea.

:)

Mars would be "easy" to colonize. All it needs is an atmosphere, assuming there's enough water frozen at the poles and under the surface to support a water cycle. If there isn't enough water, we could try moving comets and ice asteroids into impact, so we don't have to worry about affecting earth by trucking all that crap off of our planet.

Venus would be a tough one. Everything is possible on a long enough time frame, but I don't know about a planet where poisons run like rivers on its surface. It's atmosphere is really, really dense and toxic. Maybe we could scoop off enough C02 from that planet and move it to Mars, making both more inhabitable.

The main thing Venus needs is lots of cooling down. We could create custom life-forms which find methane etc quite tasty, instead of toxic.

Our own earth was pretty foul once, but life changed it to what we now enjoy.

Booting up life-forms based on a different chemistry is far more practical than physically engineering Venus.

As to actually moving the planets, it would take a MASSIVE amount of energy to do it on a scale so as to be accomplished in a human lifetime.

Agreed. Way out of our budget for a long time I'd say.

Plus, there's the added danger of moving something through Earth's orbit, possible affecting the gravitational interplay between our planet and the sun, throwing us off course. Although, if you can move two planets, you can fix the orbit of another one.

Trojan points are the answer. Two planets can occupy the same orbit. A close orbit would be a major hassle.

as for moving a planet? that would never work. can you imagine the size of the mechanisim alone? it would be easier to build another planet in earths orbit than to move one.

You wouldn't need a big mechanism. You'd just need to be very patient.

As for Mars, I say we smash comets into it.

Moving a planet into Earth's orbit would probably have a nasty effect on Earth's magnetic field, tides, gravity, etc. nor is it likely to be possible unless we managed to create self-replicating nanorobotics.

Terraforming Mars is probably doable, though given our unintended negative impacts on Earth's climate, we would probably make a lot of potentially disastrous blunders along the way(and likely wipe out native species, if there are any). Supposedly it would take around one hundred years to raise the temperature to levels, but you'd need a breathing mask for a thousand years.

Venus would be very hard, though I suppose it might be doable. I'm really not sure on this one.

Humans would have to construct a Dyson Sphere of sorts to power the project. If that is even what you would do it with.

If we can build a Dyson Sphere we really wouldn't need planets.

Ringworld, anyone ?

You wouldn't need a big mechanism. You'd just need to be very patient.

As for Mars, I say we smash comets into it.

Ah, yes. That's the human race I know. Never mind winning the race, let's have a Demolition Derby!

If we can build a Dyson Sphere we really wouldn't need planets.

Ringworld, anyone ?

I give you that however don't you think that humanity would want to live on a Earth like object over a ring world? I know I would if the new planet was like Earth.

Another suggestion my 11 year old made as we were talking of this is if Mars and Venus could be brought into an orbit either on the same plane as Earth albeit in enough space to avoid collisions or close to Earths orbit to help simulate Earth like conditions? Sounds futuristic however do you think it would even be an option?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

It's been done. And chances are, they weren't the first ones to do it either. :p

Anyways, the Arkonides from that series moved their three planets into a triangle on the same orbit. Then one of them got blown to smithereens by people with discs for heads, but they recently moved one of the outer planets back to restore the triangle.

But then, they've been around for 20,000-odd thousand years in that universe.

A ring world is essentially a more efficient Dyson Sphere. A Dyson Sphere is a rather idiotic concept, to my mind. First, you are talking about building something around the freakin' Sun. I also recall reading in Entering Space by Robert Zubrin that the only habitable areas would be around the equator(might have been due to gravitational reasons, but I'll have to check). Since he's an aerospace engineer, I'll assume he probably knew what he was talking about. The solution to this was the ring world concept, which is basically building just the equatorial belt of the Dyson Sphere. Interestingly, the book states that constructing such a world would require about as much matter as the plannet Venus(I think, I'll have to check), so a ring world is a good analogy for what's being proposed in this thread.

In short, I suspect it makes more sense to just build a ring world than to move a planet, since they represent a comparable effort, but the ring world can be built entirely to our specifications.:D

I think it is well though out that we could colonize our sister planet Mars. However could we with enough tech and time colonize Venus too? I know it would be a huge undertaking compared to a Mars colony. However how would the human race do it?

Another suggestion my 11 year old made as we were talking of this is if Mars and Venus could be brought into an orbit either on the same plane as Earth albeit in enough space to avoid collisions or close to Earths orbit to help simulate Earth like conditions? Sounds futuristic however do you think it would even be an option?


Trying to bring a different thread instead of the typical hashed out ones. ;)

Venus is absolutely uninhabitable, trying to set up a colony there, even with technology that would make survival possible let alone comfortable would be a waste of resources, it would be utterly uneconomical. Such a project wouldn't be worth it.

I think people would want to be frozen during travel. If not it could take too long to travel from planet to planet. This would mean that they would age and spend most of their lives in something that at best would be like a ship at sea.

I think people would want to be frozen during travel. If not it could take too long to travel from planet to planet. This would mean that they would age and spend most of their lives in something that at best would be like a ship at sea.

Better to disembark from the ship and have the customs officer inform you: "Oh yeah… all of your friends are dead."
I know, I know, travelling to Mars would only take a few months.

No need to freeze people for a journey to Mars. It's only a few bloody months. Back in the day, sailors traveresed the world in far worse and no more spacious conditions, and the voyages took months. my God, has mankind really lost its nerve that badly? Are we really that decadent?

No need to freeze people for a journey to Mars. It's only a few bloody months. Back in the day, sailors traveresed the world in far worse and no more spacious conditions, and the voyages took months. my God, has mankind really lost its nerve that badly? Are we really that decadent?

Plus, sailors had to work, and video games hadn't been invented yet.

No ring worlds without the Master Chief pwning n00bs.

No need to freeze people for a journey to Mars. It's only a few bloody months. Back in the day, sailors traveresed the world in far worse and no more spacious conditions, and the voyages took months. my God, has mankind really lost its nerve that badly? Are we really that decadent?

Yeah, but they didn't have to bring their own air. Besides, there aren't that many fish or rainstorms to help replenish supplies in space.

I see us having colonized the entire solar system in about 650 years.

Stuck Here on a Starship for a Hundred Years Without No Body Blues
Lyrics © 1984 Stephen Savitzky. Some Rights Reserved. .
Music: Talking Blues (traditional arr. Savitzky)

[sung]
When you build a ship to sail deep space
You can't have a crew of mortal race
'Cause a hundred years from star to star
With a human crew is just too far.

[spoken]
Think of all the beer you'd have to carry.
Not to mention food.
And, uh, other necessities.

[sung]
So you fill your ship with a robot crew
And you build a computer captain, too.
You get some experience for free
From some old spacer's personality.

[spoken]
Maybe an old shuttle pilot
Who's just learned from his last mistake.
That's where I come in.

[sung]
So you take some bloke who's halfway dead
And you haul him home and you scan his head
And a hundred years of flying high
Is a damned good deal when you're about to die.

[spoken]
'Til you've had a decade or two to think it over.
Gets lonely out here.
A thousand frozen colonists don't count.

[sung]
So there behind my solar sail
Are five hundred hunks of frozen tail
But if I thawed one and you know I could
It wouldn't do me a bit of good.

[spoken]
What would I use?
I've got no damned body, just a starship.
Couldn't even... oh, the heck with it!

[sung]
Now a couple of billion miles astern
It's another lonesome sucker's turn.
So I'll radio back and say "Hey you--
Oh, I didn't know they took women, too!"

[spoken]
"Lovely night tonight, isn't it?"
"Look at all them pretty stars."
"Yeah, me too."

[sung]
So we'll talk, and murmer "I love you"
Like other star-crossed lovers do
And in eighty years we've made a date--
Did you ever see two starships mate?

[spoken]
We've got our robot crews,
And we figure they can put together--
Oh, none of your damned business!

In short, I suspect it makes more sense to just build a ring world than to move a planet, since they represent a comparable effort, but the ring world can be built entirely to our specifications.:D


I believe it is actually easier then you think. I found this article answering the question. Would take a bit of good calculating but it could be done. The ring world project would be a massive undertaking.


http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/could-humans-move-the-earth/

Stuck Here on a Starship for a Hundred Years Without No Body Blues

:D Space blues. I can imagine that quite vividly, I even have a B.B. King-ish voice singing in my head now.

But seriously, I doubt any of these projects could be achieved without either some kind of serious global effort (because even today's rates are at the bare minimum to further space exploration, despite the wild numbers you see governments spending), so a prerequisite to any of these plans is that Earth becomes united politically or through the UN, or however way you wish to do it, such that it is able to equip entire colony ships to send to other planets.

It's a funky idea. Mars or Venus should go on one of the trojan points or directly opposite, but on the exact same orbital. That would be stable.
You're forgetting that Mars and Venus in their orbits right now have an effect on us and keep us in our orbit. If you take one out and put it on the other side of the Sun from us, it might not crash into us, but when it suddenly goes missing, who knows what will happen to our orbit then?

I give you that however don't you think that humanity would want to live on a Earth like object over a ring world? I know I would if the new planet was like Earth.

Yes. I for one would like to live on Mother Earth, even if we've messed it up badly by then.

I feel something like loyalty to our planet ... but then, I'm planning on dying long before any of these things will happen. Even terraforming Mars I believe is a long way off. That's very expensive real estate, there needs to be some better reason than "more of the same" to do it. (Much better launch platform than Earth, mass is only a bit less but the escape velocity far less, inverse square law and also lower density ... best reason I can think of. Rare minerals etc doesn't cut it for me.)

============

No need to freeze people for a journey to Mars. It's only a few bloody months. Back in the day, sailors traveresed the world in far worse and no more spacious conditions, and the voyages took months. my God, has mankind really lost its nerve that badly? Are we really that decadent?

The transport would be more like a cruise liner than a clipper. The people on board are cargo, so they basically party all the way. So ... yes and no to the last question.

============

You're forgetting that Mars and Venus in their orbits right now have an effect on us and keep us in our orbit. If you take one out and put it on the other side of the Sun from us, it might not crash into us, but when it suddenly goes missing, who knows what will happen to our orbit then?

We'd have to calculate that, for sure. We'd be building something stable, I would hope, not just relying on our own technology to keep it working indefinitely.

Here's a thought. If benevolent aliens offered to create a second, identical earth at the opposite side of our orbit and put all the planets into indefinitely stable orbits, would we accept the offer? I think maybe we'd be afraid of an equally strong planet-with-humans, and see an equal competitor as a threat!

You're forgetting that Mars and Venus in their orbits right now have an effect on us and keep us in our orbit. If you take one out and put it on the other side of the Sun from us, it might not crash into us, but when it suddenly goes missing, who knows what will happen to our orbit then?

Assuming we could move those planets into that type of position. We could probably calculate out what it would do to our overall orbit in the solar system. I am sure something could be done to keep us in our current orbit if we want to.

We definitely should be looking into it, We should work on Colonizing the whole Solar System, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Outer Planets' Moons...The whole bit...

Humanity needs to get its ass in gear, the Eldar cannot defeat the IMPERIUM!!!

If we want to colonize another celestial body, I'd go for the moon instead.

It would be cheaper, safer and in the long run very beneficial for other colonization projects.

If we want to colonize another celestial body, I'd go for the moon instead.

It would be cheaper, safer and in the long run very beneficial for other colonization projects.

Quoted for great truth.

Moon first...others later. If we can't form a self-sustaining colony on the moon, we're not going to be capable enough to pull it off anywhere else.

If we want to colonize another celestial body, I'd go for the moon instead.

It would be cheaper, safer and in the long run very beneficial for other colonization projects.

I agree also. If we are going to need spaceships, the shipyard should be on the moon.

Remember the ascent module of the Apollo lander? Pissy little thruster, fuel being only half its mass. Getting off the moon is EASY.

Factories for all sorts of colonization equipment should be there for the same reason.

Remember the ascent module of the Apollo lander? Pissy little thruster, fuel being only half its mass. Getting off the moon is EASY.

Practically free, after starting investment of building an accelerator rail.

With moon's shallow gravity well and no atmosphere to slow the launched object down combined with local supply of energy independent of weather (solar power, later fusion power)....

Factories and biospheres on moon could supply the entire solar system at marginal cost compared to Earth based launches!

The only real problem with moon is the possible lack of water.

Practically free, after starting investment of building an accelerator rail.

Couldn't we circumvent space travel altogether, possibly with some kind of space-train made by tethering (http://nothingbutnetsonline.com/pics/Tetherball.jpg) the Moon to the Earth?

The only real problem with moon is the possible lack of water.

The moon has more than enough energy to allow for creation of water. The problem is actually a relative lack of hydrogen more than anything else.

Couldn't we circumvent space travel altogether, possibly with some kind of space-train made by tethering (http://nothingbutnetsonline.com/pics/Tetherball.jpg) the Moon to the Earth?
Space lifts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_lift) are not possible with modern materials or techniques.

Moon colony and electro-magnetic accelerator rail, on the other hand, are completely manufacturable with funding and will being the obstacles.

The moon has more than enough energy to allow for creation of water. The problem is actually a relative lack of hydrogen more than anything else.
Wouldn't it be the oxygen that's lacking?

Space lifts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_lift) are not possible with modern materials or techniques.

Not true...the only current issue is cost.

Wouldn't it be the oxygen that's lacking?

There's plenty of oxygen locked up inside the minerals that compose the moon, but hydrogen, being smaller, escapes more readily, and is only found in appreciable amounts near to the poles.

There's plenty of oxygen locked up inside the minerals that compose the moon, but hydrogen, being smaller, escapes more readily, and is only found in appreciable amounts near to the poles.
Ah, yes, forgot about cooking the lunar rock for oxygen.

Still, the biggest problem is water - regardless of the form it 'is'.

Not true...the only current issue is cost.
Very much true, no mass producable material has the tensile strength of the magnitude a spacelift requires.

Ah, yes, forgot about cooking the lunar rock for oxygen.

Still, the biggest problem is water - regardless of the form it 'is'.

True...water is still the big problem.

One could exploit the polar ice on Mars, but that might cause problems for future Mars colonization.

Very much true, no mass producable material has the tensile strength of the magnitude a spacelift requires.

As mentioned in the Wiki article on Space Elevators...

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

Single-walled nanotubes are still very expensive to produce, around $1500 per gram as of 2000, and the development of more affordable synthesis techniques is vital to the future of carbon nanotechnology.

The principle issue is cost...not an absence of suitable material.

One could exploit the polar ice on Mars, but that might cause problems for future Mars colonization.
Mars is far away, and they haven't ruled out water on polar regions of moon either.

As mentioned in the Wiki article on Space Elevators...
The largest holdup to Edwards' proposed design is the technological limits of the tether material. His calculations call for a fiber composed of epoxy-bonded carbon nanotubes with a minimal tensile strength of 130 GPa(including a safety factor of 2); however, tests in 2000 of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which should be notably stronger than an epoxy-bonded rope, indicated the strongest measured as 52 GPa.[14] Multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been measured with tensile strengths up to 63 GPa
The principle issue is cost...not an absence of suitable material.
The principle issue is absence of suitable material, not cost.

Nanotubes are a likely candidate for cabling however...
1: The quality modern tubing is nowhere near the tensile strength required
2: No macrostructures of tensile strength significantly stronger than Kevlar (4-5 GPa) have been created.*
3: Mass production of quality nanotubes is still decades off regardless of any investment to current production mechanics.


*Wiki on Tensile Strength: However as of 2004, no macroscopic object constructed of carbon nanotubes has had a tensile strength remotely approaching this figure, or substantially exceeding that of high-strength materials like Kevlar.

The notion that the if we can't colonize the Moon first, we can't colonize anywhere is utterly false. What does the Moon offer for a sustainable colony? Its got no air, little water (as ice), low gravity, no atmospheric protection from meteorites or radiation, probably little in the way of resources to manufacture fuel, and its utterly unteraformable. Mars, in contrast, has frozen water, a thin atmosphere, twice the gravity, the resources to produce rocket fuel for return trips, alternative forms of power (wind, possibly geothermal), and is ultimately both terraformable and of greater scientific interest. In short, Mars is a world, and the Moon is a rock. Other than a tourist stop or observatory, I can't think of any reason to prefer the Moon over Mars. If you still don't believe me, I suggest you read the Mars Society website, and either of the following books:

Entering Space: Creating A Space Faring Civilization, by Robert Zubrin
The Case For Mars: also by Robert Zubrin

A biased source, to be sure. But also, in this case, the right one.

The notion that the if we can't colonize the Moon first, we can't colonize anywhere is utterly false. What does the Moon offer for a sustainable colony? Its got no air, little water (as ice), low gravity, no atmospheric protection from meteorites or radiation, probably little in the way of resources to manufacture fuel, and its utterly unteraformable. Mars, in contrast, has frozen water, a thin atmosphere, twice the gravity, the resources to produce rocket fuel for return trips, alternative forms of power (wind, possibly geothermal), and is ultimately both terraformable and of greater scientific interest. In short, Mars is a world, and the Moon is a rock. Other than a tourist stop or observatory, I can't think of any reason to prefer the Moon over Mars.

So, how do you claim to be debunking the posts above yours? You did read them, right ?

And and you are aware of just how far away mars gets, right? It's close now.

I just want to direct everyone's attention to the "Reason for editing" line at the bottom of this post:

Ah, yes, forgot about cooking the lunar rock for oxygen.
*snip*

It reads "fixing a timewarp."

G3N13, you deleted the timewarping post and moved the content down to get it in proper order?

I was busy and didn't see your deleted post when it went up. If that's what you did, kudos. I'll try to do that in future!

I just want to direct everyone's attention to the "Reason for editing" line at the bottom of this post:

It reads "fixing a timewarp."

G3N13, you deleted the timewarping post and moved the content down to get it in proper order?

I was busy and didn't see your deleted post when it went up. If that's what you did, kudos. I'll try to do that in future!
I moved it because the answer was posted above your post I quoted and on the other hand because I already had the last post so editing content to it was not a big issue.

Timewarping isn't generally worth a repost, let alone a double post, but in this case editing made more sense....especially as that way I could ensure you read my point! :D

Foooollllsss!!!
NERVUN, Bellania, Nobel Hobos, Junii what short-term memory you have!

Have you all forgotten Pres. Bush's "Plan B" to cool off the Earth! Do you not remember the plan to use an asteroid to off set Earth's orbit for a slightly more distant and cooler one. The idea is actually quite sound and the math has already been worked out aswell as the asteroid to use.

Venus: It is fairly identical to Earth (chemical elements and gravity) sans magnetosphere. Just have to move it back some and wait for a couple of millenias or so for things to cool off.

Mars: no magnetosphere either but lesser gravity of Earth so there may be atmosphere stabellity problems, health problems, and weather problems.

Also remember a larger, hotter Sun and we would have Jupiter's and Saturn's moons to think about.

Here's a post I made in a similar thread not long ago...
Here's my list of targets for colonization in order of preference:
1. Moon - Pros: Near, no hostile atmosphere, shallow gravity well, excellent source for He3. Cons: Water?, long day/night cycle, no atmosphere or magnetosphere to protect from cosmic rays/solar wind.
2. Mars - Pros: Most Earthlike planet, shallowish gravity well, abundant water (so it seems) Cons: Not as close as moon, lack of incentive to colonize, irradiated surface
3. Asteroids - Pros: No gravity well to talk about, abundant resources nearby Cons: Low to near 0 gravity, water can be a problem, irregularity.
4. Mercury - Pros: Plenty of solar power present, polar caps always within shadow which can contain water ice, abundance of heavy metals (based on density) Cons: Closeness to the sun carries a risk of flares, deadly daylight, no magnetic field for protection.
5. Europa - Pros: Ton of water ice, Cons: Distance, closeness to Jupiter
6. Titan - Pros: Atmosphere, Cons: Distance, closeness to Saturn
7. Venus - Pros: Atmosphere, relative closeness, Cons: Temperature, deep gravity well, lack of accessible water, extreme pressure on surface.

Foooollllsss!!!
NERVUN, Bellania, Nobel Hobos, Junii what short-term memory you have!

Have you all forgotten Pres. Bush's "Plan B" to cool off the Earth! Do you not remember the plan to use an asteroid to off set Earth's orbit for a slightly more distant and cooler one. The idea is actually quite sound and the math has already been worked out aswell as the asteroid to use.

No doubt he kindly offered the United States as the point on the globe to "kick" the ball.
In which case ... *votes yea*

G3N13, keep talking sense. I'm going for dinner, then more work, then sleep, more work ... oh I wish I could just stay here. :(

G3N13, keep talking sense. I'm going for dinner, then more work, then sleep, more work ... oh I wish I could just stay here. :(

Moon is bound to lose, it's nowhere near as media sexy as Mars - The red planet, the home of Cydonia, planet with teeming life, massive polar caps, the second home after a bit of terraforming, etcetc..

Moon is visible practically every night, everybody knows what it looks like, it has already been visited and it takes only days to reach, it's neigbourhood - You don't want to visit your neighbourhood in your holidays, so why do it in space?

Just because moon is cheap & easy to reach and even easier to return from don't mean thing when you pit it against Mars: The sister planet so close that a simple human expedition would hardly take more than a slightly over a year to complete and cost only around 20 billions - A bargain, I tell ya!

Nevermind that with that price tag you could set up maybe 3-4 permanent lunar bases, it's the Mars way to go!

I would go with terraforming mars, but i don't know much about the whole subject besides some national geographic documentaries that I'm sure are really dumbed down.

Anyway I'm more worried that we'll f@#$ up another planet.

Terraforming Venus might be possible if we could drop microbes into its atmosphere designed to change the atmosphere in some way that would cool down the planet.

Even so, there is a problem with colonizing both Mars and Venus, and that is that these planets don't, to my knowledge, have strong magnetic fields as Earth does. A magnetic field helps to protect us from cosmic radiation, which is a very good thing for human life.

I can't think of any way to give a planet a magnetic field, but perhaps we could create an artificial one with satellites.

I doubt either is possible. In order to colonise Venus you would need to strip away the sulphuric acid and a lot of the carbon dioxide just to get a starting point. Even then there is no way of cycling carbon dioxide, It might be (with incredible difficulty) possible to introduce plants but as soon as any gas was locked up in rocks it would be lost as there are no tectonic processes to recycle it.

Mars, similar problem. No plate tectonics to cycle elements locked up in rocks. The other problem with Mars is that it's atmosphere is far too thin. Various gases could be introduced to thicken it and to warm the planet, that's not a huge problem. The problem is keeping them there. Mars doesn't have a significant magnetic field so any atmosphere introduced would be stripped away by the solar wind, requiring constant replenishment (from where?). It wouldn't be able to produce it's own atmosphere because the crust is too thick in comparison to the planet's size for volcanism to occur.

As for the last part, the amount of energy required to move the orbit of a planet (especially that precisely) is prohibitive. I also don't think it would accomplish much given that neither planet has the required geological features.

I think there are a few potential bodies though, In Jupiter's moons:
1. Gannymede has a magnetic field, water, possible tectonic activity and possible oxygen although the atmospheric pressure would have to be increased.
2. Europa has oxygen, water and a magnetic field.

and also Saturn's moon Titan which is sometimes inside Saturn's magnetic field, has some evidence of volcanism and already has an atmosphere, albeit of the wrong composition.

Space lifts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_lift) are not possible with modern materials or techniques.

What if we used a really big cable?
Also: previous post = humourous intent. See link.

I doubt either is possible. In order to colonise Venus you would need to strip away the sulphuric acid and a lot of the carbon dioxide just to get a starting point. Even then there is no way of cycling carbon dioxide, It might be (with incredible difficulty) possible to introduce plants but as soon as any gas was locked up in rocks it would be lost as there are no tectonic processes to recycle it.

Mars, similar problem. No plate tectonics to cycle elements locked up in rocks. The other problem with Mars is that it's atmosphere is far too thin. Various gases could be introduced to thicken it and to warm the planet, that's not a huge problem. The problem is keeping them there. Mars doesn't have a significant magnetic field so any atmosphere introduced would be stripped away by the solar wind, requiring constant replenishment (from where?). It wouldn't be able to produce it's own atmosphere because the crust is too thick in comparison to the planet's size for volcanism to occur.

As for the last part, the amount of energy required to move the orbit of a planet (especially that precisely) is prohibitive. I also don't think it would accomplish much given that neither planet has the required geological features.

I think there are a few potential bodies though, In Jupiter's moons:
1. Gannymede has a magnetic field, water, possible tectonic activity and possible oxygen although the atmospheric pressure would have to be increased.
2. Europa has oxygen, water and a magnetic field.

and also Saturn's moon Titan which is sometimes inside Saturn's magnetic field, has some evidence of volcanism and already has an atmosphere, albeit of the wrong composition.

I think if we brought Mercury in danger close to Venus it would strip it's atmosphere off as it passed by. Sort of a planetary drive by. Then we could use Mercury as a huge mine to build large constructs out in space.


Also what if we took a large moon off of Jupiter per se and smashed it into Venus and or Mars? Would that fire up a core to produce a magnetic field? Of course it would have to cool for a long period of time before we stepped foot on the surface.

Colonisation, Great or Greatest idea?

Here's my attempt at a tl;dr General post.

The problems of overcrowding and overpopulation on this planet would be easily solved by colonisation. Should human have sufficient technology to make space trips shorter (To the Moon in a few hours, Mars in a day?) this would be excellent, a better situation than Renaissance explorers had. Getting this far will be a great leap, probably not within ours or a handful of generations away.
Another problem is Terraforming. Say we COULD Terraform every planet in the Solar System, they will not be the same as Earth. The choice of wildlife and plantlife we choose to place on our new planet will run their natural processes differently and adapt and evolve differently to their Earthling counterparts. Also, any life born on these new worlds will grow different due to difference of gravity, making it impossible for some to visit Earth again, if they did, they'd be crushed by the Earth's gravity. This would, of course, be emotionally upsetting for first generation Colonisers.
Finally, I mention Earth's problems. What's the point of starting a new world if the problems on this one haven't been solved? We need to end world poverty and rise living standards across the globe to acceptable and sustainable levels before we embark on making new territories off the planet.

Come again? I saw a post saying that we had to go to the Moon first. I gave reasons for why the Moon is manifestly unsuitable for collonization. There is a difference between an outpost, and a viable self-sustaining colony. The Moon can support one, but not the other.

And yes, I know that Mars gets quite far from Earth. I also know that if Nixon hadn't gutted the space program, we'd be there now. It takes less time to get there and back than it took to sail around the globe in Magellan's time. It could also be done for 20-50 billion by estimates in the 90s, providing we manufactured fuel for the return flight on site. On the scale at which the US Government spends, thats pocket change.

So yeh, its easier to get to the Moon than Mars, but Mars is worth a lot more in the long run, and their's no reason we can't just cut to the chase and go for Mars.

Next time you post a response to one of my arguments, back it up with something substantial, and make sure you know what it is you're talking about.

Come again? I saw a post saying that we had to go to the Moon first. I gave reasons for why the Moon is manifestly unsuitable for collonization. There is a difference between an outpost, and a viable self-sustaining colony. The Moon can support one, but not the other.
Tell me one good reason why a self supporting colony wouldn't be possible in moon?

The only difference between Mars and Moon, in terms of sustained colonization, is the possible abundance of water (or rather, as mentioned earlier hydrogen)....But they haven't ruled out finding water (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/14apr_Moonwater.htm) from moon either.

OTOH there is NO WAY we could even dream of terraforming another planet as we can't even come to a conclusion what's happening in our geosphere and why (eg. climate change, tectonics or even something as mundane as weather forecasts). Besides terraforming would be a project unto scale never seen before taking at absolute minimum thousands of years to complete with any technology foreseeable today.
So yeh, its easier to get to the Moon than Mars, but Mars is worth a lot more in the long run, and their's no reason we can't just cut to the chase and go for Mars.
Moon has resources that Earth doesn't have - namely He3 - there's a reason to go to moon but there's no reason beyond exploration to go to Mars.

It's all about the habitable zone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone), friends.

None of the planets in our system is within the habitable zone except Earth, which means colonizing other worlds would require enclosed areas, and spacesuits would be necessary for being outside.

Mars is the obvious first choice, as there's water there and the temperature is relatively mild. The atmosphere is too thin to ever support life, and even if you could somehow add a bunch of extra air to the planet, the mass of Mars itself is not enough to compress that air to the pressure we'd need to survive (14.7 PSI). That, combined with the cold, means that as relatively tame as Mars is, enclosed buildings or biodomes are essential and always will be.

Venus is out of the question until our technology and materials science can deal with the severe temperatures and pressure on Venus, and until there's something on that world worth the effort to harvest. The runaway greenhouse effect could be counteracted by some kind of chemical treatment to the atmosphere to reduce the carbon dioxide, but the planet is still too close to the Sun for someone to be able to walk on the surface without a spacesuit on due to the heat and radiation.

Outside the asteroid belt we're looking at colonies on moons. Orbital colonies around the gas giants would be lethal unless we can shield against a LOT of radiation that comes off of those planets. This also leaves out some of the moons that orbit near their planet, like Io.

The moons would be useful if some kind of material can be harvested from them that makes colonization worthwhile, but energy would be a problem, with those worlds being so distant from the Sun. Nuclear energy would probably be the only viable solution for a long time.

Mars is far away, and they haven't ruled out water on polar regions of moon either.

It's far easier to get from the Moon to Mars than from Earth to Mars. If sufficient hydrogen or water cannot be found on the moon, then Mars is the next logical source, unless we're planning on going comet hunting.


The largest holdup to Edwards' proposed design is the technological limits of the tether material. His calculations call for a fiber composed of epoxy-bonded carbon nanotubes with a minimal tensile strength of 130 GPa(including a safety factor of 2); however, tests in 2000 of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which should be notably stronger than an epoxy-bonded rope, indicated the strongest measured as 52 GPa.[14] Multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been measured with tensile strengths up to 63 GPa

The principle issue is absence of suitable material, not cost.

Again from Wiki

Carbon nanotubes' theoretical tensile strength has been estimated between 140 and 177 GPa (depending on plane shape),[28] and its observed tensile strength has been variously measured from 63 to 150 GPa, close to the requirements for space elevator structures.

I get the feeling like I need to be trolling for more info on this. :p

Nanotubes are a likely candidate for cabling however...
1: The quality modern tubing is nowhere near the tensile strength required
2: No macrostructures of tensile strength significantly stronger than Kevlar (4-5 GPa) have been created.*
3: Mass production of quality nanotubes is still decades off regardless of any investment to current production mechanics.

I'll admit that it's not something we can get a start on tomorrow, but it's still going to come down to money, regardless of when the technical details are resolved. The cost of production is going to be key whether a strong enough material is found ten days or ten years from now.

The notion that the if we can't colonize the Moon first, we can't colonize anywhere is utterly false. What does the Moon offer for a sustainable colony?

Lots...

Its got no air

It's got plenty of O2

little water (as ice)

It's got enough Hydrogen or water of it's own to sustain what we're capable of now. As we move outward, we can worry about whether it's enough to sustain large scale settlement.

low gravity

With essentially unlimited energy, centrifuges to allow for Earth level gravity shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

no atmospheric protection from meteorites or radiation

Build underground, silly.

probably little in the way of resources to manufacture fuel

Solar, nuclear, geothermal (or is that lunathermal?)...any moon colony will be energy independent. The need for refueling other vessels is greatly lessened by having the moon as a stop-off point. Cargo won't even need fuel, it can be launched into ballistic orbit via catapult.

and its utterly unteraformable

People keep throwing around the word terraforming like it's something that the human race has the slightest clue how to do. It's not a necessity to human colonization.

Mars, in contrast, has frozen water

Granted.

a thin atmosphere

That does very little that aids us...might as well be the moon, as we can't live on the surface for the foreseeable future.

twice the gravity

Not necessarily a good thing.

the resources to produce rocket fuel for return trips

I doubt the difference between the moon and mars is decisive in this regard.

alternative forms of power (wind, possibly geothermal)

The moon has plenty of power.

and is ultimately both terraformable and of greater scientific interest.

Again, terraforming is something that, if it ever occurs, will begin far into the future.

Greater scientific interest is a matter of opinion. The moon can tell us more about our own planet than Mars can.

In short, Mars is a world, and the Moon is a rock. Other than a tourist stop or observatory, I can't think of any reason to prefer the Moon over Mars.

It's closer...it enables easier launching of manned and unmanned missions to the rest of the solar system while still being near to Earth. It's largely self-sufficient, and has industrial, commercial, and agricultural applications that can be exploited in the relatively near term.

If you still don't believe me, I suggest you read the Mars Society website, and either of the following books:

Entering Space: Creating A Space Faring Civilization, by Robert Zubrin
The Case For Mars: also by Robert Zubrin

A biased source, to be sure. But also, in this case, the right one.

I've read parts of Entering Space...but I think the moon is still a better first option.

Moon is bound to lose, it's nowhere near as media sexy as Mars

Nevermind that with that price tag you could set up maybe 3-4 permanent lunar bases, it's the Mars way to go!

Sadly, this is likely to be the case.

Tell me one good reason why a self supporting colony wouldn't be possible in moon?

The only difference between Mars and Moon, in terms of sustained colonization, is the possible abundance of water (or rather, as mentioned earlier hydrogen)....But they haven't ruled out finding water (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/14apr_Moonwater.htm) from moon either.

OTOH there is NO WAY we could even dream of terraforming another planet as we can't even come to a conclusion what's happening in our geosphere and why (eg. climate change, tectonics or even something as mundane as weather forecasts). Besides terraforming would be a project unto scale never seen before taking at absolute minimum thousands of years to complete with any technology foreseeable today.

Moon has resources that Earth doesn't have - namely He3 - there's a reason to go to moon but there's no reason beyond exploration to go to Mars.

You made the argument much more eloquently than I.

*bows*

To Vakirauta: If I had a billion for every time I've heard those talking points, I could colonize the Solar System myself. I don't mean to be rude, but the one point I saw you raise in support of Space colonization is about the weakest there is. Overpopulation will never be solved by Space travel. We just can't launch fast enough. We could try things like education and birth control, though I agree they don't have quite the same flare as your proposal.;)

You are also wrong on about having to solve Earth's problems first, for three reasons. First, Earth's problems will never completely go away. You might as well wait for the Second Coming to make everything better. Saying you will wait till everything's better on Earth is the ultimate in procrastination. Secondly, we can solve some of Earth's problems by exploring and colonizing other worlds. The technological innovation, inspiration, environmental awareness and research, and commercial resources that have come and will continue to come and will continue to come from space travel are worth a great deal when it comes to improving the world. Thirdly, there is this little thing called multi-tasking. Space travel is an inconsequential fraction of the US Government's budget. There are probably private fortunes which could fund a Mars mission.

To G3N13: I'll acknowledge that a self-sustaining Moon base might be possible. Unfortunately for you, I don't have to prove its impossible to prove that Mars is better. I've already posted quite a few arguments to that effect.

To Delator: Its to late to pick your arguments apart as thoroughly as they deserve, and I have an exam tomorrow, but I'll give it a shot.

Regarding Power: I'm pretty damn sure the Moon has no Geothermal, and as for Solar, you still need to build the panels (a lot of them), and those parts need to be flown out of Earth's gravity well. Of course, you could use nuclear, but you'll have to demonstrate that there is sufficient fuel on the Moon, or Mars will indeed have a decisive advantage in energy production. Remember that the Moon has a month-long day, which is utterly unsuitable for growing crops using natural light. Replacing the Sun with an artificial power source for large-scale agriculture is going to be hideously difficult. I'll look up exact numbers later.

Regarding water supplies: The Moon has some, Mars almost certainly has more.

Regarding the Moon as a launch site and refueling depot: This gets trotted out so often its not even funny. Yes, there's less gravity on the Moon, which should make it cheaper to launch from there. But you still have to ship the materials to build the ships there, and unless you can manufacture them locally, they're still coming from Earth. Congratulations, you've just increased your costs. Unless you can prove that the Moon can sustain an independent base large enough to support a major industrial base.

Nor does the Moon work as a sight to refuel. Say you are going to Mars. you stop to refuel at the Moon. You've just done the equivalent of leaving for a cross-country flight on a full tank, and stopping to refuel a block from your house. Worse, you have to decelerate and relaunch at the Moon, burning more fuel in the process. I'll have to check, but you might well end up using more fuel than if you had just flown strait to Mars.

Look, I'll buy that there are uses for a Moon Base, but its hardly an ideal place to build a self-sustaining colony. There are advantages over Mars, the biggest of which is that its closer and quicker, but Mars has the greater long-term advantages. Keep your eyes on the prize, my friend.

Look, I'll buy that there are uses for a Moon Base, but its hardly an ideal place to build a self-sustaining colony. There are advantages over Mars, the biggest of which is that its closer and quicker, but Mars has the greater long-term advantages. Keep your eyes on the prize, my friend.

Lessons learned from a full fledged lunar base will be of immense help to any Martian colony attempt, and will be closer on hand to send help in the event of an emergency/disaster.

Earth

Has:

A nice, protective magnetosphere. We don't have to do anything to make one.
A nice, life-supporting climate. We don't have to do anything to make one.
Gravity to which we're adjusted. We don't have to do anything to make it.
A nice, perfectly breathable atmosphere. We don't have to do anything to make one.
A nice, big moon, keeping Earth' movement nicely stable. We don't have to make one.

All other celestial objects in the solar system

Lack:

Several of the above features.

Which makes me wonder... Why would we bother colonising those prohibitively unpleasant places, using absurd resources to stay alive on them when we could just as well stay on Earth, not spending these resources?

Screw other planets. I like Earth just fine.

PS: Overpopulation will never cause an interest in space exploration - as societies become wealthier and more technologically advanced, birthrates plummet. Any society holding significant space-launch capacities will enjoy exceedingly stable demographics - and any society experiencing excessive population growth is highly unlikely to have the launch capacity to even start thinking about space-colonialisation.

Which makes me wonder... Why would we bother colonising those prohibitively unpleasant places, using absurd resources to stay alive on them when we could just as well stay on Earth, not spending these resources?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=benefits+of+space+program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_colonization

Start reading.

Screw other planets. I like Earth just fine.

That's super, but some of us want to get the hell off this rock.

well i think the potential is certainly there, at least for research, though as a sink for excess population i don't see that as anything other then total daydream fantasy.

we could and should be out there exploring them and looking for ways to explore and physically visit in person far beyond.

before we it becomes physically possible to terriform other worlds, i mean the very foundation of that knowledge, we're going to have to learn how to stop marsiforming earth.

and i think we have what it would take in the way of tecnology base to acheive the latter now. the problem, the lack, is one of moral and political will, manifested as extremely misplaced priorities.

=^^=
.../\...

Not, as a historian, that I could even shake a stick at the issue of colonising future planets, but I imagine they'd be fairly rich in minerals yes?

And, on a more Romantic note, it would be rather good fun.

I think if we brought Mercury in danger close to Venus it would strip it's atmosphere off as it passed by. Sort of a planetary drive by. Then we could use Mercury as a huge mine to build large constructs out in space.

You're talking about moving a planet roughly 30 million Km precisely enough to pass close to another planet without crashing into it, the amount of energy required to do that is beyond anything humans can come up with. Not to mention the time and expense it would take to get all the necessary components out there. Also Venus' gravitational pull is much greater so the atmosphere would be unlikely to change significantly.

Also what if we took a large moon off of Jupiter per se and smashed it into Venus and or Mars? Would that fire up a core to produce a magnetic field? Of course it would have to cool for a long period of time before we stepped foot on the surface.

Again; energy requirements, time and cost are all prohibitive. Anyway the problem is not the lack of a core (both Venus and Mars have one), it's the relative motion of the inner and outer core sections. I don't know exactly how the process works but i'm pretty sure smashing a moon into a planet won't cause a magnetic field. Finally the time a planet would take to cool and stabilise after that kind of impact would probably take millions of years, a little too long.

It's all about the habitable zone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone), friends.

None of the planets in our system is within the habitable zone except Earth, which means colonizing other worlds would require enclosed areas, and spacesuits would be necessary for being outside.

At a time habitable zone included Venus & Mars and frankly put there is very little empirical evidence for the current borders.

It's not about habitable zone, it's about hostile environment: Had life teemed on Venus or life on Mars the conditions would probably be better (as per Gaia hypothesis) for human life.

For example, Venus is not in a too hot location, it just has wrong type of atmosphere - The average temperature without atmosphere would be well below 0C, for Earth it would be -19C. Same goes for Mars...if it had similar atmosphere to Venus it also would be boiling.

It's far easier to get from the Moon to Mars than from Earth to Mars. If sufficient hydrogen or water cannot be found on the moon, then Mars is the next logical source, unless we're planning on going comet hunting.

That would depend on whether Mars to Moon is easier - more energy efficient - than Earth to Moon.


Again from Wiki

I get the feeling like I need to be trolling for more info on this. :p
The word you're searching for is trawling and the information I picked up is in EXACTLY the same article just at different location:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_lifts#21st_century

;)

I would also like to direct you to the article about tensile strength (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensile_strength)

I'll admit that it's not something we can get a start on tomorrow, but it's still going to come down to money, regardless of when the technical details are resolved. The cost of production is going to be key whether a strong enough material is found ten days or ten years from now.
Yes, but the material is not here today hence it's an issue of finding the material AND the production process: No amount of money can buy you the lift today which is what current technology would mean. ;)

I do agree that ultimately it's an issue of money though and political will...By the looks of it we'll have working elevator - perhaps a space tower? - maybe in the 25th century at the earliest.

To G3N13: I'll acknowledge that a self-sustaining Moon base might be possible. Unfortunately for you, I don't have to prove its impossible to prove that Mars is better. I've already posted quite a few arguments to that effect.

But I have the winning arguments:
- Cost
- Proximity
- Resources that are not easily available on Earh
- Low gravity well

Regarding Power:
Nuclear power.

Preferably fusion power, Moon has an abundance of He3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He3):
Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from where "each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."

If that is not an incentive to build mining bases and permanent habitation to moon then NOTHING is.
Regarding water supplies: The Moon has some, Mars almost certainly has more.
But any colony in either world would necessarily have to be a closed circuit colony. Therefore the absolute amount of water needed wouldn't have to be that large.

Regarding the Moon as a launch site and refueling depot: This gets trotted out so often its not even funny. Yes, there's less gravity on the Moon, which should make it cheaper to launch from there. But you still have to ship the materials to build the ships there, and unless you can manufacture them locally, they're still coming from Earth. Congratulations, you've just increased your costs. Unless you can prove that the Moon can sustain an independent base large enough to support a major industrial base.
It can sustain such a base at a MARGINAL cost compared to Mars.

A "simple" manned mission for Mars would cost over 20 billion dollars (source: Wiki) - Multiply that by 3-4 and make it per annum and then we get into permanent base territory.

Permanent colony of thousands of people would cost thousand fold that.

A ring world is essentially a more efficient Dyson Sphere. A Dyson Sphere is a rather idiotic concept, to my mind. First, you are talking about building something around the freakin' Sun. I also recall reading in Entering Space by Robert Zubrin that the only habitable areas would be around the equator(might have been due to gravitational reasons, but I'll have to check). Since he's an aerospace engineer, I'll assume he probably knew what he was talking about. The solution to this was the ring world concept, which is basically building just the equatorial belt of the Dyson Sphere. Interestingly, the book states that constructing such a world would require about as much matter as the plannet Venus(I think, I'll have to check), so a ring world is a good analogy for what's being proposed in this thread.

In short, I suspect it makes more sense to just build a ring world than to move a planet, since they represent a comparable effort, but the ring world can be built entirely to our specifications.:D

You miss the point of a Dyson sphere. The idea is to collect almost all of the energy from the Sun. Here on Earth, we only get a tiny tiny fraction of it, and it's still enough that if we collected a fraction of it we would have all our power needs satisfied. Catching all the energy output of the Sun would leave us with colossal amounts available to work with. Even if we could only live on the equator of it.

Hell, you could make solar sails work, by basically using lasers to deliver the photons to just one area as needed. Or any number of other things. That's why a dyson sphere beats a ring world --- not for habitability, but for power.

Colonisation, Great or Greatest idea?

Here's my attempt at a tl;dr General post.

Not bad. :p

The problems of overcrowding and overpopulation on this planet would be easily solved by colonisation.

*snip*

Finally, I mention Earth's problems. What's the point of starting a new world if the problems on this one haven't been solved? We need to end world poverty and rise living standards across the globe to acceptable and sustainable levels before we embark on making new territories off the planet.

"Overcrowding and overpopulation" are problems we can solve far more easily than by colonizing other planets.

Most notably by education and good life expectancy.

(TL does allow a lot of scope to contradict oneself. I do it all the time!)

At a time habitable zone included Venus & Mars and frankly put there is very little empirical evidence for the current borders.

It's not about habitable zone, it's about hostile environment: Had life teemed on Venus or life on Mars the conditions would probably be better (as per Gaia hypothesis) for human life.

For example, Venus is not in a too hot location, it just has wrong type of atmosphere - The average temperature without atmosphere would be well below 0C, for Earth it would be -19C. Same goes for Mars...if it had similar atmosphere to Venus it also would be boiling.


True, but keep in mind there's also a radiation issue. Venus has just the right mass to keep an atmosphere with the appropriate chemical composition we'd need (if it weren't for the greenhouse problem, that is) but heat isn't the only issue. There's radiation. Venus gets a MUCH higher dose of various forms of radiation than we do. Even with an ozone layer similar to ours, I doubt it would be enough to protect us.

And Mars is simply not massive enough to hold an atmosphere at a high enough pressure. Even if we dumped billions of tons of breathable atmosphere onto it, the low gravity would not be enough to compress it to the 14.7 PSI we need.

Come again? I saw a post saying that we had to go to the Moon first. I gave reasons for why the Moon is manifestly unsuitable for collonization.

Actually, you did nothing to counter the quite valid reasons given to colonize the moon.

EDIT: Oh, I see now. You were replying to a post without quoting it! I asked why you ignored arguments for the moon. A one-word dismissal, calling the argument by a name, is not addressing it.

You since have, but at the time I posted what you replied to you had not. Go back and look.

There is a difference between an outpost, and a viable self-sustaining colony. The Moon can support one, but not the other.

Gee, you just did it again. "It's an outpost so it isn't viable." Huge, well supported argument there.

To be a viable settlement a place (not just a planet, but places on earth) need to be economically viable. Being self-sufficient should be taken in a context of participating in an economy between planets. If they will someday pay their way, including the costs of importing missing elements etc, they are viable.

Do offshore oil rigs grow all their own vegetables? Of course they don't, yet they are still viable. The Moon is a viable site for a colony (granted, not a terraformed world) because it offers a launch platform with at least some of the elements which would be used to build spacecraft and industrial equipment to establish colonies elsewhere.

Launching equipment from Earth on the scale necessary to terraform a world is massively wasteful, surely?

And yes, I know that Mars gets quite far from Earth. I also know that if Nixon hadn't gutted the space program, we'd be there now. It takes less time to get there and back than it took to sail around the globe in Magellan's time. It could also be done for 20-50 billion by estimates in the 90s, providing we manufactured fuel for the return flight on site. On the scale at which the US Government spends, thats pocket change.

So yeh, its easier to get to the Moon than Mars, but Mars is worth a lot more in the long run, and their's no reason we can't just cut to the chase and go for Mars.

The cost of a round-trip flight to Mars is a scratch on the cost of establishing a viable colony there. A economically viable colony on mars would almost certainly require an orbital platform with a source of materials (perhaps space cowboys could round up asteroids and comets for material, and no I'm not joking ... but the Moon is a big pile of matter already in orbit.)

Next time you post a response to one of my arguments, back it up with something substantial, and make sure you know what it is you're talking about.

Or else what? I'll reply to you any time I please.

If you find my posts too fluffy, ignore them.

One last thought for now: by the time we can seriously consider terraforming another planet, or the moon of a planet ... we may well have technology to transmute elements.

Ideally, we'd be able to manufacture any element out of whatever is plentiful, either by combining light nucleii or dividing heavy ones, in a controlled fashion which does not produce radioactive isotopes like our current method, nuclear fission.

If so, the limiting factor to what we can manufacture on other planets will be a source of energy. If that's fusion, a lack of very light elements would be the only deal-breaker.

Except it's going to cost like $1,000,000 per kilogram.

A lot of that just in pure energy.

True, but keep in mind there's also a radiation issue. Venus has just the right mass to keep an atmosphere with the appropriate chemical composition we'd need (if it weren't for the greenhouse problem, that is) but heat isn't the only issue. There's radiation. Venus gets a MUCH higher dose of various forms of radiation than we do. Even with an ozone layer similar to ours, I doubt it would be enough to protect us.

Terraforming whole planets into some Gaia with rivers and meadows is an utopian hippie pipe dream anyway.
The best we can hope to get is sort-of-cities under compartmentalized glazed domes (not one huge dome, but many small ones). More likely, it will be just arrays of mostly underground or semi-underground "mini-city" structures, with just a viewing deck on the top with deep solar shielding.

You're talking about moving a planet roughly 30 million Km precisely enough to pass close to another planet without crashing into it, the amount of energy required to do that is beyond anything humans can come up with. Not to mention the time and expense it would take to get all the necessary components out there. Also Venus' gravitational pull is much greater so the atmosphere would be unlikely to change significantly.


I already linked on how they would achieve movement of planets. It is actually easier then it seems.



Again; energy requirements, time and cost are all prohibitive. Anyway the problem is not the lack of a core (both Venus and Mars have one), it's the relative motion of the inner and outer core sections. I don't know exactly how the process works but i'm pretty sure smashing a moon into a planet won't cause a magnetic field. Finally the time a planet would take to cool and stabilise after that kind of impact would probably take millions of years, a little too long.

According to the "giant impact hypothesis " the planet Theia collided with Earth producing both the Moon and the required elemental makeup of our current core. When two objects that size collide they melt both planets into a fiery ball. The theory is that the heavier elements sink to the center to produce a core that can produce a magnetic field. Now I guess it would highly depend on the elemental makeup of the two objects colliding. However it would probably fire up a core in the new planet. A million years really isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. So we could plan way ahead I suppose. I suspect humans will be around for billions in some form or another.

You know what I feel should be the first colony? Enceladus.

Enceladus!?

Yes, I'm sure some of you are shaking your heads right now. In 2005, however, the Cassini probe revealed that Enceladus's south pole has cryonvolcanism -- literally, volcanos that spew water vapor instead of magma. If they place a colony close to one of the volcanos, it should be fairly easy to raise the temperature above freezing -- certainly closer than any point on Mars or the Moon, and quite possibly closer than Antarctica, Greenland, and many parts of Earth facing winter. Yes, they'd need domes (of reinforced shatterproof glass) to protetc them, but they'd have temperatures in the habitable zone and meltable ice (another 2005 Cassini discovery) from previous eruptions that can easily be used for drinkable water. No, it's not Malibu, but...

Foooollllsss!!!
NERVUN, Bellania, Nobel Hobos, Junii what short-term memory you have!

Have you all forgotten Pres. Bush's "Plan B" to cool off the Earth! Do you not remember the plan to use an asteroid to off set Earth's orbit for a slightly more distant and cooler one. The idea is actually quite sound and the math has already been worked out aswell as the asteroid to use.
... ummm... never heard of that plan, so I can't remember something i've never heard. :p

Earth

Has:

A nice, protective magnetosphere. We don't have to do anything to make one.
A nice, life-supporting climate. We don't have to do anything to make one.
Gravity to which we're adjusted. We don't have to do anything to make it.
A nice, perfectly breathable atmosphere. We don't have to do anything to make one.
A nice, big moon, keeping Earth' movement nicely stable. We don't have to make one.

All other celestial objects in the solar system

Lack:

Several of the above features.


in other words... all other celestrial objects in the solar system.

Pristine environment untouched by human hands.
:p

"Overcrowding and overpopulation" are problems we can solve far more easily than by colonizing other planets.
They are also problems that cannot be solved through colonization.

Hauling 10, 100 people to moon, mars is a task that is a magnitude - 10 times - easier than sending 1000 people there.

The simple fact is that we cannot solve overpopulation through colonization.

They are also problems that cannot be solved through colonization.

Hauling 10, 100 people to moon, mars is a task that is a magnitude - 10 times - easier than sending 1000 people there.

The simple fact is that we cannot solve overpopulation through colonization.

It depends on the method we use.

after all, if we send all the hairdressers, fashion designers, telephone sanitizers, etc... off first... ;)

after all, if we send all the hairdressers, fashion designers, telephone sanitizers, etc... off first... ;)

Yeah. 'Cos the overpopulation will be solved when the rest of us die out from a disease epidemic caught from a dirty telephone.

I already linked on how they would achieve movement of planets. It is actually easier then it seems.

I assume you're talking about the "could humans move the earth" article. While it might be theoretically possible to shift planets using the gravitational effects of passing asteroids you would still need to be able to accurately control the trajectory of an asteroid passing a planet which is 70 million Km from us. The article itself states that it would require an enormous amount of energy to work with earth, while Mercury has less mass than earth you have to consider how you would control the asteroid from such distance. The whole thing results in too much of an energy requirement to be viable. That and, as I said before, Mercury is less massive than Venus so any atmospheric stealing would likely work in the opposite direction.

According to the "giant impact hypothesis " the planet Theia collided with Earth producing both the Moon and the required elemental makeup of our current core. When two objects that size collide they melt both planets into a fiery ball. The theory is that the heavier elements sink to the center to produce a core that can produce a magnetic field. Now I guess it would highly depend on the elemental makeup of the two objects colliding. However it would probably fire up a core in the new planet. A million years really isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. So we could plan way ahead I suppose. I suspect humans will be around for billions in some form or another.

Again, the problem isn't with the lack of or presence of the core it's whether the relative rotation of the inner and outer core has a sufficient difference to act as a dynamo (or the inner core and the rest of the planet). Both Mars and Venus have a core and earth would have likely had one as well regardless of any impacts. The giant imact hypothesis explains the formation of the moon, not the magnetic field. Also, what you describe with the heavy elements sinking to the centre is known as density stratification and is a standard occurrence in the formation of planets.

As for the time aspect, I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that this thread was based on shorter term projects but if you project millions of years into the future there are other problems which could and likely will occur in the meantime.

I think it is well though out that we could colonize our sister planet Mars. However could we with enough tech and time colonize Venus too? I know it would be a huge undertaking compared to a Mars colony. However how would the human race do it?

Another suggestion my 11 year old made as we were talking of this is if Mars and Venus could be brought into an orbit either on the same plane as Earth albeit in enough space to avoid collisions or close to Earths orbit to help simulate Earth like conditions? Sounds futuristic however do you think it would even be an option?


Trying to bring a different thread instead of the typical hashed out ones. ;)

We can't even stop the cities we have now from *going underwater.* I think we should learn to perfect colonizing this planet before we start on another one.

Mars? Theoretically possible.

Venus? Never going to happen.

"Overcrowding and overpopulation" are problems we can solve far more easily than by colonizing other planets.

Most notably by education and good life expectancy.

(TL does allow a lot of scope to contradict oneself. I do it all the time!)

Well, I did mean like, far into the future when we literally run out of room.
Though i'm not sure what you mean, surely people living longer makes there LESS room? Though I can see about education, like in China you are taught about Overpopulation and told you should (well, it's law there) have only one child.

EDIT:
Cba to quote the other people but, I have a theory of sorts of easy Terraforming for Mars.
Nuke the ice caps lots, so all the water melts, the energy would throw water vapour into the atmosphere, and the water that has melted should flow into it's cracks, the sun should then let a water cycle start up. Eventually the rock will turn into top soil, we just then drop a load of seeds and see what happens, which will then start up an oxygen/carbon cycle.

I think it is well though out that we could colonize our sister planet Mars. However could we with enough tech and time colonize Venus too?

No. Venus is far too hot for us to even THINK of colonizing it.

A Mars colony seems inefficent considering the moon is closer(although Mars does have water, well ice technically) but yes, a Mars colony probably will be possible in the not too distant future. Although it'll be at least another 20 years before we land on Mars so it depends how long you consider distant. It would be easier if they could use the international space station as a base. Although that too seems somewhat impracticle.

As for the moving planets into Earth's plane of orbit. Not possible, and useless. Wouldn't recreate Earth like condidtions. Maybe teperature, but then again that depends on what gases are in the atmosphere.

A Moon colony would be better, cheaper, faster, and easier to build, so I would rather have that over a Mars colony.

What is this "colonizing" you foolish humans speak of? How do you expect to GET to these other planets? You do not have unlimited powers as I do; you puny humans need machines to fly! And since I am the ruler of planet Houston, anyone who tries to leave this planet shall be shot down with my eye lasers for their insolence and defiance.

You foolish humans have no business trying to "colonize" these planets "Mars" and "Venus" when you cannot even leave planet Houston without the aid of these flying machines you have made.

And even if you were to journey successfully to Mars or Venus, you would not be able to get away from me, your rightful ruler, because I shall soon claim Mars and Venus, just as I have claimed planet Houston!

And besides all this, you should not even be thinking of such nonsense as colonizing other planets! You should be KNEELING BEFORE ZOD!

After much thought I have a good idea for how it will work.
In School just teach people how to hold their breaths for a day, and then teach everyone how to jump 9000miles into the air.

Then we can just jump up to some pre-put there Space Station.

I was thinking about the moon, and how it would be such a fine helpmate to Earth if it just had nice meadows and streams. I thought of a couple of ways of achieving this:


Put a dome around the Moon. This could also be used to shield some of that radiation out too. But it would be a lot more vulnerable than a gravitationally-contained atmosphere. One advantage would be a space platform on the dome, where deep-space craft could dock without having to get through atmosphere. From there to the surface would only be a kilometre or so, far more practical than a centripetally-tethered elevator from Earth.



Make the Moon much much heavier so it can hold an atmosphere. But not by hitting it with big rocks, that would heat it up too much -- insert a black hole just right so it settles to the centre. To achieve earth gravity at the moon's surface, the total mass of the moon would need to increase from about 1% of Earth (as now) to about 7% of Earth.


Increasing the mass of the Moon sevenfold would have drastic effects on Earth. The tides would get a lot bigger, for one thing. Sure, some anti-progress wet blankets would object, but hey, think of the electricity which could be generated from those big tides!

We would need a containment vessel for the black hole. If we're going to feed the hole for energy, the insides of the moon would probably melt, so the vessel needs to be able to hold up the entire current mass of the Moon, as well as not be degraded by the hard radiation from the 'hole. Another issue is that the hole would essentially be in the same orbit as the Moon, but not held in place by the gravity of same (centre of a sphere has zero-gravity) so we would want an electrically charged 'hole so we could keep it in place. But that could be good, because black holes can also have spin, perhaps we could recreate the Earth's Van Allen belts with a spinning, charged black hole in the Moon.

For those who talk about moving mars into earth;'s orbit:

(1) It'll take a HUGE amount of energy. Much more thna we currently have, I imagine.
(2) It'd be a bad idea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis).

Make the Moon much much heavier so it can hold an atmosphere. But not by hitting it with big rocks, that would heat it up too much -- insert a black hole just right so it settles to the centre. To achieve earth gravity at the moon's surface, the total mass of the moon would need to increase from about 1% of Earth (as now) to about 7% of Earth.
What have you been smoking today?

Not only it's impossible to "insert a black hole", not only your math is wrong, but it's pointless to give Moon an atmosphere in the first place - it's not like we aren't living in air conditioned sealed concrete and glass towers already.

What about Ceres?

It's got water, could burrow underground and all. And then use it as a base for asteroid mining, hurrah.

What is this "colonizing" you foolish humans speak of? How do you expect to GET to these other planets? You do not have unlimited powers as I do; you puny humans need machines to fly! And since I am the ruler of planet Houston, anyone who tries to leave this planet shall be shot down with my eye lasers for their insolence and defiance.

You foolish humans have no business trying to "colonize" these planets "Mars" and "Venus" when you cannot even leave planet Houston without the aid of these flying machines you have made.

And even if you were to journey successfully to Mars or Venus, you would not be able to get away from me, your rightful ruler, because I shall soon claim Mars and Venus, just as I have claimed planet Houston!

And besides all this, you should not even be thinking of such nonsense as colonizing other planets! You should be KNEELING BEFORE ZOD!

Hey Zod, how's the hand?

They are also problems that cannot be solved through colonization.

Hauling 10, 100 people to moon, mars is a task that is a magnitude - 10 times - easier than sending 1000 people there.

The simple fact is that we cannot solve overpopulation through colonization.

True. With the rate of population growth it's already too late. We'd have to move at least 3/4 of the population to other worlds NOW just to buy us another century or so.

Colonization is a species survival strategy. It's a way to ensure humanity will survive even if something catastrophic happens to our homeworld by decentralizing our population.

Hey Zod, how's the hand?

Is this supposed to suggest Zod has no wife?

True. With the rate of population growth it's already too late. We'd have to move at least 3/4 of the population to other worlds NOW just to buy us another century or so.

However, we could easily launch material back to earth.

Massive orbital & lunar farming facilities with cheap transport (accelerator rail in moon) would help.

Then there's the power generation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He3#Extraterrestrial_supplies)...
Colonization is a species survival strategy. It's a way to ensure humanity will survive even if something catastrophic happens to our homeworld by decentralizing our population.
This is IMO by far the most important aspect of any space colonization program.

Is this supposed to suggest Zod has no wife?

Not at all. Don't you remember at the end of Superman II when Superman tricks Zod into thinking that he's given up his powers? He goes and kneels before Zod and takes his hand, but because it's Zod who has been stripped of his superpowers, Superman crushes his hand and then stands, picking him up and tossing him aside.

However, we could easily launch material back to earth.

Massive orbital & lunar farming facilities with cheap transport (accelerator rail in moon) would help.

Then there's the power generation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He3#Extraterrestrial_supplies)...


I'm not sure how big a difference lunar/orbital farming would make, if the Earth's population grows so big it can no longer be sustained by local farming. A farm covers acres and acres of land wheras such a huge amount of real estate in any space setting would require vast amounts of engineering, material and energy for every square inch.


This is IMO by far the most important aspect of any space colonization program.

Agreed. This is certainly the most immediate reason. A planet killing asteroid could literally hit tomorrow as easily as a hundred years from now. We need to get at least enough humans onto other worlds so that the population bottleneck wouldn't be too severe to preserve the species.

Colonization is a species survival strategy. It's a way to ensure humanity will survive even if something catastrophic happens to our homeworld by decentralizing our population.

Unless we should get addicted to some kind of substance found only on a single world.

Unless we should get addicted to some kind of substance found only on a single world.

Don't worry, we'll just have to wait till some witch cult's breeding program comes to fruition.

Unless we should get addicted to some kind of substance found only on a single world.

Don't worry, we'll just have to wait till some witch cult's breeding program comes to fruition.

Yeah but you know how it is... they fall in love, give their guy a son instead of the daughter, and BAM! Kwisatz Haderach before you know it...

Unless we should get addicted to some kind of substance found only on a single world.

Dune/Arrakis.

Trenco ?

*waits for something out of Jules Verne to upstage*

What have you been smoking today?None of your business!Not only it's impossible to "insert a black hole"So my idea that black holes can have electric charge is wrong? Or you are concerned about the energy requirements of moving something that massive?not only your math is wrong,My maths is fine. The black hole makes the new Moon far denser on average than Earth. 1 g at Moon surface would hold atmosphere.but it's pointless to give Moon an atmosphere in the first place - it's not like we aren't living in air conditioned sealed concrete and glass towers already.I'm not. I like streams and meadows, as I stated as the whole reason for my mad plan.

Please find something more substantial wrong with my mad plan. Jockeying black holes by their electric charge seems the weakest point to me.

So my idea that black holes can have electric charge is wrong? Or you are concerned about the energy requirements of moving something that massive?

My maths is fine. The black hole makes the new Moon far denser on average than Earth. 1 g at Moon surface would hold atmosphere.

I'm not. I like streams and meadows, as I stated as the whole reason for my mad plan.

Please find something more substantial wrong with my mad plan. Jockeying black holes by their electric charge seems the weakest point to me.

Ok wait...

Maybe if we take this a step at a time the non-feasibility of this will become more apparent.

1)Where is the black hole coming from?
1a)Where do you get a black hole that has a mass of only 5/6 of the Earth's (Remember, by definition a black hole is something so massive that not even light can escape its gravity well.)?
2)How do you get it to the Moon?
3)How do you get it near the Moon without causing catastrophic gravimetric effects on the solar system, as would result from any planet sized object passing through the inner planets?
4)How do you get it INTO the Moon?
5)How do you deal with the severe damage that would be inflicted upon the Earth as a result of the Moon suddenly increasing its mass by 500%, including siesmic, ocean tides, atmospheric, etc?

Cecil Rhodes Would have been Proud! (Colonising other planets was an ambition of his.)

One tiny question, Who would live in space?

Cecil Rhodes Would have been Proud! (Colonising other planets was an ambition of his.)

One tiny question, Who would live in space?

At first I'd send inmates and volunteers (not necessarily to the same colonies :P ), then (when the conditions are quite good) go to Darfurians or some other Tutsi or Hutu and tell them it's nicer in space than in that refuge camp of theirs.

As for me, I'm content with what I have here, and history shows that most colonists were either forced to, or escaping persecution or shitty conditions of living, so I'm justified.

Neo Bretonnia, the only substantial objection you make is to the size of the putative black hole. It would indeed be an unusually small hole, not created by the expected route of stellar collapse. However, all our searches for existing black holes have concentrated on BIG ones, because we can observe them only by gravitational effects. It's only our theory of their genesis which precludes such small holes. We might be wrong.

Don't make the elementary mistake Vault 10 made, and assume that to get 1 Earth g at Moon surface requires the same mass as Earth. It is actually far less, (density, ie Moon surface is much closer to centre of new-Moon mass) so if we can propel or impel the hole to move by electric charge, as easily as by inertial impetus or gravitational 'suction' ... the energy requirements of moving a black hole of the required size are much less than moving a planetary body like Mars or Venus.

As to the drastic effects on Earth ... it's pretty much "big tides" isn't it? Are plate-techtonics much influenced by the Moon now, and would a Moon seven times the mass be significantly different?

At first I'd send inmates and volunteers (not necessarily to the same colonies :P ), then (when the conditions are quite good) go to Darfurians or some other Tutsi or Hutu and tell them it's nicer in space than in that refuge camp of theirs.

As for me, I'm content with what I have here, and history shows that most colonists were either forced to, or escaping persecution or shitty conditions of living, so I'm justified.


Reasonable. Also, overcrowded countries should encourage people to leave early on.

The current science has the most optimistic and realistic plan, by Robert Zubric, for terraforming Mars has the project completed in 1000 years of high maintenance and brutally expensive work. Many say though that it’s an unrealistic figure, with the real number somewhere between 20 000 and 100 000 years. After that though you can build a sweet condo with a great view of Olympus Mons. With the policy plans of terran democracies based around 4-5 year election cycles we can put that down as never, unless some advanced dictatorships like China take the bull by the horns.

If you’re patient enough to wait millions of years, Venus might well be the next Earth, saving a lot of hassle all round. Moving planets just an inch out of their orbit would probably take all the resources of our planet. Then someone hired by NASA would accidentally screw it up changing back and forth from inches to centimeters, and we’d probably all die.

As for colonizing the Moon, proximity aside, it would be much harder to colonize than Mars. If you could get robots durable enough it would be worth mining the place for Helium-3, but that’s about it. The same reason that allows for it to have rich deposits of Helium-3 (we think) is the same reason that makes it tough to colonize: not enough magnetic field. That and Moon dust is much more damaging to equipment than Mars dust. People who think that a permanent lunar base is feasible are sentencing the people posted there to death or at the very least severe brain damage from cosmic rays, let alone being irradiated to death by solar flares. Quick trips are fine; just don’t stay to smell the roses.

Neo Bretonnia, the only substantial objection you make is to the size of the putative black hole. It would indeed be an unusually small hole, not created by the expected route of stellar collapse. However, all our searches for existing black holes have concentrated on BIG ones, because we can observe them only by gravitational effects. It's only our theory of their genesis which precludes such small holes. We might be wrong.

We might be... but regardless of the way it's generated, the very definition of a Black Hole is an object of mass so great that it has an event horizon from which even light cannot escape. A gravity well that severe is NOT created by something as small or light as a planet or moon.

Now, if you're talking about some other form of exceptionally dense matter, like material from something like a Neutron Star, then we're talking about something more workable. It still remains to solve how to acquire and transport such material.


Don't make the elementary mistake Vault 10 made, and assume that to get 1 Earth g at Moon surface requires the same mass as Earth. It is actually far less, (density, ie Moon surface is much closer to centre of new-Moon mass) so if we can propel or impel the hole to move by electric charge, as easily as by inertial impetus or gravitational 'suction' ... the energy requirements of moving a black hole of the required size are much less than moving a planetary body like Mars or Venus.


Assuming we're now talking about some lump of extremely massive matter, like material from a Neutron Star, you're still talking about something massive enough to affect the equilibrium of the solar system. Even something as small as the Moon itself could alter the orbital paths of nearby planetary bodies.

All of the methods of propulsion you're proposing require some kind of energy. Matter doesn't simply move around for no reason. It requires force, whatever the source, and creating or manipulating a force requires energy.


As to the drastic effects on Earth ... it's pretty much "big tides" isn't it? Are plate-techtonics much influenced by the Moon now, and would a Moon seven times the mass be significantly different?

Yes. Tidal forces for a significantly more massive Moon would severely impact not only ocean tides (To the point of flooding coastal areas) but would also trigger plate tectonic movement.

In a more severe case, it could even impact the speed of rotation of the Earth due to the forces involved in tidal locking.

Not at all.
</masturbation jokes>

</masturbation jokes>

Yeah I got it sometime after I replied... LOL

Will be happy with just a long sucessful International Space Station.

Mars would be the only possible planet but would be way to much effort & resources to colonize. We still cannot even figure out how to properly colonize Earth! ;)

Cecil Rhodes Would have been Proud! (Colonising other planets was an ambition of his.)

One tiny question, Who would live in space?

I think many entrepreneurs would. Imagine the possibilities with a new colony. All the new customers that need stuff. Big money to be made.

I'm not sure how big a difference lunar/orbital farming would make, if the Earth's population grows so big it can no longer be sustained by local farming. A farm covers acres and acres of land wheras such a huge amount of real estate in any space setting would require vast amounts of engineering, material and energy for every square inch.
Well, space is one resource that's in abundance in..erm..space.

I'm also uncertain whether it would need so much material (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics) but the real difficulty is, once more, getting enough water.

Orbital farms would have the benefit of being three-dimensional and in good weather all the time.

How would you adjust the gravity to suit humans?

How would you adjust the gravity to suit humans?
What do you mean? AFAIK humans are pretty much gravity free from 0 up to 2-2.5 g.

As long as they do more exercises in no to micro G.

on other planets gravity is different. How can you adjust it so that the planet can host a tea party?

Wear lead boots or a helium filled suit. Depending on what's needed.

Why would anybody bother colonizing other planets though. Once people can whizz around in space being smarter than martians, what would be the point?

What happens if aliens show up and give us fancy technology that may help us colonize :P

( But probably we make a weapon out of it and destroy us since its much simpler and more effiecent)

Why would anybody bother colonizing other planets though. Once people can whizz around in space being smarter than martians, what would be the point?

Emptying out the earth. If 1/2 the population of earth went to live on Mars there'd be loads more room.

Emptying out the earth. If 1/2 the population of earth went to live on Mars there'd be loads more room.

They could live in space too. Much easier than colonizing other planets.

They could live in space too. Much easier than colonizing other planets.

Not quite. Space tends to lack a number of things like an atmosphere, gravity, magnetosphere, and a variety of protection schemes we'll have to make just to survive for an appreciable time. Not to say that all the other candidates have those properties, but most of them have at least one or two things in their favor.

Not quite. Space tends to lack a number of things like an atmosphere, gravity, magnetosphere, and a variety of protection schemes we'll have to make just to survive for an appreciable time. Not to say that all the other candidates have those properties, but most of them have at least one or two things in their favor.

All those things can be taken care of more easily than going up and down a gravity well all the time. We will all live in orbitals and hollowed out asteroids, and get our water and organics from the Oort cloud.

And planets are very vulnerable militarily. A self sufficient asteroid belt community could totally dictate terms to the planet people.

All those things can be taken care of more easily than going up and down a gravity well all the time. We will all live in orbitals and hollowed out asteroids, and get our water and organics from the Oort cloud.

And planets are very vulnerable militarily. A self sufficient asteroid belt community could totally dictate terms to the planet people.

Just think you could hurl asteroids at Earth until they pay your demands. Sounds like something "Dr Evil" would do. ;)

Just think you could hurl asteroids at Earth until they pay your demands. Sounds like something "Dr Evil" would do. ;)

That is exactly my plan.

What do you mean? AFAIK humans are pretty much gravity free from 0 up to 2-2.5 g.

As long as they do more exercises in no to micro G.

I think any 0th generation (i.e. the first to live there) wouldn't be affected, but any 1st generation (the first children to be born there) returning to Earth would face problems in the gravity difference, they'd feel like they're being crushed. If it isn't fatal it'd be pretty uncomfortable.

I think any 0th generation (i.e. the first to live there) wouldn't be affected, but any 1st generation (the first children to be born there) returning to Earth would face problems in the gravity difference, they'd feel like they're being crushed. If it isn't fatal it'd be pretty uncomfortable.

This is why, ironically, orbiting space stations might be better for this. A round station that creates artificial gravity through rotation would counteract this problem.

As for planetary surfaces with gravity significantly below Earth's, the only solution I can think of is to rotate the personnel between Earth and the colony.

...Until we invent some kind of artificial gravity generators.

All those things can be taken care of more easily than going up and down a gravity well all the time.

Not if every colony ship carried the materials and facilities to construct an orbital ladder. From orbit, it would be a snap in terms of energy requirements.


We will all live in orbitals and hollowed out asteroids, and get our water and organics from the Oort cloud.

I doubt you'd get enough of either there compared to a planetary body.


And planets are very vulnerable militarily. A self sufficient asteroid belt community could totally dictate terms to the planet people.

Asteroid belts are actually a lot more vulnerable. A part of their nature involves plenty of collisions in a chaotic environment. If you have the capability to control the orbits of an entire asteroid belt, or even destroy incoming ones, rest assured, planetside communities will have similar means.

Also, orbitals and asteroid bodies are more expensive to expand in than environmentally non-hostile worlds. In orbit, everything must be air tight, radiation shielded, and contain multiple contingencies in the event of any system failure. A single fire could easily result in massive damage to the colony.

You don't get that severe a problem in non-hostile worlds.

Also, orbitals and asteroid bodies are more expensive to expand in than environmentally non-hostile worlds. In orbit, everything must be air tight, radiation shielded, and contain multiple contingencies in the event of any system failure. A single fire could easily result in massive damage to the colony.

You don't get that severe a problem in non-hostile worlds.

The downside being that so far, non-hostile worlds appear to be quite rare, with only one example that we know of out of hundreds, including a few other terrestrial worlds in other systems.

I think any 0th generation (i.e. the first to live there) wouldn't be affected, but any 1st generation (the first children to be born there) returning to Earth would face problems in the gravity difference, they'd feel like they're being crushed.
Why would they be returning to Earth?

How many Americans are returning to Britain?


Not if every colony ship carried the materials and facilities to construct an orbital ladder.
Building rockets is just plain cheaper so far than building huge "orbital ladders" with even more huge launch facilities there.

---

So my idea that black holes can have electric charge is wrong? Or you are concerned about the energy requirements of moving something that massive?
I'm concerned that whatever you mean by black hole has nothing in common with what astronomers mean by it.
What you want is essentially a magical device to increase mass of a planet.

I'm not. I like streams and meadows, as I stated as the whole reason for my mad plan.
And I'd like to drive a Porsche Carrera GT, fly an invincible FTL spaceship, travel across worlds using a teleporter and terraform planets with the touch of a button.

How many Americans are returning to Britain?

I bet if you ask our friends in UK their answer would be "too many" :p

I think any 0th generation (i.e. the first to live there) wouldn't be affected, but any 1st generation (the first children to be born there) returning to Earth would face problems in the gravity difference, they'd feel like they're being crushed. If it isn't fatal it'd be pretty uncomfortable.

Dunno, but there aren't any even remotely habitable high-G planets in the solar system.

As for lower gravity...I'd think that would just help in developement with taller and less energy consuming people. Let alone back, et al, structural problems which gravity tends to cause.

Of course, either way, we'd need to breed animals in lower g first - Preferably human sized mammals.

Not quite. Space tends to lack a number of things like an atmosphere, gravity, magnetosphere, and a variety of protection schemes we'll have to make just to survive for an appreciable time. Not to say that all the other candidates have those properties, but most of them have at least one or two things in their favor.

Space lacks matter, that's the only reason for not choosing orbital platforms first: You cannot build self sufficient orbital platform, such a colony would need steady replenishment from outside which on the other hand might not be necessary even for a moon colony (depending on water resources).

Asteroid belts are actually a lot more vulnerable. A part of their nature involves plenty of collisions in a chaotic environment. If you have the capability to control the orbits of an entire asteroid belt, or even destroy incoming ones, rest assured, planetside communities will have similar means.

Also, orbitals and asteroid bodies are more expensive to expand in than environmentally non-hostile worlds. In orbit, everything must be air tight, radiation shielded, and contain multiple contingencies in the event of any system failure. A single fire could easily result in massive damage to the colony.

You don't get that severe a problem in non-hostile worlds.

That's why you live in the hollowed out big ones, like ceres. Nice and safe. And there is plenty enough water and organics for a closed system. Much easier building an orbital tower (if such a thing is possible).

Meanwhile, the planet people piss you off, you just nudge a few rocks their way. They can't do anything much 'cos they are living down the gravity well.

I still keep thinking it says "colorizing" whenever I glance over this thread.

I bet if you ask our friends in UK their answer would be "too many" :p

Of Course!

New Zealand and UK roughly the same size.

Then compare their populations.

See why the Brits are always really uptight about immigrants etc?