Colonies in space

The future is so bright that we have to wear shades. Speculations about the future.
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Typhoon
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Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

[Inspired by a comment by Torchwood and monster gardener's musings.]

Image

Perhaps it is telling that the original is out of print. A pristine copy is now an expensive collector's item.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

Interior of an O'Neill Cylinder:

Image

One thing is clear from the ISS. Rotation to create effective gravity via centripetal acceleration is essential for any such colony.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

What we have today:

bXNH7whveGk
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Enki »

http://liftport.com/

I met the guy that runs this company. They are trying to put a space elevator on the moon.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Torchwood »

I have this vision, which is deeply unfashionable (re the Futurism of the Past thread) and so regarded as either nerdy and boring, or just plain crazy: that the overwhelming majority of mankind lives in outer space, and the Earth becomes a nature and history reserve, living off tourism. Why? Because the main constraints on civilisation and technology are increasingly environmental.

If so, O'Neill type colonies are the only way to do so. Of the solid lumps of rock out there, only the Moon and Mars would be suitable, and apart from being (largely or wholly) airless or waterless, we have not evolved to live at low gravity for long (you get severe osteoporosis, for a start). Moreover, they are small. As for colonising all those exoplanets in habitable zones now being discovered, well, sorry, Cap'n Kirk, warp drive isn't real, and Herr Einstein showed that it may never be possible. After all, those aliens coming the other way aren't here, or else keeping very quiet...

The main problems are not raw materials (plenty out there, no need to bring them from Earth) or even potential technology (nothing that breaks the laws of physics), but:

- why would anyone want to spend their lives in rotating tin cans, albeit vast ones?
- above all, what is the path to developing these. Most technologies start off small and gradually scale up, think of the journey from the Wright Brothers to the 747.
-
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by noddy »

- why would anyone want to spend their lives in rotating tin cans, albeit vast ones?
would people living in a high rise apartment in a mega city of concrete,steel,bitumen and glass even notice much change except for the nicer view ? :)
- above all, what is the path to developing these. Most technologies start off small and gradually scale up, think of the journey from the Wright Brothers to the 747.
funnily enough, i was just reading this...

http://www.space.com/19151-asteroid-moo ... study.html
Capturing a near-Earth asteroid and dragging it into orbit around the moon could help humanity put boots on Mars someday, proponents of the idea say.

NASA is considering a $2.6 billion asteroid-retrieval mission that could deliver a space rock to high lunar orbit by 2025 or so, New Scientist reported last week. The plan could help jump-start manned exploration of deep space, carving out a path to the Red Planet and perhaps even more far-flung destinations, its developers maintain.

"Experience gained via human expeditions to the small returned NEA would transfer directly to follow-on international expeditions beyond the Earth-moon system: to other near-Earth asteroids, [the Mars moons] Phobos and Deimos, Mars and potentially someday to the main asteroid belt," the mission concept team, which is based at the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California, wrote in a feasibility study of the plan last year.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Apollonius »

Here's a newer version of one of these rotating spacecraft, as portrayed by Stephan Martiniere


Image





I notice less greenery and more machinery.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Taboo »

Torchwood wrote:I have this vision, which is deeply unfashionable (re the Futurism of the Past thread) and so regarded as either nerdy and boring, or just plain crazy: that the overwhelming majority of mankind lives in outer space, and the Earth becomes a nature and history reserve, living off tourism.

The main problems are not raw materials (plenty out there, no need to bring them from Earth) or even potential technology (nothing that breaks the laws of physics), but:

- why would anyone want to spend their lives in rotating tin cans, albeit vast ones?
- above all, what is the path to developing these. Most technologies start off small and gradually scale up, think of the journey from the Wright Brothers to the 747.
-
As I was writing in another thread just earlier, within a century or two, we will have to move our large-scale computing and large-scale manufacturing to space, simply because the sheer amount of energy involved would result in enough heat waste to make Al. Gore's (not-so-)wet dreams come true. Right now we're at about 0.01% of Earth's energy budget, so I expect that we'll be around 10% within two or three centuries at present exponential rates of growth. Boiling oceans = bad.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

Taboo wrote:
Torchwood wrote:I have this vision, which is deeply unfashionable (re the Futurism of the Past thread) and so regarded as either nerdy and boring, or just plain crazy: that the overwhelming majority of mankind lives in outer space, and the Earth becomes a nature and history reserve, living off tourism.

The main problems are not raw materials (plenty out there, no need to bring them from Earth) or even potential technology (nothing that breaks the laws of physics), but:

- why would anyone want to spend their lives in rotating tin cans, albeit vast ones?
- above all, what is the path to developing these. Most technologies start off small and gradually scale up, think of the journey from the Wright Brothers to the 747.
-
As I was writing in another thread just earlier, within a century or two, we will have to move our large-scale computing and large-scale manufacturing to space, simply because the sheer amount of energy involved would result in enough heat waste to make Al. Gore's (not-so-)wet dreams come true. Right now we're at about 0.01% of Earth's energy budget, so I expect that we'll be around 10% within two or three centuries at present exponential rates of growth. Boiling oceans = bad.
However, this presumes that compute technology will continue to use the same heat generating silicon-based semiconductors.

I expect that semiconductor tech will continue to evolve to faster and more efficient transistors that generate less heat.

For example, first graphene based [with ballistic electrons] and later spin-based.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Taboo »

Sure, and people already are talking about optical computers that would skip electrons altogether.

So yes, it is all true, of course, but if you can run it cooler at the same speed, you can probably also run it faster at the same temperature.

Regardless, whether heat waste is significant or minuscule per teraflop or per kg of manufacture, the threshold will be there, and we will be drawing towards it eventually.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Ibrahim »

Taboo wrote:
Torchwood wrote:I have this vision, which is deeply unfashionable (re the Futurism of the Past thread) and so regarded as either nerdy and boring, or just plain crazy: that the overwhelming majority of mankind lives in outer space, and the Earth becomes a nature and history reserve, living off tourism.

The main problems are not raw materials (plenty out there, no need to bring them from Earth) or even potential technology (nothing that breaks the laws of physics), but:

- why would anyone want to spend their lives in rotating tin cans, albeit vast ones?
- above all, what is the path to developing these. Most technologies start off small and gradually scale up, think of the journey from the Wright Brothers to the 747.
-
As I was writing in another thread just earlier, within a century or two, we will have to move our large-scale computing and large-scale manufacturing to space, simply because the sheer amount of energy involved would result in enough heat waste to make Al. Gore's (not-so-)wet dreams come true. Right now we're at about 0.01% of Earth's energy budget, so I expect that we'll be around 10% within two or three centuries at present exponential rates of growth. Boiling oceans = bad.
What will they be manufacturing with this increased capacity?
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Taboo »

I'd love to say "massive terraforming equipment for Venus and Mars, interstellar colony ships and Dyson sphere components to further increase solar energy capture."

However, going by the history of the late 20th and early 21st, I'm betting we'll be manufacturing mostly super-cute cybrid kittens.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

Taboo wrote:Sure, and people already are talking about optical computers that would skip electrons altogether.

So yes, it is all true, of course, but if you can run it cooler at the same speed, you can probably also run it faster at the same temperature.

Regardless, whether heat waste is significant or minuscule per teraflop or per kg of manufacture, the threshold will be there, and we will be drawing towards it eventually.
Not convinced.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Taboo »

What's there to be convinced about? Humans use energy, lose some of the energy as waste heat. Use enough energy, and waste heat becomes a significant warming factor.

The Earth absorbs about 4e24 Joules from the sun, each year.
Each year, about 3e21 Joules are used by plants in photosynthesis.
Humans currently use 5e20 Joules per year.

So plants capture about 0.1% of the solar energy that hits earth.
So currently, we are at about 10% of photosynthesis, and at about 0.01% of total solar irradiation.
Currently, we are doubling that energy use every 30 years or so.
It is unclear to me how much it would take to permanently alter the Earth's energy balance, but it could be as low as 1%, assuming it's generated from something other than solar. If so, that would be reached at current rates of growth in 200 years.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

Taboo wrote:What's there to be convinced about? Humans use energy, lose some of the energy as waste heat. Use enough energy, and waste heat becomes a significant warming factor.

The Earth absorbs about 4e24 Joules from the sun, each year.
Each year, about 3e21 Joules are used by plants in photosynthesis.
Humans currently use 5e20 Joules per year.

So plants capture about 0.1% of the solar energy that hits earth.
So currently, we are at about 10% of photosynthesis, and at about 0.01% of total solar irradiation.
Currently, we are doubling that energy use every 30 years or so.
It is unclear to me how much it would take to permanently alter the Earth's energy balance, but it could be as low as 1%, assuming it's generated from something other than solar. If so, that would be reached at current rates of growth in 200 years.
The flaw in the argument is that we will continue to double our energy consumption ~ every 30 years over the next several centuries.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Torchwood »

Here is a good road map on how to realistically set up space colonies:
http://spacehabitats.co.uk/
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by Typhoon »

Torchwood wrote:Here is a good road map on how to realistically set up space colonies:
http://spacehabitats.co.uk/
The ISS has provided a wealth of information on human physiology in very low gravity:

http://www.space.com/35492-astronaut-vi ... ssure.html

What has become clear is how much we have evolved for life on earth.
Those conditions, gravity, diurnal cycle, and other factors will have to be reproduced on any space colony.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Why is it that we're not practicing terraforming on Venus already?

Venus is:

-a short distance from Earth
-similar gravity
-a thick atmosphere full of CO2

Now the different diurnal cycle, the heavy atmospheric pressure and our understanding that it's much easier to heat a planet than cool it, are problems but I don't see why they would be insurmountable in a project that will be taking a long, long time anyway.

There are a lot more moving parts in a place like Mars than Venus, even if we can theoretically handle them all.

We could also set up biological life in Venusian cloud cities relatively cheaply with current techniques, if we really wanted to. That's a massive leg up over our other points of destination.

So why is Venus not the first test-run?
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by noddy »

according to mars one

https://www.mars-one.com/faq/mission-to ... her-planet
. Venus is a veritable purgatory. The average temperature is over 400 degrees, the barometric pressure is that of 900 meters underwater on Earth, and the cherry on top comes in the form of occasional bouts of acid rain. It also has nights that last for 120 days. Humans cannot live on Mars without the help of technology, but compared to Venus it's paradise!
from what i remember the russian lander lasted *minutes* and nothing else even managed to get that far.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by noddy »

personally , I feel we wont be able to live on any other planet until we have perfected the self contained sealed box type of living - which apparently is what we are practicing in Antarctica.

once that is achieved then planets are barely required - just keep harvesting asteroids and building larger and larger structures indefinitely, the conditions can be perfect if you control every aspect of them.

their is a certain charm to living on a planet but I think it might be a fixation for us who are born on one more than a requirement for optimal life.

once you have these generations of kids who grew up inside the self contained systems they might not see the advantage of dealing with the local weather and dust and volcanos etc etc.

planets are only fun if you can go outside and fart in the open air and we are a long way from that level of engineering.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

That's how things stand now but the atmosphere is analogous to earth's and while it's a huge hurdle, we can lessen the atmospheric pressure while we jerryrig the overall composition.

Living above the clouds, or on artificial mountains above the clouds, is do-able now and wouldn't require the thousands of theoretical steps and maintenance Mars would, as test-case #1.

Over centuries, we could work our way down with a combination of solar-shading the atmospheric condensation.

Mars would probably be easier and more expedient for permanent human settlement, Venus would be a much easier test-lab despite the major problems we need to work around- it'd be better practice.

-----------------------------

Which is why, if I were king of space, instead of aiming for Cloud Cities full of humans; I'd seed Venus with Cloud Cities (as reflective balloons) full of extremophiles who don't mind heat and love carbon dioxide- and see where that takes us.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

noddy wrote:personally , I feel we wont be able to live on any other planet until we have perfected the self contained sealed box type of living - which apparently is what we are practicing in Antarctica.

once that is achieved then planets are barely required - just keep harvesting asteroids and building larger and larger structures indefinitely, the conditions can be perfect if you control every aspect of them.

their is a certain charm to living on a planet but I think it might be a fixation for us who are born on one more than a requirement for optimal life.

once you have these generations of kids who grew up inside the self contained systems they might not see the advantage of dealing with the local weather and dust and volcanos etc etc.

planets are only fun if you can go outside and fart in the open air and we are a long way from that level of engineering.
You're right and the perfect hermetically sealed box seems like the aim.

But what would it mean to perfect something like that? One little thing goes wrong and you're more than screwed, you just wiped out the whole colony.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by noddy »

redundancy is the key to making them non fragile, the earth has massive levels of redundancy for us in terms of oxygen production and food sources.

different micro climates containing different flavours of ecosystems with different bacterias and species of plants and then backups upon backups in the ratios of glasshouses to humans.

non trivial at first but space is quite big (heh) so theoretically we could get there provided earth did the backup duties during the initial building phase.
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

"non-trivial at first" is an understatement.

It's not that I think redundancy can't be built up and get better and better; or that we can't overcome regular stupidity bound to be built into initially.

It's the scaling. The scaling involved requires us to go from something like cannonballs to icbms for step 1. And I wouldn't trust any system which requires Earth's resources to be all that fruitful in the medium-term, politically or logistically.

I get that the goal is to attach ourselves to an asteroid-harvesting system (or figure out a way to avoid planet hopping altogether, though that's so far out who cares at this point) and it's a really attractive proposition.

Right now, we are so close to something very far away. If we can't move forward, why not try laterally?
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Re: Colonies in space

Post by noddy »

the point being that if we cant do it at moon type distances with escape pods that can return to earth in hours/days then the mars and/or venus stuff is even more absurd seeing as they need that tech to also attempt the scaling problem.

afaik, all attempts at sealed biodomes have failed so far and the current experiments have pulled back from being 100% self sufficient on water and oxygen at this stage, so the entire premise is still pie in the sky,

your right, dropping some primordial bacteria on venus and watching what happens does sound like a hell of a fun idea - im not sure it could happen with "science" behind it, its not like you get to do practice runs on your spare venii.
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