Posted on 01/27/2015 5:22:03 AM PST by WhiskeyX
Will interstellar space travel save humanity? Scientists predict artificial homes in space will have to a become a reality - and say warp drives could be the answer The vast distances between solar systems combined with the speed-of-light limit puts severe constraints on the realities of space travel This could be overcome using some form of worm hole or warp drive Another world would likely have an environment that is unbreathable Terraforming is an option, but this would be challenging and expensive Interstellar-style spinning habitats would be a more sensible option
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
No Problemo.
There have been several stories in that vein.
Brian Aldiss “Non-Stop” in 1959
Harry Harrison “Captive Universe” in 1969
As in the movie, the question remains, will mankind live and survive on earth until this time?
Shared a bottle of Australian wine with Heinlein, Dickson, and Pournelle in an elevator at the convention. Good stories.
I actually wrote part of a story where people went out to the “asteroid belt” and basically slagged the inside of an asteroid to hollow it out and build their habitat inside
My thoughts exactly. Put all the lefties on their own ship named "Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B" ( we'll keep the phone sanitizers this time).
Only IF you can pick the planet you want to inhabit... for example.... all the people who don’t want to work... can go to their own planet....etc. :)
HAH,
Given that the US must pay the Russians ~ $70 million dollars a seat to take our astronauts into orbit, we cant even get them there ourselves, should pour some cold water on these Star Trek like fantasies.
“As in the movie, the question remains, will mankind live and survive on earth until this time?”
That was my argument when we met with Congressmen, Senators, and NASA officials at a dinner to lobby for the funds to build the STS (Space Shuttle) in 1971. We emphasized the risk of running out of time in the event of NBC warfare, asteroid strike, or other calamity. We pointed out that humanity no longer has the quantities of natural resources that are easily accessible for a future emerging civilization to achieve spaceflight and colonization. it takes a certain critical mass of population and technological development to achieve a space faring economy. I argued this is humanity’s first and likely only chance of leaving the cradle before any humanity left in the cradle is destroyed. If humanity neglects this opportunity for survival, it is unlikely to have another chance.
But perhaps it's much more difficult to adapt to living on even the most Earthlike words we find - so much so that on each new planet we have to take some of the native lifeforms and start incorporating their genetics into the humans who will become the first generations that can survive on the surface. The rest of us have to terraform underground bases that maintain air that is more Earthlike, grow Earth foods, and shield ourselves from the constant alien microbial onslaught, all the while perfecting and adapting our species to life on that particular planet. If there's a moon, perhaps set up underground shop there, first.
Because of the constant threat of meteor strikes, gamma ray bursts, or just plain nasty animals with big shreddy teeth, advanced civilizations may prefer building underground and terraforming "up".
Human colonization of space habitats is very feasible. We only lack the will to do it and do it now.
The interior of Ceres is large enough to provide land surface exceeding all of the arable land on the face of the Earth and still provide seas of fresh water.
Only because of a youtube recommendation since I watch a lot of old Sci fi movies and TV.
I put it just under ARK II in my ratings down there with space academy and Jason of star command.
I just imagined it as a big round version of O’Neill’s cylinders but with the sea floating there in the middle...
that would be a sight
The one silver lining to leftists is that they're self-terminating. Leftists seek comfort on the government's teat. They want other people to do their work. When those "other people" are traveling among the stars and the leftists, seeking comfort in what they know, stay behind on Earth, eventually this society will fall to apathy and sloth while those among the stars survive and thrive.
We might just as easily find a way to escape into the past, rather than deep space.
Wench: "I'm game, Love. Lead and I'll follow. Where's 'Library'?"
You’re talking about exoplanets located in other star systems. We’re concentrating at the moment on the nearer future in our own Solar System. Mars is an extremely difficult environment to master, and its utility maybe more trouble than it is worth in comparison to the asteroids. Mars’ gravity and magnetic field are too small to maintain a terraformed atmosphere of sufficient pressure. Aerospace vehicles entering the atmosphere have trouble decelerating, yet the weak gravity is sufficient to make lifting of cargoes prohibitively expensive as it is from the Earth. The atmosphere is also not very effective at shielding against meteorite and asteroidal strikes, high energy particle radiation, or high energy electromagnetic radiation. Basically, a society needs exceptional reasons to accept the problems of establishing a community on mars and maintain it there until it suffers the same kinds of fates awaiting the Earth and its inhabitants.
To terraform Mars (by the way, that would involve making most of the atmosphere methane to replace all that CO2 since I don’t know how to get Nitrogen there) would involve crashing ammonia asteroids into the atmosphere, inflatable solar mirrors, spreading dark dirt over the polar caps to trap heat etc etc... hopefully this would warm it up a bit (its as cold as Antarctica - in its summer) and thicken the atmosphere (although how do we keep that from escaping??
eventually humans might be able to wander around with just a light oxygen mask because the air pressure would still be too thin
Sure if we warmed it up and thickened the atmospheric pressure and replace most of the CO2 with oxygen and methane (think of that smell) we might eventually live on Mars
BUT... we would also need to put a bunch of satellites into orbit that do nothing but emit an electromagnetic field, to help guard against solar radiation and stuff.
Terra-forming is HARD!!
lol
I watched some of those old shows on Youtube, some are really bad.
The Fifties version envisioned Ceres being spun up to provide the centrifugal force for artificial gravity. Spaces were to be dug out in multiple levels with the ceilings a few thousand feet high. The ceilings are high enough for the atmospheric diffusion to make the overhead appear to be a blue sky. The levels were stacked towards the core of the asteroid. Zero gravity spaceship ports were located at the poles of rotation. Industrial facilities were located in some cases as satellites habitats for Ceres.
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