A analytical perspective, and debate of planetary colonization.

Well, we shouldn't forget that life it self, the science behind abiogenesis contains still many open questions. The origin of life, might require so many conditions to come together, that most planets might be habitable, but actually end up as sterile rocks floating in space, because there was never a chance to form organic compounds comlex enough to support live, could very well be that if humans once get to those stars and planets, that they will find thousands of oceans full of just the first stages of the process, but it never moved past that. Who knows? Maybe we are after all the unicorns of this universe ... or all the other races out there have killed them self, kinda like we do now to our self :/.
Well however that be, I think a scientist once described abiogenesis, like the act of balancing razors on top of each other, just a slightly bit to much of one element, or not enough of the other, and it simply doesn't work.
 
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Yeah, the origin of life might be rare, but consider the sheer amount of stars with planets out there. It's extremely unlikely that ours is the only one that created life.
 
I guess the big question then is making a space ship capable of caring everything they would need to lets say mars. Maybe they could use more than one space ship but still they would need alot of stuff plus the jounry is pretty long so tons and tons of food
 
Einhanderc7 said:
You make some solid points, but I believe there is an answer what is available in the environment. Lets use Mars again as an example, colonists could use the soil around them to literally make mud/adobe buildings. While this is not ideal, it does provide a viable material for construction of something like a shed or domicile.

In this case the colonists would need some kind of binding agent, preferably not water but that remains an option as well. But what if it was possible to turn the acids in the soil into the binder? You would be surprised the magic chemistry is capable of. (I am not a chemist, merely speculating.)

The reality of it though is that the colonists will need to be completely self reliant otherwise they will perish. They will need to bring everything that will sustain life as well the tools required to fabricate other items for maintenance and growth.

A good way to look at is the way you see structures built in games like C&C. Modular prefabricated structures would be a great benefit if sent before the colonists landed. I'm sure if a reasonable amount of resources were dedicated before the colonists arrival they would be fairly well off within the means of survival.
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I also meant the physiological sense as well because you have to let go of everything you ever knew and could ever had. That why I chose like the shed for example as well. It not necessarily having a 'shed' because you can have some sort of storage. But its the fact you will never be able to shed or ever see a shed again. I think it would be hard to condition the mind to get use to things like that to complete rewrite it and change everything it ever know. You can't say for sure what implication the lack of these things use would cause no having them.

I mean Basically take everyday you ever remember and that ever day tralving to mar on mars is going to be completely different nearly unrelatedble is going have serious effects.
 
They could eventually grow their own food. Or parts of it. A big problem with space travel, are simply the medical conditions, unless you somehow create artifical gravity but that comes with a lot of new problems - mainly, you need bigger ship which also rotate and so on.
Traveling to Mars and back again, is possible even with todays technology all the issues could be solved trough engineering. It is really just the funding right now. However, space colonisation or long time travel is still something that will require a few more decades before it becomes viable. Might not even happen in our century, but who knows. I definetly believe that humans will at some point travel around the solar system, like to the planets and astroid fields we have, robots could do mining out there, some people might even live on ships or smaller colonies out there. It's possible at least, a lot of scientists say that at least and many physicists believe that we might have one day ships that are pretty close to the speed of light, like 0,75c or even 0,90, but that has to be seen. Traveling between the stars however? That's an entirely new problem. Relativistic effects, unless we're talking wormholes here but that's more science fiction for now, are a real problem and there is no way around it. Maybe, you could build a ship that will reach the next system and it's just a couple of light years from here, and it takes you 10 or 20 years to reach it, but in the meantime, a lot more time has passed. It would be a one way ticket.
 
Crni Vuk said:
They could eventually grow their own food. Or parts of it. A big problem with space travel, are simply the medical conditions, unless you somehow create artifical gravity but that comes with a lot of new problems - mainly, you need bigger ship which also rotate and so on.
Traveling to Mars and back again, is possible even with todays technology all the issues could be solved trough engineering. It is really just the funding right now. However, space colonisation or long time travel is still something that will require a few more decades before it becomes viable. Might not even happen in our century, but who knows. I definetly believe that humans will at some point travel around the solar system, like to the planets and astroid fields we have, robots could do mining out there, some people might even live on ships or smaller colonies out there. It's possible at least, a lot of scientists say that at least and many physicists believe that we might have one day ships that are pretty close to the speed of light, like 0,75c or even 0,90, but that has to be seen. Traveling between the stars however? That's an entirely new problem. Relativistic effects, unless we're talking wormholes here but that's more science fiction for now, are a real problem and there is no way around it. Maybe, you could build a ship that will reach the next system and it's just a couple of light years from here, and it takes you 10 or 20 years to reach it, but in the meantime, a lot more time has passed. It would be a one way ticket.
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I think anything father than the moon is pretty much a one way ticket to be honest with you anyway
 
We can always setup space stations and create a kind of chain of supply depots. Each station has its own transport/delivery vehicles so we can move goods like a baton race so to speak.
 
We could go the 40K route and construct massive ships capable of sustaining a permanent population. With that Humans could possibly go farther than what we can now. But the problem with multi-generational ships is supplies. Every concept we can think of relies on in some form of another resources that are not sustainable.

It is my perspective that research and development of sustainable and recycling technologies would be a very wise idea for space travel. While NASA has been approaching this subject with vim and vigor, the rest of humanity still scoffs at the idea.

Fossil fuels, while effective and easily acquired, only exacerbate the issue. To be honest I still think we are a good long way off from actually doing much in space until we identify a solution to the various energy requirements that space demands.

For those who have played Minecraft's island survival its about using the available resources to survive. In space the available resources are vacuum, radiation, and wildly fluctuating temperatures, (There is more but not readily available). I'm sure within those confines an exceptionally intelligent individual could invent something to harness them. Maybe a simple engine that uses two opposing temperatures to induce motion? But such a simple system would not be able to provide thrust for a vessel.

We don't need perpetual motion, we need efficient use of energy.
 
DarkCorp said:
We can always setup space stations and create a kind of chain of supply depots. Each station has its own transport/delivery vehicles so we can move goods like a baton race so to speak.
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Not really much of a point to that, the repeated acceleration and breaking would be way too costly.
Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312" had a nice concept for travel inside the solar system: Hollowed out, spinning asteroids were put on fixed orbits passing certain planets at ridiculous speeds, forming nigh-self-sufficient habitats for long distance travels. To get on them you need shuttles capable of some heavy Delta v, but they don't need supplies for too much travel time. Pretty nifty. Of course, Robinson then gets lost in making up too many fancy specialised habitats like those that are completely dark all the time, places that are modeled after certain biomes, habitats that are a constant orgy...
Anyway, a line of supply stations is pointless, if you just want to move goods you can just boost them into transfer orbit using mass drivers and then slow them down using aerobraking or lithobraking.
 
For the propulsion, some people have entertained using nuclear detonations. It had a fancy name but it escapes me atm.

And thinking about it, yes, I agree we REALLY need to find a better way to recycle. The only issue I have with it is how often can you recycle when the stuff has been run through the ringer too much.
 
DarkCorp said:
We can always setup space stations and create a kind of chain of supply depots. Each station has its own transport/delivery vehicles so we can move goods like a baton race so to speak.
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Which of would be working very well with the so called 'space elevator', if that thing ever happens to be build, geting stuff into space with a cable and some kind of elevator would cost only a fraction of current rocket technology. And I think that it is really an interesting concept!
 
@Hassknecht

But we are talking about the perils of prolonged space travel like the damaging effects of loss of gravity, on the human body. We also have to figure in the psychological effects of crews left in deep space for extend periods of time, without the ability to visit family or take other forms of R&R.

Crews (both station and ship), would be much more open to shorter trips by evenly distributing the distance via multi ship docking, in space. Crews could also be rotated from station to station, IE, one crew takes a shitty 'outer station job', and then later rotates to a different station much closer to Earth, in order to return to the planet for R&R or family.

@Crni Vuk

With a space elevator, the initial station could work as the 'hub', as once a ship is complete in space, it requires just enough energy to establish the desired momentum and to move and stop the ship.

This ship could act as a cost efficient way of spreading the rest of the hub supplies to the other stations. If necessary, a type of every other station ship setup, would allow for further and further extensions.

With continuous stations, the initial cost would be high but it would pay for itself during subsequent missions. It currently would also be the most feasible way mankind could extend its reach to the stars in a realistic period of 3 or 4 generations. Also, some planets may have resources but it is simply not feasible to establish a terrestrial installation due to a wide variety of factors (IE no solid core or extreme environments that would eat away at things. A station in orbit could be the closest thing to a permanent settlement. This idea is already a sci-fi staple that is actually very practical, unlike 'inertia negation'.
 
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And which of the planets in the Solar System would be the options? Any within the relatively proper distance to the sun?

Einhanderc7 said:
For those who have played Minecraft's island survival its about using the available resources to survive.
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That comparison sounds dumb at first glance but it's so true! If you were not to respawn, a lot of thought and planning must be put in those things. Not like you'll find a map in a deep sea cave leading to civilization, but yeah.
 
Mars would be the most likely bet after the moon as others have said.

It is said the trip would take 6 months when Mars is closest to us. However, it would take 18-20 months before Mars would be close enough to Earth for a return trip so the time adds up.

But with a pit stop space station however?
 
Hassknecht said:
The amount of exoplanets found so far in our rather close vicinity really begs the question of Fermi's paradox.
There definitely are a LOT of planets in the universe, and the fraction of those that can support life that we can easily understand (meaning that the conditions aren't too far off from Earth) should be quite high. Mind you that detecting exoplanets, especially small, Earth-sized ones is really hard, so there are more than we think out there.
So what is the reason we haven't made contact yet? Are we extremely lucky that there have been a few million years of nothing too big crashing into our planet or a gamma ray burst frying everything? Are we perhaps one of the first spezies in the universe actually reaching sentience and looking at the stars with wonder? That would be kinda depressing, but at least it would mean that maybe humans will form the first galactic empire, which would kinda rule.
Even more depressing would be that since sentient life similar to us probably only has one chance at reaching the stars. If a species depletes its easily accessible natural resources before it reaches the stars or suffers a major social collaps it's very much fucked, because it would have to go from medieval to shiny chrome fusion future without going through fossile fuel. Maybe sentient species like us are rare already, and maybe we all are prone to self-destruction? That'd suck, and mean that the Dung Ages are the end result of all the smartypants species in the universe.
Or maybe the vast emptiness is just too, well, vast to cross. Maybe it's just not reasonable for any species to try and cover a few dozen lightyears just to spread their shit on a new rock. Maybe it's easier to just build a Matrioshka brain out of your own star system and live forever in a computer simulation.
That would suck.

Well, my hope is that we survive long enough to tame the forces of physics enough so that we can actually reach other stars.
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I'm of the mind it's very likely that either we're dealing with a situation that the Singularity eventually removes species from physical existence or sentience actually isn't something which evolution naturally fosters. Kind of two different sides of the idea.

:)
 
DarkCorp said:
Mars would be the most likely bet after the moon as others have said.

It is said the trip would take 6 months when Mars is closest to us. However, it would take 18-20 months before Mars would be close enough to Earth for a return trip so the time adds up.

But with a pit stop space station however?
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There are some serious ideas to build something on Venus. It might sound crazy at first, but actually Venus has a few really cool advantages over Mars. First, it has more or less the same size like earth, so gravity would be very similar. Second, Venus has an thicker atmosphere compared to mars - less radiation.
The problem with Venus, you can't build anything on the surface. But, you could in theory use air ships to float around in regions that have much less preasure and general better temperature and all.
 
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