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Terraforming - Human Destiny or Hubris?
jangobongo writes "Space.com has a thought-provoking article written by Dave Brody for Ad Astra Magazine about the practical and ethical aspects of terraforming other planets. Mars is currently the focus of most terraforming debates, but the author's conclusion is: 'What works is what takes the least work: [terraform] asteroid/comet resources in near Earth orbits... Humanity would get lots and lots of cheap, free-floating, scalable, designer settlements in interesting, useful orbits.' These would then become stepping stones to other planets in our solar system and beyond."
You could build some sort of settlement, but it would always have to be enclosed. The resources and conditions are just not right for atmospheres.
Which would then need to be terraformed.
Thank you, Larry Niven!
And it showed its usefulness too!
I think there comes a time when a society or civilization must stand up and ask "What is important to us?"
As there's no current signs of anything we consider 'meaningful' life, it appears that the nearest planet shall be our manifest destiny. If, however, there was ANY reasonably meaningful life detected (or evidence of past life), I think this would be a much more significant debate.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
There is likely to be a huge territory battle between governments or corporations... or both. While in the end this may turn out best for the consumer it could lead to new kinds of wars errupting both on extra-terrestrial plains and back here on earth. Trade federations could rise from all of this and new powers and governments may form on newly terraformed planets.
"...if people respected copyright more, like you guys do with the GPL so religiously, [the DMCA] wouldn't be necessary."
Ad Astra was originally a space settlement magazine when the L5 Society merged with the National Space Society on condition that the emphasis on space settlement remain its ultimate priority.
What is the difference between a space settlement and a terraformed planet, you might ask?
The fact that you need to ask is evidence that the foundation of the National Space Society was long ago abrogated for more "fashionable" pursuits, such as those promoted by hucksters like Zubrin.
One of the better answers to that question is in Mike Combs' Space Settlement FAQ
Since the Ad Astrans have had the unmitigated chutzpah to quote the originator of the space settlement idea without talking about actual space settlement -- pretending the idea simply doesn't exist, I'm going to provide an appropriate rebuttal: The entirety of Mr. Combs' FAQ.
What is space settlement?
Space settlement is the concept of colonizing space by using extraterrestrial resources to construct artificial, closed-ecology habitats in orbit.
What is a space habitat?
A space habitat would be a pressurized sphere, cylinder, or torus (donut shape), rotating on its axis so that centrifugal force serves as an artificial gravity. The interior is landscaped with soil, water, and vegetation. Sunlight would be gathered by mirrors and reflected into the interior of the habitat through windows. The goal is to create as Earth-like an environment as possible.
How is space settlement different from any of the other space colonization proposals?
Most thinking regarding human expansion into space has focused on the settling of the surfaces of other planets, sometimes after modifying their environments to make them more Earth-like (called terraforming). The space settlement concept maintains that planets are not the most ideal location for human colonies beyond the Earth.
Aren't we going to terraform Mars or Venus?
Terraforming is a long-term project requiring technology significantly advanced over what we have today. Even terraforming advocates admit it would take a minimum of 200 years to modify Mars to the stage where even simple anaerobic microorganisms and algae can survive. [Ref: Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, Martyn J. Fogg, SAE Press 1995.] Space habitats, on the other hand, can be built with today's technology, and would be homes in space which people initiating the program could move into within their lifetimes.
Interstellar travel may someday become possible, but we have no guarantee that Earth-like planets will be as plentiful in the Milky Way galaxy as they have been in Hollywood, CA.
What advantages would orbital settlements have over a colony built on another planet?
Sunlight also drives the life-support system of the habitat, so the day/night cycle can be set to whatever is convenient. Compare this to the moon, where there is 14 days of continuous daylight, and then a 14-day-long night. Here, some alternate energy source would probably have to be used half the time.
Seastead this.
2- Ruin the newly habitable object - 10 years
3- Try again with another object
Let's work on immortality.
I'd hate to move to an asteroid outside of earth's orbit and die from this stupid cellular aging when I could've been floating above Uranus staring at that big red spot.
Wait a minute...
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Technically, haven't we terraformed Earth by cutting down forests, building cities where heat builds up in localized areas, and by raising the temperature of the globe? We definitely have the potential for it, but we need to work on applying it positively.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Sorry.... Even if we don't screw up the environment it's pretty much guaranteed that the earth is doomed. We are living right now in the Goldilocks band around the sun. Not too hot and not too cold. This band is slowly moving towards Mars effectively spelling out earth's destruction in a blaze of glory. The same thing will happen to Mars and pretty much all the other planets. This will happen faster if something like a black hole flies out and rips apart the sun.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
We already have terraforming on a massive scale right here on Earth. Massive walls. Massive dams. Massive strip mining. Flattening mountains. Canals. The irrigation of deserts. Hell, even something as simple as bulldozing a swamp for yet another Wal-Mart is terraforming. It's here. It's been here. And to answer the question... I think it's hubris, and when not done properly, you get what you have in the US... lots and lots and lots and lots of flat, paved parking lots that all look the same. We still don't adequately understand the consequences of what we do on a large scale like this (or even a small scale), but I'm guessing that it can't be good.
I don't respond to AC's.
If mankind colonizes space he will do the same thing he has done with every other fresh new piece of land on earth. He will consume resources until outer-space becomes an inhabitable wasteland.
... that the whole mars terraforming thing was mostly a way for scientists to get people to pay for missions to mars, to answer basic questions about the universe, because it's easier for people to grasp.
Much the same way "doing research in space to cure cancer" was a great way to pay for a space station, at least until it became something to keep the Russians busy with so they wouldn't make ICBMs for North Korea or something.
Gentoo Sucks
Well, it would be a lot easier to WiFi a comet or asteroid than a whole planet. Where do I sign up?
Eh, who needs planets? They are such a waste of mass for the surface area, as any member of The Culture would tell you, Orbitals are a much more elegant and efficient use of resources. Leave the planets alone. :)
What we need to have is giant solar panels in orbit around Venus to beam back all that solar energy as useable energy. With the supply of most fossil fuels disappearing over the next 50 years, we need a new alternative energy source. Assuming, of course, that the ozone doesn't disappear first and we all die from radiation exposure. Maybe we need to build underground cities first. Hmmm...
Strangest Goatse Reference Ever!
This is where we are going, right now all our eggs are in one basket, and this basket has proved itself to have major shake ups in the past, I dont think there could be a geological event that could kill ALL humans, but it would definately set us back thousands of years.
Terraforming is the one skill that will define Humanitys' ability to spread, and consequently SURVIVE, And its not about terraforming asteroids, sure its a step, but not a viable habitat should all technology fail, thats what terraforming is all about. Its a "save point", set up another system, such as a planet, where should all modern technology fail, humans could have the time and resources to rebuild to an albeit different but self sustaining civilization. And keep the process going for how ever long we have viable resources.
On the ethics of terraforming, I guess im a bit too darwinian to bring any ethics into this, for me and many others its simply a SURVIVAL issue, if there were life on a planet that we wanted to make in our image, should we kill them to support us? I am confident we can handle that question when It arises, and not piss ourselves thinking about it now, we are already developing the technology, and its only a matter of time.
You can liken terraforming with the modern industrialazation. Yes, a lot of people and places died to make it happen, and there were lots of areas we pretty much destroyed in the name of progress, but we are better off from it, we still have national parks, and most of our natural beauty on earth. But we have moved forward. There is no doubt my kids generation or later will have to deal with "Planet huggers" and what not, but generations later they will have the ability to complain, because of the work we will do for our survival.
There is truth in humor.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) is a very interesting series about (among other things) terraforming Mars. Fiction, but very well researched fiction. I highly recommend it.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
We will need some pretty advanced nanotech for both building and maintaning space settlements and terraforming planets too...but we also will need advanced medical nanotech so that we can repair the damage from exposure to radiation in space and on the surface of asteriods etc. because it's pretty harsh enviroment out there.
We'd had better start a lot less wars here on earth so that we can finance the nanotech research needed, after all, just in the last 5 years or so, the US and China and India, combined military spending has been OVER the 1-trillion (1000 billion or 1-million milionairs (if you had them all in a single room!!).
Imagine if we had invested that money into nano research instead, we would have had a working nanotech by right now, so that we could build any item you wanted from raw materials, you could cutom design that computer system you allways wanted (no gov't and hollywood/microsoft DRM crap!!), aso, you could use the nanotech to rebuild your body (if you are like a lot of us, over 25!!), so you could rejuvnate your body and mind back like you were 20-25 again and no getting old again, and if you have any medical problems like missing an arm or paralysed, etc, that could be solved too!!
It's funny, studies indicate that peaple would kill for the ability to cheaply reverse aging, (we spend toons of money on cosmeticals that don't work), but continue to finance the same old war behaviour every single decade, etc, and not invest in R&D to develop nano faster.
If you are a rich high-tech oriented person today, or you know one, you should insist that they help push the development of advanced nano/biotech, after all, it took only 4 years to develop the atom bomb, the same effort today could develop nano in 5 to 10 years, so why not do it, i'm surprised Bill Gates or Paul allen haven't developed advanced nano, if they did, the could be 10000 times richer and very much more famous too..
You could aso support the m-prize (they want to award a prize to the fist people who can stop/revese aging in a mouse model (http://www.mprize.org/).
Some reading from the "planets are for lusers" squad:
* Michael Swanwick's "Vacuum Flowers"
* Marshall T. Savage's "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps"
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
Well I noticed that Dave Brody stuck mention of space habitats at the end of the article after a whole lot of worthless back and forth so I suppose I owe him something of an apology -- but really -- doesn't he know how far out to lunch the debate has gotten since Zubrin hit the public relations mill? Why bury the ultimate solution when it is already so buried?
Seastead this.
The article makes a good point that it is more cost-effective to a) modify humans to live on mars, b) build smaller distributed habitats However, I think presenting terraforming as simply the idea of people who think it our 'biological imperative' to do so is rather short-sighted. Building habitats is an important first step. In fact it is likely the cheapest way to get a large population to kickstart a Martian colony (strap some boosters onto a habitat and send er out). Over time they could constitute some of the cheapest and most efficient sources of raw materials (solar energy, efficient hydroponics, and harvesting minerals from celestial bodies). Here's the problem that isn't mentioned: There is a cost in the initial creation of every habitat. And if we continue having an economy similar to ours, what is the motivation for a habitat to build another habitat? Yes it will happen anyways, but it won't be a situation of exponential growth. What then do we do with excess population? Terraforming a planet is a long and expensive endeavour. However, the costs are spread out over a long period of time and once done gives us a huge landmass for people to live and grow on. Further, while a planet is more sensitive to large scale disasters (comets and other attacks are suggested), the disasters are small compared to the overall large and distributed population on the planet. Habitats have their place, as do terraformed planets. If there is still life where ever we choose to go, we as a species do need to be sensitive to the fact that we have already damaged one ecology. Should we not find continued life on Mars or Venus or Alpha Centauri, then what harm does the project do?
Two words for the same thing!
If some don't believe we should go and habitate/terraform other planets, then they shouldn't be the ones to go.
Those that do believe it's the right thing to do, should go for it.
Evolution|God|Nature|Aliens have put us in a position to replicate and propogate, so why should our tiny little brain's 'ethics' center be preventing that? If you 'ethics' are preventing you from spreading your seed around the planet and universe, then your kind will die.
Terraforming is a quaint relic of a bygone age when Nature was humanity's plaything, the same era that dreamt of weather control and reclaiming the Sahara. These dreams came before we truly understood complexity and chaotic systems, showing just how difficult it would be to get them right.
I have to agree with the notion that if terraforming was so easy, maybe we could try to get the Earth back to its pre-industrial state before worrying about other worlds.
In the end, I believe that our descendants are much more likeley to alter themselves to survive in new environments than to expend huge amounts of time and energy making silly, primitive monkey people comfortable far away from their natural habitat. It would be like creating an enormous refrigeration unit the size of Greenland so that polar animals could live on an iceberg at the equator: Sure you could do it, but maybe polar bears just don't belong there.
Intelligent life from Earth has a marvellous future ahead of it in space. Very little of it will be unmodified homo sapiens, though.
Thank you, Kim Stanley Robinson.
We are the 198 proof..
We need to terraform the sun! All work will have to be confined to the nighttime hours, but think of all the real estate and farmland. Much more than some puny asteriod or planet.
We should exile life-imprisoned convicts to Mars, with the job of terraforming it. And monitor them for any development of any weapons which could reach back to Earth - and destroy it whenever they get it. Then, once terraformed, we should invade and take it over.
--
make install -not war
Up until recently, I thought terraforming was a neat idea and great fodder for science fiction. Then it made me realize how fragile the human body is, that we would have to orchestrate a Great Pyramid-caliber exercise to make a planet livable for our delicate bodies.
I'd much sooner see this R&D money go towards solving the geopolitical and socioeconomic problems that plague us already--rather than towards bluesky research that may be aborted by nuclear or bio-weapon cataclysm.
Am I just a party pooper?
Terraforming whole planets in the beginning of our space exploration seems pretty impractical. Why not create earth like environments inside of huge city sized domes like in CowBoy Bebop?
I would agree with the general point of the article, which is be smart about terraforming if you want it to actually happen. An integral and gradual approach.
I see no reason not to investigate terraforming asteroids.
I would advocate starting to 'terraform' now. In the sense that we could send robots to mars, asteroids, etc. and have them *start* the process. For example, a robot could go to mars/suitable asteroid and from there try to grow plants.
The robot could start a very small hydroponic (or whatever) farm wherever and send us data that would give us a better look at what our limitations are for mars, asteroids, etc.
just MHO
Thank you Dave Raggett
it's not like there's any life there anyway.
Seriously, the concept of terraforming sounds great, until you realize that we have no idea if there actually is life on other planets, because we have not done a full scientific study of the entire planet involved.
On the moon, we've only landed a few times - most has never even been seen closer than a few thousand miles distance.
On Mars, we've never sent humans, and only landed a handful of probes which did not have the ability to fully sample the biosphere.
For all we know, we landed on the equivalent of the Gobi Desert and Antartica - gee, no life, must be a dead planet, let's terraform Earth into something we Martians can use - thus goes the logic.
Will in Seattle
The moon isn't dense enough. It's gravity isn't enough sustain an atmosphere. Any implanted atmosphere would waft away into space.
We must mine minerals of the correct density and cart them up the space elevator.
Woo hoo. Finally a purpose for the space elevator.
?
Profit
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
I've always been a fan of boring out a station in the asteroid Eros, and spinning it up like the picture shows to create 1g artificial gravity at the ends of the asteroid.
Seems like the only way to get a large colony in space is to use materials already there.
Eros is attractive because we have already landed a craft on it.
To successfully terraform, OR to create a space settlement you need to establish a self-sustaining ecosystem. Well, theoretically you could support a colony with massive (literally) transfers of resources from Earth, but that would increase the costs of a colonization project at least 10 fold.
The only attempt that's been made to establish a self-sustaining ecology is the well-known Biodome project, which should've been promoted as an engineering prototype project, rather than being slurred as a badly-designed research project. In an engineering project, the objective would be to get the thing to work, while as a research project they didn't have sufficient experimental controls.
If we can't maintain a closed eco-system here on earth, it will take decades or centuries before we could do it in space or on the surface of another planet. To attempt space colonization before that would be suicidal.
Another plus of investigating the ecological aspects of space colonization first is that it will be easier to get buy-in from the Earth-first crowd, since such research can be used to develop techniques to terraform, optimize or restore Earth's environment.
We are the 198 proof..
This debate me of something I saw over on SciScoop some time ago:
(pasted below)
I recently heard Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation speak on a couple of related issues, and he gave us a very interesting perspective on all this - to paraphrase as best as I can remember:
"There are three distinct philosophies on doing things in space, which we can identify with three individuals: Carl Sagan, Wernher von Braun, and Gerard O'Neill. To the Sagans of the world, space is wondrous, grand, amazing, spectacular, and we should be learning all we can about it - but 'don't touch'! To the von Brauns, space is a proving ground for national grandeur, a place where we show how our engineers are the best, where we build the biggest rockets, the best space stations, and parade our astronaut heros to the world. To the O'Neills, however, space is the new American West: a place of hope and economic opportunity for all people."
Both the Sagans and the von Brauns have strong and traditional representations at NASA - the scientific and robotic missions follow that Sagan philosophy of "explore, but don't touch". Apollo was of course the quintessential von Braunian project, and the manned programs at NASA have attempted to follow in that mode ever since. But the O'Neill vision of space as a place for all people, as a location with resources bringing economic opportunity for the world, has had very little say in NASA up to this point.
Back to the current discussion, on the topic of terraforming Saganites seem to be against it quite often, as they're afraid of humans disturbing the sanctity of space. There's also bioconservatives who tend to see humanity as a virus which they want to keep quarantined to Earth, if not eradicated completely.
Many von Braunians are in favor of terraforming, while O'Neillians are very much in favor of both terraforming and orbital settlements. I personally think of myself as a Saganite that's recently "converted" to being an O'Neillian. There are few things I want to see more than see humanity become a multi-planet, spacefaring species.
We will simply exand our populations until we hit a hard limit, either by nature itself or one that's manmade. I don't see an ethical problem. That's what life is supposed to do. What we can do that's a little different is that we can leave the place in pretty good condition for the next guy. We don't need to destroy everything in our path to flourish. A good parasite takes good care of its host. We need to show respect for everything, "living" or not. Like the article says, we already effect the biology of this planet. Well duh! Just by existing. So what. What should we do? Give up our fly swatters? "...From my cold dead hands!" That "biological trajectory" crap is just that. We are so intermixed. There is no independant "biological trajectory". We all came from the same cloud of dust and gas. First off, we screwed that up with Viking and the rovers. So forget it. We already contaminated the place. May as well finish them off and put some god-fearin' earth bacteria up there. We didn't call it the "Red Planet" for nothing. Actually I don't expect us to have much effect beyond our local supercluster. And there's always the Borg.
...more resilient to (likely completely immune from) acts of senseless terrorism
:-)(That's a JOKE! Ask me if I care if you were offended by it)
...whether upon the surface of a terraformed sphere or within an engineered one...
...God (or at least the physics of the Universe)...
Along the way, you end up creating a whole host of custom-designed mini-worlds...
Hmmm...death stars.
Is it possible to find a single story without that word? This is Bush's fault
Populate the rest of the Solar System -- and as much farther out as you can get -- changing planets as needed. [OK, so there's the "T" word, finally.]
Especially since he seems reluctant to use that word?
Personally, I like the idea of terraformed spheres. It just seems much more dependable than any man made junk. Just heat up the interior(or cool it down as the case may be), and you're off to the races. And hitting a stray asteriod in a pressurized green house, while making a VERY cool noise, is not exactly my cup of tea. If that happens, somebody damn well better have a camera running.
Very well put.
What?
I recently found out about paraterraforming, which seems like an ideal way to do things. Basically, instead of terraforming an entire planet at once over a period of centuries, you construct a habitat which expands over time. From Wikipedia:
r aforming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming#Parater
Also known as the "worldhouse" concept, paraterraforming involves the construction of a habitable enclosure on a planet which eventually grows to encompass most of the planet's usable area. The enclosure would consist of a transparent roof held one or more kilometers above the surface, pressurized with a breathable atmosphere, and anchored with tension towers and cables at regular intervals. A worldhouse can be constructed with technology known since the 1960s.
Paraterraforming has several advantages over the traditional approach to terraforming. For example, it provides an immediate payback to investors; the worldhouse starts out small in area (a domed city for example), but those areas provide habitable space from the start. The paraterraforming approach also allows for a modular approach that can be tailored to the needs of the planet's population, growing only as fast and only in those areas where it is required. Finally, paraterraforming greatly reduces the amount of atmosphere that one would need to add to planets like Mars in order to provide Earthlike atmospheric pressures. By using a solid envelope in this manner, even bodies which would otherwise be unable to retain an atmosphere at all (such as asteroids) could be given a habitable environment. The environment under an artificial worldhouse roof would also likely be more amenable to artificial manipulation.
It has the disadvantage of requiring a great deal of construction and maintenance activity, the cost of which could be ameliorated to some degree through the use of automated manufacturing and repair mechanisms. A worldhouse could also be more susceptible to catastrophic failure in the event of a major breach, though this risk can likely be reduced by compartmentalization and other active safety precautions. Meteor strikes are a particular concern in the absence of any external atmosphere in which they would burn up before reaching the surface.
Small Worldhouses are often referred to as "Domes".
As far as asteroids, you could anchor the equipment down using some sort of piton gun, or by just strapping it to the asteroid with some long rope.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Terraforming is definitely hubris. It's one thing to contemplate tunnelling in some barren moon to provide space, another altogether to propose altering another planet.
First of all, it would be a crime against science - suppose some seemingly lifeless planet actually DID harbor life at one time in some small area - we might unknowingly destroy their fossils or submerge them under a huge body of water and never get the chance to discover them. We have barely begun to discover all there is about the Earth, and some place like Mars likely has untold numbers of wonders that we don't want to go mucking up. Wait until we've explored it fully? Well, we've had perhaps a million years to do that on Earth and we aren't done yet.
More to the point of hubris, though - here we are on a very habitable planet, one that has an incredibly complex feedback system to keep it habitable without effort, and we're failing at managing it. And we're proposing building our own from scratch? The very definition of hubris.
Some, but not all proponents of terraforming seem to think moving to another next will be our salvation from the one we've already messed up - this is pure idiocy. Even if we do manage it, only a few dozen people at a time will ever be lofted off of this rock. The bulk of the human race will always be on Earth, and those elsewhere will be colonies at best. Talk about inequality, increasing the gap between rich and poor - only the extremely priveledged (in a relative sense) will ever leave the earth, meanwhile billions will still languish in Calcutta-like slums.
This space available.
Terraforming means creating an Earthlike/human habitable environment. What we are doing is moving the Earth's environment away from the human habitable zone. One could make the argument that, after some centuries of learning our trade, via space habitats and Martian terraforming, we will some day come back and 'terraform' the Earth.
Terraforming at the planetry scale makes me think of humans as a type of bacteria or a type of cancer? Life certainly tries its best to survive.
So, no, IMNSHO, I think we're much more likely to end up ripping the planets apart (oh the humanity! how unromantic!) to make better use of the matter, than wasting space & energy by living on the limited surface area of a gravity well.
Power to the Peaceful
Third option:
Breasts!
Admittedly, I haven't read much on terraforming another planet/body, but something that's always gets stuck in my mind is the issue of timescales. What sort of timescales are we talking about when we talk of terraforming Mars? And once we have terraformed it how long do we wait to make sure the environment has stabilized?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
After all the killer asteroid movies, wouldn't increasing Mars' mass with asteroids be worrisome to the inhabitants? Which is to say, after the tech is available to get to Mars regularly, will the world really agree to wait a few hundred years to round up asteroids and bulk the planet up? Always seemed to me like it would be inhabited long before that.
Maybe there are some other feasible modifications like the solar lens Robinson wrote about?
Our solar system has enough energy/mineral resources to support trillions of humans, at a standard of living that current Americans could never dream of attaining.
Please don't fall for the argument of simplistic environmentalsts who insist that the "pristine" celestial bodies must be preserved at all costs. Eliminating poverty and overcrowding is much more important.
Yes, we should attempt to preserve any alien species we might encounter (and completely sequence their DNA, in case we screw up in that regard).
The alternative to the "final frontier manifest destiny" is for humans to stay earthbound until we blow each other up in a fight over increasingly scarce resources. For pete's sake, don't doom the human race to this fate out of concern that we might taint the environment of some alien microbe!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
We have as much right to terraform another planet as we do to plant gardens and tend farms here on this planet.
If there is a rule that says it is unethical to change another planet, then it must be equally unethical to change anything on this planet. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We have every right and every reason to exploit, manage and protect whatever planet we live on to our own advantage. That doesn't mean destroying a planet, but management requires making decisions. Our survival and our expansion as a species is our highest priority.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Here is a Terra-forming/gaming related web-comic that me and my wife just started work on. http://akaisabaku.com/
:)
We are still working on the whole funny thing
only one everything
If you're talking about just asteroids, and not something with a sustainable built-on atmosphere, then you are totally dependant on the supply chain. Hell, even if you have an atmosphere, you still need other things. The only way that this is viable for long term human habitation is when you can locally make everything you need to not only exist, and survive, but thrive. Humanity as a whole has shown very limited success when we are dependant on a remote supply chain - when that chain fails for any of a dozen reasons, we are at the very least no longer thriving, at the worst, dead.
The list of "what we need" goes like this:
1) Machines that produce air for us to breathe (or an indefinate supply, i.e. planet-size)
2) Machines that produce food / nutrients (or again, indefinate, planet-size supply)
3) Machines to fix the machines that break, because they will.
4) Machines to make the machines that fix the machines, and better yet, machines that make more of themselves and anything else we need.
And yes I know a planet-sized supply isn't technically indefinate, but you know what I mean.
Now if each of those conditions are met, then yes, terraforming is very possible, and probably even necessary given our wars and rate of expansion.
If it's just food and air we're supplying, and not "stuff to thrive" (equipment & tools to make NEW things) then we might as well send chimps instead of people.
And don't give me any crap about "We didn't have all that on THIS planet, and look at us now!"
I for one am not going to colonize a new planet so I can hand-mine ores from the rocks, build a crude smelter, and work my ass up the technology tree.
So, Mars lacks a magnetic field. What good is terraforming if you have to shield every habitat? People would have almost no time to get to shelter after a solar flare erupts toward Mars.
Does noone realise that if we did this, every ASTEROID would have a McDonalds put on it? Geez, keep the multi-national (soon to be multi-planetary?) conglomerates to yourself please, Planet Earth.
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
We will simply exand our populations until we hit a hard limit,''
Why do you assume that human populations will grow endlessly until they hit a Malthusian limit? In the civilized world birth rates have fallen far below replacement levels. The population in Europe is declining rapidly if you exclude Muslim immigrants. Populations in the USA and Canada are declining when you exclude Hispanic immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America. Japan's population is also declining except for the immigrants. Only China and India have growing populations and it's very likely that will reverse as soon as their people achieve economic comforts similar to Europe and North America.
Perhaps this is what happened to other sapient species. Once they achieved economic comfort and lots of personal freedom, raising large families was just too inconvenient.
Humans kill each other all the time, either in a warlike or prenatal state, life on other planets will not be a true consideration.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
Do you mean to say I should stop investing in real estate.. with so much of supply the prices are going to fall anyway..
Why terraform?
Even the most advanced terraforming techniques would not produce an environment as pleasant (for the most part) as Earth's. e.g. You'll have issues of different planet mass resulting in different gravities.
Over the next few decades our understanding and mastery of genetic engeneering will make it possible to modify plants animals and humans to make them better suit the native environment.
e.g. a higher gravity planet could be accompanied by stockier and stronger genetic stock. e.g. different atmospheric compositions could be accompanied by modified respitory systems.
With a xenomorphing approach you could save on shipping out all the heavy terraforming equipment. Instead you can ship out a few kilograms of genetic material and assembly equipment. And grow the passengers on the other end. The lighter mass and simpler nature of the payload would mean it would be require less fuel to power the flight and higher accelerations would be possible meaning that more trips can be made for less cost in less time. That would beat having to ship out humans for multi-generational voyages.
You might then ask why I actually read it. I was suffering from bad insomnia at the time (went for 4 or 5 months with only a couple of hours each night...) and the drugs weren't working too well. You probably think I'm making this up. I'm actually 100% serious.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
It would be pretty easy to load a bunch of 30th century fertilizer up on one of those rocks once they were moved near by and slam them into the planet creating an extinction event.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
There is allot of SF on this subject, but a habital inviroment does not have to be on the surface of a asteroid. allso the mined resources will be worth the effort
One of the ideas that deep ecologists put forward is the "Gaia Hypothesis" which says that the whole earth is an organism. I decided to use this as the basis for my argument which is: don't all living things have to sooner or later reproduce? How does the earth reproduce? How does all the DNA of its lifeforms get spread to other planets? The reproductive system of the earth is us! The evolution of the human species was not a gigantic horrible accident as some deep ecologists seem to imply but the natural inevitable course of development of life on earth. So when planets get a nice stable atmosphere and start to grow life they will eventually develop intelligent life that will reproduce the planet. Our rockets going out to other planets are like seeds leaving a dandelion to land somewhere else and grow there.
We like our planet, the life and the things on it and we have an unstoppable desire to explore that has been with us since the first humans showed up. Intelligent life leaving a planet to go space exploring and terraforming is just the natural cycle that planets, like other organisms go through.
Mars is like the dirt that a seed lands in. The dirt may have the same chemicals as the dandelion and a few bacteria but it is mostly dead. The dandelion seed lands there and starts growing, taking chemicals from the environment, etc.
Venus would be much better. First, it's got a gravity closer to that of Earth. Second, being closer to the sun means more free solar energy. How to terraform it...
1 - Nanotech or genetically engineered bacteria to eat the atmosphere. We're only a decade or two away from this step at most.
2 - Nudge the orbit of a few icy comets to provide water. We can do this step today.
3 - More nanotech or genetically engineered bacteria to make a suitable atmosphere. Like step 1, only a decade or two away.
4 - Seed organisms to provide suitable soil for growing plants. We can do this today as well. There are many dealers of "pure" soil - dirt that's been sterilized, then made organic. Guaranteed free of weeds and pests and what-not.
5 - Large-scale replanting and stocking of animals.
I'm not saying the steps are easy or quick, but they ARE realistic and attainable with time and effort. The single biggest problem with Venus - no large satellite to hold its axis stable. A lot of people don't realize, the moon is a godsend to the Earth. It holds the axis stable so that seasons are stable.
We are capable of absolutely transforming environments. The place you lie, sit, or stand reading this was probably altogether different a hundred years ago, not to mention two thousand years ago; and almost all of those changes were brought about by human beings. We have completely remade our world in the past few centuries, changing life for almost every kind of plant and animal, ourselves most of all. It only remains for us to experiment with executing (or, for that matter, not executing) these changes intentionally, in accordance with our needs and desires, rather than at the mercy of irrational, inhuman forces like competition, superstition, and routine.
Once we realize this, we can claim a new destiny for ourselves, both individually and collectively. No longer will we be buffeted about by powers that seem beyond our control; instead, in this exploration of ourselves through the creation of new environments, we will learn all that we can be. This path will take us out of the world as we know it, far beyond the farthest horizons we can see from here. We will become artists of the grandest kind, painting with desire as a medium, deliberately creating and recreating ourselves--becoming, ourselves, our own greatest work.
To accomplish this, we'll need to learn how to coexist and collaborate successfully: to see just how interconnected all our lives are, and finally learn to live with that in mind. Until this becomes possible, each of us will not only be denied the vast potential of her fellows, but her own potential as well; for we all make together the world that each of us must live in and be made by. The other thing that is lacking is the knowledge of our own desires. Desire is a slippery thing, amoebic and difficult to pin down, let alone keep up with. If we're going to make a destiny out of the pursuit and transformation of desire, we first must find ways to discover and release our loves and lusts. For this, not enough experience and adventure could ever suffice. So the makers of this new world must be more generous and more greedy than any who have come before: more generous with each other, and more greedy for life!
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
I would say that the first step to terra forming is to get the hang of not reverse terra forming our own planet.
Terra forming does not have to be left to the high powered scientist of the distant future.
We can do it here, now on Earth. Trade in the SUV for a hybrid or a smaller car. Use green technologies. At least stop littering.
To build up the kind of heat you'd need requires redirecting lots of solar energy. Keeping human energy inputs to a minimum would probably involve large mirrors in orbit, or big solar evaporator farms on the surface.
Luke, help me take this mask off
[page 1]
We're doing it on the Earth," argues Jim Bell, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Rovers' PANCAM, "We're changing the Earth's atmosphere whether we realize it or not
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Almost a century ago, Tsiolkovsky's stunning intuition showed that long before you get to the level of engineering required to transform whole worlds, you already have everything you need to prosper in space without such worlds! And there are very good reasons not to automatically gravitate to planets
"Humanity would get lots and lots of cheap, free-floating, scalable, designer settlements in interesting, useful orbits."
Yeah, that would work really well assuming that one doesn't mind dying a few years later when the body can barely function due to the aprophy muscles undergo in extremely low gravity. Even if it turns out that humans can survive extreme periods of zero gravity, they would never be able to leave the low gravity environment. Sounds pretty crappy to me.
Terraforming is one of those cool ideas that's just going to take a while, sort of like virtual reality and fusion power. But eventually we'll get to the point where we can send out an army of self-replicating robots to do the work, and then colonize the planet a little later. It might seem a lot less interesting than the bullshit magic probes of Star Trek, but it sure as hell isn't hubris.
The real question is whether we will start to directing / regulating this terraforming to repair past degradations of the biosphere.
We can make Earth such a nice place that we don't need per se to go to Mars. That seems to me to be a really good goal: Replenish the Earth.
That's just weak. Don't worry, oh hater of Man. The planet will have its day.
If the parking lots and interstate highways no longer serve a purpose, and the evil Man leaves Earth for good, the descendants of a single dandelion could re-prairitize the land they occupy in the blink of a geological eye.
But to me, planets are expendable. Other species are expendable. Though each individual human is more valuable than the entirety of another species or a galaxy of planets, individuals are expendable.
Only the human race is not expendable.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
...There's a difference?
Terraforming a planet like Mars would be a brutally long, slow, expensive process -- and a pointless one. Mars can be colonized by AI robots.
Humans need to explore Mars, because robots capable of doing the job properly may still be 50 years away. But when it comes to colonization and settlement in the longer term, robots will do it. Simply put, we can adapt ourselves -- or our descendants -- to Mars much quicker and easier than we can adapt Mars to us.
So long as we don't disrupt the lives of other sentient beings. Speaking of which, it would be nice if we did better here on Earth...
You mean to say we're not doing well enough here on Earth? ! ! I'm Shocked! Shocked I say!
If there's intelligent life out there with mod points left, mod the parent up, please.
Are our efforts going to be directed towards improving the environment, or will we blithely ignore obvious destruction of it? I prefer a nicely tended garden to well and truly poisoned patch of dirt.
Those organisms that fail to reproduce (either as a species or as an ecosystem) become extinct. We have a duty to spread earth's essence to the universe before something irreversable happens to it and us.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
There will be none of these grand plans. Civilisation will crash first. Sad but true. http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Our moon is easier to get to, and has a lower gravity. So it's easier to "fly" on the moon. Also, since the moon has no atmosphere, there wouldn't be any wind loads on the structure. It would need a blanket of dirt to protect against very small meteorites, but then again, the dirt wouldn't impose much of a load.
Well by "flying" I mean actually flying, IE your in a big giant dome on the moon that has an atmosphere inside of it and you put on wings and fly by flapping your arms and gliding.
By the time we have the resources and technology to terraform on a large scale, we will have "transmogrified" OURSELVES so we do not NEED to terraform planets.
A fully developed nanotech entity needs only five things:
1) Energy.
2) Matter.
3) Nanomass.
4) Knowledgebases.
5) Computing power.
A postbiological entity does not need food, air, water, or any of the things present day humans want to terraform a planet to provide.
A Transhuman might modify a planet or other object for other purposes, but "terraforming" as people usually refer to it would be pointless except as an experiment. It certainly won't be needed to provide "living space" as there is effectively unlimited "living space" for a Transhuman throughout space.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I think it would be cool, too. I just wanted to point out that it is easier to do on the moon, and cheaper to get there, and cheaper to build to the dome.
Oh, please. I said the Earth back to its preindustrial state, not humanity. Given that I then talk about posthuman or AI space exploration, I think it was blatantly clear that I wasn't being a luddite.Watch that kneejerk, fella, you could put someone's eye out.
If I'm living in an asteroid, and the Rapture comes, will God be able to find me?
Read the rest of this comment... - that's not a comment, that's a space station. I mean that's a F Article.
You can't handle the truth.
He did not suggest the human race should give-up, he just stated the obvious. Intelligent creatures don't give up, they just die trying ;))
You can't handle the truth.
We should spend more dollars on science and technology to save our planet unless we plan to having to "terraform" Earth someday because of all the crap we did to her.
Anyway, this debate is pointless because if it's possible for terraforming to happen, it will happen. That's just the way these things are. It's like human cloning, stem cell research, abortion and use of nuclear power. There is so much motive to do them that if they are possible they will happen, somewhere, by someone, no matter what the ethicists and philosophers have to say about it.
What are the motives to terraform Mars? Real estate! A place to live free from the controls of all Earth-bound governments. Those two desires have been powerful motivations for exploration for thousands of years. If the technology makes it feasible, it will happen.
Longer answer: anyone who's actually thuoght about the physics involved and still thinks it's worth wasting cycles on, needs to try a different medication.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Seriously. Ton of nukes at the martian poles. Heats up the planet, vaporizes the CO2 and water in the poles, thickening the atmosphere, and maybe putting enough of both out there to sustain plantlife and start making some o2.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
What about terraforming the earth?
With the global warming increasing, we need to think about taking counter measure to cool the earth.
What about a molecule tht could caputure CO2 in the atmosphere to bring the CO2 level down to pre industrial era?
Screw Mars. Seriously.
is a great book that goes into many of the technical details of terraforming,
moving stars to better locations, and building atmospheres using bacteria.
A wonderful book, if you want to actually read more about the subject!
That would create a lot of radioactive dust (fallout) and I don't think that would help the spread of life (human or otherwise) on the planet.
By the way, am I the only eurotrash who is amazed at how easily nukes will be suggested by some Americans as a natural solution for a variety of problems? I would say here in Europe nukes are seen as a symbol of death, a sad reminder of how we humans can use our ingenuity to kill and mutilate ourselves in massive, horrible ways. Obviously nukes don't have the same associations in the American mind.
A sad fact of human history is that over several generations there tends to occur a "collapse" in technology. In other words, we forget how things were done in the past and for a few generations we have to go back to basics in order to "rediscover" how our ancestors really did everything that was accomplished around us.
Historical examples include Easter Island, the Roman Empire, Egypt, Incas, Central Africa, and several periods of time in China.
The rougher aspects of what occur during a technology collapse is what happens to the colonists that are left to hang out and dry when this occurs. A good historical example is how the Viking colonists in Greenland had a very successful colony, with a dozen towns and even a Catholic diocese (to give an idea of the number of people living there). A climate shift occured together with political changes in Europe that made it significantly difficult to continue to support the colonies in Greenland, and as a result the colony there dwindled and eventually died out.
I would sure hate to be living on something like L-5 when a political revolution occurs in America or Europe... at least if basic life support or other resources still needed to be "imported" in order to keep the place going. A more concrete example is how MIR was launched by the USSR, but a couple of cosmonauts were trapped on board when a political change occured and they landed essentially in a whole new country that wasn't there before they left. What would have happened if the new Russia didn't care about the fate of those cosmonauts?
By living on a "planet", you can survive a technology collapse and have the raw materials needed to rebuild your civilization to regain the technology know-how in order to advance even further. I put planet in quotes because it may be possible for a partial collapse in technology where on an asteroid you have only the tools to do basic repairs until you can reaquire the infrastructure to expand again. I just don't see how on an O'Neill colony that would be possible.
Larger teraformed planets (or even a planet like the Earth) can support an almost total collapse of technology back to a hunter/gatherer level of civilization, while smaller minor planets could only support a lower level of collapse. The question is how far can you go if knowledge is locked up/patented/copyrighted/forbidden/classified and as a result forgotten by future generations?
This is not to suggest that O'Neill colonies or living on asteroids is wrong to do, but planetary teraforming is going to be necessary if only to act as an emergency reserve "just in case" and as an investment into the future. That and there is no reason why both can't occur simultaneously except for purely political/religious reasons.
Why don't we just terraform ourselves a new ozone layer right here if it's that easy. Then we won't have to spend money and time on flights to mars.
I, for one, welcome our new von Neumann probe overlor--hey, quit it! Stop eating my leg...aaaarrrggghhh!!!
The fallout would naturally degrade and become harmless long, long before anyone would be trotting around Mars without a pressure suit.
I'm not so sure about that. I've read that Hiroshima and Nagasaki still experience cancer rates well above normal levels, and it's been 60 years since the bombing. I don't know if that is due to the fallout or something else, but whatever it is, if the biggest deposits of water in Mars are polluted by it that might create problems for human activity in Mars for generations.
The point is that I don't think using nuclear explosives is needed, a device that uses nuclear power in a controlled way can evaporate the necessary amount of ice to create the atmosphere, with a much smaller danger of contaminating things with radiation.
Also, I think that dust does not create greenhouse effect; on the contrary, it tends to decrease the amount of insolation. Haven't you heard of nuclear winter?
You should read Ad Astra more often :-)
Energy: time to change the picture.
Evolved humans flying through space. No suits or ships.
Placing a large (presumably rotating) disk of reflective mylar in co-orbit with Venus will cast a permanent shadow on the other-wise hellishly hot planet. Eventually with global cooling the CO2 gas responsible for the runaway greenhouse effect will condense out thereby reducing not only the greenhouse effect but also the crushing atmospheric pressures. This is a phase change and may occurr quite rapidly and to a significant extent. I welcome your thoughts on this.
For anyone interested in this type of discussion, the book series by Kim Stanley Robinson, titled "Red Mars," "Green Mars," and "Blue Mars" makes a fascinating read...
It's a first person storyline that shifts perspectives occasionally, while describing the travels and subsequent settlement of Mars by "the first hundred."
I can't say enough good things about this series! Pick a copy up and read it yesterday!!!
Why a blanket of dirt? Why not just make the dome thicker? I mean, if you're going to add any load at all, shouldn't you add load that also offers structural support?
Loose dirt protects against cosmic rays and micrometeorites. Structural concrete can do the same, but actually does worse at protecting against impacts. A high speed impact causes a shock wave in a solid structure, which cracks the structure, and causes the back face to spall off as shrapnel. With loose dirt the energy is absorbed near the face, rather than being transfered as a shock wave. Due to the low gravity, very little structural material is needed to hold up the dirt blanket.