"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."
Stephen Hawking

"There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years?"
Isaac Asimov

"every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds."
Carl Sagan


Is it possible with current or near future technology? Should we pursue this 'madness' in our lifetime? Is it practical? What methods should we use? Robots only? Humans? Humans in deep cryogenic sleep? Human embryos to be raised by machines on new worlds we find suitable for life? Should governments have a say in such efforts? Should it be a private venture only? What say you?

12/14/2011 8:18:28 PM

Current technology, we could be in Alpha Centauri in 100 years if we tried. 50 years for fabrication of space ship/necessary tech, 50 years for travel.

12/14/2011 9:05:48 PM

Imagine a space habitat. It can't run of fossil fuels (not that we can for much longer anyway), but it will need lots of energy, no doubt. It's going to run off one of two

- Nuclear power
- Solar

The distinction between fusion and fusion power actually doesn't matter much for this discussion.

There are a good number of reasons we should expand to establish a space presence throughout the solar system. There's basic orbit and there and the L2 points and other kinds of nice places to just sort of float around. The bottom line will be there. Manufacturing can scale completely differently with a million robots working in zero gravity.

Now imagine we become established in these places with nuclear power. What's the difference, then, between living in our solar system, living right next to it, or flying off to the next star? Actually not much.

Because space provides so little hospitality for creatures like us, we basically have to learn to create closed systems for us to live in (aside from energy) to simply establish a permanent presence there. Taking any long term, high population, space colony and adding propulsion to it isn't particularly novel or challenging.

Everything hinges on the viability for us to live in space itself, and not on other rocky planets. Provided we learn to comfortably live in the emptiness of space then the leap to saying "fuck the solar system, I'm peacing out" is trivial.

12/14/2011 10:18:43 PM

I don't see humans populating space without FTL technology.

Between being on the verge of finding the higgs boson and the trillion FPS camera, maybe this will happen. But there's not really anything on the horizon as far as this is concerned.

12/14/2011 10:37:54 PM

^ That's the mental hurdle people can't seem to overcome. It would be SO much easier to populate space if the people we send out to colonize don't come back.

I mean you have to think about this as people from Europe populating America, you didn't take your family, make the voyage, take pictures, and return back to Europe.

12/14/2011 10:44:22 PM

^^^Awesome answer. This solar system could potentially provide enough resources for hundreds of thousands of years if not more I imagine assuming we can peacefully occupy it as we expand.

However with the discovery of places like Kepler 22b and potential similar planets we could survive in with little help could be useful in the short and long term while we perfect the ability to survive in space without the need for a planet like earth.



[Edited on December 14, 2011 at 10:47 PM. Reason : ^^^]

12/14/2011 10:47:21 PM

Quote :

" That's the mental hurdle people can't seem to overcome. It would be SO much easier to populate space if the people we send out to colonize don't come back. "

Even with this model, success would be a rare treat with space colonies/long term missions.

Between diseases, resource issues, meteorite collisions, equipment failures, hardware failures, etc., etc., any long term space mission would be far more likely to fail that succeed.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try, because I think we should, but I wouldn't bank on it saving humanity.

We would really need "exotic" technologies I think like force fields, very power energy generators, and a way to perfectly recycle our waste products (even bodily fluids).

The biggest hurdle here is the exotic technologies. I'm holding out for a breakthrough that lets us wrangle atoms in ways we can't currently imagine.

12/14/2011 11:25:39 PM

We could build a civilization on mars with existing technology. It would be hell for anyone that went to live there for several generations, perhaps forever, but they could survive underground. I would be in favor of a bunch of one-way trips to mars. I myself would never go, but others would, and I'd be happy to donate time and money to send them there. It would be truly awesome.

Here is a question. Which would you bring with you to live permanently on mars: solar panels to produce electricity during the day an ever decreasing amount as they wear out or break over the decades. Or, a nuclear reactor, which will also eventually run out over the decades but also produces electricity all day and all the heat you could ever want to both heat your living space and melt surface soil to collect water?

12/14/2011 11:30:35 PM

I don't think we could pack enough food/food sources on a ship to get to Mars now. You'd need at least 3-4 years of food at a minimum to try and establish a colony.

We'd have to build a space-based launch platform, then stuff it full of food.

That's at least a 15 years proposal.

The problem with trying to plan a mission like that is by the time you're off the drawing boards, technology would have changed so much that you need to go back.

But then you have to choose between funding a mission based on obsolete technology, or reworking your plan with new technology, and then other things happen, costs balloon, people get antsy.

This would be awesome, but i don't see a mission like this being approved/funded any time soon.

Maybe if SpaceX or Virgin Galatic takes off (no pun intended) they might run a leaner but riskier mission that could work out.

12/14/2011 11:44:19 PM

Quote :

"solar panels to produce electricity during the day "

solar panels typically charge a battery bank. which then powers appliances and such off peak hours.
yes, solar panels only charge the batteries during the day, but that's the point. the more panels and batteries you have the more energy you store and are able to reserve for later.

if we had robots that could manage the nuclear reactor fine, then sure, i'd go with that option. just seems like panels would be easier and more hands off though (similar to the ISS)

the energy needed to melt water again, could be accomplished with panels or nuclear. just depends on where you to spend your labor. maintaining a nuclear reactor, or just setting up loads and loads of panels.



[Edited on December 14, 2011 at 11:51 PM. Reason : ,]

12/14/2011 11:46:27 PM

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/billionaire-to-join-private-space-race-with-biggest-plane-20111215-1ovp3.html

A new challenger appears...

12/14/2011 11:59:03 PM

What if we put human sperm and eggs on a spaceship and send them to another star with robots. When they land on an earth-like planet, however long it takes. The robots on the planet build materials from the new planet to reanimate the humans.

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 12:22 AM. Reason : ]

12/15/2011 12:19:27 AM

And the robots raise the babies?

12/15/2011 12:20:58 AM

^ that is normally the implication, yes.

Quote :

"You'd need at least 3-4 years of food at a minimum to try and establish a colony."

They will grows their food using hydroponics both on the way there and once they get there. Getting such a big ship to land would be very difficult, but there is no point to leaving anything in orbit you might be able to use on the surface.

12/15/2011 12:41:06 AM

I feel the same as mrfrog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Three - something like this is a much more realistic prospect than habitating other planets thousands of light years away.

We could probably build billions of these with the resources available within our own solar system.


Also as for long term survivability of humanity, each one of these colonies would obviously be much more fragile than a planet but millions spread out over vast distances Humanity would be much more resilient and difficult to wipe out in a single cosmic incident.

12/15/2011 12:49:24 AM

Theoretically for Mars, you don't need to send everything on a single ship. You could first launch colonization equipment and supplies with robots to do initial staging then send people afterward.

12/15/2011 12:55:52 AM

Is there really a solution to the problem of cosmic and solar radiation creating a bath of spallation neutrons, muons, and gamma rays for a space based civilization?
I never really appreciated how much of a problem this was until I looked at semiconductor detectors in space.

12/15/2011 2:32:01 AM

We are a space based civilization, aren't we?

We just have a really big ship. AMIRITE?

http://youtu.be/7i2QDpGRQKc

12/15/2011 8:02:57 AM

Quote :

"Is there really a solution to the problem of cosmic and solar radiation creating a bath of spallation neutrons, muons, and gamma rays for a space based civilization? I never really appreciated how much of a problem this was until I looked at semiconductor detectors in space."

Generate an atmosphere and/or a magnetosphere simliar to Earth's?

12/15/2011 8:42:34 AM

^^i <3 Neil deGrasse Tyson. Also yeh, we have a nice ship. Should have enough resources for us for another 1000 years. Might run out sooner if we don't try cleaning up after ourselves.

[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 9:01 AM. Reason : ,]

12/15/2011 9:01:31 AM

this ^^^ and ^

Just to add an alternate viewpoint, I pretty much reject long-term space travel. I think it would be a living hell for the humans you sent.

Quote :

"we basically have to learn to create closed systems for us to live in"

It would be easiest for us to attempt to do this here first. If we did there would really be no need to leave the paradise that is earth. All it would take is a slight change in perspective and values, we already have most of the knowledge and technology we need.

12/15/2011 9:40:35 AM

^^Really? Not to be a douche, but I'm surprised.

This is one of my favorite Tyson clips and I'd love to get your response:
http://youtu.be/9BRDCxNEuyg

12/15/2011 9:43:06 AM

Aren't we able to produce matter/antimatter reactions in CERN?

If we could harness that and contain the reaction, we could make some pretty badass engines.



^yes I believe in UFOS but I think they are all spy planes or tests by the military. we don't have enough evidence like he says, but you can't rule it out 100%. he sort of thrashes it though in a sense like 'pffft ufos'. i guess i could say the same like 'pffft primordial soup spontaneously forming RNA strands pffft i'll believe it when i see it'

but that's his style. and i happen to like it. a lot. and in fact i'll take his stance on both those issues. i'll believe it when i see it.


[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 10:11 AM. Reason : ,]

12/15/2011 10:08:51 AM

I'm referring more to the whole part about argument from ignorance, stopping the conversation when you don't know, brain failures, and the uselessness of eyewitness testimony.

12/15/2011 10:28:34 AM

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

Alcubierre drive?

12/15/2011 10:59:57 AM

Antimatter is not a good fuel source as we have no engines that require that kind of instantaneous power. The best engine we have is an ion drive which burns very little power over a very long time, which means nuclear is your best bet. The two will weigh about the same amount after including shielding and fuel containment, only nuclear would be a whole lot cheaper to build and much safer to both put into space and live with.

On the other hand, maybe you should produce your antimatter in space using solar power...that might make antimatter the cheaper option, especially if we are fueling a bunch of missions and not just one.

12/15/2011 11:25:50 AM

I think the bottom line is that it would take a significant leap in technology and we have no real way to predict how or when those happen.

Imagine what people must have thought about powered flight when it first came out. I think it's likely that we'll have a similar breakthrough into FTL space travel at some point in the future, even though it's clearly much more difficult to travel through space than it is to create lift with a fixed winged airplane.

12/15/2011 11:57:45 AM

^ FTL would be nice, but we don't need it to colonize our own solar system. What other technology do you think we are missing?

As for colonizing another solar system, current technology could do that too, with a multi-generation ship and a vast amount of fissile material.

In both cases it would be ungodly uncomfortable for those that went. But the risk of complete failure is unlikely, as space flight on a large enough scale is so slow there is plenty of time for the people living there to fix stuff that breaks on the way.

12/15/2011 12:17:10 PM

Quote :

"if we had robots that could manage the nuclear reactor fine, then sure, i'd go with that option. just seems like panels would be easier and more hands off though (similar to the ISS)"

Perhaps a nuclear reactor much like the nuclear radioisotope generator we just fucking sent there.

And perhaps a robot like the one currently operates that radioisotope generator that we also just fucking sent there.

12/15/2011 12:57:31 PM

I don't think we have the technology for multigenerational ships.

And for a mission to mars, it seems like it makes less sense to have a bunch of hydroponic stuff that uses energy to run vs. just storing a bunch of space food.

You'd want to farm stuff once you get to the planet though.

12/15/2011 7:37:36 PM

^^that 'superior' fucking nuclear reactor we just sent there generates only 110W for possibly a few years total compared to 140W generated by its solar powered cousins for over 25 years. So, so much for those cheap easy to maintain 'high powered(lol)' nuclear fucking reactors.

Silly boy. Do some research before you try to troll again.

Just imagine. You nuclear fucking reactor could run a radio and a flatscreen tv. lol.

its not even a nuclear reactor. no atoms are splitting. it's just naturally decaying plutonium. if you want a 'real nuclear reactor' you're going to need more than NASA's curiosity to maintain it as you assume. but i'm sure you knew all of that 100%. so i'll move on.

^also moron, yes we don't have the technology currently for that. for some reason that doesn't concern me now as long as it's an objective of humanity. in 50 years, we went from flying 12 feet off the ground to setting foot on the moon. and now another 50 years later we have probes exiting the solar system.

i find it imprudent to assume in the next 50 years we won't see other leaps similar to what we've seen.



[Edited on December 15, 2011 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ,]

12/15/2011 7:52:00 PM

Quote :

"And for a mission to mars, it seems like it makes less sense to have a bunch of hydroponic stuff that uses energy to run vs. just storing a bunch of space food."

In space, the sun never sets. Lifting stuff such as food and oxygen into space is damned expensive. However, slapping some solar panels on the craft and just having the crew eat and breath the same stuff over and over seems like a winner.

For a permanent settlement on mars they will need hydroponics and a source of energy to run it when they get there. Since that stuff will therefore be lifted into orbit from Earth anyway, that stuff is practically free for the actual trip to mars.

^ The reactor was built to satisfy the particular application. They could have scaled it up if they wanted to. What they could not have done is gotten 100W continuously from solar panels slapped on the rover.

And you are wrong about the longevity of such decay batteries. The nuclear decay batteries on the Voyager spacecraft have been operating continuously for over 34 years and are still going.

That said, with a person there to manage the reactor and replace fuel rods, I'm sure a convenient reactor could be built to last for generations given sufficient fuel. Bury the spent fuel far away from camp :-)

Of course, I doubt any such settlement on mars would rely upon any one fuel source. Solar panels work and are user friendly. But nuclear offers ancillary benefits such as vast amounts of waste heat to warm the habitat and intense heat to perform industrial processes such as refining ore into metal or forcing various chemical processes to make more atmosphere.

[Edited on December 16, 2011 at 12:04 AM. Reason : .,.]

12/15/2011 11:54:20 PM

Quote :

"having the crew eat and breath the same stuff over and over seems like a winner"

win.

technically, well exactly, like earth. just on a smaller scale.

12/16/2011 12:00:57 AM

The complete 'win' would be if we managed to engineer human bodies to subsist energy wise on pure electricity. The light in photosynthesis is used to dislodge an electron into motion to then do work building the chemical fuels needed for life. Some biologists were trying to bypass the solar step to allow plants to live directly off DC current. Whenever we master genetic engineering this could be made possible for most organisms, such as humans going to traverse the darkness between stars. With genetic engineering we should also be able to fix our vitamin deficiencies, so you won't even need to take a vitamin pill.

12/16/2011 12:12:44 AM

We should just fully commit to Project Orion and use all the nukes we have.

12/16/2011 12:13:39 AM

Quote :

"In space, the sun never sets. Lifting stuff such as food and oxygen into space is damned expensive. However, slapping some solar panels on the craft and just having the crew eat and breath the same stuff over and over seems like a winner. For a permanent settlement on mars they will need hydroponics and a source of energy to run it when they get there. Since that stuff will therefore be lifted into orbit from Earth anyway, that stuff is practically free for the actual trip to mars. "

I still don't think this would work on a short-ish mission. On a long mission, yes, short mission, no.

It takes lots of space for hydroponics, and a small amt of plants don't pop out food quickly enough to support a crew.

And plants fixate carbon at a lower rate than we could do with technology. It doesn't really seem to make much sense for a ~2 year mission to mars to do it this way.

12/16/2011 12:14:32 AM

Space is not that expensive in space. Launch the needed panels and assemble them in space.

But you are quite right. As a flight gets shorter it becomes cheaper to just bring lunch with you. For a mission to mars and then back, as much hydroponics as can be squeezed into whatever space is available with a significant fraction of calories coming from Earth packaged food seems reasonable. But a one way trip where whatever food producing equipment you will need on mars is in your cargo bay anyway, fire it up now.

12/16/2011 12:27:13 AM

I remember hearing an interview or radio article or some such not long ago about the prospects of putting a man on Mars much sooner than current projections -- but with the caveat that we couldn't bring him (or her, I guess) back. It'd be unpleasant and a suicide mission of sorts, but there'd still be thousands of volunteers.

It would be surprising if we didn't have a permanent extraterrestrial settlement in the next fifty years, from where I'm sitting. The lull in scientific and exploratory advances would be unusual. Within a century I'd expect two or three, at least, within the solar system (our own moon, Mars, one of the more promising moons around a gas giant maybe, or even a permanent space station in the asteroid belt for resources). Extrasolar? Assuming that the more extreme science fiction is onto something, certainly within 150 years or less (though this also assumes a continued exponential increase in technology). If we take a more conservative approach, 200-300 years from now until initial colonization, probably through generation ships.

It's not really that far from now. If life expectancies hold, four or five generations, maybe less, until boots are on the ground at the nearest planet. Had we told George Washington that his countrymen would dance on the face of the moon by now, he probably would have shit his pants.

12/16/2011 2:42:45 AM

Quote :

"It would be surprising if we didn't have a permanent extraterrestrial settlement in the next fifty years, from where I'm sitting. The lull in scientific and exploratory advances would be unusual."

I mean, the ancient greeks were what... 500 years away from space exploration?

12/16/2011 7:09:31 AM

Quote :

"The nuclear decay batteries on the Voyager spacecraft have been operating continuously for over 34 years and are still going. "

look at the fuel amounts on both those batteries. voyager was designed to last this long. curiosity has enough fuel for maybe 10 years.


but yeh i agree with your approach. i mean what if there's a dust storm for a few days and solar is rendered obsolete. i'd like to have a few of these generators to back me up. who knows


[Edited on December 16, 2011 at 11:36 AM. Reason : ,]

12/16/2011 11:27:58 AM

Quote :

"I mean, the ancient greeks were what... 500 years away from space exploration?"

You think the ancient greek society existed in the 1400/1500s?

[Edited on December 16, 2011 at 11:34 AM. Reason : ;]

12/16/2011 11:34:31 AM

^yeah seriously, what is he talking about?

12/16/2011 11:38:00 AM

No, rather I mean they achieved space travel in the year 1000 through centuries of rapidly accelerating technological progress without lulls or setbacks.

[Edited on December 16, 2011 at 12:05 PM. Reason : .]

12/16/2011 12:04:56 PM

So by that logic the egyptians should have had an interstellar vehicle around 2000BC without any 'setbacks' I believe what you called them.

they had all the math figured out. why couldn't they just take another 5 mins to figure this out right?




[Edited on December 16, 2011 at 1:06 PM. Reason : still waiting for him to dump the true sarcasm/reason behind that post ]

12/16/2011 1:01:59 PM

Don't be fucking retarded. Technological advances have tended to run on an exponential curve, not a straight goddamn line.

12/16/2011 1:26:20 PM

I think that science might be able to achieve something resembling meaningful space colonization. However, I also think that such an achievement would never happen without leveraging most of humanity towards a singular goal.

I think such a project would require a scope that spans lifetimes and continents. It would take a dramatic shift in social mores towards collectivism (as a species, not nations) and self-sacrifice. We would have to give up significant amounts of freedom, and accept drastic trimming of our society's inefficiencies (luxury goods, large private fortunes, etc) in order to even begin to gather sufficient resources and build the necessary facilities (think large hadron collider, but the size of Texas).

I know this sounds like an advocation for super-socialism, but I don't think our typical market/profit-based research system is capable of putting us in space. Some technologies will just never give black numbers on an accountant's cost-benefit spreadsheet. Without the WWII and the cold war, we would never have gone into space; and that wasn't a feat that we could just nickel-and-dime our way towards over the course of time, as the market allows. At some point there needs to be a massive, focused, balance-sheet-be-damned effort.

Hell, I think it may even be impossible without global conquest and slavery.

[Edited on December 16, 2011 at 1:41 PM. Reason : .]

12/16/2011 1:30:47 PM

The only thing holding us back right now is radiation shielding technology. Right now, any shielding would be too heavy to be practical. We should be working on setting up a moon base because it won't be practicle to launch colonization missions from earth. Launching from the moon would be much more efficient, quicker and use less energy. Colonizing the moon would also be the best low-risk practice for future missions.

The idea that we could go to other stars in the next 100 years is crazy. Not even close. They are several light years away which is just too far for us to travel and be able to setup camp. When something goes wrong that far away its over.

0. Use electricity to create magnetic field around all ships/bases(waste of energy)
1. Colonize the moon.
2. Build space elevator to make moon colony permanant and sustainable. Moon colony becomes part of Earth as large numbers of goods/people can easily move back and forth.
3. Moon colony is staging area for launch to mars
4. Colonize mars (easy by now)
5. Build mars space elevator (easy by now)
6. Launch colonies to titan, europa, and io.

By this point we will be really good at space colonization. The experiences learned here and science on earth will lead to new technologies that will allow for these colonies to turn into civilizations. Space wars will be fought and this will be the "new" "new world".

These new civilizations would allow us to mine enough resources to build worlds although we have to be careful about taking water from Earth and mars and should look into drilling it from europa.

12/16/2011 2:13:21 PM

once humanity stops laughing at the idea of space elevator. it begins.

12/16/2011 4:54:30 PM

Quote :

"Don't be fucking retarded. Technological advances have tended to run on an exponential curve, not a straight goddamn line."

Except for the near millenium where progress basically stalled out.

The parallels between the Roman empire and the American empire are too numerous to be dismissed. Progress is not a given. It is possible to fuck ourselves over on this front.

12/16/2011 7:22:34 PM

wow, someone picked up what I was saying

Quote :

"Progress is not a given"

12/16/2011 7:28:51 PM