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Eventually humanity is going to have to move into orbit and to the other planets, and let the Earth go back to a natural kind of place. Humans will be happy and prosperous and will have a rich variety of lifestyles from which to choose -- cavorting around the solar system in yachts, or staking out a homestead on Mars, Venus, Moon, etc.
After a few centuries the Earth will have recovered from the poisonous humans and will be as it was in a more pristine age, a natural balance of meat eaters and herbivores, massive primeval forests, huge herds of bison, horses, antelopes, elk, etc. roaming North America, reconstituted sabre tooth cats, large carnivorous birds, etc. recreated from the Pleistocene, and the air will once again be fresh and clean and free of pollutants.
That's the best outcome I can envision. The worst outcome would be to have us just keep multiplying until there's literally no more room -- trillions of humans standing shoulder to shoulder, to crowded even to breath.
I don't think the economics for the level of technology & dispersion it would require to move the Earth's human population off-planet is ever going to be there. Yah, we've reached the moon, we send probes out to the planets & even out beyond the solar system. But how many people have walked on the moon? 12? Yes, given an all-out effort, we could conceivably move a fair percentage of the top scientific/engineering talent to NEO. But the bulk of the population - even in the Western countries & India & China that are running space programs - will not be leaving the planet for space.
Because of that, I think we're going to stress the Earth's biosphere to the max before we begin to repair the existing damage by reining in human population growth. & just halting the growth is only a first step, & a baby step @ that. The next step would be to reduce human numbers & try to restore & repopulate non-human habitat - with all the arguments that will entail @ the political level.
Yah, we'll need the resources & energy out there, in space. But I don't think the calculations will work out - to move humanity into space to free up room on Earth for the planet to essentially rehabilitate itself, without a lot of human effort & intervention & energy & other resources.
I don't think the economics for the level of technology & dispersion it would require to move the Earth's human population off-planet is ever going to be there. [snipped]
Rockets are so Twentieth Century
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Space travel via rockets is just too expensive.
We should embark on a "crash course" to build vacuum tube mag-lev launchers.
Consider that a near-vacuum ejection point eliminates air resistance, as well as sonic booms. And it may also allow for mag-lev braking / recapture of energy on vehicle re-entry. No matter how much energy is used to catapult such a vehicle - recovering most of that energy on re-entry makes it a winner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarTram
StarTram is a proposal for a maglev space launch system within an evacuated tube.
The StarTram ground facility concept is essentially a large linear synchronous electric motor. With an ejection altitude near vacuum, there is little atmospheric drag. And if the maglev catapult is used for deceleration, not only is there recapture of energy, but the need for heat shielding is reduced, if not eliminated entirely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductrack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain
Once out of the gravity well, we can "surf" gravity - - -
The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN) is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the Solar System that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations where trajectories through space are redirected using little or no energy. These points have the peculiar property of allowing objects to orbit around them, despite lacking an object to orbit. While they use little energy, the transport can take a very long time.
It is possible to put stations or spacecraft on orbits that cycle between different planets, for example a Mars cycler would synchronously cycle between Mars and Earth, with very little propellant usage to maintain the trajectory. Cyclers are conceptually a good idea, because massive radiation shields, life support and other equipment only need to be put onto the cycler trajectory once. A cycler could combine several roles: habitat (for example it could spin to produce an "artificial gravity" effect); mothership (providing life support for the crews of smaller spacecraft which hitch a ride on it). Cyclers could also possibly make excellent cargo ships for resupply of a colony.
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Slow but cheap travel in the Solar system is ideal for self sufficient autonomous vivariums and habitats.
Last edited by jetgraphics; 10-29-2016 at 06:10 PM..
Eventually humanity is going to have to move into orbit and to the other planets [AGREE] and let the Earth go back to a natural kind of place [DISAGREE]
Environmental preservation is genocidal and suicidal. There is no "status quo" in nature.
We need environmental amplification, which is neither destructive nor preserving the status quo. Among all creatures on Earth, humans are the best choices for increasing the life bearing volume and surface area. Only humans can harness science and technology to engineer and expand the finite surface. By building up (multistory buildings), down (under ground), upon the waters (floating cities), humanity can “thicken†the habitat of man and of wildlife.
Instead of building human-only habitats (typical skyscraper needles), what if humans built “up†but with the roof decks capable of supporting soil? And if those roof decks were the same height, and interconnected into a wildlife habitat? Underneath, the human habitat would be isolated from it, while supporting it. For all practical purposes, the roof deck would be the “ground level†for creatures and plants living there. Humans would be above grade, but “under ground.â€
There are myriad ways that humans can "thicken" the planet... terrace mountains, tunnel, engineer waterways, farm the desert, and so forth.
Mr. John Higgins (farmer) : Two things I live by : the Good Book and the calendar. I got a day’s work to do every day in the year. I take care of my work, and the Good Book takes care of me.
Dr. Noah Praetorius : Then you do the same thing every day of every year. Is that it? Just like the cows, and horses and vegetables.
Mr. John Higgins (farmer) : That’s right. That’s what the Good Lord and old Mother Nature put us here for. To do the job they set out for us.
Dr. Noah Praetorius : Well, I can’t speak for the Good Lord, of course, but I know a little about old Mother Nature. If old Mother Nature had her way, there wouldn’t be a human being alive.
Mr. John Higgins (farmer) : What do you mean then?
Dr. Noah Praetorius : I mean among other things, old Mother Nature tries to destroy us periodically, by means of pestilence, disease, and disaster. That’s why the human race has been at war with old Mother Nature ever since it became the human race.
Mr. John Higgins (farmer) : What do you mean ‘became the human race’? Is that what you teach?
Dr. Noah Praetorius : No. And I am not really a teacher. It merely happens to be my opinion.
I don't think the economics for the level of technology & dispersion it would require to move the Earth's human population off-planet is ever going to be there.
well, this I'd have to interject on. Wouldn't you agree that the economics is unfolding right in front of our very eyes? Companies such as SpaceX are making cheaper rocket launches already using their re-usable rockets. They are of course continuing in that trajectory intensely and are sitting at the frontier of cheap rocket travel. Why do you think their launches are blowing up? They're being designed cheaper and differently than rockets have been designed before. This is purely a business effort and we're seeing it come into fruition. I guarantee you that once SpaceX completes this move and it works, other private space-launch companies such as United Launch Alliance, Sierra Nevada, etc., will also want a "slice of the pie" and mirror the efforts of SpaceX. What you have after that is a bustling Space travel industry which gets cheaper and better as more companies and technologies come into the picture. This is in the area of LEO (Low Earth Orbit).
You'd have to consider the airplane industry which had its struggles. The first commercial airplane flight back in 1914 cost the passenger $400 ($9,500 today) and lasted under just over 20 minutes. Today, probably over 3,000,000,000 customers fly commercially every year. I've seen a flight advertised for $99 and it was well over an hour ! ....now talk about making flight cheap!
Huge strides are also being made in the area of propulsion for deep space travel. We've seen the next era of rocket propulsion, the ion engine, already beginning with its successful use in "Deep Space 1" (1998) as well as the "Dawn" spacecraft (2007). This is all within a couple of decades ago so you bet that faster models are also being developed.
..mind you though, all these advances are being made in the absence of catalysts, but I wouldn't get into that subject
Of course there are limits. Even with relatively cheap energy, you have to grow or manufacture food somewhere. The current model of seafood & meat animals & crops on land isn't sustainable - it takes too long, doesn't produce enough, the water's becoming contaminated, the water requirement & other inputs for meat is too high, & so on. I expect we'll turn to soya or some kind of vat culture - but Western Civ. tastes will have to change.
Perhaps so, but they are exponentially beyond those that are citied in the Club of Rome tradition. Or at least that's the optimistic frame of mind I've been in since binging on this YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZF...M5CKUjx6grh54g
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@ the point that we're into 10s of billions of humans, it's not the Earth supporting us - it's humanity directly managing the biosphere.
Yes, that's a good point, and really what I meant to say. In a future high technology civilization, type 1 or higher on the Kardashev scale, we would control the biosphere. It would not be Earth supporting us but rather us learning how to fully exploit and manage the resources available here, and in neighboring parts of the solar system. Such a society could grow to include vastly more humans than are currently living, with less scarcity.
Like in Star Trek, once the world decides that money is no longer necessary then we can progress towards space colonization.
There is no government or private firm capable or interested in helping mankind colonize space.
Even Elon Musk, he is selling his idea of Mars colonization as a commercial operation, that means only the rich and privileged get to experience it.
If earth's nations move towards removal of money and greed as our main catalyst then great progress can be made if we all move towards space travel as a common goal.
Like in Star Trek, once the world decides that money is no longer necessary then we can progress towards space colonization.
There is no government or private firm capable or interested in helping mankind colonize space.
Even Elon Musk, he is selling his idea of Mars colonization as a commercial operation, that means only the rich and privileged get to experience it.
If earth's nations move towards removal of money and greed as our main catalyst then great progress can be made if we all move towards space travel as a common goal.
Yah, Star Trek was great fun, Wagon train in space, basically (Roddenberry wrote for Paladin, other Western TV shows, some police TV & so on). & the plot of Star Trek: First Contact has Zefram Cochrane retrofitting a US ICBM in its silo to fly @ warp, thus attracting the attention of Vulcans, & kicking off the Federation's visit to Earth. So even there, the US military got a little boost - post-liftoff, of course, but still.
Roddenberry's vision of the Federation never specifies the economics of it. Apparently it doesn't run on money, which is ironic. Roddenberry was forever squeezing money out of his productions, he had lots of bills - alimony? & the USSR tried for 80-odd years to make their economy work. It just didn't pan out, whether from the mechanics of it, the permanent nomenklatura @ the top, or the idea itself is simply unworkable. It's a pity that we still don't know.
Thus far, capitalism (the economic system) seems to be work for Western Civ, for as long as we've had it. We do have to tinker with the system, to include externals (like the quality of the environment - water, air, soil, agriculture, wild nature, biodiversity, etc.) into consideration & allocate them financial consideration, just like any other input or output.
If we can rein in the test-to-destruction tendency in naked capitalism (extract & sell everything possible, & don't worry about any consequences), then capitalism may continue to serve into the near future. If not, then we'll have to come up with something else.
Like in Star Trek, once the world decides that money is no longer necessary then we can progress towards space colonization.
There is no government or private firm capable or interested in helping mankind colonize space.
Even Elon Musk, he is selling his idea of Mars colonization as a commercial operation, that means only the rich and privileged get to experience it.
If earth's nations move towards removal of money and greed as our main catalyst then great progress can be made if we all move towards space travel as a common goal.
I think this is putting the cart before the horse. If eventually we achieve a world that is almost universally wealthy, with extreme abundance provided automatically by our machines, then we will have the luxury of being able to do away with money and greed.
Like in Star Trek, once the world decides that money is no longer necessary then we can progress towards space colonization.
There is no government or private firm capable or interested in helping mankind colonize space.
Even Elon Musk, he is selling his idea of Mars colonization as a commercial operation, that means only the rich and privileged get to experience it.
If earth's nations move towards removal of money and greed as our main catalyst then great progress can be made if we all move towards space travel as a common goal.
Don't forget, even the original expeditions to the Americas were commercial operations. They came looking for India spices, didn't find any, but the Spaniards lucked out by plundering the South American civilizations of gold. Magellan managed to circumnavigate and one of his ships made it back to Europe, loaded with spices that paid for the expedition.
It was only later, after Atlantic crossings became routine, that the masses started to migrate west to the New World.
I think the same thing will happen in space. First the bold visionaries like Musk, Nasa, ESA, and the Russians will find ways to get humans to other planets, and especially to get mining equipment and asteroid harvesting robots out to the Moon and the Asteroid Belt.
Once they have found ways to mine for valuable minerals and bring them back to Earth for commercial benefit, as well as to expand their operations using solar energy, space mined metals, and maybe even a huge chunk of water ice to support life... then we will start to see people in the thousands moving into space.
There are a few problems with space. Cosmic rays are pretty deadly, and they can only be stopped with high-Z materials, which is to say very heavy shielding. But without shielding, humans will succumb to cancer and other radiation diseases at a high rate. Robots are not immune, either; computer chips are also damaged by cosmic radiation and will need tremendous shielding.
Another concern is gravity. Without it, we just waste away. Astronauts and cosmonauts who spend 6-8 months up there lose significant muscle mass and bone density, and recently they've been found to experience vision loss as well. We'll have to build massive rotating wheels that simulate earth surface gravity, and provide various kinds of exercise machines to help people keep up their muscle tone.
All of this costs money. Money to launch all these building materials, money to pay people to operate the machines and robots, money to insure everything. Money, money, money. There has to be a commercial justification for all this.
Governments can just do it, the way the Americans just landed men on the moon to prove we could do it. But long run, we've got to find ways to make massive money up there, and that will then eventually draw millions of people off of the Earth and out into the colonies.
I believe that the superpowers of the late 21st and into the 22nd Century will be those nations and groups of nations that get into outer space and find ways to commercialize it. The rest of us will be left behind, though we will benefit greatly from the tech and medical spinoffs, of course.
The Obama years have been a disappointment; Obama canceled the replacement for the Shuttle--then was forced by Congress to reinstate part of it, but it's still just in the planning/prototyping stages. Meanwhile we've become dependent on Russia to get people up and down from the ISS. And meanwhile, the Chinese are sending people up into orbit and are planning manned missions to the Moon and beyond.
In my opinion, we need to stop screwing around and get serious with space, or we WILL be left behind.
Don't forget, even the original expeditions to the Americas were commercial operations. They came looking for India spices, didn't find any, but the Spaniards lucked out by plundering the South American civilizations of gold. Magellan managed to circumnavigate and one of his ships made it back to Europe, loaded with spices that paid for the expedition.
It was only later, after Atlantic crossings became routine, that the masses started to migrate west to the New World.
...
There are a few problems with space. Cosmic rays are pretty deadly, and they can only be stopped with high-Z materials, which is to say very heavy shielding. But without shielding, humans will succumb to cancer and other radiation diseases at a high rate. Robots are not immune, either; computer chips are also damaged by cosmic radiation and will need tremendous shielding.
Another concern is gravity. Without it, we just waste away. Astronauts and cosmonauts who spend 6-8 months up there lose significant muscle mass and bone density, and recently they've been found to experience vision loss as well. We'll have to build massive rotating wheels that simulate earth surface gravity, and provide various kinds of exercise machines to help people keep up their muscle tone.
All of this costs money. Money to launch all these building materials, money to pay people to operate the machines and robots, money to insure everything. Money, money, money. There has to be a commercial justification for all this.
...
I don't recall that masses started to migrate west to the New World - There was a steady stream of Spanish & Portuguese administrators & adventurers & clergy - but not of plain colonists & families. (That was one of the issues for the Spanish crown - vast territory, lots of Native Peoples & later slaves, very few citizens. I think that issue echoes through Latin American history.) The French & Dutch also had colonization problems - @ least the French did. They had their share of adventurers & some administrators, plus clergy too. I don't remember much about the Dutch. The UK did much better @ colonizing - the press for land, & the desire to get away from religious & administrative pressure? As I recall, it wasn't until 1840s on (Great Potato Famine, various wars & strife in Europe, political unrest, struggles around Socialism? & unions) that the US got tremendous amounts of permanent immigration from Europe.
Radiation shielding - Yah, I think our first big permanent bases in space will be on the moon, using lunar regolith for shielding. It's cheap & available, just plow it up & put it into place. I also assume that the first bases will be mostly underground - if we can find some nice heavy metal ore fields to bore into & under, that would be a great help, & a resource to tap for internal development/construction. Microgravity is still gravity, although yah, space-based personnel will have to exercise in near Earth-normal gravity, if they hope to return to Earth.
For money there's microgravity & high vacuum manufacturing, mining regolith & looking for other ores, maybe exotic materials (from solar & cosmic ray irradiation, for instance), materials science & engineering. There's also gathering solar energy for local use, maybe beaming any extra to other sites or back to Earth. The moon would be convenient for basing further exploration into the solar system & the asteroid belt, out to the Van Allen radiation belts, & so on.
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