posted 05-21-99 10:09 PM ET            

You idiot! Metals get melted there in a few minutes! How the h*** do you think they'd survive?!

posted 05-21-99 11:15 PM ET            

Venus: no colonization option is likely, too much of a greenhous effect; acidic atmosphere coupled with high heat levels would make it exceedingly difficult to even set up a foothold.
--Eccles: Venus has temperatures exceeding 500�C, which makes it by far the hottest location in the solar system. Now, if you want nice red tans from scalding steam burns, acid, and cooking, go set up a base...but i don't think even the most die-hard sun worshippers would want to go there. That is, If you could see the sun from the surface, which you can't. Btw, 2kg lead (Pb) melts within 1.5 mins.

Luna: option is likely, close in proximity, and easy to construct base - bunkerbases likely.

Mars: option is likely, medium distance, easy to construct base - bunkerbases will likely be first colonies, and terraforming may occur at later dates.
-Phobos/Deimos: sure, if you can set up a mining colony on potato-shaped oblong objects no larger than an asteroid.

posted 05-22-99 01:45 AM ET            

Really, I think Chiron is the best choise. It is more earth-like than Mars!

posted 05-22-99 11:11 AM ET            

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't travel in space. Quite the opposite. All I'm saying is that a life between the stars is no life at all. I can think of so many reasons why this is the case.

posted 05-22-99 11:39 AM ET            

GEEV: Say you're right. Now, do you want to coat everything in pressure suits and chemical coating? And "Heavy Space Suits?" I don't care if the tungsten doesn't actually melt, I'm going to feel like a knight in full dress uniform in the burning Sahara. God help me if the "chemical coating" fails. Besides, the colony would be in a constant race to stay on the Dark Side of Venus- it does shift every day, you know- severely limiting human habitation. (Joey, hurry and pack your things! The Sun is catching up with this porto-base in 5 minutes and will fry it! Hurry!)

posted 05-22-99 06:07 PM ET         

Basically, a colony on the moon or something, well we could say "look what we accomplished", but really, how much would it affect our lives. It would just be like a novelty, it'd be cool at first, but than it would stop affecting us. I personally don't want my tax dollars spent on such a novelty.

Khan Singh Says:
"But we waste money on all sorts of things already. Computer games, golf fees, the military, star wars collectables, etc. It's just a matter of choosing what things you want to waste your country's money on. Personally I think that building a colony on Mars would be a glorious achievement and an important advance for humanity. I would not
mind spending $500 or so a year for the rest of my life to build such a colony. Other
people, however, seem to prefer purchasing stock in internet companies that provide
overpriced merchandise in an inconveniant manner. Go figure."

So you are admitting it's a waste? Computer games bring entertainment to us, so does golf. The military protects us from other nations. A glorious achievement? In other words a novelty. You may be ok with paying $500 a year (altough it would probably be much higher, like $2000 a year), but I am not, and it is not right for you to use threats of federal prisons(taxes) to force people to waste money your way and not their way. If they made paying for the colony optional, that would be ok, but don't spend my tax dollars.

jig: In case an asteroid comes, we can laucnh hydrogen bombs at it and blow it to tiny pieces.

And let me guess Eccles, your favorite faction is the University of Planet, isnt it?

posted 05-22-99 06:28 PM ET            

I hate to burst your bubble, then.

True, Venus has a slow retrograde rotational period (243d retrograde). Sadly, that still makes it so there is no "dark side".

Also, there is no such thing as Flouro-Sulfuric Acid.

The probes weren't prepared for the atmosphere of Sulfuric and Hydroflouric acids, true. But chemical coatings won't save anything for long in that mixture.
Concentration being less on the night side? That's bunk. The concentration is pretty constant, no matter where you go.

As for suits of Tungsten: You're right. It doesn't melt until well into 2K �C. That's why it's used as incandescent lightbulb filaments. So, while it might protect the colonists, they'll be glowing.

posted 05-22-99 08:19 PM ET            

There is such a thing as Fluro-sulphuric acid, it is the strongest of the simple mineral acids. Look it up.
My Favorite faction is the Hive anyway, as mad jack eccles shows.
Just taking the piss with Tungsten, besides 300C is not enought to get it glowing. I prehaps thought copper ,no lets not keep spiraling.
Venus is closer that is all. I wanted to be different, from peoples obsessions with Mars.
Also Terraforming Venus is unlikely (I know about 60km up it might be feasible for bacterial types) it has far too much atmosphere, I mean it would take thousands of years, (another Thesis I read in '87 estimated 10,000 years) and where would all the Carbon be locked up? (you would have an atmosphere sized layer of bacteria!).

Moving on, I say to the Morgan lover, zero-G industry is the way forward, and planets also have unpurged resources. Mercury has Iron, Venus has Nickel, Mars has Iron, and many other trace elements.

Black Dragon

posted 05-22-99 08:26 PM ET            

1/ Elimination of starvation by industrialising the rest of the world, increasing pollution, and farming efficency. We may or may not stop armageddon as countries become rich and powerful, whilst the biosphere collapses.

2/ Stagnating on earth growing forever surrounded by material goods as the environmental havoc encircles us. we may research clean industry.

posted 05-22-99 08:58 PM ET         

GE: Your logic in space travel stopping starvation is flawed. We still need to feed the colonists, and the colonists won't be growing much food themslves. As far as us needing more space, Earth is far from being filled, heck, just look at how non-dense Canada is. I'd say it would be a lot easier colonizing Canada than Mars, and probably more profitable too.

As far as economic value, well Space-Travel is expensive, and at this moment, I doubt the profit that could be gotten by colonization would outweigh the costs of transport between the stars, as well as providing food and oxygen and other materials on another planet. Not to mention getting people to want to give up the luxuries of Earth.

"Id force people to play for the space program, as people are morons and need a governing class to work out the best way forward."

posted 05-23-99 09:54 AM ET            

Half a millenium from now Mars may a planet equal to Earth in population and production. An investment now to bring about such a future is worthwhile, for humanity as a whole. But speaking for humanity as a part (ie me, personally), I am not willing to pay any price to summon the future of mankind. Two thousand dollars a year is too much.

posted 05-23-99 12:27 PM ET            

And do you think no scientific advances can be made on the moon or in orbit? With a readily available, high-quality vacuum and lower gravity? A permanent moonbase on the far side of the moon would seem to be rather valuable to astronomers. The vacuum would be invaluable to experimental physics. We already know of drugs and alloys that can only be created in microgravity conditions, who knows what uses we'll find for it later? Do you hink the guys who first smelted copper ore would predict advanced microprocessor technology?
As Khan Singh says, there is profit, but it's long term.

--"Elimination of starvation by industrialising the rest of the world,"

You do realize that the US could quite easily feed the rest of the world right now, don't you? If the government would stop paying farmers not to grow things to keep food prices up (ie. let the free market take over) we'd be exporting rather more food than currently. After all, farmlands in the US are currently something like a tenth of a percent of the total US lands. There is no need to cut space travel to feed people.

--"whilst the biosphere collapses"

You don't think that space travel would help recycling technologies? After all, they'll be in small, self-contained areas for rather long periods of time. They'll have to figure out better ways to use resources, and while they'll be expensive at first, they'll do what technology normally does, which is to rapidly decrease in price. Pretty soon we could be producing an increasingly small amount of any sort of polution (you do know that the "greenhouse effect" is an unsubstantiated hoax, right? Even the guys who did the study that started the whole craze have admitted their study is worthless).

--"we may research clean industry."

Again, see above.

--"expanding across space, finding new homes and limitless wealth, removing overcrowding and hopefully buying time."

This is not what the space program is about. For one thing, there is no such thing as "infinite wealth" (who remembers the old "enough resources" debate in the communism threads?) or simple expansion (Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell -- Ed Abbey). The basic purpose is knowledge. We want to satisfy our curiosity. What's out there, where is it, and why is it there? And, of course, what can we do with it?

--"JB: If we detected the asteriod from far away enough, Hydrogen bombs would be able to do the asteroid in."

This whole "what if an asteroid" thread is rather pointless. It's not particularly likely, for one. For another, as has been pointed out already, we aren't exactly looking for the things, so we don't have a good chance of spotting one too far in advance. For another, it's not a primary reason for space travel.
I should also ask, how exactly are we getting this bomb to the asteroid? The shuttle can't (despite Armageddon) go higher than Low Earth Orbit. Our ICBMs are specifically designed NOT to be able to enter orbit (fat lot of good they'd do us in a war if they all floated off into space, right?). Which leaves attempting to refit a warhead onto something like Titan V, along with cobling together a new guidance system and propulsion package for the warhead. If we don't get quite a long advance warning, we don't have time for all this.

--"We still need to feed the colonists, and the colonists won't be growing much food themslves."

Depends what you're talking about. A full scale moon colony should have no trouble with hydroponics, and it's already been proven (based on probe data) that we can grow earth crops in the martian atmosphere. In fact, the Mars Direct plan calls for doing just that.

--"Not to mention getting people to want to give up the luxuries of Earth."

This won't be near as difficult as you think. I'd be ecstatic to be chosen to go on a Mars mission. There's a lot of people out there who would absolutely love to get into space, and for most of them the lack of earthly amenitites isn't a big issue. Some people are looking for a challenging existence. America was founded with a frontier-taming aditude, and it's still around.

--"I doubt the profit that could be gotten by colonization would outweigh the costs of transport between the stars,"

For one thing, we're not talking about interstellar travel yet. We've got quite a ways to go before we can bring our technology up to the level for that to be remotely practical. On the other hand, interplanetary travel is certainly possible under current technology (and even NASA budgeting) limitations. The Mars Direct plan, for example, would slowly build up a colony on Mars, and uses almost nothing but off-the-shelf technology. Yes, the cost of putting things in orbit is still high, but we're never going to reduce it if we're not researching in that area, yes?

posted 05-23-99 07:51 PM ET            

There would be no shortage of volunteers willing to throw away the comforts of home for a chance at the big beyond.

The government should spend money on it because of its survival significance -- to deal with, as Carl Sagan put it, "the things we can't think of." If one of the roles of government is to ensure that somebody somewhere survives, surely colonies on other planets fall under that mandate.

However, I really think that widespread space travel will come from the asteroid belt. Like the California gold rush, once a single company goes into space and hauls back 4 trillion bucks of booty you're gonna find out what "shoot the moon" really means!

posted 05-23-99 07:53 PM ET            

There would be no shortage of volunteers willing to throw away the comforts of home for a chance at the big beyond.

The government should spend money on it because of its survival significance -- to deal with, as Carl Sagan put it, "the things we can't think of." If one of the roles of government is to ensure that somebody somewhere survives, surely colonies on other planets fall under that mandate.

However, I really think that widespread space travel will come from the asteroid belt. Like the California gold rush, once a single company goes into space and hauls back 4 trillion bucks of booty you're gonna find out what "shoot the moon" really means!

posted 05-23-99 07:53 PM ET            

There would be no shortage of volunteers willing to throw away the comforts of home for a chance at the big beyond.

The government should spend money on it because of its survival significance -- to deal with, as Carl Sagan put it, "the things we can't think of." If one of the roles of government is to ensure that somebody somewhere survives, surely colonies on other planets fall under that mandate.

However, I really think that widespread space travel will come from the asteroid belt. Like the California gold rush, once a single company goes into space and hauls back 4 trillion bucks of booty you're gonna find out what "shoot the moon" really means!

posted 05-23-99 07:57 PM ET            

There would be no shortage of volunteers willing to throw away the comforts of home for a chance at the big beyond.

The government should spend money on it because of its survival significance -- to deal with, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, "the thousand risks we can't think of." If one of the roles of government is to ensure that somebody somewhere survives, surely colonies on other planets fall under that mandate.

However, I really think that widespread space travel will come from the asteroid belt. Like the California gold rush, once a single company goes into space and hauls back 4 trillion bucks of booty you're gonna find out what "shoot the moon" really means!

posted 05-23-99 08:02 PM ET            

There would be no shortage of volunteers willing to throw away the comforts of home for a chance at the big beyond.

The government should spend money on it because of its survival significance -- to deal with, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, "the thousand risks we can't think of." If one of the roles of government is to ensure that somebody somewhere survives, surely colonies on other planets fall under that mandate.

However, I really think that widespread space travel will come from the asteroid belt. Like the California gold rush, once a single company goes into space and hauls back 4 trillion bucks of booty you're gonna find out what "shoot the moon" really means!

posted 05-23-99 09:10 PM ET            

As for 300�C not being hot enough to make W glow? Incandescent lightbulbs get about 250�C inside, i believe. So, W would begin to glow. How strongly is just a moot point.

Copper? don't make me laugh. Most metals are brittle (copper is the other extreme...too malleable), and if you wanted that, you might as well just cook the people here on earth. It's a lot cheaper.

posted 05-23-99 09:20 PM ET            

There would be no shortage of volunteers willing to throw away the comforts of home for a chance at the big beyond.

The government should spend money on it because of its survival significance -- to deal with, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, "the thousand risks we can't think of." If one of the roles of government is to ensure that somebody somewhere survives, surely colonies on other planets fall under that mandate.

However, I really think that widespread space travel will come from the asteroid belt. Like the California gold rush, once a single company goes into space and hauls back 4 trillion bucks of booty you're gonna find out what "shoot the moon" really means!

posted 05-24-99 07:14 AM ET         

One thing though, I don't think that the asteroid impact facet of this thread is quite the unlikely prospect as at first it seems. Probably the subject of another thread, but I understand that fair sizes chunks hit the Earth rather more often than we previously thought. It is just that most hit the ocean and so are not noticed. You need a really big one to get a tsunami and lots of death/destruction. IMO we seem to have rather a head in the sand, it happens to the other planet attitude at present. Check out http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/fr77/

Apparently blowing them up is not considered a reasonable option by those who have studied the problem. One has to cause an explosion on one side in the hope of diverting the trajectory outside the Earth's path . (And being very certain you haven't just altered it so it now is certain to be in the Earth's path !)

Back to the subject. I think that we have to make the effort to the nearby moons/planets as if you don't start (or keep up the momentum) you have no incentive to go further. You're either with this, or you're not. And woe betide your species if you're too late and we all get wiped out from some disaster (all eggs in one basket argument as others have mentioned).

Uncertain why there has been the suggestion that this is either space exploration OR something else (i.e. hunger relief). Things don't work like that. If the problems at home are not being solved now, throwing further cash at it is unlikely to achieve much. Problems tend to fail to be solved due to a lack of political will as often as not. In any case money isn't likely to be the problem in many cases.

posted 05-25-99 06:09 AM ET            

Someone once said that if mankind doesn't colonize other planets, it's 100% sure that mankind will not survive. We just need one E.L.E. and that's it... Fact is, we need space-travel to survive...

Colonizing Venus is NOT logical... Conditions there are extreme to say the least... Best locations for colony in space would be Luna (that's "moon" to the ordinary people), Mars or some of the moons in the Jovian system (That's Jupiter) or the moons around Saturn... There are evidence that there's water in some of those moons. And a colony NEEDS water!

As for colonies being economically profitable... Think about manufacturing microprocessors in orbit. impurities in the air is a severe hazard in manufacturing microprocessors right now. The air in space is clean (it is vacuum after all =)...). Zero gravity would help manufacture microprocessor with alot greater precision that we can do on earth... And moon has more than enough light metals to manufacture processors... Products manufactured on Moon or orbit, could be transferred to Earth with a mass-driver, which would make it REALLY cheap!

If I remember correctly, there is a UN agreement that forbids any country to claim any of the celectial objects as their property, and it also protects them from economic exploitation. But I dunno the details of that agreement. I'm pretty sure that once manufacturing in Moon is realistically possible, that agreement is changed. Does anybody have any information about this?

Initial investment would be huge, but it would pay off... If nations of Earth would use a bit less money on weapons, and invest it on space-travel instead... Well, it's a well-known fact that in the end, humans are stupid...

posted 05-25-99 06:27 AM ET            

ARTICLE I: ..." Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies. There shall be freedom of scientific investigation in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, and States shall facilitate and encourage international cooperation in such investigation."

ARTICLE II: " Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claimof sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means"

The text of the treaty is located in:

http://www.un.or.at/OOSA/treat/moon/moontxt.html

posted 05-25-99 07:20 PM ET            

--"but I understand that fair sizes chunks hit the Earth rather more often than we previously thought."

The Earth is hit rather often, but the term fair sized chunks isn't quite expressive. The size it'd take for global devestation isn't all that common an occurance, and if the guys studing dinosaurs are right about one wiping them out, I don't think we'll be due one for a while

--"Private Companies? They wouldn't have enough money to get the operation started."

You might be surprised. There are a number of companies that launch numerous satellites at today's prices; if the cost-per-pound of launching went down, there's be plenty that could handle the initial investment. There's already a number of companies getting ready to exploit what they can if the US government ever opens up space to private companies (NASAs got the monoply right now).

--"And as far as the mass driver Idea, it wouldn't work, it'd burn up on re-entry."

Not neccessarily. There's an "aerobraking" method that has been used successfully by NASA probes that could be translated to Earth conditions. It's not like you have to shoot the things straight down at max speed

--"As far as hydroponic farms,"

I only brought up hydroponics as a solution on use for planets where the conditions weren't close enough to earths for crops.

--"As far as the asteroid argument,"

The key point is "caught it far enough away". At present, we'd need at least several years while we set up a launch vehichle, designed the guidance system and the extra-orbital manuevering/propulsion system, and got the econuts to let someone put a nuke on the nose of a rocket to be launched. Keep in mind that for a deflection shot (this isn't pool, people), the approach would have to swing out (meaning a fortutiously placed planet to slingshot around or a huge amount of fuel) so as not to strike the thing dead on. It'd also have to be some pretty damn precise guidance software...

--"As far as aliens, there are none in this solar system,"

No, as far as we know there are no aliens in this system. Just because we're mostly-water carbon-based people doesn't mean all life has to be. And if we don't go out and look, how will we ever be sure?

--"And as far as Zero-G manufacturing,"

I've already addressed the cash-flow thing, so I'll talk about the balancing act between cost and payoff. Think about it. The first orbital manufactury will have a total monopoly. They'll have who knows how much time where they're the only ones in the entire world who can supply a product. And not just any product, but from current research, incredibly useful products (I keep bringing up drugs and alloys because they're likely to be the starting point. People are already used to high drug prices, and exotic metals and alloys are even higher). The key sticking point is the cost per-pound to launch. The first aerospace company that can design a cheap launch vehicle will make a killing. It'll take their competitors (again) who knows how long to catch up, and provide a great starting profit and still offer lower than current prices.
Black Dragon, the problem with your ideas is that the research won't get done. If we do the research, we'll hit the point where we get this domino effect. And as long as someone somewhere is doing such research, we'll eventually get there, and it'll just be a matter of everyone else taking a lot longer to catch up.