Who needs Goldilocks

[neilsox]

To get 1/2 g of gravity, from mass, you either need several times the total mass of the asteroid belt, or you need compact matter, such as white star stuff or neutroniun = nuetron star stuff. We don't think either is stable with less than one Earth mass in a tiny sphere. Matter between 0.0001 light years from the Sun and 3 light years from the Sun likely totals less than one Jupiter mass, so we would need to collect from a mind boggling large area, and it would be mostly hydrogen, which is a poor construction material. Possibly a dyson sphere surronding a small (if any) black hole, would have 1/2 to one g on the outer surface, but we are a long way from dyson sphere technology plus there are likely no small black holes within 3 light years. Neil

 

[csmyth3025]

To get 1/2 g of gravity, from mass, you either need several times the total mass of the asteroid belt, or you need compact matter, such as white star stuff or neutroniun = nuetron star stuff... Neil

I think spinning a space habitat/colony to produce artificial gravity is the most realistic approach.

Chris

 

[AsimovFan]

I'm fascinated by all of your comments, so inspiring..

Hard at work hashing out ideas and explaining how these ideas can work.

 

[AsimovFan]

We could use a combination. On like a habitat the size of a large skycraper.
You can make it circular for artificial gravity. or..
Build up the mass with pure iron harvested from asteroids, moons, dwarf planets,
even ice.
High volumes of iron contained in the most common asteroid types contain iron,
nickel and silicone. Take the iron, which has the most mass and use it for your hull.
In fact you don't have to even have a wheel shape.

Best approach is to build it out of ice with rubble mixed with it, and use robots,
normal sized, micro sized and nano sized. To shape, build, and even repair the ship.

After its built you can coat it with gold electroplate to reflect radiation.
In combination with radiation shielding built into the hull, We will be able to filter all
harmful radiation.

You could use some kind of lensing system to focus and omit the rubble and
it would be crystal clear night sky, while at the same time being protected
by a 1000m or so ice/rubble mix.
You can build the ship to withstand small meteorites and below, and let the rest be
handled by the computer pilot.
But to go totally low tech just built a total ice/iron hull.

By using Micro robotics and nano technology we can ultimately control our own
design of the appearance of the ship with relative ease.

Once you get enough mass to create a small amount of gravity, you can use that, and with
electromagnetism you can experience a simulated earth gravity. Built into the ship design
will be an intricate wiring system, and with special magnetic boots and high amounts of
iron embedded in your clothing, you will get pulled downward by a false gravity well,
this shouldn't effect our bodies, but a real gravity well will eventually be required,
no matter the cost. Then we will be able to satisfy enough of our our basic gravitational
needs to start living long term in space.

I like the long cigar train shape, at the front and back are thruster ships and
magnetically they are all held together.
The wings will extend to utilize solar wind. When thrusting they will be withdrawn
into the ship, or ejected to be used by a following ship.
Nuclear micro thrusters in combination with solar sails will be used to reach light speed.


An don't tell me we don't have enough materials out in space to do this.
Just in our solar system alone we have it and doing it would be easier than
you'd expect.
Think UAV's and Nano technology, powering it is as easy as setting up a solar collector.
Once you do that power is never a problem again.
Set up laser charging stations in orbit around the sun, then beam microwave energy
to any target in our solar system at the speed of light, powering any ship, or station.
Once all these systems are in place the cost will be nil, and probably employ millions
of people.
You won't need a million supercomputers to operate this concept.
The key to success is in its simplicity.

 

[AsimovFan]

The next question is..

Why, Why do all this.
1) Just because we can.
2) Were natural explorers, we feed on new things.
3) To be able to control our own destiny.
4) To populate the galaxy.
5) To boldly go where no one has gone before..

 

[csmyth3025]

Re: The next question is..

Why, Why do all this.
1) Just because we can.
2) Were natural explorers, we feed on new things.
3) To be able to control our own destiny.
4) To populate the galaxy.
5) To boldly go where no one has gone before..

Those are all great reasons for space entusiasts. There are a lot of folks out there, however, who are just trying to raise a family and (maybe) have enough money saved to put their kids through college. Your going to have to convince them that spending more than the 18 billion or so that we're now spending in the US each year on NASA is worth it. I don't think any of the five points you mention are very high on their list of priorities.

Chris

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

Re: The next question is..

Why, Why do all this.
1) Just because we can.
2) Were natural explorers, we feed on new things.
3) To be able to control our own destiny.
4) To populate the galaxy.
5) To boldly go where no one has gone before..

All these are great reasons for sending an interstellar expedition ship, not constructing a second planet in our solar system. If you want that, why not just terraform Mars, it'd be a lot easier, safe, and cheaper than what you are proposing.

We may eventually see something like O'neill cylinders, but I think we will end up using the natural real estate of the solar system before building self sufficient space stations whose only function are to support lots of people.

 

[AsimovFan]

I was thinking to create these kinds of habitats and spread out in our solar system.
These don't have to be planet sized, they will be large but on the level we can create
now, like aircraft carriers, large skyscrapers.
These are all we need to start living in space, combine inertia and electromagnetic
forces and you can get simulated gravity. All the while building a larger ship.
Then build a fleet of larger ships, motherships.
Put them in orbit around the sun continually increasing the speed with solar wind
and ion thrusters.
Once we get to that level we can reach for other stars.
We could refine asteroids, meteors and comets, plus dwarf planets in the outer solar
system. I think the ship idea gives people the freedom to control where they go.
And when you have many ships people have more freedom, plus knowing your not
alone in space is comforting.

There will be plenty of jobs, and big money to be made refining and supplying precious
metals to a new and hungry manufacturing industry.

Not to say that we won't go to other stars and find planets to colonize.
Part of a realistic vision is to explore new systems, planets, maybe meet
intelligent beings, certainly be on the lookout for new, safe sources of food.

 

[Yuri_Armstrong]

So basically, large space stations such as Gerard O'neill's cylinders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27neill_cylinders

Also, I don't know much about the electromagnetic force except that it will not provide you with gravity, it will just make you stick to the floor- not very helpful and takes away the fun of zero g. With ships as big as you are talking about, it would be better just to spin it to get centrifugal force and use that to keep things on the ground.

 

[neutrino78x]

I still don't agree that it would take hundreds of years to get to another star. The nearest one is 4 light-years away (proxima centauri). Let's say you can only go 50% of light speed, that gets you there in 8 years. If you can only go 10% light speed, that would be 40 years (or something like that). Not hundreds of years.

It is true that you would probably want to do suspended animation or something like that for the 40 year trip, but I wouldn't resort to a generation ship. I say, wait until you can go fast enough to be reasonable.

--Brian

 

[AsimovFan]

I still don't agree that it would take hundreds of years to get to another star. The nearest one is 4 light-years away (proxima centauri). Let's say you can only go 50% of light speed, that gets you there in 8 years. If you can only go 10% light speed, that would be 40 years (or something like that). Not hundreds of years.

It is true that you would probably want to do suspended animation or something like that for the 40 year trip, but I wouldn't resort to a generation ship. I say, wait until you can go fast enough to be reasonable.

--Brian

We can reach sub light speeds by using solar winds, Ion thrusters, and even
nuclear thrusters.
Put the starship in orbit around the sun, with solar sails and thrusters you can
incrementally increase the speed to sub light. Eventually you will gain enough
speed that you can be "thrown" out of the suns orbit.

The trick is to start creating the solar sails now, put them in orbit now, so they
can start gathering the needed speeds to do this.

I believe its a myth perpetrated by establishments space program that
it will take lifetimes to reach another star.

 

[AsimovFan]

I just discovered a speech about this subject by Isaac Asimov.
He was so far ahead of his time.
http://www.wronkiewicz.net/asimov.html

 

[neutrino78x]

Well I admit that if you went to that "earth like" planet they just discovered, 20 light years away, that would be 200 years one way if you could only travel 10% the speed of light. But I would wait to go directly there from the Earth until we know how to go closer to the speed of light. Again there is nothing wrong with going 99.999999999999% that speed (or as many 9's as you wish to add). If you go about the speed of light, 20 years, ship time.

--Brian

 

[rocketmonkey]

You know why this thread is stupid?

Because NASA is already designing a lot of kinds of bases for other planets!

But it is not as simple as shooting a Gigantor spacecraft onto another planet or in space and it's done. :lol: You have to put it together piece by piece, part by part. :roll: :geek:

 

[AsimovFan]

You know why this thread is stupid?

Because NASA is already designing a lot of kinds of bases for other planets!

But it is not as simple as shooting a Gigantor spacecraft onto another planet or in space and it's done. :lol: You have to put it together piece by piece, part by part. :roll: :geek:

Why should we depend on NASA to get us into space. I for one wouldn't care what
NASA was designing, they have failed so hard at delivering on their promises over
the many wasted years the public has spent on that failed administration.
Are you serious? NASA?
What this industry needs is competition. Get two companies out in space mining
asteroids proving it is doable and space will be flooded with asteroid miners.
Guess what, they will not be living on planets.
Go depend on NASA if you want, meanwhile the private industry is leaving them behind.

 

[Space_pioneer]

You know why this thread is stupid?

Because NASA is already designing a lot of kinds of bases for other planets!

But it is not as simple as shooting a Gigantor spacecraft onto another planet or in space and it's done. :lol: You have to put it together piece by piece, part by part. :roll: :geek:

Why should we depend on NASA to get us into space. I for one wouldn't care what
NASA was designing, they have failed so hard at delivering on their promises over
the many wasted years the public has spent on that failed administration.
Are you serious? NASA?
What this industry needs is competition. Get two companies out in space mining
asteroids proving it is doable and space will be flooded with asteroid miners.
Guess what, they will not be living on planets.
Go depend on NASA if you want, meanwhile the private industry is leaving them behind.

The private industry will never go into such a lucrative endeavour, because it is not cost effective at all. The technology, micro-management, safety hazards, and overall waste is a pointless project. If propulsion soeed increases at the pace that it has, as well as Cryonics, this wil never become a good idea. By the time we have the technology for this, we will be able to travel quite easily to planets, and our terraforming skills would have expanded to the point where a planet like Mars would be easy to terraform.

 

[csmyth3025]

...The private industry will never go into such a lucrative endeavour, because it is not cost effective at all...

You'll have to find another adjective - "lucrative" is a synonym for "profitable". If you mean that there are easier ways to make a profit, you're right in the short term. Who can say what will be most profitable in a hundred or two hundred years?

Chris

 

[Space_pioneer]

...The private industry will never go into such a lucrative endeavour, because it is not cost effective at all...

You'll have to find another adjective - "lucrative" is a synonym for "profitable". If you mean that there are easier ways to make a profit, you're right in the short term. Who can say what will be most profitable in a hundred or two hundred years?

Chris

Woops. I meant Dangerous. For some reason lucrative popped into my head..

I doubt this will be profitable in a long, long time. The dimensions of the ship would have to be astronomical to be able to fit billions of people, and the sort of engineering needed for would be extremely advanced. The computer systems would have to be extremely advanced, with thousands of supercomputers having to run it. I doubt the sun's rays would be able to power the entire structure, without absolutely massive panels, so it would need a reactor, probably fission, or fusion(in time.) This brings the problem of meltdowns to the table. Plus, if you are suggesting to make this out of the asteroid belt, what's stopping it from pulling in asteroids as it gets larger, and having one massive cascade of asteroid strikes?

We could settle Mars for much, much less. If we can advance our technology further, we coud probably settle out of the solar system, if Cryonics and energy systems advance a bit more.

 

[EarthlingX]

To get surface area of the land on Earth (148,940,000 km[super]2[/super] land (29.2 %)), 10 m thick, it would require same volume as about 71 km radius sphere.

It will take time before anyone tries to move such a thing, but in any case much sooner than any Mars, or other planets/moons terraforming.

People don't live everywhere on the Earth's surface, so this number gets even smaller, and of course, no need to rush everyone at once

edit - 70,84 radius, correction, i skhrmed decimals ..

 

[csmyth3025]

...I doubt this will be profitable in a long, long time. The dimensions of the ship would have to be astronomical to be able to fit billions of people...

I may have missed something in this discussion. Is someone proposing a spaceship that will support billions of people?

If we populate our solar system with orbiting (and planetary) colonies, there may come a time when there will be a collective effort made to build a generation ship. At that point a generation ship would essentially be no different than an orbiting space colony (technologically) - it would just have a propulsion system. Space colonies and generation ships need not contain billions, or even thousands, of people. I suspect that in time space colonies will have a range of populations, just as terrestrial communities range from villages to mega-cities like New York and Mexico City.

Chris

 

[CAllenDoudna]

It does not require one dollar more, once you have a self sufficient colony. That is what self sufficient means. If you can build a colony that supports 500 people, and if they can grow their own food, raise their own children and repair or replace every component of their own base using local resources, then they can build a second base. Then you have exponential growth with not one dollar more coming from earth. 2 bases, 4 bases, 8, 16, 32.
You might as well as how could Britain afford to colonize America, to build massive cities thoughout america and cover it in railway. Apparently very very easily given a couple of centuries of exponential growth.

It cost the British plenty to colonize America. And when they tried to tax us to recoup some of that loss we rebelled! Now let me say something you may find a bit startling: Up until the mid-20th century there essentially was no such country as the United States of America. What we had was a vast collection of farms and villages that minded their own business. The Federal Government delivered the mail and that was about it. We had a country only because it was the only country in the world that had a Government that wasn't a Government. Then along came Roosevelt's Big Government Programs of the 1930s. Then World War II. Then the Cold War. Now we're looking at the cost of building that country "without paying a dollar for it" and there is a huge tax-payer rebellion brewing. Don't you suppose something similar is going to happen out in Space?

I have every confidance we will build O'Neil-type Space Colonies and they will build more (and by the way Mercury has more material than the Asteroids), but let's get something straight here: They're not going to build those colonies out of some Exaulted Sense of Patriotism or Duty or Self-Sacrifice; they're going to build these things because it's a way of making a buck. Real-estate developpers will go to banks and borrow money to build colonies because they believe people are going to want to buy the land that will be for sale, not because they think it's some Great, Noble Good we should all be Honored to participate in. Banks will loan that money because it will be paid back with interest. Construction workers will begin welding and rivetting these things together because that's a good-paying job. People will buy homes in these Colonies because they can find work Up There.

Eventually resources beyond our Solar System will be found and some Wagonmaster will buy the rights to it and sell spots in a Wagon Train of O'Neil Colonies that will vote to go to that New Oregon or that New California because all the good places in the Solar System have already been claimed by somebody else and there's New Opportunity to have a Better Life and Make More Money if they go Out There.

But it's not going to happen because somebody says, "Oh wow! We ought to Go To The Stars!"

 

[csmyth3025]

...Real-estate developpers will go to banks and borrow money to build colonies because they believe people are going to want to buy the land that will be for sale, not because they think it's some Great, Noble Good we should all be Honored to participate in. Banks will loan that money because it will be paid back with interest. Construction workers will begin welding and rivetting these things together because that's a good-paying job. People will buy homes in these Colonies because they can find work Up There.

Eventually resources beyond our Solar System will be found and some Wagonmaster will buy the rights to it and sell spots in a Wagon Train of O'Neil Colonies that will vote to go to that New Oregon or that New California because all the good places in the Solar System have already been claimed by somebody else and there's New Opportunity to have a Better Life and Make More Money if they go Out There.

But it's not going to happen because somebody says, "Oh wow! We ought to Go To The Stars!"

I agree 100%.

Chris