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Old 09-01-2018, 12:07 PM   #21
Flyndaran
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

I get the intent of those quotes, but it's not possible to better yourself without becoming what you are not.
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Old 09-01-2018, 11:43 PM   #22
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

If you have fancy biotech, I'd consider suspended animation, via nanostasis, freezing, or artificial hibernation*. Reduces some fo the strain on building new places to live by literally warehousing large numbers of people until infrastructure catches up.

The warehouses could be on Earth and/or in space.

Who gets warehoused first and who gets thawed out first? Or at all? Conflict and drama enuses!

* Artificial hibernation will mean a significant maintenance cost and a time limit, since you'd need to wake people up every few months or years to gain weight back and retone their muscles.
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Old 09-02-2018, 04:31 PM   #23
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I think that THS has less than 100 million people in space, and most of the biosapients were born/grown in space. Titan, for example, has less than 100,000 people.
Way less than 100 million. Around five million is my guess, looking at the key sourcebooks (High Frontier, In The Well, and Deep Beyond). About half are on Mars (population 2.5 million, canonically) and most of the rest are in Earth orbit (if you include Luna and Earth-Luna Lagrange points as "Earth orbit").
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Old 09-02-2018, 07:37 PM   #24
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

I knew it was less than 100 million, I just could not remember how many people were in Earth orbit. Given the...odd assumptions about the space economy in THS, less than 10 million seems about right. After all, if you can do DT fusion, you can do DD fusion without any trouble (DD fusion seems to be easier than DT fusion). DD fusion actually produces He-3 and T as byproducts (you get 375 grams of each for every kilogram of DD burned), so it is much more economically to build large DD pulse fusion reactors and just harvest ionized He-3 and T produced by the reaction.
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Old 09-02-2018, 10:02 PM   #25
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

The main argument against DD fusion is that about half of its energy output is high energy neutrons, which can only really be made use of by capturing them with another material and then using a boiler or something, whereas D-3He is 95% or so ionized and can be exploited with MHD generators or deflected with magnetic fields. However, for static power plants none of that matters much.
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Old 09-02-2018, 10:29 PM   #26
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

From my discussions with plasma physicists involved in fusion research, they are universally skeptical of D-He3 fusion (one of the advantages of being engaged to a plasma physicist involved in fusion research). Not to get into the weeds, but pressures and temperatures required for that type of fusion will cause around 1 million DD fusion events for every D-He3 fusion event, assuming an equal ratio of D to He3. While you could have an unequal ratio to facilitate D-He3 fusion, you need such a large proportion of He3 to D that the energy used to heat the material would exceed the energy generated.
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Old 09-02-2018, 10:51 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

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From my discussions with plasma physicists involved in fusion research, they are universally skeptical of D-He3 fusion
Oh, I am too; if you can pull it off you can probably also pull off p-B11 which is mostly better, but a lot of things are in THS because a certain portion of the geek community thinks they're cool, not because they actually make sense.
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Old 09-02-2018, 11:14 PM   #28
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I get the intent of those quotes, but it's not possible to better yourself without becoming what you are not.
If you become what you aren't, assuming you can, you aren't yourself anymore.

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The warehouses could be on Earth and/or in space.
I still haven't seen an event that justifies building habitats in space, or on another planet, VS building full biosphere habitats on Earth.

Earth has gravity already. The people and building materials are here already. Even if unbreathable the air is still air and not vacuum.

Enormously long term, of course we need to colonize other planets and star systems.... if nothing else the Sun will nova someday.

Last edited by tanksoldier; 09-02-2018 at 11:26 PM.
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Old 09-02-2018, 11:27 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

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Oh, I am too; if you can pull it off you can probably also pull off p-B11 which is mostly better, but a lot of things are in THS because a certain portion of the geek community thinks they're cool, not because they actually make sense.
Honestly, He-3 fusion (as in He-3 + He-3) is probably the best form of fusion, but it is quite difficult to sustain, which is why it is considered a 'third' generation fuel. It does have the advantage of having no neutron radiation and no high energy gamma radiation, and some hypothetical reactor designs even minimize the x-ray radiation to a surprising degree. It is the only fuel that could realistically make safe portable fusion reactors.
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Old 09-03-2018, 11:19 AM   #30
Flyndaran
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Default Re: [Sci-fi] Plausible scenarios for the evacuation of Earth at TL10-11

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If you become what you aren't, assuming you can, you aren't yourself anymore.
...
Existentially, that's debatable. In common life, that's quite wrong. I'm still me despite changing radically over the past few decades of my life. I lost my anger issue which certainly no one would argue was not an improvement to my character and nature.

But that should be the end of our side-discussion as I don't want to clutter the thread. Sorry for the mini-derailment.
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