Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

For long-term projects, Heinlein already came up with one excellent gimmick, the long range foundation (his was the Long Range Foundation, but there's no reason not to make that a generic term). It's a foundation with statures that mandates investments in projects with no prospects of a return on investment in a reasonable time. IIRC Heinlein's LRF was forbidden to invest in anything that promised a return within a set number of years.

In the OTU I usually have the Scouts involved in recent terraforming projects. The Vilani, with their tendency to take the long view, are also a good source. The Imperial Ministry of Colonization probably has a hand in a number of projects. A project doesn't have to be practical to get government funding (although it can help ;-)). The prospect of a bit of graft is enough, and a project where you don't have to show results for generations would be hog heaven to a certain kind of bureaucrat.


Hans

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

Kepler has detected (but not confirmed) smaller bodies, down to about Mars sized, in a couple of cases.

There appears to be a lot of Superearths out there, but the numbers of smaller (more earth-sized) bodies does at the moment does appear to be lower even though they should be detectable. For now it looks like Superearths and Mini-Neptunes are slightly more common than smaller bodies. (of course this could change as more data comes in - that's science for you).

Just as Jupiter appears to be on the small side when it comes to gas giants, it looks like Earth is on the smaller side when it comes to terrestrial planets. In fact, Earth is on the lower end of world sizes that can sustain plate tectonics for geologically significant periods of time.

So maybe Superearths are going to be more common in the habitable zone, for all that entails.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

At least for North America and colonization from England the driving force was social. The powers in Europe wanted to get rid of the radical religious elements (this is not a flame).

If you look at the Puritans, for the most part they were trying to isolate themselves from what they saw as evil and decedent governments.

Australia Colonization was for criminals. While the "spin" might be economic expansion in both cases it was to get rid of the undesirable elements that were a thorn in the government's side.

Given a "marginal world" that would need tweaked instead of a full terraforming effort I wonder how many minority/oppressed groups would sign on just to try to be a little bit more free of what they perceive to be government/religious/institutional interference with their way of life?

Just as a thought experiment how would the Greens react to tweaking a world? There would be potential to study new techniques that could be used to 'fix' Earth, but at the same time it would mean littering a planet with invasive species.

Also given the transport costs (even from a Earth-Mars venture) would it be worth importing resources from Mars instead of trying to find better ways to recycle and reuse the limited resources of Earth?

Not trying to be a radical, just some food for thought.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

I would disagree with that, IMHO it's not quite there yet. (At least not if we plan to live there on an open-ended basis, a temporary base is probably doable right now, at staggering expense.) It's not much beyond current state-of-the-art, though, no new science is required, it's an engineering challenge.

(That assumes that there is no hidden catch somewhere, some freakish thing about Mars that makes it far harder than we know.)

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

Nor are we heading in the direction of doing either.

The biggest reason why I said colonization wouldn't be a strong imperative right now, even if Mars and Venus were Earth-like, is that our current fertility rates are so low in the advanced countries. The population explosion is a myth, the issue for the advanced nations, if anything, for the next few decades is underpopulation.

Trantor never made a dime's worth of sense even in fiction, you could house the 45 billion people Asimov postulated for that world in ordinary cities, with vast amounts of open countryside, quite easily. Asimov was always fixated on overpopulation, he positied a world population for his enclosed, yeast-fed Cities in The Caves of Steel of 8 billion people.

We're pretty much there now in the real world, at over 7 billion. No shortage of space yet, and our hunger problems are more issues of distribution and politics than food production. Earth has vast amonts of open land yet, too.

(Niven was just as fixated, in his Known Space books he thought that a world population of 18 billion meant city everywhere. The math says otherwise. Cities are small areas in vast sweeps of open space. Earth is huge.)

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

It would probably end up broke in the real world, unless capitalized at a huge level or supported by a more practical financial institution. Trying to identify 'profitable' long-term investments is a crap shoot.

(It might work if it focused on being an 'angel investor' out of interest on a capital investment in more conventional investments, but it could not supply large amounts of money that way.)

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

There's still a lot of uncertainty in all that data. We don't even know if most of the super-Earth's are really terrestrial planets or not yet.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

And note that this is a good example of a motive that was economically fantastical. Why would any society bother to ship trouble-makers halfway around the planet when it's so quick and easy to kill them? Killing them makes so much more economic sense, it's far more plausible.

I'm being facetious because this is a good example of why it's so pointless to project attitudes across time. Throug

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

Building large cities, or poisoning ourselves?
I don't think we'll consume all available space... directly... but I suspect large cities will continue to get larger. I suspect we'll consume resources at an increasing rate (on average per person across the globe), and the population of the planet will continue to grow.

*wince* Only true to the extent that many of our institutions require the population distribution for age to be a pyramid... i.e. lots of young people to support an increasingly smaller number of old people. I don't think remember seeing models which predict an actual decline in population... just an aging average population. My memory might be failing (I'm getting old too), but I was rather under the impression that the world population is predicted to continue to grow at a decreasing rate... at least thru the rest of my anticipated lifetime. Yes, the birth rates in the 'advanced nations' might go ever so slightly negative, but as long as there are economic inequalities amongst nations, immigration will more than balance that. (And hopefully, someday in the future, the world will be a level playing field, and world trade can be *cough* fair and balanced.)

Agreed... but it got the image across quickly. :-) As a literary discussion element, it hasn't yet lost it's power. But then a single environment planet has been a staple of science fiction for generations.

And he was writing before Dr Borlaug gave us dwarf wheat... and even with that technological innovation, and others, there is still an argument where the upper limit of long term sustainability sits. (I believe there is agreement that we are beyond that long term sustainability if the entire population of the planet were to consume resources at a rate equal to the US average.)

You are correct. The human race runs into a multitude of crisis that have to be overcome long before we fill all available physical space with our mere dwellings. Access to clean water, food, and waste disposal all require energy at the present time... and much/most of the energy we produce right now result in pollution / depletion of finite energy resources. Don't worry... we'll all choke to death on our own waste products (heat or sewage or rubbish or cast-off Justin Beiber albums) LONG before we cover the planet with a metal skin. ;-)

Actually, I was originally invoking Trantor just for the mega-city image. What I think is more likely... eventually... outside the US, are cities which don't require cars... which are entirely enclosed, where buildings merge together into a single 'arcology-like' structure. At that point, whether the structures are a sea-port, or stretched across and under a mountain-range, or under the sea, or spinning in orbit, or under the lunar surface will matter relatively little to the inhabitants.

Re: Terraforming the Solar System
 

China has a burgeoning space program. If the Pan-Asian governments put aside their traditional differences and found a way to make some profit in it (profit the main motivator for every country) they could surely have a decent space program set up within a decade. The technology in Asia is there, the main thine would be building the infrastructure & support systems.

Can't really think of a Latin American Country that is doing economically well enough (besides Brazil, which you mentioned) which would have the money to sink into training people for a space mission. The Lain American Countries have a decent population pool. (not turning this into a political discussion) As a "generalized statement" a lot of the Latinos I know have a work ethic second to none.

Africa has a good deal of resources, but a lot of the governments are pretty unstable thanks to outside influences. Even with the troubles South Africa has I can see them (if given a good incentive) being able to get a space program together. Africa also has a lot of tribal/ethnic conflicts which would fuel the desire of people to try to get a new beginning on an off world colony.

I believe India has a space program, not 100% sure. Technology wise they are on par with a lot of the industrialized nations of Europe and Asia. Large population base for labor and colonization.

So far, might be further in the thread than what I have read, private space companies haven't been mentioned. Where profit is the motivation private enterprise will not be far behind.

Orbital insertion is the first step. Orbital platforms the next. I know Luna is a bit resource poor but the lesser escape v makes for a good base of operations, launch facilities, training, and industrial area. Terraforming the moon is next to impossible, it does lend itself to being a good base or stepping stone to Mars and the Jovian Mooons.