Terraforming the Solar System

~~combatmedic~~ · 09-29-2011, 05:27 AM

Terraforming (of anything but already very Earthlike worlds) is mostly a 'rule of cool' thing. That, or it is accomplished by a speculative culture with sufficently advanced technology and a post-scarcity economy.

There's nothing wrong with Rule of Cool or Sufficiently Advanced Technology, of course. Travaller uses both in various parts of the game/millieu.

Since some posters have framed this question or terraforming in realsitic terms, I'll give my realistic answer.
Why would terraforming Mars and Venus ever be more attractive options than simply improving infrastructure and habitat on Earth? With a much smaller payout of time, effort, and resources, Earth could support tens of billions of human beings. Earth is already terraformed.

Resources from other planets, if valuable enough to justify paying the costs of getting out there and setting up mining operations, could be extracted by robots.

Even if for some reason human beings wanted or needed to live off-world, wouldn't building large space habitats be much easier and cheaper than terraforming Mars or other planets?

09-29-2011, 05:27 AM	#11
~~combatmedic~~ Banned Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: a crooked, creaky manse built on a blasted heath	Re: Terraforming the Solar System Terraforming (of anything but already very Earthlike worlds) is mostly a 'rule of cool' thing. That, or it is accomplished by a speculative culture with sufficently advanced technology and a post-scarcity economy. There's nothing wrong with Rule of Cool or Sufficiently Advanced Technology, of course. Travaller uses both in various parts of the game/millieu. Since some posters have framed this question or terraforming in realsitic terms, I'll give my realistic answer. Why would terraforming Mars and Venus ever be more attractive options than simply improving infrastructure and habitat on Earth? With a much smaller payout of time, effort, and resources, Earth could support tens of billions of human beings. Earth is already terraformed. Resources from other planets, if valuable enough to justify paying the costs of getting out there and setting up mining operations, could be extracted by robots. Even if for some reason human beings wanted or needed to live off-world, wouldn't building large space habitats be much easier and cheaper than terraforming Mars or other planets? Last edited by combatmedic; 09-29-2011 at 05:34 AM.