Terraforming the Solar System

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by nik1979

Doesnt the medical complications of different gravity also affect habitability? Basically milder versions of what happens in zero g?

Anyone that says they know what would happen to humans in low but not micro-gravity is full of it. We simply don't know what is the lowest gravity required for easy to maintain normal health. Lower than 1 g but higher than 0.2 yes, but where and for how many, we simply can't know.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Anyone that says they know what would happen to humans in low but not micro-gravity is full of it. We simply don't know what is the lowest gravity required for easy to maintain normal health. Lower than 1 g but higher than 0.2 yes, but where and for how many, we simply can't know.

The NASA studies on Apollo do show that the astronauts who remained in orbit had (barely) measurably more bone density loss than the landing team... and that's only 2-3 days on 0.16G....

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

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.

It's also already claimed and owned.

The above actually applies to most colonial activity to some degree, the settlement of New England, for ex, by religious expatriates was an unreasonable expenditure of money, effort, and risk...except that they didn't think so by their standards.

There is no humanity, there are only humans, and humans don't work as a whole. Some humans do things, others do other things, the motivations don't make sense looked at 'as a whole', only individually and group by group.

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.

Doesn't matter for the sort of motivations that drive colonization.

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?

Nobody knows. Insufficient data.

The big problem with terraforming in the Traveller world (or most worlds with useful FTL tech and many habitable worlds in the galaxy) is that it's probably easier to find a useful world than convert one. Take away FTL, and the equation changes.

Now, the other big issue with terraforming is that (at least in games and stories), if you've got the power to do it, you're so powerful than many story concepts and gaming ideas becoming very hard to apply.

[combatmedic]

New England was not an unreasonable venture. It wasn't the best real estate, but it had its attractions. More importantly, it was habitable. Other planets are not habitable. You see many colonists on salt flats or at the South Pole? Both those environments are much easier to get to and actually much less hostile than other planets in the Solar System, and that's with current or plausible near future technology.

[combatmedic]

Sea-steadings will likely materialize ages before anyone bothers to colonize an extraterrestrial body, and I'm not holding my breath for those. If Anatarctica or Greenland become sufficiently ice free, you might see people colonize those regions.


Elbow room, BTW, is not really an issue. There's plenty of room on Earth. We could all fit in Texas. The big issues are infrastructure , technology, economic development, and resource use as it relates to population. A fraction of the resources needed to terraform other planets could be used to render uninhabitable regions of the globe into verdant lands, to reclaim or build up land as the Dutch have done, to create megacities, and so on.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Doesn't matter for the sort of motivations that drive colonization.

Are you saying that colonization isn't often driven or heavily influenced by economic considerations? Gaining access to new land, trade routes, mineral resources, etc don't matter?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

... There's plenty of room on Earth. We could all fit in Texas. The big issues are infrastructure , technology, economic development, and resource use as it relates to population. ...

Only because putting anywhere near that many people in near standing room only living space would quickly result in a population small enough to live in Texas.

From killing each other is what I'm sayin'. This coming from a shut in that only leaves the house to get groceries.

[Malenfant]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Or we could just ignore or modify the parts of the OTU that don't make sense to us. I don't any particular reason not to alter the setting to suit our own purposes.

There's so much in the OTU that makes no sense that it's easier to start with a setting that does ;).

Originally Posted by nik1979

Doesnt the medical complications of different gravity also affect habitability? Basically milder versions of what happens in zero g?

Given how many Superearths are out there, I think we should probably be more worried about the consequences of living in higher gravity than lower gravity...

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

New England was not an unreasonable venture. It wasn't the best real estate, but it had its attractions. More importantly, it was habitable.

So was England. From most POV, it would have been far more cost efficient and reasonable to just accomodate themselves to the social and religious conditions at home (which was, in fact, what most of their coreligionists did). Settling New England was not a reasonable thing to do, from a large-scale POV. It would be far more reasonable to improve and change England than for the English to settle New England.

Yet it was done, not by the English, but by a small subgroup of them with their own motives.

Other planets are not habitable. You see many colonists on salt flats or at the South Pole? Both those environments are much easier to get to and actually much less hostile than other planets in the Solar System, and that's with current or plausible near future technology.

Right now, you wouldn't see mass colonization of Mars or Venus from the West even if they were completely Earth-like. The past was different (at times), so probably will the future be (at times).

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Right now, you wouldn't see mass colonization of Mars or Venus from the West even if they were completley Earth-like. The past was different (at times), so probably will the future be (at times).

Oh, I very much doubt your wouldn't see mass colonization (what does mass mean, the Mayflower?) of completely Earthlike planets so close at hand. The distances aren't that great. As for 'the West', I'm pretty sure the Brazilians would be interested in sending colonists. I'm quite sure that a great many people from this country would go. The Canadians? Maybe not so much. Mexico? I doubt it, unless they could hitch a ride.

PS- I'm sure you know that a certain very important group of early New England colonists left from the Netherlands, mainly because there wasn't enough land and work there for them. Economics! :)