Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > Traveller

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-29-2011, 11:46 PM   #31
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
Elbow room, BTW, is not really an issue.
It never is.

Quote:


There's plenty of room on Earth.
There was plenty of room in England in the 17th century, too.

Quote:



We could all fit in Texas. The big issues are infrastructure , technology, economic development, and resource use as it relates to population.
All subsumed into politics, culture, and religion.

Quote:

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.
That really isn't relevant to whether or not other planets will be colonized.

Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 09-29-2011 at 11:52 PM.
Johnny1A.2 is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:02 AM   #32
combatmedic
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: a crooked, creaky manse built on a blasted heath
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post

That really isn't relevant to whether or not other planets will be colonized.
Yes, it is. We can't live on other planets. There's no air for us to breathe. Most have no water for us to drink. Often the gravity is all wrong, and the atmosphere is either too thin or actually toxic. There are all sorts of other problems, There's no life anyplace in the whole universe but Earth, so far as we know (although I do imagine, given how big and old the universe is, that life exists someplace else even if our species will likely never contact it).


Terraforming could fix all those things, in theory. Of course, with anything less than 'sufficiently advanced technology', the costs would be astronomical. A much smaller expenditure of resources could vastly improve conditions here on Earth, or accomplish all sorts of other useful things. You are going to need a powerful force to compel people to ignore this basic economic reality.

It seems very unlikely that a small private group of ideologues or religious fanatics would have the resources to transform Mars into an Earthlike environment, if that is even really doable. Don't you think state action would be needed? Are you suggesting that a cabal of eccentric billionaire Libertarians would do it, or something? That's an interesting SF story idea, but it doesn't sound all that likely in the real world. Terraforming, if it's possible, would likely take tens of thousands of years to work. Even wildly optimistic estimates suggest centuries. It's difficulty to imagine a non-state project of such incredible magnitude, carried out for millenia, with very little economic incentive behind it.

Most of the successful colonial ventures in the Early Modern Era were state sponsored, BTW. And those were on a planet where you can breathe the air and drink the water in most places, and grow food out of the ground. Mars and Venus are NOT equivalents to North America in the 17th Century, no matter how cool 'space pilgrims' sounds. :)

Last edited by combatmedic; 09-30-2011 at 12:10 AM.
combatmedic is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:06 AM   #33
Apache
On Notice
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
It seems very unlikely that a small private group of ideologues or religious fanatics would have the resources to transform Mars into an Earthlike environment, if that is even really doable.
And yet, Utah exists.

:)
__________________
If you think an Apache can't tell right from wrong....wrong him, and see what happens.
Apache is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:15 AM   #34
Malenfant
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
Most of the successful colonial ventures in the Early Modern Era were state sponsored, BTW. And those were on a planet where you can breathe the air and drink the water in most places, and grow food out of the ground. Mars and Venus are NOT equivalents to North America in the 17th Century, no matter how cool 'space pilgrims' sounds. :)
If it does ever get cheap enough to ship people off planet en masse though, then you can bet that there'd be a lot of people wanting to start new societies out there without the existing ones on Earth getting in the way.

Personally I don't think terraforming will happen - it's too long term and too much effort. It's much easier to build a space station (though an o'neill cylinder is still beyond our current tech).
Malenfant is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:20 AM   #35
combatmedic
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: a crooked, creaky manse built on a blasted heath
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by Apache View Post
And yet, Utah exists.

:)
Heh, cute. :) Of course, it has breathable air, drinkable water, arable land, wild game, and various other natural resources.


Good luck breathing the 'air' on Mars. I probably shouldn't even mention conditions on Venus unless you like the idea of visiting Hell.
combatmedic is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:22 AM   #36
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
Yes, it is. We can't live on other planets.
Of course we can. The only question is the motivation to apply the necessary engineering skills, which are only just slightly beyond the current state of the art. Now, living well is another issue at current and near-future tech levels, granted.

Quote:

It seems very unlikely that a small private group of ideologues or religious fanatics would have the resources to transform Mars into an Earthlike environment, if that is even really doable. Don't you think state action would be needed? Are you suggesting that a cabal of eccentric billionaire Libertarians would do it, or something?
Nope. It's meaningless to project concepts like 'libertarian', 'private', 'public', etc into the distant future, economics and politics and religion change with time too much for that. The world we live in today is radically improbable, almost unimaginable, by the economic, cultural, and religious parameters of even 1600.


Quote:


Most of the successful colonial ventures in the Early Modern Era were state sponsored, BTW. And those were on a planet where you can breathe the air and drink the water in most places, and grow food out of the ground. Mars and Venus are NOT equivalents to North America in the 17th Century, no matter how cool 'space pilgrims' sounds. :)
Right now, yes. Past the next few decades, though, such estimations become meaningless. We literally can say nothing useful about what would be economically plausible and not even 100 years ahead. Societies, priorities, and economies change too much for that.

All we can usefully speculate about past the medium-term future, within the limits of our knowledge, is the science, and even that must always be done with on eye on 'as far as we know'. We can't even make useful estimates about what is 'plausible' and 'implausible' from an engineering POV past the medium-term.
Johnny1A.2 is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:25 AM   #37
combatmedic
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: a crooked, creaky manse built on a blasted heath
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by Malenfant View Post
If it does ever get cheap enough to ship people off planet en masse though, then you can bet that there'd be a lot of people wanting to start new societies out there without the existing ones on Earth getting in the way.

Personally I don't think terraforming will happen - it's too long term and too much effort. It's much easier to build a space station (though an o'neill cylinder is still beyond our current tech).
Yup, and even space habiats are a bit goofy if we go beyond a certain size. There's really no reason to build gigantic cities in space. Robot factories? Yes. Huge cities? Why? Just build the huge city on Earth. That's much cheaper. We are very far from running out of open space.

Technology ( or magic) like Traveller gravitics and jump drive would change a lot of things, of course. I agree that they make terraforming even less likely, though, because human beings would be able to go in search of earthlike world much more cheaply than trying to 'fix' uninhabitable planets like Mars or Venus.
combatmedic is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:29 AM   #38
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
Heh, cute. :) Of course, it has breathable air, drinkable water, arable land, wild game, and various other natural resources.
The only think Utah has the Mars does not is game. The rest is there, just in inconvenient forms.

The American West is uninhabitable on a large scale...by the standards of 1700. Tranforming to make it habitable is economically unimaginable and technologically inconceivable...by the standards of 1700.

Things change, especially economics, because what is economical and what is not is almost 100% determined by two things: the limits of the engineering abilities of the society, and the desires if the members of that society.

The first can be speculated on within limits, the latter is incalculable past the medium-term future.
Johnny1A.2 is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:29 AM   #39
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
Of course we can. The only question is the motivation to apply the necessary engineering skills, which are only just slightly beyond the current state of the art. Now, living well is another issue at current and near-future tech levels, granted.

...
Unless you can predict the future... hint: you can't... then you don't know what will be possible and when it will be.

At present we don't have the infrastructure to go back to the moon just long enough to pick up a couple of useless rocks.

There have been no successful fully insular stations on earth or space that have lasted very long without constant resupplying.

Technically possible is not important. Practically feasible is.
Flyndaran is offline  
Old 09-30-2011, 12:34 AM   #40
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Terraforming the Solar System

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
Yup, and even space habiats are a bit goofy if we go beyond a certain size. There's really no reason to build gigantic cities in space.
The emboldened statement is semantically meaningless.

Reasons change with time and people, and are infinitely malleable. Economics is semi-malleable, because it depends on both reasons and on the limits of technology and resources.

There was no reason for England to settle New England, and the resources necessary to build a canoe big enough to engage in such a settlment effort would be beyond the largest imaginable tribe. What? England was no longer a tribal society and the definition of 'economic' and 'reason' had changed? Oh.

Quote:


Robot factories? Yes. Huge cities? Why? Just build the huge city on Earth. That's much cheaper. We are very far from running out of open space.
Irrelevant. Colonizaton is not driven by running out of space. It was not in the 17th century, to my knowledge it never has been. Now, it's sometimes been driven by groups not having access to the space that exists, but that's a different thing.
Johnny1A.2 is offline  
Closed Thread

Tags
solomani, terraforming

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:38 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.