09-29-2011, 11:46 PM | #31 | |||
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
It never is.
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Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 09-29-2011 at 11:52 PM. |
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09-30-2011, 12:02 AM | #32 | |
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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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. |
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09-30-2011, 12:06 AM | #33 | |
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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:)
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09-30-2011, 12:15 AM | #34 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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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).
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09-30-2011, 12:20 AM | #35 |
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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. |
09-30-2011, 12:22 AM | #36 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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.
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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. |
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09-30-2011, 12:25 AM | #37 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2006
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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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. |
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09-30-2011, 12:29 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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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. |
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09-30-2011, 12:29 AM | #39 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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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. |
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09-30-2011, 12:34 AM | #40 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Terraforming the Solar System
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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:
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