Terraforming Other Planets?

[Eclipse Now]

magnetic sails could be used to travel to other stars

Do you mean Bussard Ramjets?

 

 

Where are they ?

Maybe energy is a limiting factor?

[modest]

Or, that we will simply biologically engineer ourselves to survive any planetary environment making the concept of terraforming obsolete.

Biological or cybernetic enhancement?

Both seem viable to me. I would tend to believe that once biological engineering reaches a certain point then the distinction between bio-tech and cyber-tech will blur. We may be able to engineer biologically things like batteries and integrated circuits to be part of our physiology. The ethical concerns are an issue, and I guess it's a little off topic in this thread, but I think it might be an interesting alternative to terraforming. Why, after all, would we change the planet to suit us when we can change ourselves to suit the planet...?

 

I'm not sure how good biology would do on Mars, but maybe if we're in one of Ray Kurzweil's enhanced super-android bodies we'll be fine and dandy.

 

I agree. An android body would also be a good first step in interstellar travel as we would live long enough

 

***Any ideas on mining planets on this scale? It would probably require a space elevator that could pump liquids up into huge space cruisers that had vast inflatable 'space balloons' on their backsides.

 

Yeah, I think space elevators are the way to go. Of course, fossil fuels are going to be gone soon, so the question becomes: what fuel is there on earth that we need to send up to the ships that the ships themselves couldn't get by mining asteroids, comets, and using the sun? It may be, and I think Moontanman would agree, that planets end up not being the best place to get fuel because it requires work to get it out of the planet's gravity well.

 

I can also imagine in the future people who have decided to live on earth protesting the fact that people who have decided to live off-world are wanting to take earth's natural resources. Interplanetary wars may ensue.

 

:)

 

~modest

[Eclipse Now]

No, I wasn't thinking of fuel but of terraforming Mars. The methane rivers of Titan are useful as an atmosphere thickener and greenhouse gas, and the same with the water from Ceres. The ENERGY to do this is an interesting issue. But I was just thinking of their atmospheric and terraforming values.

 

I hadn't thought of mining these planets before but the suggestion is on the terraforming mars wiki. I just thought we'd smash asteroids and comets into the Martian atmosphere.

[modest]

Sorry, that makes sense. It does sound like a pretty good idea.

 

~modest

[Eclipse Now]

One thing is for sure: if I ever finish my studies I'm booking in some time to devour those Varley novels that have so influenced Moontanman.

 

However, I get a bit nervous about reading older sci-fi from 30 years ago or so. Anyone else experience that? They just couldn't really visualise the way computers would develop, and sometimes ignore the whole nano-tech and biotech industries. So they miss whole themes that Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling write about.

 

But it's been a while since I've had a good chew through a space opera, and Varley's novels sound about right.

[Eclipse Now]

One thing that has struck me is that there are all these Mars societies, but where are the torus societies?

[Moontanman]

One thing that has struck me is that there are all these Mars societies, but where are the torus societies?

 

I don't know, lets form one, all we really need is a few engineers who really know what they are talking about, B) I can see it now http://www.toruscolonies.com B)

 

Magnetic sails work by using the flow of charged particles from the sun to accelerate and decelerate. they work well beyond the sun because the further away you get the bigger the sail gets to make up for the lesser amount of charged particles. you could in theory accelerate away from the sun to some low fraction of light speed and decelerate when you get near the target star, no reaction mass needed but you do need a very powerful magnetic field holding charged particles.

 

The idea of cyborgs and altering our DNA to allow us to live in unusual environments sounds a lot like genetic engineering or the idea of breeding supermen from the old NAZI days. i am thinking that our future selves might be just as uncomfortable with breeding supermen as we are. Still if the whole magnetic sail thing is possible then where are the other aliens who are exploiting the resources of the galaxy?

 

I am thinking they are either already here or maybe around stars with few planets but lots of asteroid Kuiper type objects?

[Eclipse Now]

Magnetic sails work by using the flow of charged particles from the sun to accelerate and decelerate. they work well beyond the sun because the further away you get the bigger the sail gets to make up for the lesser amount of charged particles. you could in theory accelerate away from the sun to some low fraction of light speed and decelerate when you get near the target star, no reaction mass needed but you do need a very powerful magnetic field holding charged particles.

 

Have these magnetic 'sails' been invented and tested yet? Isn't this futuristic physics? Wouldn't it take an awful lot of energy to maintain the sail V just using a nuclear powered ion-drive? (I don't know: just guessing. I'm not a scientist/ physicist).

 

Lastly: once we are far enough away from our sun, how does this magnetic sail choose which sun/star it is taking its charged particles from? In other words, once we truly leave the 'heliosphere' won't the field get galactic rays from every direction?

[Moontanman]

The idea of magnetic sails is within our technology... barely... for the size objects I am thinking of it's beyond us for now, the magnetic field would be turned off after leaving the influence of the solar wind and they would coast to the target star then turn back on and decelerate. Nuclear power should be able to generate the power, there are heat problems that need to be taken care of, radiating away the waste heat would be the problem. It would be very difficult to generate a magnetic field strong enough but imagine a 100 kilometer torus with a sail the size of the earth. B)

[Eclipse Now]

Ha ha ha! That's classic. I love the hyper at the end! B):hyper::lol::hyper:

 

What about a little :D! Or even B):eek_big:!

 

But wow... after a few billion years floating around our asteroid belts, maybe we'll have discovered some God-particle hyper-dimensional gateway thingy and might not need a magnetic sail anyway. Assuming we last that long as a species! (Anyway, I won't push the potential for our 'god' powers as I know you're not into hyper-fantasy sci-fi like the "Q" beings in Star Trek or "Ancients" in StarGate, etc).

 

Hmm, torus's hey? It's even easier to say than "O'Neil space station".

[Moontanman]

Magnetic sails are not impossible by current standards, there are problems to be solved but no unrealistic impossibilities to tori or magnetic sails. Once we master using them to move small objects around the solar system applying them to larger objects will come with time and technology. Since is it quite possible to do it now with small objects there is no reason to think larger more powerful sails will be impossible to require some far out technology that is impossible by current knowledge. I think magnetic sail technology will come faster than building things in zero gee.

[Eclipse Now]

I think magnetic sail technology will come faster than building things in zero gee.

Ahah! Well, as that's straight from the horse's mouth, then might that not be a reason for some to think a few dozen rockets to Mars might be better than a few hundred or even a few thousand rockets to space to build a torus? Once people are living on Mars in their colony cities, they can start breeding and doing their own terraforming thing. The smaller gravity well on Mars might even mean they get out into the asteroid belt for self-interest! (Demand for ice asteroids, carbon, all manner of building and terraforming materials, etc etc.)

[Moontanman]

One thing about Mars in the plus column is that a space elevator could be built easier, if I remember correctly Kevlar could be used to make it.... of course if Thomas Gold is correct there are all of those untaped hydrocarbon reserves waiting for us too....

[Eclipse Now]

Hey Moonman,

have you read this one?

 

The Night's Dawn Trilogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

You'd love the Edenist habitats. Giant space-stations that used bitek (combination of biological cybertechnology). They're not as huge as Varley, but here's a twist. Habitats in this universe are self aware, and able to monitor what's going on inside them and provide for their citizens. (Edenist's also die and 'upload' into the habitat kind of like Avatar and the Tree of Souls).

[Moontanman]

Hey Moonman,

have you read this one?

 

The Night's Dawn Trilogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

You'd love the Edenist habitats. Giant space-stations that used bitek (combination of biological cybertechnology). They're not as huge as Varley, but here's a twist. Habitats in this universe are self aware, and able to monitor what's going on inside them and provide for their citizens. (Edenist's also die and 'upload' into the habitat kind of like Avatar and the Tree of Souls).

 

In the Gaean trilogy Gaea was aware of everything inside of her too, she had regional brains but she controlled everything that went on inside.

[Eclipse Now]

Controlled as in ecosystem services, airflow, temperatures, rain, food, etc?

[Moontanman]

Controlled as in ecosystem services, airflow, temperatures, rain, food, etc?

 

Yes, she controlled everything from the flow of the rivers to the fall of manna from heaven to earth quakes, some individuals were her tools and she controlled them like we control our own fingers....