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 mofo
inquisitor
Registered: 04/05/08
Posts: 785
Loc: Sol 3
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 Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: Hematite]
#8958898 - 09/20/08 01:19 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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True, but this can be achieved more easily than at first glance. The simplest solution would be to take a typical space capsule, attach it to a long chain and attach a counter weight to the other end. The counter weight wouldn't necessarily even have to be shipped up; it could be an object collected from space, a meteoroid or something. As far as radiation shielding goes, from what I've read, a reservoir of water a few feet thick surrounding the living space would be adequate. Some have even suggested that the waste water from the ship (sewage) would be even better because of the solids interspersed within it.
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 Annom
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Registered: 12/22/02
Posts: 5,292
Loc: sdnalrehteN ehT
Last seen: 6 hours, 18 minutes
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: mofo]
#8959156 - 09/20/08 02:17 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Quote:
As far as radiation shielding goes, from what I've read, a reservoir of water a few feet thick surrounding the living space would be adequate.
How large do you think this living space would be? A reservoir of water a few feet thick surrounding a living area sounds like a massive thing to me.
Maybe you can use the rocket fuel that is needed for orbit injection around Mars (are we talking about going to Mars?  ) to shield the spacecraft? I think a magnetic shield could also provide protection, but that probably needs a lot of power. A nuclear reactor would be handy to bring.
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leftysurprise
Powdered Toast Activist
Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 11,588
Loc: Florida
Last seen: 3 hours, 29 minutes
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: DieCommie]
#8968762 - 09/22/08 03:49 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said:
Even if there is mass extinction many times over, I think we have a good chance that a viable population will survive through them for quite a long while.
We have already been around for nearly a million years, I see no reason to assume we wont be for a few million more, at least.
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"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. " ~Abraham Lincoln
“If I had a quarter for every time I said I had a nickel, I would have five times as much theoretical money. ” ~Stephen Colbert
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” ~Stephen Roberts
"George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd." ~Unknown
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 13,981
Last seen: 3 hours, 14 minutes
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: leftysurprise]
#8968789 - 09/22/08 03:55 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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One interesting thing to think of is this...
What will society be rebuilt with?
In the years before and especially since the Industrial Revolution mankind has exhumed and exhausted most of the easily reached natural resources. Hence our reliance on increasingly exotic technologies and scientific breakthroughs to continue to provide us with the energy that we crave. It was easy enough to build an industrial society when oil lay pooled on the ground and coal littered the Earth's mountains for the picking.
It's hard to imagine, however, oil sands or hydro-fractured natural gas wells being a viable option for any kind of societal re-emergence following a global-scale catastrophe.
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adjust
ɥƃnouǝʇuɐɔı
Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 8,582
Loc: Canada, LOL
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: Madtowntripper]
#8969118 - 09/22/08 05:32 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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Quote:
Madtowntripper said:
One interesting thing to think of is this...
What will society be rebuilt with?
In the years before and especially since the Industrial Revolution mankind has exhumed and exhausted most of the easily reached natural resources. Hence our reliance on increasingly exotic technologies and scientific breakthroughs to continue to provide us with the energy that we crave. It was easy enough to build an industrial society when oil lay pooled on the ground and coal littered the Earth's mountains for the picking.
It's hard to imagine, however, oil sands or hydro-fractured natural gas wells being a viable option for any kind of societal re-emergence following a global-scale catastrophe.
Exactly. We can't even build gothic cathedrals anymore. They needed hundred of years of passed down masonry skill to build construct them. We simply do not have the knowledge to do it any longer.
In a similar way, if our civilization was to collapse it would have a tremendous effect on the computer industry. The robots that build the computers are run by other computers and designed by other computers. If you destroy this infrastructure of computer technology and professionals, you can't easily rebuild.
Another good example is sending another man to our moon... hey the US did it already but the engineers and technology that made it happen died out. That's why it is so difficult to do today.
After a global catastrophe we would be considerably worse off than we were 10,000 years ago. We would have to start off again without the abundant resources that triggered the bronze and iron age.
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automan
blasted chipmunk
Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 4,558
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: adjust]
#8969184 - 09/22/08 05:49 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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That's why we have books. A lot of the knowledge is there, you just need people eager enough to go learn it and build upon it.
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wiccan you need a big glass of shut the fuck up ~ Stein
No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
I wish my lawn was emo, cuz then it would cut itself ~ paraphrased by coda
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adjust
ɥƃnouǝʇuɐɔı
Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 8,582
Loc: Canada, LOL
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: automan]
#8969304 - 09/22/08 06:11 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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Think about it though.
We don't have the same resources literally lying around as we did in the bronze age.
We can't really "start from scratch" like we did in the past.
We have books on the nasa's manned missions to the moon. Yet they are still having a hard time recreating those technologies. Now imagine if all the world's electronics were suddenly destroyed.
What good is a book when you don't have the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that build's the machine that builds the machine that you want to build.
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 7,652
Loc: The Union
Last seen: 1 hour, 27 minutes
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: adjust]
#8969501 - 09/22/08 06:56 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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I think that previous knowledge and traditions would overshadow resource scarcity allowing us to progress from stone age to industry more rapidly after a cataclysm than the first time we did it.
I am skeptical as to how scarce resources would be anyway... all the forests would be grown back, not all the fossil fuels would be exhausted, and there would be a smaller human population so a smaller demand for energy.
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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adjust
ɥƃnouǝʇuɐɔı
Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 8,582
Loc: Canada, LOL
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: DieCommie]
#8969557 - 09/22/08 07:06 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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I guess also you have garbage dumps.
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 7,652
Loc: The Union
Last seen: 1 hour, 27 minutes
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: adjust]
#8969570 - 09/22/08 07:08 PM (2 months, 11 days ago) |
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Often when I throw away papers or personal items I ponder what a future archeologist might think when they are dug up.
More than once I have erased a bad equation or shredded something for that very reason... 
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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