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mofo
Hobby Jingoist


Registered: 04/05/08
Posts: 2,232
Loc: Donkey Kong Kill Screen
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: Hematite]
#8958898 - 09/20/08 01:19 PM (15 years, 7 months 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: 6,367
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 1 year, 3 days
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: mofo]
#8959156 - 09/20/08 02:17 PM (15 years, 7 months 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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LeftyBurnz
Mr. I Eat Butthole



Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 24,570
Loc: FL
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: DieCommie]
#8968762 - 09/22/08 03:49 PM (15 years, 7 months 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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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,289
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 9 days, 18 hours
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: LeftyBurnz]
#8968789 - 09/22/08 03:55 PM (15 years, 7 months 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.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
Stranger

Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 11,123
Loc: Texas
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: Madtowntripper]
#8969118 - 09/22/08 05:32 PM (15 years, 7 months 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: 8,272
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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.
-------------------- No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
Stranger

Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 11,123
Loc: Texas
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: automan]
#8969304 - 09/22/08 06:11 PM (15 years, 7 months 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


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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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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lIllIIIllIlIIlIlIIllIllIIl
Stranger

Registered: 12/16/04
Posts: 11,123
Loc: Texas
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Re: Priority... explore our own moon or Jupiter's moons? [Re: DieCommie]
#8969557 - 09/22/08 07:06 PM (15 years, 7 months ago) |
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I guess also you have garbage dumps.
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DieCommie


Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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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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