Dark Neptune

I think if our race is going to survive, we will need to build mobile space colonies, built in space, not on the moon, mars, or any other moon in our solar system.  The reason is that we can build them close to earth, for the time being, build them in pieces, construct them so they rotate and produce the gravity we want, so that the children born on them can still visit the earth.  Then when the sun gets too hot in 500 million - 1 billion years (far before the red giant stage), the colonies could be moved further out. When the sun goes into red giant, further out still. 

There is a lot of material that could be used for their construction, the moon, asteroids, comets etc., we can make them any way we want to, as large as we want, we could even add on to them as the population grows.

When the sun finally dies as a white dwarf in 5 billion or so years, we should have the technology to move these colonies to other stars.  We won't even need planets, just a source of energy, any star that isn't too unstable will do.

I posted this in a topic in space missions, along with a link describing why some scientists think this is the best idea:

http://www.astronomy.com/ASY/CS/forums/332284/ShowPost.aspx

Will we do it?  Probably not soon, but in the end, when we are finally faced with extinction (if we aren't already) I think this is the way we will have to go.  In the meantime, we'll probably spend billions or trillions going to the moon and mars, for no good reason other than ? , with no long term benefit in terms of the survival of our species. 

Earth's moon, Mars, maybe into another solar system, prehaps Alpha Centauri. Who knows, only time wil tell!

Dark Neptune wrote:

Before the Solar System ends,if we still live,we will most probably living on Saturn's or Uranus's moons to witness it.Am I correct or wrong

The mighty Kreskin touches his forehead and gazes into the future. You are wrong! That is far too conventional thinking. Reality in all cases consists of the unexpected. The quantum wierdness demands it.  No one will ever see the death of the sun. The universe will die long before the sun has time to age to that geriatric stage. Men will witness the death of the universe along with the death of their species. Kreskin has spoken!

Dark Neptune wrote:

Whoa.Alpha Centuari.Than if the system's star explodes as well,where will it be then?

We'll be in our space colonies heading for another star (or stars ... each country could have their own colony in space and head for different star systems! )...

Maybe a stable red dwarf ... if there is such a thing ... that might last hunreds of billions or trillions of years ...

Dark Neptune wrote:

Then we will be frozen unless Red or White dwarfs still produce some heat.

First of all I said red dwarf not white ... do you even know what a red dwarf is?  Did you know they are actual stars with an HZ (habitable zone) close to the star, and that younger versions of them give off massive flares, so would not be safe to approach ... but older ones are thought to be more stable?  Did you know that 90% of the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs?  And they don't know for sure how long these stars will last.  They think these stars will last at least 100's of billions of years, if not more.  Nobody knows for sure. 

Besides we could go wherever we want, so I'm assuming if we were smart enough to build a space colony we would be smart enough to figure out where to go to survive ... why would we go somewhere to freeze?

Hmm the last time I heard of building a colony outside Earth there was this interesting idea of exatracting energy from black holes. Sounds pretty interesting to me.

Anyway, if I were to choose somewhere inside the solar system apart from earth, then europa seems to be a decent place :D 

annechan wrote:

Hmm the last time I heard of building a colony outside Earth there was this interesting idea of exatracting energy from black holes. Sounds pretty interesting to me. Anyway, if I were to choose somewhere inside the solar system apart from earth, then europa seems to be a decent place :D

The great thing about building movable space colonies, as opposed to static ones on moons or planets, is that you can move them to a source of energy, rather than waiting for the energy to run out where-ever you have plopped your race down, and then having to start over again somewhere else.  That energy source doesn't have to be a star, it could be a frozen moon with tons of ice, that could be used for all sorts of things, or a moon like titan ... with methane and ice.  Just park yourself in orbit, and go get the resources you need, then move on. 

Movable colonies would also allow you to get out of the way of danger, for example asteroids and comets.  If they were movable and rotatable, you can create your own gravity, rather than trying to adapt to a smaller moon or planet with less gravity and trying to cope with the long term effect(s)?

Also on a moon or planet, you are a sitting duck , something is bound to hit you eventually.  You might as well put a big target on your colony so the asteroid or comet can find it easier when it decides to blast you and your colony into oblivion ...

After the sun gets big enough and hot enough to melt the ice on Europa, if it does, the sun blows off the outer layers and shrinks back down to a white dwarf.  The the oceans would refreeze and you would have to move again, if you weren't trapped there.

Also the radiation from Jupiter is so intense at the surface of Europa, it would kill a human in seconds, if not instantly, and even robots would have trouble surviving for long.  If you put a colony deep in the ocean you might be safe, but how big could you make such a colony, how much trouble would it be to make it, and who would want to go there.  I wouldn't.  I'll be sitting in my space colony laughing at all the Europians as their ocean refreezes trapping them under hundreds of kilometers of ice.  So long, bye bye, you fools I'd be saying along with my billions of other colonists ... in my comfortable movable safe space colony.

If you build a movable space colony in the first place, as the sun grows you move out, as it shrinks you can move it back in.  As it dies, you can move to another star ... if you want to, you could even move it to orbit a brown dwarf, a black hole, a planet with lots of resources, whatever and wherever you want.  The movable space colony has unlimited expansion capabilities, you could move it to the resources you need, you can rotate it for gravity, you can move it out of harms way for safety, you can build shields to protect against radiation.  Why put yourself on unmovable hostile world that you will eventually have to move off of anyway?

astro_rt03 wrote:

After the sun gets big enough and hot enough to melt the ice on Europa, if it does, the sun blows off the outer layers and shrinks back down to a white dwarf.  The the oceans would refreeze and you would have to move again, if you weren't trapped there. Also the radiation from Jupiter is so intense at the surface of Europa, it would kill a human in seconds, if not instantly, and even robots would have trouble surviving for long.  If you put a colony deep in the ocean you might be safe, but how big could you make such a colony, how much trouble would it be to make it, and who would want to go there.  I wouldn't.  I'll be sitting in my space colony laughing at all the Europians as their ocean refreezes trapping them under hundreds of kilometers of ice.  So long, bye bye, you fools I'd be saying along with my billions of other colonists ... in my comfortable movable safe space colony. If you build a movable space colony in the first place, as the sun grows you move out, as it shrinks you can move it back in.  As it dies, you can move to another star ... if you want to, you could even move it to orbit a brown dwarf, a black hole, a planet with lots of resources, whatever and wherever you want.  The movable space colony has unlimited expansion capabilities, you could move it to the resources you need, you can rotate it for gravity, you can move it out of harms way for safety, you can build shields to protect against radiation.  Why put yourself on unmovable hostile world that you will eventually have to move off of anyway?

Ya,go ahead and laugh all you can at those Europians.They will laugh at you before you can laugh at them,as the Sun explodes,matter is forced out,so Europa water will provide some shelter,but your space colony may not be able to withstand and thus burn along with the Sun.By By astro_rt03 then.....

Dark Neptune wrote:

Ya,go ahead and laugh all you can at those Europians.They will laugh at you before you can laugh at them,as the Sun explodes,matter is forced out,so Europa water will provide some shelter,but your space colony may not be able to withstand and thus burn along with the Sun.By By astro_rt03 then.....

Ya but I'm hiring really smart people to build my space colony, so they will know when the sun is going to explode and we'll be somewhere safe long before it does.  Plus I'm going to have them put radiation shields on it strong enough to withstand the blast.  And I'll still be laughing at the Europans when their water freezes on them.  My colony will be in orbit around titan, and getting fuel for our trip to the nearest red dwarf since the sun is dying and so is everybody that is trapped on Europa ...

But if the Europans want to come with us, I could add another section to my colony and call it Europa ... but only if they said they were sorry for all the trouble they caused, and they would have to eventually pay the construction costs ...

astro_rt03 wrote:

Dark Neptune wrote: Ya,go ahead and laugh all you can at those Europians.They will laugh at you before you can laugh at them,as the Sun explodes,matter is forced out,so Europa water will provide some shelter,but your space colony may not be able to withstand and thus burn along with the Sun.By By astro_rt03 then..... Ya but I'm hiring really smart people to build my space colony, so they will know when the sun is going to explode and we'll be somewhere safe long before it does.  Plus I'm going to have them put radiation shields on it strong enough to withstand the blast.  And I'll still be laughing at the Europans when their water freezes on them.  My colony will be in orbit around titan, and getting fuel for our trip to the nearest red dwarf since the sun is dying and so is everybody that is trapped on Europa ... But if the Europans want to come with us, I could add another section to my colony and call it Europa ... but only if they said they were sorry for all the trouble they caused, and they would have to eventually pay the construction costs ...

We Europians then will live in space colonies but underwater,so as the Sun finishes its explosion,we quickly head towards it,as not wanting to be frozen.

Dark Neptune wrote:

Before the Solar System ends,if we still live,we will most probably living on Saturn's or Uranus's moons to witness it.Am I correct or wrong

about a billion years till Sun becomes hot enough to boil Earth's oceans right?

 If we still somehow exist at that point, we'll deserve what we get if we haven't figured out a way to get to other Solar Systems.

 Movable colony sounds cool and all, but I don't see how anything built by us can last for a very long time in space. Mechanics tend to wear, and Electonics don't last forever either. So sure we can find many sources of energy in outer space. But being able to gather matter and refine it to support your station will be much harder.

 But, who knows how advanced our technology is going to get in a billion years if we are still around... Hell, just from evolutionary mutation's stand point we might all look like those little Alien green men by then.

Hello, I post here very infrequently. This appears to have triggered a strange discussion.

 However, theoretically we can prolong the lifespan of our planet right up to the time till the Sun begins to expand into its redgigant phase.

 Pick a handy asteroyd, Ceres perhaps. Move it into a special orbit between Earth and Jubiter. If done right each time a litle energy will be robbed from the oribt of Jubiter and each time the orbit of Earth will gain a litle.

 This would use the principle that all objects in space do have a mass, and therefore do influence each other to a degree.

 Now, given a sufficient amount of time the Earth will move from the Sun in its orbit. This might solve the threat to Earth from the Sun that will come to head within the next 2 billion years, i.e. the gradual but inexorable increase in its radiation will make the Earth uninhabitable within that time period if nothing is done.

Regards, Einar 

I don't know if we should move anywhere. Currently we can't even take care of our original home so how would we be able to cope on another world that didn't have all of the amenities we have literally grown to require here. So many people would die, similar to moving a pine forest into the desert. All of the trees would die because that is not their natural environment. If we all move to mars, we would all die because there is just not enough of what we need.

Put it this way, we would soon run out of oxygen because we are cutting down the trees. On mars there are no trees or oxygen, just carbon dioxide, remove the oxide, and you are left with carbon, which is where we are here on earth now. So nope that doesn't work unless you like carbon in your lungs.

Second, we have trillions of gallons of water here on earth, yet there is becoming less and less DRINKABLE water for our giant population. On mars (or other world) there is no water. So how can we get enough water for us all, when we are on a planet full of water, and there is not enough?

The only way for any of this to work, is to go in groups of about 1000 or so. Small enough to be sustainable for a long time, enough to reproduce consistantly. And even then, we would only be able to circulate the genes a couple of times before they started to go arwy and everyone becomes retarded and/or deformed.

So tell me, how are we going to go to any planet/moon whatever when we can barely survive here? How are we going to live with eachother for the 22.5 million years that it takes to go to the next star or whatever. It's not like we can just go to a star and it will work. There has to be the perfect conditions (like here on earth) for us to be sustainable.

And as far as radiation is concerned, i don't think any sort of mineral/ore/alloy/plastic/ionizer laser ray forcefield run by purple quazilark supercharged crystals, (deep breath) we could find would be enough to withstand the radiation produced by a billion degrees. there are just so many variables to account for, and we can barely do anything as of now anyway, how would we really realisticly do any of this. 

We're still just dumb monkeys, with big dumb useless brains, and cellphones. Most of us wouldn't be able to survive out on the street in the snow, much less on another planet/moon or in a spinning tin can. It's just impossible.

Hell, we still think that light is the fastest thing in the universe!