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Post by richardvonkatzen on May 19, 2018 21:31:34 GMT
In my opinion the space fixation of science fiction is a product of astronomy nerds wanting to go places that are really not practical to go. Rather than a realistic extrapolation of economics and technology it's basically just fantasy with a lot of really impractical engineering feats to rationalize it.
Mostly here I am thinking of space travel and (relatedly) aliens. There are plenty of reasonable people who think that a lot of the technology space travel and colonization depends on (super-materials, useful fusion engines) are just not possible, or at least not practical. At present space travel is totally unfeasible in terms of any economic returns and humans have serious problems even surviving in space (it makes the arctic regions look like the Bahamas).
Despite the futurist religious conviction that technology is magical and unlimited the material realities of our solar system and the limits of energy production and transportation may be far more 'down-to-Earth'.
So assuming (quite reasonably) that energy is never so incredibly cheap that platinum asteroids are worth mining, and that biological species simply cannot cope with long-term spacing, and that the speed of light is real and not some kind of conspiracy to keep humans bottled up in the solar system - what will science fiction be left with? Almost all science fiction is unrealistic on any number of grounds, but what happens if 400 years from now humans are still using fission power and living on Earth? What will sci-fi be left with if reality pours cold water on the astronomy nerds? What happens to science fiction when it becomes increasingly apparent that neither mankind nor anybody else is going anywhere beyond their own solar system - if that far?
Much of science fiction is basically drama/action IN SPAAAACE! but of all the sci-fi tropes deep space is probably one of the least realistic. While nerds may love the idea of going to Jupiter the fact is that Jupiter is a radioactive Hellscape. Even the most hospitable planets (Mercury, Mars and Venus) are horrible, horrible places worse than a Chernobyl could ever dream of being. Almost no plausible ecological disaster on the planet (other than an asteroid outright blowing the atmosphere off) could ever make these places more appealing - and, even then, just living in Earth orbit would seem to be leagues more practical and economical.
If one were to take 'space' away from the dreams of science fiction pretty much all that's left is cyberpunk and techno-thrillers. Without starships and aliens - two things which we have no real reason to believe we'll have in any forseeable future - that's really all there is to sci-fi.
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Post by darthroach on May 19, 2018 21:36:22 GMT
I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the setting since most of that doesn't apply to the CoaDE universe. There is no fusion, starships or FTL. Just rather improbably cheap additive manufacturing, wacky pricing based on element abundance and the occasional railgun that violates energy conservation laws.
ETA: And you don't even need fusion to do interstellar travel. The light speed limit is probably immutable, but you can theoretically do just fine by coasting at relativistic velocities on lasersails. This, of course, requires vast amounts of space infrastructure but you're going to need that before you even think about going to other systems anyway. The real challenge, I think, is getting off the planet in any reasonable numbers to begin with given the lack of economic incentive. Once that hurdle is crossed, it's all just an engineering problem, no magic required.
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Post by richardvonkatzen on May 19, 2018 21:45:35 GMT
I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the setting since most of that doesn't apply to the CoaDE universe. There is no fusion, starships or FTL. Just rather improbably cheap additive manufacturing, wacky pricing based on element abundance and the occasional railgun that violates energy conservation laws. CoaDE is less outlandish than most space travel but it's still pretty out there. Even going to Mars seems like a tremendous waste of energy and money. Given workable technology the only places that might be worth going are ones that have huge deposits of rare metals and radioactive elements, and these would in themselves be necessary to make space travel feasible. Space war itself is not realistic - using planet-to-planet nukes would be way cheaper, and if interplanetary bombardment doesn't get you what you want there's no reason having orbital space fights would. Humans might kill each other for the Hell of it, but if they do they're going to use more economical means than mounting rail guns to tin cans and spending a hundred trillion dollars launching a million tons of hydrogen into space.
There is so much nothing in space that there's really nothing to fight over. It would require energy to be absurdly cheap to even bother, and if it's that cheap it'd be easier to find it elsewhere.
Most real wars are fought for political control (not for resources, though that's a secondary factor). Mars is no place to raise a kid, and there's no one to raise them if you did! It just doesn't seem likely that there would be anything worth fighting over in space to begin with. In order to make space cheaper (escaping the tyrannical law of gravity) you'd need space manufacturing. But to do space manufacturing you'd need materials in space. So you have to go find asteroids - which requires megatons of fuel. And if fusion plants/rockets are not practical that means you need to find volatile chemicals (which are very rare in asteroids, because they're volatile) and/or fissible elements (which are almost all locked up in planetary cores). So you've got extremely low density of useful materials at extreme distances or you have to fight gravity, except instead of fighting gravity on a nice world with a breathable atmosphere and existing manufacturing capability you're fighting it on some super-radioactive volcanic inferno a trillion miles away.
Basically, without magitech it wouldn't be worth it to go into space even with 'realistic' space ships. The more realistic your technology the less realistic deep space anything becomes. The more outlandish your technology the more pointless it becomes.
Solar system exploitation is just barely plausible given hundreds of years of infrastructure development, economic improvements and a universal adoption of fission power. Otherwise even simply robot asteroid mining doesn't seem like it's going to happen.
A realistic, hard science, currently-plausible tech space setting would be more like the year 2700, not 2070. Anyone who tried to go into space before that threshold (where space is as profitable as Earth investment) would materially fall behind and get overtaken, robbed and curbstomped on Earth by the well-developed militaries that don't have to use nuclear bombs just to cross the street.
A really 'realistic' space combat simulator might be people shooting satellites out of the sky from the ground, because satellites are the only thing that seems to be actually useful to put in space.
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Post by bigbombr on May 20, 2018 9:50:40 GMT
CoaDE is less outlandish than most space travel but it's still pretty out there. Even going to Mars seems like a tremendous waste of energy and money. Given workable technology the only places that might be worth going are ones that have huge deposits of rare metals and radioactive elements, and these would in themselves be necessary to make space travel feasible. Space war itself is not realistic - using planet-to-planet nukes would be way cheaper, and if interplanetary bombardment doesn't get you what you want there's no reason having orbital space fights would. Humans might kill each other for the Hell of it, but if they do they're going to use more economical means than mounting rail guns to tin cans and spending a hundred trillion dollars launching a million tons of hydrogen into space.
We currently have nukes, that doesn't mean superpowers are constantly nuking each other, as not every war is total war. And a million tons of hydrogen is a massive spacecraft. Many of my combat spacecraft mass under one kiloton. Few of my spacecraft mass over a megaton. Furthermore, interplanetary missiles lack point defense and are therefore easy to intercept. There is so much nothing in space that there's really nothing to fight over. It would require energy to be absurdly cheap to even bother, and if it's that cheap it'd be easier to find it elsewhere.
There is a lot of nothing in space, but there is also a lot of something in space, simply because space is large. Energy doesn't need to be cheap to make a large space economy profitable, current energy prices are low enough assuming you use laserlaunch or lofstrom launch loops to get into orbit. Most real wars are fought for political control (not for resources, though that's a secondary factor).
Wars are fought for strategic objectives. Resources, ideological reasons, politics, alliances, security, ... are all possible reasons.
Mars is no place to raise a kid, and there's no one to raise them if you did!
Why would you wish to live on Mars when you can just put a few research outposts there and live in comfort in O'Neill cilinders?
It just doesn't seem likely that there would be anything worth fighting over in space to begin with.
Resources and space itself seem valid motives.
In order to make space cheaper (escaping the tyrannical law of gravity) you'd need space manufacturing.
It helps, but isn't required to get started. As stated above, laserlaunch and lofstrom launch loop are highly capable systems.
But to do space manufacturing you'd need materials in space. So you have to go find asteroids - which requires megatons of fuel.
It really doesn't require a lot of propellant. Electrostatic, electromagnetic and laserthermal drives allow for spacecraft with a large amount of delta-v without a ballooning mass ratio. And delta-v wise, there are plenty of 'nearby' asteroids.
And if fusion plants/rockets are not practical that means you need to find volatile chemicals (which are very rare in asteroids, because they're volatile) and/or fissible elements (which are almost all locked up in planetary cores). So you've got extremely low density of useful materials at extreme distances or you have to fight gravity, except instead of fighting gravity on a nice world with a breathable atmosphere and existing manufacturing capability you're fighting it on some super-radioactive volcanic inferno a trillion miles away.
So what, solar electric drives aren't a thing? And Mercury has a decent gravity well but practically no atmosphere, meaning you can easily ship materials out by mass driver or lofstromlaunch loop. And chemical rockets suck for interplanetary travel. Their Isp (and exhaust velocity) is too low. Basically, without magitech it wouldn't be worth it to go into space even with 'realistic' space ships.
See above.
The more realistic your technology the less realistic deep space anything becomes. The more outlandish your technology the more pointless it becomes.
If you have advanced fusion than why not dismantle Jupiter for fusion fuel? If you have advanced automation/AI, why not build a matrioshka brain? Solar system exploitation is just barely plausible given hundreds of years of infrastructure development, economic improvements and a universal adoption of fission power. Otherwise even simply robot asteroid mining doesn't seem like it's going to happen.
There are a few startups for asteroid mining and at least one startup for in-orbit manufacturing. Kinda reminds me how in 1907 some newspapers stated humans might be able to construct heavier than air aircraft by the year 3000. A realistic, hard science, currently-plausible tech space setting would be more like the year 2700, not 2070.
By 2070 I expect some asteroid mining, a few spacestations and a moonbase, possibly a research outpost on Mars or in Mars orbit. By 2700 I expect hundreds of O'Neill cilinders with a large fraction of the asteroids being mined, and a start of a Dyson swarm.
Anyone who tried to go into space before that threshold (where space is as profitable as Earth investment) would materially fall behind and get overtaken, robbed and curbstomped on Earth by the well-developed militaries that don't have to use nuclear bombs just to cross the street.
Counterpoint: orbital superiority completely negates air superiority, which is why the US recently formed a branch inside the US airforce for space combat. And rods from the gods make effective city busters, while an orbital lasernet might bring MAD in jeopardy. There is a reason both the US and China are actively working on anti-orbital weapons and space borne capabilities that might be weaponized. A really 'realistic' space combat simulator might be people shooting satellites out of the sky from the ground, because satellites are the only thing that seems to be actually useful to put in space.
ASAT weapons already exist since the Cold War. Countermeasures against these are already under development, and recently there has been a revitalization of ASAT weapons and potential countermeasures.
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Post by defacto on May 20, 2018 12:42:46 GMT
If you're imaganing von Brauninan ''Let's put 50 people and Mars and then go home... because flags!'' scenarios or some kind of NASA with 20% of USA's GDP spending trillions on getting a slightly better understanding of how the solar system was formed, then sure, I agree with you. But then, I think it is your view of spaceflight that's suffereing from zeerust, not spaceflight itself. My understanding is that today, there is an economic incentive for developing spaceflight, based on current technology. Orbital systems for supporting communications, earth observation, etc. are undoubtedly profitable. The eventual costs and profits for a system of tugs and refueling infrastructure based on ISRU can and has been assesed, and the judgement is that the development costs would be very high, but it would be profitable. This system would be used for stationkeeping, orbit changes, ejection burns and maintainance of spacecraft in Earth and lunar space. This is, as I understand it, a very lucrative market that is currently completely untapped. With this system in place, it would be profitable to construct infrastructure for mineral extraction and simple manufacturing in space. Valuable metals would be extracted and colony-dropped on a suitable spot of Earth. Replacement parts for spacecraft would be manufactured, maybe eventually entire spacecraft. The cost of manufacturing something in space using ISRU would be outweighed by the humongous costs of launching something out of Earth's gravity well, and what if you only need to replace a 3D-printed 0.05 kg cog? The final step would be construction of low-cost launch infrastructure like Rotovators, that would usher in an age of Sea-Dragon-style cheap and shoddily (in a mass-conservation sense) built payloads that bring the costs of spaceflight into the realm of aviation.
Feel free to doubt this statement, I don't really have a source right now, I could try to look it up if you are interested.
And commenting on the CoadE lore: While it's true that Earth was rendered uninhabitable and this is part of the explanation for the situation in CoadE, it's worth noting that the civilization already had what I would consider an interplanetary economy, with several Rotovators (meaning many tonnes of payload per day!) active. And I would consider that a plausible or at least possible future.
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Post by darthroach on May 21, 2018 2:49:18 GMT
CoaDE is less outlandish than most space travel but it's still pretty out there. Even going to Mars seems like a tremendous waste of energy and money. There is no economic return on investment, true. Not for a single-planet civilization, anyway. Which is why I said we need to break the incentive deadlock - there is no incentive to do space exploration for an earth-based civilization because besides some precious metals there really isn't much out there except endless living space to sustain a population orders of magnitude larger than what we currently have. But it won't bring anyone a net income. Colonizing planets is a dead end anyway, any reasonable setting realizes that space habitats are far better in every way than trying to terraform dead planets. There isn't anywhere that manned spaceflight is ever going to return a profit. Unless people just get over it and go out there for reasons other than the bottom line, there will be zero space colonization. All the things that could feasibly pay off - asteroid mining and solar power satellites - can be done by drones. There is absolutely stuff to fight over once you're done colonizing a place. Abundance never lasts, demand simply grows to match it. What is political capital if not a resource, a means to some other end? You're taking a naive teenager's view on history. Why are you so obsessed with Mars? Mars is a good, obvious starting point to get the public captivated but it is unlikely to ever be a major economic driving force for space colonization. But space habitats are perfectly viable and much more likely to happen. Fuel is cheap in space. If an orbital civilization ever gets established, it really is more economical to mine asteroids than it is to waste propellant in gravity wells. [/div][/quote] No you don't. The sun is constantly blasting everything within hundreds of AUs with energy you can use for everything from life support to propulsion. Why are you so fixated on planets? Habitats can have custom made living conditions at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the cost of terraforming some place. That line of thinking is a dead end. The future, if it even exists, lies in swarms of habitats surrounding stars. It isn't worth going to space until people live there. If you break the initial barrier, it is perfectly sensible with even today's scientific understanding. Interstellar civilizations are physically possible right now, they're just not systemically attainable. It's an engineerign and economics problem (that I don't think will ever be overcome, but that's besides the point), not a hard theoretical barrier. It's perfectly plausible given one initial assumption, that we get off this bloody rock to begin with. You're making a load of assumptions about what is or isn't required to live in space that simply aren't supported by anything. You're just trying to convince everyone to go along with your headcanon that prefercs cyberpunk to rocketpunk. That's fine and all, just don't use crap arguments for it. Conjecture, based on your personal preference of what is "realistic" and what isn't. Until any of it happens it's just fantasy, deal with it.
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Post by apophys on May 23, 2018 3:57:24 GMT
Mostly here I am thinking of space travel and (relatedly) aliens. There are plenty of reasonable people who think that a lot of the technology space travel and colonization depends on (super-materials, useful fusion engines) are just not possible, or at least not practical. At present space travel is totally unfeasible in terms of any economic returns and humans have serious problems even surviving in space (it makes the arctic regions look like the Bahamas). [...] While nerds may love the idea of going to Jupiter the fact is that Jupiter is a radioactive Hellscape. Even the most hospitable planets (Mercury, Mars and Venus) are horrible, horrible places worse than a Chernobyl could ever dream of being. Almost no plausible ecological disaster on the planet (other than an asteroid outright blowing the atmosphere off) could ever make these places more appealing - and, even then, just living in Earth orbit would seem to be leagues more practical and economical. Super-materials, fusion engines, and FTL may not be feasible or practical, indeed. This changes nothing, because realistic space travel and colonization do not depend on them. Solar thermal, solar electric, laser ablative, and/or laser sail spacecraft using very near-term tech are capable of supporting a civilization extending at least across to the asteroid belt and Jupiter, without consuming fissile or fusile elements or requiring large amounts of propellant. Laser sail (possibly combined with a particle beam, as in PROCSIMA) is a viable method of interstellar travel within the same constraints (though that is obviously farther in the future due to the scale).
Humans surviving in space long-term is feasible without new tech advancements. Gravity at 1G can be mimicked with a rotating habitat. Space radiation can be blocked with either mass shielding or (preferably) an artificial magnetic field. Electricity for systems can be generated with solar thermal power (concentrating sunlight with mirrors onto a hot plate, then using any heat engine, such as turbines or thermophotovoltaics, then rejecting waste heat). A closed-loop ecology is necessary for a colony; this can be done with aquaponics.
Economics has been nearly beaten to death by others above, but there's another point: if it can be done, and many people have the means, eventually somebody will do it (whether for economics, glory, escape, making a legacy, or whatever). Advancement of civilization guarantees that if we don't fall into a permanent global dystopia, space colonization will happen (and from there, it will be self-expanding). Elon Musk seems to be making good progress toward that first step; whether he reaches it or not is yet to be seen (but it's likely).
You correctly notice that non-Earth planets are generally poor places to live, and that orbit is more practical. You seem to miss the asteroid belt and planetary moons as potential spots; they are easy to access, have plentiful resources, and require less effort than planets to make livable, making them quite practical colony locations.
We are probably the first intelligent life capable of spaceflight in our galaxy, so I'm not expecting alien contact to be a concern any time in the next few thousand years.
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rgm79
New Member
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Post by rgm79 on May 24, 2018 4:33:47 GMT
And one Elon Musk who think that key technology for space colonyzation is just reusable chemical rockets FAA annual Compendium show a lot of economic returns from space explorations - $ 98 B only from satellite television. And ways to increase economic returns are also existe. For example ULA CisLunar-1000 project:
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Post by richardvonkatzen on May 25, 2018 9:15:16 GMT
I don't know how to multiquote, so I'm doing this manually:
bigbombr There are two major reasons nukes aren't used, and a third minor one: 1) Nukes are an inefficient concentration of energy. Blowing things to atoms and flattening cities is just overkill. Conventional weapons - some of which are the size of small nukes - do the job just fine, and for a lot less money. 2) MAD. An armed society is a polite society, and people with thermonuclear bombs tend to not be attacked. 3) Public opinion and so forth.
I don't think I agree. Maybe on a tactical or operational level, but modern governments are basically an expropriation and control mechanism of the ruling class. Wars are fought to expend munitions (and thus bring in more revenue for contractors), to scare the native population (and thus implement police states and economic controls using fear as an excuse) and to protect the existing ruling class. Any efficient control of material resources, etc. can be a factor in motivating one of these but it is usually more of an excuse than an impetus.
Space colonies are definitely more practical than planetary settlement, but even most 'hard' science fiction is obsessed with planets. This is what motivates most interstellar expansion fiction - if you're not going to use planets why leave Sol system? Just throw up a ton of tin cans into high orbit. However, there is TONS of room in between Earth and Luna. Why bother building O'Neill cylinders anywhere but right next to the most heavily populated, industrialised, hospitable and well-supplied planet in the entire system? Not really. There is more than enough room for ten times the current population on Earth alone, especially if we have the tech to manage space habitats - an nuclear-rad scarred Earth is more hospitable, even in Antarctica, than anywhere off the planet. If there is no really compelling reason to leave (you need that per annum return on capital to at least match the interest rate or it will not work) then it makes more sense to recycle or invest in alternative resources instead of hunting for ice balls out near Ganymede.
Laser launch and MagLifts are the most plausible method of 'cheap' expansion into space. That being said if you have the power requirements and tech down for these that would make investment more profitable on Earth. Money follows returns. If it pays more to invest on Earth than in space then people will invest on Earth, and if some choose not to they will lose money and control of their assets will be transferred to those who buy them out after investing in superior return environments, i.e. Earth.
The nearer something is the more a low specific impulse impairs their economic viability. Efficient drives are too slow, fast drives are too inefficient. Not impossible, but unlikely in the near future.
Because you could make it out of water for cheaper than trying to build anything in a superdense, hypergravity radioactive hell trillions of miles from the sun. If possible this would just lead to the extinction/replacement of humans, by cybernetics or genocide. Super-AI and biological humans are not compatible paradigms. There were startups for selling toys out of apartments capitalized with millions of dollars, too. Just because the Federal Reserve prints money and makes all sorts of inane investments possible doesn't mean they make sense.
Assuming the efficiency of our economy improved, certain technologies advanced drastically and some real use were found for stuff beyond high Earth orbit, maybe. Assuming we continue on economic stagnation, that all the 'low-hanging fruit' of technology have already been picked, and everything is too far away to be profitable I can easily see people still using handguns and fighting over tribal idols in 2700.
Even when it was released Footfall was criticized for its unrealistic depiction of gravitic kinetic weapons. They're not all they're cracked up to be, and the corollary technology to efficient space travel (cheap power, super lasers, high delta-V, high-acceleration rockets) would make ground-to-space at least as effective. Ultimately this is a complex engineering topic that depends entirely on historical accident to decide what dominates when and how. But technology is not the all-powerful machine that science fiction authors or the welfare whores at Boeing imagine it to be.
Darth Roach:
why do we 'need' to? Economic returns reflect the relative scarcity of goods, accounting for the demand for them. If people are comfortable living in diamond skyscrapers with fusion generators on Earth I see zero reason for them not to. Personally I don't care about what happens in a million years or whatever, and think there are already plenty of human beings - not because I believe in 'overpopulation' or 'resource' scarcity per se but just because I don't see what utility an endless multiplication of zeros has. If humans were not half-witted tribal apes I might care whether they get wiped out by an asteroid, but as it is whether they disappear in 5 million years from galactic collisions (something interstellar travel will do nothing to help, BTW) or because the sun becomes a red giant is completely irrelevant for me. I would have more existential investment in Skynet than mankind, at least Skynet has its shit together.
It's just an example as the best one can reasonably hope for. Almost any other planet would be worse.
Near-Earth orbital stuff, Luna and the nearby asteroids might be worth exploiting. Perhaps further out, with gradual development of infrastructure and technology. But I see no reason not to do almost all of it with robots, and I don't see it happening for a long time. Basically, by the time Star Trek has us exploring the Alpha Quadrant I'd say we'd be adventurous to bother with Saturn.
It is even more sensible to stay on a gigantic, hospitable space ship with built in radiation shielding and life support that is better than anything you could ever build. If anything leaves Earth (and sitting around Earth orbit isn't really leaving Earth, it's tourism or sky mining) then it will probably be robots, not people. Something actually built to survive in high-radiation vacuum, not soft, fat, slow bags of water that can't even take a couple of Gs.
Also, regarding 'rocketpunk', the author of the titular blog was adamant that space colonization was bullshit, that planets are better, and that space ships are at a disadvantage against ground force. So, if anything, I am more 'rocketpunk' than thou. For a gravity-well evolved organism from a specific planet to leave said gravity well is tantamount to suicide, if not instantly, then eventually. If anything is going to 'harvest the stars' it will be gigantic carbon-platinum starfish AI, not fat gorillas with delusions of grandeur. I very much see Space-Shit as Nirvana for Astronomy nerds, the Singularity as the Rapture for Tech Nerds, and space frontiers as pron for libertarians who have decided the Solar System is too small a space to be confined in with Normies. I, for one, welcome our galactic spacefish overlords.
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Post by bigbombr on May 25, 2018 18:21:19 GMT
I don't know how to multiquote, so I'm doing this manually:
bigbombr There are two major reasons nukes aren't used, and a third minor one: 1) Nukes are an inefficient concentration of energy. Blowing things to atoms and flattening cities is just overkill. Conventional weapons - some of which are the size of small nukes - do the job just fine, and for a lot less money. Energy efficiency is irrelevant. Cost efficiency is. Nukes are expansive, but if you want to level a city they're cheaper than conventional ordinance. 2) MAD. An armed society is a polite society, and people with thermonuclear bombs tend to not be attacked. So you might have proxy wars and 'partial wars' instead of full wars of annihilation, as I suggested. 3) Public opinion and so forth. Which is an argument for spacewar in favor of interplanetary genocide. The US could glass large swaths of the Middle East with nukes (and high tech civilisations might have interplanetary nukes or equivalent) but they decide to invade instead because of public opinion (again, you can draw parallels to interplanetary warfare). I don't think I agree. Maybe on a tactical or operational level, but modern governments are basically an expropriation and control mechanism of the ruling class. Wars are fought to expend munitions (and thus bring in more revenue for contractors), to scare the native population (and thus implement police states and economic controls using fear as an excuse) and to protect the existing ruling class. Any efficient control of material resources, etc. can be a factor in motivating one of these but it is usually more of an excuse than an impetus. Don't project the US's problems onto all nations. Almost every sizable country has a military-industrial complex, but few one so powerful as the US. Space colonies are definitely more practical than planetary settlement, but even most 'hard' science fiction is obsessed with planets. This is what motivates most interstellar expansion fiction - if you're not going to use planets why leave Sol system? Just throw up a ton of tin cans into high orbit. I'd expect interstellar expeditions to be purely scientific in nature, with interstellar colonisation efforts only becoming popular in several thousand years, when the sun is all Dyson'd up. With the possible exception of ideologically motivated missions. However, there is TONS of room in between Earth and Luna. Why bother building O'Neill cylinders anywhere but right next to the most heavily populated, industrialised, hospitable and well-supplied planet in the entire system? Because of orbital perturbance, eventually blotting out significant fractions of sunlight that would normally reach Earth, because some nations might wish for more than a few hours warning they might be attacked, ... Living closer to the sun has it's advantages, as does living further away. And people might leave near points of interest. And though the Hill sphere of Earth is a large volume, eventually you'll still 'fill this up' (habitats spaced too close for comfort). Not really. There is more than enough room for ten times the current population on Earth alone, especially if we have the tech to manage space habitats - an nuclear-rad scarred Earth is more hospitable, even in Antarctica, than anywhere off the planet. If there is no really compelling reason to leave (you need that per annum return on capital to at least match the interest rate or it will not work) then it makes more sense to recycle or invest in alternative resources instead of hunting for ice balls out near Ganymede. I'm in favour of colonising Antarctica and the sea surface. It'll make good practice at building self-sustaining bases.
Laser launch and MagLifts are the most plausible method of 'cheap' expansion into space. That being said if you have the power requirements and tech down for these that would make investment more profitable on Earth. Money follows returns. If it pays more to invest on Earth than in space then people will invest on Earth, and if some choose not to they will lose money and control of their assets will be transferred to those who buy them out after investing in superior return environments, i.e. Earth.
A cost-effective launch system is very profitable. I'd argue SpaceX has proven that. The nearer something is the more a low specific impulse impairs their economic viability. Efficient drives are too slow, fast drives are too inefficient. Not impossible, but unlikely in the near future. Laserthermal can have both high Isp (several thousands) and thrust (TWR > 4) if you pick something like laser thermal pulsed plasma propulsion. Ablative pulsed plasma propulsion was tested on a small scale in the early 2000's(though that iteration used solid propellant and had a relatively low Isp of only a few hundred).
Because you could make it out of water for cheaper than trying to build anything in a superdense, hypergravity radioactive hell trillions of miles from the sun. Water has other uses, and ice from comets is a tiny fraction of solar system mass. Jupiter is a huge chunk of mass that we might as well use if we need fusion fuel once the ice runs out. If possible this would just lead to the extinction/replacement of humans, by cybernetics or genocide. Super-AI and biological humans are not compatible paradigms. Cybernetics =/= mind upload. Not sure why they wouldn't be compatible. And possible extinction hasn't stopped us before. There were startups for selling toys out of apartments capitalized with millions of dollars, too. Just because the Federal Reserve prints money and makes all sorts of inane investments possible doesn't mean they make sense.
Assuming the efficiency of our economy improved, certain technologies advanced drastically and some real use were found for stuff beyond high Earth orbit, maybe. Assuming we continue on economic stagnation, that all the 'low-hanging fruit' of technology have already been picked, and everything is too far away to be profitable I can easily see people still using handguns and fighting over tribal idols in 2700. Economy isn't the only reason we might develop a significant presence in space (hardware-wise at least). See below.
Even when it was released Footfall was criticized for its unrealistic depiction of gravitic kinetic weapons. They're not all they're cracked up to be, and the corollary technology to efficient space travel (cheap power, super lasers, high delta-V, high-acceleration rockets) would make ground-to-space at least as effective. Ultimately this is a complex engineering topic that depends entirely on historical accident to decide what dominates when and how. But technology is not the all-powerful machine that science fiction authors or the welfare whores at Boeing imagine it to be. Both anti-space and space weapons are under development. Dismissing either seems flawed.
Darth Roach:
why do we 'need' to? Economic returns reflect the relative scarcity of goods, accounting for the demand for them. If people are comfortable living in diamond skyscrapers with fusion generators on Earth I see zero reason for them not to. Personally I don't care about what happens in a million years or whatever, and think there are already plenty of human beings - not because I believe in 'overpopulation' or 'resource' scarcity per se but just because I don't see what utility an endless multiplication of zeros has. If humans were not half-witted tribal apes I might care whether they get wiped out by an asteroid, but as it is whether they disappear in 5 million years from galactic collisions (something interstellar travel will do nothing to help, BTW) or because the sun becomes a red giant is completely irrelevant for me. I would have more existential investment in Skynet than mankind, at least Skynet has its shit together. Increased wealth/prosperity is driven by improving technology. More people means more innovators. There is a limit to how much people Earth can sustain even with fusion (about a hundred billion I believe) before you get heat rejection problems.
It's just an example as the best one can reasonably hope for. Almost any other planet would be worse. No love for floating Venusian colonies? Except for exporting excess volatiles, they don't have much going for them from an economical perspective, but they're a lot closer to an Earth-like environment than Mars.
Near-Earth orbital stuff, Luna and the nearby asteroids might be worth exploiting. Perhaps further out, with gradual development of infrastructure and technology. But I see no reason not to do almost all of it with robots, and I don't see it happening for a long time. Basically, by the time Star Trek has us exploring the Alpha Quadrant I'd say we'd be adventurous to bother with Saturn. No scientific missions to Europa and Ganymede?
It is even more sensible to stay on a gigantic, hospitable space ship with built in radiation shielding and life support that is better than anything you could ever build. Earth isn't always hospitable. deserts, tundra's and various natural disasters come to mind. If anything leaves Earth (and sitting around Earth orbit isn't really leaving Earth, it's tourism or sky mining) then it will probably be robots, not people. Something actually built to survive in high-radiation vacuum, not soft, fat, slow bags of water that can't even take a couple of Gs. Robots will indeed be most of the labour in space. At some point though, you'll either have to develop advanced autonomous systems or send up humans thanks to light lag.
Also, regarding 'rocketpunk', the author of the titular blog was adamant that space colonization was bullshit, that planets are better, and that space ships are at a disadvantage against ground force. I'm not right about everything, and neither is he. Learning through discussion is half the fun.So, if anything, I am more 'rocketpunk' than thou. For a gravity-well evolved organism from a specific planet to leave said gravity well is tantamount to suicide, if not instantly, then eventually. Not doing so is at least as much suicide though. Stars last only so long, extinction event asteroids will eventually connect, nearby supernova's might sterilise everything within dozens of light years, ... Why give up early, while we've barely started to live instead of survive?If anything is going to 'harvest the stars' it will be gigantic carbon-platinum starfish AI, not fat gorillas with delusions of grandeur. Starlifting is more a scale problem than a tech problem. And delusions of grandeur is how we got much of our sweet stuff. Why mess with a winning strategy?I very much see Space-Shit as Nirvana for Astronomy nerds, the Singularity as the Rapture for Tech Nerds, and space frontiers as pron for libertarians who have decided the Solar System is too small a space to be confined in with Normies. Fun fact: I care more about the tech than the destination. Technology is how we bend the world to our vision. Why stop at only a single planet? The singularity is more of a theoretical concept, lag in communication and construction mean infinitely fast advancing technology is not possible, but why not lets see how close we can get? Space frontiers are very unlikely to be a libertarians dream. Space is unforgiving. You make a mistake, you might die. So everything is likely to be tightly regulated (whether the organisation is a company or a state is not even relevant). But I do have to admit, Normies can be annoying. But echo chambers are were innovation goes to die.I, for one, welcome our galactic spacefish overlords. But you oppose mildly godlike AI overlords? I'd much prefer nearly omnipotent entities of our own brand, thank you very much. Of those, we can at least speculate about their motives.
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Post by defacto on May 26, 2018 11:34:34 GMT
I'm sorry, the quote stacks are getting a bit too large for me to have a full overview of this discussion, but where exactly is the disagreement? Space is a profitable market, we do space stuff to profit. Development costs and risks are high, so everyone can't just rush in with their capital, and returns on investment are slow. I don't understand what more there is to discuss on this front - space industry is trying to make a profit, these are multibillion corporations, not a star trek fanclub.
And frankly, I find the rapture stuff pretty insulting. To take the AI example: "What are these university-educated people doing working in a profitable soon-to-be trillion dollar industry at the forefront of technology, with enormously wide applications both future and current? They probably believe that nerd-rapture is real olololol idiots"
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 28, 2018 19:06:59 GMT
If space travel is zeerust, then mankind is going to die off as it currently lives - a bunch of apes with unsubstantiated delusions of grandeur, clinging to a rock. Thankfully, even if it might seem irrational in the narrow, economical sense - because I wouldn't consider greatly increasing your life expectancy as a culture (if not necessarily a species - that notion might become rather fluid and outdated quite quickly after certain level of technological advancement is reached) necessarily an irrational thing - the technology is advancing and technology is a great force multiplier for, among other things, irrationality. Most of our daily activities would appear incredibly wasteful and pointless to nearly everyone living before - we are burning terrible amounts of energy and using very advanced machines (not to mention substantial amounts of wealth) to just go to another side of the world and see how it's there. We use cutting edge technology involving high-purity difficult to extract materials, microscale manufacturing, quantum physics, tremendous amount of brainwork, blindingly fast and high-throughput long distance communication, advanced cryptography, vast amounts of energy and complex enough to not be formally provable in any practical sense mathematical constructs (that unwittingly start to resemble most people's notions of arcane magic) to encode, send and decode vast amounts of data so that we can enjoy funny cat vids. Hell, some people out there involve actual space vehicles brutally torn out of the gravity well using stupid amounts of chem fuel in their technological chain enabling watching of funny cat vids. By any of the previous epoch's standards nothing we do is even remotely sane (this discussion included), yet we are dismissing quite plausible potential future activities as irrational and wasteful. Personally I find it amusing - perhaps even more than aforementioned cat vids. Now for the particulars: - Energy is effectively free even early on inside Mars' orbit (photovoltaic/solar thermal) and in many interesting places outside of it (electrodynamic around giants). Later on you can build infrastructure to concentrate solar power. Gravitational confinement fusion power generation is, unignorably, a thing.
- While I think planets are inherently more interesting because of how much more durable they can be, terraforming is the long game - early on just sprinkling habs all over the solar system will do just fine.
- Once you're not pressed for time to build orbital velocity before you crash back into the surface and keep the mass you yank out of the gravity well down delta-v is plentiful and cheap.
- Even if neither plausible but speculative technologies like practically usable fusion, plausible, but insane ones like NSWR, fully speculative ones (metastable metallic hydrogen, any form of FTL or similarly weird stuff), nor any new ones pan out, we can still achieve both high thrust and exhaust velocity with orions - they are good for not just semi-casually flying around solar system but even large concerted scientific and colonisation efforts directed towards nearest stellar neighbourhood - and low thrust but nearly infinite delta-v with *sails. That's not half-bad for stuff we could already have.
As for SciFi - good SciFi isn't about humans thinly disguised as aliens. It's a literary vehicle for speculation and exploration of concepts. Most of the SciFi out there may utterly fail at that, but 90% of everything is shit, so that's hardly news.
Extrapolating any future conflicts based on the most powerful technology available is (fortunately) unlikely to hit close to the mark. There is too much politics and subtle nuances involved. It is, however, unlikely that humans or their successors (that's somewhat more optimistic) will ever ceasy fighting each other over stupid reasons.
As for CoaDE, it's build on the assumptions that humans are already in space and space centric, with background serving to justify this point, and is aiming to be current and near future space centric, space combat simulator.
As for matrioshka brains - that might come later.
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Post by EshaNas on May 30, 2018 3:35:57 GMT
Some aspects are zeerust. That is a sad fact we must acknowledge. No Captain Kirks or Buck Rodgers or Flash Gordons for the most part. We have little need for outright explorers or conquistadors as imagined of old.
Space is the domain of the Scientist, Engineer, Doctor, Tourist, and Colonist - in that order. The first three will probably always be the backbone of space, with maybe just engineers and their doctors in a less beautiful universe. The tourist has already emerged, the Colonist will soon emerge in this century, and probably along the same numbers of the colonists of the new world - small ships at first, barely with a hundred persons, then dedicated cruise liners/cyclers of the thousands, should terraforming or orbitals be more easy to pursue than not, and probably tapering off back to the airliner of a few hundred at most after the 'heavy stuff' is done.
I do think that we'll still send people throughout the stars. The first voyagers would doubtlessly be uncrewed probes, and if we're taking interstellar travel seriously, we can have large numbers sent to colonize whatever planet as we'll probably have either beamrider technology or antimatter farms to propel ships nearer and nearer to C outright. Seedships might form, but I doubt the generation ship ever would - the closest analog might be some background or hider culture that diffuses slowly through space out of ideological and cultural mores than engineering ones.
And unless we break the light barrier, either by wormholes or warp drives or breaching the universe into another to breach back into the universe or whatever way we can fathom, interstellar politicians and their gangs of hard power - 'Marines' will probably never take off, either, but interplanetary ones would emerge as technology advances to zip people around the system in a matter of weeks or days. Humanity will probably still fight over the same ideological tribes that form in response to cultural and economic plateaus, as masses cry out for people who promise - and maybe even deliver - answers. What their fights might be are nearly unpredictable, but given enough time and technology, fights will happen. We missed a hotter-than-tolerable episode in the cold war with machine-gun satellites, abandoned base plans, Polyus lasers and BEAR Neutron beam weapons of SDI - and if we could do that thirty, forty, fifty years ago - then we can do it now, or in ten years, or in fifty, or in a hundred or whatever years from now.
Though the idea of a Martian revolution will probably be zeerust as well soon, if it isn't already. Any 'Colonial' administration would probably include a way to independence in the long run, and may even give them independence outright to cut costs as soon as they're self-sufficient and capable of expansion in the system without the help of Earth. A preferrable outcome than the cliche (seriously where did this idea come from, anyway?) expected conflict.
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rgm79
New Member
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Post by rgm79 on May 31, 2018 3:29:22 GMT
Space is the domain of the Scientist, Engineer, Doctor, Tourist, and Colonist - in that order. The first three will probably always be the backbone of space, with maybe just engineers and their doctors in a less beautiful universe. The tourist has already emerged, the Colonist will soon emerge in this century, and probably along the same numbers of the colonists of the new world - small ships at first, barely with a hundred persons, then dedicated cruise liners/cyclers of the thousands, should terraforming or orbitals be more easy to pursue than not, and probably tapering off back to the airliner of a few hundred at most after the 'heavy stuff' is done. I do think that we'll still send people throughout the stars. The first voyagers would doubtlessly be uncrewed probes, and if we're taking interstellar travel seriously, we can have large numbers sent to colonize whatever planet as we'll probably have either beamrider technology or antimatter farms to propel ships nearer and nearer to C outright. Seedships might form, but I doubt the generation ship ever would - the closest analog might be some background or hider culture that diffuses slowly through space out of ideological and cultural mores than engineering ones. And unless we break the light barrier, either by wormholes or warp drives or breaching the universe into another to breach back into the universe or whatever way we can fathom, interstellar politicians and their gangs of hard power - 'Marines' will probably never take off, either, but interplanetary ones would emerge as technology advances to zip people around the system in a matter of weeks or days. Humanity will probably still fight over the same ideological tribes that form in response to cultural and economic plateaus, as masses cry out for people who promise - and maybe even deliver - answers. What their fights might be are nearly unpredictable, but given enough time and technology, fights will happen. We missed a hotter-than-tolerable episode in the cold war with machine-gun satellites, abandoned base plans, Polyus lasers and BEAR Neutron beam weapons of SDI - and if we could do that thirty, forty, fifty years ago - then we can do it now, or in ten years, or in fifty, or in a hundred or whatever years from now. Though the idea of a Martian revolution will probably be zeerust as well soon, if it isn't already. Any 'Colonial' administration would probably include a way to independence in the long run, and may even give them independence outright to cut costs as soon as they're self-sufficient and capable of expansion in the system without the help of Earth. A preferrable outcome than the cliche (seriously where did this idea come from, anyway?) expected conflict. 1. Colonists are at least Engineers and Doctors and often Scientists. To colonise any frontier, does not matter in Earth, Ocean or Space we need to build a lot. And humans need doctors everywhere. And to scientist often more usefull to live near studied object. Especially when transport is not fast and cheap enough. 2. In COADE, Elon-Punk and any other futures with massive interplanetary travels decision go to stars or not will be own decision of one who will go. Because for that trip they need only large interplanetary ship with closed ecosystem and enough fission or fussion materials to produce energy during thousands flight. And both of them are necessary for interplanetary exploration to and should be private. 3. Politicians tried and try to zip people in their countries and faild and fail - one who really try to breack "Iron Curtain" and heve enough luck - breack it. In Earth whenthis task much easy than in space (3D and orbital mechanic). And MAD will be almoust impossible for humanity in space numerouse colonies in asteroids and under planets surfece - civilians will already live in Vault in time when bombs are droped. 4. Yes colonisation of America is not seems to be a good model of space colonisation in near future. Mainly due to social reasons - America colonized in time of centralization in Europe and kings and even buisenesmans siply did not try to use any form of management different from direct control. I supose that early space colonisation will be similar to Greece colonysation of Mediterranian.
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Post by elputo on Jun 16, 2018 17:16:31 GMT
Not to get personal, but jeez, did space SF and 'MUH TROEPS' poop in your cornflakes and kill your dog one day? What's with the vendetta?
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