Easy to say.
It's possible, so why doesn't humanity...
- Thread starter minnesmoker
- Start date
Bear's right, centrifuge it is. We don't even need full g loading. It's a relatively easy concept to use mass to obtain G.
Here ya go:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/biology_lab.html
minnesmoker
Well-Known Member
On scale, easy to say becomes easily done. (relative use of the term easy.)
The whole point is: It's NOT unfeasible, or even undoable. But, it would require 2 things that people in power aren't willing to part with: cooperation on a grand scale, and shared resources, that will likely never be seen again.
CN: Outposting isn't out of the question! It's almost mandatory. It'd suck to be stuck on an outer-ring light-gravity outpost. We have all of the technology. We COULD go interstellar - albeit sub-light, as will everything be, until we relearn laws of physics, after we master the current set. Build Colony fleets. Populate them, people WILL go. They'll go, knowing they're going to grow and and die without ever stepping onto a natural surface again. But, they'll know that they're spreading humanity.
Why do we NOT do it?
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
I see two issues ... 1) scale. It's pricy, and even our most frightful plutocrats don't have the sheer depth of pocket ti git'r done.
2) The whole robustness issue. I suspect we'll have to fail a few times before we succeed.
But i am in vibrant agreement on one aspect: slow colonization. First, we learn to harvest the Kuiper belt.
Then, we learn to slurp sustenance from the dark Popsicles of the Oort cloud.
I see us as colonizing toward other stars at a creeping speed... at 300 kilometers per second, easily achievable with nuclear pulse propulsion, we'll be at the next warm spot in less time than it took to age the Pyramids.
S long as we take the long view (and not at all guaranteed: so long as we do not come to the undue attention of our superiors in time and space) the Galaxy is our oyster to crack open. Even at cometary speeds, we can flash-colonize the whole Galaxy in less time than it took for Rodinia to recoalesce to Pangaea.
minnesmoker
Well-Known Member
So, money.
When we can no longer afford to continue with a monetary system - because of technological advance - if we don't destroy ourselves in the final "haves/have nots" war of our current cycle, we'll emerge with the things that are needed: will, resources, and necessity.
It just seems logical, though. Not colonization - out-posting on low-grav high resource stable masses is one thing, but build it for the long haul. So that 50 years into the voyage, it can be rebuilt, to go a bit faster, and in 100 years, rebuilt to withstand a bit more of the whatever that is in deep space.
Money - or at least greed and the want to control - will be the collapse of our entire species.
When we can no longer afford to continue with a monetary system - because of technological advance - if we don't destroy ourselves in the final "haves/have nots" war of our current cycle, we'll emerge with the things that are needed: will, resources, and necessity.
It just seems logical, though. Not colonization - out-posting on low-grav high resource stable masses is one thing, but build it for the long haul. So that 50 years into the voyage, it can be rebuilt, to go a bit faster, and in 100 years, rebuilt to withstand a bit more of the whatever that is in deep space.
Money - or at least greed and the want to control - will be the collapse of our entire species.
That sounds a lot like faith based space science as in if we can imagine it then we can do it. The centrifuge sounds like an interesting concept but so does hydroponics to grow food in space.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Centrifuge tech is proven. Hydroponics is theoretically sound but needs engineering elaboration.