Newest post today at The boy who knew too much..
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Advocacy & Research for Unlimited Lifespans
Posted 27 October 2008 - 10:11 AM
Edited by caston, 27 October 2008 - 10:43 AM.
Posted 27 October 2008 - 11:47 AM
Newest post today at The boy who knew too much..
Edited by solbanger, 27 October 2008 - 11:48 AM.
Posted 31 October 2008 - 08:30 AM
Posted 01 November 2008 - 12:58 PM
Posted 02 November 2008 - 10:08 AM
Posted 23 April 2009 - 07:26 AM
Posted 23 April 2009 - 10:56 AM
Posted 25 April 2009 - 01:16 AM
I should have thought of a better way to say it here... I said "his comments were shallow", as in barely scratching the surface of a really big topic -with plenty of better ways to stress his point that it's an imperative for us to expand.JohnF: on this guy's blog you wrote: "I agree with and praise everything you said"...behind his back, you call him shallow. Now, I call that one great way to drum up support for space. All you have to do to ensure we never get those colonies is to repeat that procedure a few million times.
Posted 25 April 2009 - 03:35 AM
Posted 26 April 2009 - 04:00 AM
Edited by CalebZ, 26 April 2009 - 04:05 AM.
Posted 26 April 2009 - 10:42 PM
What if humans actually originated from out of space? When you consider that we have almost nothing in common with the "so called early humans" and the "missing link" is still missing.
The first civilizations had incredible knowledge and maps of the solar system long before many of the outer planets were recently "discovered" using telescopes and mathematics.
Perhaps the first aristocracies were the extraterrestrials and they genetically engineered the first humans to be their slaves. e.g. the peasantry serving the aristocracy. While in most cases they did the best to maintain their blood lines they often had illegitimate children amongst the peasantry.
So the first civilizations actually had incredibly advanced technology. They may have mastered things like re-generative and electro-medicine. Perhaps they used silver iodes to kill bacteria. Alchemy may have had even earlier roots in technologies that could modify elements at the nuclear level.
Posted 26 April 2009 - 10:58 PM
Posted 27 April 2009 - 01:05 PM
(I was kicked out of my egyptology course at a local college for pointing out the weathering on the Sphinx. The teacher thought I was too "disruptive" for asking questions he refused to answer.)
Edited by TheFountain, 27 April 2009 - 01:07 PM.
Posted 16 May 2009 - 01:56 AM
The "baseline" designs they settled on were done so that the average person could adapt to the spin and coriolis forces with little/no problem. Many individuals can adapt to greater spin that these first generation dessigns they did, but they didn't want to design for only a few individuals, but for just about anybody.'valkyrie_ice' 26-Apr
And now for On topicness! I think I agree with the idea that O'nell colonies will not receive much support at present. For two main reasons.
One: Humans like having horizons and the security of knowing that if they jump, they will come back down. Gravity is not something that most humans want to do without. I know O'nell colonies spin to produce gravity analogs, but if you've ever been on a gravitron ride and actually sat up, you can see that spin induced gravity is not quite the same thing. Even though the variation will be small, there is a strong possibility that the difference in spin rates between feet and head could induce problems. While this won't be a problem for some people, for others it will make O'nell colonies uninhabitable. Without further knowledge, we can't be certain how much this may affect if any. Regardless, most people think PLANETS when they think colonization. Call it a human foible if you will.
Where did anybody get the idea that the O'Neill colonies would be built from materials lifted from Earth? (I know for a fact that Zubrin likes to talk as if this silly idea is the case) Only much less than 1% of a colony's mass is expected to be necessarily lifted.Two: The expense of colonizing Mars can be offset with the fact that some materials can be acquired LOCALLY. Not all building materials will need to be shipped up from Earth. This makes a martian colony potentially less expensive than an O'Nell cylinder.
Posted 16 May 2009 - 04:03 AM
Posted 16 May 2009 - 11:01 PM
The "baseline" designs they settled on were done so that the average person could adapt to the spin and coriolis forces with little/no problem. Many individuals can adapt to greater spin that these first generation dessigns they did, but they didn't want to design for only a few individuals, but for just about anybody.'valkyrie_ice' 26-Apr
And now for On topicness! I think I agree with the idea that O'nell colonies will not receive much support at present. For two main reasons.
One: Humans like having horizons and the security of knowing that if they jump, they will come back down. Gravity is not something that most humans want to do without. I know O'nell colonies spin to produce gravity analogs, but if you've ever been on a gravitron ride and actually sat up, you can see that spin induced gravity is not quite the same thing. Even though the variation will be small, there is a strong possibility that the difference in spin rates between feet and head could induce problems. While this won't be a problem for some people, for others it will make O'nell colonies uninhabitable. Without further knowledge, we can't be certain how much this may affect if any. Regardless, most people think PLANETS when they think colonization. Call it a human foible if you will.
The first generation design had a radius of 400 meters, so the distance between your head & feet isn't going to make too much difference... Anyway, this first generation isn't for tourists and everyday people. They don't move in until very much later, when the infrastructure in space allows the expense of building the really big & comfortable colonies.
The point about space colonies instead of planets -which everybody automatically thinks about- is that with artificial space colonies, we can design conservatively so that anybody can be comfortable there. We have zero experience with living in .38 G, only very little in .15G, so it was very much safer to design for no less than 1G.
Horizons are important? How about people who live their entire lives in a city, and never see a horizon for years at a time? or people who live raising sheep in a high mountain valley, and hence have a very different world view than you or I.Where did anybody get the idea that the O'Neill colonies would be built from materials lifted from Earth? (I know for a fact that Zubrin likes to talk as if this silly idea is the case) Only much less than 1% of a colony's mass is expected to be necessarily lifted.Two: The expense of colonizing Mars can be offset with the fact that some materials can be acquired LOCALLY. Not all building materials will need to be shipped up from Earth. This makes a martian colony potentially less expensive than an O'Nell cylinder.
For most of it, you must first initiate the space transportation infrastructure. Getting volatiles for fuels from NEAs, then getting metals for money from NEAs. Eventually, we have enough workers that need decent living conditions in Cis-Lunar space that it's in their best interests to build a colony. Only after there's economic clout among the spacers, that they get to build a decent home for workers (and maybe a high-priced tourist haven for the really rich).
Nobody's going to pay for building a "colony" on Mars, when there's nothing that's economically for trade, except maybe fossils and science exploration.
All the materials are local on Mars? All in one spot, handy for mining and refining in one spot -the same spot where we'd want to set up a base/colony? Not spread across an entire planetary surface with the surface area of all the land area of Earth.
For a space colony, the materials at present are spread across the ecliptic (free energy anywhere up there). Nothing of the sort will happen until it's needed, and by then, we'll have the knowledge to mine and move asteroids. Then suddenly, all the materials are in High Earth orbit in one spot convenient to expertise on the ground and workers in LEO (within the Van Allen belts, until a shielded colony habitat is built).
In any case, for being "on topic" we were talking about the survival of the species and all Gaian life, and one or two little planets aren't going to do that. We need to spread across space, from the Oort cloud and on to other stars, and "Earth-like" planets aren't in the cards, nor anything more "earth like" than Mars or Titan. With space colonies, the "habitable zone" for the average human of today is around any star (with light filtering), from the system's inner planets all the way into interstellar space.
Posted 04 June 2009 - 06:27 PM
What if humans actually originated from out of space? When you consider that we have almost nothing in common with the "so called early humans" and the "missing link" is still missing.
The first civilizations had incredible knowledge and maps of the solar system long before many of the outer planets were recently "discovered" using telescopes and mathematics.
Perhaps the first aristocracies were the extraterrestrials and they genetically engineered the first humans to be their slaves. e.g. the peasantry serving the aristocracy. While in most cases they did the best to maintain their blood lines they often had illegitimate children amongst the peasantry.
So the first civilizations actually had incredibly advanced technology. They may have mastered things like re-generative and electro-medicine. Perhaps they used silver iodes to kill bacteria. Alchemy may have had even earlier roots in technologies that could modify elements at the nuclear level.
Edited by Dmitri, 04 June 2009 - 06:31 PM.
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