Miscellaneous Terran question-and-answer thread

[icekatze]

hi hi

There are a lot of factors that go into determining whether a stellar body can maintain an atmosphere. Having a magnetic field is a huge bonus, but it is not strictly necessary. Venus, like Mars, does not have a significant magnetic field for example. But its thick atmosphere and proximity to the sun actually creates a boundary layer that helps prevent atmosphere loss.

Titan has the advantage of being very cold and very far away from the sun, which helps reduce both thermal escape and stripping from solar winds. Titan spends 95% of its time inside Saturn's magnetosphere, and it receives only about 1% the sunlight that the Earth does.

The NAAP Atmospheric Retention Lab has some neat resources. The gas retention simulator is pretty neat.

[RedDwarfIV]

As Arioch mentioned though, Saturn's magnetosphere causes more problems than it solves for Titan.

[Roeben]

The total mass of the asteroid belt is not enough to increase Mars's gravity or mass, by the way, for more then a few percents. In fact, slamming stuff into Mars outside of Phobos and Deimos (y'know... if you'd want to add water ice to the planet for some reason, or create dust clouds to aid in global warming) is a waste of time and resources, and a blast too large will render most of the planet uninhabitable for thousands of years.

In short, no "blast-terraforming" on Mars is to be advised.

[Arioch]

Changing the mass of a planet is way outside the scope of terraforming at this tech level and time scale. In addition to the open question of where you get the mass from (a few asteroids won't do it) and how you transport it there, there's also the small detail that there are already people living on Mars.

[GeoModder]

hi hi

There are a lot of factors that go into determining whether a stellar body can maintain an atmosphere. Having a magnetic field is a huge bonus, but it is not strictly necessary. Venus, like Mars, does not have a significant magnetic field for example. But its thick atmosphere and proximity to the sun actually creates a boundary layer that helps prevent atmosphere loss.

I assume you mean planetary instead lf "stellar"here.

[Zakharra]

I'd doubt it would still be in space at all. More likely it was careened into the local sun by gravitational perturbance of the closest planet.
And over the course of a million years, vacuum ablation would take its toll as well.

...But a ship would remain intact and useable (theoretically) for hundreds of thousands, to millions of years if it is in something like an asteroid dry dock. Protected by the bulk of the asteroid and voided of air and life support, it would be able to remain intact from anything that might have destroyed or damaged a free floating vessel.

Essentially, every object in space is free floating. Your docking asteroid as well, and thus remains open to all collision hazards of space.
Further more, space is most definitely not a benign environment for unprotected objects like space ships. Over the course of a million year, its hull and afterward inner ship systems will deteriorate into uselesness. Atom after atom, molecule after molecule.

After the system has formed and settled down, objects can float for hundreds of thousands of years, to several million without impacting anything. Large objects obviously have a higher chance of being hit, but a relatively small object like an asteroid 10 kilometers long though should be fairly secure. Give it a good long term (or renewable) power source and self repair/maintenance capabilities and it would be able to maintain itself and anything in it for a long time. That's not to say that the ship won't become useless over time, but in a zero gee protected environment with no atmosphere it would last a very long time too. And it would be a boon to anyone able to examine it, much like the the Loroi and other races in that area of space were able to use caches of Solia tech to improve their tech base and capabilities.

[Grayhome]

Arioch you mentioned the average lifespan of Loroi in another thread, I was wondering what the average lifespan of humans would be in 2160.

[GeoModder]

After the system has formed and settled down, objects can float for hundreds of thousands of years, to several million without impacting anything. Large objects obviously have a higher chance of being hit, but a relatively small object like an asteroid 10 kilometers long though should be fairly secure. Give it a good long term (or renewable) power source and self repair/maintenance capabilities and it would be able to maintain itself and anything in it for a long time. That's not to say that the ship won't become useless over time, but in a zero gee protected environment with no atmosphere it would last a very long time too. And it would be a boon to anyone able to examine it, much like the the Loroi and other races in that area of space were able to use caches of Solia tech to improve their tech base and capabilities.

A solar system never really "settles down". The gravitational disturbance of any star coming close enough will bring in a fresh batch of objects zooming around in the inner system. And any impact between or on existing smaller objects in the inner parts of a solar system will bring a new "deluge" of collision hazards.
Also, now you're bringing in active capabilities for your abandonned ship. That's no longer a derelect then, it changes the whole equation.
On the Soia ruins -and derelicts, I don't think Arioch ever commented on their usability besides passive study of them. Even so, it took the Loroi over a quarter of a million years to pop up back in their corner of the interstellar woods, despite the availability of Soia goodies to investigate.
To wit, it took the Loroi of Deinar a millennium to establish a fairly-sized interstellar empire since their rediscovery of space flight, which likely brought fresh Soia artifacts within their reach from the neighbour world of Mezan.

[Arioch]

A derelict that was in an orbit out of the plane of the solar system could be relatively undisturbed for millions of years.

Arioch you mentioned the average lifespan of Loroi in another thread, I was wondering what the average lifespan of humans would be in 2160.

It's probably around 100, but varies depending on where you live and what kind of medical care you have access to (and can afford). Those with the ability to pay for increasingly expensive procedures can live for a long time; there are people alive today who will still be alive in 2160.

[Grayhome]

Oh dear, that isn't even close to what I had been hoping it would be. Based upon my readings of GURPS Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech I had imagined that through improved agricultural techniques, medical technology (and with a little political stability) humans would have advanced much more than just to an average of a century planet-wide.

I had actually hoped that by 2160 all the developing nations would have caught up to the developed nations in terms of political stability and economic prosperity. What a terrible shame.

[Arioch]

Oh dear, that isn't even close to what I had been hoping it would be. Based upon my readings of GURPS Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech I had imagined that through improved agricultural techniques, medical technology (and with a little political stability) humans would have advanced much more than just to an average of a century planet-wide.

I had actually hoped that by 2160 all the developing nations would have caught up to the developed nations in terms of political stability and economic prosperity. What a terrible shame.

I think you're probably right, but even when everyone has access to good health care, it's not clear how it's paid for; I expect medical costs to soar exponentially as the population ages. I think you'll essentially be able to live until you run out of money. But the main issue is that getting into too much detail about how human society has changed is not only irrelevant to the story, but may actually harm Alex's ability to act as an observer whose point of view and assumptions are intuitively understood by the reader. If Alex meets a 400-year-old Loroi and is unimpressed because that's a common age for humans in his era, that may make logical sense, but it lessen the impact of his point of view. You can have an alien protagonist, but it takes a lot more work, and often that alien-ness has to be what the story is about.

I have included a lot of unimportant detail about human society and the colonies, most of it inherited from the progenitor story to Outsider, which was about a human civil war. In that case, the exploration of how humanity had changed was much more appropriate. For Outsider, it has probably been more of a distraction than a benefit.

[Grayhome]

I was having a conversation with my elders about developing nations and if they will ever be able to match developed nations in terms of economic prosperity and stability. My elders did not believe that this could ever take place, due mostly to interior corruption brought about by the exploitation of foreign powers, and the energy requirement. I countered that energy production (in the form of more advance nuclear, or perhaps fusion or thorium power plants) supplemented with the increasing rise in the efficiency of clean energy sources (thermal, wind, tidal, solar) would have the potential to meet the prerequisites necessary to produce a developed nation. There would of course need to be heavy investment from developed nations both in technology and capital but I think that the incentive for this initial investment does exist in the form of a vastly increased global consumer base.

I suppose I am wondering if you, Arioch, believe that humanity will ever achieve the ultimate utopian ideal that was represented by the Star Trek universe. If so, how will we go about doing this? If not then what factors will prevent us from progressing?

[RedDwarfIV]

Well, for a start, the Star Trek 'verse isn't quite as utopian as it seems. Sure, they have powerful medical technology, but despite that they still can't prevent aging. Sure, they have a strong belief in ethics... but their ethics [at least by the TNG era] are very questionable. Sure, they have spacecraft with powerful weapons, but their reluctance to keep any kind of actual military [as opposed to Starfleet, which is an exploration organisation that happens to believe in gunboat diplomacy] results in billions of civilian deaths on their own side, and often when they get the chance to talk about their own society, they turn into a collection of unjustifiably smug gits. And for a Federation that's supposed to be highly tolerant of other cultures, they seem incredibly monocultural.

Well, that's my take on it anyway. Basically, I'd prefer living under the TCA to living under the Federation.

[Arioch]

Star Trek has a cartoonish version of utopia that isn't very well thought out or even internally consistent; it is claimed at some points that the Federation doesn't use money, but there are many cases in which currency or trade or receiving pay for work or gambling or "credits" are mentioned. The idea of a flourishing economy with trade but no medium of exchange is ridiculous. Even if your economy is based on barter, there has to be a standard of value, and even if that standard is bushels of rice or Stones of Jordan, that's still a medium of exchange. The concept of personal wealth is also not so easy to do away with. If there's no money, can you still own property? How is that property acquired? No one can have everything that they want, no matter how prosperous the economy; resources are never infinite. What if I want my own starship? There are plenty of cases of privately-owned starships (Cyrano Jones, Kasidy Yates), so we know it's possible... how did they get them? Does everyone who wants one get his own starship? Why would anyone work on someone else's ship if they could each have their own? How can I ever get anyone to do some work or perform a service for me if I have no way of compensating them? What if I want a fleet of my own starships? Who decides whether I can have what I want? If two people want the same thing (or the same service, or whatever), there has to be some way of deciding who gets it, and no matter what you call that medium or process, it still amounts to a currency of some sort.

I was having a conversation with my elders about developing nations and if they will ever be able to match developed nations in terms of economic prosperity and stability. My elders did not believe that this could ever take place, due mostly to interior corruption brought about by the exploitation of foreign powers, and the energy requirement. I countered that energy production (in the form of more advance nuclear, or perhaps fusion or thorium power plants) supplemented with the increasing rise in the efficiency of clean energy sources (thermal, wind, tidal, solar) would have the potential to meet the prerequisites necessary to produce a developed nation. There would of course need to be heavy investment from developed nations both in technology and capital but I think that the incentive for this initial investment does exist in the form of a vastly increased global consumer base.

I suppose I am wondering if you, Arioch, believe that humanity will ever achieve the ultimate utopian ideal that was represented by the Star Trek universe. If so, how will we go about doing this? If not then what factors will prevent us from progressing?

I think with access to information and education (which now seems will be universally inevitable everywhere), even the poorest developing countries can prosper, provided that they have access to enough energy. There's a lot of investment and effort in this right now. When I was a child, nobody ever believed that China and India could ever feed themselves, much less become prosperous, or that certain totalitarian countries could ever embrace enlightenment values. Things have clearly changed. But energy will be key for all nations, both developing and developed; most other resource problems (like a lack of clean water) can be overcome if you have sufficient energy. If we can't get sufficient clean energy, the road ahead will be rough.

Utopia in the sense that all needs can be provided for is possible, and I'd argue that we're pretty close to that today in most countries. But as Kirk himself says in some episode I can't remember, humanity isn't meant for utopia; we evolved in a competitive world, and are biologically programmed for ambition, always wanting more. All you have to do is look at the ridiculous self-destructive lives of rich people to understand that no amount of wealth or power is ever enough, and that plenty does not guarantee happiness. Compared to when I was a child, the United States is now experiencing an unprecedented level of prosperity, innovation, social justice and peace... but people still seem to complain just as bitterly as I remember them doing in 1979 when the US economy was failing, there was real energy crisis, unemployment and inflation were both in double-digits, industrial pollution was on the rise, Iran was holding American hostages, and we were living under the constant threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Humans aren't built for contentment. No matter how much resources you generate, they will always be finite and people will never agree on how to allocate them, so there will always be some level of strife (even if it is only political or economic). And though I think the era of conflict between nation-states is coming to an end, the conflict between opposing ideologies is as strong as ever.

I'm optimistic and idealistic about humanity's capability for accomplishing remarkable things; I am confident that we will find our way. But I'm pretty sure that it won't ever be easy.

[Hālian]

Basically, I'd prefer living under the TCA to living under the Federation.

Which would you most prefer to living under the Loroi Union? or if that's your first choice, who's second?

[fredgiblet]

There would of course need to be heavy investment from developed nations both in technology and capital but I think that the incentive for this initial investment does exist in the form of a vastly increased global consumer base.

There's also a disincentive though, if developing countries become developed then cheap, exploitable labor disappears.

[Grayhome]

There's also a disincentive though, if developing countries become developed then cheap, exploitable labor disappears.

I was wondering about that. If 3D printers continue to be improved at the rates they currently are, would they not eliminate the profitability for sweat shops entirely? Would the ability to easily and cheaply mass produce most sweatshop-crafted items (and create new ones with the correct software) therefore inevitably encourage such nations to invest in higher education instead shoddy factories surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire?

The 3D printers I am looking at right now are nothing short of amazing. Inexpensive, small scale devices that can craft moving parts out of high performance plastic, organic matter or even metal. I have been watching Dr. Michio Kaku's interviews and his talks upon such devices is fascinating.

[RedDwarfIV]

Basically, I'd prefer living under the TCA to living under the Federation.

Which would you most prefer to living under the Loroi Union? or if that's your first choice, who's second?

Er.... what? As I've said before, the Loroi "arn't so bad once you get to know them". I don't see why you think I'd be averse to living in the Union enough that I might even consider preferring the Federation.

[fredgiblet]

Most of the sweatshops that I hear about are making clothes, I don't think you can print a shirt or a shoe. Also you can't print a smartphone either, you can print most of the the components perhaps, but it still needs to be assembled. Then there's other things like mining that can be really shitty jobs that are great to outsource to developing countries, as a bonus their pollution gets outsourced as well.

[Grayhome]

Most of the sweatshops that I hear about are making clothes, I don't think you can print a shirt or a shoe.

I did a Google search for 3d printed clothing. I received 47,300,000 results. Really fredgiblet, look into these devices they can make things down to the nano scale now. They will be able to print medicine soon.

Also you can't print a smartphone either, you can print most of the the components perhaps, but it still needs to be assembled.

They fixed that now with a quickly evaporating fluid pumped into spaces between complex moving parts. Wicked awesome, 3d printers can print tailor made, fully functional bionic limbs. Several companies are teaming up with 3d printer makers to research ways to build smartphones with 3d printers since the process is faster, cheaper and easier to distribute than relying upon sweatshops in developing nations.

Then there's other things like mining that can be really shitty jobs that are great to outsource to developing countries, as a bonus their pollution gets outsourced as well.

Dedicated mining robots will take care of most of those in the future (cheaper components, cheaper software, less labor regulations) conditions for mining seem too hostile for anything else when they get down deep (rancid air, 95+ degree temperature, dangers of collapse).

Pollution is an easily solved problem. Nations that give a damn about their public's health have already invented devices that efficiently harness the pollution produced by our manufacturing processes and turn it into money in the form of hard to acquire chemicals. It simply takes an actual investment of time and money which most America business are not interested in due to crappy regulations (due to the systematic and widespread bribing of government officials) and the added factor that they don't have to clean up their messes or pay for their mistakes in any meaningful manner.