[Rod_Cloutier]

A new movie came out this week called 'Interstellar'. Despite being a space film of the 2001 a space odyssey genre, the movie was mostly about the consequences of humans rendering the Earth uninhabitable, so we must search for a home somewhere else.

Like the film, Gravity, this stays well within the framework of existing mainstream space science. No warp drive, transporters, or anything fantasy like that in this one. It's the story of how people live 3 generations from now; the consequences of catastrophic climate change in full force, the economy collapsed to a fraction of what it once was, the collapse of all large scale organizations.

The last ditch effort to find an alternate world to recolonize in the face of human extinction, vs the stark reality that there's not much out there, nothing even remotely as habitable as the Earth was.

It was also the story of a man leaving his family, facing the time dilation effects of relativity, and that in order to save the world his family must live out their entire lives and survive without him being there. A touching, heartbreaking film about family, love and loss the likes of which I haven't seen in years.

The characters seemed real, with excellent casting, direction, and a focus on the story rather than on special effects, the space scenes were bland at best. This is what movies used to be. I highly recommend the film, here's one of the movie trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... faDG6g#t=1

[JohnnyOnTheFarm]

It wasn't a little long for you?

It was a good film though.

[Ibon]

Kaiser Jeep's wet dream captured by Hollywood.

[Rod_Cloutier]

"No warp drive, transporters, or anything fantasy like that in this one." just time travel??

No, the new planet we were relocating to was in orbit around a black hole, rather than a star. (A little far fetched) However, most of the story was about the environmental fallout on Earth of industrial society gone amuck.

[JohnnyOnTheFarm]

"No warp drive, transporters, or anything fantasy like that in this one." just time travel??

No, the new planet we were relocating to was in orbit around a black hole, rather than a star. (A little far fetched) However, most of the story was about the environmental fallout on Earth of industrial society gone amuck.

Blight. It wasn't quite linked to industrial society was it? Just started devouring the crops, upping the nitrogen levels. But it was attempting to make everyone farmers, and some would probably like that angle.

[Rod_Cloutier]

blight. It wasn't quite linked to industrial society was it? Just started devouring the crops, upping the nitrogen levels.

No, you missed the conversation on the front porch about 6 billion people trying to have it all on a finite planet- this was very much an apocalyptic post-industrial movie. Blight was a symptom of the end, not the cause. (At least that was my take on the story)

[JohnnyOnTheFarm]

blight. It wasn't quite linked to industrial society was it? Just started devouring the crops, upping the nitrogen levels.

No, you missed the conversation on the front porch about 6 billion people trying to have it all on a finite planet- this was very much an apocalyptic post-industrial movie. Blight was a symptom of the end, not the cause. (At least that was my take on the story)

I didn't recall them blaming the blight on anything specific. I saw the reference to what could be described as "humans be bad" on the front porch, including the anti-military angle, but didn't catch the link from there to the blight. Struck me as more of an implied "fouling your nest" angle....somehow...without explaining how.

But it didn't matter, movies based on some apocalypse or another don't require detail in the apocalypse, it is built into the DNA of the Judeo-Christian culture, just wave that red flag and we all buy in, nodding vigorously.

But count on NASA to save the day!! No more techno-utopian than that!

[Sixstrings]

No, the new planet we were relocating to was in orbit around a black hole, rather than a star. (A little far fetched) However, most of the story was about the environmental fallout on Earth of industrial society gone amuck.

So the message is, mankind has to branch out and get off the planet to save the species from climate change.

More industry to save us from industry, I like it.

That's fine with me, I'll vote for the climate change stuff if that crowd could give me something cool and not just depressing carbon taxes and $10 a gallon gas -- throw some rockets and starships in there too, and then I'll get on board with the climate change stuff.

P.S. I've seen the trailer, what exactly is all that dust bowl dust storms on earth, in the movie?

Interstellar – Trailer 3 – IN CINEMAS NOW - Official Warner Bros.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePbKGoIGAXY

And I'll go see this thing for sure, I liked Gravity -- that one needed to be longer with some more character development and slower plot. Worth seeing though.

We need more space movies! Who doesn't love a good space opera.

[Sixstrings]

Kaiser Jeep's wet dream captured by Hollywood.

I got on Kaiser's bad side on the spaceport thread, but I'll defend him here.

There's nothing silly about colonizing another planet.

Stephen Hawking is one of the smartest men there is and he says the species has to do it -- if you won't listen to him, I don't know what to say.

I'd just disagree with this movie when they say "we have to get out of the solar system."

Jupiter has some lovely moons. Europa has an ocean with more water in it than we have on our entire planet. It may be teeming with life, we will not know until we take a look with a probe.

It has geothermal energy. That's heat, and water, and ice cap to protect from radiation and you can get there with Saturn V rocket tech. Infinite water, to split to hydrogen for fuels and oxygen to breathe.

Heat, water, ocean, you can't hardly ask for much more.

[Ibon]

Kaiser Jeep's wet dream captured by Hollywood.

I got on Kaiser's bad side on the spaceport thread, but I'll defend him here.

There's nothing silly about colonizing another planet.

What's silly is that the zeitgeist comes up with this narrative as the best solution for having trashed our own planet. Such an easy solution to latch on to, instead of dealing with the mess at home we leave it to go somewhere else. This is adolescence, not visionary. In some weird twisted way its like the advocates of permaculture who say its the work free solution of using nature to feed us. These dumbed down solutions come from a culture that is still sucking on a big fat pacifier.

[Strummer]

Stephen Hawking is one of the smartest men there is and he says the species has to do it -- if you won't listen to him, I don't know what to say.

The species has to do three things:

- immediately stop destroying the biosphere

- start building a warning and defence system against asteroid strikes

- start building underground infrastructure for surviving a supervolcano eruption (including samples and DNA storage for biosphere restart)

That's it. Those three things will ensure humanity's survival for hundreds of thousands of years and all are infinitely cheaper than these stupid space colonization fantasies.

[AgentR11]

Space is for robots. Earth is for humans. Its really that simple. I mean think about it... taking gravity away is hard on humans and easy on robots; taking humidity and air is hard on humans and easy on robots. Exposure to -100C or +100C really sucks for humans, but just requires a bit of engineering to be fine for robots. Waiting 8 months doing nothing before you start work is really hard on humans, and trivial to robots.

People often talk about the immediacy or dexterity of humans in space. You know what you do in space? You run down massive checklists, step by step, screw by screw, so you don't mess up and kill yourself instantly. You know whats really good at running down a 2000 line, precision checklist? Robots. You know what a robot calls a 2000 line checklist? A trivial program an undergrad could write for $100 and some coffee.

Maybe human tourists into space, assisted by robotics could be fun and economic for the children of oligarchs. But otherwise. No. Humans in space is a dumb idea to start with, and its only gotten dumber with improvements in technology. Sorry.

By the time you could get 4 people to stay alive 6 months on Mars you could put hundreds of spider leg and wheel based robots there, and they could stay alive for much, much longer. (little Opportunity, closing in on 4000 martian days is STILL alive and kicking).

Strummer's really got it. Get some rational asteroid defense up and running; and give some thought to a Siberian Traps or Methane apocalypse response; and ease up on the shredding of the biosphere. Those don't need to be huge projects, you don't need to save millions, just my daughter and a few obedient servants. lol. Nah, seriously, I suspect there's sufficient survivability in military command bunkers and nuclear powered warships to handle those sorts of things already.

[AgentR11]

Stephen Hawking is one of the smartest men there is and he says the species has to do it -- if you won't listen to him, I don't know what to say.

Stephen Hawkings is one of the greatest book hawking (lol) scientists of all time. Humans in space is adventurous, and exciting, and completely pointless. Good grist for articles, interviews, presentations and books. All of which he is REALLY REALLY good at.

Jupiter has some lovely moons. Europa has an ocean with more water in it than we have on our entire planet. It may be teeming with life, we will not know until we take a look with a probe.

And how much lead are you going to wrap your body in, in order to survive, and more particularly have your gonads survive, the radiation environment around Jupiter? You might as well live inside a big microwave oven while putting an office chair on top of a nuclear reactor.

It has geothermal energy. That's heat, and water, and ice cap to protect from radiation and you can get there with Saturn V rocket tech. Infinite water, to split to hydrogen for fuels and oxygen to breathe.

You greatly overestimate how much protection Europa, or any other moon of Jupiter or Saturn could offer; not to mention the amount of time you'd be exposed, completely unprotected, while trying to get something heavy and fast into orbit around something like Europa and then landing without being splattered like a bug on a windshield.

I really hate magical space thinking. I really do.

If you really must have humans in space, they belong in LEO protected by Earth's magnetic field. Even then, it ain't great for long term, reproductive prospects, but its not an impossible work of magic, demon summoning, or unicorns.

[dinopello]

I really hate magical space thinking. I really do.

You've got people who don't believe we ever landed people on the moon and people that think we will have Starbucks floating in deep space not too long from now (once Starbucks is bought out by Elon Musk, of course). I love this country !

[Sixstrings]

You greatly overestimate how much protection Europa, or any other moon of Jupiter or Saturn could offer; not to mention the amount of time you'd be exposed, completely unprotected, while trying to get something heavy and fast into orbit around something like Europa and then landing without being splattered like a bug on a windshield.

NASA has speculated on the feasibility of mining the atmospheres of the outer planets, particularly for helium-3, an isotope of helium that is rare on Earth and could have a very high value per unit mass as thermonuclear fuel.[76][77] Factories stationed in orbit could mine the gas and deliver it to visiting craft.[78] However, the Jovian system in general poses particular disadvantages for colonization because of the severe radiation conditions prevailing in Jupiter's magnetosphere and the planet's particularly deep gravitational well. Jupiter would deliver about 36 Sv (3600 rem) per day to unshielded colonists at Io and about 5.4 Sv (540 rems) per day to unshielded colonists at Europa,[79] which is a decisive aspect due to the fact that already an exposure to about 0.75 Sv over a period of a few days is enough to cause radiation poisoning, and about 5 Sv over a few days is fatal.

Ganymede is the Solar System's largest moon and the Solar System's only known moon with a magnetosphere, but this does not shield it from cosmic radiation to a noteworthy degree, because it is overshadowed by Jupiter's magnetic field. Ganymede receives about 0.08 Sv (8 rem) of radiation per day.[79] Callisto is further from Jupiter's strong radiation belt and subject to only 0.0001 Sv (0.01 rem) a day.[79] For comparison, the average amount of radiation taken on Earth by a living organism is about 0.024 Sv per year; the highest natural radiation levels on Earth are recorded around Ramsar hot springs at about 0.26 Sv per year.

One of the main targets chosen by the HOPE study was Callisto. The possibility of building a surface base on Callisto was proposed, because of the low radiation levels at its distance from Jupiter and its geological stability. Callisto is the only Galilean satellite for which human exploration is feasible. The levels of ionizing radiation on Io, Europa, and Ganymede are hostile to human life, and adequate protective measures have yet to be devised.[82]

It could be possible to build a surface base that would produce fuel for further exploration of the Solar System. In 1997, the Artemis Project designed a plan to colonize Europa.[71] According to this plan, explorers would drill down into the Europan ice crust, entering the postulated subsurface ocean, where they would inhabit artificial air pockets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Jupiter#Potential_for_colonization

Callisto is far enough out that the radiation wouldn't be a problem.

And I don't think Europa would be ultimately impossible -- you're right Agent, for now it is, "technologies yet to be developed" would be needed to counter radiation farther in like Europa.

If you can get under the ice cap and into the ocean though, that's protected from radiation.

[Sixstrings]

How about asteroid colonies?

Advantages

Low gravity greatly reduces the cost and risk of "landing" compared to the much deeper gravity wells of the Moon or Mars, and simplifies construction technologies (such as cranes) and reduces structural strength requirements

Large number of possible sites, with over 300,000 asteroids identified to date

Asteroids' chemical composition varies (see asteroid spectral types), providing a variety of materials usable in building and fueling spacecraft and space habitats

Some Earth-crossing asteroids require less energy (delta-v) to reach from Earth than the Moon

Material mined from asteroids could be a basis for a trade economy, and precious metals may even be returned to Earth or other colonized worlds from asteroid mines for economic gain

High surface-to-volume ratio enables effective exploration and exploitation of mineral resources and provides maximal portion of useful building ground on the surface and interior

High vacuum and low gravity would facilitate the evolution of some hi-tech industries such as material engineering and physical electronics (crystal growth, epitaxy)

Many asteroids (especially the extinct comet cores) contain large amounts (more than 5% of total composition) of water and other volatiles, as well as carbon, which are all necessary for life support.

These resources would not only be useful within the asteroid colonies, but could also be "exported" to other locations in the solar system where they were needed, and for a fraction of the energy cost of launching such materials from larger bodies such as the Moon or Mars.

Isaac Asimov pointed out the advantage of building cities inside hollowed out asteroids, since the volume of all the asteroids put together is a great deal more than that of a mile-high building covering the Earth would be, and thus could accommodate a large population
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_asteroids

Here's a near earth asteroid that has probably half a trillion dollars worth of gold and $5 trillion worth of platinum:

Asteroid 1986 DA achieved its most notable recognition when scientists revealed that it contained over "10,000 tons of gold and 100,000 tons of platinum",
...
In 2012 the estimated value of 100,000 tons of platinum was worth approximately five trillion US dollars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(6178)_1986_DA

Says it's a mars-crosser asteroid too.. you could hop on when it's near earth and ride it out to mars, free trip. Mine gold and platinum, fill up a cargo capsule full and land it back on earth; if it's full of gold and platinum, that's gotta be worth a spacex style cargo return, no? Right now all we bring back down are the trash bags from the space station.

Think about the biggest possible tonnage return capsule you could have, and then how much all those tons -- maybe 100 tons -- of platinum could be worth.

(did some math, 100 tons of platinum would be a $10 billion value return load)

[KaiserJeep]

I am following this debate with some amusement. I only want to point out that Science has NO BASIS WHATSOEVER for the existence of "wormholes" that instantly transport a person from one part of space to another. Wormholes are of course one long-existing fixture of Science Fiction, discussed since the 1940's as a plot-simplifying device enabling a lazy author to postulate interstellar travel without the necessity to invent a star drive technology good enough to promote the essential "suspension of disbelief". The terminology was popularized by the movie Stargate (1994) and the various TV series that followed. "Warp Drive" is another one of those cheater plot devices, in use since Gene Roddenberry invented the term for the original Star Trek (1966-1968). In fact there is no credible scheme of faster-than-light-travel that Physics accepts today - even though such diverse minds as Einstein and Stephen Hawking sometimes use the word "wormhole" in their publications, the term has the same actual significance as "Schrödinger's cat", it is actually a "thought experiment".

What I find highly interesting is that BOTH recent popular SF movies Interstellar (2014) and Gravity (2013) contained serious violations of Physics and NONE OF YOU even noticed. I have spent countless hours explaining that the colonization of space advocated by me requires no Scientific advances whatsoever, and is entirely based upon known physical laws and technology. Both recent popular movies above eschewed absolute Scientific accuracy in lieu of conventional plot devices (which I freely admit increased their entertainment value), and none of you are aware of this - or at least none of you are bothering to discuss these facts.

It is indeed true what one of my professors told me with an obvious sense of great sadness: "Many people study Physics, but few ever use it for anything."

The last movie to attempt absolute Scientific accuracy was 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968). Prior to that, one credible attempt was Destination Moon (1950). Another was When Worlds Collide (1951). Although all three classic films have been charmingly dated by recent technology, if you were not already aware of the true status of the three classic SF films I mentioned, your judgement on matters of Science must be seriously questioned.

If you think that Star Wars (1977) was "great SF", then you are totally hopeless, please remove yourself from the debate about space colonization.