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Posted By: Hyperion May 25, 2002 - 03:22 pm

Hello all.

Anyone any comments or ideas about this topic?
I find the whole idea of TERRAFORMING to be a worthwhile option for study by the Space industry.
Although it's a good few years of yet, many companies and scientific agency's- communities are going to great length’s to study it in detail.
Their are numerous projects out and about in the wilder parts of our Earth were scientists and volunteers are experimenting with Bio Domes and growing life from scratch in Hostile areas.
Although personally I think big projects like this on any scale would in the end take more money than the Governments are likely to give, I feel that eventually BIG BUSINESS will start to sit up and take note of things this and see them as opportunities.
Space Mining is another enterprise I feel has possibilities if the Big Corporate Giants would just get off their Asses and give a hand in it.
What do the rest of you have to say on these subjects?

Regards:::
Hyperion

Posted By: The Master May 25, 2002 - 10:26 pm

Well, I certainly think terraforming will be something we do someday. Right now we don't have anywhere near the technological know how to know what we are doing though. The biodome type research is more "closed environment" reasearch, not terraforming.

As for space mining, the costs are much too high for what you could recover to have any interest to business. As resources deplete, and space tech gets better, I would certainly expect business to lead the way.

Posted By: Hyperion May 26, 2002 - 10:53 am

Yeah you’re right about the costs.
At the moment the cost is just to high for any agency's or business to start research into things like space mining and terraforming.
AS for the tech, well we are allot more advanced than people think and indeed give us credit for - but the Governments just wouldn’t admit to anything remotely near what it would take to go into space on a mining mission or enterprise type scenario.
We do however, have tech capable of putting people on other planets - such as mars, and of landing equipment on asteroid's, the satellite that landed on the asteroid not so long back - proved that and it wasn't even designed for the Job.
The Governments tell us one thing, then feed the press and public scientific community's another, forcing us to squabble over it, which in turn gives them more ammunition when it comes to hiding the truth. Everyday squabbles like that just gives them all the necessary means to keep what they are really capable of secret - and then they use that tech for their own means.
I do not believe we are as far behind as they would have us believe.
Digital communications and Encryption are one area were they would have us believe that we are stuck in a cycle and cannot go any further until new forms of processors and processing data is developed, but they themselves are using vast arrays of super computers using parallel processing techniques that far out weigh anything we on the public sector will ever see - at least not for the next 20 30 years anyways.

The thing with Space flight and Space tech development is, its all about getting stuff up off the planet and into space – that’s were the cost is, once its up their propulsion and work becomes much much easier, and less expensive. There are however the few remaining problems of radiation shielding and long-term health risks to over come.
Regards:::
Hyperion

Posted By: iamume Sep 24, 2003 - 02:16 pm

Terraforming is a curious subject.imagine that we could actually accomplish this and colonize another planet or moon.This concept leads me to a couple of others.First lets look around.How well are we managing this planet?We have yet to indicate that we wont ruin this most precious place.If there are any civilizations out there that are in a position of system management would it allow our species to spread beyond this amazing place?Or would they covet it and begin their own "terraforming" of earth for their own needs.We are affecting the climate with a rapid rate of extinctions.If scarcity is an indication of value, than so far life is the most scarce and valuable resource,phenomenon or experience that we have yet discovered.How many more species will we wipe out in our search to migrate to other unspoiled pastures.Are we yet just nomads?

Posted By: Aldan Sep 25, 2003 - 12:03 pm

Ok, Nommy, I think you know the answer to that last question.
As for the others, I feel that humankind will continue to destroy what he doesn't understand. And, since "mankind" is pretty ignorant, that covers a LOT of ground.
I'm a pessimist, I know, but when I look at the human condition, and, especially, human politics, I think that this situation is probably unsolvable, because even with some people striving to save this species or that rainforest, the rest of the world JUST DOESN'T CARE. They're after the money or political power that destroying that rainforest or slaying that species for their ivory or skins or whatever, and, that being their driving force, they'll not move aside for anyone, because "money makes the world go 'round".
As for us being nomads, well, how do you, personally, like to move into a completely new situation?

Posted By: Nomad Sep 26, 2003 - 06:26 am

OK, Im a nomad; atleast by name. LoL

I just watched a movie on the SFC and the astronaughts were trying to get off of Mars. They ended up getting to a Russian Lander that must havebrought microbes with it because moss or some kind of algae was forming all around the vessel and producing oxygen. cOMPLETE ACCIDENT. Yup...a breathable oxygen bubble on Mars. Something like that should be possible.(?)

If we continue to ruin our own planet, eventually half the poulation will die and the earth would eventually reinvigorate itself and thus produce the needed oxygen. The ozon layer would, uopefully, replenish itself also.

Posted By: Aldan Sep 26, 2003 - 10:16 am

And Val Kilmer SURVIVED!!! WOO HOO!!!
Yes, I've seen it as well...

Posted By: iamume Sep 26, 2003 - 11:26 am

Im not adverse to nomadic life as a whole, what I was refering to is the pattern of using up an areas resources and moving on to another valley or planet.My ideal here is learning to live in harmony,managing oneself and ones environment so that life thrives the region flourishes.Peaple speak of success in narrow terms.At what are we successfull?My main point here is that we bring our problems with us where ever we go.If I were to give our species an assignment it would be to learn how to coexist and thrive here before we create even greater miseries.Thriving does not mean unchecked rampant growth which destroys oneself.Peaple speak of "the environment" as if it is something else which can be fenced off.I maintain that there is no such sepparation only within an artificial setting does this appear to be so.Nothing exists without a context.Our health,the economies health and the environments health are all connected .the environment can exist without us but we cannot exist without an environment.When we evaluate planetary sytem management are we taking a view which considers everything to be a resource whose value is set by a market used by only one species? This sugject of terreforming is highly environmental.Do the biodomes allow their wastes to be trucked away? As a teen when presented with the Idea of the earth as an organism, I had to ask, if that was so then what function does our species perform?Unfortunately I found that we resembled cancer, even our term consumer reinforced that.I did not want to be a cancer cell and felt that I didn't have to be.I laughed that we were even applying chemotherapy to ourselves through pollution.I have since heard others espouse this view and now am glad that I no longer suffer from such a simplistic oppinion.Unfortunatly my ex-wife still suffers from this thought and detests her humanity.We are very good at what we do,we can and will do better.I hope we get there before the system crashes.

Posted By: poppie Oct 04, 2003 - 11:18 pm

Mining space: someone mentioned that the big cost (insurmountable right now) would be in getting equipment off Earth and into space. Pardon me, but the initial cost shouldn't be very much more than getting a start-up industry up and going. Float a stock issue. And mining and manufacturing would have to go hand in hand. Think about the weight to power ratio of an engine that was cast in zero gee. Besides, with a mining/fabrication station in place, the thing would become more or less self replicating. The major cost/effort would be in supply-resupply of the workers. I dunno, its late, and my pain meds just kicked in. Makes it kind of difficult to think. In any event, take a look at Xerion Ecosolutions Inc (EXCO on the NYSE). Something like their process seems to be ideal for space smelting. Lets face it, there's a lot of crap bobbing around in space that can be exploited. Terraforming? Why bother. The sheer timescale of the projects place it out of any but the most long reaching of planners. Even the old Soviet Union limited themselves to 5 and 10 year plans at the most. I can't see any corporate CEO explaining a steady sunk cost to his stockholders with a duration of centuries; just ain't gonna happen. Terraforming, if it happens at all, will be a byproduct of industrial pollution. We pollute, sometimes I think its just in our nature to do so. Best then that we accept that fact, and try to at least direct the pollution in a helpful direction. You gotta dispose of human solid and liquid waste? Just dump it out the airlock onto XY generic hostile planetary surface. Eventually, it'll do some good.

poppie

Posted By: iamume Oct 06, 2003 - 11:28 am

Unfortunately you are right about terraforming,maximum shareholder profits would discourage life beyond the airlock.If we try hard enough the Earth will resemble this ideal.Paradise.

Posted By: Aldan Oct 06, 2003 - 05:03 pm

However, isn't Paradise a garden/park-like locale with wide-open-spaces? I have a very hard time forseeing humans, without blowing themselves back to Adam and Eve, could un-crowd like that... even if using colonization of space(which'd be expensive and wouldn't move very many colonists at a time - indeed, more people are born every hour than could fit on a single ship) or of the oceans (not too many people would be WILLING to move under the sea ).

Posted By: iamume Oct 07, 2003 - 10:16 am

Maybe my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.Pollute the earth to the point where we must live in sealed oversized hamster mazes.Render every facet of life into a proper company authorized activity or product.The only wildlife could be communicable diseases or zoodome specimens.Hologram decks would be cheaper and more convenient to manage.A shareholders dividend paradise.

Why would anyone be more likly to desire life in space versus the oceans? Immigration propoganda?.In many ways they would be similar.No starlight under the sea.I wonder how deep sea light pollution might affect the flora and fauna.

Currently the population explosion and its issues look bleak and horrific.War and apocplyptic techniques would only serve as a pressure valve not offering system management techniques which would prevent the recurring cycle.

Posted By: MrBlofeldt Mar 10, 2004 - 07:50 am

There was a documentary on TV about Terraforming a little while ago, which went in depth into transforming mars into a habitable planet.

It started off by suggesting that large factories be built on mars in order to provide necessary greenhouse gasses to raise the temperature, gasses which are currently destroying this planet could be used as a kind of medicine for mars, this also has the effect of melting any frozen water on/under the surface, this would be followed by placing microbes/Algae/little single cell bug things that give off oxygen on the surface of the planet (these would transform the toxic gasses into oxygen).

After a few decades, hardy plant life, the typefound in arid areas of earth be placed on mars, to aid the job of the microbes, gradually over time the range of plant life could be expanded to trees/flowers/whatever.

Eventually, after supposedly/theoretically 100 years or so, the first "terraformers" would be able to set foot on mars. but this would in itself have its own problems, because the gravity on mars is significantly less than that of earth, generations of settlers would change physically, organs would shrink, and the overall physionomy of the human being would change also, so does this mean that children born on Mars would not be able to return to earth?

The answer... I don't know, but it's an interesting theory...

MrB

Posted By: Aldan Mar 10, 2004 - 03:11 pm

The answer would be: probably not, without either the children going through centrifuges for months at a time, starting at birth (their organs would probably start out at near normal size for a normal human baby, and wouldn't grow at the same rate as their bodies, unless they are under near 1G conditions for long periods as they're growing) and continuing as they grow, or with the children arriving on Earth pumped full of drugs to be able to cope with the pain as well as the diseases, etc.

Posted By: iamume Mar 10, 2004 - 06:45 pm

Returning to Earth after a long time there could be difficult as well.