Fifty SpaceX Falcon BFR could technically enable sustainable orbital colonies for 2 million people

[Bald1]

I think until you find a planet in our range that is livable out of box or provide proof that terraforming is even possible by humans, we need to fix what we've got going on here first because we can't live anywhere else.

A hundred years ago the moon was out of our range. A thousand years ago NA was out of Europes range. We have no clue what could be within our range in 20 years unless we try.

 

[hillelslovak87]

If you're looking to space, it has to be in tandem with making our Earth more sustainable and habitable for human and animal life.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

A hundred years ago the moon was out of our range. A thousand years ago NA was out of Europes range. We have no clue what could be within our range in 20 years unless we try.

Yeah but we know the limitation of physics -- closest star system is 4.4 light years away, if impulses from fusion and annihilation propulsive engines were created, it would still take over 50 years to get there to even try settlements. Not to mention communication would take 8.8 years to get back and forth from earth. And that is the closet system.

eventually the law of physics play a role.

Not to say you shouldnt try.

 

[Bald1]

Yeah but we know the limitation of physics -- closest star system is 4.4 light years away, if impulses from fusion and annihilation propulsive engines were created, it would still take over 50 years to get there to even try settlements. Not to mention communication would take 8.8 years to get back and forth from earth. And that is the closet system.

eventually the law of physics play a role.

Not to say you shouldnt try.

The laws of physics are so far out of my wheelhouse that I can't even see them, so to speak.

But, historically we've always been cock sure in our knowledge of our limitations. Lots of things were deemed impossible. Until someone figured out a way around them.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

The laws of physics are so far out of my wheelhouse that I can't even see them, so to speak.

But, historically we've always been cock sure in our knowledge of our limitations. Lots of things were deemed impossible. Until someone figured out a way around them.

Sure, but we have discovered enough to know what the laws of limitation and actually calculate them out. Ability is not infinite, it's finite

 

[LMP]

We have 7 billion people on earth I think we can spare 2 million without anyone really noticing. No better time for the future than now is what I say.

 

[Tankeray]

Fuck earth, I want space

 

[Rational Poster]

A hundred years ago the moon was out of our range. A thousand years ago NA was out of Europes range. We have no clue what could be within our range in 20 years unless we try.

Then find a planet first.

 

[GSP_37]

Just copy everything from Mobile Suit Gundam already. They already got it figured out.

 

[uncommon]

the economy would be similar to a prison.

zero wealth production with a constant state of wealth depletion.


wealth would have to be produced in some way to prevent everyone from going insane.


communist solar wealth system?
still runs into the material problem of not being able to convert solar into meaningful objects.

even if 3d printing could transmute raw materials into function the raw materials would eventually be depleted.

...

also what if there are unknown biological consequences for leaving earth?

e.g. the stomach floura of the space colony eventually inbreeds itsself to create a state of terminal illness?

even prisoners today recieve a constant supply of fresh bacteria, fresh air ect.

 

[Yecny]

Yeah but we know the limitation of physics -- closest star system is 4.4 light years away, if impulses from fusion and annihilation propulsive engines were created, it would still take over 50 years to get there to even try settlements. Not to mention communication would take 8.8 years to get back and forth from earth. And that is the closet system.

eventually the law of physics play a role.

Not to say you shouldnt try.

Right but you’re thinking of conventional ways of traveling there. Worm holes and warp drivers, time travel, etc. are all very really possibilities, as we have a juvenile understanding of physics.

Humanities greatest weakness in science is the inability to acknowledge we barely know anything. Too many people get caught up in authority and are closed minded to other possibilities. There are multiple generations of people still alive who grew up without computers or internet, and people still alive who grew up without color tv’s FFS. If technological continues on its current course there is absolutely no reason to think we couldn’t find technology to travel vast distances more quickly than we currently can.

 

[JohnnySagebrush]

A bigger issue would be identifying the nearest truly habitable planet. If we are trying to spread the human race, we don’t even know where to go, much less how we would get there (without a cargo of desiccated old skeletons, because any such planet is at LEAST 12 light years away.)

A low orbit colony is “gee whiz” stuff. The crap in the article is pure fantasy. The tiny ISS isn’t even sustainable, it is entirely dependent on cargo and provisions from Earth. What would be the point of sending large populations to live in low orbit, when said population is entirely dependent on resources from Earth?

We need a viable place to go. That’s the only way you will have a sustainable population living somewhere besides Earth. Terraforming Mars is utterly laughable. A small station used as a terminal might have value, but even Mars is only barely closer than Earth to any near Earth-like exoplanet.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

Right but you’re thinking of conventional ways of traveling there. Worm holes and warp drivers, time travel, etc. are all very really possibilities, as we have a juvenile understanding of physics.

Humanities greatest weakness in science is the inability to acknowledge we barely know anything. Too many people get caught up in authority and are closed minded to other possibilities. There are multiple generations of people still alive who grew up without computers or internet, and people still alive who grew up without color tv’s FFS. If technological continues on its current course there is absolutely no reason to think we couldn’t find technology to travel vast distances more quickly than we currently can.

I would be careful saying "very real" possibilities -- if you look into the practical application theories to them, they are widely discredited. Not to say that they couldnt be plausible in the farrrrr future -- but no, not in 20 -30, 50 or a 100 years. Look into the research by Miguel Alcubierre, and then read on the counters by guys like Lee Smolin, Turok and Vidal --

 

[JonesBones]

Well science relies on a lot of black swan events. Like realizing that nuclear physics could be used to make weapons of mass destruction. Nobody thought or noticed that while theorizing it. A lot of people don't know what they have. Like Einstein and Planck. Einstein had to convince of him of the implications of his work. And then somebody later found out of the implications of nuclear physics.

 

[Yecny]

I would be careful saying "very real" possibilities -- if you look into the practical application theories to them, they are widely discredited. Not to say that they couldnt be plausible in the farrrrr future -- but no, not in 20 -30, 50 or a 100 years.Look into the research by Miguel Alcubierre, and then read on the counters by guys like Lee Smolin, Turok and Vidal --

And again, if you asked people 100 years ago if we would be able to talk to someone from another part of the world instantaneously, they would have said the same thing.

To the bolded part: you have absolutely no idea whether that’s true or not, that an opinion.

 

[Bald1]

And again, if you asked people 100 years ago if we would be able to talk to someone from another part of the world instantaneously, they would have said the same thing.

To the bolded part: you have absolutely no idea whether that’s true or not, that an opinion.

Judo is far, far more knowledgeable in this field than I am, but, and it's a big but, we just don't know where we will be in 100 years. Our knowledge is doubling at the rate of once a year, and that's soon to be every 24 hours by some predictions, so who knows where we're gonna be in a hundred years? The only thing we know is that we know little.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

And again, if you asked people 100 years ago if we would be able to talk to someone from another part of the world instantaneously, they would have said the same thing.

To the bolded part: you have absolutely no idea whether that’s true or not, that an opinion.

No, it's a formed analysis reading the studies of the people I mentioned -- that's why I suggested them. Feel free to counter with any other physicists that suggests otherwise

 

[Yecny]

No, it's a formed analysis reading the studies of the people I mentioned -- that's why I suggested them. Feel free to counter with any other physicists that suggests otherwise

I’m not questioning whether or not you’re more knowledgeable than me at the subject of physics, but your formed analysis isn’t factual, it’s a prediction due to it being based on the future. We simply do not have even close to enough data to accurately predict where society will be at in 100 years, and the amount of growth that will happen. Civilization has never advanced this fast in history.

Either way we will be long gone by then, but it’s interesting you seem a little pessimistic about the subject seeing as you have an interest in it. Can I ask why?

 

[JohnnySagebrush]

And again, if you asked people 100 years ago if we would be able to talk to someone from another part of the world instantaneously

Not at all. The telephone had been invented, the telegraph had been around for a long time. The first transoceanic phone call was just a few years away.

I get your point, I think. We can’t be sure what advances we will see. But the action of delivering live humans to a planet 30, 50, 100 or more light years away is something very different in that it defies the laws of physics and human physiology in a way that no other advance ever has.

 

[ralphc1]

its not a waste, its a fantastic idea to get some stress off earth.

It would be much easier and cheaper to build a city in a desert than to build them in space.