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FrozenGate by Avery

Space Discussion Thread

TerraForming mars is not out of the ballpark yet. They have proven that there is ice on mars just like they have on the moon. The big issue with mars is that it has very little in the way of atmosphere. The solar winds strip a lot of it away and there is nothing growing on mars to replenish it
 





Skans said:
If you want to and are able to alter your own genetics (or have someone do this for you), then neither I or anyone else really cares - go for it!
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I wonder how that will pan out when it actually becomes feasible.

Genetically altering an adult may seem stuff of science fiction, but perhaps we can actually do it using retrovirusses to infect most cells with little adverse affect but can insert some genetic material.

It could be too late to make any major changes like adding extra fingers or improve intelligence for the individual taking the treatment.

However, these modifications would also be carried out in the reproductive cells. So i could, using this mechanism, alter my own dna having very little result for me, but having huge result for any of my offspring. This would be the equivalent of modifying the dna of a fetus, but without ever touching that fetus.

Currently this is not a big issue because we haven't mapped that much genes yet. We do know of several genes that can be missing or damaged causing ailment, and of some that should not be present to prevent other ailments.

We don't really know how traits like intelligence are genetically encoded yet, but it's likely we will figure this out in the coming decades. At that point there WILL be an ethical problem since it gives people that can afford it genetically superior offspring - either by modifying the fetus or their own gametes if required.
 
vortish said:
TerraForming mars is not out of the ballpark yet. They have proven that there is ice on mars just like they have on the moon. The big issue with mars is that it has very little in the way of atmosphere. The solar winds strip a lot of it away and there is nothing growing on mars to replenish it
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Yes. I honestly believe Mars is the best, and only planet we have in our solar system where we can try to create life. Mercury has barely no atmosphere, and it's distance to the sun results in very high daytime temperatures(close to Venus) and with no atmosphere nighttime temperatures are colder then you'd even find here at Vostok Station in Antarctica which had the lowest recorded temperature on Earth. Around -79 Celsius IIRC.

Venus, the only way we can inhabit it would be in the upper atmosphere(as has been said by many people) or until we develop strong enough materials to deal with the crushing atmosphere & keep our astronauts cool on it's surface with it's deadly runaway greenhouse effect.

Earth, well we live here :p

Everything after that are gas planets: Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune so that's a no-go. It has been debated whether or not when the sun starts expanding if humans could survive on Europa or another of the gas giants moons!

-Alex
 
Is there any way we could potentially 'strip away' the atmosphere of venus in the far future? I'm talking about the VERY far future here. Remove most of it and then use the remainder of the co2 for growing plants there. I believe Venus might be a better candidate for terraforming than Mars due to the similar gravity to Earth.
 
Razako said:
Is there any way we could potentially 'strip away' the atmosphere of venus in the far future? I'm talking about the VERY far future here. Remove most of it and then use the remainder of the co2 for growing plants there. I believe Venus might be a better candidate for terraforming than Mars due to the similar gravity to Earth.
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I think it might be possible. Venus does have the benefit of a lot of solar energy, so maybe we would have the energy to solidify/liquid a lot of the atmosphere over time or pump it through tubes to be stripped into space.

The issue is that Venus also doesn't have a strong magnetosphere, so the thick atmosphere might be the only good radiation defense.
 
InfinitusEquitas said:
Could create a magnetic field artificially too.
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H2Oxide said:
Yes, but at what cost? Could that be done realistically?
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We may need to do that for earth one day. It seems like it would be too large of a project unless our survival depended on it. I can imagine a large number of nuclear powered electromagnets the size of a large building all over the planet including platforms in the oceans.

Alan
 
At present I don't think so, but the main problem with it would be with supplying power.

I really hope that we'll find a new power source, that will make our current energy needs appear minuscule.
 
InfinitusEquitas said:
At present I don't think so, but the main problem with it would be with supplying power.

I really hope that we'll find a new power source, that will make our current energy needs appear minuscule.
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There are big material and engineering issues as well. A big magnet that could create a magnetosphere is really going to have to be physically large. It might even need to be made out of a massive superconductor to keep it from having to be planet-sized.
 
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That's true, but I think the main road block to that kind of construction would be in actually powering such an electromagnet. The core of the planet is also likely to be metallic so it maybe the objective would be to slowly force it to spin somehow, although that raises a ton of other issues, tectonic plate shifts for example.

Material science has moved forward very very significantly over the past few decades, and hopefully will move on even more.
 
InfinitusEquitas said:
That's true, but I think the main road block to that kind of construction would be in actually powering such an electromagnet. The core of the planet is also likely to be metallic so it maybe the objective would be to slowly force it to spin somehow, although that raises a ton of other issues, tectonic plate shifts for example.

Material science has moved forward very very significantly over the past few decades, and hopefully will move on even more.
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I don't think the power would be too big of an issue, especially using superconductors. The energy requirement would be huge to establish the field, but that'd be it for the most part. I'd assume it's somewhat feasible right now. A copper electromagnet would take temeendous amounts of energy since it would be at least be hundreds of thousands of miles of resistance.

While our material science improvements are doing pretty well, I think we'd need a massive superconductor that can be maintained at reasonable conditions. The issue is getting enough flux density to pass high energy particles at a reasonable altitude. The only ways to do this are to have a magnet that can account for a significant amount of the planet's radius or a magnet that's still pretty big and has a massive amount of energy.

Might be possible to turn the core into a permanent magnet if we get to the point where we can induce spin though.
 
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I think it would be stupid and irresponsible to screw around with the core of the planet if we even could. I think it could end in disaster.

Alan
 
Don't go messing about with it when there is no problem ;)

But if there is a need to create a magnetic field, i wonder how much current it would actually take to create something like earths magnetic field using a loop of superconducting wire around the equator.

With current superconductors this would not be very practical due to cooling requirements, but if/when room teperature super conductors become available it all sounds a lot more feasible.

Such a system would require very little or no input power once energized depending on the type of superconductor and imperfections in the material.
 
Anyone see how our species is going & how corrupt this world is?

Yeah, we aren't going anywhere until people in power decide to get their priorities straight & not focus on oil and bombing others!

-Alex
 
Hap said:
Anyone see how our species is going & how corrupt this world is?

Yeah, we aren't going anywhere until people in power decide to get their priorities straight & not focus on oil and bombing others!

-Alex
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Yes I noticed, and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. I had hoped that the next generations would live in a good and peaceful world with Star Trek level technology were everyone's needs can be taken care of, but it is not to be. I now expect another world war and I think it will go on until all of civilization is completely undone and desolate. Survivors will be living in a post war wasteland where people will kill each other over water or scraps of food. In time a new and better civilization will rise from the ashes of this hell.


Alan
 
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