The Astronomy Thread

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moonarchia

moonarchia

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Cybsled said:
Plus the Outer Planets are -really- far away. With current tech, you'd be looking at a trip taking close to a couple years just to get to Jupiter.

Barring the discovery of a real life Epstein Drive, humans aren't going to that neighborhood any time soon.



Tidal heating due to Jupiter's gravity is presumed to be what makes it possible to have liquid oceans under the ice. But if you're going to Europe or Ganymede or whatever, you'd be using fusion/nuclear power at that point.
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First will be the moon, then Mars and the asteroid belt. Once we have orbital bases around them and are able to get mining operational the asteroid belt will be our literal gold mine. Being able to fabricate and build ships in actual space will allow us to test and build technology at a much faster pace than having to worry about things like nuclear winter on earth. We are only a few generations of materials engineering away from being able to create space elevators, which will also allow for rapid deployment of materials from earth to space to keep the colonies going.

Moon -> Mars -> Asteroid belt -> Moons of jupiter and Saturn -> Uranus, Neptune and Pluto

After that if we have the technology for shielding and cryogenics we will start seeding the closest star systems.

Or a giant meteor will wipe us out and the universe will keep on trucking as it always has.
 
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pharmakos

pharmakos

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LachiusTZ said:
Don't think the plan is for the surface.

Isaac Arthur has me convinced on moon base then cylinders.

Doesn't matter, soon Kessler syndrome will kick in and we will be locked out.
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Had never heard of Kessler syndrome. Googled it. The way human nature is, that scenario is absolutely going to happen someday. Sad.
 
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A

a_skeleton_05

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pharmakos said:
Had never heard of Kessler syndrome. Googled it. The way human nature is, that scenario is absolutely going to happen someday. Sad.
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It's considered one of the "great filters" that is factored into the likelihood we'll ever encounter another civilization. Every space-fairing species would have to face its danger and overcome it. Right now we have a pretty good handle on it including tracking the majority of everything in orbit, but the amount of shit being put up there just keeps growing and growing. It would make for a pretty neat sci-fi plot too. Aliens come and instead of bothering to wipe us out, just blow up a bunch of satellites and lock us onto the planet as a result.
 
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iannis

iannis

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You can imagine a technological solution to that problem. Ala spaceballs and the giant vacuum cleaner.

Debris collection shouldn't be impossible when we get to a state where it is necessary. It will be a significant undertaking, no doubt.
 
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a_skeleton_05

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iannis said:
You can imagine a technological solution to that problem. Ala spaceballs and the giant vacuum cleaner.

Debris collection shouldn't be impossible when we get to a state where it is necessary. It will be a significant undertaking, no doubt.
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I think the primary issue is that the cure has the potential to join the disease, and that it's not really feasible to separate the good from the bad. Things are moving so ridiculously fast up there that when you add in random chaotic movements of millions of tiny bullets it's just too difficult to adjust to without it being an all-or-nothing sort of solution. Think the early section of the movie Gravity, but on a massive scale. This is all before the question of whether or not the deployment of such a solution could even survive long enough to deploy.

I don't think it's an impossible situation to overcome, but such a situation would set us back centuries, and god knows what else is going to happen in that amount of time to make it an irrelevant situation, or just make it even worse. Mind you that this sort of thing would also destroy our current satellite system which would wreak havoc on communications, GPS, entertainment, everything that we depend on satellites for (a lot of things) which could cause social upheavals that would fuck us too.
 
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iannis

iannis

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I mean yeah, you couldn't be selective. Your have to stage the project. I'm sure it would take decades.
 
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LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Honestly I think the tech to fix Kessler is a century off. Maybe 50 years, 20 if we became a serious species. It's going to require fusion. All the hair brained solutions for it are beyond stupid. You essentially need a way to create a net up there. And that means either SciFi materials, or vast amounts of energy.

Anyone watch the late why string theory is wrongt space time? Half listened to it the other day, and it's one of the episodes that's going to require my attention to understand.

Some of that shit is easy to digest, then an episode like that comes on and I realize I'm pretty fucking stupid.
 
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Ukerric

Ukerric

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Dom said:
It's considered one of the "great filters" that is factored into the likelihood we'll ever encounter another civilization. Every space-fairing species would have to face its danger and overcome it. Right now we have a pretty good handle on it including tracking the majority of everything in orbit, but the amount of shit being put up there just keeps growing and growing. It would make for a pretty neat sci-fi plot too. Aliens come and instead of bothering to wipe us out, just blow up a bunch of satellites and lock us onto the planet as a result.
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It's the starting point of Gravity.
 
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LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Never watched gravity. Likely never will. Is it even mentioned by name in the movie?

I don't think you can attribute anything great filter status if it is foreseen. That would imply all other life in the universe is as stupid as humans. All our problems are self inflicted and could be fixed if we weren't such a slavin species
 
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a_skeleton_05

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LachiusTZ said:
Never watched gravity. Likely never will. Is it even mentioned by name in the movie?

I don't think you can attribute anything great filter status if it is foreseen. That would imply all other life in the universe is as stupid as humans. All our problems are self inflicted and could be fixed if we weren't such a slavin species
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There are a bunch of filters and not every single one would apply to every species. Ones that have a very centralized tight-gripped handle on anything orbital would have a vastly reduced risk of something like this for example, but they probably face the risk of other ones that we might not for whatever reason.

I don't remember it being named specifically in the movie, but it's pretty clearly what's going on. They get warning of some sort of incident and that debris is incoming, and I think they even mention something about it cascading. Pretty decent movie to watch too, though the third act is dumb.
 
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LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Dom said:
There are a bunch of filters and not every single one would apply to every species. Ones that have a very centralized tight-gripped handle on anything orbital would have a vastly reduced risk of something like this for example, but they probably face the risk of other ones that we might not for whatever reason.

I don't remember it being named specifically in the movie, but it's pretty clearly what's going on. They get warning of some sort of incident and that debris is incoming, and I think they even mention something about it cascading. Pretty decent movie to watch too, though the third act is dumb.
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There are a bunch of filters, but only one we are aware of 1 (imo) that warrants being called great at this time. All others are hypothetically great.

It's hard to do with a sample of 1.

It's a fun conversation tho.

And like most things, we were aware of it early enough to prevent it, but didn't. Bc $$$$
 
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Pops

Pops

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APOD: 2019 February 18 - Dragon Aurora over Iceland

DragonAurora_Zhang_960.jpg
 
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meStevo

meStevo

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Yeah, that's my only regret about going to Alaska for the first time this coming July, it'll never be night. A trip to Iceland is a bucket list thing we'll get to at some point and catch a show then hopefully.
 
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Lambourne

Lambourne

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Not sure about the Kessler Syndrome being a filter, it sounds like something you can engineer your way out of. Low Earth orbit is self-cleaning because solar activity periodically heats the upper atmosphere which makes it expand. This increases drag in Low Earth orbit (this was the reason Skylab came down years earlier than originally thought). Some sort of laser/microwave satellite could nudge debris into a decaying orbit, clear a path or at the very least make an accurate map of debris fields.

As far as filters go, I'm warming up to the idea that life may not be rare but intelligence is. Countless species have come and gone on Earth, but only one species developed enough intelligence to even ask these questions.
 
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Big Phoenix

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Dom said:
There are a bunch of filters and not every single one would apply to every species. Ones that have a very centralized tight-gripped handle on anything orbital would have a vastly reduced risk of something like this for example, but they probably face the risk of other ones that we might not for whatever reason.

I don't remember it being named specifically in the movie, but it's pretty clearly what's going on. They get warning of some sort of incident and that debris is incoming, and I think they even mention something about it cascading. Pretty decent movie to watch too, though the third act is dumb.
Click to expand...
Russians, literally. At the start of the movie they test an anti satellite weapon which starts off the chain reaction.
 
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pharmakos

pharmakos

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Lambourne said:
As far as filters go, I'm warming up to the idea that life may not be rare but intelligence is. Countless species have come and gone on Earth, but only one species developed enough intelligence to even ask these questions.
Click to expand...

and even the average human is barely "intelligent" really
 
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LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Why do you think intelligence would be rare within the set of complex organisms?

On a planet basis. Would make sense to have at least one fairly intelligent organism on any given planet once there is complex life.

The benefit is too large for it not to happen
 
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