EnMasse

thwap · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:51 am Post subject: Could we relocate life?

Just watching some science documentary and at one point they're talking about finding new life-sustaining planets like earth. At other times, they talk about terra-forming earth-like planets like Mars.

Would it be possible to take enough of the stuff of life on earth and set it up on a sophisticated space-station in an orbit around the sun (or any suitable orbit around any other suitable sun) and simply let it grow around the space-station?

Or create an atmosphere around a large-enough space-station?
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Searosia · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 2:46 pm Post subject:

Wouldn't see why an eco-system on a space station couldn't survive...it's basically an orbitting bio-dome experiement. Balancing CO2 - O2 cycles and the food chain might be a bit of a challenge...an imbalance would likely have exagurated effects.

It'd probably be better to have the orbit around another planet or other large source of gravity...if nothing else to provide some protection from space junk and other debris (in the 'hunt' for intelligent life, they're looking for an earth like planet that has an outer 'jupiter like' planet...it's gravity serves to protect the interior planets from large objects and extinction level impacts).

thwap · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:15 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply. I think this stuff is trippy. I guess a huge "bio-dome" was what I was thinking.

I'd like to write some sci-fi, but deal mainly with the psychology of space-travel. The science would be "hard science" (so obviously i've got my work cut out for me!) but the focus would be on the individuals, with the science just off in the background being inconspicuous.

Tiny little humans vs. each other and the void. That sorta thing.
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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

Searosia · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:18 pm Post subject:

I've got a book plot that goes something along the lines of...umm....in a slightly futuristic world, humans conclude space travel is utterly hopeless due to the time frames involved and adapt 'virus' tactics for space colonization. Space craft/pods containing genetic material and robotics that would trigger once the craft reached a new star system (virus tactics being we consumed earth and are now launching spores throughout the galaxy). When these pods were close to landing, it would create the first humans with the DNA stored on the ship, partially raise them, and prepare them for the colonization effort ahead including specifically engineering people to fit certain roles. Originally it was decided computers/robotics would work, but human intelligence was deemed nessacary for the trips. 2 people would live onboard and clone themselves as needed for the duration of the millenium long journey.

For the book, I follow one specific pod that was launched...a male/female pair that would look after the genetic materials until they found a suitible site for colonization in some far off star system. Early on the male, who isn't really a character in the book, dies (there's some trechery involved that comes out much later, she discovers the plan and stops him). The female (one of the main chars...kinda) is now alone and decides it better to write herself and her duties into a program rather than subject her clones (genetic selves as she'll call em) to the same emptiness she experiences.

2200 years later...humans do infact discover advanced space travel and can make-up these distances relatively quickly. This world that was to be colonized by the pod is colonized by humans much sooner. The pod still arrives and successfully initiate the landing process (cloning humans and raising them prior to colonization). The pod is found, but is completely empty...somewhere between the cloning and the arrival, something went wrong.

The book is done as people from the new colony investigating what happened on this pod and it's ultimate demise (a bunch of peoples cloned to fit genetically predetermined roles and the 'ship mother', the hologram left behind, and the void they're left with before landing on an 'uninhabitted' planet).

Seem far from what you're going with? Life in a bio-dome void of gravity and the value system that this sort of life would instill (it's the children that coin the term 'ship mother' as the holographic mother that raises them...they're unaware she was once a person on the ship)...there's alot of variables in there to consider. If you need any help with the science behind it, I'll definately try to point ya in the right direction (keeping in mind I know nothing, I just link to people that do Razz

)
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thwap · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 9:24 pm Post subject:

That sounds kinda cool. What's the title? The weird thing is that it also sounds like a story my son made up or told me about!
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Tehanu · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:46 pm Post subject:

Guys, have you read the Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars sci-fi series by Kim Stanley Robinson? It's a bit heavy going at times but boy, did he do his research. It's all about terraforming Mars to make it habitable.

thwap · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:53 pm Post subject:

no, i haven't read it. i was given a list of good authors to read once but the first three weren't my cup of tea and i lost interest.

i'll google yer recommendation ...
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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

Searosia · Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:13 pm Post subject:

I believe I have been told I need to read those red/green/blue mars books, but I've yet to.

There is no book name on that one yet Thwap...it's just an idea at this point. It's from a comment that comes up in another book that I'm actually trying to write (titled 'This is not a Book')...one of the characters will sarcastically take anyones idea's to extremes, and the plot line of the book I put up there is his response when someone says humans are virus's (yes, let's be virus's and colonize the universe as such, consume and spore!).

And a different thought to throw at you Thwap...why does this bio-dome require orbit around a sustainable sun? For us to be able to orbit a bio-dome, we literally need to make the jump from info age to energy age...there is nothing that we posess right now that could (safely) get an object of our own design of that size into orbit (perhaps building on an object already in orbit would get around that). I'm assuming the need for the sun orbit is directly realted to energy needs...had we been able to get a massive bio-dome in orbit, I think we'd be beyond reliance on the sun for sustainable/renewable energies. Why not have the bio-dome floating around through Edgeworth-Kuiper belt using materials it finds from asteroids and other objects to keep itself going?

And another one I'd really look into...life is exceedingly resiliant it (to me anyway) could appear anywhere. I've mentioned moons of saturn already, but who knows what 'life' could be existing on long dormant planetoids using some obscure chemical or geological/radiation energies to sustain itself. Any inter-stellar bio-dome (heh, I like that term) will have to be prepared to deal with obscure lifeforms (bacterias) that could really mess up their preplanned eco-systems.
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thwap · Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:59 pm Post subject:

I should have stated that I think these giant things would have to be built in space.
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Searosia · Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:25 pm Post subject:

Getting the materials out to space to build would be difficult...look at how long it's taken us to get enough parts together for a relatively tiny space station.

I guess it'd be feasible to build it out of materials already in space. I kinda like the idea of locating an existing object (some asteroid) currently in orbit and building on it/from it. I think you can find maps of all relatively stable 'near earth' objects currently in orbit around the sun if you wanted to research that...I think they might even have some information on their make-up too. I wonder what asteroid make-up would be the most beneficial to try this on? Wink

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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

TS. · Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:31 am Post subject:

The key to getting the materials out there is probably a space elevator. A space elevator would allow materials to be moved into orbit relatively cheaply and energy economically.
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Maestro · Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:08 am Post subject:

One would think that if terraforming Mars was a possibility, terraforming earth would be a piece of cake, comparatively.

So why not terraform the Sahara desert?
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Searosia · Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 4:57 pm Post subject:

thwap · Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 7:30 pm Post subject:

Well, last summer i was kicking around the idea about a crew of three. A dude (based on MEEEEEE!!!! ... [sorta]) who wants a normal lifespan and a lot of reading, an 80 year-old woman who looks about 30 due to lifespan enhancing drugs and who loves space travel because it gives her time to play sodoku and solitaire and like that, and a guy in his 40s who acts like a college-age wild-man, who has added two extra functioning arms to his torso.

They're delivering supplies to a larger space-station that is a way-station for mining colonies out ... [i think i already typed about this ... maybe not] ... farther towards the gas giants. There are more people there, and they've gone nuts, a religion has developed that bans life-lengthening and body modification and they've broken the rules and are having children there.

They kill the four-armed dude, but all the details are hazy.

Regarding giant space stations, ... in both the story and anything else, I imagine they'd be made via a space elevator and construction on asteroids based on resource-mining and smelters and refiners on moons and asteroids.

And really, my whole thing is about the romance of the whole vastness of space. If you haven't seen it already, check out the link i provided here.
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Searosia · Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 7:54 pm Post subject:

I saw that post...I'll read the link again now that I know more behind it Wink

I'm not much of a supporter of the 'Space elevator' theories...raw materials already exist in space in rather massive amounts, it seems to me that the initial energy cost to bring manufacturing in space and then create what we need in lower grav environments is much easier than producing on earth and continually expending energy to get things into space. The moon is basically made of the same components the earth is...though in the short term it might be a large energy expenditure to put manufacturing on the moon, it'll be cheaper in the long run to get things out of the moons gravitational pull than the earths (moon is just an example, asteroid 'harvesting' and production in space seem far preferential to production on earth and shipping to space. Think locally act stellar?). I'm of the opinion the Earth formed where the asteroid belt is now, which would mean that ring of asteroids should be similiar in make-up as the earths crust (should have the resources we need without the pesky task of breaking earths orbit to get it into space).

One would think nuclear energy production in the natural vacuum of space would address many downsides of nuclear energy too...and there should be uranium on the moon.

Mind if I ask...why mine gas giants? The gravity seems too immense to bother. Mining Gas Giants moons is a different thing mind you.

Just a quick ETA towards your book:
I actually thought you'd delve into the politics of 100 people in bio-dome and their attempt at social utopia

uranium on the moon
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Now is not the time for you Liberal fools, its time for a witch hunt. - Bloc Party

TS. · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:28 am Post subject:

Even when we do establish non-terrestrial mineral extraction and manufacturing, there will still be some things that will need to be produced on earth. Also, I would imagine the tendency will be to build vessels that are designed to stay permanently in interplanetary space, not to move between planetary bodies and space.

Thus there would remain a need for space elevators to move high-complexity products and people off of earth, and to bring people back to earth, as well as potentially bringing resources from other planetary bodies to earth as terrestrial supplies run out.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

Maestro · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 4:23 am Post subject:

Rufus Polson · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 8:18 am Post subject:

In one sense we do exactly that--make deserts bloom, plant trees, dam rivers for various purposes et cetera. We don't do it all that well on average.
But it's fairly limited compared to the kinds of intervention one often thinks of in connection with the word "terraforming". Which is most likely a good thing, because on earth if you get radical you don't just affect whatever bit you're trying to "fix", you inadvertently impact everything else as well.
On Mars if something goes wrong and you mess up the existing biosphere you've done nothing because there isn't one. Although in Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars there was for some time a political current of sorts pushing back against the terraforming in the name of the planet's pristine geography/geology itself.

Incidentally, the Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars trilogy is not just good hard science-type science fiction, it is also a work of leftist political thought. The first one is a bit of a tough slog--interesting in a lot of ways, but kind of arid. But it gets better (in fact, in many ways the mood of the books reflects the terraforming stage of the planet, becoming gentler as the planet itself does--I don't know if that was conscious or not).

Raos · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:41 pm Post subject:

The Mars trilogy is indeed a good read if you can push through the drier bits, I'll second that nomination.

And as to terraforming selection regions on earth versus whole other planetary bodies, it really is a different process being talked about. Terraforming a planet would be introducing the elements needed to make it hospitable to life/human life specifically. Oxygen and water, but more specifically the plants and fungi and microbes and other elements of a biosphere (which is by definition planetary in scale) that would maintain the hospitable conditions.

Those areas of the planet that aren't considered hospitable already have some exposure to those resources. If they're particularly scarce that's an issue of geography and correcting for those issues would be an acute engineering project. Terraforming is a process that I wouldn't foresee being acutely managed in the same way to direct specific resources into certain places; nobody's likely to plan and construct rivers and lake-beds.

Searosia · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:46 pm Post subject:

I guess I need to read red green blue

maestro:

Searosia · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 5:53 pm Post subject:

TS:

Raos · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 6:09 pm Post subject:

Oddly enough, that's actually how they built them in the Mars trilogy. Dropped a factory and some rockets onto a large enough suitable asteroid or meteor (it's been over a decade since I read the books, you'll forgive my lack of memory for exact details), nudged it into orbit with the rockets, and then let the factory build the elevator down to the surface using the materials on the meteor for construction.

Maestro · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 6:19 pm Post subject:

The only sphere that's ever going to be terraformed is the blogosphere.

How one can believe that what cannot be accomplished here on earth can somehow be accomplished several million (billion, trillion) miles away on a planet where there are no resources...

However, like most science fiction, there are accepted 'devices'. One is faster than light travel (warp drives, worm holes), without which science fiction can't exist. Another fantasy is terraforming. And that's ok. I don't have a problem with authors using such devices to make a point. Just remember that they are devices, not reality.
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Raos · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 6:26 pm Post subject:

"What cannot be accomplished here on earth"?

And yet, somehow this planet which was at one time a lifeless rock now has a widespread to the point of almost universal biosphere capable of supporting all manner of terrestrial life. How precisely is it prosperous to suggest that similar transformations could be induced to happen more quickly elsewhere?

Searosia · Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 6:42 pm Post subject:

Maestro · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:29 am Post subject:

Maestro · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:38 am Post subject:

F. · Fulltime enMasse Member Joined: 13 Apr 2006 Posts: 2578

Raos · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 7:47 am Post subject:

thwap · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 2:29 pm Post subject:

thwap · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2011 5:27 pm Post subject:

And with regards to terra-forming, any process that takes billions of years isn't really suitable for my purposes. Shit. Isn't Mars scheduled to be devoured by the sun before anything could happen.

I think asteroids and space stations serving as bio-domes for already existing life-forms to grow on are what would make the scenarios for genuine sci-fi to take place in.

To an extent, the completely sealed environment of a space-ship is already a sort of bio-dome. In the movie ... whose title i forget ... where they go to blow-up the sun (to get some more years out of it) the closer the ship gets to the sun, the better its greenhouse plants do.

I wonder if sunlight could be captured and transported in some kinda crazy sci-fi way too!
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Maestro · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 3:20 am Post subject:

thwap · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 3:56 am Post subject:

Well, the whole point of terra-forming is that you introduce NEW elements to start something that hadn't happened.

Look, ... why don't we wait 3.4 billion years and if it turns out that i'm wrong, i'll give you a nickel.
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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

Raos · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:49 am Post subject:

Maestro · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:49 pm Post subject:

Maestro · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 3:07 pm Post subject:

bshmr · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:19 pm Post subject:

Rather than pseudo-intellectual speculating about migrating to a planet that will support earthling life when evolving earthlings get there in billions of earth years or even a relatively few light-years play with this scheme.

Sahara Solar Breeder Project Aims to Power Half the World by 2050
Date:Today 05:29; Author:Ben Jervey

The Sahara Desert has two things in abundance: sun and sand. What if those could both be used symbiotically to eventually provide half the world's energy? Talk about huge ideas. A team of scientists from the University of Tokyo are teaming up with Algerian universities on this "Sahara Solar Breeder Project."

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/good/lbvp/~3/kVDpg9iuFss/

Rufus Polson · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:57 pm Post subject:

Rufus Polson · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:44 pm Post subject:

bshmr · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:56 pm Post subject:

Rufus Polson, sorry I didn't recognize the brilliance of several who can predict what the earthlings will be like and planets will be like when the earthlings arrive based on their own limited evolutionary genetics and scant astronomical data which is eons old by the time seen. <g> Seems psychic to little old me. :-P

Rufus Polson · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject:

If you don't think much of the idea of a thread on "Could we relocate life?" you can always not contribute to it rather than sneering. It's not like that's what the whole board is talking about. There's plenty threads where solar panels to meet our energy needs would be a relevant issue.

bshmr · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:46 pm Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:28 pm Post subject:

I'm still having problems telling what you think terraforming is maestro...

Maestro · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 6:14 am Post subject:

Good thinking all who said the first thing required for life on Mars is an atmosphere. And inducing a couple of large comets to crash into Mars might just do the trick as far as creating an atmosphere. But there's some other problem that needs solving, because Mars once did have an atmosphere. It doesn't know, so before you waste a lot of time trying to create an atmosphere on Mars, you might want to solve the problem of what happened to the last atmosphere.

I was quite fascinated by this response:

thwap · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:12 pm Post subject:

I'm thinking of doing some more research on large bio-dome space-stations though.

Anybody got a file copy of that Pauly Shore movie they can send me?
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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

Searosia · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:31 pm Post subject:

Not that I'd admit to owning Thwap ^^

Rufus Polson · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:47 pm Post subject:

Searosia · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:59 pm Post subject:

My thoughts too Rufus..."terraforming" wasn't well defined in this thread and we've been using it loosely.

Maestro · Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 3:23 am Post subject:

I think 'terra-forming' refers to the making of a planet habitable by earthlings. I believe that is the meaning most often given. After all, what would be the point of terra-forming a world if human habitation wasn't the final aim? And is that not the theme of the thread, 'Could We Relocate Life'?

Thus, the use of the Sahara Desert as a comparison is quite valid. It is true that people live on the Sahara Desert, but it's also true that it has one of the lowest densities on earth. This certainly distinguished it from the American plains which had relatively high population densities. In fact it took a good deal of 'anti-terra-forming' (such as killing off the buffalo) to drive the indigenous populations off.

To get back to the Sahara, at one time it was much more densely populated than it is now. Terra-forming it would merely be returning it to a state from a few thousand years ago. Many plans have been made to do exactly that, although none have reached fruition.

By the way, tripped over this in my searches:

Terraform Mars? Why not terraform the sahara desert?

I guess we're not the only ones interested in the concept.
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bshmr · Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:44 pm Post subject:

Some more to consider; added facts from the space programs.

Gardening in Space with HydroTropi
Date:Yesterday 22:59