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Author Topic: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?  (Read 36690 times)

blotz

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Transport rockets would cost a lot, and we would have nothing to start out with. All the everyday facts would be gone , lIke the time in a day, clean water or dirty, on so on. Only if teleportation devices were here.

smjjames

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2011, 05:08:44 PM »
We would probably keep the normal day/night cycle until we get close enough to measure the planets rotation (or we find out from a probe beforehand).

As for nothing to start with, either bring the neccesary materials to build or at least the equipment to use the planets resources.

True, standard chemical transport rockets would cost alot and even if you could pack enough fuel, it would take a HELL of a long time, we're talking about multigenerational slowboats here.

While we certainly have technologies that would let us make a colony ship, it would still be a multigenerational ship.

As far as clean water or dirty, we have the technology NOW to filter clean water, I don't think that will be a problem.

The whole colonization of distant planets is covered TONS of times in Sci Fiction and there is plenty of discussion about it. However, we don't even have a permanent offworld colony in our solar system yet, so we should gain experience by colonizing mars and luna first.

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2011, 05:41:19 PM »
We would probably keep the normal day/night cycle until we get close enough to measure the planets rotation (or we find out from a probe beforehand).

As for nothing to start with, either bring the neccesary materials to build or at least the equipment to use the planets resources.

True, standard chemical transport rockets would cost alot and even if you could pack enough fuel, it would take a HELL of a long time, we're talking about multigenerational slowboats here.

While we certainly have technologies that would let us make a colony ship, it would still be a multigenerational ship.

As far as clean water or dirty, we have the technology NOW to filter clean water, I don't think that will be a problem.

The whole colonization of distant planets is covered TONS of times in Sci Fiction and there is plenty of discussion about it. However, we don't even have a permanent offworld colony in our solar system yet, so we should gain experience by colonizing mars and luna first.

i doubt measuring rotation would be hard. We already know rotational periods of most bodies in the solar system.
The ship would either have to be self-sustaining or have a lot of supplies. The ship would be built and launched in from an orbital space station. mars and the moon you'd have to terraform. However all the water required to create oceans like the Earth on mars would have to be extracted from pluto. There aren't enough on asteroids that are easily obtainable.

smjjames

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2011, 05:49:19 PM »
Except Pluto* won't be in an extrasolar system, which is what bong is talking about.

There could be other Oort cloud derived dwarf planets though.

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2011, 05:56:42 PM »
Except Pluto* won't be in an extrasolar system, which is what bong is talking about.

There could be other Oort cloud derived dwarf planets though.

he was talking about an extrasolar habitable planet, which would, by definition, have wate.r

you were saying something about colonization of mars which would require terraforming, which would require water

smjjames

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2011, 06:11:23 PM »
I didn't actually say anything about terraforming, but yes there are plans to terraform Mars. Other than the water from the north pole (the south one is mainly dry ice), I'm not sure what the various plans are about getting water to Mars, and BTW, there are plenty of sources alot closer than Pluto, short period comets for example, icy asteroids, heck, even the moons of Jupiter and Saturn could provide ice.

FiahOwl

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #6 on: November 20, 2011, 07:28:19 PM »

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vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2011, 07:30:15 PM »
I didn't actually say anything about terraforming, but yes there are plans to terraform Mars. Other than the water from the north pole (the south one is mainly dry ice), I'm not sure what the various plans are about getting water to Mars, and BTW, there are plenty of sources alot closer than Pluto, short period comets for example, icy asteroids, heck, even the moons of Jupiter and Saturn could provide ice.

asteroids couldn't work and neither could comets.
I did the calculations. If you wanted to make the oceans on mars as large as those on earth, proportionally, you'd need to capture and collide mars with practically every comet and asteroid in the oort cloud.

And the moons and jupiter and saturn might be potential colonization targets in the future, but they'd work.

blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2011, 08:03:42 PM »
would a moon work?( to be habitable) the definitions arn't very clear to me.
"the earth's natural satellite, orbiting the earth at a mean distance of 238,857 miles (384,393 km) and having a diameter of 2160 miles (3476 km)." or "any planetary satellite: the moons of Jupiter."said dictionary.com. it might be habitable, like Titan orbitiong Saturn. Just has to be big enough

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2011, 08:29:48 PM »
can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time? :P

no

smjjames

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2011, 07:25:18 AM »
can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time? :P

no

If you mean the gas giants themselves, nope. Although dealing with the gas giants fierce magnetic fields is another issue alltogether when going there.

@bong: You're probably misunderstanding the fact that having a moon stabilizes the wobble of the Earths axis. Without one, it would go all over the place. Not having a moon won't neccesarily make it uninhabitable, just really tough to survive on due to the extreme seasons.

@mudkipz: Who said anything about making oceans equivalent to Earths? They could be used to help supply the colonies and to supplement the water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars. Mars likely had oceans once and theres probably enough ice to make shallow oceans.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2011, 10:50:12 AM by smjjames »

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2011, 12:58:13 PM »
can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time? :P

no

If you mean the gas giants themselves, nope. Although dealing with the gas giants fierce magnetic fields is another issue alltogether when going there.

@bong: You're probably misunderstanding the fact that having a moon stabilizes the wobble of the Earths axis. Without one, it would go all over the place. Not having a moon won't neccesarily make it uninhabitable, just really tough to survive on due to the extreme seasons.

@mudkipz: Who said anything about making oceans equivalent to Earths? They could be used to help supply the colonies and to supplement the water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars. Mars likely had oceans once and theres probably enough ice to make shallow oceans.

Shallow.

"If you mean the gas giants themselves, nope. Although dealing with the gas giants fierce magnetic fields is another issue alltogether when going there."

"can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time?

no"

was a response to "would a moon work?( to be habitable)"



*ships a couple billion tons of co2 to mars along with some rigged electromagnet.


dhm794

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2011, 01:58:10 PM »
So far nothing is capable of reaching an extrasolar planet in an appropriate amount of time.  I think it's best for us to focus on our current home for now.

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #13 on: November 21, 2011, 02:11:42 PM »
So giant particle accelerators. Can anyone come up with a sci-fi ish way to create antimatter easily?

blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #14 on: November 21, 2011, 02:35:10 PM »
So far nothing is capable of reaching an extrasolar planet in an appropriate amount of time.  I think it's best for us to focus on our current home for now.

What if some aliens have high-tech stuff and can shield their view, planet, and somehow pretend to be just space.   
It would be rare, but its possible. Anything is.

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2011, 02:39:05 PM »
what if we saw the star do a wobble. and then plotted the exact position of the planet.

blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2011, 03:46:48 PM »
The star is a projection, and they have invented an artificial one to create the heat, brightness, flares, ect.
(This is when my ideas start to go a bit crazy)

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2011, 03:48:44 PM »
why would they hide.

blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #18 on: November 21, 2011, 03:51:52 PM »
Some very good reason we can think of

smjjames

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2011, 04:04:12 PM »
Like the theoretical equivalent of the Borg?

If they are advanced enough to hide an entire planet or even an entire solar system, then I'm sure they are advanced enough to defend themselves. Of course though, they could just be really xenophobic and simply don't want to be found.

We are getting away from the origional topic here.

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #20 on: November 21, 2011, 04:27:11 PM »
Like the theoretical equivalent of the Borg?

If they are advanced enough to hide an entire planet or even an entire solar system, then I'm sure they are advanced enough to defend themselves. Of course though, they could just be really xenophobic and simply don't want to be found.

We are getting away from the origional topic here.

"If they are advanced enough to hide an entire planet or even an entire solar system, then I'm sure they are advanced enough to defend themselves"

yes.

blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #21 on: November 21, 2011, 06:40:16 PM »
hey, i said "good"reason.  like really really really really good reason.
maybet their planet is peaceful and they dont want to war with us.
or maybe they just have so much projection they cant sense us

FiahOwl

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #22 on: November 21, 2011, 07:16:30 PM »

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vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #23 on: November 22, 2011, 04:15:43 AM »
.....if they could hide themselves, they could also probably destroy our entire civilization with a skirt cannon...

Bla

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #24 on: November 22, 2011, 08:50:22 AM »
Terraforming: High initial cost, no cost over time (assuming it's finished).
Importing stuff to make up for a bad environment: No initial cost, high cost over time.

The terraforming cost should stay constant, but importing should become more expensive the more people who live on the habitable planet. And the further away it is, the more expensive it becomes as well. Technological advancements would probably decrease the cost over time, but it would still be expensive.

I think it's unlikely that the import cost will intersect the terraforming cost when there are less than some thousands of people living on the planet. It also depends on how close the planet is to what we would need to survive normally... What we should do depends on so many things which could be different on different habitable planets.

But if we're going to make it a permanent colony with naturally living people, terraforming should be one of the earliest things to focus on, to finish it as fast as possible.
I don't think we will ever live on planets just for mining their ores. By that time I think we will have plenty of advanced robots which can do it for us (assuming we don't destroy ourselves).

But what if there is already life on the planet? It would probably not be wheat and trees like on Earth, but very different, and probably not anything we can eat. If there were life forms on our size, it might be hard to get it to coexist with our huge forests of wheat or nuemelons, etc.

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #25 on: November 22, 2011, 01:25:24 PM »
Sentient

Assume they're hostile

Non-Sentient

Kill them all

according to the government.
(some-syfy book i read).

kol.

smjjames

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #26 on: November 22, 2011, 01:36:49 PM »
Sentient

Assume they're hostile

Non-Sentient

Kill them all

according to the government.
(some-syfy book i read).

kol.

And is the theme for many movies (except the non-sentient= kill all part) (especially some of the older ones, but recent ones too) and is common in Sci Fi. However, there are plenty of non-hostile aliens in science fiction as well.

Of course though, any planet with life forms is going to have it's share of predators. Carbon based or not, teeth analogues and sclicing appendages are still sharp.

blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #27 on: November 22, 2011, 03:25:49 PM »
hey, i said "good"reason.  like really really really really good reason.
maybet their planet is peaceful and they dont want to war with us.
or maybe they just have so much projection they cant sense us

if they are so smart, they might want us to try to survive first and if there is a major problem, they could help.
global warming, pollution, over population ect. also, they may or not be a same species

vh

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #28 on: November 22, 2011, 03:29:16 PM »
...yeah if we found humans on an extrasolar planet, that would be....


blotz

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Re: If we somehow found a habitable planet, how would we start out?
« Reply #29 on: November 22, 2011, 04:35:46 PM »
Anything is possible
LOOK! A robot civilization  :o