Out of Pod Experience

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16515944

That would mean that our galaxy alone would statistically hold 10 billion earth like planets that's a lot of places to live!

Discuss

I think if we had the technology to get there we would have the technology to live there...

We have already the technology to go to Venus. Not so fast like in any SF, but then again we wouldn't get a ticket for speeding from the space police

I think most reasonable estimates up until now has been about a quarter? At least that's what I see most often put into Drake's equation.

The question is if a planet is (a) in the "Goldilocks" zone and (b) has roughly the same basic properties as Earth. And finally, is life on such a planet inevitable?

Personally I think the galaxy is absolutely teeming with life, I just don't expect humans to ever meet or interact with them.

Planets should be in our past not our future.

Solar Powered Rotating Cylinder Space Habitats.

Artificial Gravity, Weather Control to ensure perfect Harvests, Recycled Oxygen and Water. Live Stock going the way of the Dinosaur, who needs Animals when we can grow meet artificially like Tumors (We already are able to do this to some degree), all that is needed is to get over our squeamishness. Control of Air, no unnecessary Insects or Diseases if Filtration Systems work. Construction by Robots will be hugely superior to human progress.

Their is enough natural Resources in Space to tend to our Breathing and Drinking Habits all we need are samples of seeds and animal matter to keep us in food. Their is more then enough metal but we will have to get over oil, not so much for fuel as Light Sails and Ion Engines develop but in production of items like Plastic.

The Interstellar Human Empire that hopefully is our future should not be tied to Planets. It is stated that our Solar System alone can hold over 100 Trillion of us with its resources and by then Alpha Centari and other Systems should not be far off. All this talk of America wanting Moon Bases and Mars Shots while better for the development of Travel our own Orbit should be where we focus, not visiting but Colonization, becoming used to living up there.

It is our future, Planets are the past. We can shape these new Cylinder Worlds as we wish with Plants and Artificial Sunlight Rotating to give us Gravity.

My Father used to say that his favorite part of a Cylindrical Habitat is that the Higher to the Center you get the less Gravity their is so he wishes that if he ever got to live on one he would make himself Wings.

I find the whole idea rather Angelic.

100m Radius... I am talking 10+ km long holding millions of lives. Of course you can not construct them now but by the time we could colonize other planets you of course could.

The resources can be both grown and recycled.

Don't get farther from the sun...

Use Spaceships to explore deep space. Space Habitats have no need to move and can be supplied by the sheer amount of Water and Metals in the Solar System.


I am aware of how long and Time Dilation makes meaningful communication between Stars all but impossible at current tech levels. If you were to travel it would definitely be a Generation Ships designed to hold power until you arrived at your destination. Then setup the modifying of your ship into a colony as well as beginning construction of new colonies. Water and Oxygen would be plentiful from Spaces natural bounty, food can be grown easily and construction and mining equipment brought with you can mine and shape the endless minerals collected into new homes.

As I said Planets are the past, when we can get to the stage of massive construction using machines and the harvesting of the unlimited resources out their Planets will be those places with crazy weather, unbearable temperatures and terrible animals and diseases in comparison to the Artificial Paradises that could be constructed.


Space Tourism is growing and people are even designing Space Hotels. Orbital Flight Technology is developing which will make it cheaper to move good up their. Single Stage flight to Orbit is the holy grail.

As for profit people are already looking at Space with wide eyes. Their is a thread about coveted rare moon metals around here that they hope to mine in like 50 years.

Yes the Tech to do any of this is past our life time but we will get there faster then a Planet around a foreign Star.

You'll be amazed what can be accomplished in 1000 years.

100 years ago people were making fun of the Wright brothers because those nutcases thought they could build a flying machine

In 1000 years I hope we would have a regular form a space travel but it would take a major development in propulsion technology (something other than chemical rockets) to achieve that in 100 years. Hopefully, I'm wrong but space travel is a little more tricky than building an airplane.

I use current technology in my posts as it is the only thing we have to base what type of future developments in technology can be made. Sure I could say that in the future space travel will be an everyday thing like hopping into the car (I hope so). We will have warp drive and artificial gravity plates, teleporters, and all the other bells and whistles like in Star Trek, Star Wars etc but the problem is we have no idea how to implement them or even where to begin with building stuff like warp drives and teleporters. Contrary to your claims that "All the problems you describe have been theoretically solved but not yet needed practically as we are not their yet."

I beg to differ with your above statement as I think anyone would love to have cheap space travel and if we had the means to do it we would have already implemented it. If finding a cheap and reliable way for space travel has already been found then why am I not climbing to the top of Olympus Mons or building a snowman on Europa? Why does it still cost $10,000/lb to send something to space? Sure, we have the equations for a warp drive right now (Alcubierre Drive) but theoretically it's impossible to operate as just one problem with it is the temperature inside the "warp bubble" would be hotter than the core of the sun. People can theorize all they want it's the implementation that's the tricky part.


F=m (dv/dt) It's not an idea it's the law. How massive do you think a 10km long interstellar generational spacecraft would be? And how much force do you think would be required to accelerate it? And how much fuel would be required to do that even if it had some magical fuel with a crazy ISP?

Building stuff in space isn't the easiest thing to do and to build a spacecraft in space we would first need a very large factory. And parts of the factory would most likely be launched (many launches) from Earth.


Sure engine technology will improve it has improved greatly in the last 25 years. Right now the best inter solar engine "on the horizon" is VASIMIR but I don't think we will see it implemented in a large scale anytime soon since it has been in development since 1977 and just now being tested in space. I think the next generation of engines will be probably be fusion based. But until we break away from chemical rockets cheap inter solar travel will be very "slow" and expensive.


Scram jets aren't that great for getting big stuff into orbit since they start losing thrust as speed increases. Also you would first have to accelerate the craft to supersonic speeds before you can use the scramjet which would mean you would either need a booster rocket or a supersonic aircraft ferry you to altitude. The only way a scramjet would be a viable option for launching a spacecraft is if it were an SSTO. Which if you worked the equations actually requires more fuel than a multistage launch. The only real way space travel will become cheaper is if we have a major breakthrough in fuel/propulsion methods completely leaving chemical rockets behind.

I have no doubt humanity will colonize the solar system but I think it will be a very long time until (if) that happens. It would take global cooperation along with eliminating most of the world's problems we face today before governments will even start to think about it.

Lol @ spaceplanes. Spaceship one and the X-37 are rockets with wings not true spaceplanes And true we don't know what the future holds for humanity so theorizing/arguing on the future of space travel 1000 years from now doesn't make sense as everyone alive today will be dead. That's why in my previous posts I'm not making claims about sci-fi stuff of the future.