All this talk about settling new worlds has one major problem: Is there a
place to settle? IF (make that a
very very big IF) there is another "earth-like" world in
another star system (oops, make that 2 problems: is FTL viable?) who says that
its environment is totally safe for humans to walk unprotected. How long would
it take to "terraform" that world? Can it be done or would the native life be
hostile and hard to eliminate
or replace by Earth life? Can Earth plant-life live
under a different sun? We have a hard time surviving
in a semi-hostile world here on Earth: underwater.
Where are all those underwater cities envisioned by sf authors of many years
ago? There's one underwater "hotel" here off the Florida keys, it has one
room. I haven't heard of its occupancy rate. Mars is going to be difficult to
settle, and not within 100 years, especially on how little we spend on space
technology. Space travel is hard and dangerous, it's not like making a boat or
wagon out of wood and going somewhere.
Of course, man was only flying in lighter-than-aircraft
100 years ago. But, FTL may not be possible at all.
Fiction is another matter, in which case anything can be made up for reasons
for space expansion.
Glen
> From: GBailey@aol.com
> Snip<
> More Snippage<
Gee, you make it sound like it was a walk in the park. But nothing could be
more untrue. Let's start out with making a wagon out of wood: I'll use
American Pioneers as my example.
First of all, these people did not have the luxuries of power tools and Home
Depot. Most of the travel west on the Oregon Trail was done before the
Industrial Revolution was in full swing in America. The Conestoga wagon was
hand-built by craftsmen, not cranked off an assembly line or thrown
together in people's back yards, and was an expensive vehicle for a
prospective settler to purchase. Most ended up selling their homes, and
sinking almost all their money into the purchase of the wagon and oxen, their
share of hiring a trailmaster, and stocking up on provisions. (Once they left
the
region around Independence, Missouri, the settlers wouldn't encounter another
significant white settlement until they reached Fort Laramie, 1,200 miles
away. The prices of supplies at Laramie and at Fort Hall, in Idaho, were
exorbitant, so the settlers had to make sure they carried almost everything
they needed for the 6 month with them out of Independence.)
Once they hit the trail, it was not as simple as jumping on the Interstate (or
Motorway or Autobahn or whatever they call it wherever all our illustrious
gamers live). It was a dirt rut all the way west. The countryside on the
eastern end of the trail was grassy prairie, but as they went west it got
harsher. Along the way, they had to cross several rivers, the most significant
of which were the Blue, the Platte, and the Snake (one of the wildest rivers
in the country). The Blue and the Platte were not as rough, but they were
deep, fast, and prone to flash flooding. Then they had to cross the desert of
southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, where grazing was scarce for their draft
animals and water was scarcer. In addition, they
faced several of the most forbidding mountain ranges on the continent,
including the Rockies and the Cascades. Hostile Indian encounters, though not
as common as the movies seem to think, did occur. In addition there
were prairie fires, bison stampedes, tornadoes, flash floods, and early
blizzards to face, as well as hunger, thirst, diseases like cholera,
influenza, scarlet fever, whooping cough, etc. Thousands died on the trail.
Almost no immigrant family made it to Oregon without at least one death.
They reached Oregon at the onset of winter, and many were forced to eat their
seed supply of grain. (A historical note of human interest: many of the
settlers would not have survived if not for the efforts of one British
citizen. Just north of Oregon, across the Columbia River was Fort Vancouver in
what is now the state of Washington. It was a British military base and
outpost for the Hudson's Bay Company. It's commander was instructed to
discourage the American settlers to the south, to not help them at all, and to
encourage them to flee back east. His humantiy got the better of him, and he
rescued many from starvation, giving them loans or even donations of crop
supplies and food. That is why, in tribute to him, the Union Jack to this day
flies over Fort Vancouver, a U.S. National Historic Site)
That's just the Expoerience of the Oregon Pioneers, not to mention the
original colonists coming over on ships from England. In addition, I'n sure
the Aussies, Kiwis, and descendants of the Boers could tell equally vivid
tales of hardship.
OK, I've gone all this time without mentioning FTL, thrusters, yeleportation,
weapons systems, or anything else, so how does this relate to the thread? The
challenges for those settlers were as relatively difficult as those for our
future star colonists. To be sure, they didn't have the
vacuum of space to contend with, but they were not equipped with anywhere near
the same levels of technology, either.
My point is, we are a plucky, gritty, stubborn little species who get all
pissed anytime we're told we can't do something. Given enough technological
support and a compelling reason to colonize the stars, we WILL colonize.
To
be sure, it will be dangerous, difficult, and expensive at the start. But
that's never stopped us before, why should it do so now?
> From: GBailey@aol.com
> Space travel is hard and dangerous,
> Gee, you make it sound like it was a walk in the park. But nothing
> more untrue
> Almost no immigrant family made it to Oregon without at least one
> That's just the Expoerience of the Oregon Pioneers, not to mention the
> the Aussies, Kiwis, and descendants of the Boers could tell equally
> tales of hardship.
Not forgetting the thousands of boat-people we get every year, and the
many more thousands who die before getting even close to Australia.
Such hardships, or worse, with Pirates preying on them, are being suffered as
I write this. Then when they get here, they get put in Concentration Camps
we've built in the desert, far away from our major cities and prying media
eyes, and after between 6 months and 3 years of appeals and legal challenges,
the majority are deported.
Fortunately the Concentration Camps appear to be run fairly well, and
humanely. I'd feel a lot more comfortable about the situation if they weren't
so isolated though...
Many of the current crop come from the Middle East, which basically means
Iraq, Iraq and Iraq. Many have been told that there will be an amnesty here,
either as part of the Millenium celebrations, or because of the Olympics this
year,
or some other equally specious reason. It's - funny isn't the right word
- how
G'day Glen,
> All this talk about settling new worlds has one major
OK I'm going to give those two as given - i.e. there is FTL <cos ST^3
Jon says so and that's good enough for me;)> and that there are world(s)
within the habitable zone(s) of other stars that aren't meltingly hot or
far beyond the frigid nature of our own poles. Given those its doable, may not
be fast or pretty (especially at the start) and people are going to get killed
in the process but it can be done (especially if there's liquid or frozen
water about, desert planets are heaps more of a push).
> who says that its environment is totally
Who knows, it may be unsafe, but then its unsafe to do it for long down here
given the ozone hole, so that's more of a suck it and see thing. Eventually
it'd probably just come down to getting used to putting heaps
more clothes etc on and so you're going to get different cultures etc growing
up in the different spots (the whole "you must put jackets on before going
out" came as a bit of a shock to Derek the first winter we were down here,
he'd just spent his entire life in the tropics so cold was something new).
> How long would it take to "terraform" that world?
You're never going to get an 'exact Earth', but a liveable environment may
come quickly, may come slowly depends how close the system is to a 'state
flip'. It could conceivably take as little as a few decades in some cases,
centuries in others, terraforming isn't going to be an exact science.
> Can it be done or
Now that's the killer question, are the two going to be lethal to each other
or impervious? Either extreme is possible, the two communities could coexist
or mesh quite happily, then again their novel nature may also make them lethal
(especially the microbe sized things). Ultimately it would be
better to see how much of the existing flora/fauna you can use - avoid
the interstellar equivalent of the topsoil and salinity issues that western
farming practices have brought to Australia.
> Can Earth plant-life live under a different sun?
I'm guessing yes on that one. There are so many different photo and
chemosynthetic pathways and pigments that you don't need a deadset exact of
Sol to get even Sol evolved plants to work (otherwise greenhouses and indoor
planets would be stuffed). The chemosynthetic pathways mean you don't even
really need a sun.... but that's a whole different kettle of fish.
> We have a hard time surviving in a semi-hostile world
At the top of the "people aren't interested" list. We don't need kelp farms
(as yet), overpopulation (space as a limiting factor) isn't so great yet
that people feel the need to break with their cultural imperatives and build
large underwater cities. Its also not quite that simple, you can't
breath water, its denser, energy tapping and a myriad other things which
make it much more hostile to work in (and with) than even a thin freezing
atmosphere such as that you'd find on the top of Everest (or the dry valleys
of the Antarctic). It's also not quite so glamorous as the stars, though
funnily enough we are learning more of the oceans the further we push into
space (technological spin offs).
Hows that for start?
Beth
(snip of possible colonization problems and some answers)
> Hows that for start?
*snicker*.. a good one. I did ask about those topics semi-rhetorically,
which of course were answered same. Fictional futures have to have those
things answered, but I find those to be interesting (maybe its the explorer in
me?). For a strategic game those are minor things that are covered in "what's
the cost & time to colonize a planet for future benefit to the empire" rules.
Let's not worry about failures (Roanoke Island, North Carolina, late 1500s) or
alien viruses that could wipe out the colonizing species, maybe all rolled
into one die roll whether or not the colony succeeds.
Something else I find interesting: what corporations or products will survive
into the far future? Is Rolls Royce still making engines and cars, and now
starships (they were in my Traveller universe of many
years back)? Is Coca-Cola and Pepsi still battling in their "cola wars"
and infiltrating market places (does the IF ban such consumer goods?). Is
there a new cola, called, oh, say "Slurm", made by aliens?
Do mega-corporations rival interstellar governments in power?
Will there be "company" planets, as some sf writers have written?
*sigh* I miss reading some good sf. Anyone have any suggested readings of new
novels? Especially along the lines of Niven & Asimov? Blue Mars bored me to
tears so much I had to stop reading it.
Glen
> --- GBailey@aol.com wrote:
> Is there a new cola, called, oh, say "Slurm", made by aliens?
A few new, a few old, a few mergers. Megacorps will definitely be around.
> *sigh* I miss reading some good sf. Anyone have any suggested
How about Peter Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" series? Lots of space travel,
plenty of action, a fair amount of detail about how colony worlds grow up into
mature, industrialized planets (count the number of orbital stations for an
index), and then he starts tearing it down with a problem technology really
can't deal with.
Good stuff.