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This is a normal post A little but smarter, but hindered significantly by a lifespan of around 80-100 years (assuming micro-gravity doesn't put a massive dunt in that number)
I'm no Scott Manley/Isaac Arthur, but it seems to me that the most viable solution would be an O'Neill cylinder-type vessel large enough to support a genetically diverse multi-generational populace on their voyage to Earth 2.0

The biggest stumbling block most likely being that the financial and logistical cost of such an endeavour would almost certainly require just about every single developed and somewhat-developed nation on the planet working together in complete harmony (plus all the less developed ones voluntarily handing over all their precious metals/fossil fuels)
Even if we managed an internationally unified approach to the project, I don't think there would be enough money in the world (literally) to pay for the utterly mind-boggling amount of man hours that would be required for the fabrication and construction of something of that scale.

I think we're much more likely to end up building a big floating Tesla/Amazon branded motorway service station between here and the Mars to act as a supply/refueling point which will allow us to more easily colonise and ultimately end up murdering each other all over again fighting for land and resources there, instead.
(, Tue 12 Jul 2022, 22:51, Reply)
This is a normal post In reverse order:
There's little point in having a station halfway, whatever that means (wouldn't that often be the sun?)....

It would be more efficient to fly straight to Mars rather than starting and stopping on the way. A Buzz Aldrin cycler in a complicated orbit that crosses Earth and Mars' spheres of gravitational influence is possibly what you mean, and would probably need to be either a well-shielded O'Neill cylinder or wheel (which could be better for transitioning between Earth and Mars gravity) to make the extra costs worthwhile.

But there are simpler solutions for spin gravity using existing technology (a modular/multistage rocket and a tether to connect them). We don't need a Babylon 5 to get about.

Money, like God, is just something we made up to have power over people. When asteroid mining is a reality the economic system will have to adapt or die, and I hope for the latter.

We do not need to build a death star and take a giant zoo with us anyway. A quantity of simple, hardy, simply sustainable biomass, maybe. We don't need to take humans to spread life.

I think the most viable option is a self replicating fleet of robots, each with a copy of the book of life (being the genetic code of every organism we decide to take to a new star system, maybe leaving behind the tongue-eating parasites and whatnot), and the ability to print bacteria and simple organisms useful for terraforming. If we never crack cell-printing, we'd need to bring some biomass to imprint genetic info into existing cells. Humans from Sol may come later, but potentially they wouldn't need to, as the robots could raise humans from printed cells.

If the goal is just to spread life rather than create new worlds for humans, we could reduce the costs significantly. We'd just need the smallest possible craft to house the smallest viable quantity of bacteria to survive for tens of thousands of years, sent to each habitable planet in the galaxy. Think ships the size of bullets, and launched in much the same way. We could just send a thousand to each star and hope one or two land on a planet with an atmosphere.

There's possibly an ethical problem if we send a bacterial colonising fleet to a world where life of its own has started independently.

Also we could probably engineer a bacteria that would make an airless rock into a habitable world, too (though lithobraking at several thousands of kilometres per second might remain an engineering problem for a very long time).
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 0:11, Reply)
This is a normal post Robots raising humans?
I'm sure I read that in a book once. They all ended up as amoral psychopaths.
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 1:40, Reply)
This is a normal post Please do not throw hands at me.

(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 15:25, Reply)
This is a normal post "Money, like God, is just something we made up to have power over people."
Your grasp of economics appears to be tentative, at best.
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 7:45, Reply)
This is a normal post Without trying to insult you,
your grasp of economics appears to be worthlessly limited if you don't understand the very first thing about money (that we made it up).
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 14:36, Reply)
This is a normal post There is literally not enough money in the world to construct a vessel on the scale we're talking about.
The sheer size of workforce required (fabricators, engineers, scientists, caterers, janitors, etc) would either require just about every employee to work for a fraction of the wage they are accustomed to (good luck with that) or flooding the economy with extra cash, significantly lowering its value and basically ending up at the same point where workers are earning significantly lower equivalent wage for the same work.
And we havent even started to consider the economic and social ramifications of taking this mammoth workforce away from their day jobs.

Your grasp of economics seems tentative because you seem to assume that because money is some evil capitalist construct, that it's irrelevant. That is hardly the case.
Perhaps if we ever achieve the kind of human utopia described in TNG where money and wealth truly are no longer relevant, you might have a point. But I suspect we're even further than that than we are from ab O'Neill Cylinder.
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 18:31, Reply)
This is a normal post I invite you to read up on asteroid mining and then have another go at thinking about this.
*Clue*
Very few people would have a hand in building this stuff, and it's not going to be built at the bottom of a gravity well.
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 20:56, Reply)
This is a normal post I don’t think he was objecting to that part
I suspect he was objecting to your ascribed purpose for inventing it.

On account of it being complete bollocks.
(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 18:38, Reply)
This is a normal post Complete?

(, Wed 13 Jul 2022, 20:55, Reply)
This is a normal post Complete.

(, Thu 14 Jul 2022, 15:14, Reply)