The Planet Everyone’s Been Talking About
I don't quite understand why some people are getting all worked up about the news of a possibly human-hospitable planet 20.4 light years away in Gliese 581.
First, we have a human hospitable planet right here that we've barely even begun to use. In a post last September, I outlined how the Earth could easily hold 100 billion people, if not more, by colonizing the deserts and highlands. I didn't even talk about the oceans, polar regions, underground, or low Earth orbit. To those desperate to get off the planet post haste, I ask: where's your creativity? Do you realize that we could hollow out regions the size of cities underground, reroute sunlight from the surface down into them, and have a perfectly nice living environment, with none of the inconveniences of outer space such as: lack of organic chemicals, ice cold temperature, ionizing cosmic rays, lack of gravity, lack of water, deadly vacuum, etc? If living underground isn't your cup of tea, then there is the possibility of ocean colonies, powered by the temperature differential from the deep ocean and the surface, or polar domed colonies, or airship-supplied mountain colonies, or... really, the sky's the limit, and by sky, I mean space habitats at an altitude of 200km.
Second, even if we did need to leave the Earth, there is a tremendous amount of raw materials for space colonies right next door in the form of carbonaceous asteroids, which make up about 75% of known asteroids. The asteroid belt contains about a million asteroids of 1km diameter, and a great big planetoid (Ceres) about 1000km in diameter, all there for the taking. Some of these asteroids wouldn't even need to be reprocessed entirely, but could be turned into viable colonies simply by hollowing them out, pumping them full of oxygen, and getting them spinning. The rock is a natural cosmic ray shield. Through exploitation of the resources of our Solar System in this way, we could create colonies for billions of billions of people, if not more.
Third, I submit that we should think carefully before sending off colonists to far-away places without ensuring that they're capable of protecting the fundamental freedoms of their citizens, and not degenerating into the primitive tribes that humans seem automatically programmed to create in the absence of a checks-and-balances infrastructure. How are we going to make sure that they don't accidentally create a Blight that the home system is then helpless to deal with? With the matter-energy resources of an entire star system, it would be a Class 1 hassle for us to come up with defenses against a malevolent entity of that category. Even the possibility of such difficulties may make it undesirable for us to expand too fast too soon.
April 25th, 2007 - 07:32
Personally I’m getting all worked up because it’s like the Age of Discovery all over again, just on incomparable scales. When I think about the pictures we’ll get from these exoplanets with the future telescopes manufactured with molecular precision, it sends cold shivers down my spine :-)
April 25th, 2007 - 07:54
With telescopes on the drawing board, it should be possible to detect evidence of photosynthetic life in the spectra of this body, if such life exists there.
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/153110703322610627
Abstract:
Possibilities for the Detection of Microbial Life on Extrasolar Planets
Sep 2003, Vol. 3, No. 3 : 531 -541
Roger F. Knacke
School of Science, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, Erie, Pennsylvania
We consider possibilities for the remote detection of microbial life on extrasolar planets. The Darwin/Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) telescope concepts for observations of terrestrial planets focus on indirect searches for life through the detection of atmospheric gases related to life processes. Direct detection of extraterrestrial life may also be possible through well-designed searches for microbial life forms. Satellites in Earth orbit routinely monitor colonies of terrestrial algae in oceans and lakes by analysis of reflected ocean light in the visible region of the spectrum. These remote sensing techniques suggest strategies for extrasolar searches for signatures of chlorophylls and related photosynthetic compounds associated with life. However, identification of such life-related compounds on extrasolar planets would require observations through strong, interfering absorptions and scattering radiances from the remote atmospheres and landmasses. Techniques for removal of interfering radiances have been extensively developed for remote sensing from Earth orbit. Comparable techniques would have to be developed for extrasolar planet observations also, but doing so would be challenging for a remote planet. Darwin/TPF coronagraph concepts operating in the visible seem to be best suited for searches for extrasolar microbial life forms with instruments that can be projected for the 2010-2020 decades, although resolution and signal-to-noise ratio constraints severely limit detection possibilities on terrestrial-type planets. The generation of telescopes with large apertures and extremely high spatial resolutions that will follow Darwin/TPF could offer striking possibilities for the direct detection of extrasolar microbial life.
April 25th, 2007 - 08:28
I think more facts about what actually makes up our stellar neighborhood will fire up some imaginations and other motivations (for those who are not already motivated) to get serious about doing more in our solar system.
It is like we have been around a campfire on an island oasis. Then we build devices to see around what appear to be other islands with at least areas with the conditions for fresh water and an oasis.
At the very least money and motivation for the super-scopes that would be straight forward to make. The terrestrial planet finder budget has been shakey and might have been cut. Get the scopes off the drawing board.
It only took fictional shows and movies like Star Trek to fire up a lot of imaginations and efforts that brought a lot of useful things to reality. Hopefully things like this and hopefully the discovery of liquid water and some microbes on Mars could help shifting people to start making real space development
April 25th, 2007 - 10:34
I’m not excited about it so much because I think we should move there or that it exonerates us from taking care of the Earth as because it’s an interesting discovery and can help us know more about the universe.
I’m particularly fascinated with the instruments they used to make the discovery.
But for the rest, I think you’re right, Michael. It’s cool to look at the stars, but lets not forget to work on achieving the full potential of life here on Earth.
April 25th, 2007 - 13:34
I would guess the reason for a lot of the excitement would be aliens. People will figure that if there are other Earth-like planets then there must be other Human-like beings, and thus intelligent civilizations.
Even though I think very strong arguments have been made that this is not the case, its still a very attractive belief and people will jump on anything they feel reinforces it.
April 25th, 2007 - 14:27
One could also make the argument that a roughly Terra-analogous planet would make a decent “control” by which to gauge the impact of humanity on *this* planet, also. But granted, that’s a weaker argument.
As to whether we should bother trying to get there — I’m rather surprised, Michael, given your work in the Lifeboat Foundation, that the old adage about eggs in a basket hasn’t already answered that question for you. Certainly it doesn’t relieve us of the obligation to make things work here — but what’s $10 billion dollars and 20,000 people in the face of guaranteed viability of the race?
April 25th, 2007 - 14:36
Ian: space stations are good enough. Mars and Luna are also good colonization targets. In any case, space travel doesn’t protect you from unFriendly AI. If you can make it out there, it can too.
April 25th, 2007 - 14:43
Two issues:
“Human-hospitable”
First, it’s unlikely to be human-hospitable (sustainably and at scale) w/o heavy augmentation, given its mass. Liquid water doesn’t mean friendly to Earth-meat without serious reengineering. And if we’ve the technology for that kind of augmentation, it’s quite likely that the range of “hospitable” is much larger — it probably includes, for example, the surface of Earth’s moon.
Second:
“Earth could easily hold 100 billion people”
Quite unlikely w/o serious (unacceptable) decline in standard of living, given current resource budget per-capita, w/o breakthrough energy tech. Earth’s “carrying capacity” is strongly tied to global per capita energy budget, and we’re straining that today at an order-magnitude less — with serious near-term declines in available per capita energy on the horizon.
If you assume some way around that, then in all likelihood we’ve got tech that redefines “people” in the first place. (Similar argument to above.) We could sustain a lot more than 1×10^9 (assuming that’s your definition of billion ;-) present-day humans (human minds) with uploading, etc.
Bottom line: meat’s an unacceptably inefficient substrate for future humanity, and if you assume anything else — then even this non-viable “Earthlike” planet’s a whole lot less interesting anyway.
April 25th, 2007 - 14:51
Speaking of breakthrough energy technology and space propulsion technology.
Sandia has just announced a breakthrough with the Z-pinch. It can be fired every 10 seconds using a linear transformer driver. Configure 60 of the next generation version (5-7 year project) and they should prove out their simulations that this enables commercial fusion.
http://advancednano.blogspot.com/2007/04/rapid-fire-pulse-brings-sandia-z-method.html
Z-pinch fusion also means fantastic propulsion via minimag Orion.
Z-pinch fusion is also at the 2 billion kelvin variety which enables Helium-3 for cleaner burning.
2027: Commercial He3 fusion and fusion powered space ships. Most of the old problems gone. Onto new problems (see lifeboat risks).
===
Back up plan is the laser fusion of the HiPer project.
April 25th, 2007 - 15:31
Michael; what about something that disrupts the solar system itself? While difficult to conceive of without the influence of humanity up-front, your answer of “[...] space stations are good enough. Mars and Luna are also good colonization targets [...]” is deeply insufficient to answer that. Par exemplorum; some insane actor decides to blow up the sun somehow. (Or perhaps some hitherto unknown natural phenomenon/anomaly disrupts the fusion process, essentially resulting in the same.) There are a number of scenarios which could feasibly result in the destruction of an entire solar system. I once read something conjecturing on the impact of another star system coming too close into proximity with our own. We know that there will be a “galactic collision” in less than a billion years from now — chancing everything on just the one star system is silly in that regard.
As to unFriendly AI — perhaps, perhaps not. It would certainly act as a relatively decent buffer , reducing the potential impact of a given mistake, by offering a small window in which the human race would get a ‘Second Chance’, assuming that seed-AI doesn’t manifest until AFTER a trans-stellar craft became a feasibility. The sheer *distance* involved would also act as a greater buffer against runaway nanites with the capacity for anything approaching relativistic travel.
Certainly no one here is making the argument that we as human beings can conjecture and imagine even as we work to produce material results. And besides; it inspires the exploratory spirit of humanity.
Regarding JeffB’s statement; 1) “Peak Oil” is never going to occur. By the time it *WOULD*, the economy of the human race will have moved on to other energy sources simply because they provide higher energy output. We’ve got *centuries*’ worth of oil left, and a millenium’s worth of coal. Also, standards of living could be maintained despite increased population counts without expanding into new territories simply through the use of “Arcologies” such as the mega-towers the Japanese are in the design-engineering phase for. With minimal advances in things like tissue-cloning & energy reclamation, the energy investment per capita would also be radically reduced. If one wanted to add viable fusion tech, the question becomes moot. And there’s every reason nowadays — if we can look past the Tokamak ‘era’ — to believe high-energy fusion is ‘nigh’.
Michael’s 100 Billion number could easily be seen as a “low-ball” estimate. ‘course, personally, I think the population on Earth will stabilize somewhere around 5 Billion in about eighty years. But maybe that’s just me.
April 25th, 2007 - 16:13
IanC -
“Regarding JeffB’s statement; 1) “Peak Oil†is never going to occur. By the time it *WOULD*, the economy of the human race will have moved on to other energy sources simply because they provide higher energy output.”
I’ve learned better than to be optimistic about these things. ;-)
First of all, strictly speaking, it is an ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that “Peak Oil” will occur, if it hasn’t already; we don’t have infinite oil, after all, and *someday* there will be a year in which annual oil production globally is greater than any previous or subsequent year. It’s guaranteed. It’s definitional.
Whether we run a risk as a result depends entirely on timing, and we’re in a very fast-and-loose phase transition at this point in a very unstable dynamic equilibrium.
It takes energy to *get* to those new energy sources. At the same time, you’ve got about half the world’s population going through America-20th-century-style economic growth and increased demand for energy resources. It’s a race against time.
Arcologies: takes energy to build them, and energy economics already increasingly disfavor larger-scale construction. Further, it’s a sci-fi pipedream that arcologies for meat-puppets are more energy-efficient per-capita than living in the wild.
I’d like to believe that beyond-break-even fusion is imminent, but I’m somewhat jaded. In 1984 as an incoming high-school senior I was picked along with about 30 other science geeks in my state to attend something called the Energy Science Symposium at the University of Texas. Believe it or not, even then the oil companies were trying to “inspire” promising geeks to pursue energy-related careers — and not just petrochem. I saw a tokamak in operation back then. Back then, the best estimate was “5 to 10 years, tops.” That was nearly a quarter-century ago.
You wanna believe that this mudball can support 100B (1×10^11) people? You go right ahead and believe that. I think you’re smoking crack, and I can certainly say that I don’t want to live on a planet with 100B stinky meat-puppets running around. You go hang out on alt.pave.the.earth all you want… Me, I’m rooting for virtualization. ;-)
April 25th, 2007 - 16:32
You guys should use the blockquote tags for quoting. It’s like [blockquote]blah[/blockquote] except using <> instead of [ ].
Jeff – the current human population density is TINY! Ever been in a plane? All that empty space is completely ready for colonization. The earth has 57,000,000 sq m of land, ignoring ocean colonies. You could fit a MILLION people into an arcology with a footprint of 30 sq km.
The Earth could probably hold a trillion people, or more. Just colonize upwards with arcologies instead of taking up only a tiny 2D crust on the surface, only a tiny percentage of the surface at that.
Virtualization is totally imminent, but whatever weirdo who said “5-10 years for fusion” at that thing you went to as child was just wrong. No books back then were saying that back then.
It’s fine that you advocate uploading, but your hyper-skepticism about human surface colonization is unwarranted.
April 25th, 2007 - 17:20
Michael,
I have a tremendous amount of respect for you, but I’ve really got to dig in and disagree. Arcologies are bad 70s sci-fi, sort of like O’Neill cylinders and Starship Enterprise-style monkeys in tin cans zipping around the universe. It’s a pipedream. The economics just *do not* work without near- or post-Singularity technology. Those ideas, and many other similar ones besides, are shock-level failures; the future of humanity, if there is one, is not — cannot be — in meat. If we’ve got the tech to build and sustain any of those things, then we’ve already obviated the problems that would require them in the first place.
As for planes: on them quite frequently. Much prefer business or first-class, and specifically for population density reasons. ;-) Fly transatlantic in coach, then tell me what you think about optimal population density. ;-) Seriously, though: it’s not just about packing bodies. It takes a disproportionately large amount of surface area to support one person. You could get everybody on the planet in Florida today — shoulder to shoulder. (Stack ‘em vertically, high enough, and then you’re talking just Miami.) But that doesn’t change what’s required to support them — and the demand for higher-quality life (and hence far more per capita resources) is presently going up faster than technology can drive costs down. Travel abroad — you’ll understand this viscerally. It’s going to take a phase shift in technology just to keep up. We’re running in place, at best.
Technology matters; the earth’s carrying capacity is PURELY a function of technology and its associated economics. My thesis is merely that the tech required to scale up even one more order of magnitude — indeed, to even maintain current population level while increasing everyone’s quality of life to that of contemporary Americans or Europeans — *implies* near- or post-Singularity. At which point, game over, no problem.
As for the “weirdos” in question re: fusion in 1984; I don’t recall which distinguished speaker gave that assessment, but it wasn’t some wild-eyed grad student who never gets out of the basement fusion research lab. We had a dizzy string of luminaries coming through at that symposium, including a Nobel Laureate or two; I believe Weinberg even made an appearance. (You’ll pardon the vaguery, but it *was* a very long time ago. You can check out the website for the program, though — it’s still ongoing — and get a sense of the kind of thing that we must have heard back then, and the credibility of the presenters.)
But it only proves the adage that we always overestimate the rate of change in the short term — and underestimate it in the long term.
I believe sustainable fusion will happen, too. But there isn’t the kind of accelerating change effect pushing that forward that exists in, e.g., computing. Beyond break-even requires new science; Singularity only requires technology and its associated change dynamics. We’ll get to superintelligence first and then, again — game over. We can have all the fusion we want (though I suspect that will be like saying “you can have all the bog peat you want to burn…”)
The existential risk equation, in my humble opinion, only offers two possible solutions: extinction, or Singularity in the next 100 years, and probably less than that. Let’s push for the latter outcome, and stop wasting time figuring out how many meat-angels we can make dance on this mudball / pinhead.
April 25th, 2007 - 22:55
It was reported 0 – 40 deg on the surface.
The planet is baking on one, and freezing on the other side. As every planet of this kind, around small star.
Or it is too far away from its Sun anyway.
Those astronomers have no clue?
April 26th, 2007 - 05:06
A good point JeffB with the thought of full space colonisation/arcologies requiring near singularity tech, but there is always a small chance someone will screw up with an assembler or tailored virus.I also disagree with Anissimovs arcology proposal, Earth is kinda delicate in its atmosphere and temprature. We really really dont wanna mess with it unless there is a backup, or we have no other choice(which may very well be likely in the future).
There are plenty of human based failure modes and some of those outdated O’neil cylinders, made feasible by MNT, may be just the insurance plan we need if the friendly AI is a little long in coming.
Thomas, if the planet has an atmosphere(which assuming a rocky world is likely, surface gravity is estimated at 1.7g which is very nice for trapping air) the thermal currents will equalise the temprature to a reasonable extent, venusforming is a much bigger risk to planets like this.
Look at it this way, here in Australia, 40 degree days are not uncommon, and 2-3 degrees is not unusual either. It’s about the temprature of a warmish country on earth
April 26th, 2007 - 10:13
It’s also worth pointing out that our attempts to build even very limited closed ecologies here on Earth have been, to say the least, very unsuccessful to date.
Ecologies are very complex systems. Likely the technology to manage that complexity at large scale is another near-Singularity sort of thing; absent energy economics, there are also other obstacles.
April 26th, 2007 - 13:08
Sounds like some form of interferometry has been used to find this planet. So it is not surprising it orbits its sun 14 times closer than the earth. Either a planet must be very large or very close to its star to produce the kind of noticable effect needed for us to measure with today’s instruments. The article mentioned that it is, as yet, impossible to tell if the planet contains water. I imagine direct optical observation would be needed to do that; only then could you do spectrographical analysis.
I wonder how they are so certain the planet does not rotate, I guess if it did it would have some noticeable impact on its sun that has not been observed.
I’ve always wondered what life on a planet with no rotation would look like. I imagine it would evolve in the “penumbra” part between light and shadow and gradually evolve in two diametrically opposite directions with some life thriving in the cold and some thriving in the heat. You could even imagine the planet evolving two intelligent species that would be oblivious to each other’s existence until one developed the technology to live in the others habitat.
April 26th, 2007 - 13:27
Another point, why in hell would you want 100 billion people on this Earth? We’ve got 6.5 billion and sometimes I think that is enough.
Underground cities in the desert or the polar regions? Are you joking? I want to live someplace NICE!, like the coastal part of Northern California, without having to pay an arm and a leg. I want the beaches and tropical seas without a zillion people around.
Yes, with nanotechnology and what not, we can pack the Earth full-up with people and still not have the material limits to growth. But is this desirable in terms of quality of life?
April 26th, 2007 - 13:27
I think we are all jumping to conclusions. All we know is that there is a planet of 5 Earth masses in the goldilock’s zone around this star. We also know that this star has about half the metallicity as does our sun.
This planet could be anything. It could be a Venus-like hell-hole. It could be a water world, with oceans hundreds of kilometers deep. It is actually not likely to be a Mars-like planet, because the gravity would have held on to the atmosphere over the eons. We won’t know what kind of planet it is for a long time to come, because our telescopes simply do not have the resolution to do the spectro-analysis to determine these things.
Untill we know these things, we cannot say that the Rare Earth Hypothesis has been disproven. There is one theory about star systems that has been disproven. This star system has only half the metallicity as does our own. This means that terrestrial planets (and smaller gas giants) do indeed exists in systems of relatively low metallicity. This increases the number of stars likely to have planets by about a factor of 5 over that predicted by the Rare Earth Hypothesis. No other aspect of the REH has been disproven at this time.
Does this planet have plate tectonics? This is believed to be essential for the formation of multi-cellular life by the REH. The current theory is that a large moon is necessary for the initiation and the continuation of plate tectonics. Venus has no plate tectonics.
My pet theory is that, without plate tectonics, you get a venus. My thinking is that plate tectonics allows for vulcanism and what not that allows for all of the heat and gas to leak out of the planet in a controlled fashion. If there are no plate tectonics, all of this energy remains trapped in the planet and builds up, until you get a global “resurfacing” event. This is an idea I pulled out of my arse and I have no idea how valid it is. If its valid, most “earth-like” planets will turn out to be Venus-like hell-holes.
Even if these does turn out to be a habitable planet, this still does not mean that intelligence is likely. Single-celled organisms have been around since the beginning of the Earth. Multi-cellular life has been around for only around 750 million years. This alone suggests that the majority of habitable planets will have blue-green algae and nothing else. There are a considerable number of evolutionary steps to go from blue-green algae up to us. Even if there are a billion habitable planets in the galaxy (the highest plausible estimate), it could still be the case that we are alone.
I still think we are alone.
April 26th, 2007 - 13:47
Kurt, we could perfectly simulate the North California coast underground, with tech like phase array optics. This optical tech is 20-30 years away. “Nice” is a series of brain signals, and of course, could ultimately be engineered in virtual realities. Anyone who gets the “heeby-jeebies” from this kind of stuff is suffering from an imagination failure or clueless techno-skepticism.
No one here is saying this planet invalidates the REH. I for one agree with you that we are alone. REH doesn’t rest on Earth-like planets, it, for me anyway, rests primarily on the difficulty of self-replicating molecules emerging. Even on a million planets EXACTLY like the primordial Earth, I wouldn’t expect to see a single microbe.
April 26th, 2007 - 14:25
“the Earth could easily hold 100 billion people, if not more, by colonizing the deserts and highlands.”
The white Australian settlers have done just that, yet Australia faces near-famine conditions this year because of a drought.
April 26th, 2007 - 14:30
There’s this little thing called technological progress that opens up new areas that were previously uninhabitable. Most obviously, nuclear-powered desalination plants. 15% of Israel’s water needs are met by a single plant, for instance. They’ve also recently developed a machine that takes water right out of the air.
How could a long-time transhumanist like yourself believe that the deserts will never ever be colonized? I don’t even understand how it’s possible. We’ll go to the stars, turn ourselves into superintelligences, but we won’t be able to set up shop in a damn desert? Give me a break.
April 27th, 2007 - 06:09
I would also add that the discovery of Earth-like planets is bad news, since it increases the probability that intelligent life might have evolved elsewhere, which suggests that our chances to survive the future are bleaker…
April 27th, 2007 - 11:53
It doesn’t really increase it for me because I already assumed Earth-like planets were common. I also think the Fermi paradox can easily be explained in terms of the tiny probability of self-replicating proteins (or whatever) emerging in the first place. No need to postulate that Earth-like planets themselves are rare.
April 28th, 2007 - 15:53
But they are rare, non the less. Additional blow for aliens.
April 30th, 2007 - 03:26
The solar system itself can hold whatever magnificient stellar empires we have seen in pop SF. Take the majesty of dune, star trek, star wars, babylon V, stargate, BSG, – strip away all the fantasy and you can compless it all into the solar system, times 1000.
We do not need interstellar empires to make humanity shine. The solar system will do nicely for at least a few millenia.
And beyond that we (our our descendants) will be so alien we can’t say much about interstellar civilizations.
April 30th, 2007 - 12:12
> And beyond that we (our our descendants) will be so alien we can’t say much about interstellar civilizations.
Generally, it’s very true, what you are saying. But I don’t think, they will be THAT much alien. Not to wish the resources around. I am quite sure, they (we) will need everything in the neighborhood, ASAP.
May 12th, 2007 - 15:57
“Earth is kinda delicate in its atmosphere and temprature”
Too true. Any signigican increase in the steel-and-concrete modern cities is going to increase the net heat of the inhabited portions of the Earth, especially in said cities, and especially without decent landscaping to counterbalance it; in short, Michaell is overestimating the amount of surface area we have to spare, it sounds like.
Now, I’m no tree-hugger, not really, but the truth is that we need a certain amount of land left for plants to grow; otherwise, the oxygen levels in the atmosphere go down, which after a certain point is obviously going to be awful bad for us, since we can’t breath CO2 or nitrogen. And of course, the processes of plant respiration and photosynthesis help keep temperatures a little more comfy on average. And the more humans you try to crowd onto the planet, the more plants we’re basically going to need. And I’m not talking greenhouses; they need to be out in the open air, unless people are going to be living the greenhouses. Not to mention of course we’d also need considerable amounts of vegetation in order to feed ourselves (even if humans were able to healthily survive only on meat, what’s the cheapest way to produce good-tasting meat, and likely to continue being such for a number of years to come? That’s right: livestock, animals, which themselves have to eat something. And of course, it’s actually unhealthy to survive only on meat – even most carnivores eat the vegetable stomach contents of their prey, and we’re not even carnivores, we’re built to be omnivores or very careful vegetarians at best. So of course, there’s veggies to feed the livestock and veggies to feed the humans).
Not to mention Michael I have to wonder if you have taken into account the fact that much of the Earth’s surface really isn’t all that stable. Much of its surface lies immediately next to volcanoes (talk to a Hawaiian who lives on the main island, let them tell you about their insurace rates…), or on fault lines in general, or on ground that is not particularly stable for other reasons (for instance, look at Florida’s sandy soil, which combined with frequent rain and other factors has on occasion led to sinkholes swallowing whole houses and whole chunks of highway in some regions).
Additionally, while it is concievable to be able to create a sort of self-sufficient dome city in the desert even by today’s tech, it would be rather expensive, since most deserts, IIRC, have things like sandstorms. Plus, where would their water come from? Thousand-mile pipelines? Right, more construction… more time and planning and energy and materials, i.e. more expensive. Not to mention the cooling requirements, or how to dispose of sewage-type waste without wasting precious, useful water. Some of the post-construction energy needs could probably be met most efficiently by solar power, but water and cooling would be big concerns… not to mention, traveling ELSEWHERE (for fun, for instance, or work) would be somewhat difficult, and so you might not find that many people willing to live in desert domes.
As for living in the antarctic, that’s possibly even higher costs, especially since you’d have to heat it and light it during the half of the year it’s DARK, not to mention the inclement weather (read: you could only rely so much on solar power, or any type of power really). And then what happens if there’s a breach in the city walls, or if there’s a breakdown in the heaters? Again: plausible, especially given there’s already a research base (and people do live in a handful of arctic circle lands) but I can’t imagine very many people in large droves volunteering to live there.
And underwater? You kidding me? Leaving aside the enormous expense of building ANYTHING underwater, once again travel to and from other areas is extremely difficult and you also have the added pressures (er, no pun intended) of dealing with pressurization, heating, and transporting oxygen down there. Yeah there’s an underwater hotel in Florida, but that’s a tourist trap, someplace divers can visit for fun and the sake of saying “This is what we did on our school trip”, not a real, permenent colony situation. I’m sure some people would be eager or willing to live in such environs – if nothing else, some might find it interesting – but convincing a large number of people to do so, and to do so permanently, is something else.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not impossible to colonize the deserts, seas, poles. But it would be expensive and time-consuming and most people would probably rather live in “normal” places, such as the midwestern U.S. or Florida. Which reminds me – what about hurricanes and tornadoes and blizzards and the like? Building more buildings isn’t exactly going to make those go away, which means you also have to have some place for people in areas prone to them (or earthquakes, or floods, or lava flows, or sinkholes, or sandstorms…) to evacuate to in emergencies. And the amount of space one would need to leave for oxygen-releasing plants, let alone the effect of buildings covering every available space on the weather (I’m not saying a couple extra skyscrapers are going to melt the polar ice caps or anything, but it could mess things up a little if EVERYTHING got covered by a whole mess of steel and stone skyscrapers). Well, that all leads me to be frank and say you’re probably overestimating the amount of space we REALLY have availble. Especially since some people are inevitably not going to be working at home, and what about meeting places, such as congresses or meeting halls or convention centers or the highways that get us to them? Much of America is covered by roads for a good reason, you know.
I’m not saying it isn’t a cool vision; I’ve imagined extremely similar things when working on some SF stories myself. However, 100 billion is an awfully big number, and the amount of land we can live on is probably more limited than you’re really accounting for (and if you’ve accounted for every single thing I’ve brought up, please do tell how much you accounted for it, i.e. by what equations you calculated which land was useable and which wasn’t). Not to mention the large number of people who would rather sit where they are or who wouldn’t let others move into their territory just because “it’ll help lower the population density elsewhere” (practically the whole middle east, for instance, is extremely tribal and territorial, as are parts of Africa. Not to mention portions of India still subscribe to the caste system despite being told not to, and there will always be rich drug lords and politicians and film stars and the like who will want to take up a disproportionately large amount of space).
And in any case, we have enough trouble taking care (i.e. guarding against weather or natural disaster, feeding, and providing potable water, good waste-management systems, and decent healthcare to) the whole existing 6.5 billion already (otherwise those TV ads with “for just 14 cents a day, you can sponsor this child…” wouldn’t be on TV, for one thing).
Before we start planning for some squishily-squee expansion, how about learning to manage our current resources to take care of the current population? We could feed the whole world if we really wanted to, we could provide water filters and shelter and sewage systems to everybody probably as well, but we haven’t yet. Until we’ve taken care of that, I would find it unreasonable to assume it’s a good idea to expand to a population that is over 15 times that of today (divide 100 bil by 6.5 bil, you’ll see what I mean). Population increase might be inevitable, but it can’t reach that high and be sustainable let alone sustainable and healthy for mankind at the same time, and likely won’t; especially not if we keep up with the enormously poor distribution and management of resources (not saying you can’t have wealth even in this picture, but, it’s more uneven than is good for the species as a whole let’s put it that way. Which may or may not be bad from an evolutionary standpoint per se – less people, more resources, care for you and yours first, etc., but from a moral one, it’s a little more disturbing).
January 7th, 2009 - 21:02
Your arguments are all viable and sensical. However, it is natural to be excited about this new frontier. Aside from that, we should not be putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. We should expand and insure the continuance of the human race.
Additionally, we need to get as very far as possible from the sun, sometime in the next 6-7 billion years, when it will become a red giant and explode. Humans should be working on how to preserve our race and the way to do it is to move forward instead of hiding here on Earth until it is too late.
January 14th, 2009 - 15:15
i agree with alexandra, she makes and excellent point. just think about the thousands of species that have been extinct. now thinking about humanity, we’ve been able to survive so long because were so intellectual. we have medicine so we wont die form disease, we have domesticated animals and grown crops so we wont die of famine, mini computers that holds millions have information so we can understand the failures of the past, and we’ve learned to fly without having wings.
We should expand and insure the continuance of the human race and technology is our biggest hope. we as humans are very egotistical, but we have to remember earth does not belong to us. earth belongs to the universe and we belong to the universe. supervolcanoes that can scorch us, earthquakes that can swallow us, asteriods that can extinct us, gamma ray burst that can obliterate us, and petty man vs. man conflict that can end us. Any human-hospitable planet is a blessing right. only if we use it to our advantage, learn to navigate through the universe like we’ve adapted to earth. This planet will no always be here, the milky way galaxy will not always exist, the question is ‘will humanity?’
June 23rd, 2010 - 22:42
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