Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

Gregori · 2008-04-10 18:23:19

I've come to realize that many of the possible targets for human habitation in the solar system are less than ideal. Each one has different pro and cons in terms of natural resources and enviroment. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

I propose that instead of making any one target (like Mars) for habitation, we make home on several solar bodies at once and trade their resources across space to balance out the deficiencies.

For example, Venus has the advantage of Earth like Gravity, Pressure and temperature at a certain altitude. A floating colony could be potentially built here. If has abundant Solar Power, CO2, H2S04, Nitrogen. What It lacks in great amounts is liquid water. This could be possibly provided from Mars, Asteroids and Comets, Saturn and Jupiter's Moons. The colonists don't need enough water to make Oceans, just enough to subsist and it makes more sense to provide that from anywhere with less gravity than Earth.

Titan is a frigid moon that makes very little sense to 'terraform', but it has low escape velocity and abundant water, nitrogen and hydocarbon reserves. These would be invaluable to Venus, Martian and Lunar colonist s. Fertilizer(NH3), Plastics, Fuel, Cryogenic coolant would all be incredibly useful for human colonies. It would be much easier to launch this raw material from here than Earth. The Low gravity of Titan could be a mitigating factor to permanent residents but a great site for tourism with its scenic alien landscape.

Mars has the advantage of being a very Earth-like planet, with a similar rotational period making it awesome for growing crops. Its low temperature and pressure could be overcome with a parra terraforming scheme or similar. Useful bulk materials from other parts of the solar system will be easier to transport here than if they were obtained from Earth.

The Moon's abundance of metals and sillicates, closeness to Earth and low gravity make it an attractive place to build materials destined for elsewhere in the solar system. Very large rockets lifting heavy payloads might be constructed here from the metal. Obtaining oxygen from minerals in the Regolith might make this a very good place for refueling ship bound elsewhere in the Solar system etc etc

The asteroids have an incredible wealth of mineral resources that could be useful for colonies on all these brave new worlds. Water, carbonates, Metals etc etc

There are potential regions of Mercury that could host human settlers. It has Mars like surface gravity, similar surface to the Moon, enormous amounts of metal and solar power. Mercury lacks the volatiles and atmosphere to sustain life but these could come from elsewhere Its weak magnetic field at least deflects solar radiation.

Distances in space are huge and take a long time to traverse with current technology. To Overcome this deficiency, a constant stream of ships going back and forth hauling cargo between these different world would make it more practical and economical. A lot of these ship could be unmanned and automated to spare humans too many dull irradiated journeys..

The gist of what I'm saying is no to have all ones eggs in one basket and that all the places in the solar system have stuff they can offer to each other that is advantageous.

Terraformer · 2008-04-11 07:49:45

I believe I said this before.

It seems all the places in the solar systems have the resources to terraform them, they're just in the wrong place.

But I won't do a gaetanomarano.

Gregori · 2008-04-11 09:07:16

I believe I said this before.
It seems all the places in the solar systems have the resources to terraform them, they're just in the wrong place.
But I won't do a gaetanomarano.

Yeah I suppose thats the idea. However, I don't think terraforming is the best for everywhere in the solar system and definitely not realistic with current technology. I imagine a more subsistence kinda living on each world using technology to make the best possible use of the resources. I want to kinda live with the worlds in question, adapt technology to them.

Para Terraforming is closest thing I can imagine to what I'm on about.

louis · 2008-04-12 10:53:10

Nice idea but not necessarily practical.

Also I think Mars has everything we need. Water is there in abundance. Hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen are there - perhaps not in ideal quantities, but there is a sufficiency. Remember, for the foreseeable future the colonies are going to be quite tiny. Even a colony of 100,000 is not going to tax the resources available on Mars. The significant thing about Mars is that it has huge amounts of usable land and solar insolation not far off the equivalent figure for earth (thanks to the lack of a dense atmosphere). With the huge energy surplus (far greater per capita than anything available to the earth-bound), we will be able to make good use of the resources.

zhar2 · 2008-04-12 14:06:37

I personally belive this is the most plausible idea, i know most bodies beside 2 clear candidates will not be terraformed at alll, instead habitads complexes and industrial infrastructure will build around/within them.

for example there are asteroids that could support a few thousand to a few million people with the right infrastructure, some of this asteroids also cross the orbits of a few planets that could make them trasport ferries where goods, resources and small space crafts without/limited ability for interplanetary travel could be transported while their crew stays in the asteroid settlement underground where they will enjoy their stay or trade with locals or others safe from radiation.

Gregori · 2008-04-12 16:16:42

Nice idea but not necessarily practical.
Also I think Mars has everything we need. Water is there in abundance. Hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen are there - perhaps not in ideal quantities, but there is a sufficiency. Remember, for the foreseeable future the colonies are going to be quite tiny. Even a colony of 100,000 is not going to tax the resources available on Mars. The significant thing about Mars is that it has huge amounts of usable land and solar insolation not far off the equivalent figure for earth (thanks to the lack of a dense atmosphere). With the huge energy surplus (far greater per capita than anything available to the earth-bound), we will be able to make good use of the resources.

Mars doesn't have everything we need and its not necessarily the best place for humans to be in the solar system given its lower access to solar power, less than great gravity. In fact no one knows if anything will even grow in the current Martian soil. Any strategy that uses less payloads from Earth will be a lot more feasible and economical. Colonizing several places concurrently will even out the advantages/disadvantages of all these locations. Lots of places in the Solar system have better recoverable resources than Mars.

The industrial base for space colonization needs to be developed off Earth. The Moon will be a good start to developing this infrastructure. Given the population explosion, it makes a lot more sense to settle and take advantage of the resources of more than one place.

The tech to implement such infrastructure is not far away. Actually, a lot of it is quite feasible now.

Terraformer · 2008-04-13 11:12:53

Again, a matter of political will.

louis · 2008-04-13 12:44:59

"Any strategy that uses less payloads from Earth will be a lot more feasible and economical." says gregori

Agreed.

But that is what is at question. I'm suggesting far less payload will be involved in getting solar power to Mars and then developing ISRU on Mars than in developing several locations simultaneously and trading between those locations.

What does Mars need that it hasn't got?

Terraformer · 2008-04-13 14:20:53

Life?

Gregori · 2008-04-15 17:29:03

Life?

True. Nobody even know if it could support life at all. I hope it can..

We often take for granted just how complicated our modern world is. Even the simplest products require multiple complicated processes and trade of developed resources all over the world. Everything is dependent on a hundred other things existing.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-07 11:22:44

One thing that we might consider it using an asteroid to terraform a volume of space.

Lets say we create a fifth "planet" right in the middle of the Asteroid Belt. the Asteroid belt contains all the materials we need for terraforming, structural, voltiles, water, carbon, hydrogen, everything.

We start with the underlying structure of the proposed artificial planet. we create a giant cylinder made out of carbon nanotube fabric, we thicken the walls sufficiently so that it can bear the weight of millions of tons of rock plus itself, and we form the nanotube fabric into a cylinder with retaining walls to hold in atmosphere. We make this cylinder so big that it has the same livable surface area as the Earth, and we spin it up to give it one Earth's gravity of centrifugal force. We manufacture the atmosphere from asteroid material, and we pump it inside the cylinder, we pile the rocky rubble left over from asteroid mining to make the bedrock of our new world, then we pile soil and water on top, creating oceans, and lakes and starting up the hydrological cycle. Then we plant plants to grow forests, trees, grass, crops, import animals to create an ecosystem, and we place mirrors to reflect light onto the inner surface of the cylinder to provide day and night. we have to concentrate light received from the sun in order to produce Earthlike intensity of sunlight. The area of the mirror would have to be about 2.5^2 times the total daytime area of the Earth in order to accomplish this.

Gregori · 2008-05-08 06:58:07

Thats an interesting idea, and perhaps something that might plausibly happen in the future - like in 200 or 300 years.

To make that happen, I think we would need a solarized trade and infrastructure set up already, so that we can trade useful resource constantly across the system and mitigate the disadvantages of different locations.

I think automated mining of moons and asteroids may be the way to go.

The overall inspiration for this thread was the fact that humans can live in most locations on Earth with a relatively decent standard of living because we trade useful resources. All the other destinations in the solar system have serious problems, but these can be evened out.

Most strategies for settling outerspace tend to be single minded and focused on one location, one method.

I think people that go to live in space will need more than a medievil standard of living. I know people have romantic visions of farming on mars and the country life syle, but I think thats not realistic. Most of the worlds population is either in cities, or moving into them. Most of us live a large distance away from the resources that sustain us.

We're all super-dependent on each other!

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-20 10:38:07

Thats an interesting idea, and perhaps something that might plausibly happen in the future - like in 200 or 300 years.
To make that happen, I think we would need a solarized trade and infrastructure set up already, so that we can trade useful resource constantly across the system and mitigate the disadvantages of different locations.
I think automated mining of moons and asteroids may be the way to go.
The overall inspiration for this thread was the fact that humans can live in most locations on Earth with a relatively decent standard of living because we trade useful resources. All the other destinations in the solar system have serious problems, but these can be evened out.
Most strategies for settling outerspace tend to be single minded and focused on one location, one method.
I think people that go to live in space will need more than a medievil standard of living. I know people have romantic visions of farming on mars and the country life syle, but I think thats not realistic. Most of the worlds population is either in cities, or moving into them. Most of us live a large distance away from the resources that sustain us.
We're all super-dependent on each other!

O'Neill envisioned cities in space. Island One, Island Two, Island Three, the Bernal Sphere, and the Stamford Torus are all examples of cities in space. In the case of Island One, it is a city of 10,000 people, these are compact areas where those who live inside share a common life support system, and distribute the costs of it among all the people that live there, rather than having them live in seperate orbital homes per family.

I envision a combination of all sorts of things, people living in space, people living on planets. One thing that stood out in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy was that everything in the Solar System seemed set up to terraform Mars, they were building a huge Soletta in space to focus sunlight on Mars, they were retrieving comets from the outer Solar System to crash them on Mars and build up its atmosphere and water supply, but there was no mention of O'Neill type space colonies, it was just assumed that people either lived on Earth or on Mars, and on top of that, he depicted people living on Earth as still living in squallor after accomplishing all these feats of terraforming, I find this hard to believe. If humans are capable of terraforming Mars, I would assume they'd have the problem of global warming and melting ice caps solved, but in the books they didn't. If they could put a Soletta in front of Mars, they could certainly build a parasol to shade the Earth a little bit. This story is a bit inconsistent technology-wise. People were spending too much resources on Mars and hardly any on settling the Solar System, this to me is not very credible.

louis · 2008-05-20 11:55:20

I think that's a v. good point TK, and I think it reinforces something I would say - that space exploration, off earth ISRU etc are all very important to us being able to copy with the problems associated with trying to accommodate the ridiculous figure of 10 billion (and rising) human beings on the planet in the next few years.

Gregori · 2008-05-20 17:50:23

I think that's a v. good point TK, and I think it reinforces something I would say - that space exploration, off earth ISRU etc are all very important to us being able to copy with the problems associated with trying to accommodate the ridiculous figure of 10 billion (and rising) human beings on the planet in the next few years.

It would still be cheaper and easier to accommodate 20 billion people on the planet by using earth's resources and new technology than it would to do it in space. Eventually we'll get there but Its not a miracle solution to the Earth's problems

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-21 08:36:07

Cheaper, maybe, but why would you want to do so? We could reengineer the whole planet and turn wild areas into agricultural areas, but why would we want to?

We could develop the technology to support 20 billion in space or as you like we could support 20 billion on Earth at great ecological cost. There are definite resource limits on Earth and if that is not reached, we face eventual heat death because of too many people using too much energy in too small an area. The answer for many liberals is always more efficiency, they think they can indefinitely dial up the efficiency of all sorts of technology, and once that limit is reached they'll call in the "reproductivity police" to limit the number of births. Once the entire surface of the Earth is utilized people will more underground like the Morlocks from HG Wells' The Time Machine. I don't know about you, but I don't wish for my descendents to be Morlocks feasting on Eloi which they raise on the surface occupying no more than one planet in the System.

Instead of developing more efficient crops and more efficient energy utilization, why not find more energy, resources, and space? It isn't that hard. We just need the right technology to get there, but once there, it is easier to build light rotating vessels in space than it is to escavate huge caverns underground on Earth and support the weight of the rock on top.

Being a one-planet species does not have alot to recommend it. I know alot of liberals want to be ecologically conscious, but they seem to want to keep everybody on the ground rather than moving them into space to avoid the issue entirely. I'd rather move into space than constrain my standard of living. If you have a large enough population on Earth, it will kill the natural environment as humanity will be forces to take resources away from it to feed itself. No, this is not a future I want. Living on a single population-controlled planet is not my preffered direction to go in either. I'd rather the human race keep on expanding in numbers and in living space by moving off Earth, this will in turn make humans less vulnerable to extinction level events whether man-made like nuclear war or natural as in an asteroid strike. People should move into the Solar System and out of the Solar System to preserve the best chance of our species long term survival.

Too many liberals seem to think humanity does not deserve to survive if we can't get along with each other, and they think the balance of terror with nuclear weapons is just fine. It takes two to get along and while we may want to get along with our neigbors, our neighbors won't necessarily want to get along with us, and its not a given that they can always be reasoned with either. People will need space to get away from unreasonable human beings bent on their destruction, and dispersal througout space will improve on our survival chances whatever the threat may be.

Gregori · 2008-05-21 09:31:11

what the hell are you talking about? I mentioned none of those things you brought up. Its just an obvious fact that space colonization is more difficult, impractical and expensive than any earth based solutions. From an economic and practical point of view, its not going to be a solution in the near term.

We should go into space to explore space and extend humanity reach, but not for escapism because it won't solve anything. eventually there will be big ass space colonies and a trillion people there, just not in my life time.

space is not some magical cure and answer. supporting life up there is so much more expensive than anything you could do on earth cause Earth already is so conducive to it and space is so hostile to living creatures

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-22 13:39:43

I have a simple question for you. Have you ever been in an airplane, say a passenger jet that flies at 30,000 feet? At 30,000 feet you'd be knocked out due to lack of oxygen in less than a minute.

How do you suppose that people survive in the cabin of an airplane for hours?

Commerical Jet airplanes have a life support system that's how, because the environment at 30,000 feet is hostile to human life. Now if it were so hard to support human life at high altitudes, why don't such airplanes fly at low altitudes where the air is breathable? The airlines wouldn't have to invest in all that equipment to keep passengers alive at 30,000 feet if it flew its airplanes at less that 5,000 feet for instance. There must be an economic benefit for them to fly their airplanes at 30,000 feet, I think it is to save fuel by reducing drag, and to reduce flight times by travelling faster through thinner air, that could be it. In the future, people may fly even higher than that, perhaps at 500,000 feet, at that altitude there is no air drag at all, once you reach that altitude you don't even need wings. A fusilage as air tight as a 747 but with thicker or stronger walls can hold in the air pressure to keep passengers alive against the vacuum of space, and what is the benefit? You can travel to any point on the Earth's surface in under two hours. Once you can sustain passengers for a two-hour flight through space, you can go on longer journeys, to a space station, to the Moon, perhaps to Mars. Plenty of sunlight for growing food, most of the Sun's light does not even reach Earth, so long as you can maintain a pressure vessel with transparent windows, you can grow crops inside. On Earth the agricultural space is limited to the available surface area that is exposed to sunlight, and to grow food you also have to compete with natural ecosystems. If you expand your farm, some wildlife will suffer as you cut down trees and drain swamps, in space that is not so. So the price you pay for growing food on Earth is also paid in terms of environmental degradation. You could invest in greater efficiency and higher yeilding crops, but their are limits. The same investment could instead be invested into improving the transportation off Earth, because in space you can just keep on expanding indefinitely, on Earth, you can only achieve some fraction of 100% efficiency.

Gregori · 2008-05-22 17:31:43

I have a simple question for you. Have you ever been in an airplane, say a passenger jet that flies at 30,000 feet? At 30,000 feet you'd be knocked out due to lack of oxygen in less than a minute.
How do you suppose that people survive in the cabin of an airplane for hours?
Commerical Jet airplanes have a life support system that's how, because the environment at 30,000 feet is hostile to human life. Now if it were so hard to support human life at high altitudes, why don't such airplanes fly at low altitudes where the air is breathable? The airlines wouldn't have to invest in all that equipment to keep passengers alive at 30,000 feet if it flew its airplanes at less that 5,000 feet for instance. There must be an economic benefit for them to fly their airplanes at 30,000 feet, I think it is to save fuel by reducing drag, and to reduce flight times by travelling faster through thinner air, that could be it. In the future, people may fly even higher than that, perhaps at 500,000 feet, at that altitude there is no air drag at all, once you reach that altitude you don't even need wings. A fusilage as air tight as a 747 but with thicker or stronger walls can hold in the air pressure to keep passengers alive against the vacuum of space, and what is the benefit? You can travel to any point on the Earth's surface in under two hours. Once you can sustain passengers for a two-hour flight through space, you can go on longer journeys, to a space station, to the Moon, perhaps to Mars. Plenty of sunlight for growing food, most of the Sun's light does not even reach Earth, so long as you can maintain a pressure vessel with transparent windows, you can grow crops inside. On Earth the agricultural space is limited to the available surface area that is exposed to sunlight, and to grow food you also have to compete with natural ecosystems. If you expand your farm, some wildlife will suffer as you cut down trees and drain swamps, in space that is not so. So the price you pay for growing food on Earth is also paid in terms of environmental degradation. You could invest in greater efficiency and higher yeilding crops, but their are limits. The same investment could instead be invested into improving the transportation off Earth, because in space you can just keep on expanding indefinitely, on Earth, you can only achieve some fraction of 100% efficiency.

people fly in planes. they don't use them as homes or pieces of real estate. that would cost too much. planes also crash quite a lot. space accidents happen at a much higher rate. keeping people alive on mars or in space will be far more expensive than doing anything on earth in this century. the earth based solution is always going to be much much cheaper in this 100 years.

its just not a near term solution for the earths problems, nor one that economics or business people are likely go with.

I gladly support human colonization of space using advanced technology and advanced infrastructure (hence why i came up with this thread on effective ways to achieve it) but its not a magic solution. in the future there may be a big human presence in space, if we invest in the infrastructure

irrigating the sahara desert and colonizing the ocean with platforms would both be more practical and easy to achieve than going to asteroids or mars or growing food in orbit... I'm not saying we should do those, but if the shit hit the fan, its more likely that those would happen than space colonies. do u know how much it would cost to launch a billion people into space?

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-23 08:33:12

You can probably achieve economies of scale if you launch one billion people into space. The way to do that would be to build a "conveyor launch system" When you ride on a conveyor belt or a "moving sidewalk" found at many airports, the conveyor itself remains in a fixed position and you move on top of it from point A at one end to point B at the other. An example of a conveyor launch system is a space elevator, but that's just one such system, another is a space fountain, a third is the laser system for a laser launch service where a laser heats an inert propellent such as the atmosphere underneath the spacecraft.

The first conveyor system is probably the best known it is the space elevator. The space elevator depends on a high tensile strength to mass ratio of a know material carbon nanotubes, if such can be produced in vast quantities and made into a similar strength cable, then you have the prime material for making a space elevator, which you hang from Geosynchronious Orbit with a counterweight above that orbit to balance the weight of the cable and materials below it. Even so the cable will have to be tapered such that it is wider closer to Geosync orbit than it is further away. The most promising approach seems to be that of a space ribbon. The most rudimentary system involves a elevator car that makes physical contact with the ribbon between two rollers and climbs up it powered by a laser transmission system from the ground. The estimated speed is about 300 miles per hour. Later on, with a thicker more massive cable, a maglev track can be installed on the surface of the cable. We have yet to instal sizable maglev trains on Earth, there is one in China. the track has weight which must be supported by the elevator cable, the cable in this case needs to be really thick. Probably the initial ribbon will support orbital construction for the more massive cable to haul people up to orbit on detachable mavlev elevator cars, when we achieve that we can perhaps transport one billion people into space.

A varient on the space elevator is called the Space Fountain, this concept depends on the existance of a maglev elevator system as its primary support as well as its means for transporting the payload to orbit. A Space Fountain only extends to the functional top of the Earth's atmosphere, it is supported by the inertial of a circulating stream of pellets that get turned around at the Earth's surface and shot up along the fountain in evacuated maglev tubes. The maglevs inside the tube slow down the pellets and transfer their upward momentum to the structure of the space fountain. At the top of the space fountain the pellet stream is turned around and accelerated back down towards Earth transferring yet more of the pellet stream's momentum to the space fountain. In this way the Space Fountain holds itself erect extending above the Earth's Atmosphere so that payloads can be shot into orbit. The easiest orbit to achieve would be an elliptical one, as this would require only a small amount of lateral thrust to get the object to miss the Earth when it falls back down.

The laser rocket system requires a powerful ground-based laser to track the launch vehicle and fire at a reflector so as to focus heat on the air underneath the craft so as to create an explosion, each explosion propells the craft further along in its trajectory into orbit. Perhaps a number of laser cannons will have to track the craft as it moves laterally and accelerates to orbital velocity. There is work on the sort of lasers we would need by the US Defense Department, the Airborn laser is an example of the type of laser we would need, you would want an intense laser beam that is capable of being fired rapidly a number of times to get the target into orbit.

Rune · 2008-05-23 09:22:18

Just one little problem that makes the question moot. How many people could you lift a day from a single space elevator? Say 500 in ten rides of 50 for argument's sake. How many total space elevators can you build? Say you have 100 (that sucker's gotta cost). That gets you 50.000 humans in orbit every day. Don't forget that you still have to send them somewhere. How many people are born every day? For a population of 10 billion that doubles every 25 years, 10*10e9/(25*365)=1.095.890 new "passenegers" every day.

So, even with the bigggest conveyor belt you can think of, it doesn't look feasible. We're still going to have to solve mother earth's problems before or while we go out there.

Rune. "It's a retort to protonatalists and other sweet and dangerous people that think there's any way of dealing with the world's problems that doesn't involve natality control" Frederick Phol, about "The time machine of Phineas Snodgrass". Nice read, by the way.

Gregori · 2008-05-23 09:46:55

yup!

Not only that, we don't even have the materials to create a space elevator. We've only a basic concept. Even if we did, all sort of little problems could creep up on us. Perhaps uneven heating of the tether could cause it to weather and snap. A good portion of its is in space and would be subject to rapid heating and cooling. The temperature at the base is going to be much different cause its in Earth atmosphere etc etc I don't know if those will be problems - but they could be and things like that will make the costs sky rocket.

We can (and should) do space exploration. Its brilliant to extend our presence off Earth, settle and explore the universe. We can build infrastructure for that, to bring industry, trade and transport to outer space.

Its not a magic bullet for the Earth problems. Whiltst we're colonizing outer space, we're also going to be coming up with practical and afforadable solutions to Earth's problems at the same time!!!

To quell the Earth population explosion, we should be thinking of ways to be increase the standard of living in poor and developing countries. Approx a Billion people are living in poverty today. Most of the diseases these people suffer from are relatively easy and affordable to treat. Education and better job opportunities also help.

In the developed industrial countries (Japan, USA, Europe) , the Birth rate tends to decline and become stable Its only in the poorer regions of the planet that the population is exploding out of control.

Midoshi · 2008-05-23 11:17:57

An observation I've made: In first world countries the human drive for sex is now excessive due to modern medicine, but the drive to have children is insufficient due to psychology.

Before modern contraception sex and procreation were more or less inextricable. But now that they have been decoupled by birth control technology, population trends are showing that once they have the ability to make the decision, people (as a population) just don't want to have enough children to sustain the population. Many first world countries are launching extensive programs to get their citizens to procreate. Singapore has tried various campagins to appeal to intellectuals by offering tax breaks and cash benefits, while Russia has contests that award people house appliance prizes if they have a child on a certain holiday. Such an ironic contrast with the forced sterilization some developing countries have imposed to stop their large growth.

While humanity must struggle in the next few decades while the second and third worlds undergo the transitions and growth that the first world has already undergone, in the long term we're going to have a very different problem. If we get through the next hundred years alright (probably not a trivial matter), total population will stop growing and then decline. The trick is to make sure it drops slowly enough fast that we can take care of the elderly with the much smaller working force of the next generation. Eventually the population would become small enough that the economic and political infrastructures would become strained. Of course humanity has gotten by in the past on smaller economies and government systems than we have now, but going from big to small is not something that's been done smoothly on a large scale before, and certainly not because of global population drop. Technology will alleviate this to some degree by replacing people in many occupations; it's a lot easier and less inciting to rescale technology than organizations made of people.

The ultimate limit would probably be the minimum population size at which the "standard of living" can still be sustained at a high enough level to still allow the decoupling of sex and procreation, probably a standard similar to what the first world currently enjoys or something within the past century. If it drops below this, the population will begin growing again and if it goes a bit above it the population will decline; i.e. the population will be in equilibrium.

A (probably not very meaningful) estimate of this population might be if you take the United States in 1960, the year oral contraceptive was legalized, and extrapolate it across the world. Presumably at least this level of tech and infrastructure is required to get the modern climate that dictates population growth (most modern trends do start about this time). Anway, you'd get a world population of about 3 billion people, which (despite its rather dubious basis) actually seems like a reasonable estimate.

I just want to be clear that I have no political agenda here, these are just some things I've thought about. It's always tricky talking about human beings in the mathematical way necessary for such topics. There are tons of plausible reasons why the scenario I've just suggested might not happen. Still, I think what I've outlined is probably pretty close to a "best case scenario", if still being far from an "ideal scenario" or even a "likely scenario."

JoshNH4H · 2008-05-23 14:26:36

I personally hope this happens. And I don't think anyone could really accuse you of being biased. 3 billion: sounds like Isaac asimov's 3 billion.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-24 08:47:55

Just one little problem that makes the question moot. How many people could you lift a day from a single space elevator? Say 500 in ten rides of 50 for argument's sake. How many total space elevators can you build? Say you have 100 (that sucker's gotta cost). That gets you 50.000 humans in orbit every day. Don't forget that you still have to send them somewhere. How many people are born every day? For a population of 10 billion that doubles every 25 years, 10*10e9/(25*365)=1.095.890 new "passenegers" every day.
So, even with the bigggest conveyor belt you can think of, it doesn't look feasible. We're still going to have to solve mother earth's problems before or while we go out there.

Rune. "It's a retort to protonatalists and other sweet and dangerous people that think there's any way of dealing with the world's problems that doesn't involve natality control" Frederick Phol, about "The time machine of Phineas Snodgrass". Nice read, by the way.

No one said there had to be only one space elevator to "rule them all!" The Earth has room for plenty of space elevators. The first space elevator makes constructing the second and the third cheaper. Space elevators also don't have to be built right on the equator, there is plenty of leeway for location.

If one space elevator transports 50,000 in a year, two will transport 100,000, twenty will transport 1,000,000, and two thousand will do a whole billion in a single year, but who said they all have to be gone in a year? If you present the problem so it will seem impossible, it will seem impossible.

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Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#11 2008-05-07 11:22:44

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#12 2008-05-08 06:58:07

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#13 2008-05-20 10:38:07

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#14 2008-05-20 11:55:20

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#15 2008-05-20 17:50:23

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#16 2008-05-21 08:36:07

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#17 2008-05-21 09:31:11

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#18 2008-05-22 13:39:43

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#19 2008-05-22 17:31:43

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#20 2008-05-23 08:33:12

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#21 2008-05-23 09:22:18

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#22 2008-05-23 09:46:55

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#23 2008-05-23 11:17:57

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#24 2008-05-23 14:26:36

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

#25 2008-05-24 08:47:55

Re: Solarised Trade and Infrastructure.

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