Making colonization attractive?

[LunaRagno]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

But we have entered space.' date=' and we will continue to.[/quote']

 

No. We have taken a close-up look at it.

 

We will have entered space when the number of births outside Earth's atmosphere in measured in three digits.

[Old Man]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

No' date=' coming back to gravity after an extended stay in ziggy is bad for you. The problem doesn't seem to be that we don't adapt to free-fall, but that we adapt too well. [/quote']

 

Actually I think just extended zero G is bad. The losses in bone mass and cardiac muscle tissue will probably kill you in a handful of years. Haven't tried it myself, of course, so I can't say for sure.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

Actually I think just extended zero G is bad. The losses in bone mass and cardiac muscle tissue will probably kill you in a handful of years. Haven't tried it myself' date=' of course, so I can't say for sure.[/quote']

 

You only lose it because you're not using it, at least not as much as in gravity. Once you lose enough to reach the point where your heart is working a little, and your bones are stressed a little, the loss will stop. At that point, it might be far too late to return to Earth, but if you're in space that long, Earth's probably not a major part of your life anymore anyway.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

unfortunately, this is the scenario that I keep finding myself nodding at and going "yep, that's the future I expect"

 

Colonists will be identified by the serial number on the ID card they have clipped to their Microsoft coveralls.

 

No no... I'm fairly certain that the Microsoft ID number will be branded on their foreheads or their right hands.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

No no... I'm fairly certain that the Microsoft ID number will be branded on their foreheads or their right hands.

 

I wish I found this funny....

 

Maybe we'll undergo a paradigm shift and society will become interested in the future with some vague kind of intent for maing a better life for all.

 

But right now the only way I see serious extraplanetary colonization is when some corporation decides that the profits will outweigh the costs.

 

And it'll be a corporation, because governments can't make and keep long term commitments anymore, not with the cutthroat way the political landscape shifts. When I hear that the government has enacted a plan that will cost a substantial amount of $ each year and wil be finished in 20-30 years, I mentally amend it to "will never be completely finished, because every few years the project will be reprioritized and the funding will be reallocated" status

[McCoy]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

But right now the only way I see serious extraplanetary colonization is when some corporation decides that the profits will outweigh the costs.

Which will be as soon as Haliburton gets the contract to build O'Neil habitats.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

Now now, there's no need to rack down on Haliburton just because they're evil shills.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

I wish I found this funny....

 

What makes you think it was supposed to be...?

 

And it'll be a corporation, because governments can't make and keep long term commitments anymore, not with the cutthroat way the political landscape shifts.

 

I foresee a future where corporations ARE governments... we're not too far off now!

[That Masked Man]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

What makes you think it was supposed to be...?

 

 

 

I foresee a future where corporations ARE governments... we're not too far off now!

 

Why should they bother? Many of them are already more powerful than most governments.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

Very true... and the really large ones may actually control governments. However, they are doing so in secrecy. I predict that there will come a time when they no longer feel the need for such secrecy.

 

Welcome to the United States of Phillips Petroleum... a wholly owned subsidiary of OPEC.

[David Johnston]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

I guess it depends a lot on your setting.

7

- If the earth is extremely overcrowded (eg downtown Tokyo all over the world) people would want to have some 'elbow room.'

 

Doesn't follow. You can dig a hole in the ground here and get just as much elbow room as you'd have in your hole on Mars.

7

- A large fraction of scientist types would do it for the chance to learn.

 

Yes, Antartica-like scientific outposts are likely at some point in the future.

- A large fraction of the adrenaline-junkies would do it for the challenge and the rush.

 

Going there has adrenaline in it. Staying there, not so much.

 

- A large fraction of the ne'er-do-wells would do it to get out where the authorities don't know them.

 

You need large cities with a great deal of traffic first before that could happen.

 

- A large fraction of the oppressed would do it for freedom.

 

We aren't exactly talking North American homesteading here. The "freedom" you'd get in a space colony would probably be the same degree of freedom you'd get in the sponsoring society, or less because people are so much more easily monitored in an arcology.

- Maybe the government offers incentives (no income taxes?).

 

Of course the government must have something worth claiming first.

 

- Maybe they work for a corporation that wants to start a colony and offeres them a good deal.

 

Requires a profitable resource to have been located, perhaps by one of those scientific outposts, ideally something that doesn't exist on Earth.

 

- Certain working-man types (eg miners, construction workers) would do it for the challenge/money/experience/etc.

 

But that requires an employer who has found something they want.

 

- A certain fraction of the religious would do it to be able to found the "perfect society." I should probably include the social evolutionaries in with the "religious," but you get the idea.

 

A distinct possibility. A hole in the ground with no easy way out is ideal for a tightly controlled cult and governments might welcome the loss of such nuisances. But they'd need a way to support themselves in space.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

Very true... and the really large ones may actually control governments. However, they are doing so in secrecy. I predict that there will come a time when they no longer feel the need for such secrecy.

 

Welcome to the United States of Phillips Petroleum... a wholly owned subsidiary of OPEC.

 

Not too likely, IMO, until theres a profit motive in governing. Corporations don't want to rule openly, or they'd already be doing so. It's cheaper in the long run to buy the government than run it.

[tkdguy]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

The way I envisioned it is that robots would be sent first. They would be programmed to build a biodome and perhaps terraform the surrounding area. Humans would not set foot until the biodome is complete. Oxygen would have been sent with the robots ahead of time, but food would be sent with the first human explorers. These would put in the finishing touches that would make the place sustainable (with lots of help in the beginning) for the long run.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

A note to David Johnston:

 

You make very good arguments there, but here's one you can't counter with logic: If I could pass the physical, and had or could be taught the skills required to be an essential part of the mission or colonization effort, I'd go. Today.

 

Matt "Been-wanting-off-of-this-rock-since-Tranquility-Base-sent-us-pictures-of-the-moon" Frisbee

[assault]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

You make very good arguments there' date=' but here's one you can't counter with logic: If I could pass the physical, and had or could be taught the skills required to be an essential part of the mission or colonization effort, I'd go. [i']Today.[/i]

 

Fine. Except there wouldn't be a colonization effort, unless it made very good sense. That's where the logic comes in.

 

Scientific outposts are more likely, since they aren't required to be self-sustaining or profitable. Some of these might theoretically form the basis of colonies in the longer term. In the immediate period, though, the personnel living at such outposts are going to be handpicked "best of the best of the best" types.

 

Unfortunately for game purposes, there are only a certain number of scenarios you can really set in such outposts. That means that a game would have to go off on a funky tangent to be interesting. Which is great, of course.

 

Incidentally, interstellar colonisation without FTL is extremely dubious. Any colonisation attempt that wasn't preceded by an extensive program of investigation would essentially be a suicide mission, and STL timelags make such investigation extraordinarily time consuming and complex.

 

Of course, if you had a society that was happy to live in artificial habitats, and not on planets, you wouldn't necessarily need to investigate colony sites, apart from finding sources of raw materials.

 

But artificial habitats would have all the charm and adventure of living in a remarkably small city, at a remarkably long distance from anywhere else. They are the kind of place adventurous spirits would want to leave, not live in.

[Mentor]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

Possible attractions

 

1. Find a resource which makes long term presence worthwhile; energy, metal, food, room

 

2. Find enough of a reason to emigrate; population pressure, pollution, war, oppression of a group, etc.

 

3. Possess the technology to make colonization possible; terraforming, FTL, suspended animation, robots, genetic environemental engineering, artificial grav, cheap interplanetary travel.

 

Lots of ways to play.

[tkdguy]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

Those will work. Thanks.

[David Johnston]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

The third category is the most important one. Transportation costs are pivotal in determining whether a resource even once found is worth going after. In Heinlein's the Man Who Sold The Moon, the ending made no sense since one of the many scams associated with the effort was the pretense that there were diamonds on the moon but when the guy finds out there really are diamonds on the moon, he tries to cover it for fear of collapsing the diamond market with a flood of lunar imports.

 

Couldn't happen of course. No matter how plentiful they were, the transportation costs even in the story would protect the value of diamond for a long time into the future. Of course if we could find something really uniquely valuable up there, like Asimov's singing bells, something that couldn't be duplicated on Earth, then almost any transportation cost could be covered.

 

But even with cheap transportation costs, in order to a colony to thrive, they would have to have exploitable resources. Room is not a resource.

Livable land is. Gosh it would be nice if like in 2010 some alien were to come along and do all the terraforming work for us and expect so little in exchange. Sadly, we'd probably have to do it the hard way. Which of course means that once the project was launched there'd be plenty to do on Mars long before it was even remotely habitable and lots of reason for lots of people to be there.

 

A Mars terraforming project seems like a good candidate to be the centerpiece for Solar System colonisation. Bases on the Moon, and asteroids might provide support for the effort less expensively than trying to give everything on site or worse, trying to ship it out of Earth's gravity well.

 

However, such a project would require an incredibly forward looking government to launch a project with a good chance of outlasting a typical nation. Perhaps more importantly, the government in question would have to actually be able to claim to own Mars in the first place. Therefore it is more likely to start in a future where Earth (or rather the powerful bits of Earth) have been united by some means

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Making colonization attractive?

 

A Mars terraforming project seems like a good candidate to be the centerpiece for Solar System colonisation. Bases on the Moon, and asteroids might provide support for the effort less expensively than trying to give everything on site or worse, trying to ship it out of Earth's gravity well.

 

However, such a project would require an incredibly forward looking government to launch a project with a good chance of outlasting a typical nation. Perhaps more importantly, the government in question would have to actually be able to claim to own Mars in the first place. Therefore it is more likely to start in a future where Earth (or rather the powerful bits of Earth) have been united by some means

 

I could see a scenario where an international mars terraforming project ambitiously started in a time of relative world peace gradually mutates into a de -facto world goverment as population pressure rises and resources begin running out.

Mars or bust kinda thing.