Timeline for How to decide if a Planet is better off to be Terraformed or Stripmined?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 26, 2020 at 8:01 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | Yes and no... If you mean do certain asteroids average a few parts per million more of these elements than the Earth, then the answer is yes, but then many asteroids contain less as well. That said, the OP asked about planets not asteroids. So, while I agree that it makes since to turn certain asteroids into habitats, that still leaves all your planets and most of your asteroid mass unutilized. | |
| Jun 26, 2020 at 1:51 | comment | added | Ryan_L | @Nosajimiki are these resources scarce in asteroids? | |
| Jun 26, 2020 at 0:20 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | @Ryan_L Lithium, Gallium, Selenium, Chromium, Niobium, Tungsten, and Molybdenum are all elements that our current level of technology could easily exhaust before we use up all of our living space here on Earth. When you create a high tech environment like a space colony, you need extra electronics and machines to handle the complexity of an artificially fully recycled, self healing environment. All that automation that DKNguyen mentioned requires computers which use up these very rare elements. So, you use more of them per person than you do on a planet. | |
| Jun 25, 2020 at 4:59 | comment | added | Ryan_L | @Nosajimiki What exotic resources are you talking about? | |
| Jun 25, 2020 at 4:28 | comment | added | Michael Richardson | @Nosajimiki O'Neil Cylinders can be built with current tech. The "only" issue is getting the manufacturing facilities and needed materials out of Earth's gravity well. Larger space habitats do require exotic material, but if nanotubes are feasible, they will be constructed from common elements, rather than needing to mine out planetary sized masses to find. Once the first major habitat is in place (either in orbit or on the moon), further construction becomes dramatically easier. Mining planetary surfaces will likely not actually be that common. Asteroids are a much more efficient source. | |
| Jun 25, 2020 at 2:20 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | Terrestrial habitats can also be built on demand, but more cheaply since you don't need to lift the resources or account for the kinds of life support that the planet may already do well. As for matter effecency, you need more exotic resources per capita to sustain a more complex life support system, so, if you go space habitats you can only build until you run out of your rarest essential elements, a world can recycle those elements as the terraforming makes the planet more hospitable. | |
| Jun 25, 2020 at 2:05 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @Nosajimiki On the other hand, space habitats are far, far, far more matter efficient and available much faster and on-demand. Labour isn't an issue with the expected amount of automation. | |
| Jun 24, 2020 at 22:07 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | @MichaelRichardson space habitats require exotic materials which mean orders of magnitude worth of a planet's mass is wasted just looking for those materials in proper proportion to what you are building. Also, building a space habitat that can house a planet's population would also take hundreds if not thousands of years. The difference being that terraforming can more or less do itself just by introducing the right kinds of lifeforms whereas habitats take tons of labor to build. | |
| Jun 24, 2020 at 17:28 | comment | added | Michael Richardson | Given a planetary mass worth of material, the amount of livable space you can create in habitats is orders of magnitude greater than a planet. You also avoid dealing with the hugely inconvenient gravity well. A large enough habitat (the only ones worth comparing to a planet) will also be largely self sufficient in resource recycling. They also have the benefit of using their mass as shielding instead of trying to get a planetary magnetic field powerful enough to do the job. On the other hand, terraforming an entire planet to be livable will take thousands (maybe just hundreds) of years. | |
| Jun 24, 2020 at 15:43 | comment | added | Nuclear Hoagie | Agree that the timeframe matters. With enough time, inhabitants of the surface won't need to order from Space Amazon, since they'll have local infrastructure. On the other hand, strip mining doesn't get any easier over time, since you're always just shipping raw materials offworld. In the long run, it'd be better to process raw materials on the planet, and only ship finished products offworld. | |
| Jun 24, 2020 at 15:11 | comment | added | DKNguyen | Depends how long-lived and how inately long-thinking your species is. Humans aren't. | |
| Jun 24, 2020 at 11:02 | comment | added | Starsong67 | Terraforming planets has several advantages: it's a lot more stable than a habitat, because once it's set up it sustains itself without any technological intervention, and also it's likely to be more preferable by those who can afford it to live on a habitable planet over a space station. | |
| Jun 24, 2020 at 5:49 | history | answered | Ryan_L | CC BY-SA 4.0 |