Questions tagged [space-colonization]
For questions concerning species that have settled on or near celestial bodies they are not native to and the challenges this presents.
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Aeroponic farming in a gas giant
In the setting of my projects there is a gas giant (with a mass of about 3 jupiters) that migrated within the habitable zone, as such it's outer atmosphere would feature plenty of water wapor and have ...
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Is this a viable theoretical method of fast interplanetary space travel?
Let's say in the future humanity has traveled to all parts of the solar system, but they want to be able to travel between planets faster. In pursuit of this, they create massive space probes with ...
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Nose-wrestling for political power - Is a human trunk possible in terms of evolution?
In the far future, a planet in the Milky Way that was colonised by humans 500,000 years before has developed nose-wrestling as a means of establishing dominance.
This is thought to have begun with a ...
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Growing space on an early planetary colony
So, humans in the distant future have launched a sleeper ship to a new solar system. Having shed its light-sails in orbit, the vessel has crash landed on it’s intended World; a barren mars-like planet....
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A laser-propelled starship loses its decelerating beam; what options do they have to slow down?
New to the site, and like many others here, I've been bouncing around a few ideas for a hard sci-fi short story with some friends, centered around an interstellar voyage to colonize a habitable world. ...
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Why would multiple off-world colonies secede all at once? [closed]
So, we have a situation where various Earth countries, (the Republic of Alaska, the United States of Europe, etc) now all have colonies on Mars, over venus and under the surface of Mercury. Technology ...
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Justifying why the birth of a post-scarcity world would cause other planets to secede
So, in roughing out the basic historical timeline of this project o’ mine, I have decided that the two most important aspects of the 24th century are:
1st, the birth of a post-scarcity on Earth, ...
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How will corporations ensure return on investment for funding slower than light colonization efforts?
Let's say a future world where faster than light communication exists, but not faster than light travel. There is a desire to colonize other worlds outside the solar system, but it's massively ...
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How long would it take to recreate the biosphere on a “dead Earth” planet?
So, one of my main settings involves humanity colonizing an Earth-like planet. The planet has all the abiotic features needed to support mankind (oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, magnetic field, 70% ...
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What do you call fishing on a planet where there are no fish? [closed]
When Plato gave Socrates the definition of man as “featherless bipeds,” Diogenes found and plucked a chicken and brought the poor creature into Plato's Academy, placed it on the ground and announced, “...
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What would the easiest planet to terraform look like?
With terraforming, how to do it and how long it takes depends largely on the planet in question. Worlds such as Venus may be nigh-impossible to terraform, whereas worlds more similar to prebiotic ...
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Can you destroy a dyson swarm?
The Swarm
Let's suppose we have a dyson swarm with an orbital trajectory analogous to the star-link constellation over earth, although only over a relatively small belt (lets say about 20 degrees from ...
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Planetesimal Habitation Grav-Train?
The Ring
Let's say, for the sake of argument, we have a small, sort-of-heavy moon, with little geological activity, orbiting a gas giant. Let's take Ganymede. It has around 0.12Gs of surface gravity. ...
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Would a rotating habitat work on the surface of a moon?
While we hear a lot about rotating habitats as a space structure, I happen to know there are a large number of small worlds and moons out there cursed with low gravity, which has a similar effect to ...
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How Mars colonization/terraformation could go so wrong, that it would be uncolonizable [closed]
So, in my world (~Cyberpunk level of technology) humans are trying to either colonize or terraform Mars (both is fine, doesn't really matter that much for the story). But then, something needs to go ...
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If Mars and Venus were habitable, by when would they have been colonized? [closed]
The first human stepped foot on the Moon in 1969.
The first probe (Venera 3) landed on Venus in 1970
The first probe (Mars 3) landed on Mars in 1971.
If Venus and Mars were habitable (they have liquid ...
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Functioning humanoid society with negligible gravity
In a fictional world, a humanoid species settles upon a foreign planet and intends to build a colony on this planet with an eventual goal of full habitation. They originally chose this planet for ...
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How would humans contend with low gravity when they colonize Titan?
So, in this setting, by the year 2139, humans have landed a fleet of settler ships on Titan to create the Asteria colony. They will repurpose the ships into anchored buildings, and stay there until ...
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Are horses better than rovers on a habitable planet with a small colony
OK, so, as a bit of scene setting in a story I am writing, a small group of people has landed on a nearly exact replica of Earth (atmospherics, geology, and physical parameters are nearly the same as ...
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How could my characters be tricked into thinking they are on Mars? [closed]
In the not-so-distant future, a corporation announces their plan to turn a colony on Mars into a competition-reality show. This is a believable claim, because others have already colonized Mars, but ...
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Saturnian Cloud Cities Pt. 7- Kronothermal Hydrogen Pumps
Recap
So my Cloud-cities, were practically Rigid-Hull Airships made of titanium and graphene to withstand severe wind-speeds and turbulent weather on Saturn. The Cloud-cities in question, are floating ...
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How to make a good landing pad for a start-up colony
Due to the expansion of humanity into the stars, landing pads have popped up on every planet with even a remote resemblance of a permanent human presence, whether they start with a dozen or a thousand ...
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Protecting Proxima Centauri from solar wind
So, I’m trying to terraform Proxima Centauri B, an exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. This star emits a lot of UV, solar flares and solar wind, which all pose a problem for colonists; the UV and solar ...
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Can Nanorobots make oxygen to terraform Mars?
I have devised a way of colonising Mars by pantropy, (that is, by adapting life to the environment rather than terraforming it, which is exorbitantly expensive and time-consuming). The process ...
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Could a virus be used to terraform planets?
I came up with a society of insectoid aliens called Ebline, based on ants. Their class structure and stuff are very interesting, but their coolest tool is a virus called Cuulaziu. When they find a new ...
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Chances for a Large Asteroid Hitting Mars
Since Mars is much closer to the asteroid belt, is it also more likely an asteroid large enough for planetary devastation (~1 kilometer) will strike it? I'm especially wondering how such a possibility ...
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Is there a point in the moon where the gravity is earth like?
Supposing, out of boredom, we were to settle on the moon.
I read that at certain depths on earth, the gravity is stronger than on the surface, so presumably the same is true to Luna.
If so, then is ...
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Could magnetism work in place of gravity for large bases in space?
So, in my sci-fi future, humanity has spread across the universe, made contact with many sentient races, and advanced technology greatly.
However, very few bases in the vacuum of space can use ...
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Saturnian Cloud-Cities Pt. 6 :- Geothermal Cables Vs Stupendously Large Airships
In my previous questions, I discussed the possibility of cloud cities on Saturn
And there were a few technologies which could be useful for the colony. The cloud-cities in question are giant airships,...
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If most of the glaciers melted suddenly how long before humans could begin resettling and advancing?
Climate change research has shown that the Greenland/Arctic ice cap is melting at an even higher rate than the Antarctic ice cap and since most of human civilization is at the equator or above the ...
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Hydroponically growing animal feed in a space ship
Same game i mentioned in my other questions. Artificial gravity, robotic harvesting/replanting, and plenty of energy are available on the ship. The farming block is 50x70x10 meters in total but i ...
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What is the timeframe for this abandoned space colony revert to a medieval society?
An outpost on a 2G (gravity) water planet (95% of the world's surface covered by oceans) becomes stranded / abandoned by the Galaxy Government, probably forever. The warp gate in orbit broke, nobody ...
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Should we use Saturn as a future base for colonization?
Despite being a gas giant, and being chilly cold, there are a few reasons I believe Saturn would be an ideal habitat for future colonisation, and here are a few justifications:
Saturn actually has a ...
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How could humanity colonizing multiple planets and solar systems prevent speciation of the human species
I am exploring the idea of humans leaving planet Earth and colonizing different planets. However, I would like the humans to remain "human". By "human" I mean that the different ...
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Are there plausible ways a spacefaring society could develop along feudal lines? [closed]
There are works in science fiction (the Dune saga probably being the most famous of them) where in the future, a space-faring human society has somehow, instead of being a republic (at least in name, ...
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What are the best places in the solar system to mine for fission fuel?
Aliens show up in a generation ship. They don't particularly care about living on a planet specifically, and they don't have any interest in conquering Earth for our land or our water or our ...
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Could a planet be colonized with mostly magic? [closed]
How could magic be used to get to planets and make them suitable for human habitation. I will set some rules for the sake of more precise answers.
Magic and Technology which utilizes it is possible ...
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Space elevator counterweight station keeping
I working on a story, and there is a space elevator. I know that moon and sun have a gravitational effect on bodies in orbit. And if a heavy asteroid was used for counterweight, wouldn't it require a ...
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Would a purely agricultural world exporting its production be sustainable when it comes to water?
To simplify the question as much as possible, let's assume an Earth-like planet, part of a galaxy-spanning civilization. 30% is above water level, the rest is ocean of salt-water.
This world is an ...
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Uh-oh, the galactic bank just got blown up - what now? [closed]
I'm running a sci-fi tabletop game, and the current big bad the party is hunting down is a group of freedom fighters with big ideas, and a MacGuffin relic capable of large-scale destruction. The big ...
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Species modification [closed]
Let's say for purely cosmetic reasons, a group of people on Earth who wanted to colonize other worlds to form some kind of galactic empire decided to modify their outward appearance. Prior to doing ...
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Structural design of shoulders for rigid suits and/or armour, what would be the best way to make these?
Well, I don't know if I should post this question on Worldbuilding, Engineering or Game Design stackexchange, but it has been a matter that keeps hammering my brain.
The context:
In this story, armies ...
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How would humanity react to Intelligent animal life? [closed]
I know the title is misleading, but hear me out.
Let's say mankind has evolved past the frontiers of the Oort cloud, something like in the Avatar or Alien Universes. Enough to have jumping from stars ...
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Is excavating alien technology legal? [closed]
I know that there are diffrent laws regarding excavating resources on other planets and asteroids,but they are far from being precise. Many conflicts arise when nations want to make one law that ...
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Dealing with extreme heat and pressure in an underground colony on Venus
A colony has been constructed by robots for human habitation deep under the surface of Venus. They are totally sealed off from the surface, and the galaxy beyond, and live like a ship in a bottle
What ...
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Building a colonial government similar to the United States, but with a few tweaks [closed]
Okay. This is the idea that I had.
Our colony ship left Earth, specifically the United States, shortly after 2105, We have landed on an Earth-like world, orbiting a yellow star similar to our own. ...
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Why would the council of a colony on another planet lie about the colony's age? [closed]
Story in the form of an all-ages mystery themed graphic novel that plays on the theme of a conspiracy, with an emphasis on showing through illustration rather than telling through dialog.
A group of ...
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What are the effects of Increasing the gravity on Mars?
I'm interested in the Physics around increasing the gravity of Mars to make it habitable. I was unsure how to work out what gravity would be needed to retain an atmosphere thick enough to hold liquid ...
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Can a forest provide enough oxygen to breathe on a low oxygen planet?
A person is placed into the middle of a forest on an alien planet. The planet is to be considered Earth equivalent in all respects (mass, size, atmospheric pressure, etc.) except atmospheric ...
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Minimize Mass Required To Colonize A Planetary System
In the early 22nd century, sending humans to other planetary systems is still too costly to be realized, so the first interstellar missions will be piloted by AIs. An AI piloted probe will be sent to ...
