162
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An Earth-like planet is found in another solar system. What are the top priorities after landing in order to create a self-sustaining colony?
Firstly, if you don't have the capabilities to construct a closed life support system, then you have no business trying to construct a colony many light years away, with no support and no backup and ...
- 78.5k
115
votes
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Is this alternate history plausible? (Hard Sci-Fi, Realistic History)
The story can be summed up as follows.
Von Braun is captured by the Soviets, not the Americans.
Failure to beat the Soviets to the Moon extends the Space Race.
An extended Space Race means space ...
- 30.2k
108
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What could a self-sustaining lunar colony slowly lose that would ultimately prove fatal?
EDIT April 26, 2020 While searching through my answers for research related to another question I came across this answer. The irony that I wrote this one year ahead of the Coronavirus pandemic, which ...
- 132k
78
votes
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Is pregnancy in zero-g a barrier to long term space living?
Last time I looked into this I was amazed these experiments (mammalian conception to delivery in orbit) had not been done. I figured I just had not found it and so I dug in this time. For mammals, ...
- 306k
78
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Why would a previously spacefaring civilization become unable to build another interstellar ship?
The simplest way is probably to leave them with a shortage of unobtainium. A substance named for obvious reasons, that happens to be required for the production of FTL drives.
Perhaps the limited ...
- 118k
76
votes
Accepted
How would Martian and Earth societies synchronize themselves regarding time?
First off, the issue with relativity is solved. No kidding! Barycentric time (TCB) is a time scale that an atomic clock would perceive were it co-moving with the sun. This, of course, is a ...
- 133k
71
votes
Colonizing the galaxy by slow boating reality check
Is this a realistic way to colonize and explore the universe?
No.
Apart from problems with generational ships, which you'll find discussed on Worldbuilding SE in other questions, there is a ...
- 23.3k
67
votes
Would there be any reason to colonize the coastal regions of a lifeless Earth-like world?
Water has a high specific heat. Consequently, the more water that is near a place, the more even the temperatures are. Deserts are notoriously burning hot in the day and freezing at night, but even ...
- 30.5k
66
votes
Why do people still live on earthlike planets?
Stability
Nothing beats the radiation shielding of 1,000 kilometers of magnetic field + 100 kilometers of air + (at night) 6,000 kilometers of water and rock.
For heat, nothing beats 22 billion cubic ...
- 18.8k
63
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Why would a previously spacefaring civilization become unable to build another interstellar ship?
Their ship and her payload were designed as a colony expedition. They had not just asteroid mining craft, and seeds for hydroponics, and modular habitat sections, they also had the blueprints and ...
- 120k
61
votes
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If true interplanetary and interstellar travel were achieved, would the decreasing mass of the earth become a problem?
Earth is big.[citation needed]
The mass of Earth is about $6 * 10^{24}$ kilograms. Not all of that mass is usable to make spaceships, of course, but let's just hand-wave that and look purely in terms ...
- 5,249
59
votes
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Would gas giants work as waste disposal sites?
What you suggest is possible, but the solution is a major problem, for larger reasons.
We have sent probes to crash into Jupiter. It is physically possible to send waste into a gas giant. Just as it ...
- 22.9k
58
votes
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Preventing racism in space colonies
Any group of humans can, over time, develop a sense of "us" vs "them". Racism is only one type of this behavior. Even if all of your colonists were to be identical clones, the ...
- 2,794
57
votes
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Colonizing the galaxy by slow boating reality check
Slow being a little less than half the speed of light, thanks to getting a very large boost as they start their journey.
Slow down there!
literally.
At that speed it's not really a generation ship ...
- 26.4k
56
votes
Accepted
How would the water flow if you were to have a shower in centrifugal force equivalent to 1 g on a rotating space station?
As the water "falls" from shower head height towards the drain at the floor, it would be moving at a fixed velocity and be rotating slower than it should at the increased radius of the bottom of the ...
- 25k
54
votes
Why would a colony need to relocate?
This isn't our land anymore, kiddo.
There was a time in the past your old grampa here would oversee all of those mining operations, from the Red Hills all the way to the Prima City. It was such a ...
- 9,115
51
votes
How could humans reach distant stars and still stay as a united government if you can't use faster than light travel
If you have only lightspeed communications and STL transport, any organization larger than a single star system (including close binaries etc.) will be more a matter of cooperation than of actual ...
- 47.2k
50
votes
What could a self-sustaining lunar colony slowly lose that would ultimately prove fatal?
Materials exposed to vacuum for extended periods often become brittle and/or literally lose mass over time.
Outgassing, cold-welding, decomposition of alloys back to their constituent materials, ...
- 5,821
50
votes
After we drain the Sun and migrate, why would humanity find the Solar System important?
Good old tourism.
Why people go visiting caves with painting on their walls, or ruins of ancient cities, even though they have much more comfortable houses?
Because they are curious about their past ...
- 301k
49
votes
Accepted
Would there be any reason to colonize the coastal regions of a lifeless Earth-like world?
I can think of two reasons:
Access to drinkable water. If the oceans are salty or dirty, the settlers might establish desalinisation and/or water purifying plant (assuming today's technological level)...
- 1,208
48
votes
If we can have "all the comforts of home" in space why would we settle planets?
If nothing else we would need planets for raw materials and therefore have at the very least mining colonies or penal camps.
You can't produce metals, plastics and all the rest from nothing.
Also ...
- 28.4k
47
votes
Creating Fictional Slavic Place Names
You will likely have an easier time if you pick a Slavic language that uses a Roman alphabet. Like Czech or Slovak (which are very similar to each other). Then you don't have to deal with the unknown ...
- 20.4k
46
votes
Accepted
How would I coordinate meetings with people on Mars?
The same way we do now.
I work for a multinational company, with colleagues distributed across a dozen time zones. When I need to schedule a meeting with many people, I simply open Outlook, and look ...
- 14.8k
45
votes
Where would space habitats get their oxygen from?
According to this lovely image from NASA (article here), the source of onboard oxygen in current spacecraft is mainly water electrolysis. The hydrogen so produced is processed with carbon dioxide to ...
- 38.8k
45
votes
What secular civic space would pioneers build for small frontier towns?
An assembly hall (town hall). The reason those churches get used for other things is that there are reasons other than worship for everybody to gather at times. A church's main hall is only in use ...
- 19.6k
44
votes
Accepted
How would a lunar colony defend itself against aggression from Earth?
They would throw rocks, literally.
The fuel needed to push any given mass out of the moons very small (relative to the earths) gravity well & into the earths (& it's all down hill after that) ...
- 10k
44
votes
Accepted
Would a purely agricultural world exporting its production be sustainable when it comes to water?
Technically it's Not Sustainable
But you're probably ok.
Current worldwide food production is 4,000,000,000 tonnes of food per year. Let's assume that food is 100% water, just to make things easy.
All ...
- 11.2k
43
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What could a self-sustaining lunar colony slowly lose that would ultimately prove fatal?
A non-obvious loss area would be Genetic diversity. After several thousand years of carefully controlled plant growth, and several thousand years of inbreeding, unless care was taken to maintain ...
- 1,091
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