So you developed faster than light travel - Now what?

[Yora]

I put this in the media forum since this is armchair science at best and based heavily on existing fiction.

In most science fiction, when there is faster than light speed, then you can get pretty much anywhere in the Galaxy within a few days at most. But the Galaxy is freaking huge, with distances as much as 100,000 lightyears between stars. Even with one million times the speed of light, that's still over 5 weeks of travel. And just getting to lightspeed is already difficult enough. I think in Star Trek Voyager, they expected about 70 years for the 70,000 light years distance, which is still 1000 times the speed of light. And often the time by which humanity has colonized other worlds and grown to trillions of people seem very short.

So lets develop a "conservative, but optimistic" scenario for how things would develop when it would become possible to travel to other stars in reasonable amounts of time. To get this started, a few basic assumptions, which are arbitrary, but we have to start with something:

By 2100, physicists discover the theoretical basis for moving objects faster than light speed.
By 2200, the technology is able to let a ship make the 9 year journey at lightpseed to Alpha Centauri and back.
By 2300, the technology has become cheap enough for commercial use by large industrial companies and commercial freight transport companies at 100 times the speed of light. This makes it possible to get to Alpha Centauri in half a month and reach about 15,000 stars within one years distance.

Now lets assume that 1 in 100 stars have planets suitable for underground habitats for humans (150) and of these 1 in 100 have breathable atmosphere and acceptable climatic conditions (2). If you are willing to make it a 5 year journey, you can even get to 1,875,000 stars, which would be 18,750 on which you can land, 188 on which you can live, and if you say 1 in 100 of these has intelligent life, there's also 2 planets that have native people. Chances are they went extinct millions of years ago or are still cave men. While contact with spacefaring aliens is well possible, there wouldn't be that much direct exchange and almost no chance of meeting one on your own home planet. Maybe a few interstelar space ports, but in everyday life, the species would not mingle or have a lot of exchange of technology. So either way, they don't have a direct influence on life in the human worlds, except for the knowledge that they exist.
Another unrelated point: Rich people with access to high tech hate having children. So unless something spectacular happens, there will be no population explosion. Many estimates the peak around 2050 and after that, it will probably go downward. Now third world countries have lots of children, because they have as many children as they always had, but more of them life to become adults. Happened in Europe, happened in Japan. But 100 years late birth rates drop and the population gets smaller. If continued to 2300, the number of people could be really small. 10 years ago, the UN did some highly speculative estimates with global birth rates of 1.75 to 2.25 and got results of 2.3 to 36.5 billion people. I expect something closer to the lower end. But for conveniences sake, let's say something between 5 and 10 billion humans in the entire galaxy. Whatever we do, it won't be because of lack of space.

So much for the background.
Now lets assume by 2200 we are able to get to other stars in a reasonable amount of time and by 2300 we are able to get to a lot of for a reasonable cost of resources.

The question is: Why would we?

Sure, the first few times would be just for curiosity. Maybe even build a 10.000 people colony just for the heck of it. But at some point, you want to make money. If it can be found on earth, you'll get it there first. If it can be found in the solar system then you'll get it from there. To Neptune it's about two and a half minutes at 100 times the speed of light, and you could make the journey in a day with much less powerful engines.

[Eakin]

I find your assumptions about population growth to be highly questionable.

Even leaving that aside, I think you'd basically see a replay of 1400-1800 AD, but IN SPAAAAACE! New colonies being founded by groups of like minded people that expand rapidly and become independent political entities.

And obviously we pick one planet to send all the convicts to and call it "Space Australia"

[Axolotl]

The question is: Why would we?Because it's there.

What more reason has humanity ever needed?

[Das Platyvark]

1:I'd think that population is the only real reason. The Galaxy/ Multiple star systems/whatever is still finite, but decidedly larger than our Solar System. I can't think of a way to keep our population steady even at it's current size, and if it continues to increase like this we'll soon have nowhere else to go but the other potentially habitable planets in our system, which we will in turn outgrow. I can't really see the utility or need of traveling far beyond that, as at those distances with time dilation and such you could easily be outlasting civilizations. Fly out, turn back–hey look, nobody left! Either that or what's left on your original system bears no resemblance to your current species, and you probably couldn't interbreed with them if they did.
Let me rephrase that–I can't see a way to expand at these speeds without your civilization on each planet crumbling behind you.
To go off on a bit of a tangent, you could explain multiple humanoid races in a galaxy like that–some species discover ftl travel, and uses it to expand and colonize, leaving little outposts of their race over the cosmos. Over many years they end up as something completely different, and meet up with their own distant offshoots.....
Basically, our population and resource consumption continue to go up exponentially, and ftl would allow us to survive just that much longer (though replicator technology could possibly do similar, but I'll save that for later).
2:tl;dr: see point 1.

EDIT: Oops, guess I kind of skimmed your arguments on population growth.
I still think that while there may not be an 'explosion' as such, there's basically no way to ensure that the population does not grow, and eventually we will be needing to leave. While it's nice to think that everyone can simply 'replace themselves', they still tend to have >1 children, which will mean population growth.

[Selrahc]

Because it's there.

What more reason has humanity ever needed?

Lots of reasons.
If you're talking about exploration or tourism, this is a valid argument. If you're talking about mass population movements, people do need a better reason.

Even assuming the OP's population theories are both correct, and not subject to change over the next 200 years, and that the *maximum* population humanity ever attains is 10 billion, there will still be star colonies. Unless they are legislatively prohibited. The exact reasons will vary, but people seeking an escape from repression, people seeking to exploit resources, look for a change or any of dozens of reasons will all make sense.

From a species level, establishing extra planetary bases is a smart move. Removing the threat of extinction level events that aren't at least interstellar in scope.

[Gnoman]

Besides this, resourse distribution varies widely. It's entirely concievable that there could be some relatively rare resoursce, or a common one that has unusual properties for environmental reasons, could be profitable,

[Axolotl]

Lots of reasons.
If you're talking about exploration or tourism, this is a valid argument. If you're talking about mass population movements, people do need a better reason.Why? All you need is enough people who think that flying off into space to live somewhere new is an awesome idea. That's it, if there are enough people like that and the technology is in place as the OP said then the galaxy gets colonised. And looking at history and people today I really don't think there's any shortage of people who think that.

[TheZenMaster]

Lack of resources on earth.

[Selrahc]

Why? All you need is enough people who think that flying off into space to live somewhere new is an awesome idea. That's it, if there are enough people like that and the technology is in place as the OP said then the galaxy gets colonised. And looking at history and people today I really don't think there's any shortage of people who think that.

Can you point to a large scale population movement primarily fuelled by curiosity?

[Cikomyr]

I find your assumptions about population growth to be highly questionable.

Even leaving that aside, I think you'd basically see a replay of 1400-1800 AD, but IN SPAAAAACE! New colonies being founded by groups of like minded people that expand rapidly and become independent political entities.

And obviously we pick one planet to send all the convicts to and call it "Space Australia"

These circumstances were largely motivated by the conflicts and rivalry between the various European countries, and a desire to seek an advantage over their rivals, more than an actual desire to just build houses..

We'll need massive conflict need and strategic resource potential to motivate a colony rush

[Axolotl]

Can you point to a large scale population movement primarily fuelled by curiosity?I never mentioned curiosity, I said we'd do it's there. Humans live everywhere on earth it's posible to survive, I see no reason why we wouldn't do the same with places outside of earth.

[Yora]

In a massive conflict, it is unlikely that there is such a huge surplus of resources that enabled poor people to afford transport and housing on a distant planet. And the governments have much more pressing issues than funding other people to remove their labor potential from the country.

[Selrahc]

I never mentioned curiosity, I said we'd do it's there. Humans live everywhere on earth it's posible to survive, I see no reason why we wouldn't do the same with places outside of earth.

Well, we *don't* live everywhere it is possible to survive. If you pick a random piece of the planet Earth, you probably won't find humans. We don't have human communities dug miles underground, or under the ocean, just the equivalents of explorers. We don't have floating cities, or nomadic settlements in general. Humans do a lot of things, but they do them for reasons.

If talking about mass population movements, you need to find what those reasons are. "Just because" is not a good reason.

[Kurgan]

Well, if it seems likely one of those planets is rich in natural resources, large and extravagantly wealthy corporations might charter a settlement or two there. After all, obtaining a planet chock full of [Important Resource X] could give you an edge, as well as a supply that you have a monopoly on.

Getting people to go to the settlement might be a problem, but with enough economic incentives, like say land ownership right, high wages, and living at the company's expense, it is entirely possible to get a small group of people to go at the very least. If the planet ends up being in fact useful from an economic standpoint, some of those settlers might convince family to come and join them, or perhaps people will hear of the high pay and opportunities on the planet, and go of their own volition. After all, a settlement of say 5,000 miners probably needs support, say in the form of doctors, nurses, food supply, teachers for any children they have, a police force, and so on and so forth.

You probably won't end up with a colony numbering in billions, but after 30-40 years you might have say half a million people on the planet.

[Axolotl]

Well, we *don't* live everywhere it is possible to survive. If you pick a random piece of the planet Earth, you probably won't find humans. We don't have human communities dug miles underground, or under the ocean, just the equivalents of explorers. We don't have floating cities, or nomadic settlements in general. Humans do a lot of things, but they do them for reasons.I said places we could survive, neither miles underground nor under the sea fit that description. Also we do have a floating city, granted it's very small and built to get oil but we certainly built one. Also I really want to know what a "nomadic settlement" would look like.


If talking about mass population movements, you need to find what those reasons are. "Just because" is not a good reason.There are hundreds of thousands of people living in the arctic circle. What would could drive people there that would not drive them to Arcturus or Sirius?

[Soras Teva Gee]

By 2300 I believe we would have long since run short of a lot of resources. I'm not talking petroleum products I mean things like elemental heavy metals that you aren't going to be able to synthesize around. There is literally a finite amount of gold, copper, iron, or titanium out there. Though here we a least potentially have more in the way of recycling opportunities since it will all still exist. This may not be economically viable even when nessecary however. Ultimately the human race though needs to expand beyond our sphere

Of course I'd like to raise something nobody seems to consider. Namely, why the heck seek other worlds when we have enormous masses of literally everything to be mined in space on much easier to reach asteroids. And in general why continue to play a loosing game of physics to escape gravity wells all the time when you can build O'Neill cylinders instead. Yet sci-fi on the whole fails utterly to consider this. Where's the thriving solar system with no habitable planets but is thriving on space based resources. There's more in space then there will ever be on those pesky habitable worlds.

[Yora]

That is a really good question. Humans have settled lots of places that seem like really stupid choices and did so very long before there were very much of them.

[Pokonic]

And obviously we pick one planet to send all the convicts to and call it "Space Australia"

It shall be called...... "Earth".


No, realy, leave them all there, because who knows what the world will look like in the discribed time? Best leave them here and make off to your cozy place a few star-systems away,where the sun's always shine and the jellyfish-folk are kind.

[dehro]

the premise is kind of flawed. if you're doubting people would actually want to go there, then I ask you, why would they build the technology to get there at all? (that is, in sufficient numbers to actually colonize the place..anything less than that is exploration, elitist tourism or running from the law.)
there are plenty of people who aren't happy to live where they live..plenty of people who'd welcome a chance to start from scratch, and plenty of people who would find it more practical to finance other people's travel than to have to go to war with them because they don't like having them around. the world is full of people who are persecuted for their race, beliefs, social status, poverty, sexuality.. give them a new habitat where they just might make a decent living and they'll jump at it..not all of them of course..many would be afraid, not have the resources or guts, or would simply be too linked to their homeland to move away from it.. but there's 8 billion of us... you're bound to find at least a couple million people wanting to GTFO if they get a chance. that's enough to start a new comunity or 100.
if to this you add that they might just take it as a money making expedition (go work for a year in the diamond mine on planet flobbedob, return home with a nice bit of cash and build yourself a house)..

hell..people migrate all the time in search for a better life or a chance at feeding their families back home. give them an entire virgin planet to loot, farm, mine, make a living on..and you think they wouldn't do it? check out the vessels crammed with refugees that land every month on the coasts of the more fortunate countries..

[t209]

Do you think we would face like "Space Jamestown" (the real one, not pocahontas)?
- Come to planet with nothing but mining equipment.
- Half the settlers died.
- Bring in another.
- Found space tobacco

[erikun]

The most common reason I can think of to go someplace is A.) land, B.) resources, or C.) vacation resort. I could see visiting foreign planets for any of those reasons; the Alpha Centauri retirement home?

[Soras Teva Gee]

the premise is kind of flawed. if you're doubting people would actually want to go there, then I ask you, why would they build the technology to get there at all? (that is, in sufficient numbers to actually colonize the place..anything less than that is exploration, elitist tourism or running from the law.)


Obviously this is inherent in the premise.

We have the basic technological capabilities for manned missions to Mars but never invested the resources to do so. And in general current space activities are done on budgets of shoestrings, duct tape, and bubblegum. With not enough duct tape.

Once you add an FTL drive you wouldn't need fundamentally new technologies to open up extrasolar colonization as it already exists. The question is whether there would be sufficient impetus to put up the money to do so.

(Though I should note that colonization of near 1G extrasolar planets almost requires a BIG leap to have a cheap and effective way of reaching orbit that's also modular enough to be shipped in from space. I say almost because one could still establish a one way street and piecemeal down vital equipment but it would be one HELL of a risk for those that went down.)

[Kurgan]

Of course I'd like to raise something nobody seems to consider. Namely, why the heck seek other worlds when we have enormous masses of literally everything to be mined in space on much easier to reach asteroids. And in general why continue to play a loosing game of physics to escape gravity wells all the time when you can build O'Neill cylinders instead. Yet sci-fi on the whole fails utterly to consider this. Where's the thriving solar system with no habitable planets but is thriving on space based resources. There's more in space then there will ever be on those pesky habitable worlds.

Hmmm...off topic a fair bit, but you might like C.J. Cherryh if you are looking for space station based settlements and the like. I'd suggest the Foreigner series for you as my personal favorite of her works.

Very very lean version, spoilering about first 50-100 pages of the first book:

Humans discover ftl, and decide to settle planet. Something goes horribly wrong, and they end up in unknown space. They build a space station above an earth like planet, and internal power struggles cause one group to settle on planet [and interact with the native species] and the other to fly off to a solar system without a habitable planet to settle, so that none of their people can just fire the escape pods and flee to the planet.

Mind you, very little is done with space travel and the space stations until much later in the series, but they do come up often enough.

[Yora]

(Though I should note that colonization of near 1G extrasolar planets almost requires a BIG leap to have a cheap and effective way of reaching orbit that's also modular enough to be shipped in from space. I say almost because one could still establish a one way street and piecemeal down vital equipment but it would be one HELL of a risk for those that went down.)
Which is an important point. For large scale space travel, you pretty much need space based industry. Everything that can be manufactured anywhere but earth should be manufactured anywhere but earth. Getting stuff from earth to space is one of the greatest obstacles. Once you're up there things get a lot easier in many respects.
What you obviously need to get lifted up is people, since they are on earth. Then maybe delicate circuitry and fine electronics, which are quite small but difficult to manufacture. But the bulk of the big parts, like the frame and the hull, that are relatively simple and weigh a lot should be made in space from material produced in space. Also fuel. You want to reduce the amount of payload you have to lift from earth to a minimum.

[Traab]

The hole here is assuming that we would develop ftl tech instead of finding other ways to travel. The laziest solution is to keep building bigger and faster engines until we break the light speed barrier, but as you yourself said, its still a cumbersome way to travel since even moving a hundred thousand times faster than we can right now, we would still barely be able to reasonable explore our own solar system, let alone move past it. And thats ignoring the massive downsides of traveling at light speed. No, my vote goes with finding alternate methods of travel, the sci fi equivalent would be wormholes, hyperspace, things like that. I liked a style of travel I read about in a book once, cant remember which, where a character was describing to someone like us how their space travel functioned.

"Imagine you are an ant trying to cross this apron lengthwise. As you can see, its quite a distance for an ant to travel. But if I fold the edges of the apron together, the ant has to take only a single step to cross over from one side to the other. That is how our space travel works. We "fold" space and step across, covering vast distances, without worrying about time dilation."


Also fuel. You want to reduce the amount of payload you have to lift from earth to a minimum.

Ill admit that im unfamiliar with space ship fuel production, but how would you go about producing it in space?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Which is an important point. For large scale space travel, you pretty much need space based industry. Everything that can be manufactured anywhere but earth should be manufactured anywhere but earth. Getting stuff from earth to space is one of the greatest obstacles. Once you're up there things get a lot easier in many respects.
What you obviously need to get lifted up is people, since they are on earth. Then maybe delicate circuitry and fine electronics, which are quite small but difficult to manufacture. But the bulk of the big parts, like the frame and the hull, that are relatively simple and weigh a lot should be made in space from material produced in space. Also fuel. You want to reduce the amount of payload you have to lift from earth to a minimum.

Exactly and I question that once you have space industry what impetus would be left for colonization of worlds. As the large scale space projects one would need and sci-fi generally accepts demand that there would be stable environments for the people manning them. Which would include simulating gravity thus removing the last essential difference.

I don't think humans would leave Earth, barring an ubermensch with delusions of grandeur forcing the issue, this becomes a much bigger issue for colonizing another world. There are cheaper means of orbital launch them chemical rocket flight, but they are all resource intensive to build. And I personally am not sold that anything but a space elevator really has the bulk capacity.

Now sure a new world might have the basic resources in place to build whatever you want, but without network of global trade and an industrial society would those resources be practical to reach. Without a couple of generations of work by isolated colonists in a truly unprecedented social feat.

The only solution I kinda see would be some kind of lowerable space based tether to create an elevator without constructing a base first. Or of course a new method of propulsion that would allow a combined reusable aircraft/spacecraft to fly freely between ground and orbit.

Which given sci-fi seems to have often enough, but we never see these wonder floating anti-gravity drives being used for bulk capacity leaving me seriously wondering how their economies work. Even if at functionally free payloads if the Millennium Falcon had believable cargo holds it would still be much much much too small.

Though admittedly I think this probably results from sci-fi writers not spending any time around a port and realizing just how big container ships are. Screw these huge capital ships, where are the enormous merchantmen, warships are fundamentally tiny vessels. Seriously old battleships are maybe like half the size of a normal container vessel, even Nimitz and Ford class "super" carriers are match in dimension somewhat but lack the sheer bulk of these monsters when fully loaded. A mobile skyscraper scale ship, that's what you need to run a trading economy writers!


The hole here is assuming that we would develop ftl tech instead of finding other ways to travel. The laziest solution is to keep building bigger and faster engines until we break the light speed barrier, but as you yourself said, its still a cumbersome way to travel since even moving a hundred thousand times faster than we can right now, we would still barely be able to reasonable explore our own solar system, let alone move past it. And thats ignoring the massive downsides of traveling at light speed. No, my vote goes with finding alternate methods of travel, the sci fi equivalent would be wormholes, hyperspace, things like that. I liked a style of travel I read about in a book once, cant remember which, where a character was describing to someone like us how their space travel functioned.

Umm you don't seem to understand that.... IS HOW YOU GO FTL.

Sorry but seriously lightspeed is not a "barrier" you can break with engineering because to accelerate ANY mass to c requires infinite energy. The output of a galaxy is not enough. There is pretty much no conceptual much less hypothetical plausible way to actually move at velocities greater then 3*10^8 m/s because lightspeed is more important an constant then space and time.

What is done rather is to turn that around and only have apparent FTL travel times. Locally (the ship) nothing goes faster then light it just make it so that it doesn't have to and if it went faster then light could ordinarily travel as said distance who cares because that's not actually a meaningful measure.

Even Trek which is one of the very few series to delude itself into flying through space "normally" at FTL is actually warping space around it to compress and expand it around and behind the Enterprise. That's the warp in Warp drive. Actually potentially viable though there's pieces nessecary (like imaginary mass) to the mathematical basis that haven't been observed or otherwise verified.


Ill admit that im unfamiliar with space ship fuel production, but how would you go about producing it in space?

Harvest the basic elements from places like the Moon, comets, and asteroids then process them in space based facilities. Chemistry still works in space and in many ways having minimal friction and gravity makes construction easier. The Saturn 5 (and many other rockets) are fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Check those ingredients again and think what you can make them out of and you see why certain lunar discoveries are considered very very important.

But more generally its worth remembering that essentially everything on Earth... came from space. Not just when forming, but its believed we only have say oceans because of cometary impacts.

[leafman]

Who needs to land their ship on a planet when you can have space elevators?
Hop on "the express elevator to hell; going down!" :smallbiggrin:
I would think by 2300 we would be able to engineer an elevator that would run between the surface of a planet and an orbital platform that ships could dock with. I know the ship would still be in the gravity well of the planet, but there would be significantly less fuel expendature by using the docking platform.

Or they could use shuttle craft to ferry people/equipment from the surface up to the ship, like in Star Trek and Mass Effect.

Edit: Should have read Soras' post first, still got to quote Aliens though :smallamused:

[Ravens_cry]

The scientific possibilities are nigh endless. Instead of just thinking theoretically about what a black hole accretion disc looks like, we could actually visit one, or at least send a probe. Hells, assuming that a strong gravity well doesn't prevent FTL we could actually send a probe INSIDE the event horizon of a black hole and come out again. After all, the escape velocity is more than the speed of light, but by definition, FTL is faster than the speed of light.
It's kind of in the name after all. And exosolar planets. Instead of inferring, we could see one for ourselves. Even within our own solar system, it would open things up in massive way. Mars only minutes away at barely above lightspeed.
Imagine the parallax observations that could be done with 'eyes' several light years apart.
So from a science perspective, way major cool man.

[Brewdude]

Why would we?
New experimental governments (kind of like what happened in mmos with guild organization and resource distribution methods, but in real life).
New power needs. Earth is a gravity pit of horrendous proportions. When the need is to get materials in space, it's easier to ship materials already in space.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

<snip>
The question is: Why would we?

</snip again>

Why would we? Why wouldn't we!

Seriously, the story of humanity is "pack your bags, we're going to check out what's on the other side of that hill."

Once there, people begin to look around, and decide what they want to do to improve life for themselves and their family. Good, arable land? Farm it. Minerals in the ground? Mine them. Fishing nearby? Game in the woods? A way to transport goods from where they are made, to where they are wanted? A new industry? A new form of government? A new way of reaching spiritual enlightenment? Freedom to be with people like you? Freedom from other people NOT like you? The list is endless.

Not everyone is bitten by wanderlust, but many, MANY are. I know I am. I would happily hop onto the nearest starship just to go see. To see warships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. To see C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. To see the triple moons rise, to see the double suns set. To ride the biggest waves, to ride my flycycle in a gas torus world. To do something truly NEW.

The biggest thing that would keep me at home would be whether or not I would want to commit my children to such a life. On the other hand, I already have. My kids were born in Hawaii, lived in California, Colorado, Oklahoma, South Korea. I was born in Arizona, lived in Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, California, Oklahoma, Florida, Hawaii, South Korea. Visited a dozen more countries for days to months, and more than half of the United States. And I still want to see more. Do more.

[thompur]

Why would we? Why wouldn't we!

Seriously, the story of humanity is "pack your bags, we're going to check out what's on the other side of that hill."

Once there, people begin to look around, and decide what they want to do to improve life for themselves and their family. Good, arable land? Farm it. Minerals in the ground? Mine them. Fishing nearby? Game in the woods? A way to transport goods from where they are made, to where they are wanted? A new industry? A new form of government? A new way of reaching spiritual enlightenment? Freedom to be with people like you? Freedom from other people NOT like you? The list is endless.

Not everyone is bitten by wanderlust, but many, MANY are. I know I am. I would happily hop onto the nearest starship just to go see. To see warships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. To see C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. To see the triple moons rise, to see the double suns set. To ride the biggest waves, to ride my flycycle in a gas torus world. To do something truly NEW.

The biggest thing that would keep me at home would be whether or not I would want to commit my children to such a life. On the other hand, I already have. My kids were born in Hawaii, lived in California, Colorado, Oklahoma, South Korea. I was born in Arizona, lived in Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, California, Oklahoma, Florida, Hawaii, South Korea. Visited a dozen more countries for days to months, and more than half of the United States. And I still want to see more. Do more.

It's posts like this that make me wish every website had a "like" button. Well said!

Edit: I also like how Sam Seaborn (http://youtu.be/oHGK96-WixU)put it. :smallbiggrin:

[McStabbington]

Well, first you've already stacked the deck by presenting such a hostile universe, but I'll get back to that later.

The question concerns motivation: what would motivate people to colonize? To which I would point out that the same factors that drove our original expansions still exist. We still have differing geopolitical factions with differing interests, and all of them have an interest in maintaining some semblance of parity in access to resources. When Spain and Portugal began mass extraction of wealth from the New World, overnight it upended the balance of power in Europe. The same thing would happen if, say, Russia or China could reliably access the resources of an entire planetary body.

Now that being said, let me get back to how you've stacked the deck. Put simply, the universe you've suggested is one that is far more barren than our data suggests exists. Your example posits that one in 100 stars has a planetary body we could land on. Which is downright weird for several reasons. One, mounting evidence suggests that iron-nickel core planets in the habitable zone are fairly common, as are solid moons around gas giants.

Two, mounting evidence suggests that our solar system is hardly exceptional in its construction, and yet at even using existing technology we could potentially make not one but three planetary bodies in the system habitable (Mars, Luna, Earth). A fourth in Europa would probably require more reliable power systems than we have because of the distance from the sun and the rigors of the environment, but survival there would require improvements in engineering only. I find it hard to believe that we would have to go through 400 star systems to find as much habitable terrain as our single solar system.

Now here's why the two points above matter: the easier it is to access the resources, the more likely it is to spark a race for expansion. And the more planets that we can access resources from, the easier it is to access resources. In other words, what you've posited is the 22nd century equivalent of a 15th-century New World the size of, say, Texas. That's no small amount of area, and no small find for the explorers that stumble over it. But it's not likely to completely unbalance the geopolitics of Europe or cause a massive race for the new territory because, well, it's a territory maybe twice the size of Spain, so it's not going to take long to explore, colonize and exploit. If on the other hand these New Worlds are substantially easier to find and thereby substantially easier to exploit, it's going to trigger much more substantial effects on the international order.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The question concerns motivation: what would motivate people to colonize? To which I would point out that the same factors that drove our original expansions still exist.

On the cynical side it should probably be noted that many of the initial efforts were essentially risky investments that paid off in the long run, and consequently weren't nessecarily funded all that well.

Otherwise you make some fair points though I think you push habitable either a bit too far or not far enough. As far as habitable as in outside enclosures without suits, even terraforming Mars would be a major major effort and its the best candidate by a wide margin. For places we could put build contained environments the number rises drastically.

[Lord Seth]

So you developed faster than light travel - Now what?I'm going to Disneyworld!

[Ravens_cry]

I'm going to Disneyworld!
Certainly would get there faster.

[MLai]

I also have a problem with 1 of the assumptions: We'd have First Contact with 1 or 2 alien civilizations but afterwards won't have much interaction with them.

1. That's not how humans operate. Unless said aliens are openly hostile or expressedly communicate that they don't want to interact with us, humans would glomp onto alien civilizations like white on rice, for better or for worse. We would try to learn about them, to learn from them, to teach them, to convert them, to exploit them, to ally with them against our enemies (human or otherwise). And to have sex with them. I don't care if they look like jellyfish, there will be porn.
2. Aliens may, or may not, feel the same way.

Edit: And they will.
http://www.scenicreflections.com/ithumbs/The%20Green%20Slime%20Wallpaper%202.jpg

[Frozen_Feet]

FTL, in itself, is simply not enough. To make interstellar culture viable, several other almost or even more fantastic inventions would be requited. Much depends on the specifics of FTL as well.

But overall, there are several things about space travel which make it not like colonizing of faraway places on earth. Notably:

Space is not an ocean. Even the most hostile place at sea is not as bad as void of space. Even if your vessel is nothing but a piece of driftwood, it's still possible to breathe. Temperature is likely to stay within margins that are tolerable to human body. Sea even produces food to those in it - you can fish, collect seaweed etc.

In space, you will be drinking your recycled urine and breathing recycled air from day one. You can't go out without a specialized suit, and even that is dangerous. Small breaches in your hi-tech vessel can mean death to everyone inside. Size of your living quarters is likely to be as miserable as on a boat centuries ago. Long stay in zero gravity causes health problems as bad as scurvy.

You need massive leaps in spacecraft engineering other than FTL to create living conditions that are not downright hideous. There's a reason why only highly trained experts who've gone through extensive psychological profiling get to go to space, and even they've gone bonkers from it. Even with FTL, space travel is not a luxury cruise. It's less comfortable than prison to a lot of people.

And what's worse, it doesn't actually get better when you reach your destination. Even the most barren islands on Earth usually have breathable athmosphere. Not so on foreign planetoids. Even the least awful planets in our own solar system are worse than the worst places on earth. Anyone there will be forced to live in just as miserable conditions, confined to the spaces of their little base.

Also, space travel will never solve overpopulation problems down on earth. Do the math sometimes - the surprlus of people you'd have to send to space each day numbers in tens of thousands. The amount of space-based industry needed to build enough ships fast enough would require technology that makes simple FTL pale. Space travel can only have measurable effect in population size if population growth is already stabilized or negative.

[Miklus]

I think you underestimate the population growth. We are 7 billion now with no sign of slowing down. 7 billion might already be too many once the resourses start to run out. That alone should be reason enough to expand.

Did you know that all the gold ever mined on earth can fit in a cube 20.4m on each side? Just think of the profits that could be made if you could find space gold. Or platinum, palladium, lithium, germanium or whatever. And you don't have to go very far, just look at this juicy asteroid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3554_Amun

It is estimated at $20trillion! Now THERE is a reason to go to space.

[Frozen_Feet]

You get it wrong way around. If you think spacetravel can solve overpopulation, you're underestimating it.

Look here. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_are_born_and_how_many_people_die_e very_minute) You want to make an impact on population growth? You need to get average of 229 thousand people off the planet daily. And if you want that to be anything but a dead sentence, you also need to arrange living quarters for them, first in space, then on their destined planet.

It would be easier, vastly easier to just shoot that many people in the head. Yes, this is taking into account all the political hurdlum that would be caused.

There is no technology in sight that would allow that many people to leave the planet. Space elevators? FTL? Pfft. Nothing short of D&D teleportation circles or Star Trek transporters get even close.

Overpopulation is a problem that must be solved here on Earth. It's also a problem that must be solved in each and every spacecraft and colony, because in space, living space is highly limited, and resources must be carefully rationed.

Only implementing and following of strict population control protocol would allow population transports and extraterrestrial colonies to survive, let alone thrive. And unless we on earth want to suffer cataclysmic population collapse, we need to do the same thing.

[Soras Teva Gee]

FTL, in itself, is simply not enough. To make interstellar culture viable, several other almost or even more fantastic inventions would be requited. Much depends on the specifics of FTL as well.


Its a more then a little harsh to call inventions that either exist in some form as being as fantastic as FTL then not specify them. We already maintain a space station and have continuously for years. And you may hate space seen as an ocean but nuclear submarines are quite arguably the next closest which operate in environments we can't breathe in, and can do so for months in required with sufficient comfort to retain a least relative sanity. Now if you want to talk about the economy of all these technologies you have more of a point.

However it is a fundamentally different point to talk about space habitation as cheap enough versus possible.

Really the biggest problem is getting started, once you have the capacity to build in space certain options open up from economy of scale. You can build spacecraft on a larger scale, like our current subs with large tanks of water attached to sustain them. Something like an O'Neill cylinder, well I wouldn't call it self sustaining but would be drastically more so then our current habitats. Once you can build in space you have the sort of long term habitats that would make another solar system viable to colonize. (I continually question where once space has been conquered why go back but that's another issue)

Which isn't to say that getting started is a trivial step by any means. Our current orbital launch method is inherently expensive. While alternatives like a mass driver is fundamentally viable (the Navy is building a railgun after all) it of course has to be built. Even at perhaps the cleverest ways to do it (via remote operated robot doubles for example) the expense even with tech advancement might make it a project to make the Panama Canal, Great Wall of China, or Interstate Highway System seem like getting your house renovated. It might be rendered unfeasible at any number of points.

Then again even the conceptually viable FTL systems at this point are simply mathematics that potentially allow them. The problems of getting into space are nothing next to needing underlying principles that have yet to be verified by physics experiments.

[Ravens_cry]

OK, so we can't do mass shipment of humanity elsewhere. Despite being a common trope, I agree it would be, if we suddenly had FTL travel but nothing else different, impractical.
Still, resources are another possibility. If the moon is less than a second away and even the farthest reaches of the solar system only a few hours, mining these areas ,while still faced with many difficulties, becomes much closer to being practical.
And if we could, the resources that would open up would be astounding.
The fact is that Earth can only give so much.
Living space in matters of square footage isn't an issue, but resources are.
If we are to expand as a species, if we are to raise the standard of living not just for the lucky few who happened to be born in a First World Nation but all of humanity, we are going to need gobs of resources, and aside from pillaging this blue sapphire set in darkest velvet, a short term solution at best, we are going to have to start making use of extraterrestrial resources.
FTL would make that much more doable.

[grolim]

And don't forget this gem from Babylon 5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVbnRbTi5XA

[Ravens_cry]

Unless our present theories are very, very wrong, it will be a few billion years before we have to worry about that.
And then, ironically, it won't be the sun being too cold, but expanding into a red giant and growing too hot and too close for comfort.
Still, I hope we live long enough to worry about such things.
Life is a cry in the dark, a struggle against infinity, and Mind is a shout in the face of eternity.

[Frozen_Feet]

The problem with resources is not just have vs. don't have. It's about demand vs. output. Earth's output might be too little for N+1 people, but there's neither necessity or sense to try to uphold continuous population growth on Earth. Stabilizing our population is much more viable than even space mining, and I'd argue we need to do that anyways regardless of how sophisticated space technology we'll eventually develop.

Resources needed to guarantee luxurious lifestyle drop dramatically when amount of people drops too. I'm fairly sure we'd have the technology to guarantee First World living standards to everyone in an environmentally neutral manner with just Earth's resources if we first worked our population down to 1 billion or less.

Space research will likely help these goals immensely - for example, zero G experiments with hydrophonic and aerophonic farming might prove vital to increasing food production on earth. Much of space travel revolves around careful and economical management of resources, after all. But I argue these indirect benefits will have much greater impact than space mining will have. Actually shooting people to space will be a mere afterthought as far as population is concerned.

[Ravens_cry]

A solution that doesn't take human nature into account is no solution at all.
And humans do not like population control.

[Frozen_Feet]

... then humans won't like space travel either, since as noted, population control is fundamental to it succeeding.

In fact, current research suggest that for any long-term space trip, the guideline is going to be no sex, at all. Because last time they tried a mixed group of astronauts where the woman had affair with one of the men, it devolved into a punching contest.

Also, human nature is very malleable. In 1st world countries, birthrate actually has dipped below deathrate. This as merely a side-effect of education and other worthwhile pursuits taking so much time out of people's lives that they just can't manage to have and raise as many kids as before.

See Japan, where young people are outright stating they have no interest in sex.

Population control isn't nearly as nightmarish or against human nature than you imply. I'd argue national birth control laws would be far easier to bring into being than wide-spread spacetravel is.

[Ravens_cry]

OK perhaps, though laws are not the same thing as obedience to laws, but even if everyone agreed to this, it still doesn't take into account that as technology progresses, per capita resource use increases.
We're going to need extra-terrestrial resources eventually if our technology is going to improve.
People may decry consumerism, but the fact is people like having stuff.
And frankly, I do find population control a little nightmarish.

[Axolotl]

The problem with resources is not just have vs. don't have. It's about demand vs. output. Earth's output might be too little for N+1 people, but there's neither necessity or sense to try to uphold continuous population growth on Earth. Stabilizing our population is much more viable than even space mining, and I'd argue we need to do that anyways regardless of how sophisticated space technology we'll eventually develop.

Resources needed to guarantee luxurious lifestyle drop dramatically when amount of people drops too. I'm fairly sure we'd have the technology to guarantee First World living standards to everyone in an environmentally neutral manner with just Earth's resources if we first worked our population down to 1 billion or less.

Space research will likely help these goals immensely - for example, zero G experiments with hydrophonic and aerophonic farming might prove vital to increasing food production on earth. Much of space travel revolves around careful and economical management of resources, after all. But I argue these indirect benefits will have much greater impact than space mining will have. Actually shooting people to space will be a mere afterthought as far as population is concerned.You're probably right that it's more viable than just throwing the excess population growth into space. However it's far less pleasent, stabilising the population requires massive control of people by their governments. The only time it's been really tried to my knowledge is in China, where not only is there still significant population growth but it lead to alot of unpleasent stuff including widespread infanticide. I mean look at your figure of 1 billion that's needed for universal first world living standards, all we need is 1000 holocausts and we're there.

Space colonisation my not solve overpopulation but anything that delays the alternative is desirable.

[Frozen_Feet]

That's why it's important to limit amount of people. Even if the average person in future uses 5 times more resources than average person now, we're at plus-minus-zero if we have five times less people. Especially after we can start colonies on other planetoids, upholding an abritrary large population on Earth becomes redundant.

It also matters for those extra-terrestrial resources. If we only find enough Glowy Space Rocks for billion people, it's going to be much less of a problem if we have five hundred million people instead of five billion.



Space colonisation my not solve overpopulation but anything that delays the alternative is desirable.
229,000 people off the planet daily. There is no technology on this side of fantasy that even begins to approach those numbers. I stand by my claim: space travel will only have noticeable impact on population on Earth if these "alternatives " you speak of have already been globally implemented.

[Ravens_cry]

Yes, but for the population to actively decrease, not just stay around level, some people are going to have to be forced not have children.
How do we decide who?
What would be fair?
What would be right?
Would fair be right and right be fair?

[hamishspence]

Yes, but for the population to actively decrease, not just stay around level, some people are going to have to be forced not have children.

In the long term, "one child family" results in an exponential decrease in the population.

[Ravens_cry]

In the long term, "one child family" results in an exponential decrease in the population.
So it does, and has been shown to cause some very interesting demographic changes that may not be exactly healthy.
There is also the question of multiple births.

[hamishspence]

Multiple births are unlikely to happen enough to be problematic though. I could imagine people being a little upset about it happening to others but not them though.

[Frozen_Feet]

Yes, but for the population to actively decrease, not just stay around level, some people are going to have to be forced not have children.

Wrong. It'd only require that all couples get one child, tops. More children allowed only if firstborns die before having offspring of their own.

In fact, two children per couple would still be viable, since many couples would still opt to get just one, some people would opt to get none, and some would die before having offspring.

This would make population decline very slow, but just because we want less people doesn't mean we want that to happen cataclysmicaly fast.


How do we decide who?
What would be fair?
Everyone. That's by far simplest and fairest principle.



What would be right?
Would fair be right and right be fair?

Screw right, think necessary. The alternative to controlled population decline is uncontrolled population decline in form of wars, plagues and other disasters. Would you rather have World War 3 or state-mandated birth control laws?

[Ravens_cry]

I'd rather have neither and with enough resources it becomes a false dichotomy.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Under 1 billion seems... unlikely

And wouldn't nessecarily be in our interest I think. For that matter I'd question whether a population drop would result in higher standards of living. Economics is very very very rarely so nicely zero sum slice of pie oriented.

And really I don't see overpopulation in and of itself as major pressure for extra-solar exploration. We are not even remotely close to running out of sheer space for people to live in. It will come down to how effiecent we can get with certain basic materials. The stuff that never even comes up on the news, like do we have enough material to make rechargeable batteries or tap renewable energy forms. How well can we recycle them. Entropy enters into the equation somewhere, everything wears out and will have to be periodically replaced. Do we have enough of everything to sustain any believable population that uses technology. Then there's power generation, ultimately all our energy comes from the sun, why not tap it directly.

Any of these might form a valid reason to open space.

We've already seen private interest in developing spacecraft. For that matter in the near term at least research can be expected to continue because we need to use Earth orbit for satellites. As tech advances those would need at least periodic replacement to keep up, so there's already a certain impetus to improve our ability to reach space. And the cost of reaching it is the biggest barrier at present to developing it so once that is eliminated....

[Lamech]

229,000 people off the planet daily. There is no technology on this side of fantasy that even begins to approach those numbers. I stand by my claim: space travel will only have noticeable impact on population on Earth if these "alternatives " you speak of have already been globally implemented.You keep on saying that, but unless something radical happens (immortality) all projections point to the number of people sent off the planet to stabilize the population being negative. As in if we wanted to keep the population constant we would need to bring people down to earth. There will not be over population. Earths agricultural ability far exceeds what we actually need to survive. And of course, new technology will continue to increase it.

Secondly: faster than light travel. In fact, faster than light travel cheap enough to be worthwhile in hauling freight. That is airplane level cheap. If resources are being hauled back from Alpha Centuri in large scale numbers you are fully capable of bringing people to outer space in large numbers.

Third: faster than light travel. A lot of assumptions in physics are going to break. Hard. Time travel, for starters, is suddenly possible. Also since I can flit around without following standard physics I'm sure I can get energy somehow. (If my momentum is the same before and after, I can grab unlimited momentum from a black hole, if not conservation of momentum just broke, I have a reaction-less engine and so conservation of energy broke.)

[McStabbington]

With respect, the notion that population control has anything to do with space travel is, at best, Malthusian gibberish. For those of you who never heard of the guy, Malthus was an English economist (roughly a contemporary with Adam Smith) who famously argued that absent some form of population control, growing populations would lead to some form of economic collapse. His reasoning was straightforward enough: population increases by a cubic factor, whereas the area that can be farmed by definition increases by square, ergo population rises faster than farmable area.

What he didn't factor, however, was that productivity on a given unit of land, or in other words the amount of stuff that can be produced per acre, is not fixed. Which is precisely what the Industrial Revolution, as well as the Green Revolution that came shortly thereafter, did to throw off his calculations. Because of technological increases like crop hybridization, herbicides and pesticides, and switching from flood-irrigation to drip irrigation systems, our agricultural system right now, with all of its existing imperfections, could feed every person in the world more than the daily minimum caloric intake of 1800 calories. Let me repeat for emphasis: the entire global population could be fed more than 1800 calories per day without installing a single drip irrigation system in Uganda, or importing a single drop of fertilizer to Xinjiang province in China, or making a single technological advance that further increases agricultural productivity. The existence of food insecurity at present is entirely a problem of distribution, not productivity. And if we did import the technology used in the US and Europe to the rest of the world, we could feed billions more.

So overpopulation is not a problem that requires space travel to fix. Further, even supposing overpopulation were such a problem, space travel would be profoundly unsuitable as a solution, and not because of the lack of FTL. Rather, the major problem right now is one of engineering: our current method of putting stuff into orbit requires enormous expense and ridiculous consumption of fuel to put a pound of material in Earth's orbit. Were that cost to decrease via something like working space elevators or something akin to a Battletech-style dropship, we would see a massive increase in space-based activities. As is, putting a ton of goods on Mars is like sending 100 colonists to the New World . . . if the only way to cross the Atlantic is to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

[Soras Teva Gee]

If "overpopulation" is to be taken as a modern problem for humanity obviously it would not be the same problem in 2300 because there would have long since been the long predicted Malthusian catastrophe or the pressure have been eased in some manner. Therefore the number of people that would need to emigrate may well be much less. For that matter there's a false premise in that one doesn't need to eliminate population growth entirely to make a meaningful difference. The figure quoted has 83.6 million a year that's presumably globally, would say 8 million be a year be possible?

Furthermore its less important that people physically move to somehow relieve a resource burden then that the Earth's supply of resources increases. That's what population pressure would do. Always going to be easier to move basic material then people anyways. Heck in space this would be even more the case thanks to inertia.

And following past patterns people would not be going in mass to start colonies but to locations that would be existing and established for other economic reasons. Once you start talking established locations I think you would find people willing to move on the hope they would have better prospects.

[Mixt]

Humanity inventing FTL = possibility of encountering other worlds with life on them.

Encountering worlds with life on them = Humanity doing what it does best.

What humanity does best = Commit mass-genocide against all non-human life, destroy entire ecosystems in the name of the economy, because money is more important than the continued existence of entire species, and then call it morality.

So no, we are already doing a good enough job wrecking our own planet, let's not endanger the rest of the universe as well.

So the answer is: If FTL is invented, the next step is to destroy all traces of the technology and execute the people who invented it so they can't recreate it.

[Lamech]

And following past patterns people would not be going in mass to start colonies but to locations that would be existing and established for other economic reasons. Once you start talking established locations I think you would find people willing to move on the hope they would have better prospects.
Indeed, especially since all the plans I've ever heard for a moon base or a mars base involve automation setting up the base before anyone gets there. People won't be going to set up colonies. They will be going to work in off planet industries. Or retire someplace machines are already doing everything. Probably an automated one. A lot of people might move just to be next to all that open space and untapped resources.

[Ravens_cry]

@Mixt:
If our own solar system is in anyway an example, there will be plenty of lifeless planets, asteroids and comets to acquire resources from without destroying other ecosystems.

[Axolotl]

What humanity does best = Commit mass-genocide against all non-human life, destroy entire ecosystems in the name of the economy, because money is more important than the continued existence of entire species, and then call it morality.Nonsense, utter nonsense. Humanity is to my knowledge unique in that we actively preserve species that are of no use to us at all. We conciously try to stop ourselves from wiping out other species. Many organisms don't even try to preserve species they directly feed on, humans on the other hand sometimes dedicate their lives to preventing endangered species from becoming extinct. And they don't do it because they can benefit from it either, look at the Panda, a most worthless creature and yet we struggle to keep them alive simply because we like to have them around.

And before you say these people are rare, consider how many people have pets, useless pets even. We are unnaturally dedicated to preserving non-human life.

Yes we've wiped out species before but that's evolution, constant competition, that we even feel pangs of conscience at all for doing this is surprising, that we actively try not to do it is astounding. Wipeing out the different isn't a trait of humanity, it's a trait of all life, it's only more obvious in us becasue we're vastly more powerful than all other life.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Mixt: Let's spare the pessimism and opinionated moral judgements on humanity's conduct no?

There are an abundance of options with regard to extraterrestrial life in particular since we would be talking infinite amounts of space. Almost by definition if there is an abundance of easily habitable worlds then they would cover everything from microscopic life in the seas providing a decent atmosphere, to intelligent races just as capable and more advanced then ourselves. To say nothing of the much greater options that could be rendered habitable with terraforming.

Myself while I wouldn't exactly call for wholesale wiping out and transplanting of an ecology I see no problem ethically with taking worlds without their own intelligent life for ourselves and our own purposes. The point of conservation is ultimately related to how we are in a finite space we cannot replace thus should be careful in our changes to and consumption of. Once that limit is removed its raison d'etre evaporates.

And of course there's always becoming independent of already habitable planets entirely.

Also if FTL is possible someone will find it. One cannot suppress the advancement of technology so easily. Not in physics anyways.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Following some of the latest demographic studies shows that everything is not exactly doom and gloom...

The world's population will peak somewhere between 2040 and 2060, and begin a decline. This is being driven by several factors, one of which is the "Quality vs. Quantity" mindset people around the world are developing. When agriculture was more labor intensive, more children meant more workers. Now farms are operated with much smaller staff, and produce much more.

Also, people don't have as many children because they are no longer losing so many before the child's fifth birthday. Part of the boom was from people still wanting large families but no longer losing any children to measles, small pox, or any of the once fatal childhood diseases.

As with Japan, China may well see a population bust soon, driven by the Chinese "One Child per Family" policies. Much of Europe and North America will also begin a population decline. (There is more, but discussion violates the forum's no politics rule.)

With the world's population finding an equilibrium soon, the need to ship hundreds of thousands daily off planet will vanish, leaving only those who want to go, or those being sentenced to "transport" making up the bulk of explorers.

[Soralin]

I'd rather have neither and with enough resources it becomes a false dichotomy.
There aren't enough resources in the universe for that to be the case. No matter what you throw at it, exponential growth will always win in the long run.

Part of this from a previous post I made elsewhere:

Even with infinite resources, expansion cannot overcome a continuous growth rate, in the long term. With infinite resources, and being able to move anywhere at the speed of light, the volume of space that we could occupy would be limited to a sphere x light years in radius, growing geometrically with time. Meanwhile, our population grows at a rate of n^x, exponential with time, which for any constant n > 1, will eventually overcome the geometric term.

Say for example all you need for a human is 1m^3 of space, then if we had infinite energy, and could move at will at the speed of light, and live anywhere, even deep space, and maintained our current growth rate of 1.1%/year, then we would run out of space when:

volume of sphere x light years radius = total volume of humans after x years of growth
4/3*pi*(3*10^8 x)^3 = 7*10^9 * 1.011^x

I don't this this has a closed form solution in algebra, so just approximating it by plugging numbers in: After somewhere between 5750 and 5800 years at our current growth rate, even with infinite energy, and the ability to travel at the speed of light, and nothing needed other than space to put our own bodies, we'd run out of space. It would be a 5800 light year radius ball of solid humans. Nothing beats exponential growth in the long term.

And excepting ftl travel, that's as overoptimistic as things can possibly be. We'd have has to use up all of the mass of the Earth, or the Sun, or all of the matter in the volume of space available to us long before that, just to turn into more humans, to maintain that growth rate. And if we had the ability to make more mass (we're assuming infinite available energy after all), we'd collapse into a black hole from our own mass long before we reached the above point. And more realistic scenarios can only be more limited than that.

But say we do have ftl travel, but not infinite matter to make things out of, and that each human masses about 50kg. In that case, after about 9050 years of our current growth rate, in order to get enough mass to make more humans out of to maintain that growth rate, we will have had to disassemble everything. Yes, Everything. Well, everything in the visible universe at least(3.35×10^54 kg), every star, every planet, every cloud of gas, every black hole, every galaxy, everything, gone, disassembled to get raw matter to make humans out of. Nothing left but humans, floating in the dark.

Long term, the only solution is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth , or at least non-exponential growth, growth that isn't based on the current population size, any constant exponential growth rate will eventually overcome anything you can throw at it.

[Tebryn]

Well, we *don't* live everywhere it is possible to survive. If you pick a random piece of the planet Earth, you probably won't find humans.

Well, lets look at your examples real fast.


We don't have human communities dug miles underground

Perhaps not a ton of miles but there are functioning environments built in various locations around the world as underground safe havens from nuclear war. They still function to this day and await only people to go down there. In fact, many house a good number of homeless


under the ocean

Because we lack the technology to make this a viable habitat. Under the ocean as the other person implies is not somewhere we can live without the aid of technology.


We don't have floating cities

Same as above. We don't live in floating cities because we don't have floating cities due to technological constraints.


nomadic settlements in general

Yes we do. A good chunk of the population of Tibet, Mongolia, is still nomadic. The Sami of Norway. The Kyrgyz of Russia. The Beja of Africa. Probably the most famous would be the Bedouin of the Middle East and the Romani people who live around the world. Lets just cut to the chase and post the wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nomadic_people). One could even count the homeless around the world as nomads in a sense, having no home and traveling about their geographical constraints. I live in a major population center where there are plenty and when the weather is good they stand at the side of off ramps and thumb it to go somewhere else. We've a good deal of nomadic peoples in this world.


But you'll note that the poster said "that we can live." of which only two things on your list even qualify. We can't live under the ocean and we can't live in the sky without technology. Technology we do not have.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Even with infinite resources, expansion cannot overcome a continuous growth rate, in the long term. With infinite resources, and being able to move anywhere at the speed of light, the volume of space that we could occupy would be limited to a sphere x light years in radius, growing geometrically with time. Meanwhile, our population grows at a rate of n^x, exponential with time, which for any constant n > 1, will eventually overcome the geometric term.

Title: So you developed faster than light travel

You seem to be missing the point here.

Also your assumption of uniform positive population growth is similarly dubious. We've already demonstrated on Earth that this is not the case. Growth on any particular world would depend on its own conditions and likely not even uniform there. We already have areas below replacement levels of reproduction. Its these sort of shoddy work in assumptions that show why Malthus fears are 200 years old and have yet to materialize.

[Frozen_Feet]

Let's look at some place we have technology to live in, but mostly don't: Antarctic.

Yes, there are people there, but as far as I know no-one lives there permanently. Those few who are there are scientists and researchers who rotate in and out on common basis. Why? Well, why life there is possible with supplies from the outside world, it's also pretty bleak. You have to stay in isolated inside small confined spaces for weeks or months to an end to avoid hostile environmental conditions. Contact to outside world is sporadic at best. Even a short trip outside can be fatal without proper and specialized clothing.

Suffice to say, it's a tiny tiny minority who bother with that.

That's the kind of life you could expect to lead on... every other planet than Earth in our solar system. There's a reason why they're testing equipment for Mars missions at Antarctic, after all.

EDIT: Uh, Malthus fears have materialized, several times during human and animal history, locally if not globally. There's a reason why a lot of ancient cultures didn't survive to this day.

Yes, we've found ways to increase our gain for the same area. But at the same time, some of that increase comes from technologies that are not feasible in the long run. A lot of modern agriculture and product distribution relies on oil, which is such a slowly renewing resource it'll soon be too scarce to provide more help. We might utilize other resources and continue to increase in production, but taking that as given is pretty optimistic. Especially since our logistics are already out of whack so that out of 7 billion people 1 billion suffer from famine, despite world producing food for 15 billion.

[Selrahc]

But you'll note that the poster said "that we can live." of which only two things on your list even qualify. We can't live under the ocean and we can't live in the sky without technology. Technology we do not have.

I think the main point, which I somewhat overshadowed with the examples, is that we don't live everywhere. The vast majority of habitable spaces on earth are not inhabited. Because people don't just do things for a "Because we can" reason. They have some sort of logic to their actions. Why is a city in one stretch of habitable ground rather than another? Why do people live in conditions that are barely inhabitable? For a series of complicated reasons that made sense to them. Not "just because it's there". "Just because" is a cop out answer. It isn't a reason. It's an evasion of a search for a reason.

The examples are places that we could place large scale communities, but we don't because it would be incredibly resource intensive and there isn't much point or demand for it. We could probably create a floating island city, or an underground mine city, or a steampunk style flying city... But we don't. Because people need to have a reason to do things. A better reason than just imagining it.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Let's look at some place we have technology to live in, but mostly don't: Antarctic.

Well given the Antarctic is restricted by international treaty from commercial exploitation what precisely is your point as relevant to space travel.

Humans statistically speaking live in fairly restricted territory. Sufficiently warm with a source of liquid water. However that there are climates we prefer does not ultimately prevent some of us from going after resources we desire. Alaska would be a counterpoint and other talk of exploiting the Arctic ocean that we can't talk about here.


Uh, Malthus fears have materialized, several times during human and animal history, locally if not globally. There's a reason why a lot of ancient cultures didn't survive to this day.

Unless you have a particular large number of examples in mind I'd be willing to dispute this. I'd hazard you would find far more external causes. Not "we've too many people to feed" going on. Disease. Coming into conflict with another culture. And the one you might be thinking of, various climate changes beyond their ability to compensate like an extend drought... is one of the better reasons why expansion into to space is an absolute necessity.

No not any green aesop, but a planetary scale disaster like a Cretaceous Event which would push out abilty to compensate for to the absolute maximum. It could happen tomorrow for all we know. There are other possiblities, it would be bad for everyone but particularly the States should Yellowstone erupt.

[Soralin]

Title: So you developed faster than light travel

You seem to be missing the point here.

Also your assumption of uniform positive population growth is similarly dubious. We've already demonstrated on Earth that this is not the case. Growth on any particular world would depend on its own conditions and likely not even uniform there. We already have areas below replacement levels of reproduction. Its these sort of shoddy work in assumptions that show why Malthus fears are 200 years old and have yet to materialize.
Well yeah, part of it was taken from another post, and I was assuming uniform population growth for the sake of seeing what would happen, not saying that we will definitely have uniform population growth for that long. And I did have a section later on assuming ftl, that would require us to consume the entire visible universe in 9000 years in order to maintain our current population growth.

I was assuming it to show what would happen if that was the case, to show that it becomes very clear that you can't overcome a steady exponential growth rate through expansion or technology. That even assuming the most absurdly optimistic scenarios, you become limited by the physics of the universe, and in a remarkably short span of time, as far as the life of a species goes.

I'm not saying things are headed toward disaster, first world conditions and widely available birth control have already reduced population growth in many developed countries to around replacement rate, as you say. I'm just saying that controlling population growth (even if just by self-control by the above factors), is the only way to deal with it in the long run. The math above is to show that expansion or innovation can't be viable solutions in the long run, unless you can figure out how to make new universes or something.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'm not saying things are headed toward disaster, first world conditions and widely available birth control have already reduced population growth in many developed countries to around replacement rate, as you say. I'm just saying that controlling population growth (even if just by self-control by the above factors), is the only way to deal with it in the long run. The math above is to show that expansion or innovation can't be viable solutions in the long run, unless you can figure out how to make new universes or something.

Which begs whether human population growth can really be modeled by any exponential model with any real resemblance is just a statistical phantom of temporary changes in conditions.

[Zale]

"Imagine you are an ant trying to cross this apron lengthwise. As you can see, its quite a distance for an ant to travel. But if I fold the edges of the apron together, the ant has to take only a single step to cross over from one side to the other. That is how our space travel works. We "fold" space and step across, covering vast distances, without worrying about time dilation."


I think that's a Wrinkle In Time. Interesting book.



The scientific possibilities are nigh endless. Instead of just thinking theoretically about what a black hole accretion disc looks like, we could actually visit one, or at least send a probe. Hells, assuming that a strong gravity well doesn't prevent FTL we could actually send a probe INSIDE the event horizon of a black hole and come out again.



Imagine, just for a moment, that you are aboard a spaceship equipped with a magical engine capable of accelerating you to any arbitrarily high velocity. This is absolutely and utterly impossible, but it turns out it'll be okay, for reasons you'll see in a second.

Because you know your engine can push you faster than the speed of light, you have no fear of black holes. In the interest of scientific curiosity, you allow yourself to fall through the event horizon of one. And not just any black hole, but rather a carefully chosen one, one sufficiently massive that its event horizon lies quite far from its center. This is so you'll have plenty of time between crossing the event horizon and approaching the region of insane gravitational gradient near the center to make your observations and escape again.

As you fall toward the black hole, you notice some things which strike you as highly unusual, but because you know your general relativity they do not shock or frighten you. First, the stars behind you — that is, in the direction that points away from the black hole — grow much brighter. The light from those stars, falling in toward the black hole, is being blue-shifted by the gravitation; light that was formerly too dim to see, in the deep infrared, is boosted to the point of visibility.

Simultaneously, the black patch of sky that is the event horizon seems to grow strangely. You know from basic geometry that, at this distance, the black hole should subtend about a half a degree of your view — it should, in other words, be about the same size as the full moon as seen from the surface of the Earth. Except it isn't. In fact, it fills half your view. Half of the sky, from notional horizon to notional horizon, is pure, empty blackness. And all the other stars, nearly the whole sky full of stars, are crowded into the hemisphere that lies behind you.

As you continue to fall, the event horizon opens up beneath you, so you feel as if you're descending into a featureless black bowl. Meanwhile, the stars become more and more crowded into a circular region of sky centered on the point immediately aft. The event horizon does not obscure the stars; you can watch a star just at the edge of the event horizon for as long as you like and you'll never see it slip behind the black hole. Rather, the field of view through which you see the rest of the universe gets smaller and smaller, as if you're experiencing tunnel-vision.

Finally, just before you're about to cross the event horizon, you see the entire rest of the observable universe contract to a single, brilliant point immediately behind you. If you train your telescope on that point, you'll see not only the light from all the stars and galaxies, but also a curious dim red glow. This is the cosmic microwave background, boosted to visibility by the intense gravitation of the black hole.

And then the point goes out. All at once, as if God turned off the switch.

You have crossed the event horizon of the black hole.

Focusing on the task at hand, knowing that you have limited time before you must fire up your magical spaceship engine and escape the black hole, you turn to your observations. Except you don't see anything. No light is falling on any of your telescopes. The view out your windows is blacker than mere black; you are looking at non-existence. There is nothing to see, nothing to observe.

You know that somewhere ahead of you lies the singularity … or at least, whatever the universe deems fit to exist at the point where our mathematics fails. But you have no way of observing it. Your mission is a failure.

Disappointed, you decide to end your adventure. You attempt to turn your ship around, such that your magical engine is pointing toward the singularity and so you can thrust yourself away at whatever arbitrarily high velocity is necessary to escape the black hole's hellish gravitation. But you are thwarted.

Your spaceship has sensitive instruments that are designed to detect the gradient of gravitation, so you can orient yourself. These instruments should point straight toward the singularity, allowing you to point your ship in the right direction to escape. Except the instruments are going haywire. They seem to indicate that the singularity lies all around you. In every direction, the gradient of gravitation increases. If you are to believe your instruments, you are at the point of lowest gravitation inside the event horizon, and every direction points "downhill" toward the center of the black hole. So any direction you thrust your spaceship will push you closer to the singularity and your death.

This is clearly nonsense. You cannot believe what your instruments are telling you. It must be a malfunction.

But it isn't. It's the absolute, literal truth. Inside the event horizon of a black hole, there is no way out. There are no directions of space that point away from the singularity. Due to the Lovecraftian curvature of spacetime within the event horizon, all the trajectories that would carry you away from the black hole now point into the past.

In fact, this is the definition of the event horizon. It's the boundary separating points in space where there are trajectories that point away from the black hole from points in space where there are none.

Your magical infinitely-accelerating engine is of no use to you … because you cannot find a direction in which to point it. The singularity is all around you, in every direction you look.

And it is getting closer.

Link. (http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/f1lgu/what_would_happen_if_the_event_horizons_of_two/c1cuiyw)

I honestly just wanted to post that because it's awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[Tebryn]

I think the main point, which I somewhat overshadowed with the examples, is that we don't live everywhere. The vast majority of habitable spaces on earth are not inhabited.

Like where? Underground, the sky and under the oceans are not habitable for human life.



Because people don't just do things for a "Because we can" reason.

Sure they do. Populations may not often but people certainly do.


They have some sort of logic to their actions. Why is a city in one stretch of habitable ground rather than another?

Because that's where they put it? I mean...unless you mean "Why is this one city near the river when there's just as good land with no river ten miles off?" Well...sure that's a perfectly viable point on we sometimes do things for a reason. But if there isn't a better argument for the other side than "City X is here and not over there on the perfectly similar land."....ya.


Why do people live in conditions that are barely inhabitable?


Good question, why do they when supposedly there are vast tracks of land that is better for them?


For a series of complicated reasons that made sense to them. Not "just because it's there". "Just because" is a cop out answer. It isn't a reason. It's an evasion of a search for a reason.

Yet sometimes that's the answer. Sometimes there isn't a deeper answer to the question.

[qoute]The examples are places that we could place large scale communities, but we don't because it would be incredibly resource intensive and there isn't much point or demand for it. We could probably create a floating island city, or an underground mine city, or a steampunk style flying city... But we don't. Because people need to have a reason to do things. A better reason than just imagining it.[/QUOTE]

"We could probably" isn't "We can but we don't." We lack the technology to make sky cities or cities underwater safe. It's not just about the resources it would take. It's the safety of human life and the lack of technology. There -are- houses built underwater at this moment as a matter of fact. And why? Because the person wanted their house underwater. We have houses underground...for the same reason. Of your examples only two of them were "We lack the technology." the rest are already done. Heck, your "we don't have nomads in large numbers" is instantly shown to be wrong by my previous points but I'll make a quick bullet point. Between the homeless, major populations in Tibet and Mongolia and the Middle East along with the Romani there are in fact massive and long lasting nomadic cultures in this day and age.

And why exactly are they still nomadic? In otherwise fairly unpleasant places to be just wandering around? Because that is their culture. That's a "Because" answer.

[Selrahc]

Like where? Underground, the sky and under the oceans are not habitable for human life.

Like for example, if I drove away from my house for an hour I could be many miles away from any human habitation, despite conditions being perfectly fine or in fact better than most inhabited places. If you picked a random point of land in the world, the odds of it being inhabited are low.

Because although it is there, we need a better reason to inhabit it.



Because the person wanted their house underwater. We have houses underground...for the same reason.

But we're talking about mass population movements, not occasional examples.

[CGforever!]

I think the main reasons we would travel are the usual:

1. Pressure
2. Planning
3. ???
4. Profit

"Pressure" is things like overpopulation or lack of resources. If some of us don't leave, we all die. As people have said, earth is basically finite. It gains mass from comets and what not, but that process is pretty slow. Eventually, it's going to "run dry".

"Planning" is the fact that a local disaster could kill us all. We need to spread humans out across space to ensure continued survival. Everybody knows that the earth is fragile, but I'm willing to bet there are things that can wipe out whole solar systems or even larger areas of space.

Profit is self-explanatory. There is something valuable out there, and people go to get it.

[Gamer Girl]

Let's look at some place we have technology to live in, but mostly don't: Antarctic.

Yes, there are people there, but as far as I know no-one lives there permanently.

This is mostly as people are not allowed too. If it was possible to get a group of people together, build a biodome, and isolate your group from all Earth laws, traditions, religions and such(except the ones you wanted) then millions would jump at the chance.

Again Exactly like Earth right up until the start of the 20th century. A person or group could head out into the Wilderness and do absolutely whatever they wanted. No laws, not taxes, no contact with others.....you could do whatever you wanted and no one could say or do anything about it(not that anyone cared anyway).

So if you did not like the law where you were, you could simply move to a place that had no laws. You can't hardly do this at all in the modern world.

This would be a huge draw for space. Lots of people would love to get away...

[Frozen_Feet]

A tiny minority would have ability to pull it off or cope with, however, considering the conditions there.

Biodomes, as of now, do not work. They tried, it didn't. Getting one built in the hostile environment of Antarctic would be a feat to itself.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Biodomes, as of now, do not work. They tried, it didn't. Getting one built in the hostile environment of Antarctic would be a feat to itself.

Sure they work, they just are called nuclear submarines.

[Frozen_Feet]

They do not meet qualifications for biodomes, since they are reliant on food being brought in from elsewhere.

You might have a point in that a small-scale nuclear reactor might allow a self-sufficient community in the Antarctic, but that's not something a bunch of "free souls" could do, as the requisite technology is restricted to powerful national bodies.

[Ravens_cry]

Biodomes, as of now, do not work. They tried, it didn't. Getting one built in the hostile environment of Antarctic would be a feat to itself.
Actually, they work just work just fine, on a big enough scale anyway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth). :smallamused:
On a smaller scale, Bios-3, a similar experiment done in the former Soviet Union actually worked surprisingly well. With further refinements, I think it could work even better.
Atomic Rockets (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/lifesupport.php#id--Closed_Ecological_Systems) has some information on the subject and discusses different approaches and the logistics thereof.

[Lamech]

They do not meet qualifications for biodomes, since they are reliant on food being brought in from elsewhere.

You might have a point in that a small-scale nuclear reactor might allow a self-sufficient community in the Antarctic, but that's not something a bunch of "free souls" could do, as the requisite technology is restricted to powerful national bodies.Antarctica is also restricted to powerful national bodies as well, so I kind of fail to see the point.

[Soras Teva Gee]

They do not meet qualifications for biodomes, since they are reliant on food being brought in from elsewhere.

You might have a point in that a small-scale nuclear reactor might allow a self-sufficient community in the Antarctic, but that's not something a bunch of "free souls" could do, as the requisite technology is restricted to powerful national bodies.

And a colony won't start self sufficient anyways. Food is fairly low mass mass/volume and cheap requirement.

Also I'm not sure Biosphere 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2) actually fits a definition of not-working given that it seems to have completed a 2 year mission including agricultural production. There were I understand a number of problems encountered but pretty good all around. There's nothing fundamentally nonviable about the idea of a functional enclosed habitat.

This I think it the basic problem you have is you are looking for a Perfect Solution rather then a series of steps. We don't need to plop down a self sufficient colony on another world immediately, anything extrasolar would have come long after we worked the kinks out of long term habitation in space in our own solar system.

[Frozen_Feet]

Antarctica is also restricted to powerful national bodies as well, so I kind of fail to see the point.

It's commentary on Gamer Girl's post. Even if more people would be allowed in Antarctica, living there would not be something a group of utopists would be able to accomplish with current technology, leaving most of it uninhabited.

It's part of the discussion how people apparently go and live wherever "just because", an idea me and Selrach oppose. We don't, because it sucks in a lot of places, plain and simple. Better reasons than that are needed.

Most of the people Gamer Girl describes would just not be cut for life in either Antarctic or space, because the hostile nature of those environments makes them exact opposite of "do whatever you want".

[Soras Teva Gee]

It's commentary on Gamer Girl's post. Even if more people would be allowed in Antarctica, living there would not be something a group of utopists would be able to accomplish with current technology, leaving most of it uninhabited.

Let us say it is allowed and someone goes "we found oil/gold/etc" and see what happens though.

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm fairly certain natural resources of the place are already reasonably well mapped, and nations and global companies have their dibs called already in case it ever opens up. So I consider the chance of those "free souls" getting there first next to nill.

Even then, there are other hostile yet resource rich places on Earth that are already utilized. Most people who live in such places do it out of necessity or because it pays, and hardly ever on permanent basis. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say many of them do it to lead happy lives anywhere else but there.

In any case, the nature of the environment and their jobs makes them anything but free to do whatever they wish.

[Tvtyrant]

Are we assuming some of these planets are self-sustaining, or are they like Antarctica and need materials from the mainland to survive? If the former, then I can think of dozens of reasons. Some of them:

1. Second or third response military bases. It is one thing to nuke the USA or Russia and hope you hit most of the missiles on the ground, another to have to hit several planets with the same goal. If one state does it, the rest will automatically.

2. Some groups will want to be isolated. How many racists would love to have a planet with just their racial group on it (or religious groups the same)?

3. Utopianists with goals of erecting a utopia, now that they have a clean slate to work with.

4. Survivalists who hate civilization and want to be isolated from it would flock in droves to planets where the best territory does not already have a condo on it.

etc.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I'm fairly certain natural resources of the place are already reasonably well mapped, and nations and global companies have their dibs called already in case it ever opens up. So I consider the chance of those "free souls" getting there first next to nill.

Even then, there are other hostile yet resource rich places on Earth that are already utilized. Most people who live in such places do it out of necessity or because it pays, and hardly ever on permanent basis. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say many of them do it to lead happy lives anywhere else but there.

In any case, the nature of the environment and their jobs makes them anything but free to do whatever they wish.

You are missing the point. I was not talking about any sort of free spirit colonists looking for isolation. They'd go for something like an already habitable planet. Someplace say on the edge of reach for their ship but with a stable atmosphere and moderate zones.

I'm talking about all the options that can drive colonization.

I'm challenging that you seem to think we are 'unable' to live in Antarctica and that its so difficult it will never happen. And that therefore we will never live in space.

When we already do maintain a presence there full time. Obviously people come and go there that has to do with the nature of the work and that they have the luxury to do to quick travel, but it doesn't change that humans have occupied the continent continuously for decades now. In the past ages we did see people willing to commit for extended periods. If someone is willing to put up the capital required its never been impossible to get volunteers to work a venture.

And resources have always been a draw for someone to get daring and go after them.

[Frozen_Feet]

But I'm not talking about or arguing against all possible reasons for colonization. Neither am I arguing that we're unable to live on Antarctic - rather, it's been part of my premise from the start that we can.

My argument is that we don't, and it's unlikely there will ever be a sizeable permanent population there, because life there is damn inconvenient and does not fulfill the romanticized notions of "freedom" some people go on about in this thread. Lots and lots of space on Earth is free of humans because even the "free spirits" don't actually want to deal with living there, and whatever resources are there are not attractive enough for commerce to give a damn.

Same will continue with Antarctic and space, only more so, because neither are Wild West like some people seem to think. Even with a growing population, demand at any given point is only so much, and even if some nasty place has shiny desireable thing of the day, few will bother if shiny desireable thing can be found easier elsewhere. As physical and mental barriers of entry grow, those few shrink to none, and with space travel, they are way up the from the start.

[Kindablue]

The question is: Why would we?

This is the most interesting take on that question I've ever run into: On a Blade of Grass (http://escapepod.org/2011/01/20/ep276-on-a-blade-of-grass/) by Tim Pratt.

[Ravens_cry]

I disagree with the character about exploring being a bug. If you just stay in the cosy valley, and that's assuming it IS cosy, life's a zero sum game. But if you leave it, there's a chance you can get without incurring the wrath of someone who already has got, who already have the advantage because they has got.
Sure, it's a gamble, you might come out of it with nothing or less than nothing, but if you win . . .

[GenericGuy]

Even with FTL speeds, which probably still won’t be that much of a help since space is insanely huge, the chances of finding a world of similar enough gravity, atmosphere, climate, and host of other characteristics to be suitable for human life, isn’t all that high.

I think it’s far more likely that mankind will live in space on ships and stations that can be constructed to human specifications, rather than recreating an age of sail/colonization that most sci-fi fans hope for. I also think it’s far more likely that mankind is going to upload itself into a giant computer, and everyone is going to be living out their wildest fantasies…then the darkest perversions an augmented human mind can conceive of :smalleek:.

No stellar empires, no rebellious colonies, and especially no Galactic Space UN with bumpy forehead aliens. I think most intelligent life inevitably “cocoons” itself within its solar system with dyson-sphere like constructs, just plays demigod with its self and ignores the rest of the universe as “not worth the effort.:smallsigh:”

[Coidzor]

Uh-huh. Because you and everyone else just hates having a physical body and wants to run away from the real world.

[Kindablue]

^^ Pratt also wrote a Valentine's Day poem called Scientific Romance that ended with the stanza:
If the Singularity comes
and we upload our minds into a vast
computer simulation of near-infinite
complexity and perfect resolution,
and become capable of experiencing any
fantasy, exploring worlds bound only
by our enhanced imaginations,
I’d still spend at least 1021 processing
cycles a month just sitting
on a virtual couch with you,
watching virtual TV,
eating virtual fajitas,
holding virtual hands,
and wishing
for the real thing.


I disagree with the character about exploring being a bug. If you just stay in the cosy valley, and that's assuming it IS cosy, life's a zero sum game. But if you leave it, there's a chance you can get without incurring the wrath of someone who already has got, who already have the advantage because they has got.
Sure, it's a gamble, you might come out of it with nothing or less than nothing, but if you win . . .

It's the romanticization of exploration--the boldly going--, not the practical rational of it, that he's arguing against. Assuming everyone has got, nobody has any more reason to leave the valley than that ant has to climb up that blade of grass. Yes, we believe that it's better on the other side of the hill--that's what the ant was thinking. I don't really agree with him either, but it's thought provoking.

[GenericGuy]

Uh-huh. Because you and everyone else just hates having a physical body and wants to run away from the real world.

Hate is a strong word, I just know that my body and surroundings isn't ideal, I can imagine better. And once the technology can do it I, and probably billions of others, will take that opportunity to have better. I think the human imagination is far more appealing and hospitable for humanity than anything the vast emptiness of space can offer. I just think it’s unlikely that majority of humanity will find fulfillment spending a generation aimlessly traveling a whole lot of nothing to look at pound-scum, rather than giving their brains a few good jolts and they’re reenacting the Battle of the Bulge with the Greeko-Roman pantheon and a talking dog:smalltongue:.

[Kindablue]

I think the blue text is meant to be synesthetic sarcasm.

[Ravens_cry]

It's the romanticization of exploration--the boldly going--, not the practical rational of it, that he's arguing against. Assuming everyone has got, nobody has any more reason to leave the valley than that ant has to climb up that blade of grass. Yes, we believe that it's better on the other side of the hill--that's what the ant was thinking. I don't really agree with him either, but it's thought provoking.
Ah, but what if you want to got more? Even if everyone has got, wanting more has always been a motivator.
Still, I agree it's thought provoking.

[Tvtyrant]

I'm just going to assume my comments are idiotic, since no one responds to them. :C

[GenericGuy]

I think the blue text is meant to be synesthetic sarcasm.

I know it was sarcasm, thats why I tried to adress his implied criticisms, though when blue became the official color of sarcasm I don't rightly know?

I just don't believe the universe is as romantic as we hope, and that there is nothing “out there” that can answer our philosophical questions (especially since so much about space travel and advocates seems to be a desperate attempt to recreate a past).

[Soras Teva Gee]

My argument is that we don't, and it's unlikely there will ever be a sizeable permanent population there

Given that our 7 billion occupy a minority of the space already there's not enough demand in the majority of the world's environs for people to go there. How you are wrong about a permanent population, we've continually staffed the South Pole since 1956 for example. That's a permanent population. Sure it has a high turnover rate, but that's a luxury of modern technology allowing it.

However you don't need any major proportion of the population to move to begin colonizing a world. You just need the ability to do so and a reason to do so. One of which will always be curiosity, to see how someplace works and to see if there are useful applications for what's there. The drive to acquire new resources is a pretty basic force in business, if there's something valuable someone will try to tap it.

Where things go from there will depend greatly on what's being discussed and where. Any successful venture will beg for expansion, which would mean more staff, which increases the persons that support that staff. One can easily see the Moon developing this way once begun, since it would be the logical base of space based industry. Other places in the solar system might call for different solutions, less population directly but nearby astronomically speaking controlling say a mostly robotic mining operation. Incidentially these would probably be more comfortable then Antartica could ever be given that they won't be windy and cold.

Now at the truly extra-solar levels well once you start talking habitable planets, there is where you get more idea driven small groups. Can a hundred people or so scrape up enough to hire a ship to take them to an ready-to-go world with all they will need to start agriculture. Probably in some number. If that colony succeeds... then its a colony.

Also while I don't think this thread has discussed it, there are political forces that could provide a major boost to space colonization. Why did we go for the Moon... because America wanted to. Sure there were scientific and technological dividends paid, but once Apollo 11 landed the interest waned and nobody went back. After a certain lag time. However this is a political reason, which aren't nessecarily subject to a lot of cold reason. Consider that the general public becomes concerned enough with say the danger of giant impacts, obtaining energy more directly, or even the notion that we could exit the planet in an environmentalist spirit. Even if these reason don't make a lot of sense they can still be a powerful force.

I'll be the first to say these aren't by any means really issues of the now but the future is a long time. Let's say we have a Tunguska Event in a populated area and a moderate city is wiped off the map. There would be a completely plausible event that could stirr populations and politicians to look up and realize we can only do something about Tunguska... if we go up.

[Coidzor]

I know it was sarcasm, thats why I tried to adress his implied criticisms, though when blue became the official color of sarcasm I don't rightly know?

I just don't believe the universe is as romantic as we hope, and that there is nothing “out there” that can answer our philosophical questions (especially since so much about space travel and advocates seems to be a desperate attempt to recreate a past).

It's the attitude that people who espouse that as the best option take that just irks me.

Or the misanthropic misandrists who think it'll start with all the men first because men are nothing more than lust-filled animals.

[Rob Roy]

The question is: Why would we?

Because there's always going to be people fleeing from religious persecution, a particularly bad war, oppressive governments, poverty, hunger, and the consequences of bad their own bad choices. Plus, for many space would represent the chance to try out political ideas that were never popular back home. Once you've escaped Earth's gravity well, the sky's the limit.

EDIT
5 to 10 billion people in the entire galaxy!?. As of right now, on Earth, there are about as many people as there were in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. As more countries develop I'd expect that number to rise, even with the population of already developed countries levels off. I'd say, about 10 billion on Earth alone, with maybe a billion out in space once colonization starts to pick up.

[McStabbington]

*snip*

While I appreciate your spirit, the that view is not entirely a . . . let's call it realistic assessment of exploration. Curiosity is something that causes you to divert an afternoon, a semester class, a weekend. It's not something you devote trillions of dollars just to see if it can be done.

Moreover, curiosity had little or nothing to do with most of our past exploration efforts. Columbus, for instance, did not go across the Atlantic because it would be cool to do so. He did it because trade routes to the East Orient were the main drivers of wealth in his time, and the two existing routes (overland, and around the Horn of Africa) were already staked out by various Muslim or Mongol empires depending on the route and the Portuguese. He was just taking a third option, and lucky for him he inadvertently tripped over the Americas where he thought China should be. Similarly, the Gemini and Apollo Programs were started because Russia was winning control of the high ground of space: Sputnik may mean something like friendship, but it was built out of an emptied ICBM cannister.

No, if you want exploration, you have to give people a sense that its in their rational self-interest to do it. Which at present would mean radically increasing stellar speeds and radically decreasing surface-to-orbit costs. While we could do with a bit more adventurousness, that's just not something most people include in their cost-benefit calculations.

[dehro]

people don't always migrate under the best circumstances and/or make informed decisions.
plenty of people in albania think italy is some sort of "land of the rich" because they watch italian television and think we're all living in pretty houses and leading a generally better life than they do at home.. same goes for north african countries who keep flooding the shores of italy with refugees.
people get indebted for generations towards organized crime and assorted criminals..to get away from where they are..be it famine, persecution or anything else. they don't know what they're getting themselves in for..all they hope is that it's better than what they're leaving behind. those that actually take the time to collect some information, are usually those that have the means or spirit of initiative to stay put and not migrate at all.

my point here is that it's not always a good decision to migrate..it's not always the best option..but it still happens. every day people sell their children, their belongings, their future income, in exchange for a square foot on an old raft bound for europe...
their future, should they survive the trip, is only marginally better than what they leave behind.. and they have no way of knowing this, but still choose to take the risk. with the same ammount of money they invest in migrating, they might just start something lifechanging at home..yet still they take the risk.
we should not assume that everybody who decides to migrate makes this decision with all the facts in hand.
the simple fact that it is possible means that at least a few individuals will want to do it..for whatever reason.
sometimes it's not even their own free will... Australia, anyone?

[Selrahc]

people don't always migrate under the best circumstances and/or make informed decisions.

But they do have some sort of rationale.


On the "Because it's there" argument.
All places that are colonized by humans have to exist.
But all places that exist have to have factors elevating them above that. There are a lot more places that exist than could be viably settled.
So the argument "Because it's there" fails to be a useful rationale.
All places that are settled exist. This does not mean that all places that exist are settled.

[dehro]

true, but most likely, at some point, someone has at the very least passed through, if nothing else, to see if there was anything worth grabbing.

what are we talking about really... when we talk about colonisation of outer space? planets in some way similar to earth? places that have one or more resource that is of interest to somebody? places that are, with a degree of sacrifice, inhabitable, albeit under extreme circumstances? at least a possibility for any of the above? or are we just saying "yeah, we have now the technology to get you to the Sun and drop you on it"?

if there is something out there worth grabbing (and it's economically viable to do so, with the available technology), some place out there worth living on, or simply a place with a potential, and we have the means to reach it, sooner or later, somebody is bound to go and check it out..and maybe, depending on all kind of factors, hang around. if not, this whole discussion is pointless.

[Yora]

I think the primary question is "what is worth grabbing?". The next step then is "what is the most convenient way to exploit it?".

And those cases where colonization is the most practical answer are the ones worth to think about in greater depth. Otherwise the only reason for the existance of the colony is "a colony sounds fun", which makes a poor basis for informed speculations about the structure and populations of colonies.

The crazy trillionaire who funds a colony because he thinks its funny would work, but with the distances, times, and amounts of resources required, it just doesn't seem like a plausible basis for speculation.

[dehro]

that's the other thing that bugs me

"the ammount of resources required".. not just your words, I've encountered the concept or similar concepts all over this thread.

I'm not very well read scientifically speaking, so pardon me if I make a boobie... we're talking about faster than light travel, right?
as I understand it, with current technology it's impossible to do. as I understand it, even maxing out the "power imput" on the current technology it's impossible to do..in other words, bigger doesn't mean better. it's not a question of "we can push this car down the hill at this speed.. if we tinker a bit we can increase that speed..if we tinker a lot we won't need to push it at all and it will get down the hill before it ever left the top"
this seems to me to be more a case of "we can only tinker that much and add that much firepower/motion power before the car disintegrates or we hit the maximum velocity we can manage to reach.... maybe we should start thinking about other ways to move this car..maybe rolling it isn't the fastest option..maybe we should take the weels off..maybe we shouldn't be trying this with a car at all"
and maybe, just maybe... when we'll find the way to give the laws of physics the finger, it may just be that we'll discover that doing so doesn't actually require "more power, more resources, bigger engines, more fuel, a bigger runway"

what I'm getting at is that I don't know that we can rationally debate the limits of FTL space travel if we don't know how it works because it's not been done before. for all we know, it might turn out to be easier to move the entire planet about and use it as a gigantic ferry than to move a small aircraft with half a dozen people. or maybe moving an aircraft carrier and a venetian gondola at FTL speed requires a sling of the exact same size, with the same resources employed.

[Lamech]

No, if you want exploration, you have to give people a sense that its in their rational self-interest to do it. Which at present would mean radically increasing stellar speeds and radically decreasing surface-to-orbit costs. While we could do with a bit more adventurousness, that's just not something most people include in their cost-benefit calculations.
Yes that is the premise of the thread. We develop faster than light travel, and its cost level is shipping commercial freight level of cost. In other words what dehro said.

[Soras Teva Gee]

While I appreciate your spirit, the that view is not entirely a . . . let's call it realistic assessment of exploration. Curiosity is something that causes you to divert an afternoon, a semester class, a weekend. It's not something you devote trillions of dollars just to see if it can be done.

By curiosity I'm including say scientific research which gets people to say winter over in Antartica among other ostensibly foolish or not terribly profitable things. And its something which if not exactly on the trillions can command some amount of funding. So it becomes a question of what levels of cost are being talked which will be dependent on the tech level.


Moreover, curiosity had little or nothing to do with most of our past exploration efforts. Columbus, for instance, did not go across the Atlantic because it would be cool to do so.

I considered bringing this up and didn't. Columbus did it for a business venture, which didn't quite work out but proved the validity of sailing West that led to many other things though it was arguably a failure. And was done fairly cheap.

I think a space equivalent to Columbus would not be say traveling to another planet, but a variety of lunar experiments using robots to do the work people would. Which doesn't need much that is fundamentally new. We've been to the Moon, we have the capability to create robots up to a variety of tasks, its only a light-second away so fairly real time control is possible. We have the pieces in place we just need someone to do it.


Similarly, the Gemini and Apollo Programs were started because Russia was winning control of the high ground of space: Sputnik may mean something like friendship, but it was built out of an emptied ICBM cannister.

Sure that's what started the Space Race... but once you've established you can orbit the Earth you have everything you need for ICBM war on Earth. Going to the Moon is a much loftier and demanding goal. With about as much real Cold War military significance as beating the Soviets in a hockey game.

It was about pride, a powerful but not particularly reasonable motivation. Future turns of politics might make space such a point of pride again. And there are other potential motivations out there, fear from Tunguska occuring again is one I see as particularly plausible. Another might be the weaponizing of space, if we move out of the Pax Americana into conflicts between major powers you can bet there will be a space front as currently satellites have minimal defenses but are integral to a modern military.

(Heck the US is already deploying space oriented defense systems through its AEGIS warships. They've shot down a satellite this way. The Chinese have also done this)

And I must stress I'm not guaranteeing anything. Right now the costs are to high for the realistic rewards to make space more then a sort of global hobby in the grand scheme of things. We might never enter a period of conflict or encounter conditions that would drive us into space. However this isn't about what will happen but what are the reasonable and plausible basis for this too happen.

[Yora]

that's the other thing that bugs me

"the ammount of resources required".. not just your words, I've encountered the concept or similar concepts all over this thread.
Okay, that's indeed a logical error. When I started the thread I was thinking of a timescale in which the technology becomes economically viable, but is still too expensive to be commonly available.

You could fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928 but it became available to middle class people for a 3 week vacation much later. Or you could have a car in 1900, but it wasn't until the 50s that they started to become common for ordinary people in germany. And you could get to the moon in the late 60s, but it's still so incredibly expensive that we don't do it anymore know we know it is possible.

On the very long scale, everything could become possible like people commuting to work every morning with faster than light personal vehicles. Or even teleporting all the way, since it's more convenient. But for the sake of this thread, my idea was to explore the early maturity phase of the technology, when it becomes a common sight, but is still way out of reach for the average customer. In theory, everything becomes affordable eventually, but I am interested about the phase when the technology starts to become an object of work instead of an object of scientific curiosity.

[Karoht]

Reasons to Leave Home and Explore Space

Adventure:
This is actually a pretty surprising draw for some people. It's the reason we climbed Mt Everest. Think about that. What value was there in climbing that mountain that nearly kills you just to make it to the top? Very little, and yet people did it.


Science:
Gobs of things we can learn by leaving our home planet and branching out, even if we don't run into another intelligent species.
-How 'basic' life works on other planets, which would help us better understand habitable conditions and adaptability of biology.
-Zero G. Gold is refined better in Zero G. Insulin crystals are better produced in zero g. Life itself might adapt and evolve entirely differently than in a gravity environment. Zero G environments and Low G environments, and High G environments, all have much to teach us.


Navigation and Astronomy:
There is plenty to learn when you have an entirely different angle to the stars in the sky. Or when you can see entirely different stars in the sky in the first place. The more celestial bodies (stars, comets, planets, moons, pulsars, quazars, black holes, etc) we encounter, the more we learn about how these bodies form, their compositions, the complex interactions of energy and matter that create and maintain them, and much more. Heck, even just being able to travel 10 light years to observe the universe from a different distance and angle could possibly even change our ideas about things like the size and shape and creation and age of the universe.


Chemistry and Particle Physics:
Does anyone know anything about the Higgs-Boson? Any idea how much scientific value could be obtained by observing an object in space made primarily/entirely out of this type of matter? Or an entire cloud of anti-matter? Or an object in space made of tachyons? Or discovering a new metal? Or a new type of carbon structure? Or a new type of Hydrocarbon structure? Or a star made out of a material previously believed to be impossible to fuse? Or new ions or isotopes of [insert chemical]? Finding them naturally occuring in the universe, however unlikely, is remarkably relevant in these fields.
On the note of Stars, finding a star that doesn't operate entirely like other stars, perhaps due to an entirely different fusion process, would be a highly valuable find, especially for understanding the fusion process. Heck, there are stars that are observable in our night sky which we don't fully understand how big they are or how they achieve the luminosity that they do, and answering these questions would be of great value.


My last point comes with a disclaimer. I am not a religious person, nor do I wish do debate religion. But if our race was created by some higher being (aliens, great flying spagetti monster, god sneezing on our planet) then exploring the stars gives us our best chance at finding clues.
Assuming we don't definitively rule out such things on our own planet first mind you.


It's a big universe out there, and these are just some of the things we might one day discover.
Just some possibilities.

[Gnoman]

One thing to consider is that off-planet colonies would permanantly end the Pax Atomica (assumiing that the Pax Aomica actually exists and the lack of full-scale warfare in recent decades isn't simply a lucky break.) Once one nation has a notable portion of weapons and population (even as few as a hundred thousand), it will no longer be possible to wipe that nation out with a nuclear strike. If only one noation has that advantage, then it would have an immense amount of pull in international relations, which would spur a "colony race" to regain parity.

[dehro]

One thing to consider is that off-planet colonies would permanantly end the Pax Atomica (assumiing that the Pax Aomica actually exists and the lack of full-scale warfare in recent decades isn't simply a lucky break.) Once one nation has a notable portion of weapons and population (even as few as a hundred thousand), it will no longer be possible to wipe that nation out with a nuclear strike. If only one noation has that advantage, then it would have an immense amount of pull in international relations, which would spur a "colony race" to regain parity.

:smallconfused:

[Gnoman]

The Pax Atomica is the theory that the power of nuclear weapons has acted as a brake on full-scale conflict between the major powers due to the threat of annihilation. If Only one nation has off-world colonies (notably, sub-lunar or similar colonies that are essentially immune to atomic weapons,) then the ability to exterminate that nation no longer exists, as enough population will be protected from attack, allowing them to rebuild from even the most destructive nuclear conflict. That nation, however, would retain the ability to destroy other nations, as they have no such bastions. This would upset the balance of terror, giving them a trump card in most diplomatic and military disputes. Thus, the remaining nations would be forced to race to build their own colonies to restore the balance. In such a scenario, the more widely scattered the colonies, the better.

[bloodtide]

On the very long scale, everything could become possible like people commuting to work every morning with faster than light personal vehicles. Or even teleporting all the way, since it's more convenient. But for the sake of this thread, my idea was to explore the early maturity phase of the technology, when it becomes a common sight, but is still way out of reach for the average customer. In theory, everything becomes affordable eventually, but I am interested about the phase when the technology starts to become an object of work instead of an object of scientific curiosity.

I think the world from 1500 to 1900 and more specifically the New World of North and South America is a great example.

It's simple enough. If people have the means they will go places for any of a dozen reasons. And by 'people' we are talking about the rich and powerful people. But the rich and powerful need the common folk to do all the work, so they get dragged along.

Just take the simple example: Moon Base One. It does not even matter why it's built, but it will need a support staff (and the support staff will need support too). How many people would jump at a chance to be a part owner of a colony? Work for a couple years and you get a deed to a moon house.

This works even better with Earth like planets. Then you can do exactly what was done in history: grant people land in exchange for service. Help build colony one and you get a home.

[dehro]

The Pax Atomica is the theory that the power of nuclear weapons has acted as a brake on full-scale conflict between the major powers due to the threat of annihilation. If Only one nation has off-world colonies (notably, sub-lunar or similar colonies that are essentially immune to atomic weapons,) then the ability to exterminate that nation no longer exists, as enough population will be protected from attack, allowing them to rebuild from even the most destructive nuclear conflict. That nation, however, would retain the ability to destroy other nations, as they have no such bastions. This would upset the balance of terror, giving them a trump card in most diplomatic and military disputes. Thus, the remaining nations would be forced to race to build their own colonies to restore the balance. In such a scenario, the more widely scattered the colonies, the better.

I know what pax atomica means...I don't agree with your premise that only one country would have off world colonies at any stage other than being the first to plant a flag "out there"..which is a long way from estabilishing a colony. do you really think that if one country finds the way to travel FTL, and actually start a self sufficient colony that the others will sit and watch while said country basically calls dibs on the universe? it's reason enough to go to war over..and I'm assuming that by the timeframe we're considering (where FTL travel is exclusive, but not in it's very earliest stages) such a war or diplomatic squabble over exclusivity would be over and done with.
in fact, if the technology is developed in europe, since they share their space program (or what they have in that field) a national exclusivity isn't even possible...from the get go.
also.. you're saying that atomic bombs wouldn't work out there? I thought we were talking about environments that are at least partly inhabitable and therefore liable to go boom.
(btw, I have a feeling that nowadays total anyhilation is frowned upon. one would consider the use of atomic bombs to cripple infrastructures and cause massive damage and loss of life, thereby crushing the will of the opponent to keep fighting.. total anihilation scenarios are, at least at this time, very much a thing of the past.)

[jseah]

Look here. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_are_born_and_how_many_people_die_e very_minute) You want to make an impact on population growth? You need to get average of 229 thousand people off the planet daily. And if you want that to be anything but a dead sentence, you also need to arrange living quarters for them, first in space, then on their destined planet.
Simple. You just need a manufacturing system that can expand independently of humans and faster than humans can.

Answer: Von Neumann machines. Build a probe carrying a few copies of a fully functioning machine factory, land on a "juicy asteroid", turn the whole asteroid into more machine factories in space ships. Land on moon, strip mine the whole thing. Repeat with mars (although you'd want to build a space elevator for that)

I'm not talking about fancy nanotech or AI. Just plain well-programmed and updated expert systems and enough equipment for a machine shop and solar panels / nuclear power plant. (and refining and mining equipment plus robots to run them)
Humans will run it, giving strategic instructions by radio or FTL comm. Mine this lode, build this factory, upload plan for new machine part, download latest mineral stockpile levels. Like playing sim city, only for real and for trillions of dollars. The world's biggest computer game.
All we need is the engineering for machines (with occasional instructions by remote) to make more machines. And we're already almost there since many factories can actually operate "lights out" (no humans around), albeit with lower efficiency. Transport is easier when there are no pesky human drivers who break speed limits, but mining is a bit more of a problem.

In one generation's time, a von neumann machine that can build more of itself with today's factory floor manufacturing rates would be able to build hundreds space elevators all around the equator of earth. Maybe even a solid ring (although for that we'll have to take apart most of the moon, asteroid belt, mars + moons...)

They don't even have to be foolproof. Who cares if a few machines break down? The faulty bits get shot to earth orbit to be recycled for the growing space station. As long as a machine shop turns out enough working parts to build another machine shop in say, a week, it'll eat the whole solar system inside of a century.

Solar system not enough? Point at nearby star, give it an interstellar FTL drive and push the button! Didn't work? Send another one. It's not like you aren't swimming in the things.

[Gnoman]

I know what pax atomica means...I don't agree with your premise that only one country would have off world colonies at any stage other than being the first to plant a flag "out there"..which is a long way from estabilishing a colony. do you really think that if one country finds the way to travel FTL, and actually start a self sufficient colony that the others will sit and watch while said country basically calls dibs on the universe? it's reason enough to go to war over..and I'm assuming that by the timeframe we're considering (where FTL travel is exclusive, but not in it's very earliest stages) such a war or diplomatic squabble over exclusivity would be over and done with.
in fact, if the technology is developed in europe, since they share their space program (or what they have in that field) a national exclusivity isn't even possible...from the get go.
also.. you're saying that atomic bombs wouldn't work out there? I thought we were talking about environments that are at least partly inhabitable and therefore liable to go boom.
(btw, I have a feeling that nowadays total anyhilation is frowned upon. one would consider the use of atomic bombs to cripple infrastructures and cause massive damage and loss of life, thereby crushing the will of the opponent to keep fighting.. total anihilation scenarios are, at least at this time, very much a thing of the past.)

Ok, we're actually arguing the same thing. My entire point was that, once any nation developed off-world colonies, the rest would be forced to follow suit even if they previously had no intention of doing so.

As to the relative lack of vulnerability of such colonies, it would be nigh-impossible to coordinate a strike over even planetary distances even if you had FTL communication with no delay. There's just too much space involved. Further, colonies on barren worlds like Luna or Mars would pretty much have to be deep underground simply for protection against radiation and stray meteors. A nuclear bomb can't touch that.

[Gnoman]

I know what pax atomica means...I don't agree with your premise that only one country would have off world colonies at any stage other than being the first to plant a flag "out there"..which is a long way from estabilishing a colony. do you really think that if one country finds the way to travel FTL, and actually start a self sufficient colony that the others will sit and watch while said country basically calls dibs on the universe? it's reason enough to go to war over..and I'm assuming that by the timeframe we're considering (where FTL travel is exclusive, but not in it's very earliest stages) such a war or diplomatic squabble over exclusivity would be over and done with.
in fact, if the technology is developed in europe, since they share their space program (or what they have in that field) a national exclusivity isn't even possible...from the get go.
also.. you're saying that atomic bombs wouldn't work out there? I thought we were talking about environments that are at least partly inhabitable and therefore liable to go boom.
(btw, I have a feeling that nowadays total anyhilation is frowned upon. one would consider the use of atomic bombs to cripple infrastructures and cause massive damage and loss of life, thereby crushing the will of the opponent to keep fighting.. total anihilation scenarios are, at least at this time, very much a thing of the past.)

Ok, we're actually arguing the same thing. My entire point was that, once any nation developed off-world colonies, the rest would be forced to follow suit even if they previously had no intention of doing so.

As to the relative lack of vulnerability of such colonies, it would be nigh-impossible to coordinate a strike over even planetary distances even if you had FTL communication with no delay. There's just too much space involved. Further, colonies on barren worlds like Luna or Mars would pretty much have to be deep underground simply for protection against radiation and stray meteors. A nuclear bomb can't touch that.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Ok, we're actually arguing the same thing. My entire point was that, once any nation developed off-world colonies, the rest would be forced to follow suit even if they previously had no intention of doing so.

As to the relative lack of vulnerability of such colonies, it would be nigh-impossible to coordinate a strike over even planetary distances even if you had FTL communication with no delay. There's just too much space involved. Further, colonies on barren worlds like Luna or Mars would pretty much have to be deep underground simply for protection against radiation and stray meteors. A nuclear bomb can't touch that.

Here you have a point but it isn't connected to any "pax atomica" sort of thing. Colonization was long a side show to more immediate conflicts. For one thing initially only a handful of powers would be involved. And there are far more immediate concerns that would come up. Once space is open for example, every single satellite becomes ridiculously vulnerable and would be an immediate target in a serious conflict.

Also while I understood what you meant "pax atomica" that is really not a major term for the politics of nuclear arms. And ideas like "balance of terror" are well... overstated... in their actual impact. MAD is more of popular construct. I really can't pursue this though since its not quite historical enough for my taste on this board. However without debating that the technological basis for it is already falling apart. Though not up for the sort of doomsday scenarios at least reasonably tested ballistic missile defense not only exists but is deployed.