Milky Way has 100 million life-giving planets

[Harte]

That is one of the most perverse pieces of logic I have heard in a long time. What you are effectively saying if that something is a problem now then we can't consider future technology as a solution. If we employ your logic we would have to give up all scientific progress.

Hmmm.

Illogical to say that if overpopulation is a problem now, then we should wait a thousand years while changing Venus' atmosphere and then ship extra folks to Venus a couple hundred at a time (at most)?

.

Again a response totally devoid of any logic.

Of course Venus is potentially subject to calamities, however the chances of them occurring simultaneously on both worlds is vanishingly small. A multi-planet species is less susceptible to a planet wide catastrophe than a single planet species.

So, an out colony on Venus, starting out over a thousand years from now, would not be dependant on Earth?

The problems are obvious, it is you that is not accepting that terraforming is a potential solution.

Yes, a solution in search of a problem.

Harte

[toast]

Not true. Plants utilise the carbon and release O₂

Molecular mass of CO₂ = 44 gmol^-1

Molecular mass of O₂ = 16 gmol^-1

When a plant photosynthesises the gas it releases has only 36.4% of the mass of the gas that it utilises.

Ok but no option for Venus due to surface temperatures = no plants.

[toast]

It's rare that I comment on this site, but if there's ONLY 100 million habitable planets in the Milky Way, and life has been on Earth

for about 3 Billion years, of which only the last 100 or so could be thought of as "detectable", then doesn't this suggest why SETI

hasn't found a lot! Check my maths, but if seems to me that "detectable" life represents 100/3 billionths of the existence of life on

earth.

This math does not work as one important fact is missing in your formular. SETI does not scan all possible sections of the sky

all the time as the search is limited by the numbers of telescopes in use. And BTW, we are just searching since lousy 30y now.

With those odds, we're going to have to look a lot harder....and longer!

Yes, we have to!

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Hmmm.

Illogical to say that if overpopulation is a problem now, then we should wait a thousand years while changing Venus' atmosphere and then ship extra folks to Venus a couple hundred at a time (at most)?

Straw man argument. No where did I say it was the ONLY solution (in fact I said the exact opposite). No where did I say we should wait. No where did I say that we should do nothing about over population now.

What I DID say was:

I did not say that it was the only solution. The fact remains that if our population is to expand to a level greater than this planet can sustain then the only logical solution is to expand to other planets. Terraforming may, at some point, be the best solution.

So, an out colony on Venus, starting out over a thousand years from now, would not be dependant on Earth?

You seem to have missed the entire point of terraforming. The point of terraforming is to make a planet Earth like. An Earth-like planet would NOT be dependent on Earth, that is rather the point of it being Earth-like. Colonies on planets we haven't terraformed are more likely to be dependant on Earth, but even then self sufficient colonies on the Moon and Mars are not impossible even in the relatively near term.

Yes, a solution in search of a problem.

It doesn't matter how many times a wrong claim is made it remains wrong. It doesn't matter how many times a person refuses to except a fact it remains a fact. Keep repeating yourself, it won't make your argument look any better.

Would you like to try and answer a question I asked you with a straight answer? One you seem to have deliberately avoided by giving a non-answer to.

Given that you have said the following:

IMO, the only reason for terraforming anything is to get out of this solar system, and even then it would make more sense to find a place that needed very little tweaking.

you seem to accept a multi-planet future for mankind Please correct me if I am wrong in that interpretation.

If I am right then please answer this:

And if we develop the capability to terraform a planet BEFORE we develop interstellar travel what then? Spend a few centuries twiddling our thumbs in the hope that someone solves the interstellar travel problem tomorrow?

The follow response IS NOT a straight answer to the question.

Terraforming Venus (or Mars) is solution searching for a problem, IMO.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Ok but no option for Venus due to surface temperatures = no plants.

I responded to that objection back HERE.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Check my maths, but if seems to me that "detectable" life represents 100/3 billionths of the existence of life on earth.

If you apply that fraction to 100 million planets, then you get an answer of 3.333.....so maybe 3 other planets in the whole of the Milky Way that has "detectable" life.

You are applying the fraction of time that life has been detectable on Earth to all planets. That is a highly unlikely scenario. It is possible that there are civilisations that reached our level of technology thousands or even millions of years ago.

It is possible that we can't detect them because they are too advanced... but that doesn't mean they can't detect us.

[aquatus1]

I am sure that there will eventually be practical reasons to terraform other planets. When all is said and done, however, chances are that the main drive to terraform Venus is simply going to be "Because its there".

[Merc14]

I am sure that there will eventually be practical reasons to terraform other planets. When all is said and done, however, chances are that the main drive to terraform Venus is simply going to be "Because its there".

Putting aside the technical aspects of terraforming a planet, I have to disagree. We need to have an out as a species as it is only a matter of time before another cataclysm strikes the earth and wipes life out (see Permian extinction). It is going to happen, of that you can be sure and the earth will be fine after a few million years but our species will not survive if we don't spread out into at least our own solar system.

We have existed in an incredibly small window of time in our planets history that happened to occur in a very benign climate of between ice ages. No, we can't accomplish any of these things now but thinking about how to accomplish these tasks later is a necessity.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Merc14

[aquatus1]

People worried about an "out" are going to focus on building a spaceship/space colony, not terraforming a planet. Survival focuses on escape; stability allows for growth.

[taniwha]

Re-read the debate between those saying we should terraform Mars and those that say we should terraform Venus. Try to understand their arguments, especially the disadvantages of each planet.

When you have done that apply a little critical thinking. If you do that you will realise that the Moon has most of the disadvantages of both worlds and none of the advantages, namely:

• no atmosphere
  
• no magnetic field
  
• low gravity
  
• slow rotation
  
• virtually no water

There is a reason why, in the debate between Venus v Mars, no one has mentioned the Moon...until now.

Shame that, i imagine the moons closer, and is ideal for artificial teraforming. Powerplants utilising artificial photosynthesis require sunlight, which the moon is abundantly bathed in ..and water. These powerplants could among other things form oxygen with more efficiency than real plants! The atmospheric force field will be layers of electrically charged, self healing nanotechnology, solar powered of course.

It may work just as well on Venus or Mars if not better.

Edited June 12, 2014 by taniwha

[Harte]

I am sure that there will eventually be practical reasons to terraform other planets. When all is said and done, however, chances are that the main drive to terraform Venus is simply going to be "Because its there".

That was my point.

Harte

[aquatus1]

Hmm...a floating artificial island-planet. More than a space base, not an actual terraformed planet.

We would have to create the science of Gravitonics to make it work fully, though.

[Harte]

Shame that, i imagine the moons closer, and is ideal for artificial teraforming. Powerplants utilising artificial photosynthesis require sunlight, which the moon is abundantly bathed in ..and water. These powerplants could among other things form oxygen with more efficiency than real plants! The atmospheric force field will be layers of electrically charged, self healing nanotechnology, solar powered of course.

Underground. Then no force field is required. Big domes on the surface.

No need to constantly tweak an entire planet (or moon) if you do this.

Harte

[aquatus1]

It was?

Why terraform Venus at all?

It's so close that anything endangering the Earth would be endangering Venus.

Even if we utterly pollute the Earth, the technology being talked about in this thread would certainly be capable of solving a pollution problem.

IMO, the only reason for terraforming anything is to get out of this solar system, and even then it would make more sense to find a place that needed very little tweaking.

Harte

It sounds more like you are claiming that Venus shouldn't bothered with at all and that the only reason for terraforming is to get out of the solar system.

My point is that regardless of whatever dangers may come, Venus will be terraformed, and it will be done first, simply because we will have the ability to do it. We just can't seem to keep from playing with new toys as soon as we build them.

Also, I suspect terraforming is going to take, much, much less time than originally estimated. We are still pretty bad at calculation natural momentum and tipping points.

Edited June 12, 2014 by aquatus1

[Harte]

If you want a science fiction "solution," then fine.

I say it'll never happen.

Harte

[aquatus1]

Not the first time people have said that about science fiction.

[SaraT]

Imaginative! Maybe this thread should be merged with the one about ET dismissing humans as unintelligent. LOL. (I'm only joking, guys!)

[aquatus1]

Heck, I've always posited that aliens wouldn't really have a recognizable way of determining that humans were dominant intellectual species on the planet.

[Grandpa Greenman]

We follow our dogs around and pick up their poop. They might think dog are dominant and we are their servants, which is probably closer to the truth than we think.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

When all is said and done, however, chances are that the main drive to terraform Venus is simply going to be "Because its there".

Climbing mountains and swimming seas are done "because it is there". Huge engineering projects are usually undertaken because someone thinks it will be profitable.

[Frank Merton]

We may or may not terraform Venus; I personally think it unlikely, that we will find just building habitations in space suits us better and use the planets for raw materials.

However, while making Venus more like the earth and hence more pleasant has difficulties, they could more readily be solved compared to any other planet in the Solar System. I would guess Mars will be inhabited first but never in any major way (kinda like we can now say Antarctica is inhabited) and if mankind is to have a second home it will be Venus.

[aquatus1]

Climbing mountains and swimming seas are done "because it is there". Huge engineering projects are usually undertaken because someone thinks it will be profitable.

Sure, but we've already done that to pretty much every sea and every mountain. There's precious few places left on the planet where one can say they put their footprint on it first.

But the competitive instinct remains. Its just gotten higher tech.

After all, why did we go to the moon?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

After all, why did we go to the moon?

Most certainly not just "because it was there".

If there had been no cold war, no two competing political systems both trying to prove to the would that they were best we certainly wouldn't have been there as early as the 1960's.

Besides there is a huge difference in exploring a world an terraforming it.

Edited to add:

People swim the English Channel because it is there.

People dug a tunnel under the English Channel to make money.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Waspie_Dwarf

[aquatus1]

Most certainly not just "because it was there".

We went there for the same reason people want to climb every mountain and swim every sea. Because of the competition. Once someone does it, people stop caring about it.

Besides there is a huge difference in exploring a world an terraforming it.

Right now, sure. There used to be a huge difference in walking over the next mountain to discover the next valley, and building a new village there. Nowadays, not so much.

]Edited to add:[/u]

People swim the English Channel because it is there.

People dug a tunnel under the English Channel to make money.

Yeah, but no one cares if someone swims the English Channel anymore, just as no one cares about people making a solo flight across the Atlantic anymore. The first because it has already been done, and the second because technology has made it into a non-challenge. The Chunnel was certainly an interesting feat of engineering, but hardly a competition. The technology to do it was not developed for the purpose of doing it (TBM's had already existed for several decades); it simply allowed for it to be profitable (or, at least, economically feasible). Lindbergh designed and had built his plane from the ground up, custom made for the trip, just as the Apollo technology was developed solely for the moon landing. When we finally go back to the moon, no one is going to be struck with a sense of awe at the accomplishment. Most people will be more along the lines of "about time."

Edited June 13, 2014 by aquatus1

[Waspie_Dwarf]

When we finally go back to the moon, no one is going to be struck with a sense of awe at the accomplishment. Most people will be more along the lines of "about time."

All very interesting but a total non-argument when it comes to terraforming.

Terraforming will not be done "because it is there". It is a vast engineering task NOT an act of exploration. No one ever bridged a river or tunnel through a mountain "because it was there". When people build the world's tallest structure they don't do it just because they can, sure the prestige is part of the reason, but profit is the driving force.

If terraforming is done it will be done either through necessity or for profit. Terraforming may be prestigious for those that carry it out but that will be a by-product not it's raison d'etre.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Waspie_Dwarf