Discussion: Outer Space

It would have to literally obliterate an asteroid, as opposed to just blowing it up and sending hundreds of smaller chunks flying everywhere.

Imagine what that could do to a tank or a battleship.

Can we please implement some sort of rule that KoC has to stop posting completely irrelevant posts?

As far as I'm aware asteroid belts aren't actually that populated, it's just that relative to the rest of the universe there are more bodies. It shouldn't be too hard to navigate through them though.

Problem with building a ship in outerspace is that you'd still need to move all the materials up there in the first place, in which case you may as well build it on earth, where you don't need to bring your own oxygen for welding, and any changes in the plans won't require another launch.

Problem with going anywhere outside of the moon is that it'll take such a long time to get anywhere. The next closest solar system is Alpha Centauri, which is about 4 light years away. Obviously we can't travel at the speed of light, so let's say even 10% the speed of light. First off, that would be 40 years of travel, a long, long time, and very easy for something to go wrong. A 40 year journey would mean a very large ship, of mass ~90000000kg. So the energy required to get to that speed with something that big is .5*(90000000)*(.1*3000000)^2
That's roughly 4*10^22 J, or about 100 times the current world usage. That is completely impossible.
So to go anywhere, we'd need to come up with a completely new way to either make energy, or something else entirely new. So new that I couldn't even say what it is, but it would also have to revolutionise our understanding of modern physics. It might be possible, but I'm extremely sceptical about it all

So pretty much not in our lifetime?

Chikablam said:

Can we please implement some sort of rule that KoC has to stop posting completely irrelevant posts?

Chikablam said:

Problem with going anywhere outside of the moon is that it'll take such a long time to get anywhere(...)It might be possible, but I'm extremely sceptical about it all

Basically, a new type of material (less mass, same durability) needs to be invented. A new way to reach higher speeds with less energy needs to be invented (which wouldn't necessarily be difficult - you only need to hit that top speed one time in space, then don't you just kinda float at that speed forever? Until you hit another gravity field, at least.) And there would have to be a decent supply of food/water/etc. for anyone on the actual ship during its journey.
There could be a possibility of slowly branching out as well. Build a base on the moon. Resupply there and set off another launch. Go out to the next landable celestial body, build a base. Resupply, launch, repeat.
Though my knowledge of how many landable planets/satellites/whatever within a decent distance of each other is pretty limited... :p

« Last edited by Novus on Feb 12th 2014 »

KingofCorn said:

So pretty much not in our lifetime?

No matter what your beliefs on the matter, I can guarantee humans will not be living our solar system in our lifetime

Novus said:

Chikablam said:

Problem with going anywhere outside of the moon is that it'll take such a long time to get anywhere(...)It might be possible, but I'm extremely sceptical about it all

Basically, a new type of material (less mass, same durability) needs to be invented. A new way to reach higher speeds with less energy needs to be invented (which wouldn't necessarily be difficult - you only need to hit that top speed one time in space, then don't you just kinda float at that speed forever? Until you hit another gravity field, at least.)

Graphene would be able to replace a fair amount of the structure, but that shits expensive, and some parts would need to be other materials, some which will be pretty dense.
Regarding the speed/energy, I forgot to mention, that was assuming 100% efficiency of engines, which is actually impossible. Current motor engines are about ~40% efficient. So we'd need to massively improve efficiency, but the only way to use less energy is by reducing weight or going slower.
(For reference, 4*10^22 J is about 2 thousand billion gallons(US) of oil. Just think of how big that number is)

And there would have to be a decent supply of food/water/etc. for anyone on the actual ship during its journey.
There could be a possibility of slowly branching out as well. Build a base on the moon. Resupply there and set off another launch. Go out to the next landable celestial body, build a base. Resupply, launch, repeat.
Though my knowledge of how many landable planets/satellites/whatever within a decent distance of each other is pretty limited... :p

You could in theory grow them all on the ship I suppose, but then again that would mean a bigger ship and more energy, etc. The branching out idea maybe feasible, but that would take a very very long time

No matter how we'd go about it, it's gonna take a long time. Definitely not likely for any of us living right now to see something insanely advancing in the overall idea. :p

I suppose a priority would be to figure out what we're doing with ourselves -inside- Earth before we worry about what we're doing with ourselves outside of Earth. xD

What about Cryogenics? Couldn't we just freeze people and thaw them when they arrive? Well after we make sure it works.

Once all the kinks are worked out with it, that's actually a good idea. It'd save a lot of extra resources. Less storage space needed for food and water and whatnot.

Maybe, but first we'd need very smart AIs, again probably putting it out of our lifetime

Not necessarily. Having one person awake and able to pilot a space shuttle would still take a lot less resources than having five or more people awake.
If we'd be able to get communications tech advanced a lot more to reach further distances, that could potentially be a possibility as well.

Problem with that would be the rest of the crew's bodies would become useless from lying there for so long. You'd need some way to stimulate all crew members muscles on a regular basis or else they wouldn't be able to move when they woke up. Maybe we already have that technology though, I'm not sure.
I suppose it might work, though I wouldn't know enough about either biology, cryogenics or space vessel maintainance to say for sure either way.
P.S. Novus did you say somewhere you were a former member? What was your username?

Chikablam said:

Can we please implement some sort of rule that KoC has to stop posting completely irrelevant posts?

You can't make someone completely change the way they post unless you're an admin. He just doesn't like 3+ sentences in 1 post.

KingofCorn said:

What about Cryogenics? Couldn't we just freeze people and thaw them when they arrive? Well after we make sure it works.

If people were frozen, it would only be a matter of time before they freeze to death. And if you tried heating them a bit, the freezing would be pointless.

CHikablam said:

Can we please implement some sort of rule that KoC has to stop posting completely irrelevant posts?

No not really, considering this topic wasn't made in the Debate and Discussion forum which no longer exists it is subject to the normal posting rules. Provided he is staying on topic even if he doesn't put that much forward it is still ok.

Chikablam said:

Problem with that would be the rest of the crew's bodies would become useless from lying there for so long. You'd need some way to stimulate all crew members muscles on a regular basis or else they wouldn't be able to move when they woke up. Maybe we already have that technology though, I'm not sure.
I suppose it might work, though I wouldn't know enough about either biology, cryogenics or space vessel maintainance to say for sure either way.

I am no expert on this either but I know that as far as stimulating the muscles people dont need to be up and moving around. That could be done by a machine simply by giving the muscles some sort of shock, I think. And when they woke up they would only need to be able to move around a bit and just take some time to loosen up their bodies. We could have the technology to do this but I am not sure how effective it is as of right now.

Matt77 said:

If people were frozen, it would only be a matter of time before they freeze to death. And if you tried heating them a bit, the freezing would be pointless.

Not necessarily, it depends on how they are frozen, there is a difference from freezing to death and be put into a cryogenic slumber. The most important thing would simply to keep the people's bodies from decay, their system's from losing function (respiratory and cardiovascular), and keeping their brain alive. Your heart can stop and you can be considered dead but people can be revived from that. Being brain dead is something that you can't come back from, at least it has yet to happen.

See I knew this was a good idea. What about the new pills that make food unnecessary?

CC said:

P.S. Novus did you say somewhere you were a former member? What was your username?

I'm pretty positive we talked a few times while I was using my 'Deadwing' account, so I'll assume that's the one you'd most likely recognise.

nightmare2 said:

That could be done by a machine simply by giving the muscles some sort of shock, I think.

That is correct. Just paste the little electropad things around important parts of the body, send a bit of electricity through, and it'll stimulate the muscles enough to keep them from decaying. Think of an AED - It literally sends electricity into the heart (a muscle) to start it beating again.

Matt said:

If people were frozen, it would only be a matter of time before they freeze to death. And if you tried heating them a bit, the freezing would be pointless.

With today's technology, you are correct. But cryogenics is a relatively new field of study, in terms of science, and I'm sure with some time, they'll figure out some way to freeze a person, monitor them, keep them alive, and stop any permanent tissue damage.

« Last edited by Novus on Feb 13th 2014 »

And that's how I will live to work at Planet Express. Do you think they will perfect it in our lifetime?

Perfect cryogenics in our lifetime? No, I don't think so.
They're probably focused on advancing other types of technology at the moment. And even if not, it would take a lot of time to perfect something as advanced as cryogenics.

They better have it done before I die of old age.

« Last edited by KingofCorn on Feb 17th 2014 »

Also to answer Key's original question no space is not infinite. At least according to scientists, I don't believe them. But apparently space is expanding right now and is finite. According to the big bang galaxies are currently hurdling outwards from some center point. While hurdling they are also gaining speed and if I remember from Astronomy correctly they aren't getting farther away from eac hother instead 'the space between two galaxies is expanding'

Yeah I'm pretty sure scientists are just making this stuff up now. I still believe that not only do we not have the technology to make any claims regarding stars' ages, galaxies ages, and even the universe's age I also think most our current knowledge and theories of space are pretty much all bs. To prove my point scientists are even claiming they know what happened in the first few seconds of the Big Bang, which supposedly happened 13.5 billion years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe
http://www.space.com/13347-big-bang-origins-universe-birth.html

So the very beginning of the universe remains pretty murky. Scientists think they can pick the story up at about 10 to the minus 36 seconds ? one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second ? after the Big Bang.

The above is quoted from the second link. Someone needs to take a needle to these scientists heads cause they have grown pretty big.