Digging frost, crushing stone, Gonna make this world our own Fertilize it with our bones, Put our life into the land Mirrors shine, comets fall, Mars awakens at our call Lots of work, but worth it all for a planet made by hand Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down Awful dry, awful cold, and the soil is awful old Superoxides won't unfold 'till you talk to them just right But we endure, we persist, old Mars just can't resist Life works like an alchemist with water, air and light Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down
@@mididoctors you either missed that this is from The Expanse, or misunderstood Mars. They were defending themselves from a parasitic Earth. They didn't want war, they wanted open air, water, and green fields of grass.
@@Freshwaterboy You might be interested in the full version of the quote (said about Mars by a person from Earth): "They're an entire culture dedicated to a common goal, working together as one to turn a lifeless rock into a garden. We had a garden and we paved it."
@@cammyboy011 Alien 3 was a textbook example of the sad phenomenon of the 3rd movie in a series of 3 or more movies being totally inferior to the first 2 to the point that Deadpool even made fun of it in his movie. I am amazed that any more alien movies even got filmed after that.
Happy to see Isaac mentioning the virtual civilization option c= kinda feel like it's left out on a lot or some of these videos, or in sci-fi and science in general
a colony ship having a contingent of Amish (or equivalent) people on board. Absolutely! Should be a requirement. I'm a big fan of of remembering how to do it manually in case of technology failure. I know our local hospital does this every couple of years. They force the staff to work a full 24 hours with minimal tech -- not to the point that it endangers patients lives -- its not that extreme. But it does serve to remind the staff and community that can go horribly wrong. We are prepared -- Mostly.
Hey Issac what are your thoughts on the relative efficiency of terraforming worlds vs building space habitats? I think that terraforming worlds is more popular with the general public. Rotating habitats might be better in regards such as safety in numbers and being highly customizable.
I bet he says rotating habitat is more feasable. Terra forming is a LOONG process...plus I don't think plate tectonics have ever been discovered on any other objects afaik. Our carbon cycle is possible because of plate tectonics amongst other things but it plays a big role and could be a great filter itself now that I'm thinking about it . Tldr:my bets on cylinder
He said that it's better to build habitats as you can make a lot of habitats with the mass of a single planet, and they could hold a million times the population a standard planet could.
Space /habitats will general be easier, I detailed the reasons in the Planets vs Megastructures episode I mentioned, though we've discussed them here and there in other episode on colonization and the fermi paradox
Another point Isaac mentioned in previous videos is that you can make habitats in systems that don't have viable planets, meaning every system can be colonized.
I know it is a webcomic, but Freefall takes place on a world being terraformed, and most of the science tends to be pretty hard. They even have futuristic Amish (They don't use computer OS's more advanced than windows XP, was the joke.)
I am still of the opinion that terraforming any planet that is not already 90+% livable is a waste of time and resources when compared to just mining and building habitats like O'Neil or McKendree cylinders in space where you can control every bit of the ecology and atmosphere and gravity strength. Disassembly of a planet to build cylinders lets you make space for more people than that world would ever allow by a large amount and you get to build those incrementally.
I'm not gonna lie. One of the biggest reasons I hope we discover faster-than-light travel really damn soon is so that Isaac Arthur himself can be humanity's herald at the front of our fleet and the first one to greet the aliens, leading to their fear and respect. He's a human to be feared on the galactic scale.
True this statement is. Issac makes Star Trek Discovery's "Emperor Philippa Georgiou" feel like a soaking wet, chilly Chihuahua barking outside the back door.
@@michaelmoreland954 Herald IA: Greetings, Aliens. Welcome to this first meeting of our species. Now, here's the deal...we can exchange information and technology on an agreeable level, and you can join our Galactic Federation on favorable terms. Or. We can send VN probes to every other system on your radius, and colony ships to every system in-between them. You will never find and deal with them all, and eventually will be surrounded. Then, we will take your home planet, terraform it into a planet sized McDonald's using several of the hundred different methods we've invented...and we'll just throw a minature, dark matter black hole into the middle of it once we've raised enough funds for a new remodel on the Heralds flagship "Probably/Probably Not" to clean up our efforts. Then, when we're done... we'll signal the "-@#$^√π∆¶÷¢€" to your location with some controlled detonations along the surface of your sun... your planet will -probably- vaporize shortly afterwards, after we're already long gone, and we'll come back after it cools down to fill the void with orgy themed rotating habitats and a new alien zoo. Humanely sourced, of course. So. Which option do you pick? Aliens: "HOLY SHIT we've never considered anything like that...we kneel. You humans are terrifying." Herald IA: :D "I'm pleased that we worked this out, here's your application for the Federation. Don't forget to subscribe!"
Thanks for another thought-provoking video. I think you are right, that by the time we are ready for interstellar colonization, we might not want to terraform whole planets as we could tailor-make any habits to any specific environments far easier than terraforming any planet.
What I like the most about sci-fi depicting an interstellar ark escaping dying Earth(like it's claimed in Avatar 2 or in... was it Elysium?) is that you've just created massive autonomous self sufficient closed off biosystem with crazy level of redundancy and you somehow DIDN'T apply the same tech to solving Earth's problems? How?! Irl just designing and building an ark would already slowly start fixing most of the problems or avoid them entirely as you would apply all that tech to cities and industries on Earth too. Ability to build colony ships implies that you just researched how to build an ecumenopolis and have already started.
You can put fish in a bucket of water you swing around, and they wouldn't notice a change in direction. It is only an issue if you for some reason decide to fill the entire cylinder with air. Which would be silly.
If we made human-level intelligent dogs, they'd definitely wage war for the decades of neutering we've subjected them to. On second thought, pretty much every animal would be fucking pissed at us.
My napkin calculation says that turning all the carbon from venus' atmosphere into diamond would yield a spherical diamond around the size of Mimas (420km)
Atmospheric heat removal: satellites with irising hoops (large open circles with, say, 1 eighth blocked by 8 panels) or opening "umbrellas" (like the Lucy probe or solar sails) for solar radiation blocking/deflecting. Leave the blockers open (non-obstructing) on the night/dusk/dawn sides and close them (obstructing) on the day side. Use multiple orbits.
Most equipment can be produced through local materials, advanced synthesis required for higher tier equipment. Please refer to your employee handbook chapter "material acquisition and synthesis" for further details.
Hey isaac, not sure if I missed something but I'm wondering what happened to the thumbnails? They look very.. simplistic? Very odd. Great work as always though!
My hero Isaac Arthur, your approach to science fiction had always been more science than fiction and that's what I love. I've always been weird preferring lore dumps over 'the plot' and you offer nothing but lore dumps which I oh so love. You have become a proper institution all on yourself. Forgive me being impressively drunk at the moment but I have an important point. For all your career here you've tried your best against your speech impediment and thank you, as. Someone who has gone a bit of training in this regard I understand your struggle and respect you much more for it. When I've heard that the origin of your speech impediment just might be too tied down tounge it made me very happy as it meant that all your sacrifice might just perfectly pay off Thank you for all you've done and hopefully you'll live to see 2323 thank you
I think that before we go terror-forming other planets, we should decide how to adopt/adapt our own. There will be numerous debates: - Should we deforest the land to grow crops? Or, adopt a lifestyle more compatible to living in a forest? - Should we learn how to utilize existing grass-eaters? Or, substitute grass eaters from a distant place? - Do we prefer the simplicity of industrial mono-culture? Or, enjoy a diversity of crops on the same land? - Should we drain natural lakes to save farmers who have mismanaged their fossil water aquifers? - Should we place domes over desert lands to retain moisture and make such places habitable? - Should we allow natural predators in our neighborhoods? (fox, wolf, bear, hawk, cat)
There are a million times a million opinions about how to do things on this planet. that is why we seem "stuck." We need to get out there on a new frontier. with no environment, native inhabitants, or even political parties to say "nay nay." Just doing it because we can.
Sometimes I have to watch your videos three or four times to get everything because I’m always daydreaming about all the possibilities when I’m listening haha
Here's another Fermi Paradox question the subject of terraforming brought to mind. One might be reluctant to colonise any planet that has any possibility of life, for either moral or practicable reasons. Barren rocks may in turn be poor candidates. But a planet with intelligent life is ideal for visiting as one can ask the locals. Even if you didn't plan a hostile takeover your more advanced technology will result in your replacing the original inhabitants. So why haven't we been replaced?
Crazy to think but life has very much terraformed this planet more than once, albeit much slower than we'd want. Never really considered the ethical parts of all this too. Another great video, always love your unique perspective.
Thank you again, dude! For all this great knowledge and ideas! I have been watching you stuph since a few years now. Thus, i wanna make you a compliment: Verbal perception of your voice greatly improved! I love that you're still working on your speech challanges. and i think, you are really progressing! seriously! I believe you gotta got a good teacher, as well as an eager student ;-) #loveit !😁🤩🙃
Something I'm surprised never gets mentioned is the use of micro black holes dropped onto the core of planets line Mars to activate its internal magnetosphere and plate tectonics. I'm aware of other solutions like electromagnets, but they lack the brute force and staying power of a black hole.
Call me a pervert all you want but I have a major fetish for NOT creating BLACK HOLES. I was one of the people who had nightmares some years ago when I found out that the Super Collider in Switzerland was making them. "Playing" with black holes makes playing with fire seem harmless.
I once heard an HFY story where humans revolutionized terraforming by boring to a planets core and reheating it to produce a magnetic field, and adding for removing mass from the core and mantle to modify gravity. What do you guys think of that?
One such example presently underway is the Great Green Wall project in the sub Sahara to push back the desert. It's a toy version of the terraforming scenarios here but think of it as a dry run. Let's see if we can collectively do this, and it will be a good indicator of success in these larger endeavors.
I feel like we are going down the route of pre-manufacturing elements on a terrestrial scale. If you have a space habitat that can accelerate for a new planet they can just plop that down on the planet effectivelly INSTANTENOUSLY terraform that patch of the planet. If we take into account the wast time requirements of traveling to a new planet, we maybe looking at so many of such examples on the same planet it effectivelly cover the entire planets surface, connecting the habbitats with some service roads (probably underground for shielding) and only a fraction of the planet would remain its original self, uncovered. Now im not talking about actual full on habitats to cover the planet, but along the journey you manufacture un-countable square kilometers of grass land or crop fields that you use anyways to start beefing up youre population and you just land it, piece by piece or the whole thing depending on your options. So you either just use the planet as a gravity well at that point or make great haste terraforming the un-covered areas still left from the planet after planetfall.
With this type of technology,mankind will be able to live in comfort,and health.A must for all colonists! Our bodies will not have to morph to adapt to the new world.A brillant idea! And it can be done.We just have to learn how.The new technology will also bring forth other technlogies.
@@andrewgraziani4331 it may not be smart but it’s more of a “we do it cause we can” kind of technology that people definitely will do even if isnt something beneficial or efficient
I posted on another thread that Mars and other wolds with far below Earth gravity cannot be inhabited long term or permanently by humans because the human body needs close to Earth gravity to be healthy. Avatar would probably be fine since the human body could probably adapt to 80 percent Earth gravity but Mars has less than half of that. Not enough gravity. Too little gravity is very bad for human health. Zero G would kill most people or cause permanent health problems in a year and a a half (maybe even less) and Mars gravity is better for health than no gravity at all but several years of this "gravity deprivation" would make a Mars colonist way less healthy than if they were on Earth. Planets with low gravity like Mars cannot be Terraformed for this reason even if EVERY OTHER aspect of supporting life was done successfully.
It'd occur naturally as a function of the volume of air and moisture present. You get condensation drizzle in contemporary enclosed sports stadiums, and an O'Neill is orders of magnitude larger. Wind would be a function of the shell spinning while the internal air remains static.
@@harbl99 I am aware of the weather inside sports stadiums. My question is linking to - is the the drum is spinning, would friction cause the air to spin too, therefore stratify (gentle pressure differences from core to surface)? What would cause the wind? I think all the air would rotate, but there wouldn't be any temperature differences to drive winds. Similarly, what would cause clouds? Yes, there would be humidity, but would there be strong-enough pressure differences to cause the self-condensation needed for clouds?
Weather would happen naturally with a large enough volume. There's a few buildings on Earth that form clouds indoors due the the volume and humidity within.
Of course there’ll be a planet with Amish. How else could you escape the disembodied software of a robot haunting you at the behest of the robot devil because you once made a deal to get his hands?
The webcomic "Freefall" has space Amish. They live on a Lagrange point colony. The wife is a transhumanist-nudist-geneticist with a mustache, the husband is an asteroid miner who pilots drones, the son is a genetically modified giant dwarf optimized for cold sleep and space habitation who's girlfriend is a genetically engineered bipedal wolf artificial intelligence.
Tyvm for all of your conitued efforts to educate us! I love watching your content! I know you have always put forth mind expanding shows.Keep up the great work! 😎😎😎
Perhaps we should live everywhere not Impossible to leave ( If No FTL) (If yes FTl) Then Colonize everything and Everywhere and Everywhen and Everynowhere
At current pace I think it's likely we will rush for earth-like environments first and terraforming only some time after. Like, colonizing Venus clouds before Martian grounds.
That point about heading to another system with uplifted species really got my attention because i was thinking about that while watching Defiance the other night. The Votans are a collection of 8 species that arrived on a fleet of ships. It got me thinking what the first ships to other stars will be populated with. It makes sense there will be uplifted pets, but also other animals. I read somewhere about flying foxes having almost the same level of intelligence as dogs. Uplifted versions of them could tend to jungles and forests in O'Neill cylinders as they're very important to jungles on earth. Uplifted octopuses or dolphins tending to aquatic habitats. And ofcourse the diversity of AI, cyborgs, genetically engineered people, copied human minds in robot bodies etc. My defiance 8 🧍♂️ 🤖 🐙 🐬 🦇 🐦 🐈 🐕
Bro, the uplifted animals fleeing earth or from our colonies is exactly what the book claws and starships are. Also I think uplifts are sooner than you think. Currently, one of my interests is complying with all human specific genomic sequences for that exact distant project and plan to be alive when it happens with all the other life extensions being worked on too by others. There are ethics involved, so the process is need nit he as bad as it may seem.
I think it was Kurzgesagt that put out an interesting video with a concept of terraforming by using high powered lasers to bring the surface the planet to a molten state a few times over to liberate gases needed to create a primitive atmosphere, after this process is done using the laser one last time in a pulsing function to turn the basaltic planes into regolith, once cool enough it is theoretically just a very slow and EXPENSIVE process of introducing more and more complex life from Earth's biosphere as the new planet becomes more and more like modern earth. The process would likely take thousands of years from start to finish but consider the billions of years it took our planet to create these current conditions; that's pretty fast it also allows for tweaking and resetting the process if you make a mistake so the "learning curve" of that planet's reaction to terraforming will be more manageable and less likely to go into a runaway climate of cascade failure when human activity is added to the stress on the biosphere.
Most realistic option would be controlled bombardment of Mars and it's moon with stuff taken from asteroid belt, to create a proper magnetic field. It would take probably centuries, but at least we have tech to do that, all these other options are simply not existing at this point.
Why not start with Venus? We either tug, double and or teleport an Ice moon from Jupiter like Gliese in Venus’ orbit. Dousing Venus with water alone would manifest stronger magnetic poles than that of Earth. Teleportation is very similar to antigravity and doable.
If we wanted to add a magnetosphere to Mars could you move a large flywheel to it's moon and produce it there and then guide some material into collision course with Mars
Covering large areas of a planet surface with connected habitats is probably easier and cheaper than terraforming, if we have a really efficient anti-asteroid impact technology.
Or perhaps a large interconnected Pilon system that can statically contain an atmosphere of desired composition spread out over nearly the entire planet that way anything besides a large asteroid strike wouldn't be a problem orbital Point defense systems can take care of the rest
Dome as you go, but seriously do we even need that much planetary habitation. Think about it say you are extra celestial colonists, you've probably have spent years possibly generations in a space habitat. The idea of living planet side might be completely foriegn to you.
@@andrewgraziani4331 I'm referring to mars and other solar system objects. I never get too exited about the prospect of humans colonizing distant solar systems. Because i think the speed of light is a limitation impossible to avoid. Also, knowing the human nature, its unlikely that any colony that take years to hear a phone call from earth will obey any order coming from us. No doubt they would be independent in the minute they put their feet on a distant planet and will become aliens for any practical purpose.
BTW, was Peter F. Hamilton the first/only SF writer to have the idea of running railroads through a portal network? (I.e., that being the best way to move large amounts of freight through fixed-size apertures? And that if you assume they're "perfect" portals, you can do things like run live network cables across them?)
I'm not a physicist, but I still had an idea recently for a "Portal Drive" that would allow us to travel between stars... IF it works... Though it does have a "What if" or two... What If... we discovered a way to make wormholes, but they were too small to be useful for regular transport... And What If... gravitational fields could be transmitted through such a wormhole... And What If... you set up a wormhole generator next to a large gravity well, like say, the sun... And What If... you had a ship that could project the other end of that wormhole ahead of itself so that it would be pulled toward the gravity transmitting through the wormhole... (I hope that made some sense) I know there would of course be some caveats, even from my limited understanding of physics... Such as the fact that the wormhole would Have to be Projected From and Not Connected To the ship... And it still probably wouldn't work... But my thought was that the ship would project the wormhole opening ahead of itself... Projecting the gravity well from the other end of the wormhole ahead of the ship with it... Which the ship would then "Fall" towards... But, because the energy used to create the wormhole was moving at the speed of light... The wormhole opening would still be projected ahead of the ship Faster than the ship was falling... Thus the ship and the wormhole it projected would move through space... And as long as the ship moved slower than the speed of light, then it would just keep falling through space... Until you reach the mid point of your destination at which time you would move the wormhole from in front of the ship to behind it... And the best part is that you could power the whole thing from the star side of the wormhole. Plus, if the worm hole was big enough for transit, you could set up another station at the new location... Or make the worm hole projector on the ship modular and just drop it off next to the new host star... And then have near instantaneous travel between the two systems... You would just use the Portal Drive System to make the initial journey. But of course if the wormhole collapsed, you could be hopelessly stuck between star systems... LITERALLY in the Middle of Nowhere... (So thank God for inertia...) (And an alternative means of slowing down.) OK, so I'm sure I've got a big bag of Nothing here other than the whimsical sci-fi fantasy of a nerdy guy with two AAS degrees... Neither of which is in physics... (Just to point out how much I Don't know) So you tell me, what's wrong with my idea and just how far is my "hand (or head) up Yoda's back side?"
@@lukehahn4489 Actually, all of my degrees are in computer science, but nothing in physics, as I stated at the start. I based my idea around one theory of how UFO's travel, which is by projecting gravitation fields in the same way that I described... Paired with a few other theories I've heard about in other aspects of science/fiction. But That's also why I said the idea has a lot of "What If's"... Such as any issues arising from it being a closed system... of sorts.
I suspect it would run a pretty wide spectrum depending on the particular group, bishop, and time, but some use smartphones so there's probably a few watching the episode and maybe one will leave a comment. They probably wouldn't be representative but might be insightful.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Frankly, I believe they'd be willing to go all in on the concept. New, arable land that's tillable immediately? The only issue I foresee would be transport of livestock and equipment. But I believe they'd want their own world.
Great video my dude! Here from ADrinkwithCrazy who gave you a shout out on his Guilded channel. I think the only question I would also raise, and please forgive me I heard this 15 years ago and can't remember who said it, would be that we have no idea how earth's geomagnetic field works. They have theories but based on how it's currently acting we aren't sure on even those theory. The north pole is currently moving towards Russia at a rate of 40 miles a year and no one knows why.
You might want to check more recent papers - there was a big one a decade ago about how the moving molten iron in the magnetic field produces current (with heat as a side effect), and the currents (electircal and physical) in the iron produce the magnetic field. (tested by spinning molten sodium in a magnetic field) Another paper from about 5 years ago did a decent job of showing that the movement of the magnetic poles is due to gyroscopic progression. Both papers would have been re-printed in the AAAS magazine since that's my primary source for peer-reviewed papers, I'm sorry I don't remember what issues they were in, or the titles of the papers to make looking them up easier.
@@Beard_Hood last papers I read were undecided, but leaning toward a minimum mass requirement to build the temperature & pressure needed & a minimum spin rate to make it act like a dynamo. Personally, I'd put an active magnetic field on my pre-requisites list along with sources of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. (even if it's in mineral form) If you're talking "maximum Isaac Arthursday thinking", you orbit a mass at least 20% of the mass of your planet so you can control the planets rotation speed and heat the core through tidal heating to kickstart almost any body with a metallic core.
I hope you're aware of the magnetic drive technology that is in development. It hasn't started production, and last I heard it was still at the paper stage, but between 700km/s to 6000km/s travel speed. Think about that. Earth to mars in a single day.
@@shenrr6802 Magnetism. Using magnetic field generation and manipulation to latch onto the magnetospheres of the various objects of our solar system and slingshot further and faster.
Terraforming a planet would a difficult task but certain planets where their extreme weather patterns. A planet where it rain glass sideways due to extreme fast wind, planet where it rocks from the sky and plant where it rain lava. Another example where it it rain liquid iron mix with the gravity of planet will effect humans Jupiter like gravity too strong for humans to survive.
It took almost 2 billon years to get oxigen into the atmosphere. The reason is that oxigen bonds to everything. The sea was green in the beginning, then it rusted. So, simply just planting trees wan't help. Terra forming are mutch harder than it seems.
In STAR TREK 2 THE WRATH OF KHAN there was a rule for the Genesis device that it could only be used on a world with no life at all because any life already there would be killed and replaced with the new life of the device which is artificially interfering with the evolution of a world. "Terraforming" any world that already has life even if its very primitive life might be an ethical issue if it kills that life?
Whether that life is smart or not.if thay cant win the smacking contest.Thay will have to share.And arguing amongst r selves wont even slow us down.If we go out there with r general mind set arguing about it won't stop it.
I think the question of ethicacy is a question of rarity. I'm a believer in panspermia myself, you can interfere with life pretty much everywhere. But if it is rare.... Probably a bigger question. We also assume we will win the encounter, not be beaten by the alien virus, bacteria, fungus, etc, that might be very good at spreading and not being killed by anything we have. So let's not just assume since we flew to its home that we will be the victor in a conflict
We may prefer terraforming over bioforming. But I suspect that we will engage in bioforming enough (or at least some form of deliberate engineering of our own biology (either for practical or aesthetic purposes)) that deliberate engineering will supersede natural selection as the dominant force behind human evolution. So I would expect humanity to diverge into multiple different species far more rapidly than one would predict based on normal evolutionary time scales.
I have to wonder what the motivation could possibly be for terraforming a planet in another system? First, such an attempt is not likely to be initiated until the original system has a well established space infrastructure, including substantial habitats. Such habits being possible candidates for the ships themselves. This being the case its likely that many if not most people headding out will not have had any time on a planet already and be perfectly happy on a habitat. Next is that unless stasis or life extension is a significant thing, the people that arrive at the target system are likely to not only never have set foot on a planet but to have no direct experience with people who have. Lastly, even a modest project will take centuries, in that time the colonists will have spread out, built new habitats and facilities, even if just in support of the terraforming project. By the time the planet is livable not only are we likely generations removed from anyone with any experience or desire to live down a gravity well, but it's likely that the systems population will be too great to fit comfortably on said planet. Meaning that on day one you have the kind of population issues that we imagine would drive colonization to begin with. To this whole project will amount to a pet project that a few people at a time might actually enjoy or have any interest in, and the population of this planet will always likely be a minority amongst the greater system. The motivation seems like it would be lacking at some point along the line, surely the people doing the work at some point would suggest that time labor and material could be better spent supporting the growing population and their habitats?
Hi Isaac. Thanks for the thought-provoking episode. Can I ask: you mentioned that we'd probably know a lot of facts about the target planet before we leave Earth, like length of year, length of day (and the knowledge of whether it's tidally locked to its sun or not,) and its mass. Can you explain the scientific basis on HOW we would know these things please? I have a rough idea when it comes to length-of-year, but it seems to me that most suspected-to-be-rocky exoplanets are too far from Sol for us to get any kind of a clear look at, so we don't know it's diameter. There might be a haze around it when it transits its sun, so perhaps we know that it has an atmosphere from that, but how would we know how big it is or whether it's comparatively low or high-mass? How much data of that nature do we already have about currently known exo-planets? Do we, for example, have all of that data on the Centauri system planets that are closest to us, and to what degree of certainty? And were the data confirmed experimentally?...
I would assume we could send a probe faster than a crewed ship, and get more info from a probe passing a system than we can from observations of it made from around Earth. We could send probes off to many places before deciding which ones to send humans to.
I'm also in the camp that rotating space habitats are more viable than terraforming. But that leaves me with one question, why? Why will we terraform? I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but I can only really think of cultural ones.
Because of all the scifi movies saying that will happen. Also that space-faring races will depend on a primary planet for survival even if it has hundreds of them colonized.
A back up biome where life's already established, so all our eggs aren't in one terran basket? (Earth 2.0) For long long term space travel? (We're talking billions of year travel time) And my favorite..... "because it's there"
What if you teraform far out from the local star? Would that allow you to build faster? Thinking it is colder further out; so would the heat radiate out at a faster rate. Then slowly drag the planet in closer to the star as generating heat from terraforming slows.
I predict that the great-to-the-nth-grandchildren of those who start "terraforming" projects will uniformly abandon them as pointless and wasteful. Living in space habitats is likely to be much more efficient, safer, and more comfortable than living "at the bottom of a gravity hole."
The interesting part about this would be the human nature. We Americans like open space and we like our solitude. When we think about colonizing other planets we think along the same terms thus terraforming a planet. I'm Hands-On with a lot of Chinese immigrants and the hardest part that they have immigrating to the United States is the wide-open areas and solitude. The biggest complaint I hear is that it's too quiet, it's too dark and there's not enough people. This makes the Chinese feel extremely uncomfortable. Also the fact that we Americans put ice in all of our drinks. We may set off to terraform a planet but by the time we get there we may choose to live in domes instead.
All the brainwashing of what the world outside China looks like by the CCP probably doesn't help either. They've been told it's practically apocalyptic in the U.S.
I always loved the thought of finding some rogue planet in the middle of nowhere and parking a giant fusion lamp above it.
Shaped like a chariot . . . .
Sounds like a good way to attract space moths
Digging frost, crushing stone, Gonna make this world our own
Fertilize it with our bones, Put our life into the land
Mirrors shine, comets fall, Mars awakens at our call
Lots of work, but worth it all for a planet made by hand
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow
Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down
Awful dry, awful cold, and the soil is awful old
Superoxides won't unfold 'till you talk to them just right
But we endure, we persist, old Mars just can't resist
Life works like an alchemist with water, air and light
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
Work the soil and the slow 'till we make it fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, God bless these seeds I sow
Mars warm them from below, 'till the rain comes tumbling down
wow
@@ghostwarrior-ni1xb TY
“An entire world dedicated to a single purpose, to turn a lifeless rock into a garden.”
I really hope those guys get the Stargate reboot. The Expanse was awesome.
But what have they created? A society set on making war
“An entire world dedicated to a single purpose, to turn a garden into a lifeless rock.” The direction we seem to be headed with this planet.
@@mididoctors you either missed that this is from The Expanse, or misunderstood Mars. They were defending themselves from a parasitic Earth. They didn't want war, they wanted open air, water, and green fields of grass.
@@Freshwaterboy You might be interested in the full version of the quote (said about Mars by a person from Earth): "They're an entire culture dedicated to a common goal, working together as one to turn a lifeless rock into a garden. We had a garden and we paved it."
The whole subject remind me a lot of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, with each faction having different terraforming strategies.
Pretty sure that's his favorite game lol. I should look it up. definitely something i'd like.
I had to grin when thinking about an Amish space habitat made of wood.
Barn raising is a thing of the past. Planet raising is the future.
Sounds like the original story idea for Alien 3
@@cammyboy011 Alien 3 was a textbook example of the sad phenomenon of the 3rd movie in a series of 3 or more movies being totally inferior to the first 2 to the point that Deadpool even made fun of it in his movie.
I am amazed that any more alien movies even got filmed after that.
@@Zurround no arguments from me on that front. That film was doomed to fail with all the studio interference. Sad because the concept had merit.
Wouldn't the wood let all the air seep out and the radiation seep in?
The best series on the internet!
Sixteen Widlund
Fair take, ngl.
Happy to see Isaac mentioning the virtual civilization option c= kinda feel like it's left out on a lot or some of these videos, or in sci-fi and science in general
a colony ship having a contingent of Amish (or equivalent) people on board. Absolutely! Should be a requirement. I'm a big fan of of remembering how to do it manually in case of technology failure. I know our local hospital does this every couple of years. They force the staff to work a full 24 hours with minimal tech -- not to the point that it endangers patients lives -- its not that extreme. But it does serve to remind the staff and community that can go horribly wrong. We are prepared -- Mostly.
Hey Issac what are your thoughts on the relative efficiency of terraforming worlds vs building space habitats? I think that terraforming worlds is more popular with the general public. Rotating habitats might be better in regards such as safety in numbers and being highly customizable.
I bet he says rotating habitat is more feasable. Terra forming is a LOONG process...plus I don't think plate tectonics have ever been discovered on any other objects afaik.
Our carbon cycle is possible because of plate tectonics amongst other things but it plays a big role and could be a great filter itself now that I'm thinking about it .
Tldr:my bets on cylinder
@@Jasonmakesvideo Plus, orbital habitats can be anything you want.
He said that it's better to build habitats as you can make a lot of habitats with the mass of a single planet, and they could hold a million times the population a standard planet could.
Space /habitats will general be easier, I detailed the reasons in the Planets vs Megastructures episode I mentioned, though we've discussed them here and there in other episode on colonization and the fermi paradox
Another point Isaac mentioned in previous videos is that you can make habitats in systems that don't have viable planets, meaning every system can be colonized.
Another week and another wonderful SFIA video.
Great work as always Isaac.
Thank!
I know it is a webcomic, but Freefall takes place on a world being terraformed, and most of the science tends to be pretty hard. They even have futuristic Amish (They don't use computer OS's more advanced than windows XP, was the joke.)
@Lurch that's hot
Another brilliant addition to what I have come to consider one of not just the best but also the more valuable content libraries on any platform.
I am still of the opinion that terraforming any planet that is not already 90+% livable is a waste of time and resources when compared to just mining and building habitats like O'Neil or McKendree cylinders in space where you can control every bit of the ecology and atmosphere and gravity strength. Disassembly of a planet to build cylinders lets you make space for more people than that world would ever allow by a large amount and you get to build those incrementally.
Nice to hear from a like mind, bet you've been watching Isaac for a long time.
Always look forward to seeing these sort of titles, you never let us down! ❤️❤️
I'm not gonna lie. One of the biggest reasons I hope we discover faster-than-light travel really damn soon is so that Isaac Arthur himself can be humanity's herald at the front of our fleet and the first one to greet the aliens, leading to their fear and respect. He's a human to be feared on the galactic scale.
I'd say he's a human to be respected on the galactic scale.
True this statement is. Issac makes Star Trek Discovery's "Emperor Philippa Georgiou" feel like a soaking wet, chilly Chihuahua barking outside the back door.
@@michaelmoreland954 Herald IA: Greetings, Aliens. Welcome to this first meeting of our species. Now, here's the deal...we can exchange information and technology on an agreeable level, and you can join our Galactic Federation on favorable terms.
Or. We can send VN probes to every other system on your radius, and colony ships to every system in-between them. You will never find and deal with them all, and eventually will be surrounded. Then, we will take your home planet, terraform it into a planet sized McDonald's using several of the hundred different methods we've invented...and we'll just throw a minature, dark matter black hole into the middle of it once we've raised enough funds for a new remodel on the Heralds flagship "Probably/Probably Not" to clean up our efforts. Then, when we're done... we'll signal the "-@#$^√π∆¶÷¢€" to your location with some controlled detonations along the surface of your sun... your planet will -probably- vaporize shortly afterwards, after we're already long gone, and we'll come back after it cools down to fill the void with orgy themed rotating habitats and a new alien zoo. Humanely sourced, of course.
So. Which option do you pick?
Aliens: "HOLY SHIT we've never considered anything like that...we kneel. You humans are terrifying."
Herald IA: :D "I'm pleased that we worked this out, here's your application for the Federation. Don't forget to subscribe!"
Hear! Hear! Isaac Arthur for Galactic Dictator!
Yes.
This video on terraforming is perhaps your best. It incorporates big ideas and graphics. It shows your evolution in thinking and presentation
Thanks for another thought-provoking video. I think you are right, that by the time we are ready for interstellar colonization, we might not want to terraform whole planets as we could tailor-make any habits to any specific environments far easier than terraforming any planet.
What I like the most about sci-fi depicting an interstellar ark escaping dying Earth(like it's claimed in Avatar 2 or in... was it Elysium?) is that you've just created massive autonomous self sufficient closed off biosystem with crazy level of redundancy and you somehow DIDN'T apply the same tech to solving Earth's problems? How?!
Irl just designing and building an ark would already slowly start fixing most of the problems or avoid them entirely as you would apply all that tech to cities and industries on Earth too. Ability to build colony ships implies that you just researched how to build an ecumenopolis and have already started.
The people in charge of Elysium where all massive dicks, though. That drove the whole move's whole plot
Yay a new Issac Arthur to watch while I can't sleep because I'm in pain. Thank you king for keeping me company
I love listening to these at night while falling asleep. Interesting enough to hold my attention but not stressful.
Birds in an O'Neill cylinder would be funny to watch as they take off and learn that the more they go up, the less they come down.
The Russians took a few up in a vomit comet years ago. Its pretty hilarious to watch.
You can put fish in a bucket of water you swing around, and they wouldn't notice a change in direction.
It is only an issue if you for some reason decide to fill the entire cylinder with air. Which would be silly.
If we made human-level intelligent dogs, they'd definitely wage war for the decades of neutering we've subjected them to. On second thought, pretty much every animal would be fucking pissed at us.
I don't know about that. I'm sure they'd be more upset about pugs or pitbulls than general population control.
@@egirlbadeline that's a damn fair point. There's so much shit that they could hate us for.
Look to the Rick and Morty episode Lawnmower Dog for more on that.
Terraformation my beloved
My napkin calculation says that turning all the carbon from venus' atmosphere into diamond would yield a spherical diamond around the size of Mimas (420km)
Atmospheric heat removal: satellites with irising hoops (large open circles with, say, 1 eighth blocked by 8 panels) or opening "umbrellas" (like the Lucy probe or solar sails) for solar radiation blocking/deflecting. Leave the blockers open (non-obstructing) on the night/dusk/dawn sides and close them (obstructing) on the day side. Use multiple orbits.
Most equipment can be produced through local materials, advanced synthesis required for higher tier equipment. Please refer to your employee handbook chapter "material acquisition and synthesis" for further details.
My favorite UA-camr right here
Hey isaac, not sure if I missed something but I'm wondering what happened to the thumbnails? They look very.. simplistic? Very odd. Great work as always though!
Nitpicking on UA-cam ....who would've thought. What a kind, helpful Insight.
@@Jasonmakesvideo ? It's a question, don't understand the hostility?
My hero Isaac Arthur, your approach to science fiction had always been more science than fiction and that's what I love. I've always been weird preferring lore dumps over 'the plot' and you offer nothing but lore dumps which I oh so love. You have become a proper institution all on yourself. Forgive me being impressively drunk at the moment but I have an important point. For all your career here you've tried your best against your speech impediment and thank you, as. Someone who has gone a bit of training in this regard I understand your struggle and respect you much more for it. When I've heard that the origin of your speech impediment just might be too tied down tounge it made me very happy as it meant that all your sacrifice might just perfectly pay off
Thank you for all you've done and hopefully you'll live to see 2323 thank you
I think that before we go terror-forming other planets, we should decide how to adopt/adapt our own. There will be numerous debates:
- Should we deforest the land to grow crops? Or, adopt a lifestyle more compatible to living in a forest?
- Should we learn how to utilize existing grass-eaters? Or, substitute grass eaters from a distant place?
- Do we prefer the simplicity of industrial mono-culture? Or, enjoy a diversity of crops on the same land?
- Should we drain natural lakes to save farmers who have mismanaged their fossil water aquifers?
- Should we place domes over desert lands to retain moisture and make such places habitable?
- Should we allow natural predators in our neighborhoods? (fox, wolf, bear, hawk, cat)
There are a million times a million opinions about how to do things on this planet. that is why we seem "stuck." We need to get out there on a new frontier. with no environment, native inhabitants, or even political parties to say "nay nay." Just doing it because we can.
Okay watched the episode and found it another high quality Isaac Arthur production. Didn't change my mind though. Terraforming is dumb.
Always compelling, well done.
Sometimes I have to watch your videos three or four times to get everything because I’m always daydreaming about all the possibilities when I’m listening haha
Cant wait to see what their flag will look like... Wait! Does earth have a flag?
Nope 🙂
Several have been adopted by various groups.
A picture of Earth. With a sword through it!
Do you count United Nations.
@@hamanu666
Based terran empire enjoyer
Here's another Fermi Paradox question the subject of terraforming brought to mind.
One might be reluctant to colonise any planet that has any possibility of life, for either moral or practicable reasons. Barren rocks may in turn be poor candidates. But a planet with intelligent life is ideal for visiting as one can ask the locals. Even if you didn't plan a hostile takeover your more advanced technology will result in your replacing the original inhabitants. So why haven't we been replaced?
Crazy to think but life has very much terraformed this planet more than once, albeit much slower than we'd want. Never really considered the ethical parts of all this too. Another great video, always love your unique perspective.
Thank you again, dude! For all this great knowledge and ideas! I have been watching you stuph since a few years now. Thus, i wanna make you a compliment: Verbal perception of your voice greatly improved! I love that you're still working on your speech challanges. and i think, you are really progressing! seriously! I believe you gotta got a good teacher, as well as an eager student ;-) #loveit !😁🤩🙃
Something I'm surprised never gets mentioned is the use of micro black holes dropped onto the core of planets line Mars to activate its internal magnetosphere and plate tectonics. I'm aware of other solutions like electromagnets, but they lack the brute force and staying power of a black hole.
Would definitely be a good experiment for somewhere not in our home solar system.
We discussed it in the episode on giving Mars a Magnetopshere IIRC, an the Moon MEga City peisode
Call me a pervert all you want but I have a major fetish for NOT creating BLACK HOLES. I was one of the people who had nightmares some years ago when I found out that the Super Collider in Switzerland was making them. "Playing" with black holes makes playing with fire seem harmless.
You are smart but terraforming is dumb.
@@Zurround You didn't find that out because that did not happen.
I once heard an HFY story where humans revolutionized terraforming by boring to a planets core and reheating it to produce a magnetic field, and adding for removing mass from the core and mantle to modify gravity.
What do you guys think of that?
Regarding the portals....try Larry Niven's "Teleportation in Theory and Practice"...he covers a lot of what you touched upon, and more...
Sweet.... That's right, start my day with some good sci-fi. :)
One such example presently underway is the Great Green Wall project in the sub Sahara to push back the desert. It's a toy version of the terraforming scenarios here but think of it as a dry run. Let's see if we can collectively do this, and it will be a good indicator of success in these larger endeavors.
I feel like we are going down the route of pre-manufacturing elements on a terrestrial scale.
If you have a space habitat that can accelerate for a new planet they can just plop that down on the planet effectivelly INSTANTENOUSLY terraform that patch of the planet. If we take into account the wast time requirements of traveling to a new planet, we maybe looking at so many of such examples on the same planet it effectivelly cover the entire planets surface, connecting the habbitats with some service roads (probably underground for shielding) and only a fraction of the planet would remain its original self, uncovered.
Now im not talking about actual full on habitats to cover the planet, but along the journey you manufacture un-countable square kilometers of grass land or crop fields that you use anyways to start beefing up youre population and you just land it, piece by piece or the whole thing depending on your options.
So you either just use the planet as a gravity well at that point or make great haste terraforming the un-covered areas still left from the planet after planetfall.
With this type of technology,mankind will be able to live in comfort,and health.A must for all colonists! Our bodies will not have to morph to adapt to the new world.A brillant idea! And it can be done.We just have to learn how.The new technology will also bring forth other technlogies.
Agreed
You are likely smart (you're watching Isaac after all) but terraforming is stupid.
@@andrewgraziani4331 it may not be smart but it’s more of a “we do it cause we can” kind of technology that people definitely will do even if isnt something beneficial or efficient
I posted on another thread that Mars and other wolds with far below Earth gravity cannot be inhabited long term or permanently by humans because the human body needs close to Earth gravity to be healthy. Avatar would probably be fine since the human body could probably adapt to 80 percent Earth gravity but Mars has less than half of that. Not enough gravity. Too little gravity is very bad for human health. Zero G would kill most people or cause permanent health problems in a year and a a half (maybe even less) and Mars gravity is better for health than no gravity at all but several years of this "gravity deprivation" would make a Mars colonist way less healthy than if they were on Earth. Planets with low gravity like Mars cannot be Terraformed for this reason even if EVERY OTHER aspect of supporting life was done successfully.
RE: O'Neil Cylinders - Has anyone ever given any thought to how to create weather inside the cylinder? How to make wind? Clouds? Rain?
It'd occur naturally as a function of the volume of air and moisture present. You get condensation drizzle in contemporary enclosed sports stadiums, and an O'Neill is orders of magnitude larger. Wind would be a function of the shell spinning while the internal air remains static.
@@harbl99 I am aware of the weather inside sports stadiums. My question is linking to - is the the drum is spinning, would friction cause the air to spin too, therefore stratify (gentle pressure differences from core to surface)? What would cause the wind? I think all the air would rotate, but there wouldn't be any temperature differences to drive winds.
Similarly, what would cause clouds? Yes, there would be humidity, but would there be strong-enough pressure differences to cause the self-condensation needed for clouds?
Weather would happen naturally with a large enough volume. There's a few buildings on Earth that form clouds indoors due the the volume and humidity within.
Thank you for the video ^^
I have to say that you have spoiled me, because I now have the expectation that every college lecture will be this interesting and well thought out😅
isaac arthor my favorite youtuber
Of course there’ll be a planet with Amish. How else could you escape the disembodied software of a robot haunting you at the behest of the robot devil because you once made a deal to get his hands?
The webcomic "Freefall" has space Amish. They live on a Lagrange point colony. The wife is a transhumanist-nudist-geneticist with a mustache, the husband is an asteroid miner who pilots drones, the son is a genetically modified giant dwarf optimized for cold sleep and space habitation who's girlfriend is a genetically engineered bipedal wolf artificial intelligence.
Let's try terraforming the Earth into how it was before the industrial revolution.
3:05 StarGate gang!!!
Oooooo an episode on a rogue black hole passing through or near our solar system please.
Hell yeah
Tyvm for all of your conitued efforts to educate us! I love watching your content! I know you have always put forth mind expanding shows.Keep up the great work! 😎😎😎
If we manage to difficult task of climbing out of a gravity well, WHY WOULD WE go back down the gravity well??
Some people like those gravity wells especially if they're near 1g.
Same reason you don't perpetually live in an airplane.
Perhaps we should live everywhere not Impossible to leave ( If No FTL)
(If yes FTl) Then Colonize everything and Everywhere and Everywhen and Everynowhere
At current pace I think it's likely we will rush for earth-like environments first and terraforming only some time after. Like, colonizing Venus clouds before Martian grounds.
That point about heading to another system with uplifted species really got my attention because i was thinking about that while watching Defiance the other night.
The Votans are a collection of 8 species that arrived on a fleet of ships.
It got me thinking what the first ships to other stars will be populated with. It makes sense there will be uplifted pets, but also other animals.
I read somewhere about flying foxes having almost the same level of intelligence as dogs. Uplifted versions of them could tend to jungles and forests in O'Neill cylinders as they're very important to jungles on earth.
Uplifted octopuses or dolphins tending to aquatic habitats.
And ofcourse the diversity of AI, cyborgs, genetically engineered people, copied human minds in robot bodies etc.
My defiance 8
🧍♂️ 🤖
🐙 🐬
🦇 🐦
🐈 🐕
Very under-rated SF.
@@lukehahn4489 indeed. Also, nice profile pic. Space Dandy is also underrated
Well that’s it , I’m playing no man’s sky VR today :3 gonna explore and build some new bases in relaxed mode
Bro, the uplifted animals fleeing earth or from our colonies is exactly what the book claws and starships are. Also I think uplifts are sooner than you think. Currently, one of my interests is complying with all human specific genomic sequences for that exact distant project and plan to be alive when it happens with all the other life extensions being worked on too by others. There are ethics involved, so the process is need nit he as bad as it may seem.
I think it was Kurzgesagt that put out an interesting video with a concept of terraforming by using high powered lasers to bring the surface the planet to a molten state a few times over to liberate gases needed to create a primitive atmosphere, after this process is done using the laser one last time in a pulsing function to turn the basaltic planes into regolith, once cool enough it is theoretically just a very slow and EXPENSIVE process of introducing more and more complex life from Earth's biosphere as the new planet becomes more and more like modern earth. The process would likely take thousands of years from start to finish but consider the billions of years it took our planet to create these current conditions; that's pretty fast it also allows for tweaking and resetting the process if you make a mistake so the "learning curve" of that planet's reaction to terraforming will be more manageable and less likely to go into a runaway climate of cascade failure when human activity is added to the stress on the biosphere.
Most realistic option would be controlled bombardment of Mars and it's moon with stuff taken from asteroid belt, to create a proper magnetic field.
It would take probably centuries, but at least we have tech to do that, all these other options are simply not existing at this point.
I think we need to practice on earth first and get things working as we need them to before going to another planet and mucking about.
Why not start with Venus? We either tug, double and or teleport an Ice moon from Jupiter like Gliese in Venus’ orbit. Dousing Venus with water alone would manifest stronger magnetic poles than that of Earth. Teleportation is very similar to antigravity and doable.
If we wanted to add a magnetosphere to Mars could you move a large flywheel to it's moon and produce it there and then guide some material into collision course with Mars
Covering large areas of a planet surface with connected habitats is probably easier and cheaper than terraforming, if we have a really efficient anti-asteroid impact technology.
Or perhaps a large interconnected Pilon system that can statically contain an atmosphere of desired composition spread out over nearly the entire planet that way anything besides a large asteroid strike wouldn't be a problem orbital Point defense systems can take care of the rest
Dome as you go, but seriously do we even need that much planetary habitation.
Think about it say you are extra celestial colonists, you've probably have spent years possibly generations in a space habitat. The idea of living planet side might be completely foriegn to you.
@@andrewgraziani4331
I'm referring to mars and other solar system objects. I never get too exited about the prospect of humans colonizing distant solar systems. Because i think the speed of light is a limitation impossible to avoid. Also, knowing the human nature, its unlikely that any colony that take years to hear a phone call from earth will obey any order coming from us. No doubt they would be independent in the minute they put their feet on a distant planet and will become aliens for any practical purpose.
@@andrewgraziani4331 A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit
How about the Zero Dawn terraforming system in the horizon video game series?
Admittedly it doesn’t seem like the most efficient way to terraform.
Oh Hello There!
BTW, was Peter F. Hamilton the first/only SF writer to have the idea of running railroads through a portal network? (I.e., that being the best way to move large amounts of freight through fixed-size apertures? And that if you assume they're "perfect" portals, you can do things like run live network cables across them?)
I'm not a physicist, but I still had an idea recently for a "Portal Drive" that would allow us to travel between stars...
IF it works...
Though it does have a "What if" or two...
What If... we discovered a way to make wormholes, but they were too small to be useful for regular transport...
And What If... gravitational fields could be transmitted through such a wormhole...
And What If... you set up a wormhole generator next to a large gravity well, like say, the sun...
And What If... you had a ship that could project the other end of that wormhole ahead of itself so that it would be pulled toward the gravity transmitting through the wormhole...
(I hope that made some sense)
I know there would of course be some caveats, even from my limited understanding of physics...
Such as the fact that the wormhole would Have to be Projected From and Not Connected To the ship...
And it still probably wouldn't work...
But my thought was that the ship would project the wormhole opening ahead of itself...
Projecting the gravity well from the other end of the wormhole ahead of the ship with it...
Which the ship would then "Fall" towards...
But, because the energy used to create the wormhole was moving at the speed of light...
The wormhole opening would still be projected ahead of the ship Faster than the ship was falling...
Thus the ship and the wormhole it projected would move through space...
And as long as the ship moved slower than the speed of light, then it would just keep falling through space...
Until you reach the mid point of your destination at which time you would move the wormhole from in front of the ship to behind it...
And the best part is that you could power the whole thing from the star side of the wormhole.
Plus, if the worm hole was big enough for transit, you could set up another station at the new location...
Or make the worm hole projector on the ship modular and just drop it off next to the new host star...
And then have near instantaneous travel between the two systems...
You would just use the Portal Drive System to make the initial journey.
But of course if the wormhole collapsed, you could be hopelessly stuck between star systems...
LITERALLY in the Middle of Nowhere...
(So thank God for inertia...)
(And an alternative means of slowing down.)
OK, so I'm sure I've got a big bag of Nothing here other than the whimsical sci-fi fantasy of a nerdy guy with two AAS degrees...
Neither of which is in physics...
(Just to point out how much I Don't know)
So you tell me, what's wrong with my idea and just how far is my "hand (or head) up Yoda's back side?"
apparently no degree in anything technical
@@lukehahn4489 Actually, all of my degrees are in computer science, but nothing in physics, as I stated at the start.
I based my idea around one theory of how UFO's travel, which is by projecting gravitation fields in the same way that I described...
Paired with a few other theories I've heard about in other aspects of science/fiction.
But That's also why I said the idea has a lot of "What If's"...
Such as any issues arising from it being a closed system... of sorts.
I'm genuinely curious how an Amish person would feel about this idea. I grew up in PA, with the sight of their buggies being relatively common.
I suspect it would run a pretty wide spectrum depending on the particular group, bishop, and time, but some use smartphones so there's probably a few watching the episode and maybe one will leave a comment. They probably wouldn't be representative but might be insightful.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Frankly, I believe they'd be willing to go all in on the concept.
New, arable land that's tillable immediately? The only issue I foresee would be transport of livestock and equipment.
But I believe they'd want their own world.
Practicality would trump the distaste of such advanced technology for the chance to call a whole world your own I would imagine
inshallah
GR8 vids. Good info given in an intelligent manner.
John Varley, The Golden Globe
Space Amish is a thing.
Great video my dude!
Here from ADrinkwithCrazy who gave you a shout out on his Guilded channel.
I think the only question I would also raise, and please forgive me I heard this 15 years ago and can't remember who said it, would be that we have no idea how earth's geomagnetic field works. They have theories but based on how it's currently acting we aren't sure on even those theory. The north pole is currently moving towards Russia at a rate of 40 miles a year and no one knows why.
You might want to check more recent papers - there was a big one a decade ago about how the moving molten iron in the magnetic field produces current (with heat as a side effect), and the currents (electircal and physical) in the iron produce the magnetic field. (tested by spinning molten sodium in a magnetic field)
Another paper from about 5 years ago did a decent job of showing that the movement of the magnetic poles is due to gyroscopic progression.
Both papers would have been re-printed in the AAAS magazine since that's my primary source for peer-reviewed papers, I'm sorry I don't remember what issues they were in, or the titles of the papers to make looking them up easier.
@@muninrob oh Coolio, I'll give it a search. Thanks
@@muninrob if that's the case then, are all the cores of worlds we we consider T-ing what we need?
@@Beard_Hood last papers I read were undecided, but leaning toward a minimum mass requirement to build the temperature & pressure needed & a minimum spin rate to make it act like a dynamo.
Personally, I'd put an active magnetic field on my pre-requisites list along with sources of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. (even if it's in mineral form)
If you're talking "maximum Isaac Arthursday thinking", you orbit a mass at least 20% of the mass of your planet so you can control the planets rotation speed and heat the core through tidal heating to kickstart almost any body with a metallic core.
I hope you're aware of the magnetic drive technology that is in development. It hasn't started production, and last I heard it was still at the paper stage, but between 700km/s to 6000km/s travel speed. Think about that. Earth to mars in a single day.
What's the principle? What is it pushing against?
@@shenrr6802 Magnetism. Using magnetic field generation and manipulation to latch onto the magnetospheres of the various objects of our solar system and slingshot further and faster.
And passenger would arrive as a smear on a seat
Terraforming: much more difficult than Stellaris makes it look. And it takes more than 10 years :)
Also i love the new graphics!
“You’ve probably been traveling through space for decades, or even centuries without a pit-stop.”
MAN I gotta pee!!!
Terraforming a planet would a difficult task but certain planets where their extreme weather patterns. A planet where it rain glass sideways due to extreme fast wind, planet where it rocks from the sky and plant where it rain lava. Another example where it it rain liquid iron mix with the gravity of planet will effect humans Jupiter like gravity too strong for humans to survive.
Wouldn't the most efficient way be to just fully commit to planet cracking and starliftig?
I want uplifted cephalopods!
@Lurch What, not a Lovecraft fan?
It took almost 2 billon years to get oxigen into the atmosphere.
The reason is that oxigen bonds to everything.
The sea was green in the beginning, then it rusted.
So, simply just planting trees wan't help.
Terra forming are mutch harder than it seems.
Ah, if I could live to see this!
An Amish interstellar colony ship? How about naming it Cypress Corners?
I don't think many got that reference.
You should do a video based on All Tomorrows and the QU
A colab with Beware The Qu would be amazing!
@@howiefuzz6894 Yes it would but that's not really SFIA's style.
@@wesleyhoward5599 he could do about the genetic engineering aspect and human divergence and the star people
In STAR TREK 2 THE WRATH OF KHAN there was a rule for the Genesis device that it could only be used on a world with no life at all because any life already there would be killed and replaced with the new life of the device which is artificially interfering with the evolution of a world. "Terraforming" any world that already has life even if its very primitive life might be an ethical issue if it kills that life?
Whether that life is smart or not.if thay cant win the smacking contest.Thay will have to share.And arguing amongst r selves wont even slow us down.If we go out there with r general mind set arguing about it won't stop it.
I think the question of ethicacy is a question of rarity. I'm a believer in panspermia myself, you can interfere with life pretty much everywhere.
But if it is rare.... Probably a bigger question. We also assume we will win the encounter, not be beaten by the alien virus, bacteria, fungus, etc, that might be very good at spreading and not being killed by anything we have.
So let's not just assume since we flew to its home that we will be the victor in a conflict
One natural limitation is phosphorus, the bio-battery and bio-energy transfer system that carbon based life needs to exist.
We may prefer terraforming over bioforming. But I suspect that we will engage in bioforming enough (or at least some form of deliberate engineering of our own biology (either for practical or aesthetic purposes)) that deliberate engineering will supersede natural selection as the dominant force behind human evolution. So I would expect humanity to diverge into multiple different species far more rapidly than one would predict based on normal evolutionary time scales.
I have to wonder what the motivation could possibly be for terraforming a planet in another system?
First, such an attempt is not likely to be initiated until the original system has a well established space infrastructure, including substantial habitats. Such habits being possible candidates for the ships themselves. This being the case its likely that many if not most people headding out will not have had any time on a planet already and be perfectly happy on a habitat.
Next is that unless stasis or life extension is a significant thing, the people that arrive at the target system are likely to not only never have set foot on a planet but to have no direct experience with people who have.
Lastly, even a modest project will take centuries, in that time the colonists will have spread out, built new habitats and facilities, even if just in support of the terraforming project. By the time the planet is livable not only are we likely generations removed from anyone with any experience or desire to live down a gravity well, but it's likely that the systems population will be too great to fit comfortably on said planet. Meaning that on day one you have the kind of population issues that we imagine would drive colonization to begin with.
To this whole project will amount to a pet project that a few people at a time might actually enjoy or have any interest in, and the population of this planet will always likely be a minority amongst the greater system.
The motivation seems like it would be lacking at some point along the line, surely the people doing the work at some point would suggest that time labor and material could be better spent supporting the growing population and their habitats?
Hi Isaac. Thanks for the thought-provoking episode. Can I ask: you mentioned that we'd probably know a lot of facts about the target planet before we leave Earth, like length of year, length of day (and the knowledge of whether it's tidally locked to its sun or not,) and its mass. Can you explain the scientific basis on HOW we would know these things please? I have a rough idea when it comes to length-of-year, but it seems to me that most suspected-to-be-rocky exoplanets are too far from Sol for us to get any kind of a clear look at, so we don't know it's diameter. There might be a haze around it when it transits its sun, so perhaps we know that it has an atmosphere from that, but how would we know how big it is or whether it's comparatively low or high-mass? How much data of that nature do we already have about currently known exo-planets? Do we, for example, have all of that data on the Centauri system planets that are closest to us, and to what degree of certainty? And were the data confirmed experimentally?...
I would assume we could send a probe faster than a crewed ship, and get more info from a probe passing a system than we can from observations of it made from around Earth.
We could send probes off to many places before deciding which ones to send humans to.
I'm also in the camp that rotating space habitats are more viable than terraforming. But that leaves me with one question, why? Why will we terraform? I'm sure there are lots of reasons, but I can only really think of cultural ones.
I like your thinking. Terraforming is dumb. But certain forms of planetary engineering make sense, with the ultimate goal of dismantling the planet.
Because of all the scifi movies saying that will happen. Also that space-faring races will depend on a primary planet for survival even if it has hundreds of them colonized.
A back up biome where life's already established, so all our eggs aren't in one terran basket? (Earth 2.0)
For long long term space travel? (We're talking billions of year travel time)
And my favorite..... "because it's there"
Nice one
Thanks!
@@isaacarthurSFIA yeah bro, i can always count on arthursday for solid entertainment.
You just missed your chance to present a catgirl to us and thus angared the depts of the internet!
What if you teraform far out from the local star? Would that allow you to build faster? Thinking it is colder further out; so would the heat radiate out at a faster rate. Then slowly drag the planet in closer to the star as generating heat from terraforming slows.
I just issac to make a game studio now :( imagine this man being the technical director for a space vr game😅 a man can dream
I predict that the great-to-the-nth-grandchildren of those who start "terraforming" projects will uniformly abandon them as pointless and wasteful. Living in space habitats is likely to be much more efficient, safer, and more comfortable than living "at the bottom of a gravity hole."
You could show how to terraforming earth. Changing Saara, Chade lake and Aral sea.
Someone or something is terraforming earth. They are making it uninhabitable to plants, humans and animals of our unique planetary ecology.
I want to live on an Oneal Cylinder for a while.
Fir... Yeah, right.
You Were First!
He's right, you're first :)
Have they ever sent a mini O’Neill cylinder up to space?
What if dark matter isn't matter but just massive gravity wells randomly generated in the primordial quantum field?
No
The interesting part about this would be the human nature.
We Americans like open space and we like our solitude. When we think about colonizing other planets we think along the same terms thus terraforming a planet.
I'm Hands-On with a lot of Chinese immigrants and the hardest part that they have immigrating to the United States is the wide-open areas and solitude. The biggest complaint I hear is that it's too quiet, it's too dark and there's not enough people. This makes the Chinese feel extremely uncomfortable. Also the fact that we Americans put ice in all of our drinks.
We may set off to terraform a planet but by the time we get there we may choose to live in domes instead.
All the brainwashing of what the world outside China looks like by the CCP probably doesn't help either. They've been told it's practically apocalyptic in the U.S.