Ten oz Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 11 hours ago, Moontanman said: I am going to rewrite this, the idea of colonising the galaxy or visiting other star systems is to a great extent different things. We see and read in Science Fiction so much of the trope of running off to simply visit another star system is so ingrained in the zeitgeist that it's sometimes difficult to really see the forest for the trees. Unless star travel really does end up as easy as portrayed in shows like Star Trek or Star Wars I very much doubt that there will be much in the way of manned exploration. The idea of a habitat containing several thousand people taking off across the galaxy just to explore is, I think, fatally flawed. Every bit as flawed as expecting to travel to stars to colonize alien planets. The real colonization will be done by creating more or less self contained habitats that can either be slowly moved over generations to sources of raw materials like Oort cloud objects or orbit a star in a dyson swarm. Again it's important to think that we can create the surface area of a billion Earths in a Dyson swarm all powered by our sun. One we run out of space for new dyson swarm objects moving to another star to do the same is the next step. Gean type planets will most likely be encountered by accident and we may for ethical reasons avoid them completely... I merely said "manned mission". I didn't say anything about extended exploration stretching Star Trek style throughout the Universe.My speed of light comment was an analogy reflecting human being physically contained in our solar system yet still attempting to observe beyond it. Likewise a planet with beings contained to their planet by gravity would still potentially seek to observe and measure beyond there Planet. At no point did I imply colonization of other worlds or any other bits of Science Fiction were a goal, desirable, or even possible. This thread is about Aliens being trapped on their planet by gravity. Again, the analogy I used was that we (humans) are trapped in our solar system by distance. I think you are over analyzing what that meant. Back to the topic I think satellites would be able to be put in orbit from a Super Earth. A satellite doesn't require any hospitality systems and can be small and lighter than raft designed to carry beings. Much like the WaveRider/ Scram jet is launched from a bomber at 50,000 feet I imagine something similar could be designed to get a projectile into orbit. The bigger challenge would be getting life off the planet and into orbit, alive. That would require a bigger craft and more fuel but as already addressed more fuel equals more weight. So unless another form of propulsion unknown to humans, magnetism or some form of anti gravity, were developed satellites might be the most which can be accomplished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endy0816 Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 (edited) Still 'manned'.. If we can get up to a decent fraction of c, trips could be really short, but slow boat options work too. Edited April 26, 2018 by Endy0816 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T. McGrath Posted May 10, 2018 Share Posted May 10, 2018 (edited) It has been suggested that most planets larger than 1.6 Earth radii (> 10,193.6 km) are not rocky. Which would really complicate things if you were a species attempting to leave your planet. Additionally, with regard to exoplanets smaller than 4 Earth radii they found a close relationship between mass and radius. Quote Weiss & Marcy (2014) fit these measured masses and radii (along with those of an additional nine planets smaller than with masses vetted on exoplanets.org) to power-law relations and found a nearly linear mass–radius relation: . Most 1.6 Earth-Radius Planets are not Rocky - The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 801, Number 1, March 2, 2015 Edited May 10, 2018 by T. McGrath Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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