Re: Why Colonize Space?

"Default User" <defaultuserbr@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
Michael Stemper wrote:

In article
<1c5e0877-8df8-43ef-84b9-e02d8c2bb04c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ilya2 <ilya2@xxxxxxx> writes: >> There have been six or more mass
extinctions in Earth's past. =A0The one >> that killed off the
dinosaurs wasn't the worst of them. =A0How unlikely >> to you need
species extinction to be?

If all of Earth's nuclear arsenals are blown up at once, or if a
10-km "dinosaur killer" asteroid strikes the Earth, Earth will
STILL be far more hospitable and more suited for re-colonization
than Mars or asteroids or any location in space. So if your goal
really is to create a "backup storage" for human race*, then the
logical and far more cost-effective solution is to build
underground bunkers on Earth with everything you can think of to
jump-start civilization.

"Bunkers"? I think not. We already have many mine shafts which could
be suitably outfitted for the prodigious task ahead.

Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely.

Care to describe how this works? Are you familiar at all with the
fuel cycle? You do realize that the current generation reactors
require periodic refueling, that pumps, electronics, piping and other
items are routinely replaced (requiring both considerable technical
savvy and fairly high-tech replacement materials?) And you don't just
dig the fuel out of the ground and pop it in the reactor; some needs
to be enriched (a particularly corrosive gas, uranium hexafloride is
spun in thousands centrifuges to separate U235 from U238 at very high
speeds).

The external infrastructure required to support a nuclear reactor plant would
mean lights out a few months after such a catastrophe.

Even a bog-simple RTG has:

1) A limited lifetime
2) A relatively low power output (compared to a fission pile).

For this application you'll want a much simpler heat source and
a way to convert heat to electricity without moving parts.

I suspect that most SF authors underestimate the effect of the
very inter-related global supply chain going down.

Greenhouses
could maintain plantlife

How well if, say, the earth had permanent cloud cover a la Venus
as a result of whatever catastrophe has occured? Would take a lot of
power from your hypothetical reactor to artificially generate sunlite
(and light bulbs do burn out - no walmart or home depots around)

. Animals could be bred and SLAUGHTERED.

They'd need to have sufficient forage and would compete with humans
for the limited edible plantlife.

scott
.

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