Earth evacuation

I would guess not even in the next 1000 years. You guys forget
that space science is 50 years old, aircraft 100 years, automobiles
140 years. Practical electricity, 150 years. We are still stupid apes,
and the richer ones have learnt some cute tricks.


Name a 1,000 year old technology that is still in use. Airplanes can transport
6 billion people and they have. The best way to deal with an impending asteroid
collision is to gather the worlds food supply together and build a giant bunker
underground for 100 million. Trying to establish a space colony in 4 years is a
waste of resources. What is required is organization, not getting off the
planet. For a 100 million people, we can provide a food supply for 60 years,
this would be the amount of 1 years world harvest. So for the next 4 years 1/4
of each harvest would go to stockpile the shelter for the selected 100 million
people, that is the best and most efficient way to save the human race. Just
make sure the shelter is not going to be in the impact area! The shelter may
have to filter the air and insulate from outside temperatures. In 60 years the
dust suspended in the stratosphere should rain out.

Tom

"jimmydevice" wrote in message
...
Paul F. Dietz wrote:
David Findlay wrote:

Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning?


No.

Paul

Well, Since the earth's population could occupy an area 30 miles ^2
given that each citizen would occupy a 2X2 foot square piece of land?

That's not really the issue.

The issue is just total number. Figure 6 billion people. If you moved 6
million a day, that's 1000 days (~3 years). Not including growth.

Note that something the size of the shuttle at most could move maybe 100
people. 3 shuttles, that's 300 people a day. So you're still far below
that 6 million number. Now toss in supplies and materials for say a lunar
or Mars colony, and you need to launch something like 40,000 space shuttles
a day.

And of course first you have to build that many

David Findlay wrote:
No.

Sadly, I tend to agree.

Politicians would argue that it will be good/bad for the economy, that
there is _reeely_ nothing to worry about, and that people should go back
to work - the economy is in bad enough shape right now without everybody
taking time off work.

It wouldn't suprise me that even if the sky was completely black, and
temperatures were plumetting, I don't think anyone would even try anything.

To be possible you'd have to suspend the economy, cancel civil rights(except
for freedom of speech) and force everyone to work on the project.
Politicians would never have the guts to do that, so instead we would all
die. Thanks,

What you propose doesn't make sense - even if we made everybody work on space
construction, it would be minimal help. We simply do not have the technology
and forced work on this would not accelerate it sufficently.


David


--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Alex Terrell wrote:

Speculating....
If it became humanity's top priority (assign 50% of GDP to the task?),
the first O'Niell type space colonies could be built in 20 years, with
space for a million people. You could double this every two years.
That means you'd need afurther 26 years to have 6,000 of these
colonies up and running.

This also assumes a new generation of launch technology, and
sufficient NEO mass nearby to construct the colonies.

*fully sustainable = sustainable in the event of Earth becoming
inaccessible. This would also require a certain minimum population for
gene pool preservation.

That minimal population wopuld be around 13-14000 IIRC. But the scenario
outlined is not a "earth is inaccessible" its a "earth is inhabitable"
scenario. you could still say import water etc if you had to.


**I guess a negative reaction would be a quick nuclear war to grab the
required resources, that could mean less than 6 billion seats needed.

Nuclear war is shoddy way to acquire scientific and engineering genious
and the will to use them.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

"jimmydevice" wrote in message
...


Considering that 90% of the population on earth have not used a
telephone. I would expect that the majority would not even be
aware of their impending doom.

Umm, where the heck did you get this number?

That's only about 600 million that have used the telephone.

Given 300 Million roughly in the US and the same in Europe, you can pretty
much assume most of those people have used a telephone.

Toss in China, India, Japan, in fact most countries along the Pacific Rim,
etc and I think you're number is extremely low. If anything, I wouldn't be
surprised if it's almost completely reverse of what you said.

Not quite the reverse - but with the latest developments in India with wireless
phones, a lot more people have used phone. Its quite astonishing how much phone
use will go up if youhave one phone per village - but of course before that
people did travel to other villages to use it if it was needed.

There is little doubt though that the figure wouldn't be higher than 20%,
and probably would be lower.



Jim Davis,
Amazed that the 1'st world population is so totally ignorant that
the rest of the world lives without electricity, phones and tech.

Amazed that you think so much of the rest of the world lives w/o
electricity, phones, etc. I think you'll find that they are far more
popular than you seem to think.


The problem in many cases is not the price or availability of technology,
but solving various kinds of 'last mile' problems. A phone is no use if
you don't have the connection. And people vastly underestimate availability
of electricity - availability of electricity is not even close to the same
thing as 'universal centralised power grid'.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

David Findlay wrote:
Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning? This scenario is based
upon something really bad happening that is definately going to happen(not
a maybe something will hit us). Assuming for instance that we are now in
the dark caused by a massive meteorite impact. Could we survive long enough
to get the technology together to get off the planet? Thanks,

David


No. Not in your timeframe.
100 years? No.
1000 years? Maybe.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 13:44:23 +0000 (UTC), Sander Vesik
wrote:

David Findlay wrote:
Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning? This scenario is based
upon something really bad happening that is definately going to happen(not
a maybe something will hit us). Assuming for instance that we are now in
the dark caused by a massive meteorite impact. Could we survive long enough
to get the technology together to get off the planet? Thanks,

No. Even if it was to happen in 40-50 years, as things stand, we would stand
no chance. If we had 40 years, the US could at best come up with a orbital
refuge for the president (remember it would be a military project then).

Why should America's president be offered the chance to survive in the
'orbital refuge' what about Britains Prime Minister or head of State
the Queen, or Russia's President, or China's, or France's, or the Head
of the European Commision... or are you hoping that they will all get
killed, and America's President would become President of the World
when he/she comes back down to Earth after all the dust has settled?

If the impact happened, the only chance would be surviving long enough
until the cloud mostly settled and re-evolving from that state.


David


--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

stmx3 wrote:
David Findlay wrote:
Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning? This scenario is based
upon something really bad happening that is definately going to happen(not
a maybe something will hit us). Assuming for instance that we are now in
the dark caused by a massive meteorite impact. Could we survive long enough
to get the technology together to get off the planet? Thanks,

David


No. Not in your timeframe.
100 years? No.
1000 years? Maybe.


1000 years and maybe would be too pessimistic. Even given the present very slow
development of space technology, by extrapolation it wouldn't be too hard in
a couple of hundred years. Just look at what the state of spaceflight was 100
years ago.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

David Findlay wrote in message .au...
Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning? This scenario is based
upon something really bad happening that is definately going to happen(not
a maybe something will hit us). Assuming for instance that we are now in
the dark caused by a massive meteorite impact. Could we survive long enough
to get the technology together to get off the planet? Thanks,

David

There are a number of science fiction novels about that, one of the
better is ONE IN THREE HUNDRED by J.T. McIntosh, 1954 , you see you
don't take everybody.

Alan Erskine wrote:

"David Findlay" wrote in message
. au...
Let's say suddenly Earth isn't going to be inhabitable for much longer,
maybe 4 or 5 years, and then it's no good. Could we evacuate Earth's
population to space, given that amount of warning?

No.

Politicians would argue that it will be good/bad for the economy, that there
is _reeely_ nothing to worry about, and that people should go back to work -
the economy is in bad enough shape right now without everybody taking time
off work.

Others will say "I told you so".

Others will say "It's a conspiracy".

Some will even say: "Let it happen. It's Nature's/God's will...."

And they're welcome to go right to ground zero if they want, but I
see some being even so radical as to stop others.

Though they'll be indistinguishable from those who will try to stop
such projects simply because they *can't* go.

Your best chance is if we already happen to have a self-sustaining
presence in space, *and* you already happen to be out there.