Earth evacuation

Alex Terrell wrote:

[snip]

**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.

Unfortunately, some of the targets could be the most important
places. (launch sites, cities containing development and construction
facilites, etc.)

Christopher wrote:

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?

I'm not against heads of state surviving. I'm against *little more*
than heads of state surviving.

And when the dust clears, just what would they be President/Prime
Minister/Premiere/King, etc. *of?*

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.

Well my scenario was more along the lines of earth never being reinhabitable
again. But yes that's probably the best solution we could hope for.

David

--
Engineers aren't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.

Sander Vesik wrote:

umm... i don't think an asteroid could do that you'd probably need a rougue
planet not smaller than Mars to do that. In which case, how do you know
any place the humans inside the Solar System won't be hit by debris?
Serious ecological disaster which would have immediate effects for more than
several decades is not easy to do.

In particular, serious disaster that would leave the earth less habitable
than space. A dinosaur-killing asteroid certainly wouldn't qualify.

Paul

"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

--
Engineers aren't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.

The short answer is no. Going into mass production before testing your ship
would be a bit odd. Let's say you spent 5 years resurrecting Apollo and
then went into mass production with the first ships rolling off the assembly
line 3 years later.

Apollo cost $50 billion to send 12 astronauts to the moon. Part of that
money was spent on Mercury and Gemini, so let's say $25 billion to launch 12
people. Mass production might reduce that cost by a factor of 100. If the
US spent $1 trillion, Europe spent $1 trillion, and Asia spent $1 trillion a
year, That would give you a total budget 120 times greater. One way
missions are cheaper than round trip missions, so you would probably get
another factor of 10 improvement. This would allow you to send 100 x 120 x
10 x 12 = 1440000 people a year to the moon (1.44 million).

On the down side, you would have to send tons of supplies and these might
not be one way missions. Would the Earth become inhabitable 2 years later?
In that case, you could send a 2 years supply of food and they would return
when it ran out. We have no experience with keeping people alive in space
without resupply missions from Earth. If they couldn't return, that would
be a serious problem.

The government could save money by cutting out Social Security and Medicare
and killing off old people who couldn't survive without those programs.
There would be rioting in the streets, but old people cause less damage
during riots than young people.

Paul F. Dietz wrote:
Sander Vesik wrote:

umm... i don't think an asteroid could do that you'd probably need a rougue
planet not smaller than Mars to do that. In which case, how do you know
any place the humans inside the Solar System won't be hit by debris?
Serious ecological disaster which would have immediate effects for more than
several decades is not easy to do.

In particular, serious disaster that would leave the earth less habitable
than space. A dinosaur-killing asteroid certainly wouldn't qualify.

And some of the disasters would create serious problems for the moon.
Once you get away from the earth-moon system, you can pretty much
ignore what happens to earth, unless it's a very odd and unusual
event (say a large antimatter asteroid blowing it all into little chunks
at a bit under solar escape).

Barring a complete resurfacing event on earth, it's probably a good place
to stay.

You've got lots of resources, you know where all the uranium/... is,
practically any concievable event will still leave water, carbon and nitrogen
in the atmosphere, at vastly greater levels than on mars, and it will
be much cooler and less corrosive than venus.


--
http://inquisitor.i.am/ | | Ian Stirling.
---------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------
"Looks like his brainwaves crash a little short of the beach..." - Duckman.

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

I think that a 'big push', for example using Orion to launch hundreds of
millions of tons rapidly, would probably alone be a failure if you try
to do it centrally planning everything.

Due to simply lacking all of the other supporting technologies.
Say you know now that earth is going to be utterly destroyed in 2008.
Assuming that everyone pulls together, there is no conflict, ... (haha)

The best bet would probably be to lift as much stuff as you could to
the moon.

Decent machine shops, simple basic life support and dehydrated food
to last 30 years, and big stocks of everything from antimony to zirconium.

You do the development and testing in situ.

Things would be a lot easier if you have even a minimal level of
space based hands-on experience. (ISS does not qualify)


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

One woman, turkey baster, and a really big freezer answers the gene-pool
aspects.


--
http://inquisitor.i.am/ | | Ian Stirling.
---------------------------+-------------------------+--------------------------
Q: What do you call a train that doesn't stop at stations?
A: Thomas the *******. -- Ben

Assuming there was even a place to go. Just what do you mean by 'to
space?'

Well initially to LEO, but given the fact that earth is uninhabitable I'd
say they'd want to spread out further.

You could probabibly save a genetically diverse number to come back
and repopulate Earth (expect virtual to literal fighting over what
groups it would be), but six billion? No way. (See Martin Cadin's novel
'Exit Earth' for a very similar scenario, not to mention Phillip Wylie's
'When Worlds Collide.')

Cool, have to read those books. Thanks,

David

--
Engineers aren't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.

In particular, serious disaster that would leave the earth less habitable
than space. A dinosaur-killing asteroid certainly wouldn't qualify.

Yep. I should have specified something like a resurficing of earth - turning
it into a second Venus.

David

--
Engineers aren't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.

"stmx3" wrote in message
...
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.

To establish a self-sufficient colony on Mars or Titan
would require building long lived nuclear reactors.
This might require fusion. The nature of Martian or
Titan ore deposits are somewhat unclear.
Not much chance of oil or coal for plastics. Further, I'd
suggest really rich ores would be rare or hard to access
as compared to Earth. The colony would have to
be large enough to make all equipment it requires
and to expand. Mars would require the ability to
produce full space suits. Titan would require
somewhat lesser suits.

Even with a 150 year deadline the genetic problem
won't require the size of population some here
have proposed. The idea is survival. Cycles of inbreeding
and outbreeding could remove many the deleterious traits
from a select group. Indeed, genetic screening might suffice.
The Polynesian successful colonized the Pacific islands
with much smaller starting genetic than some here
think to be required. Also there the issue of what plants
and animals to take and these would have genetic pool
issues also.

What I am suggesting is that the requirements
for a successful self-sufficient colony is dictated
by the needs of the technological minimum require to
build machines, suits, to raise food, fiber, and plastic
stocks needed to grow and expand the colony.
This would require many workers.

Could we even get to Titan? Would it be worth
the trip? There would be the protection of the
atmosphere from radiation and incoming
meteors.

Rambling.............William A. Noyes