
Let's Colonize Titan - aburan28
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/lets-colonize-titan/
======
banach
I think that, before colonizing other planets, we should start by realizing
that Earth can easily sustain human kind for the foreseeable future, given
some pretty modest tweaks to our way of life (compared to "going multi-
planetary" that is). If we start valuing quality over novelty, stop eating
animal-based foods and re-organize to live closer to where we work, we can
stop the consumption and that is taxing our ecosystem and cut energy use to
manageable levels. If we re-distribute our wealth, population growth will
subside. If we put pressure on our rulers, they will work to eliminate the
nuclear stockpiles. There are simple solutions to most of our issues. Once we
have solved them, maybe we can start thinking about spreading our species to
other places.

~~~
pavelrub
Yes let's stop all scientific and technological progress which isn't directly
related to achieving utopia on earth, until a hypothetical point in the future
that will never come.

Is everything you do and find important in life directly related to improving
our ecosystem and eliminating nuclear stockpiles? Do you think it's ok to be
interested, for example, in web development, but not in space colonization?
Maybe instead of attempting to force artificial goals on human society, you
should acknowledge the fact that people care about more things than your
notion of "quality". Denying them those things in the name of some artificial
pragmatism is exactly the opposite of pragmatism - it ignores the realities of
human society, ignores the actual wishes of people, and replaces them with an
artificial ideology.

I would much rather live in a world where some people care about clean energy
and sustainability, others about colonizing space, others about mathematics,
and others about art, etc., than in a world where the majority of those things
are shunned because of arguments such as yours. The latter world is a far more
miserable one, and a miserable reality isn't a solution to anything.

~~~
banach
I think that the pursuit of knowledge is a really good way to spend your time,
but I do not like when simple solutions to real problems are sidelined in
favor of the latest buzzword-oriented technology fetish. In times when the
president-elect has announced that he is shutting down NASA's climate change
research, ostensibly to fund space exploration, I think we need to remind
ourselves that any work we chose to pursue has an opportunity cost. I really
believe that we can address the main issues facing our society with pretty
simple means, but that will not happen if everyone is too busy looking for
problems to solve using their favorite tool. In the terminology of Hacker
News, I guess what I am arguing is that colonization is bike-shedding for the
reforms that I have mentioned in my first comment.

~~~
acchow
I think we should colonize other planets because we can. Not as a solution to
any problem.

I will defer to The West Wing to explain:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUHnERJ0zs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUHnERJ0zs)

~~~
kilpela
What you are describing is inverse vandalism. If we ignore the problems of
here and now, the realization of a future where we colonize the stars may
never occur. Obligatory quote:

Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they
could that they didn't stop to think if they should. - Dr. Ian Malcolm.

Our focus should not be on whether we can do something. We should carefully
consider why we are doing something and ensure we aren't acting in a self-
destructive way.

~~~
Bluestrike2
As odd as it may seem, the human race is fully capable of accomplishing both
space-expansion efforts and cleaning things up here on Earth. More than that,
space opens the door to a wealth of possibilities for ameliorating or even
solving many of the major problems we face today. That includes environmental
efforts and energy production.

Even if we were to pursue a massive space race, it'd only consume a relatively
small fraction of humanity's industrial capability and resources as they exist
today. In the context of a long-term terraforming effort, after a significant
space-borne industry has been created, these sorts of binary comparisons
become all the more laughable.

------
sgentle
So, the argument is let's not go to Mars because we'd have to deal with cosmic
rays. Instead, let's go to Titan, which has an atmosphere, but is ridiculously
cold and rains methane. Also, we can't go there because it's nearly thirty
times the distance. Plus we'd still have to deal with cosmic rays along the
way.

I'm not convinced.

~~~
eganist
Yup.

Frankly, if you can solve the cosmic ray problem for the journey to Titan, you
also just solved it for colonizing Mars. Martian gravity is also closer to
Earth's, so Mars still seems like the better fit in the immediate term.

~~~
sliken
Mars has way more sunlight (much closer to the sun and a much thinner
atmosphere), which makes solar much easier. So equipment, supplies, and solar
could be on the surface, and the radiation sensitive humans could be a few
meters underground. As you mine for water you could dump the useless stuff on
the surface and use the emptied space for living quarters.

Question is why live somewhere that's tougher than the top of MT Everest or
either pole? Guess a population big enough to repopulate earth in case of an
extinction level event would be a reasonable safeguard.

~~~
c22
But if you're only doing it to safeguard against extinction level events why
not just set up multiple contingency populations underground here on this
planet? They won't have to travel as far after the event.

~~~
samstave
I think the idea is to seed the extra planets BEFORE the ELE...

If an ELE hits, few would be around to make even that short trip to the
bunker.

~~~
vacri
What kind of event is in your mind that gives people less than, say, an hour's
notice?

~~~
flukus
Full scale nuclear war maybe? Much of the population would only have a few
minutes notice at best.

~~~
stickfigure
Crazy as it sounds, full scale nuclear war is not an extinction level event.
Catastrophic, no doubt, and might reduce the human population by a couple
orders of magnitude -- but unlikely to kill off all the humans. There just
aren't that many bombs (~17,000 is a high estimate) and the earth is really
_really_ big. "Nuclear winter" appears to be overdramatized in fiction.

There's quite a lot of semiserious discussion of exactly this question on the
internet; this is just a rough paraphrase of the consensus. It can make for a
fun couple hours googling.

~~~
flukus
How many does it have to kill to be an extinction level event? By the time we
deal with the radiation sickness and the lack of civilization would we have
enough people left for a breeding population?

------
stcredzero
_Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice just below the surface could
be used to provide oxygen for breathing and to combust hydrocarbons as fuel._

Red flag! It's a nonstarter to extract oxygen from water, use it to burn a
hydrocarbon, then try to come out with more useful energy than you started
with. This might have some use as an energy storage scheme, as storing
hydrocarbons can be cheaper and more energy dense than storing hydrogen.

 _The weak gravity—similar to the Moon’s—combined with the thick atmosphere
would allow individuals to aviate with wings on their backs. If the wings fall
off, no worry, landing will be easy. Terminal velocity on Titan is a tenth
that found on the Earth._

A 12 mph collision with solid rock or packed dirt is survivable, given the
proper technique or circumstances. It's also still potentially fatal.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't disagree with your red flag, I do however note that there are other
ways of getting electricity out of hydrocarbons without cracking water.
Specifically a the use of fuel cells. If you feed methane to a Bloom Energy
fuel cell after initially filling it with some liquid water, it will generate
250kW of power as long as you feed in methane.

~~~
foobarian
But... where does it get the oxygen?

~~~
ChuckMcM
From the water using steam reforming as I understand it, which is recovered
100% when the cell is generating power. The only consumable ends up being the
methane.

~~~
foobarian
Looks like a standard solid oxide cell, going by their glitzy info page [1].
The water is used in reforming the methane but it's not a source of oxygen;
that comes from the air.

[1] [http://www.bloomenergy.com/fuel-cell/solid-oxide-fuel-
cell-a...](http://www.bloomenergy.com/fuel-cell/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-
animation/)

~~~
ChuckMcM
You are correct sir. That kind of sucks then.

------
tehchromic
I find the "colonize other planets" dream of the secular/scientific community
to be most like the "you'll go to heaven when you die" idea in religious
paradoxy. You would think we might have experimented with teraforming
uninhabitable place here on earth - the bottom of the Mariana, or Death
Valley. If that was a snap, then we might contemplate Moon or Mars or Titan.

But in fact we are systematically rendering our own planet uninhabitable. Our
planet is the product of billions of years of biological teraformation that
has created the narrow and extremely specialized spectrum of environmental
factors in which we live comfortably. It is far easier to eat that up than it
is to replicate it.

The answer is to drop our extreme hubris and misguided religious style
escapism and instead develop some respect for planet e, and proceed with
extreme caution moving forward, or we will find our own planet unfit for
living on.

Not saying interplanetary travel isn't possible, however I strongly disagree
with the statement in the article that 'humanity will remain the same' and
adapt our environment to suit us. If we make it to other planets we will be so
altered we will not recognize ourselves. IMO that's a long loooong way off and
requires that we don't extinct ourselves in the meantime.

~~~
azernik
The point of colonizing other planets isn't the opening up of now-
uninhabitable areas. It's creating a human society in a place that won't be
affected if/when some catastrophic event alters the environment on Earth.

Sure, preferable to preserve Earth's environment, but there's nothing that
says we can't do both, and the work that's going into interplanetary transport
isn't appreciably detracting from environmental efforts here.

~~~
gambiting
I'd argue that a self-sufficient colony on the bottom of the ocean would be
unaffected by 99% of natural disasters that can happen to this planet - maybe
short of direct meteor or nuclear hit. Even in an event of nuclear war, water
is absolutely amazing at blocking radiation, so a colony couple miles below
the ocean surface should be completely safe. And it would give us loads of
experience on how to build self-sufficient colonies in extremely difficult
environments, which would eventually be useful for colonizing space.

~~~
lmm
Up to a point. It's very hard to get energy underwater, and the pressure
constraints are quite different. Some of the experience will generalize, but
I'm not sure how much.

------
bitL
Alright, so currently we can't even predict how bad osteoporosis becomes after
a flight to Mars (will astronauts break their hips on the first step out of
landing module?), what would radiation exposure outside Earth's magnetosphere
do to our bodies, yet we should hurry up to Titan. Currently even human space
flight to Mars is a pipe dream, our practical knowledge constructing vehicles
capable of reaching Moon and sustaining human life deteriorated (still using
Soviet engines from the 60s?), not mentioning reaching Mars which is way way
farther than Moon (50M-400M km vs 380k km, 130-1050x farther). Overcoming this
would require massive undertaking of all humanity, like with LHC, and not just
PR from SpaceX to secure their funding.

~~~
epmaybe
Osteoporosis can be easily solved, just exercise on the plane. That is one of
the least pressing problems in my opinion.

~~~
bitL
Actually that's not true. We currently don't know the bottom of osteoporosis,
all we observed was a gradual decline in bone quality directly proportional to
the length of stay, some astronauts returning with bones of 80-year olds, in a
few cases irreversibly so. All other declines like muscular mass, amount of
circulating blood, heart shrinkage have some equilibrium beyond which no
adverse trend continues. With osteoporosis we never observed this, so going to
long flights, we might lose all our bones. Supplements, training etc. help a
bit, yet the decline + increased Ca excretion persists despite. Not mentioning
this is not friendly to kidneys as well and nobody wants to end up with stones
developed during a spaceflight.

------
hereonbusiness
_We expect human nature to stay the same. Human beings of the future will have
the same drives and needs we have now. Practically speaking, their home must
have abundant energy, livable temperatures and protection from the rigors of
space, including cosmic radiation, which new research suggests is unavoidably
dangerous for biological beings like us_

I would expect the complete opposite if we really want to colonize the solar
system at some point. It seems far easier to modify/replace the human body
than to try to suit all it's biological needs.

~~~
lazarus101
My thoughts exactly, instead of adapting planets for our current form we
should try to adapt humans for extraterrestrial environments. We need to find
a way to transfer our brains(or brain data) into a machine, then adapt this
machine to the conditions of the planet. Easier said than done obviously, but
colonizing Titan doesn't seem a very realistic option either. Besides flying
humans safely to Titan we also need to fly enough technology for them to
survive until proper housing can be built and to be able to harvest Titan's
resources.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" We need to find a way to transfer our brains(or brain data) into a
machine"_

It's debatable whether that's a "transfer" so much as the killing of one life
and the creation of another one.

To me that would be more of a creation of another intelligent being, with some
eerie similarities to humans.

------
nickparker
This is exceedingly silly. Saturn's magnetosphere concentrates radiation
primarily on Enceladus, Dione, and surprise surprise: Titan.

The atmosphere doesn't mean much when you're under the cosmic equivalent of a
magnifying glass.

~~~
koheripbal
If a surface temperature of −179.5 °C isn't enough to stop someone, logic
never will.

~~~
yummybear
“There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”

So remember your mittens, people.

~~~
77pt77
How do you protect your eyes?

Serious question.

~~~
patall
You would always wear a full body suit. There are only two places in the solar
system where the human body can survive for short time without any gear:
Earth, ... and the upper parts of Venus atmosphere (lacking oxygen though)

------
bigtunacan
We struggle to get people to move to Iowa because of the cold winters. The
record low of all time is -47F, but the average low for January (our coldest
month) is around 11F.

I don't see people signing up like crazy to move to Titan where they are
trapped in doors all year round. I don't mean this as a joke either;
considering mental issues like SADD and just general anxiety that many people
suffer when trapped indoors, even in large spaces, for too long I think that
solving the technical issues with moving to Titan will not be the hardest
challenge to overcome.

~~~
GFischer
People don't move to Iowa because it's Iowa. Compare to the northern European
countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland), which have to hold back immigration, and
have much harsher climate (Des Moines is much warmer than Oslo, for example).

If economic conditions in Titan were similar to Norway, you wouldn't have a
shortfall of migrants. Maybe U.S. citizens don't want to go there, but there's
a significant percentage of the world population that will go anywhere where
they can make money.

[https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-
Tem...](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-
Sunshine,Oslo,Norway)

[https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-
Tem...](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-
Sunshine,Des-Moines,United-States-of-America)

~~~
bigtunacan
You open with, "People don't move to Iowa because it's Iowa.", but then you
say, "If economic conditions in Titan were similar to Norway, you wouldn't
have a shortfall of migrants."

As far as the US economy goes, Iowa is a great place to live. We have one of
the lowest unemployment rates in the nation coupled with an extremely low cost
of living relative to most areas in the US. Despite these great economic
conditions we don't have a huge influx of people migrating to Iowa.

As far as Norway goes; Norway has a fairly unique economic situation to the
rest of the world due to their welfare system that is enabled by the profits
coming from the vast amount of natural resources they are able to export.

Considering the huge cost and resources that would be associated with
colonizing a planet I don't see how they would have an economy that bears in
resemblance to that of Norway for any foreseeable amount of time after
colonization.

~~~
GFischer
I was trying to disprove _" We struggle to get people to move to Iowa because
of the cold winters"_ , by showing a place with harsher winters and a lot more
migrants.

Maybe Canada is a much better example. People don't go to Iowa because of
immigration policies, not because of the weather.

If Iowa had a policy similar to Quebec's, it would be flooded with migrants.
Especially if it's doing as well as you say :)

I strongly doubt anyone but explorer-types will go to Titan in the extreme
hypothesis that it becomes settled sometime soon, unless it becomes an Alberta
or Alaska type with some very profitable natural resource.

------
sytelus
If we ever get to fusion or other unlimited energy source, it _may_ be
possible someday to thoroughly transform Titan, relocate 100,000 people on it
and flung it in to space to another star. Titan can be our "generational
spaceship" that goes forever to infinity and beyond. To colonize galaxy, using
moons as spaceship would be necessary assuming there is no way to travel
faster than speed of light. So all inter-galactic spaceships needs to be
generational, completely self-sufficient in every possible way and have enough
population that can evolve without too much of inbreeding for thousands of
years.

~~~
jp555
That's making a lot of assumptions though. For one thing, I think to become an
interstellar species, we'll have to direct the evolution of Homo sapiens into
some kind of Homo exteriores spatium sapiens. Radiation-hardened, very very
long lived, happy to live together in very tight spaces, etc. Might look
closer to giant cockroaches than hairless apes. It certainly seems we're a lot
closer to the ability to do this (eg. CRISPR-Cas9) than colonize & move a
moon.

------
seszett
> _It might be possible to live suspended by balloons high in Venus’s
> atmosphere, but we can’t see how such a habitation would ever be self-
> sustaining._

I think they're a bit too dismissive here. I'm a great fan of the colonisation
of Venus, and don't really see a problem with self-sustaining stations in a
place with pressures and temperatures naturally fit for humans, with lots of
sunlight for energy and lots of CO2.

After all, as long as there is plenty of energy, carbon, and oxygen, we should
be able to synthesise mostly whatever we want.

~~~
maze-le
One problem might be the sulfuric acid rains. The SO2-cloud layer is well
above the '1 atm'-isobar level (~50km). So we would need building materials
that are resistant to sulfuric acid.

But other than that I also find the idea highly fascinating.

~~~
pmoriarty
Is it possible to terraform the SO2-clouds in to something more benign?

~~~
Retra
Like what? You've got three atoms in that molecule. Not many other stable
configurations to work with.

~~~
lmm
Precipitate out the sulphur, leave it as oxygen? Not that oxygen is
objectively benign, but we're used to dealing with oxygen atmospheres.

------
kqr2
Here are some good arguments for colonizing Mercury:

[http://einstein-schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html](http://einstein-
schrodinger.com/mercury_colony.html)

~~~
Tepix
Interesting. The strong radiation and long travel time make this even more
problematic than a 3-6 month trip away from the Sun to Mars, however.

------
mirekrusin
Does the colony really need to be on the planet? Why not start on the orbit?
We already do it to some extent, can't we try to grow it? Is the spinning disk
ok for artificial gravity or the diameter would have to be extremely large?

Another alternative could be floating, suspended or at the bottom of the ocean
colony.

It's like doing test driven development.

~~~
ekianjo
radiation exposure becomes an issue on the longer term in space.

~~~
w-ll
If we were to invest in building a underwater 'Sealab' on the bottom of some
ocean floor, say at least 100m water deep, what kind of cataclysmic event
could destroy it.

A few dozen of the underwater sea-colonies seams the most practical safety net
for humanity that we can do today.

I completely for exploring and colonizing space, but we still haven't mapped
our own oceans fully. And sadly, I don't think my generation, or even the next
few will be any closer to being able to get ourselves off this rock.

If you are looking to build 'Arks' for humanity, i'd put my money on the ocean
floor.

~~~
sliken
If there's a nuke war, anything nuke resistant would likely be directly
targeted. After all last thing your enemy wants is for the earth to be
repopulated by their enemy.

~~~
vbezhenar
Is it hard to nuke Mars or Titan? Looks the same for me. Deploy nukes in the
Mars orbit and destroy colony if needed.

------
camillomiller
If you really want to read some interesting and literary valuable sci-fi about
Titan, then read Vonnegut's "The Sirens of Titan". :)

[https://www.amazon.com/Sirens-Titan-Novel-Kurt-
Vonnegut/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Sirens-Titan-Novel-Kurt-
Vonnegut/dp/0385333498/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480257192&sr=8-1&keywords=sirens+of+titan)

~~~
avian
Another sci-fi novel about a manned mission to Titan is Stephen Baxter's
Titan. It's somewhat depressing though.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Baxter_novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_\(Baxter_novel\))

------
Beltiras
They succeeded better in convincing me that there are no habitable choices in
the solar system than Titan being the obvious choice. Mars will probably be
our next destination as the best-fit of several ill-fitting choices. We need a
propulsion revolution to reach Titan.

------
donatj
I strongly believe we'll never permanently settle anything beyond earth, for
reasons pointed out by this article among others.

That said, please prove me wrong, I would be so very happy to be wrong.

~~~
gkafkg8y8
The main two reasons we wouldn't settle anything beyond Earth would be:

1\. Lack of interest.

2\. Lack of time.

#1 is the biggest problem as far as we know right now. #2 is a problem only if
we destroy our planet to the point where we can't expend resources or time, or
we overpopulate and run out of resources, or a natural disaster sets us back
too far or kills us.

We have sufficient resources right now, we're just not focused on the effort
enough. If every government said, "You, need to change what you are doing and
start helping us get off of this planet," and changed laws and regulations to
encourage or enforce this, it would happen. Is that realistic? Not really.
That's the reason that Musk and others are focusing so much on space. Because,
if they don't do it, then who?

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> 1\. Lack of interest.

F-35 was a lot more important, what would we do if we had to stop interfering
in the middle-east?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Program_cost_overruns_and_delays)

~~~
grkvlt
For one thing, if we (meaning you, i.e. the USA) stopped 'interfering' in the
middle east the F-35 program would be completely unaffected. The F-35 is not
being used in Afghanistan, and was nowhere near combat ready during the Iraq
wars. I believe they are just beginning to be deployed overseas actively now
[1] but that is still a long way from active combat.

1\. [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/washington-deploy-f-35-fighter-
jets...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/washington-deploy-f-35-fighter-jets-japan-
first-time-ever-outside-us-soil-1577561)

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> The F-35 is not being used in Afghanistan, and was nowhere near combat ready
> during the Iraq wars.

To clarify I wrote: "what would we do if we had to stop interfering" as in "if
we didn't have a fighter jet for future interference" when the current line
goes EoL.

> For one thing, if we (meaning you, i.e. the USA) stopped 'interfering' in
> the middle east the F-35 program would be completely unaffected.

I don't really buy that, at least in the broader sense, if the US didn't have
an agenda which involved active interventions in the middle east and around
the world, the F-35 wouldn't be worth the glamorous budget.

------
cstross
They almost had me until ...

 _On the surface, vast quantities of hydrocarbons in solid and liquid form lie
ready to be used for energy. Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice
just below the surface could be used to provide oxygen for breathing and to
combust hydrocarbons as fuel._

Riiiight. And you're going to get the power to electrolytically split that
water into hydrogen and oxygen where, exactly?

(Whoever wrote that piece forgot that water is one of the _end products_ of
combusting hydrocarbons with oxygen, not a starting point. Basic physical
chemistry and thermodynamics.)

Let's go through the energy budget of a Titan colony point by point:

* Titan is so far out from the sun that the available solar power is roughly half what it is in Jupiter orbit, which in turn is a tenth of what we're used to (per my skimming of this source: [http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/nov_2007_meeting/presentations/...](http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/nov_2007_meeting/presentations/solar_power.pdf) ), and that's before we factor in the murkily opaque atmosphere; I infer that photovoltaics are a non-starter on Titan.

* Some analog of wind or tidal power might be workable, but remember we're talking about an ambient surface temperature down around 90 degrees Kelvin; the free energy in the atmosphere will be drastically lower than the equivalent on Earth (temperature on the order of 300 Kelvin).

* Forget hydrocarbon combustion (coal -- _snort_!) because there's a slight lack of anything to combust it _with_.

* This leaves nuclear as the sole reasonable option for powering a Titan colony, which opens up a raft of other questions: if Fission, then what is the abundance of 235U or 232Th on Titan, and how accessible are the necessary isotopes? And if Fusion, well, first we need to demonstrate a working base-load producing fusion reactor here on Earth.

* Let's also bear in mind that a thick atmospheric blanket of mostly nitrogen at 90 Kelvins is, shall we say, a little bit chilly, and the ground any human-occupied base is built on will be a mere hundred Kelvins lower than the lowest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica, and we're going to need a _lot_ of energy just to keep from freezing. (Also note that any significant human presence there is going to end up pumping out so much heat pollution that there may be eventual weather disturbances as a result.)

It's a bit like imagining how hypothetical Venusians might build a colony on
Earth, with their requirement for pressurized habitat domes kept at a thousand
degrees Fahrenheit (in American units).

Disclaimer: I am not a planetary scientist, I'm just a science fiction writer
who thinks about how this sort of thing looks from 30,000 feet rather than
trying to quantify it with enough precision to justify a research grant. But I
still think balloons in the atmosphere of Venus or tunnels drilled into the
walls of Valles Marineris make more sense.

~~~
internaut
Elon Musk's ticket to Mars will be less meaningful (if we take the word
'colonization' seriously) unless somebody can stick several thousand people
into a hermetic sealed box and they are still alive and thriving after 10
years.

I've been disappointed with the lack of progress in closed loop systems to
date. There was Biosphere 2, a great ambitious start. Then a few years ago
there was Kamen's Slingshot (outcome unknown). That and the ISS toilet doesn't
work properly. It's an un-sexy topic and there hasn't been much progress.

I see houses are heading towards zero energy from the grid, but a magic box
which would reliably and cheaply convert black/gray water to high quality
drinking water and turn poop and organics into energy bricks to eliminate
sewage plants and septic tanks seems like a technology we should have invented
a long time ago.

Off topic, I enjoyed 'A Colder War' and was curious about your thoughts on
Gene Wolfe.

~~~
cstross
_a magic box which would reliably and cheaply convert black /gray water to
high quality drinking water and turn poop and organics into energy bricks to
eliminate sewage plants and septic tanks seems like a technology we should
have invented a long time ago._

We _have_ invented such a "magic box" \-- but it's large-scale: that's what
municipal sewage farms mostly do (modulo the final step of turning poop into
energy bricks: sewage is generally too contaminated to be economical to turn
into safe biofuel without expensive treatment). Also, it relies extensively on
bacterial fermentation and takes a lot of human intervention to control.

The ISS toilet that keeps malfunctioning is the American one, no? Because I
seem to recall the USSR cracking the urine-to-drinking-water problem on Mir a
couple of decades ago. (Not Invented Here is a besetting problem with NASA,
which for political reasons isn't allowed to Buy Foreign.)

~~~
internaut
I still want my magic box.

Here is why:

\- Get rid of water and sewer pipes.

That would be huge. Together with passive house technology each and every
house in a city, town or countryside would be 'off grid'. That kind of
independence would make our infrastructure much less fragile. Building
downwards (a recent topic) will be easier.

\- Our magic box is an isolation point for dangerous and toxic substances.

That will prevent every household from contributing toxicity to the
surrounding environment. Adaptions to new forms of waste become possible at
source.

If toxic elements can be compacted and stored, useful compounds/elements
derived, and some used for energy, then in the future we won't need pipes
anymore than we needed pneumatic tubes for sending messages/parcels once we
developed automotive transport. The self driving bots will simply visit
periodically for a new cargo to be delivered as industrial inputs. Since the
magic box performs some level of element/compound sorting there is probably a
market where your waste is automatically profiled and sold. It pays for at
least part of its own operation.

Last but not least many countries have no ability to construct decent
infrastructure for political reasons. The magic box solves that problem in a
way that scales with population.

tldr; Back to the future, since 'night soil' historically was a commodity
collected from each household.

> The ISS toilet that keeps malfunctioning is the American one, no? Because I
> seem to recall the USSR cracking the urine-to-drinking-water problem on Mir
> a couple of decades ago.

Yes. Calcium from astronaut bones (another serious issue) was clogging up the
system at a much higher rate than on the terrestrial surface.

I don't know how the Russians solved it but I sometimes think with Americans
Business acumen and Russian Science there would be very little we couldn't get
accomplished. I'm sure you've heard of Russian phage technology for medical
treatment. Cures for alcoholism.

One of the things that is fascinating about the Cold War is how we saw Science
developing differently. That is something that should trouble the thoughts of
more people.

------
Koshkin
In all likelihood, we will (continue to) be "colonizing" the virtual Universe,
not the physical one. Look at all the advancements being made in VR, robotics,
AI, and computer hardware. And considering that even putting a man on the Moon
was - _and still is_ \- enormously difficult, I have a hard time imagining any
progress being made here on any significant scale in the foreseeable future. I
think it may be time to realize that an extrapolation into the future of the
exponential progress that has been taking place in physics and other sciences
may be not justified.

~~~
Chathamization
Exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if we get brain uploads before we get a self-
sustaining Mars Colony. At which point current efforts to colonize Mars would
have the same impact on spreading humans throughout the universe as the Tower
of Babel did in getting us to the moon.

------
oska
> On Earth, we are shielded from GCRs by water in the atmosphere. But it takes
> two meters of water to block half of the GCRs present in unprotected space.

Build a double-skinned geodesic dome with a 4 metre gap between the two
shells. Fill the space between with water. Your 'sky' now has a water-
shielding layer.

~~~
ajuc
1 square meter of such roof would weight 4 tonnes (on Earth). 500 kg on Titan.
That's quite a roof.

~~~
neolefty
Also, it will be frozen solid; in a dome shape it could support itself.

Construction: Start with a solid dome, layer water/fiber composite on from the
outside, then remove the solid dome from the inside?

~~~
ajuc
So, Mars colonists will be living in iglos :)

------
zyngaro
Or let's spend all this money and energy keep earth a safe and livable place
to be.

~~~
macintux
Did you actually read the article to its conclusion?

~~~
zyngaro
Yes I did.

------
StreamBright
There are lots of technical problems to be solved associated with space travel
and colonising a new planet. SpaceX is trying to solve some of these but there
are a lot of other problems not well know. Once we solved these we can move on
to the more popular subjects like near light speed space travel.

The problems to be solved:

\- how to reduce exposure to radiation (cosmic rays, GCRs) while traveling
with a space ship

\- how to reduce exposure to radiation coming from space while living on a
planet like Mars not having a magnetosphere

"The health threat from cosmic rays is the danger posed by galactic cosmic
rays and solar energetic particles to astronauts on interplanetary missions or
any missions that venture through the Van-Allen Belts or outside the Earth's
magnetosphere.[1][2] Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) consist of high energy
protons (85%), helium (14%) and other high energy nuclei (HZE ions).[1] Solar
energetic particles consist primarily of protons accelerated by the Sun to
high energies via proximity to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. They
are one of the most important barriers standing in the way of plans for
interplanetary travel by crewed spacecraft."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays)

------
brownbat
I would like to read a serious scientific case for the pros/cons of colonizing
the sea floor so I can have it on standby, as a comparative baseline for these
sorts of pieces.

------
jyriand
Half joking, but how come we always gravitate toward exploring exterior space,
but not our interior universe in the brain? "God" knows what we could find,
once the brave psychonauts have returned from their mind trips. We might as
well abandon traveling on mechanical starships and become star rovers
ourselves, uploading our consciousness into fabric of space-time and exploring
mythical worlds and archetypes that are inhabiting our minds still
undiscovered.

------
Animats
Face it, the off-earth real estate in this solar system really sucks.

------
agentgt
I am probably completely wrong but it seem easier and perhaps more fruitful to
build the proper shielding in a station/ship and build a network up in one of
the asteroid belts.

~~~
neolefty
I love this chart: Delta-V required for various solar system destinations:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/534ylb/elon_musk_on...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/534ylb/elon_musk_on_twitter_turns_out_mct_can_go_well/d7q35pp/)

------
rm445
There's something that never seems to be mentioned in articles on making
decisions for planet colonisation based on cosmic radiation: humanity is
already trying like crazy to defeat cancer, for the obvious reason that it
kills people here on Earth as well.

It might sound utopian to suggest that one day we'll just take our anti-cancer
pills and not worry about it, but when we're talking colonisation potentially
a couple of hundred years ahead, it shouldn't be discounted.

(The point in this article about damage to brain tissue is interesting, but
again, that's not something that medical research here on Earth will be
neglecting).

~~~
mnw21cam
Problem is that cancer is not just one disease - it is about two hundred
different types. I'm not sure I want to take two hundred different anti-cancer
pills every day.

------
andrewfromx
"Housing could be made of plastic produced from the unlimited resources
harvested on the surface" drill baby drill? Plastic? Like petroleum based
plastic? So we humans should move from planet to planet like locusts?

------
jack9
Who cares about a magenetosphere? Dig underground with water tanks lining the
top and problem solved 100%. If you can't do that on Mars, you aren't going to
survive Titan anyway. SMH scientific american.

------
transfire
This is silly. First we should build orbiting colonies, some that can fairy
between the moon, mars and eventually other planets (I believe these are often
called Cyclers). Solving the living condition issues in these colonies is
actually easy -- they would be large rotating cylinders to provide artificial
gravity (probably 1/2 g) and the outer perimeters would be water containment
which is very good at blocking cosmic rays. A strong magnetic core could also
provide some shielding.

------
throwaway98237
The point of going to Mars is to give humanity a plan b, not as a vacation
with lots of hiking and other outdoor leisure stuff. Considering how much time
an Earthling spends indoors, it's not a huge leap to spend all of one's time
indoors. Building underground and staying inside. There, problem solved. Makes
a whole lot more sense than making our first attempt at colonizing a whole new
would at the distances we'd be looking at with Titan.

------
johngalt
What's the net energy on combusting hydrocarbon fuel when all your oxygen
comes from breaking the oxygen bonded with H20? I'm betting it's not great.

~~~
Roboprog
Negative. But storing liquid H2 is hard, vs (CH2)n. Carrying around O2 and
Propane is easier than putting a nuke on wheels.

------
cesis
Weird article. Why excavation on Mars would be a problem?

~~~
mikebelanger
Presumably it would be energy intensive, especially at Mars' temperatures.

------
samstave
Serious question(s): (TL;DR a robot version of Matt Damon in The Martian?)

Are there any efforts for fully automated robotic enviroment creation (I dont
know the term, not terraforming) -- but sending a robot that will build a
structure, then another which will fill it with soil, then atmosphere, then
harvest, test, distill whatever ice we can to create water and then grow
plants?

Obviously this is a lot of effort and would take a global team to put such a
sequence together and likely take 100 years, but is anyone (aside from
figuring out the pre-req's to actually get to mars) trying to do this?

What is different between Mars and the Moon with respect to testing such
robots on the moon first?

Why are we focused on Mars and Titan when we have an extra-terrestrial body
that is so much closer to us?

Why has Elon Musk focused on Mars as opposed to the Moon first? Talk about A/B
testing, we have much more rapid development of capabilities on the Moon, do
we not?

------
romanr

      > On Earth, we are shielded from GCRs by water in the atmosphere. But it takes two meters of water to block half of the GCRs present in unprotected space. Practically, a Moon or Mars settlement would have to be built underground to be safe from this 
    
      > Underground shelter is hard to build and not flexible or easy to expand. Settlers would need enormous excavations for room to supply all their needs for food, manufacturing and daily life. We ask why they would go to that trouble. We can live underground on Earth. What’s the advantage to doing so on Mars?
    

It's never seriously discussed, are they expect to live full time underground
on Mars? Why then? We can live same way on Earth.. Does Elon Musk knows
something we don't?

~~~
JorgeGT
Elon views Mars colonization not as a way to solve lack of habitation space in
Earth, but as an off-premises security backup should something terrible happen
on Earth.

~~~
grkvlt
Off topic, sorry; but why do you use his first name only here? Normally we
would refer to minor public figures like him as 'Elon Musk' or just 'Musk'.
Using someone's first name is reserved for personal friends. I have also seen
this with Linus Torvalds, for example, and Linux aficionados. It seems like
there is an exception for some people, perhaps it just has to do with
popularity within a segment of the population, in the same manner as pop stars
become mononymic to the general public?

~~~
photogrammetry
One's surname is omitted when it's been stated already. If they're a public
figure being discussed in an academic or press setting, yes, usually the last
name is used. In less formal circumstances, it's perfectly acceptable to use
first names only, especially when they're as uncommon as his.

The sort of proper-name forcing that you suggest is better gets really
obnoxious in interviews when the interviewer continually addresses the
interviewee by their full name.

e.g.

>So, Elon Musk, what do you think about Blue Origin's rocket design?

>That was a really great answer! Elon Musk, do you spend most of your time at
Tesla or SpaceX?

>Elon Musk! Elon Musk! ... etc.

~~~
grkvlt
Sure, that's why you use the surname instead. In interviews I can see the need
for informality, so first names are fine there, but when commenting on an
interview or story I think it's better to return to the formal, surname only,
references.

> So, Elon, what do you think of Blue Origin's colour scheme?

>> I think Musk's response to the interviewer's stupid question about colours
was interesting.

>>> I like Muskrats.

------
baron816
I would still rather live on Earth after the worst case scenario for climate
change or a nuclear war.

~~~
corndoge
Wouldn't the worst case for climate change or nuclear war entail humanity's
extinction?

~~~
kgabis
It would mean the end of current civilization, but I don't think getting rid
of humans is that easy.

------
Entangled
Terraform the moon. I want to look up to the skies and see a green moon every
night. It is unfortunate we haven't spent a dime settling a moon base and
studying the possibilities of creating a livable atmosphere on the moon being
just a couple days away.

~~~
david-given
I've tried it:

[http://cowlark.com/flooded-moon/](http://cowlark.com/flooded-moon/)

The maths are interesting. I tried figuring out how thick the atmosphere would
need to be, but I kept coming up with ludicrous answers --- one model I tried,
in order to get breathable pressure on the surface, the atmosphere had to
extend out at least two lunar radii. That would have made the moon just a
simple white fuzzy ball in the sky, and you'd never see the sun from the
surface.

I need to get back to this and see if I can improve the models a bit.

~~~
sytelus
This is excellent! I did not see any reference to the math. So you are saying,
if there was an atmosphere that extended to two moon radii, it will stay with
the moon and you will have breathable pressure on the surface?

~~~
david-given
I couldn't make the maths work, so the atmosphere in the pictures was picked
solely to make them look good.

The moon's far too small to hold an atmosphere for geological periods of time;
in real life it'll all leak away into space. The reason why my model produced
such a huge atmosphere was that the more air I added, the deeper the
atmosphere got; but the further away from the surface the lower the gravity,
so I ended up with diminishing returns. Once you're a lunar radius away from
the surface your air weighs only half as much as it did on the surface, so now
you need even more, which makes the atmosphere even thicker, which means the
portion up high weighs even less...

------
IndianAstronaut
What is really needed first is rovers on Titan that can explore the lakes, ice
deposits and possible geothermal energy there.

We already know Enceladus, another of Saturn's moons, has abundant water and
heating from Saturn's tidal pull.

------
natch
"Humans" is a huge and ultimately quaint assumption in some of these
discussions. Any such expansion to other planets will be happening in the same
time frame that we get robots or embodied artificial intelligence, whatever
you want to call it, with capabilities on par with and then beyond humans.

In the context of interplanetary expansion, there are not a lot of reasons
that these future organisms need to be restricted to living only in human-
friendly environments. I'm all for efforts to expand human life to other
viable places, but also it's time to enlarge the discussion.

------
solarengineer
This reminds me of Wanderers by Erik Wernquist [0].

[0] [https://vimeo.com/108650530](https://vimeo.com/108650530) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6GY_PfjCQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6GY_PfjCQI)

Edit: at 2:34, see how Erik imagines people might fly in Methane environments.

------
tarr11
Evolution is the obvious answer for how we move into hostile environments.
Hardening the environment seems inefficient.

Seveneves is a fun book that explores this concept.

E.g., probably better to evolve a few new species who can live in orbit around
the earth for a few thousand years. They'd have a better time with all these
issues (radiation, resources, etc)

~~~
veli_joza
Some scientists (Hawking, etc...) consider evolution to apply beyond
biological context. In that sense, any usage of technology to solve this
problem could also be considered evolution.

As example, in Accelerando by Charles Stross, human consciousness is
transfered into virtual reality environment and sent several light years away
in a can-sized probe.

------
ImTalking
I think the present research into the colonisation of other planets is too
slow to ultimately help mankind. Our resource and climate problems on this
planet will cause serious issues within the next 100 years.

Personally, I think we should pour all our research into the quantum world.
Finally understanding the quantum world will have a tremendous impact on
mankind; the quantum computers would have unimaginable power and capabilities;
we may be able to harness the quantum world for unlimited clean energy with
progress already being done; we could understand the wave and particle duality
so that we could 'convert' ourselves to wavefunctions and travel at the speed
of light rather than the paltry speeds of today; and ultimately we could
eliminate our physical forms and immerse ourselves in the quantum world as
wavefunctions (a la Lucy) which would then remove any physical requirements
such as location, resources, etc.

I think this is more plausible and near-term than physically uprooting
ourselves to another planet using incremental scientific advancements. The
survival of our species may require, as Neil Armstrong said, a giant leap.

~~~
adrianN
Space colonization never was about changing things on Earth. We will ~never be
able to send a meaningful number of people to other planets, so no
environmental problems on Earth will be solved, except perhaps by proxy via
improved technology.

Quantum computers are also way less cool than popsci makes them look. Unless
you want to do quantum mechanical simulations or factor prime numbers, normal
computers are fine.

------
woogiewonka
"It’s cold on Titan, at -180°C (-291°F), but thanks to its thick atmosphere,
residents wouldn’t need pressure suits—just warm clothing and respirators."

Sure, JUST warm clothing. I'd like to see the author step outside in -291F!
How can this possibility be sustainable?

~~~
rbanffy
Also keep in mind those "warm" clothes would keep residents at what locally
would be rock-melting temperatures.

It'd be like keeping hot lava lifeforms happy above Earth's surface.

------
wowoc
The article says that the water ice could be used as a source of oxygen,
needed to power the combustion of hydrocarbons as fuel. But the oxygen is
trapped in water molecules, wouldn't it need to be freed from the hydrogen
atoms first (which requires energy)?

~~~
FreeFull
I have looked it up, and it seems the combustion of methane produces more
energy than the combustion of hydrogen. Splitting water into hydrogen and
oxygen won't be 100% efficient though, and neither will be turning heat into
useful energy, so I don't know if you'll still be energy-positive in the end.

~~~
sidek
More realistic might be a long-term preparation scenario in which we send a
first wave of robots to set up some solar panels and run them to store H2 and
O2 for a couple of decades. We won't have gained energy necessarily, but we
will have stored it in large enough amounts that early colonisation will have
extra energy if it needs it.

------
Zigurd
With the possible exception of underground colonies on Mars, it seems
likelier, sooner, that humans will re-engineer themselves for long-duration
space travel and life on other planets than we will engineer those planets to
be livable for Earth-dwelling humans.

------
dimitar
I appreciate that the article points out at the end: "There is no quick way to
move off the Earth. We will have to solve our problems here."

Solving the climate change and other ecological issues we face here is surely
easier than colonizing other planetary bodies.

~~~
ImTalking
The problems we have on this planet are not technological issues but social
issues. And social issues are much harder to solve.

------
throwbsidbdk
This is rediculous. I would take a vacuum any day over an atmosphere that's
-300°!!! And it's thicker than earth so the thermal problem will be even
worse. It's probably harder to insulate these crazy temps than protect from a
vacuum.

------
lolive
It is much easier to send on Titan a bunch of seaweeds, various seeds, etc.
And let an ecosystem eventually arise by itself. Of course, we should send
some bibles too. So the Titan creatures can learn who/what their mighty
creator is. Amen.

------
rocky1138
I love the idea of colonizing other worlds, but it hardly seems realistic to
make such grandiose plans for a place we've never landed rovers or other
equipment successfully.

~~~
eponeponepon
We have landed successfully on Titan - we even took a photo or two:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens_(spacecraft)#/media/Fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens_\(spacecraft\)#/media/File:Huygens_surface_color_sr.jpg)

~~~
rocky1138
Oh! Interesting. I stand corrected.

------
edem
What about the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity? Not to talk about
the psychological effects of isolation and low light.

------
cmurf
The takeaway: "There is no quick way to move off the Earth. We will have to
solve our problems here."

------
philip142au
This article has no good reasons for Titan, it doesn't discuss water, it
doesn't discuss energy or how to grow food. It says that because you can fly
there and there are dunes and a liquid surface in some places its like Earth,
but that doesn't help us to survive at all.

To survive we need water, food and energy. How are we going to get that from
Titan as opposed to Mars?

~~~
pavlov
Water and energy are discussed briefly:

 _On the surface, vast quantities of hydrocarbons in solid and liquid form lie
ready to be used for energy. Although the atmosphere lacks oxygen, water ice
just below the surface could be used to provide oxygen for breathing and to
combust hydrocarbons as fuel._

Travel difficulties aside, endless piles of hydrocarbons lying around ready to
be used by people who don't need to wear pressure suits sounds like a good
reason to go to Titan instead of Mars... But I get the feeling that the
authors are way too optimistic about humans surviving on Titan with "warm
clothing and respirators".

~~~
gus_massa
Actually the sentence you copied is so wrong from the chemical/energetic point
of view that it paints the rest of the article very unrealialable. Read the
comment by stcredzero:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13051651](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13051651)

------
Nomentatus
But you can't export materials from it, thanks to that atmosphere:
[https://medium.com/@russellirvinjohnston/why-the-start-
inhab...](https://medium.com/@russellirvinjohnston/why-the-start-inhabiting-
the-moon-and-not-mars-its-the-economy-stupid-2bd01c211fc0)

------
jiltedfrog
"Imperial Earth" by Arthur C. Clarke, deals with human colonization of Titan.

------
owly
How about colonizing Earth with like minded people who are dedicated to saving
it?

~~~
arikrak
What will you do with everyone else? Sounds like they may cause problems. I
think to save Earth we'll need to eliminate those who aren't like minded...

"Quick unplug the AI, it's gone bad!"

~~~
owly
AI may be a better option to save us at this point.

------
graycat
Good idea! There are some people I would encourage to go on the first trip!

------
kriptonic
Does anyone know more about the recent research into galactic cosmic rays? I
believe the article has it completely wrong, but I'm not sure.

------
aaron695
Lets not fork the future of space travel please.

