It is theorized that Venus once had an Earth like atmosphere. Venus has virtually no magnetic field unlike Earth. Without the protection of something like the Van Allen radiation belt the Sun would have easily blown off any thin high density atmosphere and eventually cook off any surface level hydrocarbons into a thick hazy atmosphere with a super greenhouse effect. Any terraforming effort would have to take that into account and capture atmospheric sulfur.
I suppose any attempt at terraforming has to create oceans if we want an Earth-like habitat (theoretically this could be achieved by re-directing enough comets at Venus or Mars provided we can utilise that kind of energy in the future). Could perhaps a form of sulphur-fixing bacteria be developed to colonise these oceans and remove it from the atmosphere as sediment?
As for the magnetic field, if the lack of convection in the core is a problem (perhaps due to the core completely solidifying) couldn't we just dump enough heat energy into it to restart the dynamo action? In the future it's not completely unrealistic to think antimatter production and storage will improve, that's certainly a way of releasing absurd amounts of energy.
The much weaker gravity and its effects on human health is something I rarely see mentioned.
If one were to be born on a body with a much weaker gravity than Earth, e.g. Mars (0.38) or the Moon (0.17), wouldn’t this confine them to bodies where gravity is less than or approximately equal?
The best answer right now is that nobody has any idea what, if any, effect that would have on human health. It hasn't been tried yet, so we just don't know.
Let's first ensure we do all possible things as a species and a collection of communities to restabilise Earth and give ourselves a 99.5% chance of healthful survival for the next 200 years, which is probably the reasonable timeline until we can establish more or less independent non-Earth habitats that can survive without Earth indefinitely.
This is like expressing the wish of wanting to run while simultaneously ignoring the fact that your hands are uncontrollably stabbing your legs with safety pins.
Because limited resources are a thing that exists? I think if you were to take a poll, most people would agree that throwing all our economic might behind preserving the one bastion of life we know of in the universe is a better course of action than spending our time and money on what for the foreseeable future remains a pipe dream to be smoked by the very few. In all likelihood, we will need the technologies developed in a green revolution to even have a fighting chance of success at colonizing other worlds.
If there is one thing I’ve learned, from many posters on HN in many different topic, it’s that human civilisation is apparently incapable of achieving more than one goal at a time.
That's very cynical and definitely not true at all. Human civilization constantly achieves multiple goals at the same time on a daily basis. If you are not seeing that, you are probably reading the wrong newspaper.
> Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel.
But does that actually matter in space? I am asking out of genuine curiosity here: does using fossil fuels in space have any real downside? There is no atmosphere, ergo no greenhouse effect. The vastness of space would seem to swallow up any sort of pollution.
That's... a different question. Where would you find fossils on other planets? The article says Titan has seas of hydrocarbon, but otherwise Moon and Mars, it's just not an option. One reason why Musk has invested so much in non-fossil fuel tech is not so much to save this planet but to operate things on other planets.
You are already being snarky and this conversation is not very useful. I was simply asking if there are any downsides to using energy sources (that give off dangerous waste products) in space.
I didn't mention anything about solar being dirtier than nuclear, nor did I ask for some kind of debate on the topic.
You can manufacture burnable 'fossil' fuels (usually from water and co2) using solar energy. We don't do that on Earth much because it's simpler and cheaper just to mine it.
Stuff that you throw away in space does not go away. It tends to go into orbit, an orbit that either intersects yours later on or intersects someone else's. It may even go into orbit around you, depending from circumstances.
The energy used to mine metals, to forge steel, to move parts and people around, the production needed to sustain settlement happens on earth, not in space. Any significant program to live outside earth will require investment never seen before on the ground.
If this investment is done using current tech, the impact on carbon emissions won't be sustainable.
It doesn't mean we should not do it, but a clean source of energy is a prerequisite to a successful space settlement.
SpaceX's new Starship uses methane, which can be created from CO2 and energy. That's how they're going to refuel them on Mars; there is no reason they can't do that on Earth too. If it is made from atmospheric CO2 and clean energy it is carbon neutral.
Building an outpost in Earth orbit that requires constant maintenance and supplies from the ground is just barely achievable right now and cost billions of dollars. We call it the ISS. The horizon to a self-sufficient orbital settlement is still decades off.
A self-sufficient colony on any other planet or moon is way beyond that capability. It's not about doing one thing or another, it's one thing is a fantasy in the short term and the other is a real practical concern.
There's far more practical places on Earth to colonize before even thinking of bootstrapping an industrial civilization on another planet. Because that's what it would take. None of the technology needed to do the bootstrapping currently exists. You can't download MarsColony.stl from Thingiverse to load into a giant 3D printer.
Keep in mind, though, that the costs of the ISS were inflated greatly by the pseudo-reusable Space Shuttle and cost-plus contracting, not to mention the added complication of being an international project.
We now have something much closer true reusable rockets from two private, competing companies that are both squarely focused on dropping the cost of launches. If a single party were to utilize them to build an ISS equivalent today, it’d undoubtedly be much much cheaper, and that’s just today. These companies have rockets on the horizon that would make space stations cheaper to build than settlements in some places on Earth.
You're laboring under some misconceptions. The ISS was expensive to build for the same reasons many things are expensive to build, it used new technology in a new configuration and was essentially a one-off product. It is a functional prototype.
There's also some in-space capabilities that have been lost with the retiring of the Shuttle. There's not really replacements for those capabilities on the horizon.
For starters the Shuttle was designed as an orbital work platform. In its construction configuration it launched with the CanadaArm, an airlock, and whatever ISS module it was delivering in the cargo bay. This was all in addition to the OMS, power and life support, and the crew cabin. It could fly modules to the station and assemble them without using resources of the station itself.
The Shuttle as a space truck facilitated one of the best aspects of the ISS design: the integrated truss structure. The truss structure of the ISS contains most of its base infrastructure. It mounts the solar and radiator panels, power and coolant distribution for same, and other support infrastructure. The individual crew modules on the non-Russian segment of the station don't need to use their mass or volume carrying these support elements. This leaves more of their interior envelope for astronauts, supplies, and scientific equipment.
The Shuttle also facilitated dedicated crew modules. Because the Shuttle's engines delivered modules to the station and could be placed with the CanadaArm/Shuttle crew they did not need to be mated to an independent spacecraft bus.
Compare the non-Russian modules of the ISS to the Russian segment. Because the Russian segment is essentially two docked independent spacecraft there's a lot of dead weight and needlessly redundant support systems. Each of the Russian modules have their own power and cooling since each needed those things before they were part of a larger station.
The Mir and Salyut stations, from whom the Russian segment of the ISS are derived, had the same sort of redundancy. The Mir was crowded and had very limited space and power for experiments. The modules also did not have the ability to support each other. If the power or thermal systems broke in a module it was dead and needed to be sealed off from the rest of the station. Because the modules were independent spacecraft they didn't have exterior connections or serviceable parts that could be repaired with a space walk.
Without the Shuttle or permanent orbital work platform like it, near term space stations have to be constructed out of docked independent spacecraft like Mir. A bunch of Dragon craft mated to a central docking module has far less capability as the ISS truss/module design.
It would be possible to build an ISS-like station without the Shuttle. The SpaceX Starship could be given a cargo bay, remote arm, and integral airlock. It could do a pretty good job configured such but that is not currently something SpaceX has announced. It would also require a lot of development effort as cargo bay doors are a structural weak point in addition to who knows how many changes to the Starship's design. Even a couple mated Starships in a "wet workshop" configuration would make for good orbital stations.
Assembling things in orbit is hard and unforgiving. Don't just assume that a reusable launch vehicle magically makes it cheap or easy. Launching shit into orbit is relatively easy, it's at least a solved problem. Docking that shit to other shit in orbit is much harder. Designing and building all that shit is expensive. Keep in mind, if your toilet breaks in space it could kill you if it can't be repaired or replaced quickly. So everything from the airlock to power distribution to toilet needs to be well designed, tested, and built or it is likely to kill you.
I like how we're optimistic in terraforming and colonizing distant bodies with different gravity, pressure, atmosphere, temperatures, while equally panicking trying to control a few degrees of temperature on our home planet.
But I think research on how to colonize other planets will help us in dealing with local climate change.
Stopping climate change isn't even hard, just place a large solar sail on a sun synchronous orbit to block part of the sun's energy from reaching Earth.
Mass change of human behavior is one option for solving climate change, but IMHO doing that takes much, much more coordination and effort, and is less likely to succeed than a "apollo project" to launch a lot of foil pieces / chaff in proper orbit to achieve a slight shading of the sun.
I agree. Changing human behavior/culture is more expensive, takes more time, and is less likely to succeed.
I disagree on the foil pieces in orbit. Sure, that would be much easier than a single piece. But it would be impossible to correct or reduce the amount of "glitter" once it is in an orbit. A single piece (maybe spaced out with holes or cuts) can be removed or reduced as necessary.
I fear the opposite. The Apollo project is a symbol of the era when the wealthiest states of the world were obsessed with rockets. They are probably more interested in mass psychology now.
It's not simply changing behavior. We're also telling people to cut down on things that are making money. What's worse is that the people who got rich on fossil fuels are telling the newbies to stop using them.
There's plenty of incentive to just have people set up a solar sail. Plenty of people would rather live in an ice age than give up their factories.
Colonizing mars. It takes more mass and the mass has to be "smart" instead of just some dumb sails with some station keeping thrusters attached.
This is actually one of the best reasons to support SpaceX in my opinion. They are doing the R&D needed to provide a viable solution to global warming at a reasonable cost as a positive externality.
Sources on SpaceX intending to be able to launch far Cargo than that every year (note: I'm lazy so I didn't find a source that did the multiplication of 100,000 tons * 1000 ships for you): https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-plans-how-elon-musk-s...
The ultimate weapon of imperialist terror! Why haven't we built this already?!
"It's most unfortunate, and not only for your farmers, that you've chosen not to have sunlight this year... perhaps you should reconsider our demands?"
Some settlements survived, some died and got revived centuries later, but humans have continuously tried to settle further away, in a complex system that you can't reduced to "establish more or less independent [remote camps] that can survive without [base camp] indefinitely".
Space is more difficult only in it required more technology and resources, but it's the same (complex) expansion process that is hardwired in our specie since we were mere apes.
Let’s colonize Mercury. It’s not actually hot at the poles - it’s shaded enough from the consistent low angle to the sun that there’s even water ice. And the planet is full of useful metals (more than earth), and as much solar energy as you can handle. The article dismisses Mercury out of hand as “too hot” but I think it’s our best bet.
https://www.universetoday.com/130109/how-do-we-colonize-merc...
I think it was in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" universe that they colonize Mercury by making an equatorial train, that's pushed along by the thermal expansion of the tracks. Always struck me as nifty, if kinda silly, when you could do the polar thing like you're suggesting.
That was in the novel 2312. Highly recommended for the scope of ideas, however far fetched they're presented well.
I'm currently struggling 200 pages into Blue Mars. Great series though (I'm struggling with it due to life getting in the way, as opposed to it becoming a grind - although there's a bit of that too, but it's three 700-odd page novels...)
It's devoid of volatiles though? And in a deep gravity well. I may be very expensive to leave. So it would feel a little lonely, and psychologically I think it would be scary to be so close to the Sun.
Mercury has a very low axial tilt, and substantial surface cratering. Any crater close enough to the poles is going to be in perpetual darkness, and thus very cold. Any volatiles vaporized elsewhere naturally travel until they form deposits on the very cold inner surfaces of such craters.
Based on MESSENGER radar data, the Mercury south pole probably has more water than Mars. The temperatures at most of the craters would also support CO2 ice, although our current data can't prove it's existence or rule it out. Nitrogen supply would probably be rough.
One of the interesting reasons to consider Mercury for colonization is that a colony on the inside rim of a crater would have very easy access to energy in many forms. Want natural-ish lighting? Raise a diffuse reflector on a pole. Want to melt something? Raise a mirror.
You make a very convincing case, but would most of the same apply to Earth's moon? I don't know how available water compares, but tilt seems to be the most important factor.
One difficulty with mercury is that its magnetic field is about 100x smaller than earth's. This means much less shielding from cosmic rays for the same incident flux. Since it's about twice as close to the sun as earth, its sitting in 4x the radiation field. Not insurmountable if you can dig down, but less of an issue further out in the solar system
Getting stuff to mercury is hard though. IIRC it takes around 16,000 m/s of dV to get from LEO to the surface of mercury. Titan would take even more (19,000) but a huge chunk of it can be reduced by making use of aerobraking.
Solar sail or solar powered ionic thrusters are much more effective going to Mercury than Titan. So, total deltaV of the trip is not a great measurement of effort.
Going to mercury on rockets alone is a non-starter, because when you drop your perihelion low enough to rendezvous with it, your velocity near Mercury will be ridiculous, and there is not enough atmosphere at Mercury to shed the velocity so you have to do it the hard way.
However, there is a very efficient trajectory that could be used by solar sailing ships for a fast, cheap route to Mercury once every 16 months. You leave Earth for Venus, where you do a gravity assist to drop your perihelion significantly below the orbit of Mercury, just to get low enough that a reasonable solar sail can get reasonable thrust even with significant cargo. Then you can use your infinite delta-v to match your aphelion with Mercury, and can do an efficient capture trajectory.
Is there an estimate for how long that would take with a solar sail? If the window is every 16 months and the flight time is another year or more, I would imagine a large scale mission with multiple re-supply trips would be pretty difficult.
I thought this was interesting so did a quick search: it does not look feasible [0].
Note: even if it were possible, the small relative increase in radiation received by Earth may have a butterfly effect similar to greenhouse gases and make global warming even more difficult to manage than it already is.
By igniting I assume you mean nuclear fusion. Jupiter does not have enough mass. So what would it take? Transfering mass from the sun to Jupiter I guess.
Not sure how much heating it would provide to its moons. It already provides an unhealthy amount of radiation.
Jupiter is not even a brown dwarf which starts at about 13 times the mass of Jupiter.
For upgrading Jupiter to a star, it would need 80 times its current mass.
There is nowhere else in the solar system enough mass to grow Jupiter but the Sun. Taking that mass from the Sun is in theory feasible but of course out of the range of our capabilities for quite some time.
That's for natural nuclear fission though which would waste a lot of energy going into space and not where we would want to have it (the moons).
It's probably more realistic to build small fission suns that orbit the moons that produce heat and light in a less wasteful, more directed manner. Still not possible today :-)
A mass of self-replicating hot hydrogen dirigibles powered by fusion. They use part of the energy to stay afloat in the correct altitude and to repair and reproduce & radiate the rest outwards.
It looks a better bet to colonize Mars with genetically modified humans to sustain radiation. If such technology is not available at the time, having DNA correcting machines to give birth to sane humans is probably going to be a solved problem by then. Even though adults will suffers from the radiations.
I think it’s a better idea to just build a rotating space habitat.
Harvest the metals from the moon, and build a mass driver to launch it into Earth orbit, where it’ll get assembled into the space habitat. Then spin it to get 1g.
The article argues that on Mars we'd have to live underground which requires a lot of construction of tunnels and excavation. It does not appear to take into consideration the huge lava tubes that are present on Mars (and even bigger on the Moon). These are estimated to be dozens of kilometers long and hundreds of meters wide. They could be very attractive for human colonies.
On the other hand on Triton, even if you live at the surface, the Sun will be very weak. The main advantage of not living underground will be less resources to create a habitat.
I consider sufficient natural sunlight to be important for human wellbeing.
Is it though? The link only discusses the theory of placing a large magnet in the Mars-Sun L1 point. It does not discuss the makings of that magnet. What's going to power it? Solar? Nuclear? So at the end of the day, I'm still left not knowing if we have the tech to be able to do this. This seems like a no-brainer of something should/needs/must be done to make humans living on Mars anything more than just a though exerciser.
At it's simplest is a ring with power flowing through it, the power requirements would be minimal, 1 Tesla needed and a deflection of a fraction of a degree.
I've seen estimates in the single digit MW range which we build solar plants on Earth for a few million each. Power generation is somewhat irrelevant, getting the material up there and maintaining it will be the real monetary challenge.
Read the link at the end of the popsci article. There's a huge amount of research going into generating magnetic fields for spaceships and inhabited bases.
1. The film Gattaca (1997), in addition to being an excellent, inspiring film all around, centers on an aspiring astronaut's upcoming trip to Titan. Highly recommended.
2. The colonization of Venus is also a fascinating idea that isn't talked about much in comparison to the Moon or Mars. Essentially, the surface is too hot for colonization, but it may be possible to build floating cities ±31 miles above the surface.
- Venus's atmosphere is made mostly out of carbon dioxide. Because nitrogen and oxygen are lighter than carbon-dioxide, breathable-air-filled balloons will float at a height of about 50 km (31 mi). At this height, the temperature is a manageable 75 °C (348 K; 167 °F); or 27 °C (300 K; 81 °F) if we could get 5 km (3.1 mi) higher
- The atmosphere also provides the various elements required for human life and agriculture: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur.
- Additionally, the upper atmosphere could provide protection from harmful solar radiation comparable to the protection provided by Earth's atmosphere. The Atmosphere of Mars, as well as the Moon provide little such protection.
> The colonization of Venus is also a fascinating idea that isn't talked about much in comparison to the Moon or Mars. Essentially, the surface is too hot for colonization...
The thing is, if we were to develop the tech needed to cool Venus, it would be orders of magnitude cheaper to just use it here on earth to offset CO2/CO emissions and reverse the greenhouse effect.
That's an interesting article. I wonder how practical would it be to harvest hydrogen (protons, really) from solar wind using magnetic lensing. Tha same tech could be useful for Mars.
Depending on the shape of the parasol, the same support structures could be used for the lenses, focusing a stream of hydrogen nuclei on a small area of the planet. This focused plasma stream could also compensate some of the forces on the parasol (it'd need to be closer to the Sun than the Sun/Venus L1 point and balanced by light pressure) allowing the parasol to be smaller.
> 1. The film Gattaca (1999), in addition to being an excellent, inspiring film all around, centers on an aspiring astronaut's upcoming trip to Titan. Highly recommended.
Gattaca is one of my favorite films. I agree that it is excellent, but I'm not sure it is inspiring. Gattaca is about how the system, society, circumstances and expectations beyond your control are an albatross around everyone's neck and ultimately harm and defeat the individual. In Gattaca, both Vincent and Jerome are tragic figures as they are both victims of expectations. Jerome is burdened by high expectations and Vincent by low expectations and those societal expectations are a hurdle to the lives they want to lead. Ultimately those societal expectations crushes Jerome and turns him into a cynical cripple. Vincent's societal expectations places a chip on his shoulder which costs him his family and his identity. And in the end, neither Jerome nor Vincent achieve their dreams as Jerome burns himself to death and Vincent dies on his way to Titan due to his "degenerate" heart. In a way, Gattaca is about two people on their own suicide mission as they rage against society/expectations. If you watch the movie from the beginning, you'll realize that both fully know that they are going to die/kill themselves doing what they are doing. It's a tragedy.
> Vincent dies on his way to Titan due to his "degenerate" heart.
Vincent definitely doesn't die on his way to Titan. I'm not sure where you got that from. Jerome also self-immolates because he realizes that his purpose is now completed, not because he is cynical and depressed. His silver Olympic medal also turns gold in the fire, which is supposed to suggest that he has achieved his true purpose in life.
In any case, I see the film as inspiring because the two characters still find purpose and meaning in their nightmarish world: Vincent through achieving his goal of becoming an astronaut and Jerome through providing his identity and biological material for a greater purpose.
"I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body - you lent me your dream."
> Vincent definitely doesn't die on his way to Titan. I'm not sure where you got that from.
It's alluded to a few times in the movie. Vincent never saves anything for the swim back. Vincent specifically mentions that he is living on borrowed time as he has surpassed the "number of beats expected of his heart". And there is the treadmill scene where he was barely able to hang on. Remember that the training was to select people who can physically survive the journey and thrive on titan. Not to mention Vincent doesn't bring any of Jerome's urine,blood,etc with him to Titan. Do you really believe they don't check your identification on titan? Also, the lock of hair that Jerome gave to Vincent is an acknowledgment of Vincent that Jerome isn't going to make it and of course that Vincent isn't going to make it either. Finally, the last words of Vincent: "For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess, I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once a part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving; maybe I'm going home."
> Jerome also self-immolates because he realizes that his purpose is now completed, not because he is cynical and depressed.
That's a very upbeat view. But people don't normally celebrate fulfilling their purpose by burning themselves to death. Some believe that Vincent's death symbolizes going to heaven since he overachieved and Jerome's death is hell ( burning ) because he underachieved.
> Vincent through achieving his goal of becoming an astronaut and Jerome through providing his identity and biological material for a greater purpose.
But there's the rub, Vincent didn't become an astronaut, "Jerome" did. Even when Vincent succeeded, he didn't.
> "I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body - you lent me your dream."
Yes. And neither achieved their dream and both died at the end. And Jerome also left enough blood,urine,etc for two lifetimes... Think about what that really means.
I used to view Gattaca as you did. It was inspirational like Rudy. But then I watched it more and started noticing more aspects of the movie and it is far deeper and far more tragic than a generic inspirational movie. It's a tragedy.
I interpreted all of the things you listed as indications that statistics and scientific analysis have limitations and can't predict success or failure, not as indications that he would fail and die in the end. This is perhaps the main theme of the film: "There is no gene for the human spirit."
You seem to have a thesis that the film is a tragedy and are working backwards from there. This goes against essentially everything in the film: its uplifting soundtrack, its message of overcoming the obstacles that society places in our way, and its argument that sometimes our true purpose is not to excel individually, but as a help and teammate to others.
> But there's the rub, Vincent didn't become an astronaut, "Jerome" did. Even when Vincent succeeded, he didn't.
Jerome is just his name and saying he didn't succeed because his achievements weren't listed under his own name seems a bit shallow, as if the only definition of success is fame. And again, a major theme of the story is that the two men are more capable of achieving great things together than apart. Remember that neither Vincent nor Eugene (Jerome) were in a good place prior to meeting each other. Jerome, the astronaut, is the successful identity created from the merging of both men, not simply one man using another's name.
> I interpreted all of the things you listed as indications that statistics and scientific analysis have limitations and can't predict success or failure, not as indications that he would fail and die in the end.
I did so for the "heart beats". But every other point has nothing to do with statistics or scientific analysis. I really can't say definitively that he died on his way to titan, but the evidence is fairly overwhelming. It wouldn't have been hinted at so much in the movie and the movie would not have ended with that quote otherwise.
> And again, a major theme of the story is that the two men are more capable of achieving great things together than apart.
That's a bit of a reach but you are entitled to the view.
> You seem to have a thesis that the film is a tragedy and are working backwards from there.
No. I watched Gattaca as a kid and loved it and saw it as an inspirational movie. Everything you believed, I believed. Then I got older and watched the movie a few more times. My thesis changed from inspirational to tragedy. As I said, my view of the movie changed. And I love the movie more now because it is richer, deeper and more consequential than a good simplistic feel good inspirational movie.
> And remember that neither Vincent nor Eugene (Jerome) were in a good place prior to meeting each other.
They weren't in a good place at the end either.
Anyways, you are entitled to your view. I used to view it like you and I suspect it's most people's first impressions when they first watch the movie. But after repeated viewing, it's hard to watch someone burning himself to death and a man's looking into space and "going home" as inspirational. There are inspirational aspects to the film, but I don't think that's what the movie is really about. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
> But every other point has nothing to do with statistics or scientific analysis. I really can't say definitively that he died on his way to titan, but the evidence is fairly overwhelming. It wouldn't have been hinted at so much in the movie and the movie would not have ended with that quote otherwise.
Do you have anything else that points to this? I've watched Gattaca 5-6 times I reckon, and never picked up on a hint that Vincent dies.
For the heart beats, I've always interpreted it as the world won't give him a chance because _statistically_ he has a low likelihood of success compared to the "guaranteed" success of genetic engineering. To me Vincent and Eugene are a rejection of this – showing that humans aren't just statistics, and that the guarantees are no such thing.
As for the "never saving anything for the way back" theme, I've always interpreted that as a part of this too. The idea that statistics aren't everything, going for the "guaranteed" outcome might limit your upside, etc.
I'm pretty sure that "going home" isn't a reference to death. In the context of the few lines it's in, he's talking about how maybe he's not leaving because the atoms in our bodies come from stars.
Finally, for me, there are too many references in Vincent's relationship with Irene that show an intent to return and an expectation that he will. Being gone for a year and that being "just one trip around the sun", lead the audience to see his trip as bittersweet because he's achieved his goal but will have to leave Irene temporarily, but ultimately a positive ending for him as he embarks on a new stage in his life. The gift of all the samples from Eugene, enough to last a lifetime, backs up this idea.
> Do you have anything else that points to this? I've watched Gattaca 5-6 times I reckon, and never picked up on a hint that Vincent dies.
Other than what I wrote, I can't think of anything else.
> For the heart beats, I've always interpreted it as the world won't give him a chance because _statistically_ he has a low likelihood of success compared to the "guaranteed" success of genetic engineering.
Same. I used to believe it. Now I don't. Sure. It's statistics. But there are actual physical limits and performance. Even though Vincent surpassed the time expectations of his heart ( which was a ball park figure with a margin of error ), he can't surpass the physical limits. He can't run without his heart nearly exploding. That's why he has to cheat. He needs record Jerome's heartbeat. Those tests are to ensure that the astronauts can survive months/years of space travel to Titan and to thrive in Titan. Vincent, at least his heart, can't perform.
Gattaca is a society with unfair genetic discrimination and also fair performance tests. Vincent could be praised for overcoming the unfair discrimination, but he should also be criticized for cheating fair performance tests.
If a legally blind person wanted to drive and cheated his way to a driver's license. Would you cheer him as he sits down on the driver's seat? Of course not.
> As for the "never saving anything for the way back" theme, I've always interpreted that as a part of this too. The idea that statistics aren't everything, going for the "guaranteed" outcome might limit your upside, etc.
Same. I used to believe it. Now I don't. Now I interpret it as someone who has a major inferiority complex and a huge chip on his shoulder that's willing to die rather than lose. Not only is he willing to commit suicide than lose, he's willing to kill his own brother in the process. If you think about what the swim contest was about, it's about Vincent's willingness to kill himself and his own brother. That's why in the second race, when Vincent tells his brother, his brother looks at him in absolute horror and turns back.
Vincent is all too human. The unfairness of society and his lot in life has made him willing to cheat, die and kill to get what he wants and screw over society.
> I'm pretty sure that "going home" isn't a reference to death. In the context of the few lines it's in, he's talking about how maybe he's not leaving because the atoms in our bodies come from stars.
"Leaving this world". "Going home". Returning to the atoms from whence we come from. Like ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
> Finally, for me, there are too many references in Vincent's relationship with Irene that show an intent to return and an expectation that he will.
He left his parents/brothers for good and he loved them. He also left Jerome to his death. Not sure Irene is that much more special. Vincent has shown that people means less to him than his goal. Besides, didn't the flight window between earth and titan open every 77 years or so? Besides vincent doesn't save anything for the trip back.
> The gift of all the samples from Eugene, enough to last a lifetime, backs up this idea.
Last "two" ( jerome's and vincent's ) lifetimes. Do you really think Jerome was able to produce that much blood, urine and skin/hair samples for two lifetimes? The last part of the film, both jerome and vincent were trying their best to avoid the elephant in the room ( their impending deaths ). That dinner scene, vincent asks jerome what he'll do after he leaves for titan. There is an awkward silence followed by silly response from jerome. And then Jerome toasts on his life on titan and asks what titan is like. But Jerome knows vincent is never going to reach titan alive and Vincent knows Jerome isn't going to last long after he leaves.
Because the flight windows are so far apart, I interpreted it to mean that Vincent, once there, was set. They couldn't really send him back even if they wanted to.
And I read Jeromes suicide as the last act to "cover up" for Vincent (and Jeromes name). What would people say when someone found Jemore, alive or his corpse, in the home on Earth?
The last step was to disappear completely. If I recall correctly we were shown that the incinerator would burn until nothing was left there.
> Because the flight windows are so far apart, I interpreted it to mean that Vincent, once there, was set. They couldn't really send him back even if they wanted to.
Why would they need to send him back? Just imprison him in Titan. Also, society is based on genetics - where you work, where you live, who you date, etc. How did Vincent expect to live on Titan without Jerome's samples? I think the answer is he never intended to live on Titan because he knew he'd die on the way to Titan. We know that his heart can't handle the journey ( treadmill scene ).
> What would people say when someone found Jemore, alive or his corpse, in the home on Earth?
The same thing the cop said after questioning the wheelchair bound Jerome. Apologize after Jerome berated him and demanded his badge number. Besides, given your point about the flight window, what would it matter? Why would Jerome need to cover for him when Vincent's set on Titan?
I think that Jerome always intended to kill himself from the very beginning ( we know he's suicidal because he's in a wheelchair because of a failed suicide attempt ). Not to "cover up" for whoever he was helping, but because "Jerome wasn't meant to be 2nd place". In the incinerator, "2nd place Jerome" and his silver medal are no more. I also don't think he help vincent for the money or for vincent's sake though they developed a friendship towards the end. We know he was bitter at society ( and himself ) and I think he wanted to screw society once before offing himself.
In the end, it's two people dying to escape their "identity". One trying to erase his "invalid" identity and the other trying to erase his "2nd place" identity. And both perishing in the process.
We do not know that his heart failed during the journey. (It might.) We know that, reasonably, management would want the margin of error on the right side for a high investment journey.
> We do not know that his heart failed during the journey. (It might.)
Sure. We also do not know his heart didn't fail, though you seem sure it didn't. However, the clues throughout the movie make it fairly obvious that he doesn't make it.
> We know that, reasonably, management would want the margin of error on the right side for a high investment journey.
Sure. And we also know that he has heart problems and is living on borrowed time. We also know that running on the treadmill nearly leaves him breathless and clutching at his chest in terrible coughing fits. There must be a reason why that scene was in the movie. Don't you think?
The ending certainly leaves it open to interpretation. That's what's great about the movie. It didn't spoonfeed the audience. But it did provide hints/clues/etc.
Put it this way, there are tons of clues that he dies. There are no clues that he lives. If he lived, the movie would have some mentioned what he planned to do once on titan. Or any clue that he intended to survive the trip. Like maybe, Vincent telling Jerome, "Hey, I need a few samples to live on Titan" or "Hey, I got a nice apartment on Titan" or "Man, my new job on Titan is great" or anything indicating a life on Titan. Ever notice he never mentions his life on Titan? The only thing he is concerned about is getting on that spaceship.
If you were watching a kamikaze movie and at the end, the pilot flies off with enough fuel to reach the aircraft carrier group but not enough to make it back. Would you argue that he makes it back alive since we never actually see him carry out the attack? Sure, anything is possible, but highly unlikely.
Is it possible Vincent made it to titan? Sure, if they want to do a sequel perhaps. Is it likely? I don't think so. But it's art. Your interpretation is just as valid is mine.
Since yesterday I have started to remember more about the movie (it was a long time since) and I am starting to lean towards your interpretation. There are many clues, as you say. On my watchings I always took it to be one of those movies where they don't feel the need to show "Book 2" because "Book 1" was the interesting part. This movie is great. I always thought it was good, but now I think it's Great Art. This movie scares me shitless now.
You have to work pretty hard to take the perspective that Vincent dies.
Vincent nearly fails the treadmill scene because he is on the edge of panicking under the stress of being revealed to be prime suspect in a murder case that might put him in jail wrongly and will blow his life's dream of getting to Titan.
It doesn't matter if they check his ID at Titan, whatever that means. He commented he is outside the police's jurisdiction on the way to Titan, he will have achieved his goal regardless of his publicly known validity after docking at Titan.
The line about going home is to illustrate that he is in fact, going home. He was always meant to be among the stars and found regular everyday life difficult. Through his teen years he studied astrophysics, he was an outcast. His home was, is and finally arrived among the stars. Vincent achieved exactly what he set out to do and so did Jerome. Jerome was upset that he was not the best swimmer, as he was designed to be and deliberately chose to walk into traffic. Jerome unable (or had no desire) to escape his own self-resentment, burns in it. Both Anton and Jerome suffer for defining themselves by their biology and the accompanied social expectations.
Jerome passes Vincent his hair as the last expression of his time on Earth. Jerome will no longer grow any hair, a natural measure of time. He has ceased to exist in a physical sense. His mission is complete in giving enough of his valid biological matter for his life and Vincent's life across time.
It is questionable what Vincent's goal in space is to do from a relational perspective.. He saved Anton from drowning twice and as lifted into space on the back of his own effort and everybody that let him pass through the system illegally. His father let him past the final checkpoint, Jerome gave his body, Anton gave him a gap in police authority, Irene did not expose his invalidity and the mission director pushed for the launch timing slot in the face of authoritative danger. What does Vincent give back for all this. A change in spirit from biological determinism to willpower over statistical fact. Not much in comparison to his launch.
> Vincent nearly fails the treadmill scene because he is on the edge of panicking under the stress of being revealed to be prime suspect in a murder case that might put him in jail wrongly and will blow his life's dream of getting to Titan.
The impression that it was 'the stress of being found out' is a novel interpretation to me. I always thought it was about the fact that he has a 'garbage' heart and he's basically actually going at 200% while it appears on the outside as if he's only doing 60 bpm.
Right at the end of his run his real BPM comes out because the recording from Jerome (Jude Law) reached its end and that's when he stops the exercise.
since the film ends with him leaving we don't know if he dies or not, but outlook does not exactly look promising. Then again nothing of Vincent's life has ever looked promising.
We cannot be sure, sure, but absolutely everything in the movie indicates that Vincent survives. The whole story arc for him is that he overcomes everything, even rescuing his genetically superior brother from drowning on the way, and prevails.
Edit, to add: the name Vincent is derived from the Greek/Latin word for conquering/winning... so there’s that too.
- Jerome Morrow = Sacred Name of Tomorrow/The Future
> Jerome is a masculine name of Greek origin, derived from the Greek given name Ἱερώνυμος, Hierōnymos, "sacred name"; from ἱερός, hierós, "sacred", and ὄνυμα, ónyma, an alternative form of ὄνομα, ónoma, "name".
The names chosen were actually pretty genius, especially considering that Jerome's name/identity is the one used "to build the future", and in the last conversation Vincent has (with the doctor), is referred to as Vincent, his real name.
Very interesting take! I haven't rewatched it, and now I have a reason. I thought the ending was open ended for the reasons discussed further on. Vincent gets to the rocket which was the goal. I also wondered about the cache of materials Jerome leaves behind, was it that he thought Vincent might stay?
... maybe for when he comes back from Titan. Given Titan is a more spartan outpost, and everyone there is presumably accounted for anyway, given you can't exactly stroll over to Titan without going on a rocketship first - maybe for when Vincent comes back from his Titan mission, for retirement or whatever.
> . At this height, the temperature is a manageable 75 °C (348 K; 167 °F); or 27 °C (300 K; 81 °F) if we could get 5 km (3.1 mi) higher
I wonder -- what is the hottest air temperature humans could endure long term outdoors. Assuming you could adjust to the discomfort of warm air temps, how hot would it have to be before it's hazardous?
Our body's principle means of cooling is via sweat. When sweating stops being effective, it's basically impossible to cool down, and you're going to die of heat stroke if you don't go somewhere colder and/or less humid. Sweating breaks down at a wet-bulb temperature of ~100°F, and hitting even dry-bulb temperatures in the 150°F range is going to start to be lethal.
Simulating a land-based, completely sealed off mars- or moon-base in Antarctica is one thing. Simulating the conditions of a base floating in an atmosphere of CO2 is quite another.
Earth's atmosphere is lighter than the Venusian one at that altitude. A balloon filled with breathable air would float naturally. You can't do that on Earth.
"We have decided on Mars, can we stop forking it. "
Who is "we"?
I for example, have decided, that we colonize the moon first and then go on from there. But since I sadly do not operate a big space agency/company, my decision is not so relevant (yet).
But apart from that, yeah sure, lets build floating cities and (at least partly) self sufficient habitats on earth first, before we try it do it so far away we need at least 6 months to get there.
> I for example, have decided, that we colonize the moon first and then go on from there.
Why do people work so hard to get out of a gravity well, only to sink down into another one? The moon isn't bad, but the asteroids are where all the action will be. All the materials a civilization could want, relatively easy to access and move around.
I'm imagining a way to use solar power to grow hydrogen filled mylar cells at scale in a lake or ocean. You could organically grow an enormous platform as a skyport, e.g., elevator up the cable a couple km, then take off from there. Hell, maybe you need these skyports to support the business end of a massdriver.
I think he meant, before we try to mess with a planet far away, we have a CO2 problem here on earth already urging to be solved in general. Not necessarily, to experiment wildly in the process here on earth.
I would bet the solution for Earth is going to be wildly different than one used on Venus. Earth will require carbon removal that can safety be used with people present. The Venus solutions all sound very, very unfriendly to be present for.
Stap this nonsense. It is clear that there is overpopulation on this planet, where most of the population want to consume all available resources to them, but there must be easier ways to deal with that problem...
CO2 is food for plants. If you take away CO2 out of atmosphere of Earth, it is end of life for oxygen breathing life - Earth is inhabited not only by intelligent morons.
Rise of temperature on Earth is not caused by CO2(which is generated also by volcanoes), that is generated by humans, but by behavior of Sun. Winter around poles is caused by inclination of Earth - not because there is abundance of CO2... oh, I must have mixed something up, because when I started to read sci-fi, it was all about next Ice Age on Earth. And that we are doomed and that everyone will die. And we need to get to different planet. Despite that there are no habitable planets in reasonable distance. With no breathable air or water. And if there were, then we would be kicked out, if we tried to land. Because that is not how things works - if you have habitable planet, you should care about it.
There is no H on Venus surface, so it is impossible to change Venus with local resources. So, they have to be imported - and there is H in comets. So, the only way to teraform Venus is with bombarding it with thousands of comets and space junk, that contains ice. Maybe getting H out of gas planets might be another source, too.
Not since sci-fi authors figured out that, given human success rates at bioengineering, the likely result is an uninhabitable planet-wide nanotech/bacterial goo that eats anyone who lands.
The ice comet solution has the added benefit of wiping out all of those pesky Martians, given the kinetic energies involved. Just ask any Pak Protector. (-:
My big idea for Venus, assuming infinite power, would be to shoot a series of big asteroids past it and use the gravity/inertia drag to make it spin faster.
Then, when Venus is spinning fast enough, collide the asteroids together to give Venus a moon and tides.
While all that is going on, use some sort of huge electromagnet to spin Venus' internal heavy core to provide a strong magnetic field to deflect nasty stuff from the Sun and elsewhere.
Also build a shield to stop all sunlight reaching Venus, thus freezing the atmosphere onto the surface. That makes reprocessing the crust into something Earth-like much easier.
Comets could then be used to provide oceans.
Shouldn't take more than a few tens of thousands of years! Seems like something a few humans, downloaded into robots, could do.
Mars would remain a scientific research station like Antarctica, assuming that life is found there. I'd treat Europa and anywhere else with life the same way.
I assume, once you have allmost self replicating robots, who can do mining asteroids and building factories to build more of them and mine more and build more .. you would not need ten of thousands of years. Maybe even only some decades.
I figured tens of thousands of years mostly for the crust reprocessing on Venus itself, for the asteroids to coalesce into a big hot blob, and for the moon blob to cool down.
Day length seems less of a concern than the temperature and resources issues (since you can use artificial lighting), plus you can float around in the balloon to choose to be in a light, dark, dusk or dawn place, and even enjoy an eternal sunset. This almost sounds like it would fit Le Petit Prince
The floating cities are surely a way to circumvent the daylength issue. But the daylength is directly linked to the temperature - even if you could normalize the atmosphere, the day side would still get just too hot and the nightside too cold.
Unless you're planning to build a literal castle in the sky out of convenient gasses, this is completely unworkable.
Even at that altitude the cloud layer is still very turbulent and very toxic, and no structure will be absolutely gas-tight. And if the temperature is 75 °C outside, it's going to take insane amounts of energy to keep the inside of your hab cool - especially if it's made of metal and not rock. (A thin skin obviously isn't going to work.)
You can't mine Venus, and you can't explore the surface. All you can do is drift over the cloud layer.
So there's no point - except maybe niche tourism, niche planetary science, and possibly niche super-weapons research.
And after all that, you still have the problem of moving mass to/from your colony. 30-odd miles gives you a bit of an energy boost, but getting out the gravity well still isn't cheap or easy.
There are perhaps ways to mine Venus surface materials; something like dredging. Dedicated development of high-temp computing may also make longer-term robotic operations possible. None of that's particularly convenient, of course, and I can't imagine why you'd want to do it. But one can say that about every other extra-terrestrial option, too.
You would need a 50km long dredge. That seems completely unworkable; that's much longer than the deepest of deep mining operations we have here on Earth, and we aren't nearly as constrained on Earth as you would be on Venus. How would you even get such a thing to Venus? The only realistic way to do so would be to construct it of local materials, but now we have a chicken-and-egg problem.
Plus, keep in mind that a lot of the materials you would use for such a dredge on Earth won't work on Venus, because the atmosphere will corrode them.
It is probably a typo, but Mars doesn't have enough atmosphere to corrode things more than on Earth.
If you need 50km long dredge, then it is a viable project in future, just like now it is with space elevator. Apparently that type of dredge will be needed to extract materials from gas planets(and 50km might not be enough), so that dredge will have to be developed anyway.
The most logical solution to make habitable world would be to bombard Venus with comets and small planets. They all have enough materials to stabilize Venus atmosphere and teraform it and also calculated bombarding can cause Venus to change axis and rotation.
This is very far-future stuff though. In contrast, we can colonize Mars and Titan with today's level of technology (Mars more easily more likely, because it's closer).
I don't know... you'd need to maintain an over pressure in the living quarters and tiny leaks won't be much of an issue. Lift can be provided by hydrogen blimps, until you get to a balmy 20 C (70 F).
That would help both bleeding off heat and helping with maintaining over-pressure in the living quarters.
Corrosion resistance will be a challenge but not impossible, there are many plastics which will withstand sulfuric acid.
I like the terraforming idea better, and we could get it started with todays technology, it would just be really expensive - simply build a bunch of solar shade cells and assemble them in L1 orbit between Venus and the Sun, and keep expanding the network until you cover Venus in night. Then let the planet cool for a couple hundred years - a lot of that thick sulphuric atmosphere might solidify and fall to the ground and get the atmosphere down to workable levels.
Gattaca was ok, but the fact they were going to Titan was at best incidental to the plot. Could have been Mars, or Pluto, or Alpha Centauri, and it wouldn't have changed a single visual and only a handful dialog.
> 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.
I'm no space colony expert but am I missing something here? -180°C sounds like constant space suit level, not "just warm clothing".
A generous slathering of bear fat or whale blubber is all it would take. Maybe a vinyl outer suit so the viscious liquid methane rain doesn't dissolve your insulation.
On second thought, some kind of heated space suit sounds more comfortable.
Something like butter freezes at -20 C. Most animal fats would probably... shatter at the temperatures of Titan? I'm not familiar with temperatures anywhere near that low and I assume a lot of materials are just going to act very differently.
Yeah that confused me too. You'd definitely need your suit to be watertight (or rather liquid-methane-tight) so that the liquid doesn't touch your skin to prevent immediate frostbite. Maybe you won't need a fully pressurized suit, but that's just so low I feel like you wouldn't be able to survive for long periods without some sort of active heating (i.e. walking around with a portable furnace).
Yeah...-291F, an unbreathable atmosphere, and the atmospheric pressure is high enough you might want something to moderate it. Maybe not a ISS space suit, but we're not talking long underwear, warm boots and a pullover.
That is actually a cool idea. I have seen idea that you can use giant slingshots to hurl cargo out into orbit for cheap as those would use solar energy to prime.
If you think about it we could be doing so many cool things as species, if only we clean up the whole politicking and squabbling over resources and power.
Technologically it seems we are on the edge of being able to expand out into solar system.
I think colonizing the Moon is a good idea must mostly just the south pole to start with. On most of the Moon you have 2 weeks of frigid darkness you where you're living off batteries followed by 2 weeks of intense sunlight. At the peak of eternal light at the south pole you can just slowly turn your solar array 360 degrees over the course of a month and have (nearly) continuous power.
There's a big difference between having to have 12 hours of battery power, as on Mars, and 336 hours on the Moon.
There's no atmospheric absorption though, so that would compensate a bit. Building very tall structures would be easy in the low gravity, and you wouldn't need to worry about earthquakes or storms.
I'd often though that a rail or even cable should be strung to the top of Mt Everest, you'd make a fortune off of it shuttling tourists up and down all day.
Then do not turn the array and do not put it at the pole.
Build a ring of static solar collectors at some respectable km distance out, such that some will always be in sunlight, and transmit the power back. It brings up the engineering challenges of high-voltage power transmission in low gravity, zero atmosphere, and various forms of radiation (e.g. how far apart one could place pylons); but I suspect that these are more likely solvable than some of the things that futurist ideas bring up. (As yet uninvented, or not manufactured in large quantities, materials with really high tensile strengths, for example.) And it avoids the problems (construction and maintenance) of continously moving large numbers of solar panels around in a vacuum. It even introduces redundancy.
Moreover we definitely already know how to cope with an electrical power grid where only some of the generators are currently supplying power. (-:
- some important elements (nitrogen for example) are mostly missing from the Moon, necessitating import (nicely illustrated in the Artemis novel)
- no atmosphere means any grain of interplanetary dust in collision course with the Moon impacts its surface (and possibly any astronauts on the surface) directly at high velocity
- by not having atmosphere you can't use atmospheric reentry/aerocapture/aerobraking to shed velocity like you can with a body with an atmosphere; all speed changing maneuvers need a thruster impulse or similar
- no atmosphere means serious temperature extremes; even the very thin atmosphere on Mars events the day/night temperatures quite a bit
- you need retranslation from the far side of the Moon to Earth
- only a few fine tuned orbits around the Moon are stable, all others will quickly crash any satellite orbiting on them to the lunar surface due to the uneven gravity field of the Moon caused by sub-surface mass concentrations ("mascons")
All in all Moon has a lot of benefits, even just by being close to Earth. Still a couple things to watch for though. :)
Colonize the top of Mt Everest first? Even closer to Earth. Similar challenged. 250,000 miles closer to resupply. Very hard, a good test of colonizing technology.
The previous comment is wrong. Not only can you eat at those elevations, but you have to eat. Yes, your body is shutting down, and that includes digestion. You won't want to eat, but you have to force yourself to. Most people eat high carb, high calorie foods on summit day. Your body is burning a lot of calories at high elevations, and you have to replenish them. Your body shuts down faster if you don't regularly eat.
There are lots of accounts and theories about the best foods to eat at these elevations, they are easy to search online. Search for high-elevation diets, or "foods to eat on summit day".
Won't develop space travel and sustainment technologies much. With that logic, we can colonize oceans (and probably discover a thing or two about our origins and new life forms)
Why not? The top of Mt Everest is remarkably similar to Mars surface, for instance. I'd say, tackle the challenges a few at a time, instead of jumping in the deep end!
To go further: if you can't establish a colony on the top of Mt Everest, you haven't a prayer of doing it on Mars where there are all the problems and more.
We can establish a colony on top of Mt Everest, it's just not useful or exciting enough to spend money and time on it. Mars is exciting and allows to start a new country, unlike Everest which already belongs to someone.
Let's colonize LEO. You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere. You get zero G for funsies. You get a new perspective on earth and interesting new kinds of manufacturing. It's not too far away, so you can get there and back in a day. It's far enough in space that you need to improve your closed cycle systems. You might survive a number of different cataclysms. It seems like a good stepping stone.
> You get radiation protection from earth's magnetosphere.
Only in very specific orbits (NOT the ones we are currently using, btw.) The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be irradiated.
> You get zero G for funsies.
And the medical issues.
> interesting new kinds of manufacturing.
There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.
To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better radiation shielding.
And really, it's the atmosphere that does the bulk of the radiation protection work. Astronauts abort the ISS still experience their fair share of radiation. As mentioned though, their orbit is far from ideal and different orbits have less radiation.
So, the ISS orbit crosses the South American Magnetic Anomaly sometimes which does give them a bit of inner Van Allen belt radiation sometimes. But they're still completely protected from direct emissions of charged particles from Sun. They would get much, much more radiation if they were orbiting out by the Moon even before you start worrying about solar storms.
I'm not trying to take the wind out of the sails of any vehicles going elsewhere, just think LEO is a good place to start. Something like, before crossing an ocean, let's cross the Florida straits over to the Bahamas.
> The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be irradiated.
Pick the favorable orbits. We have data on our ISS astronauts. Seems like we can go years up there if we wanted.
> And the medical issues.
Most folks are going to want to go up for a few weeks/months and then come back to tell the tale. A habitat might employ centripetal acceleration. Anyhow, I think medical issues will be manageable. I suspect there are a few orders of magnitude more people who are interested in a vacation in space or work from space scenario than a long distance voyage to the moon or mars where you are cut off from the home world and have a big latency cost on communications.
I think this is about filling rockets with large sums of cargo to keep the space business growing. If a starship can be made for $5 million, there are plenty of yachts just down the coast from Cape Canaveral that cost more than that. If you could give folks a stay in LEO for ~$50k, there will be plenty of people who can afford that. I bet you could find tech companies that would let you work remotely from space as a signing bonus.
> There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.
Agreed, I'd add that this isn't so much about keeping the number of people down, but increasing the demand for people to go into space. I'm excited about the side effects it will have for technology and science.
> To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better radiation shielding.
The moon and mars are good places to settle too. I'm only arguing that Earth LEO is easier to start with because Earth has more readily available resources than any of the other locations. LEO is still hard enough where we'll have to improve our ships and space quarters for design and comfort. So I think it's a good stepping stone.
I am pretty sure the Martian congressional republic is not going to stop colonizing just Mars. They’ll have every incentive to push further, faster :-)
What exactly is the problem that colonizing another planet or moon is trying to solve? This seems like a solution without a problem. And if that problem is that the earth becomes uninhabitable, what kind of moron thinks we can colonize a planet or moon when we can't even keep ourselves alive on earth?
Not a single comment calling out this article's complete lack of scientific references, including the "iron smashing our brains at relativistic velocities" quote?
I think it's great to consider other planets we can colonize, and indeed a thick atmosphere has a lot of benefits, but it's hardly rational to state Mars has "a deal-breaking problem" without providing any hard evidence to back up this claim.
Scientific American is a magazine for the general public that have a high school level education in science. It is not a peer reviewed scientific journal, thus the SA articles do not have the same level of footnotes and references that a scholarly journal might. Having said that, I think on balance, the quality of journalism in SA is excellent, thanks in part to highly skilled and qualified editors.
Many (science fiction) dystopian societies have high inequality, with some people living in orbit while the rest eat Soylent Green. We live in such a dystopia, and many people on HN don't realize it because they are the lucky ones. Colonizing Mars isn't a goal that solves any particular problem in our civilization - it's a red herring.
I suspect it's because you're missing the larger point here. Having off-site backups is best practice for both system administrators _and_ civilizations.
As a doctrine, colonization hasn't worked too well for humanity. It assumes an ethnocentric view where the colonizer has the right to take or use resources that they believe they "discovered". Just because there aren't any humans there, doesn't mean it doesn't already belong to someone. And just because we are able to take over a moon, doesn't mean we have the right to.
Instead of colonizing, we should be talking about zero impact exploration where we leave things exactly as they were before we arrived. Then focus on using what we learn to fix and protect our own planet.
Belong to who? All known solar space and beyond is literally devoid of any life at all. Are you assuming super aliens? Or perhaps a god of some kind, who pre-claims ownership? And if so, how did these beings get their "right" to have it?.
What exactly countermands our right to the take over the moon or any other part of local space? Name some concrete thing, not just an arbitrary notion of rights.
The obvious from these, to what purpose zero impact exploration of space? Sure, nothing should be destroyed just because... But you do realize that you're not talking about fragile ecosystems here, but vast dead landscapes that are the literal products of cataclysmic destructive processes that are in many places still ongoing?
Your comment is so absurdly out of context for the environments we're all discussing here that it's tempting to think you're trolling.
And that's exactly the problem... we don't know what we don't know. We are assuming life exists only in the form that we have encountered it on Earth. And we're assuming that just because we can't find something, that it isn't there. We are taking all things solely from our perspective and we are convinced that they can't be any other way. This seems extremely egocentric and could be disastrous when encounter something far outside of our narrow perspective.
And what if we find a bacteria on Titan that lives beneath the surface but is harmful to humans, will we exterminate it for our own sake? What level of intelligence is required before we attribute value to another species.
As far as rights are concerned, this is a real issue. If the first country to Titan plants a flag and then says, "This moon is ours". Does that make it theirs? Will countries fight wars to protect their perceived rights to a particular moon? It may be arbitrary but that doesn't mean it isn't real. National boarders are arbitrary but they are very real. But in the same case as with countries, what gives us the right as a species to go a moon and claim it. Is it a right based on force, an ethical right, a right of first claim? The very idea of colonization assumes certain rights. The question is what are those rights based on?
And no I'm not trolling. It's sad that we are prepared to discuss ideas without being prepared to discuss the underlying philosophies. I'm simply saying that before we consider what to colonize or how, we should consider whether the very notion of space colonization is valid. This isn't a moot point. If we're wrong, at worst it could mean the end of our species. All cases of colonization on earth have lead to genocide or war... no exceptions. Why do we think space colonization will be different?
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If you can you should check out the TV series Avenue 5. It’s a sci-fi comedy and whoever they hired to do their science is really knocking it out the park. Some of the true science I’ve seen in the shown: the ship is massive enough to have its own gravity. Objects that get lost in space don’t float away. They orbit the ship. They use passenger effluent as a cosmic radiation shield. And due to an anomaly they don’t get flung off into space. Their orbit gets wider so instead of a year trip it’s now 5.
Oh and the real engineers work in the basement of the ship. The bridge crew are actors.
I watched the first 3-4 episodes. It was a polished show and the realistic take on science was a breath of fresh air, but it seemed like the story stopped going anywhere.
I’m a masochist - after eight episodes this is the most disappointing TV show ever based on creators previous work. It’s like an improv or stand up gone bad for five hours.
I gotta disagree. The physics in the show is disappointingly cartoonish in my opinion. The ship is not massive enough for it's gravity to capture the, uh, various items in the orbit shown. Even the orbital mechanics of the delay are just a plot device.
The latest episode has people freezing solid after leaving through an airlock almost instantaneously- someone on earth survived a longer exposure to vacuum but at closer to room temperature in a suit failure.
Oh gawd, it's even worse than that: they don't even leave the airlock, they lit. freeze solid the very instant the outer doors open (with no rush of air!?!) Damn it. I really really like Hugh Laurie (one of the great and simple pleasures in life is introducing someone who only knows him from "House, M.D." to his OG work like "Black Adder" or "Jeeves & Wooster") but it's hard to watch around the problems in this show.
Like it's fucking dark. The bad physics wasn't the worst part of that scene. The show is supposed to be a comedy but that was like a nightmare.
I'd tend to Jupiter's outer big moon, Callisto, as a good place to live. The surface is a vacuum, sure, but it's got surface ice which probably has liquid water underneath making it (and Ganymede and Europa for the same reason, and Venus 50 km up, and Earth) one of the few places in the solar system you could theoretically go outside with just a breather and no space suit. Plus it's got protection from charged particles via Jupiter's magnetic field without suffering from Jupiter's own radiation. And you've got both volatiles and minerals accessible on the surface which strikes me as really nice.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 367 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus
As for the magnetic field, if the lack of convection in the core is a problem (perhaps due to the core completely solidifying) couldn't we just dump enough heat energy into it to restart the dynamo action? In the future it's not completely unrealistic to think antimatter production and storage will improve, that's certainly a way of releasing absurd amounts of energy.
If one were to be born on a body with a much weaker gravity than Earth, e.g. Mars (0.38) or the Moon (0.17), wouldn’t this confine them to bodies where gravity is less than or approximately equal?
This is like expressing the wish of wanting to run while simultaneously ignoring the fact that your hands are uncontrollably stabbing your legs with safety pins.
As long as it will be the case, we won't be able to start new, large scale projects without jeopardizing our ability to live on earth.
But does that actually matter in space? I am asking out of genuine curiosity here: does using fossil fuels in space have any real downside? There is no atmosphere, ergo no greenhouse effect. The vastness of space would seem to swallow up any sort of pollution.
One of those is not like the others.
Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy we have, cleaner than even wind or solar power.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...
I didn't mention anything about solar being dirtier than nuclear, nor did I ask for some kind of debate on the topic.
If this investment is done using current tech, the impact on carbon emissions won't be sustainable.
It doesn't mean we should not do it, but a clean source of energy is a prerequisite to a successful space settlement.
A self-sufficient colony on any other planet or moon is way beyond that capability. It's not about doing one thing or another, it's one thing is a fantasy in the short term and the other is a real practical concern.
There's far more practical places on Earth to colonize before even thinking of bootstrapping an industrial civilization on another planet. Because that's what it would take. None of the technology needed to do the bootstrapping currently exists. You can't download MarsColony.stl from Thingiverse to load into a giant 3D printer.
We now have something much closer true reusable rockets from two private, competing companies that are both squarely focused on dropping the cost of launches. If a single party were to utilize them to build an ISS equivalent today, it’d undoubtedly be much much cheaper, and that’s just today. These companies have rockets on the horizon that would make space stations cheaper to build than settlements in some places on Earth.
There's also some in-space capabilities that have been lost with the retiring of the Shuttle. There's not really replacements for those capabilities on the horizon.
For starters the Shuttle was designed as an orbital work platform. In its construction configuration it launched with the CanadaArm, an airlock, and whatever ISS module it was delivering in the cargo bay. This was all in addition to the OMS, power and life support, and the crew cabin. It could fly modules to the station and assemble them without using resources of the station itself.
The Shuttle as a space truck facilitated one of the best aspects of the ISS design: the integrated truss structure. The truss structure of the ISS contains most of its base infrastructure. It mounts the solar and radiator panels, power and coolant distribution for same, and other support infrastructure. The individual crew modules on the non-Russian segment of the station don't need to use their mass or volume carrying these support elements. This leaves more of their interior envelope for astronauts, supplies, and scientific equipment.
The Shuttle also facilitated dedicated crew modules. Because the Shuttle's engines delivered modules to the station and could be placed with the CanadaArm/Shuttle crew they did not need to be mated to an independent spacecraft bus.
Compare the non-Russian modules of the ISS to the Russian segment. Because the Russian segment is essentially two docked independent spacecraft there's a lot of dead weight and needlessly redundant support systems. Each of the Russian modules have their own power and cooling since each needed those things before they were part of a larger station.
The Mir and Salyut stations, from whom the Russian segment of the ISS are derived, had the same sort of redundancy. The Mir was crowded and had very limited space and power for experiments. The modules also did not have the ability to support each other. If the power or thermal systems broke in a module it was dead and needed to be sealed off from the rest of the station. Because the modules were independent spacecraft they didn't have exterior connections or serviceable parts that could be repaired with a space walk.
Without the Shuttle or permanent orbital work platform like it, near term space stations have to be constructed out of docked independent spacecraft like Mir. A bunch of Dragon craft mated to a central docking module has far less capability as the ISS truss/module design.
It would be possible to build an ISS-like station without the Shuttle. The SpaceX Starship could be given a cargo bay, remote arm, and integral airlock. It could do a pretty good job configured such but that is not currently something SpaceX has announced. It would also require a lot of development effort as cargo bay doors are a structural weak point in addition to who knows how many changes to the Starship's design. Even a couple mated Starships in a "wet workshop" configuration would make for good orbital stations.
Assembling things in orbit is hard and unforgiving. Don't just assume that a reusable launch vehicle magically makes it cheap or easy. Launching shit into orbit is relatively easy, it's at least a solved problem. Docking that shit to other shit in orbit is much harder. Designing and building all that shit is expensive. Keep in mind, if your toilet breaks in space it could kill you if it can't be repaired or replaced quickly. So everything from the airlock to power distribution to toilet needs to be well designed, tested, and built or it is likely to kill you.
But I think research on how to colonize other planets will help us in dealing with local climate change.
I mean, I don't worry about implementing a new feature at work by 2120. But I'd sure worry about having it ready tomorrow!
Also all those issues in dealing with colonizing space are, for most people, distant from their daily life. Climate Change is close to home.
But yeah, research on one might influence the other as you say!
Such a solar sail can be extremely thin, just needs to be reflective. So even hundreds of square km of surface are manageable.
I disagree on the foil pieces in orbit. Sure, that would be much easier than a single piece. But it would be impossible to correct or reduce the amount of "glitter" once it is in an orbit. A single piece (maybe spaced out with holes or cuts) can be removed or reduced as necessary.
There's plenty of incentive to just have people set up a solar sail. Plenty of people would rather live in an ice age than give up their factories.
This is actually one of the best reasons to support SpaceX in my opinion. They are doing the R&D needed to provide a viable solution to global warming at a reasonable cost as a positive externality.
Source on sun-shade working at 20 million tonnes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade
Sources on SpaceX intending to be able to launch far Cargo than that every year (note: I'm lazy so I didn't find a source that did the multiplication of 100,000 tons * 1000 ships for you): https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/spacex-plans-how-elon-musk-s...
"It's most unfortunate, and not only for your farmers, that you've chosen not to have sunlight this year... perhaps you should reconsider our demands?"
Space colonization is a game to be played after we have made human life on earth fully sustainable.
Then we would have enough time and resources to think beyond.
Sounds like a fun metaphor but human colonization has nothing to do with running or safety pins.
This is not like our ancestors have done it. They spread as far as they technologically could, simple as that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations
Some settlements survived, some died and got revived centuries later, but humans have continuously tried to settle further away, in a complex system that you can't reduced to "establish more or less independent [remote camps] that can survive without [base camp] indefinitely".
Space is more difficult only in it required more technology and resources, but it's the same (complex) expansion process that is hardwired in our specie since we were mere apes.
I'm currently struggling 200 pages into Blue Mars. Great series though (I'm struggling with it due to life getting in the way, as opposed to it becoming a grind - although there's a bit of that too, but it's three 700-odd page novels...)
Based on MESSENGER radar data, the Mercury south pole probably has more water than Mars. The temperatures at most of the craters would also support CO2 ice, although our current data can't prove it's existence or rule it out. Nitrogen supply would probably be rough.
One of the interesting reasons to consider Mercury for colonization is that a colony on the inside rim of a crater would have very easy access to energy in many forms. Want natural-ish lighting? Raise a diffuse reflector on a pole. Want to melt something? Raise a mirror.
However, there is a very efficient trajectory that could be used by solar sailing ships for a fast, cheap route to Mercury once every 16 months. You leave Earth for Venus, where you do a gravity assist to drop your perihelion significantly below the orbit of Mercury, just to get low enough that a reasonable solar sail can get reasonable thrust even with significant cargo. Then you can use your infinite delta-v to match your aphelion with Mercury, and can do an efficient capture trajectory.
Actually, when you think about it, Jupiter is a good candidate for a dyson sphere.
Note: even if it were possible, the small relative increase in radiation received by Earth may have a butterfly effect similar to greenhouse gases and make global warming even more difficult to manage than it already is.
[0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/776/can-jupiter-...
Not sure how much heating it would provide to its moons. It already provides an unhealthy amount of radiation.
For upgrading Jupiter to a star, it would need 80 times its current mass.
There is nowhere else in the solar system enough mass to grow Jupiter but the Sun. Taking that mass from the Sun is in theory feasible but of course out of the range of our capabilities for quite some time.
That's for natural nuclear fission though which would waste a lot of energy going into space and not where we would want to have it (the moons).
It's probably more realistic to build small fission suns that orbit the moons that produce heat and light in a less wasteful, more directed manner. Still not possible today :-)
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a48d58c84350
A mass of self-replicating hot hydrogen dirigibles powered by fusion. They use part of the energy to stay afloat in the correct altitude and to repair and reproduce & radiate the rest outwards.
Harvest the metals from the moon, and build a mass driver to launch it into Earth orbit, where it’ll get assembled into the space habitat. Then spin it to get 1g.
On the other hand on Triton, even if you live at the surface, the Sun will be very weak. The main advantage of not living underground will be less resources to create a habitat.
I consider sufficient natural sunlight to be important for human wellbeing.
https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmo...
I've seen estimates in the single digit MW range which we build solar plants on Earth for a few million each. Power generation is somewhat irrelevant, getting the material up there and maintaining it will be the real monetary challenge.
Read the link at the end of the popsci article. There's a huge amount of research going into generating magnetic fields for spaceships and inhabited bases.
1. The film Gattaca (1997), in addition to being an excellent, inspiring film all around, centers on an aspiring astronaut's upcoming trip to Titan. Highly recommended.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZa83dTf4JA
2. The colonization of Venus is also a fascinating idea that isn't talked about much in comparison to the Moon or Mars. Essentially, the surface is too hot for colonization, but it may be possible to build floating cities ±31 miles above the surface.
- Venus's atmosphere is made mostly out of carbon dioxide. Because nitrogen and oxygen are lighter than carbon-dioxide, breathable-air-filled balloons will float at a height of about 50 km (31 mi). At this height, the temperature is a manageable 75 °C (348 K; 167 °F); or 27 °C (300 K; 81 °F) if we could get 5 km (3.1 mi) higher
- The atmosphere also provides the various elements required for human life and agriculture: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur.
- Additionally, the upper atmosphere could provide protection from harmful solar radiation comparable to the protection provided by Earth's atmosphere. The Atmosphere of Mars, as well as the Moon provide little such protection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus
Nah, you're just not thinking big enough:
https://www.orionsarm.com/fm_store/TerraformingVenusQuickly....
Depending on the shape of the parasol, the same support structures could be used for the lenses, focusing a stream of hydrogen nuclei on a small area of the planet. This focused plasma stream could also compensate some of the forces on the parasol (it'd need to be closer to the Sun than the Sun/Venus L1 point and balanced by light pressure) allowing the parasol to be smaller.
Gattaca is one of my favorite films. I agree that it is excellent, but I'm not sure it is inspiring. Gattaca is about how the system, society, circumstances and expectations beyond your control are an albatross around everyone's neck and ultimately harm and defeat the individual. In Gattaca, both Vincent and Jerome are tragic figures as they are both victims of expectations. Jerome is burdened by high expectations and Vincent by low expectations and those societal expectations are a hurdle to the lives they want to lead. Ultimately those societal expectations crushes Jerome and turns him into a cynical cripple. Vincent's societal expectations places a chip on his shoulder which costs him his family and his identity. And in the end, neither Jerome nor Vincent achieve their dreams as Jerome burns himself to death and Vincent dies on his way to Titan due to his "degenerate" heart. In a way, Gattaca is about two people on their own suicide mission as they rage against society/expectations. If you watch the movie from the beginning, you'll realize that both fully know that they are going to die/kill themselves doing what they are doing. It's a tragedy.
Vincent definitely doesn't die on his way to Titan. I'm not sure where you got that from. Jerome also self-immolates because he realizes that his purpose is now completed, not because he is cynical and depressed. His silver Olympic medal also turns gold in the fire, which is supposed to suggest that he has achieved his true purpose in life.
In any case, I see the film as inspiring because the two characters still find purpose and meaning in their nightmarish world: Vincent through achieving his goal of becoming an astronaut and Jerome through providing his identity and biological material for a greater purpose.
"I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body - you lent me your dream."
It's alluded to a few times in the movie. Vincent never saves anything for the swim back. Vincent specifically mentions that he is living on borrowed time as he has surpassed the "number of beats expected of his heart". And there is the treadmill scene where he was barely able to hang on. Remember that the training was to select people who can physically survive the journey and thrive on titan. Not to mention Vincent doesn't bring any of Jerome's urine,blood,etc with him to Titan. Do you really believe they don't check your identification on titan? Also, the lock of hair that Jerome gave to Vincent is an acknowledgment of Vincent that Jerome isn't going to make it and of course that Vincent isn't going to make it either. Finally, the last words of Vincent: "For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess, I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once a part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving; maybe I'm going home."
> Jerome also self-immolates because he realizes that his purpose is now completed, not because he is cynical and depressed.
That's a very upbeat view. But people don't normally celebrate fulfilling their purpose by burning themselves to death. Some believe that Vincent's death symbolizes going to heaven since he overachieved and Jerome's death is hell ( burning ) because he underachieved.
> Vincent through achieving his goal of becoming an astronaut and Jerome through providing his identity and biological material for a greater purpose.
But there's the rub, Vincent didn't become an astronaut, "Jerome" did. Even when Vincent succeeded, he didn't.
> "I got the better end of the deal. I only lent you my body - you lent me your dream."
Yes. And neither achieved their dream and both died at the end. And Jerome also left enough blood,urine,etc for two lifetimes... Think about what that really means.
I used to view Gattaca as you did. It was inspirational like Rudy. But then I watched it more and started noticing more aspects of the movie and it is far deeper and far more tragic than a generic inspirational movie. It's a tragedy.
You seem to have a thesis that the film is a tragedy and are working backwards from there. This goes against essentially everything in the film: its uplifting soundtrack, its message of overcoming the obstacles that society places in our way, and its argument that sometimes our true purpose is not to excel individually, but as a help and teammate to others.
> But there's the rub, Vincent didn't become an astronaut, "Jerome" did. Even when Vincent succeeded, he didn't.
Jerome is just his name and saying he didn't succeed because his achievements weren't listed under his own name seems a bit shallow, as if the only definition of success is fame. And again, a major theme of the story is that the two men are more capable of achieving great things together than apart. Remember that neither Vincent nor Eugene (Jerome) were in a good place prior to meeting each other. Jerome, the astronaut, is the successful identity created from the merging of both men, not simply one man using another's name.
I did so for the "heart beats". But every other point has nothing to do with statistics or scientific analysis. I really can't say definitively that he died on his way to titan, but the evidence is fairly overwhelming. It wouldn't have been hinted at so much in the movie and the movie would not have ended with that quote otherwise.
> And again, a major theme of the story is that the two men are more capable of achieving great things together than apart.
That's a bit of a reach but you are entitled to the view.
> You seem to have a thesis that the film is a tragedy and are working backwards from there.
No. I watched Gattaca as a kid and loved it and saw it as an inspirational movie. Everything you believed, I believed. Then I got older and watched the movie a few more times. My thesis changed from inspirational to tragedy. As I said, my view of the movie changed. And I love the movie more now because it is richer, deeper and more consequential than a good simplistic feel good inspirational movie.
> And remember that neither Vincent nor Eugene (Jerome) were in a good place prior to meeting each other.
They weren't in a good place at the end either.
Anyways, you are entitled to your view. I used to view it like you and I suspect it's most people's first impressions when they first watch the movie. But after repeated viewing, it's hard to watch someone burning himself to death and a man's looking into space and "going home" as inspirational. There are inspirational aspects to the film, but I don't think that's what the movie is really about. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
Do you have anything else that points to this? I've watched Gattaca 5-6 times I reckon, and never picked up on a hint that Vincent dies.
For the heart beats, I've always interpreted it as the world won't give him a chance because _statistically_ he has a low likelihood of success compared to the "guaranteed" success of genetic engineering. To me Vincent and Eugene are a rejection of this – showing that humans aren't just statistics, and that the guarantees are no such thing.
As for the "never saving anything for the way back" theme, I've always interpreted that as a part of this too. The idea that statistics aren't everything, going for the "guaranteed" outcome might limit your upside, etc.
I'm pretty sure that "going home" isn't a reference to death. In the context of the few lines it's in, he's talking about how maybe he's not leaving because the atoms in our bodies come from stars.
Finally, for me, there are too many references in Vincent's relationship with Irene that show an intent to return and an expectation that he will. Being gone for a year and that being "just one trip around the sun", lead the audience to see his trip as bittersweet because he's achieved his goal but will have to leave Irene temporarily, but ultimately a positive ending for him as he embarks on a new stage in his life. The gift of all the samples from Eugene, enough to last a lifetime, backs up this idea.
Other than what I wrote, I can't think of anything else.
> For the heart beats, I've always interpreted it as the world won't give him a chance because _statistically_ he has a low likelihood of success compared to the "guaranteed" success of genetic engineering.
Same. I used to believe it. Now I don't. Sure. It's statistics. But there are actual physical limits and performance. Even though Vincent surpassed the time expectations of his heart ( which was a ball park figure with a margin of error ), he can't surpass the physical limits. He can't run without his heart nearly exploding. That's why he has to cheat. He needs record Jerome's heartbeat. Those tests are to ensure that the astronauts can survive months/years of space travel to Titan and to thrive in Titan. Vincent, at least his heart, can't perform.
Gattaca is a society with unfair genetic discrimination and also fair performance tests. Vincent could be praised for overcoming the unfair discrimination, but he should also be criticized for cheating fair performance tests.
If a legally blind person wanted to drive and cheated his way to a driver's license. Would you cheer him as he sits down on the driver's seat? Of course not.
> As for the "never saving anything for the way back" theme, I've always interpreted that as a part of this too. The idea that statistics aren't everything, going for the "guaranteed" outcome might limit your upside, etc.
Same. I used to believe it. Now I don't. Now I interpret it as someone who has a major inferiority complex and a huge chip on his shoulder that's willing to die rather than lose. Not only is he willing to commit suicide than lose, he's willing to kill his own brother in the process. If you think about what the swim contest was about, it's about Vincent's willingness to kill himself and his own brother. That's why in the second race, when Vincent tells his brother, his brother looks at him in absolute horror and turns back.
Vincent is all too human. The unfairness of society and his lot in life has made him willing to cheat, die and kill to get what he wants and screw over society.
> I'm pretty sure that "going home" isn't a reference to death. In the context of the few lines it's in, he's talking about how maybe he's not leaving because the atoms in our bodies come from stars.
"Leaving this world". "Going home". Returning to the atoms from whence we come from. Like ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
> Finally, for me, there are too many references in Vincent's relationship with Irene that show an intent to return and an expectation that he will.
He left his parents/brothers for good and he loved them. He also left Jerome to his death. Not sure Irene is that much more special. Vincent has shown that people means less to him than his goal. Besides, didn't the flight window between earth and titan open every 77 years or so? Besides vincent doesn't save anything for the trip back.
> The gift of all the samples from Eugene, enough to last a lifetime, backs up this idea.
Last "two" ( jerome's and vincent's ) lifetimes. Do you really think Jerome was able to produce that much blood, urine and skin/hair samples for two lifetimes? The last part of the film, both jerome and vincent were trying their best to avoid the elephant in the room ( their impending deaths ). That dinner scene, vincent asks jerome what he'll do after he leaves for titan. There is an awkward silence followed by silly response from jerome. And then Jerome toasts on his life on titan and asks what titan is like. But Jerome knows vincent is never going to reach titan alive and Vincent knows Jerome isn't going to last long after he leaves.
And I read Jeromes suicide as the last act to "cover up" for Vincent (and Jeromes name). What would people say when someone found Jemore, alive or his corpse, in the home on Earth?
The last step was to disappear completely. If I recall correctly we were shown that the incinerator would burn until nothing was left there.
Why would they need to send him back? Just imprison him in Titan. Also, society is based on genetics - where you work, where you live, who you date, etc. How did Vincent expect to live on Titan without Jerome's samples? I think the answer is he never intended to live on Titan because he knew he'd die on the way to Titan. We know that his heart can't handle the journey ( treadmill scene ).
> What would people say when someone found Jemore, alive or his corpse, in the home on Earth?
The same thing the cop said after questioning the wheelchair bound Jerome. Apologize after Jerome berated him and demanded his badge number. Besides, given your point about the flight window, what would it matter? Why would Jerome need to cover for him when Vincent's set on Titan?
I think that Jerome always intended to kill himself from the very beginning ( we know he's suicidal because he's in a wheelchair because of a failed suicide attempt ). Not to "cover up" for whoever he was helping, but because "Jerome wasn't meant to be 2nd place". In the incinerator, "2nd place Jerome" and his silver medal are no more. I also don't think he help vincent for the money or for vincent's sake though they developed a friendship towards the end. We know he was bitter at society ( and himself ) and I think he wanted to screw society once before offing himself.
In the end, it's two people dying to escape their "identity". One trying to erase his "invalid" identity and the other trying to erase his "2nd place" identity. And both perishing in the process.
Sure. We also do not know his heart didn't fail, though you seem sure it didn't. However, the clues throughout the movie make it fairly obvious that he doesn't make it.
> We know that, reasonably, management would want the margin of error on the right side for a high investment journey.
Sure. And we also know that he has heart problems and is living on borrowed time. We also know that running on the treadmill nearly leaves him breathless and clutching at his chest in terrible coughing fits. There must be a reason why that scene was in the movie. Don't you think?
The ending certainly leaves it open to interpretation. That's what's great about the movie. It didn't spoonfeed the audience. But it did provide hints/clues/etc.
Put it this way, there are tons of clues that he dies. There are no clues that he lives. If he lived, the movie would have some mentioned what he planned to do once on titan. Or any clue that he intended to survive the trip. Like maybe, Vincent telling Jerome, "Hey, I need a few samples to live on Titan" or "Hey, I got a nice apartment on Titan" or "Man, my new job on Titan is great" or anything indicating a life on Titan. Ever notice he never mentions his life on Titan? The only thing he is concerned about is getting on that spaceship.
If you were watching a kamikaze movie and at the end, the pilot flies off with enough fuel to reach the aircraft carrier group but not enough to make it back. Would you argue that he makes it back alive since we never actually see him carry out the attack? Sure, anything is possible, but highly unlikely.
Is it possible Vincent made it to titan? Sure, if they want to do a sequel perhaps. Is it likely? I don't think so. But it's art. Your interpretation is just as valid is mine.
Vincent nearly fails the treadmill scene because he is on the edge of panicking under the stress of being revealed to be prime suspect in a murder case that might put him in jail wrongly and will blow his life's dream of getting to Titan.
It doesn't matter if they check his ID at Titan, whatever that means. He commented he is outside the police's jurisdiction on the way to Titan, he will have achieved his goal regardless of his publicly known validity after docking at Titan.
The line about going home is to illustrate that he is in fact, going home. He was always meant to be among the stars and found regular everyday life difficult. Through his teen years he studied astrophysics, he was an outcast. His home was, is and finally arrived among the stars. Vincent achieved exactly what he set out to do and so did Jerome. Jerome was upset that he was not the best swimmer, as he was designed to be and deliberately chose to walk into traffic. Jerome unable (or had no desire) to escape his own self-resentment, burns in it. Both Anton and Jerome suffer for defining themselves by their biology and the accompanied social expectations.
Jerome passes Vincent his hair as the last expression of his time on Earth. Jerome will no longer grow any hair, a natural measure of time. He has ceased to exist in a physical sense. His mission is complete in giving enough of his valid biological matter for his life and Vincent's life across time.
It is questionable what Vincent's goal in space is to do from a relational perspective.. He saved Anton from drowning twice and as lifted into space on the back of his own effort and everybody that let him pass through the system illegally. His father let him past the final checkpoint, Jerome gave his body, Anton gave him a gap in police authority, Irene did not expose his invalidity and the mission director pushed for the launch timing slot in the face of authoritative danger. What does Vincent give back for all this. A change in spirit from biological determinism to willpower over statistical fact. Not much in comparison to his launch.
Musing aside, Vincent lives.
The impression that it was 'the stress of being found out' is a novel interpretation to me. I always thought it was about the fact that he has a 'garbage' heart and he's basically actually going at 200% while it appears on the outside as if he's only doing 60 bpm.
Right at the end of his run his real BPM comes out because the recording from Jerome (Jude Law) reached its end and that's when he stops the exercise.
Will re-watch differently the movie now! :)
Edit, to add: the name Vincent is derived from the Greek/Latin word for conquering/winning... so there’s that too.
- Jerome Morrow = Sacred Name of Tomorrow/The Future
> Jerome is a masculine name of Greek origin, derived from the Greek given name Ἱερώνυμος, Hierōnymos, "sacred name"; from ἱερός, hierós, "sacred", and ὄνυμα, ónyma, an alternative form of ὄνομα, ónoma, "name".
The names chosen were actually pretty genius, especially considering that Jerome's name/identity is the one used "to build the future", and in the last conversation Vincent has (with the doctor), is referred to as Vincent, his real name.
I wonder -- what is the hottest air temperature humans could endure long term outdoors. Assuming you could adjust to the discomfort of warm air temps, how hot would it have to be before it's hazardous?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-bulb_...
We have decided on Mars, can we stop forking it. Have we learning nothing from Linux?
But if you have to, could you hurry up and make a floating city on earth to practice?
People would pay a tonne of money for that, and having floating cities (In reality small communal groups, so more a village) would be very very neat.
Earth's atmosphere is lighter than the Venusian one at that altitude. A balloon filled with breathable air would float naturally. You can't do that on Earth.
Who is "we"?
I for example, have decided, that we colonize the moon first and then go on from there. But since I sadly do not operate a big space agency/company, my decision is not so relevant (yet).
But apart from that, yeah sure, lets build floating cities and (at least partly) self sufficient habitats on earth first, before we try it do it so far away we need at least 6 months to get there.
Why do people work so hard to get out of a gravity well, only to sink down into another one? The moon isn't bad, but the asteroids are where all the action will be. All the materials a civilization could want, relatively easy to access and move around.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver
Images (and calculations) in the deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r6CPFJ1AX1ZULacguTf6...
The very big disadvantage except the atmosphere is the lenght of a venus day: 116 earth days and 18 hours.
So a science fiction solution is asteroid bombardment to make venus spin faster ..
Also, would the temperature really go down and not be negated by the kinetic impact?
Apart from that, more water probably helps, if we do not need that water more urgently on mars.
There is no H on Venus surface, so it is impossible to change Venus with local resources. So, they have to be imported - and there is H in comets. So, the only way to teraform Venus is with bombarding it with thousands of comets and space junk, that contains ice. Maybe getting H out of gas planets might be another source, too.
The ice comet solution has the added benefit of wiping out all of those pesky Martians, given the kinetic energies involved. Just ask any Pak Protector. (-:
Then there is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud
Don't worry - there is more than enough comets to bomb the Mars with all the future settlements. Muhaha
Then, when Venus is spinning fast enough, collide the asteroids together to give Venus a moon and tides.
While all that is going on, use some sort of huge electromagnet to spin Venus' internal heavy core to provide a strong magnetic field to deflect nasty stuff from the Sun and elsewhere.
Also build a shield to stop all sunlight reaching Venus, thus freezing the atmosphere onto the surface. That makes reprocessing the crust into something Earth-like much easier.
Comets could then be used to provide oceans.
Shouldn't take more than a few tens of thousands of years! Seems like something a few humans, downloaded into robots, could do.
Mars would remain a scientific research station like Antarctica, assuming that life is found there. I'd treat Europa and anywhere else with life the same way.
Even at that altitude the cloud layer is still very turbulent and very toxic, and no structure will be absolutely gas-tight. And if the temperature is 75 °C outside, it's going to take insane amounts of energy to keep the inside of your hab cool - especially if it's made of metal and not rock. (A thin skin obviously isn't going to work.)
You can't mine Venus, and you can't explore the surface. All you can do is drift over the cloud layer.
So there's no point - except maybe niche tourism, niche planetary science, and possibly niche super-weapons research.
And after all that, you still have the problem of moving mass to/from your colony. 30-odd miles gives you a bit of an energy boost, but getting out the gravity well still isn't cheap or easy.
Plus, keep in mind that a lot of the materials you would use for such a dredge on Earth won't work on Venus, because the atmosphere will corrode them.
If you need 50km long dredge, then it is a viable project in future, just like now it is with space elevator. Apparently that type of dredge will be needed to extract materials from gas planets(and 50km might not be enough), so that dredge will have to be developed anyway.
The most logical solution to make habitable world would be to bombard Venus with comets and small planets. They all have enough materials to stabilize Venus atmosphere and teraform it and also calculated bombarding can cause Venus to change axis and rotation.
- Lando Venrissian
That would help both bleeding off heat and helping with maintaining over-pressure in the living quarters.
Corrosion resistance will be a challenge but not impossible, there are many plastics which will withstand sulfuric acid.
I'm no space colony expert but am I missing something here? -180°C sounds like constant space suit level, not "just warm clothing".
I'm also not sure what kind of warm clothing they'd mean lol.
At most, warm & insulated enough.
On second thought, some kind of heated space suit sounds more comfortable.
https://www.space.com/elon-musk-nuke-mars-terraforming.html
1. plenty of solar power
2. close to earth
3. easy to launch out of its gravity well
4. lunar base technology can be iterated far more rapidly
If you think about it we could be doing so many cool things as species, if only we clean up the whole politicking and squabbling over resources and power.
Technologically it seems we are on the edge of being able to expand out into solar system.
There's a big difference between having to have 12 hours of battery power, as on Mars, and 336 hours on the Moon.
Sure that's nice but the angle of sunlight is very low so you are limited in that respect, e.g,. available surface area.
Pikes Peak used to have a train going to the top, but they closed it a couple of years ago. https://www.cograilway.com/rates-times.asp
Build a ring of static solar collectors at some respectable km distance out, such that some will always be in sunlight, and transmit the power back. It brings up the engineering challenges of high-voltage power transmission in low gravity, zero atmosphere, and various forms of radiation (e.g. how far apart one could place pylons); but I suspect that these are more likely solvable than some of the things that futurist ideas bring up. (As yet uninvented, or not manufactured in large quantities, materials with really high tensile strengths, for example.) And it avoids the problems (construction and maintenance) of continously moving large numbers of solar panels around in a vacuum. It even introduces redundancy.
Moreover we definitely already know how to cope with an electrical power grid where only some of the generators are currently supplying power. (-:
For two weeks at a time. That's a long time for batteries to run.
- some important elements (nitrogen for example) are mostly missing from the Moon, necessitating import (nicely illustrated in the Artemis novel)
- no atmosphere means any grain of interplanetary dust in collision course with the Moon impacts its surface (and possibly any astronauts on the surface) directly at high velocity
- by not having atmosphere you can't use atmospheric reentry/aerocapture/aerobraking to shed velocity like you can with a body with an atmosphere; all speed changing maneuvers need a thruster impulse or similar
- no atmosphere means serious temperature extremes; even the very thin atmosphere on Mars events the day/night temperatures quite a bit
- you need retranslation from the far side of the Moon to Earth
- only a few fine tuned orbits around the Moon are stable, all others will quickly crash any satellite orbiting on them to the lunar surface due to the uneven gravity field of the Moon caused by sub-surface mass concentrations ("mascons")
All in all Moon has a lot of benefits, even just by being close to Earth. Still a couple things to watch for though. :)
There are lots of accounts and theories about the best foods to eat at these elevations, they are easy to search online. Search for high-elevation diets, or "foods to eat on summit day".
To go further: if you can't establish a colony on the top of Mt Everest, you haven't a prayer of doing it on Mars where there are all the problems and more.
Only in very specific orbits (NOT the ones we are currently using, btw.) The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be irradiated.
> You get zero G for funsies.
And the medical issues.
> interesting new kinds of manufacturing.
There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.
To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better radiation shielding.
> The Earth's magnetosphere actually captures dangerous radiation and various anomalies in the belt distribution cause portions of low-Earth orbits to be irradiated.
Pick the favorable orbits. We have data on our ISS astronauts. Seems like we can go years up there if we wanted.
> And the medical issues.
Most folks are going to want to go up for a few weeks/months and then come back to tell the tale. A habitat might employ centripetal acceleration. Anyhow, I think medical issues will be manageable. I suspect there are a few orders of magnitude more people who are interested in a vacation in space or work from space scenario than a long distance voyage to the moon or mars where you are cut off from the home world and have a big latency cost on communications.
I think this is about filling rockets with large sums of cargo to keep the space business growing. If a starship can be made for $5 million, there are plenty of yachts just down the coast from Cape Canaveral that cost more than that. If you could give folks a stay in LEO for ~$50k, there will be plenty of people who can afford that. I bet you could find tech companies that would let you work remotely from space as a signing bonus.
> There are a handful of (very interesting) crystal manufacturing that requires zero-g. These could be done in automated or human tended LEO or LLO manufacturing labs. You don't need a large human presence.
Agreed, I'd add that this isn't so much about keeping the number of people down, but increasing the demand for people to go into space. I'm excited about the side effects it will have for technology and science.
> To the downsides, LEO lacks any resources whatsoever, and still has a nontrivial delta-v to the rest of the system. All your arguments in favor could be applied to the Moon, which does have LOTS of resources and better radiation shielding.
The moon and mars are good places to settle too. I'm only arguing that Earth LEO is easier to start with because Earth has more readily available resources than any of the other locations. LEO is still hard enough where we'll have to improve our ships and space quarters for design and comfort. So I think it's a good stepping stone.
All I ever learned from that is that I hate camping... and would much rather have a house / hotel room.
Extending that analogy further, maybe we can figure out how to build a "mother in law apartment" in our "back yard" first.
I think it's great to consider other planets we can colonize, and indeed a thick atmosphere has a lot of benefits, but it's hardly rational to state Mars has "a deal-breaking problem" without providing any hard evidence to back up this claim.
Anyway, this article by the "discoverer of the Solar Wind" (maybe validator is a better word), Eugene Parker, is relevant to this discussion: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~sshepherd/research/Shielding/docs...
Instead of colonizing, we should be talking about zero impact exploration where we leave things exactly as they were before we arrived. Then focus on using what we learn to fix and protect our own planet.
What exactly countermands our right to the take over the moon or any other part of local space? Name some concrete thing, not just an arbitrary notion of rights.
The obvious from these, to what purpose zero impact exploration of space? Sure, nothing should be destroyed just because... But you do realize that you're not talking about fragile ecosystems here, but vast dead landscapes that are the literal products of cataclysmic destructive processes that are in many places still ongoing?
Your comment is so absurdly out of context for the environments we're all discussing here that it's tempting to think you're trolling.
And what if we find a bacteria on Titan that lives beneath the surface but is harmful to humans, will we exterminate it for our own sake? What level of intelligence is required before we attribute value to another species.
As far as rights are concerned, this is a real issue. If the first country to Titan plants a flag and then says, "This moon is ours". Does that make it theirs? Will countries fight wars to protect their perceived rights to a particular moon? It may be arbitrary but that doesn't mean it isn't real. National boarders are arbitrary but they are very real. But in the same case as with countries, what gives us the right as a species to go a moon and claim it. Is it a right based on force, an ethical right, a right of first claim? The very idea of colonization assumes certain rights. The question is what are those rights based on?
And no I'm not trolling. It's sad that we are prepared to discuss ideas without being prepared to discuss the underlying philosophies. I'm simply saying that before we consider what to colonize or how, we should consider whether the very notion of space colonization is valid. This isn't a moot point. If we're wrong, at worst it could mean the end of our species. All cases of colonization on earth have lead to genocide or war... no exceptions. Why do we think space colonization will be different?
There isn't anyone there, human or otherwise.
> And just because we are able to take over a moon, doesn't mean we have the right to.
Sure it does.
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Oh and the real engineers work in the basement of the ship. The bridge crew are actors.
(Space is cold but it's also empty. You'd boil first from the lack of pressure then freeze, eh?)
Like it's fucking dark. The bad physics wasn't the worst part of that scene. The show is supposed to be a comedy but that was like a nightmare.