[TwentyPercentCooler]

All I'm saying is, for terraforming purposes, Venus is more desirable than mars because of one factor - size.


How did we go from terraforming to floating colonies anyway?


Also, mars has no magnetic field so its atmosphere would have to be replenished constantly.

I ignored the talk of large-scale terraforming because I have doubts about its feasibility. Look at the massive controversy about climate change on our own planet. The temperature and air composition changes have been minuscule over the course of several hundred years of modern technology and we still haven't had any conclusive proof that we had any significant effect on it. I have no doubts that human ingenuity would eventually find a way, but given how many variables an entire ecosystem has, it might take too long or cost too much to be a viable option. I'd love to see it, but I'm skeptical. 

[Mars]

All I'm saying is, for terraforming purposes, Venus is more desirable than mars because of one factor - size.


How did we go from terraforming to floating colonies anyway?


Also, mars has no magnetic field so its atmosphere would have to be replenished constantly.

I'm saying that size is not nearly as big of a problem as EVERYTHING ELSE. I don't think we'll see terraforming in the next thousand years, but I think you'll see humans able to live in space for extended periods in the next hundred. Certainly humans will have been to Mars fairly soon (as long as there is political will and industrial might for it), but Venus is a long time from now in any case.

[watsisname]

All I'm saying is, for terraforming purposes, Venus is more desirable than mars because of one factor - size.


How did we go from terraforming to floating colonies anyway?


Also, mars has no magnetic field so its atmosphere would have to be replenished constantly.

I ignored the talk of large-scale terraforming because I have doubts about its feasibility. Look at the massive controversy about climate change on our own planet. The temperature and air composition changes have been minuscule over the course of several hundred years of modern technology and we still haven't had any conclusive proof that we had any significant effect on it. I have no doubts that human ingenuity would eventually find a way, but given how many variables an entire ecosystem has, it might take too long or cost too much to be a viable option. I'd love to see it, but I'm skeptical. 

I really don't think you're that dumb.  Do more research.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

All I'm saying is, for terraforming purposes, Venus is more desirable than mars because of one factor - size.


How did we go from terraforming to floating colonies anyway?


Also, mars has no magnetic field so its atmosphere would have to be replenished constantly.

I ignored the talk of large-scale terraforming because I have doubts about its feasibility. Look at the massive controversy about climate change on our own planet. The temperature and air composition changes have been minuscule over the course of several hundred years of modern technology and we still haven't had any conclusive proof that we had any significant effect on it. I have no doubts that human ingenuity would eventually find a way, but given how many variables an entire ecosystem has, it might take too long or cost too much to be a viable option. I'd love to see it, but I'm skeptical. 

I really don't think you're that dumb.  Do more research.

Sorry, I'm not convinced by the available research that humans are the ones causing large-scale climate change. The number of natural causes is staggering and the variables are many. I support cleaning up our act as a species, however.

[watsisname]

Fine, name the natural causes that are responsible for the post-industrial temperature anomaly, and explain why the radiative physicists and paleoclimate experts are wrong about climate sensitivity with regard to increased greenhouse gas concentrations.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Fine, name the natural causes that are responsible for the post-industrial temperature anomaly, and explain why the radiative physicists and paleoclimate experts are wrong about climate sensitivity with regard to increased greenhouse gas concentrations.

Historical records point to countless prior warming/cooling cycles far before humanity had established any industrial capacity. Greenhouse gases can also have natural origins, natural phenomena can change local climates for short periods of time, and the cascading nature of an ecosystem is both fickle and unimaginably complex. I freely admit that climatology isn't my area of expertise, but I'm not convinced one way or another. I believe that we will wind up having a negative effect if we keep mindlessly consuming and abusing our ecosystem, however. But in the context of the thread, given the abuse that our planet has taken from us, changing the climate of a planet as hostile as Venus or Mars would take an absolutely massive amount of ingenuity and effort.

[watsisname]

I'm glad you agree that 'business as usual' is a bad idea, but I have to say I'm surprised you're not convinced we're responsible the current warming trend.

Climate is indeed naturally variable over the long term (mainly due to orbital changes, continental drift, etc), but what we're witnessing in modern times is unequivocal.  Nobody has successfully proposed a natural mechanism that has been capable of explaining the current warming trend. 
Note how you neglected to propose one as well.

And what's more is that the CO2 rise in modern times is similarly unequivocal, and there's no question that human activities are responsible for it.  Note you neglected to propose a source for the observed CO2 concentrations.

Similarly, nobody questions that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.  Increasing CO2 leads to warmer global temperatures.  The observed increase in temperature is in remarkable agreement with what is expected from the increased CO2 concentrations.  It's fairly simple physics.
Note how you neglected to show how the atmospheric physicists and paleoclimatologists are wrong.

I'm not trying to be aggressive on this, but I'm just hoping you're basing your opinion on evidence instead of emotion.  Usually it's only religious fundies and oil-men who dispute AGW.

[QuantumDelta]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RYBDTnS7dg&list=FLn2qvxRRvn5js1xWCS5xyvQ&index=31
;D?

[Bobboau]

Note how you neglected to show how the atmospheric physicists and paleoclimatologists are wrong.

because proving evolution wrong will prove creationism right. all he said was it isn't conclusive, and until we get 200 earths half with 200 years of industrialization and half without I don't think you can prove it to absolute certainty.

[watsisname]

Nothing in science can be known with absolute certainty.

It's the radiative physics and paleoclimate data that says that the observed increase in CO2 results in the observed increase in temperature.  If he's going to argue that it's not conclusive then he needs to support that statement.

[Bobboau]

Nothing in science can be known with absolute certainty.

exactly. I think that is all he said.

[Thaeris]

To ignore human intervention into recent climatic changes is a fallacy. However, it is also worth noting (as has previously been stated) that natural heating and cooling cycles due to CO2 concentrations are nothing new on Earth. Human intervention simply isn't helping matters. High CO2 concentrations in the far past were counteracted with huge expanses of forest, etc. Thus, I think most everyone here would agree that increased development and industry from human habitations ADDED to the "natural carbon cycle" of Earth is the actual problem at hand.

...Not that this hasn't already been stated in some form or other already.

[Mars]

The fact that we can't stabilize the climate of out own planet, however, suggests to me it will be a looong time indeed before we can think of touching another planets, especially profoundly enough to terraform

[FlamingCobra]

All I'm saying is, for terraforming purposes, Venus is more desirable than mars because of one factor - size.


How did we go from terraforming to floating colonies anyway?


Also, mars has no magnetic field so its atmosphere would have to be replenished constantly.

I'm saying that size is not nearly as big of a problem as EVERYTHING ELSE. I don't think we'll see terraforming in the next thousand years, but I think you'll see humans able to live in space for extended periods in the next hundred. Certainly humans will have been to Mars fairly soon (as long as there is political will and industrial might for it), but Venus is a long time from now in any case.

What about O'Neill Cylinders?

[The E]

That's an entirely different thing.

[FlamingCobra]

I'm saying that size is not nearly as big of a problem as EVERYTHING ELSE. I don't think we'll see terraforming in the next thousand years, but I think you'll see humans able to live in space for extended periods in the next hundred. Certainly humans will have been to Mars fairly soon (as long as there is political will and industrial might for it), but Venus is a long time from now in any case.

I'm asking if we'll have humans in O'Neill Colonies or Stanford Tori within the next hundred years.

[IronBeer]

I'm asking if we'll have humans in O'Neill Colonies or Stanford Tori within the next hundred years.

Doubtful. We might have small colonies on other worlds by 2111, but astroengineering skill on the scale of Island Three will probably elude humanity for at least that long.

I realize I'm being a pretty serious wet blanket in this thread; I'm hopeful for space colonization and mind-blowing construction as much as anybody here. However, if this thread is going to be serious, then there are very real concerns that must be addressed before pen can even be put to paper designing such structures. Barring a certain and catastrophic threat to Earth's biosphere, foreseeable global economics will most probably prevent ventures more serious than the ISS or private companies like Virgin Galactic. With the only real money to be made in space being the tourist dollar of the very wealthy, the only other driver for space exploration, private or public, is good old human curiosity. Which is admittedly a powerful force, just probably not hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars-powerful, particularly when that money could be spent, say "uplifting" third-world countries to set them up as global players (damn, I sound like an obnoxious hipster with that).

Concerted efforts at space exploration and colonization, as I see it, are less of an "if" and more of a "when". The only catch is that the "when" will probably be "once we've got matters figured out on Earth". And who really knows how long that will take?

[Scotty]

Just thought I'd drop back in to point out how people thought this nifty little thing called the "airplane" was an interesting little gimmick around this time a hundred years ago.

One hundred years is a loooong time on the technological scale, at the rate we've been moving.

[Thaeris]

The unfortunate problem with that analogy, Scotty, is that the principal early investors in aviation were the military organizations around the world. It's not that the technology was derived by military interests initially, but it certainly was and is still now developed and evolved from those interests.

I mean, just look at the budget that the government allocates for the military over the space program; imagine what NASA could do if we switched those allocations for just two years...

The fact is that either space has to become more interesting to the general public that said public can influcence their respective governments to invest in more spaceflight programs, or we need to find a way to kill ourselves in space to get more of a driving initiative rolling for space colonization. It's very sad, but I think it's true.

[Mars]

Just thought I'd drop back in to point out how people thought this nifty little thing called the "airplane" was an interesting little gimmick around this time a hundred years ago.

One hundred years is a loooong time on the technological scale, at the rate we've been moving.

What have we invented in the last ten years that really compares?

We've  made some impressive bounds in biology and health, yes, but where's my fusion reactor? Where are the flying cars? I take a bus to work that is a heck of a lot like every bus made after 1980.