[ot] Mars colonization

[tleilaxu]

I haven't espoused any "secret" of human nature so much as stated the obvious.

Pyramids? If your plan for the colonization of Mars calls for the deification of our national leaders and widespread slavery, let us all know now, m'kay?

Wulf

Well, I've studied quite a bit of archaeology, and I just want to say that it isn't the consensus that pyramids were built by slaves. And no need to be snarky. This has nothing to do with my original exception to your claim that humans don't undertake projects that aren't finished until after their deaths. You said it was against human nature, but I think I have shown that your claim is not supportable

 

[Kilmore]

There are serious problems across the boards here. The first one is that human beings aren't well suited to go up into space. The pressure problem's already been brought up, but a more difficult problem is with the osteoperosis that the human body goes through in reduced gravity. For whatever reason, the human bones lose calcium and become much weaker when in space. The effect is very noticeable (but not crippling) among astronauts and cosmonauts who spend months on space stations. Fortunately, it does not take long to recover. But it is a serious problem for that old folks home on the moon. And the manned Mars missions I've looked up suggest that the duration spent in space for those 'nauts on that one mission may exceed three years.

The problem I see with the space elevator is all the crap flying around in outer space. I could just see spending a trillion bucks on a Clarke Tower just to see it get nailed by an old Apollo module. Anyone see the picture of the crater in the space shuttle window caused by an old fleck of paint? Another problem. Some of the plans I've seen involve attaching the upper part to an asteroid in geosynchronious orbit over the earth. Who wants to volunteer their country for being tied to an earthsmacker?

On the other hand, I'd like to respond to the post that asteroid mining on the moon would be difficult because of the lack of steel. Um... what were you expecting to make with the asteroids? From what I understand, most of them are carbon and iron. If we could manage to start smelting on a small level with earth borne facilities, there should be a robust lunar steel industry in place in no time.

 

[Mistwell]

Well, I've studied quite a bit of archaeology, and I just want to say that it isn't the consensus that pyramids were built by slaves. And no need to be snarky. This has nothing to do with my original exception to your claim that humans don't undertake projects that aren't finished until after their deaths. You said it was against human nature, but I think I have shown that your claim is not supportable

Actually, it IS the consensus that the pyramids were built by slaves. Consensus means the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned, not the judgment arrived at by all of those concerned. The view that the builders of the pyramids were voluntary is the exception, though a loud one right now, based on the discovery of some builders remains within the tombs. However, it is the vast minority opinion, and far from the concensus. Right now, 9 out of 10 Egyptologists will still tell you it was slaves who built the pyramids.

 

[Xeriar]

Actually, it IS the consensus that the pyramids were built by slaves. Consensus means the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned, not the judgment arrived at by all of those concerned. The view that the builders of the pyramids were voluntary is the exception, though a loud one right now, based on the discovery of some builders remains within the tombs. However, it is the vast minority opinion, and far from the concensus. Right now, 9 out of 10 Egyptologists will still tell you it was slaves who built the pyramids.

A consensus on something is typically viewed as the only serious opinion held, ie, most people believe the Earth is round, even though some idiots still believe it to be flat (perhaps I wouldn't call them that if I didn't have my own verifiable evidence that the Earth is round, but anyway

There is too much religious weight behind Egypt having slaves or not for me to seriously assume one side is in the right. What I typically hear is that there is no evidence for them having slaves, and that the pyramids were probably a public works project like the Incan roads.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

What I typically hear is that there is no evidence for them having slaves.

Huh?

Human nature can change, as it clearly HAS changed. Even if, for whatever bizarre reason, you want to believe that Egypt didn't practice slavery, can we concede that the days of entire nations building enormous monuments to god-emperors is pretty much over?

Human nature will have to change again before we head to Mars. That's what I said the first time... and the second...

The point's moot anyway, as we all know the Pyramids were built by aliens with advanced technology.

 

[Fast Learner]

A note on the religious aspects, and why they don't affect this conversation: the Jews became slaves in Egypt 700 years after the pyramids were built. That doesn't mean they weren't built by slaves, but if they were, it wasn't Jewish slaves.

More to the point, there are some humans who are trying to get us to think on a longer time scale.

In the Long Now foundation site, they point out some long-term thinking that occurred over 600 years ago:

I think of the oak beams in the ceiling of College Hall at New College, Oxford. Last century, when the beams needed replacing, carpenters used oak trees that had been planted in 1386 when the dining hall was first built. The 14th-century builder had planted the trees in anticipation of the time, hundreds of years in the future, when the beams would need replacing. Did the carpenters plant new trees to replace the beams again a few hundred years from now?

Humans can think on long time scales. We just need to begin to educate ourselves in doing so.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The problem I see with the space elevator is all the crap flying around in outer space. I could just see spending a trillion bucks on a Clarke Tower just to see it get nailed by an old Apollo module. Anyone see the picture of the crater in the space shuttle window caused by an old fleck of paint?

That's why you'd better build laser towers along the cable...

Another problem. Some of the plans I've seen involve attaching the upper part to an asteroid in geosynchronious orbit over the earth. Who wants to volunteer their country for being tied to an earthsmacker?

Orbital mechanics being what they are, being directly below such an asteroid is probably the safest place to be...

If you set enough nukes on the asteroid's surface, it might get into different orbit, but the asteroid isn't simply going to drop. It's got far too much momentum for that...

 

[Agnostic Paladin]

Killmore, I'd suspect pretty near every equatorial nation would be fighting tooth and claw to get the anchor station set in there territory. The economic benefits of having all that material moving through their national would be unbelievable. As for being tied to the upper station, that thing isn't coming down easily. Breaking the cable's the easiest way to take out the elevator, and that leads to a massive rope wrapping around the globe and trashing everything equatorial, not just the anchor point. (Actually, the anchor point would be less damaged on the first pass than areas a few hundred miles further along.) And when the cable breaks, the upper station goes flying off into the solar system since it will be spinning just faster than a stable orbit to keep the cable taut. To bring it down without detaching it, you'd have to apply a serious downward thrust to defeat that same escape velocity.

Edit: Jurgen, to be safe from the cable, pretty much anywhere at least, say 15° above or below the equator would be preferable. The farther away from it, the less likely you're going to encounter debris, and the cable itself should stay pretty close to the equator. As for the base station, I don't know the actual numbers off the top of my head, but I think that the cable's going to wrap at least once if it breaks close to the top, so that's safe only for the first wrap.

Orbital junk is a problem of course, and one that we'll have to find a way to deal with in any case. I think that the medical problems are likewise relatively minor problems to be overcome (or simply ignored. "We can't go crossing the Atlantic! For God's sake man, the scurvy will horribly weaken us!")

And I still think Wulf's opinion of human nature is both simplistic and horribly pessimistic.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Killmore, I'd suspect pretty near every equatorial nation would be fighting tooth and claw to get the anchor station set in there territory. The economic benefits of having all that material moving through their national would be unbelievable.

In Transhuman Space, Kenya was the lucky nation that got to be the site for the anchor station, and while it is being built, every Great Power on Earth (and beyond) is jockeying for influence on the project - or trying to prevent it from reaching completion, like the USA and the Transpacific Socialist Alliance are doing...

 

[Mistwell]

A consensus on something is typically viewed as the only serious opinion held, ie, most people believe the Earth is round, even though some idiots still believe it to be flat (perhaps I wouldn't call them that if I didn't have my own verifiable evidence that the Earth is round, but anyway

I think you better check the usage on "consensus" again. It is specifically NOT for "only serious opinion held". The whole purpose of the word is to designate something as having a majority and a minority opinion, either of which could be correct, but with one having a much higher percentage of believers than the other. Flat Earthers are not a great example, since they are not really a substantial minority opinion. A better example might be that there is a consensus right now that global warming is real, and caused by humans. However, there is a solid minority opinion that there is no global warming, or that it is caused by natural factors.

The consensus is that ancient Egypt used slaves to build the pyramids. That could be incorrect, but it is in fact the consensus opinion of Egyptologists. You do have, however, a solid minority opinion, held primarily by the current Giza Egyptiologists sponsored by Egypt, that the people who built the pyramids were not slaves or from another country, but were free Egyptians.

A note on the religious aspects, and why they don't affect this conversation: the Jews became slaves in Egypt 700 years after the pyramids were built. That doesn't mean they weren't built by slaves, but if they were, it wasn't Jewish slaves.

It is unclear whether the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt during some of the pyramid building (though the consensus is that at least the Nubians were slaves at the time, and helped build the pyramids). There was not one specific time that the pyramids were built, and some of the pyramids of the region seem to have been built well into the New Kingdom, along with numerous temples. Mention of the subject in the dead sea scrolls places some pyramid building into the time frame that the Jewish people were supposed to have been slaves in Egypt as well. Finally, research into the straw content of some of the pyramid bricks may place Jews in Egypt during the time of the Old Kingdom, when pyramids were certainly being built. It is a subject of quite a lot of debate right now, much of it filtered through political and religious beliefs. It's going to be interesting watching this debate unfold over the next decade in National Geographic.