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Saturn’s Moon Titan captures our attention as a future colony, but might the majestic rings of Saturn and other planetary rings be better places to transplant life, and could life arise naturally among those orbital icefields?
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Credits:
Colonizing Planetary Rings
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 363, October 6, 2022
Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Written by:
Isaac Arthur
Editors:
David McFarlane
Cover Art:
Jakub Grygier https://www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier
Graphics:
Bryan Versteeg
Ian Long LITE
Jeremy Jozwik
Katie Byrne
Udo Schroeter
Music Courtesy of:
Stellardrone, “Red Giant”, “Billions and Billions”, “Cosmic Sunrise”, “The Night Sky in Motion”
Miguel Johnson, “Expedition”, “So Many Stars”
source
On the subject of terraforming Mars, I think the most useful technology for doing so would probably be a stargate or other way to open a wormhole between 2 points. If you could open a 2 meter wide tunnel between the surface of Mars and and the surface of Venus you would have most of what you needed to terraform Mars in a relatively short time. When the new atmospheric pressure reaches Earth sea level normal, you close the door and release cyanobacteria to turn some of that planet warming CO2 into O2. The only thing that wouldn't give you is water. But if you then opened a door to Jupiter or Saturn you could add hydrogen that could react with the new O2 to make water. Or you just redirect a bunch of comets to crash into Mars. But assuming wormholes aren't an option and you have to redirect comets to terraform Mars, you might want to do that before you start colonizing it. Getting hit by a comet could ruin your whole day.
I have a question about the Nebula extended addition. Actually I just thought of a second. Has any thought gone into adding a comment section to Nebula? But my original question was about obtaining enough mass to enclose Saturn and then to cover that shell with rocks and dirt. If the shell was made of graphene, how much carbon would we need? Would the moons of Saturn have enough carbon and other necessary elements?
Well done sir. You are a great thinker…
Could a large enough magnetic drag sail function as a diffuse Bussard-style collector for interstellar hydrogen? I picture this functioning as a broader version of an ion drive in reverse, literally braking against solar wind.
Nothing but respect ✊ always enjoy this wonderful share knowledgeable information and creativity thinking 💭…just love it !!!
Whats next colonizing the Sun? Kkkk
"Not to Scale"
That's good, because it fits on the screen of my phone
that trebuchet in arizona needs to be multiplied and playing catch with another set of trebuchet in sync orbit
I've been wanting this video for 4 years.
Colonizing Bathtub Megastructure Rings
Deorbiting objects is not fuel free.
This video is both informative and provides a sense of hope given the context that our sun will grow to catastrophic proportions in the coming thousands of years. The fact that it's even 'plausible' to do this (At least to some degree) is relieving. Especially considering that if humans are good for anything it's that if there's a way to do something, we'll typically find it.
I wonder if there'd be enough reason to hit Venus with something large enough to generate a ring system? You could use the rings for building cylinder habitats and maybe reboot the atmosphere (after a few millions of years of cooling off)?
Would anybody really want earth depth oceans on Mars?
4" / 10 cm per day would give 120' / 35 meters of depth
Surely that's good enough
Issac. I am so confused by your accent. You're about me says OH, I'm in PA. I've very rarely heard an accent like yours. What is it??? It's pleasant, but I'm stumped!
Isaac Arthur, you need to do a collaboration with Astrokobi!
his young mind and interest in space and human advancements could definitely appreciate much of what you have to offer knowledge and insight wise! I love watching your videos, and I feel like you have inspired myself to achieve my own goals to be able to chase a career in space, technologies and future advancements.
Please don’t ever stop doing what you do! ❤
I was signed up to Curiosity Stream, but I've had to cancel. They changed Nebula to be part of their premium service but never bothered to tell me. I even checked my e-mails just in case I missed it. Either way, I no longer get what I want from CS and premium is too expensive. It's a pity I didn't find out before they charged me for another year though. Oh well.
Rough "accent" but good material.
Hey Isaac. Just wanted to say, I've been a big fan of yours, even from the days when you were constantly doing the call outs to the closed captions for your speech impediment.
Your videos have been such a life saver ever since my tinnitus started getting bad. No one else's videos I could leave going on all night and fall asleep to, to drown out the constant droning of my ears.
Mind blowing the concept of rings being easy mining structures. In Kim Stanley Robertson's Mars series there's a huge conflict between the environmentalist who want to preserve the beauty of the natural world & the industrialists who want to mine & change every last thing they deem useful. I imagine if you start mining the rings of Saturn there'll be conflict along these lines. Mine Jupiter's rings by all means but please leave Saturn alone.
Could you use giant hoses to resisvoires in orbit. So you have a steady stream of water. Same setup as elivator to space. Just less effort. Especially with mars gravity
8:40 I am sceptical of what you say about the rings of Saturn being more easily accessible than the moons. What really matters is the velocity change involved in moving the water ice from the rings to whereever it is used, and close to the planet where the rings are, has a faster orbit and therefore a greater velocity change to somewhere else further out. It may well be better to mine the minor outlying moons of Saturn, with minimal gravity and less velocity change.
You are losing it , I'm not 100% sure what it is but you are losing it maybe the magic you had and the ability to push the image of what you are talking about,
Something has definitely changed. I'm so so sad to say , I hope you know what I mean but you probably don't.
The IA Algorithm has been sited on ice.
Your videos are great and I would like to repost your channel on the platform known as Ganjing World. Of course, I will keep everything exactly as it is available on Youtube. If this sounds interesting to you, please respond to me. Many thanks!
There's a game partially about this, ΔV: Rings of Saturn
It's on Steam and pretty good, you play as one of those ice miners you mentioned.
once people are living in artificial habitats, how do we stop the people who control those artificial habitats from becoming despots and tyrants? when they can simply turn the air or water off how can we function as a society as anything other than slaves? why for example would people with this kind of technology at their fingertips even want billions of people living? wouldn't it be better for them to get rid of the rest of us and restrict population to that which best serves the state that controls these technologies?
Whilst it interesting to ponder the ability to colonize these environments we should also try to understand the societal implications of them as well; Call me pessimistic but given so much power, the states which govern these will use them for awful purposes.
Even if the state is benevolent, what kind of a society will just wait on artificial worlds, waiting to die? what purpose is there for these untold billions in a cage like rats? service industry comes to mind, simply existing to supply the bloated population. How could culture keep up with so many people? a book with a billion readers in our world would be revolutionary and bind people with common experience, in theirs it would be so niche. My point is you could not keep a cohesive society. Today, successful singers for example, make so much as they sell to a large common market and our shared culture means that if you are successful with one person you will likely be successful with others, meaning that a small numbers of artists can corner and monopolize the markets. this would come to an extreme in a society like would need to exist for these artificial habitats, the difference between rich and poor would be astronomical. with the toils of the 99% being funnelled to the 1%. Again creating a system in which the people who control the artificial habitats will become corrupt over time simply because of how economy's work.