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Asteroids may serve as future bases and colonies for humanity as we travel into space, but could they also be converted into spaceships to take us strange new worlds around distant stars?
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Credits:
Using Asteroids As Spaceships
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 379, January 26, 2023
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Editors:
Briana Brownell
David McFarlane
Donagh B.
Graphics by:
Fishy Tree
Jeremy Jozwik
Ken York
Sergio Botero
Udo Schroeter
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator
Markus Junnikkala, “We Roam the Stars”, “A Memory of Earth”
Stellardrone, “Red Giant”, “Ultra Deep Field”
source
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I want to visit this future.
Can a graphene sheet light sail be made into a mirror to maximize photon momentum conversion? Or maybe coating it with silver or aluminum isn't worth it, just double the size of the graphene sail. Can the cycler orbit be timed to always intercept each of its apogee and perigee planets on every cycle? The ideal cycler would be miillions of tons, for small values of million. We need another realistic sci fi series like The Expanse with Isaac being the technical consultant.
If you haven't read it then read "Captive Universe" by Harry Harrison… it describes this exact thing from the POV of one of the people on the "ship". Besides, this is a very well known trope isn't it??
Real Estate on a cycler is sold by cubic acres, not square acres.
using an asteroid on a interstellar trip wile you make a ship out of it yea this is Sidonia no Kishi
You cc are nuts
Radiation protection is the key to space travel! Asteroids are already built we just need to trap one put everything we need and go!
I love the idea, but I don't think it would work in practice. They don't seem to be solid enough to hold together.
Giant astroidz crashed into oooortth!!! But it was the spoken accent that killed them all.
You painted such a detailed picture of what life on an asteroid ship could be like. I really like that story-telling aspect of your episodes!
bury this comment. but HELL YEAH that is the video i have waited for years. GOOD WORK MAN keep it up. if my comment helps youtube algorithms then nice.
Sidonia
There was a scientist talking with John Michael Godier recently who came up with a concept that used energy in the solar and galactic wind to accelerate up to significant portions of light speed. I'd imagine that you could scale this up and make it very easy to quickly push a asteroid or massive lump of slag up to some useful fraction of light speed with a rotating habitat behind it or in a recession on the back end, you only really need shielding in front if you're so fast that the penumbra of the stuff you're shielding from is nowhere near your fragile things. It'd be a cheap, fast to get going, dumb, and effective shield against the biggest problems for near light speed ships; dust and radiation. You can use small scout ships or powerful radar to find big things like asteroids and planets far enough ahead to avoid, but there won't be many. If that propulsion mechanism does work then we could have the ability to send out colony ships maybe a century after we get established in the moon, though sourcing supplies from the asteroid belt and the Oort cloud would probably help cheapen that.
Imagine when humans move from supervising Robot miners, manufacturers, and workers to those same robots mentoring and tutoring young human guilds in engineering and sustainment of their home. Would you do homework assigned by a robot arm? How about a robot safety supervisor? Mining Supervisor Aristotle mk 4 ver 2162.5
there are some things i think about on my own. the asteroid would provide natural gravity! not much but its better then none. not to mention you can hollow out the asteroid to make caves and the asteroid would act as a natural radiation shield and just having living quaters in the caves!
I absolutely adore and covet the beautiful storytelling at the end of many SFIA episodes. This episode's depiction of rock-dwelling explorers in a hotrodded asteroid has been the highlight of my week.
Because these asteroid spaceships are so heavy, Could you theoretically create a warp bubble behind a ship, Not in a colloquial sense like it is depicted in star trek but more like to create a warp bubble for at least a second and then let it, in a sense, pop and let the space-time expand back to normal and allow that to push the ship super hard and super fast and then you simply maintain and even increase that speed with some kind of impulse engine
Honest. I’ve had this thought before. Snag a near-earth asteroid, hollow it out, build a habitat on it and a coupla engines. Imagine if we did that and an alien race sees it. Their thoughts will probably be the same as my neighbors when they see my loud rust bucket of a Bronco pull outta the driveway and then pull nearly a 1/2G acceleration up the hill.
Dark Matter, did miss discovery? or still assumption!
I like the idea of a starship full of yokel cosplayers.
What does Issac's assumption that societies with access to sufficient resources are going to expand their populations say about modern western/industrialised societies which have universally negative birth rates? Is it simple economics? Or is there some quality to them which is suppressing population growth?
Docking with a larger ship doestn realyl solve the delta V issues though. You still need to speed your smaller ship up to speeds and back down. So essentially all you gain is use of the larger ship, which is mostly a convenience.
Ork Roks? By Gork and Mork!
You just laid out the set design for a hell of a sci fi TV drama. A true space (soap) opera that could run a thousand seasons before they even reach the destination.
"For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky!"
Old concept… incredibly old concept so nothing new here.
Fraser Cain just did something like this with a different "spin" (pun intended) on how to turn a floating pile of gravel into a future home.
https://youtu.be/Z-hH3-z56cg
That reminds me of Eon by Greg Bear, great book!
Much of this I've already considered before. Including the asteroid Ganymede. Yet, considered slow rotating elongated asteroids instead. That way they could more easily be divided up to make more individual asteroid ships.
Gotta ask @Isaac Arthur have you read the Deathworld series by chance? and if so what do you like about it?
Very silly idea. Well be living in O’Neill colonies.
Did I miss it or did you go a whole episode without suggesting we download ourselves onto computers?
I think in the future technical progress our bodies will adopt to deep space and gravity no need more for health
Ever watch Jason of Star Command?