Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by CapitalistCartr on Monday May 02, 2016 @08:34PM
(#11616970)
I don't see them as comparable. A space habitat several kilometers in size with plenty of interior enjoyable space, and managed, perfect weather is nothing like an oil rig. And its better than a cruise ship, and there are people who would love to live permanently on those, although not as crew. Since they aren't down this deep gravity well, they are already more than halfway to anywhere in the neighborhood. For them, visiting The Moon or Venus is vastly more practical. An afternoon spent in Zero G games is always available. Insect pests such as roaches and mosquitoes aren't a problem. Which is why traveling from Earth to the habitat will be subject to such a strict quarantine.
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Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by gnarbarian on Monday May 02, 2016 @08:57PM
(#11617051)
Given the cost of every square foot of living space in a space habitat I imagine the conditions would be closer to that of a nuclear submarine than a oil rig.
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by tinco on Monday May 02, 2016 @09:16PM
(#11617130)
The cost of living space in space is high now only because we have to propel it into space from our big gravity well. As soon as we start mining on for example the moon we will definitely see an exponential drop.
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by Retra on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:48PM
(#11617481)
Just because you can bootstrap a computer to run arbitrary programs doesn't mean you're significantly closer to general AI.
Similarly, it's easy to argue that there will be incremental improvements in space technology, but it's very hard to argue that they will snowball into large-scale luxury platforms that can sustain human life indefinitely.
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by simonh on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @04:29AM
(#11618863)
On the contrary it's very easy to argue it. All you have to do is type some words on a keyboard. Actually doing it however...
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by jessaustin on Monday May 02, 2016 @09:42PM
(#11617220)
The earth has a wide variety of resources important to comfortable human life. The moon has rocks and sand and sunshine. Moon mining is but one of the prerequisites to living cheaply in space.
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by marcosdumay on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:59PM
(#11617532)
Yes. We'll probably move into space only after we are good into autonomously turning water, organics and some rocks into comfortable habitat. Not earlier.
That is probably not too far away. We are getting very good into semi-autonomous transformations, and at turning anything into the materials we want.
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by jessaustin on Tuesday May 03, 2016 @01:42AM
(#11618210)
If this were true, one would expect life on earth to differ dramatically from what one observes today. A lack of necessary materials keeps billions of people in poverty.
Re:Scientists discover potentially habitable planets
by saulrh on Monday May 02, 2016 @10:30PM
(#11617409)
Also because we're propelling it into space using disintegrating totem poles. Lofting it using something like a momentum exchange tether, launch loop, or space fountain would also make habitats of that scale much cheaper. Better materials science could also significantly reduce the necessary lift mass; inflatable shelters, for example, scale really well as they get bigger.