5 ms·

Especially given that we'll need to leave the magnetosphere to access a lot of space mining. You either bring a ton of shielding+food+water+life support+crew qu

Especially given that we'll need to leave the magnetosphere to access a lot of space mining. You either bring a ton of shielding+food+water+life support+crew quarters, or you advance autonomous operation. One of those is already happening and highly applicable to other fields. Imo what ever comes after homo sapiens inherits the solar system, not homo sapiens ourselves

jacobush 6y ago
I hope we can tag along as pets, or as being of religious importance.
elcritch 6y ago
The magnetosphere bit is intriguing... I've never heard of a proposal to use superconductors to generate a miniature magnetosphere outside of earth's. Even for earth orbit it seems that'd be helpful way to reduce radiation exposure. Superconductors should be able to be cooled to operating temperature readily enough, meaning minimal power once charged. Spaceship hulls are aluminum and non-ferromagnrtic. Odd to never have never heard of discussion on the idea. Anyone have resources for such tech?
- AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
  Starship is going to be stainless steel, not sure how that will interact with magnetic fields.
- pharke 6y ago
  This has already been proposed for shielding the entire planet Mars, see https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magn... (2017). I'd love to see SpaceX take a crack at this, conceivably it would amount to launching a modified MRI into Mar's L1. It's actually within the launch capability of Falcon Heavy so it's something they could start working on now.
  - elcritch 6y ago
    That's amazing! Even a few shipment of neodymium magnets could be sent. Then in a 1,000 years after the collapse of our civilization and emergence of a new technological civilization there'd be a Mars with much thicker atmosphere and potentially even liquid water. Even for regular human asteroid mining it looks like an artificial magnetosphere would be possible: https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-shield-could-protect-spacecraft/ https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-shield-could-protect-spa... It's still surprising to me that the notion isn't prevalent in sci-fi or even hard sci-fi. Though as you mention even a modified MRI could do the job.

jacobush 6y ago

I hope we can tag along as pets, or as being of religious importance.

elcritch 6y ago

The magnetosphere bit is intriguing... I've never heard of a proposal to use superconductors to generate a miniature magnetosphere outside of earth's. Even for earth orbit it seems that'd be helpful way to reduce radiation exposure. Superconductors should be able to be cooled to operating temperature readily enough, meaning minimal power once charged. Spaceship hulls are aluminum and non-ferromagnrtic. Odd to never have never heard of discussion on the idea. Anyone have resources for such tech?

AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
Starship is going to be stainless steel, not sure how that will interact with magnetic fields.
pharke 6y ago
This has already been proposed for shielding the entire planet Mars, see https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a25493/magn... (2017). I'd love to see SpaceX take a crack at this, conceivably it would amount to launching a modified MRI into Mar's L1. It's actually within the launch capability of Falcon Heavy so it's something they could start working on now.
- elcritch 6y ago
  That's amazing! Even a few shipment of neodymium magnets could be sent. Then in a 1,000 years after the collapse of our civilization and emergence of a new technological civilization there'd be a Mars with much thicker atmosphere and potentially even liquid water. Even for regular human asteroid mining it looks like an artificial magnetosphere would be possible: https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-shield-could-protect-spacecraft/ https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-shield-could-protect-spa... It's still surprising to me that the notion isn't prevalent in sci-fi or even hard sci-fi. Though as you mention even a modified MRI could do the job.