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Really I think we should go a step beyond this. Being able to go to some new planet is not guaranteed or that planet may even be inhospitable to us. What I thi

Really I think we should go a step beyond this. Being able to go to some new planet is not guaranteed or that planet may even be inhospitable to us. What I think is more feasible and more benevolent than preventing a mass extinction is we should slowly expand our orbit so we can survive the brightening sun for at least a while longer. Basically, all we need to do is increase our planets speed over hundreds of millions of years. A certain mass of asteroids with steerable self correcting orbits could push small amounts of speed into our planet that would build up over time. Even if we don't make it, we at least give life more time to do it's thing.

layer8 4y ago
I think the first step is to get a handle on how to sustainably (= for millions of year) live on this planet, given that we’re already slowly approaching its capacity limits in various ways. Then we can see about adjusting the orbit.
- tim333 4y ago
  Although it would be an interesting experiment to adjust it a little bit to check if it works similar to this asteroid experiment. Maybe when Musk has his fleet of starships but is banned from colonising Mars on environmental grounds, we could repurpose them.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    I'm not sure how you would enforce a bad on someone without also having a similar or realistically bigger fleet. But if you say there will be multiple people with big space ship fleets - sure, that's cool too!
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  In less than a million years, we will have evolved into a different species.
  - layer8 4y ago
    That may or may not be relevant.
  - Maursault 4y ago
    Why? What evolutionary pressure for adaptations are humans experiencing? Asking for a friend.
    - lazide 4y ago
      gestures wildly at the world Speciation happens anyways.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- postingawayonhn 4y ago
  We've got the resources to do that too. There's 8 billion people on the planet already and something like 80% live in developing countries. There are massive productivity gains to be had as those people improve their education and move into more productive jobs.
  - layer8 4y ago
    How does productivity translate to sustainability? Historically, as countries became more developed and increased productivity, they also increased resource consumption. Growth has its limits. It is generally sigmoidal (S curve), not exponential. It’s reasonable to assume we’ll hit the inflection point long before the sun becomes a problem. My point is that we’ll need to find some kind of equilibrium that doesn’t rely on continual growth, because that won’t be sustainable. After we manage that, there’ll be still enough time to worry about the sun. And if we don’t manage that, we’ll be doomed regardless of the sun. (Barring interstellar travel, in which case we may stop caring about the sun anyway.)
vasco 4y ago
> we should slowly expand our orbit Pop science has prepared me for this moment. I believe all it takes is for everyone in China to jump at the same time. Maybe they can do that a few times a year for a few thousand years and we're saved. I'm joking.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
  >> we should slowly expand our orbit >Pop science has prepared me for this moment. I believe all it takes is for everyone in China to jump at the same time. Instead of the orbit perhaps changing the tilt would be better, so everyone in China and their dragons should do a sprint up north. Why should Siberia shiver in the cold while Africa scorch in the sun? the discrimination is obvious.
dylan604 4y ago
If we change our orbit to get further away, we'd need to increase our forward velocity, right? By doing that, we'd change the length of the year. Would it be possible to achieve a stable orbit so that the increased speed is offset by extra distance from the increased orbital radius? I'd really hate to have to learn a new calendar system. Also, would the mass of Earth gradually moving location in the solar system disrupt other objects like say maybe something in the asteroid belt? Would that disruption then start a chain reaction of other objects having their orbits perturbed to the point we've now unleashed a new season of asteroid danger? What about the decreased distance to Jupiter? Big boy will have some strange affects on earth too would he not? Would we lose our moon to the pull from Jupiter? What happens to our tidal systems at that point? Would the loss of the moon be countered by the new tidal pulls from Jupiter? So many questions
- andyferris 4y ago
  While we need to add energy to Earth to take it further from the sun's gravitational well, this actually results in us slowing down (while increasing the radius of orbit). In order to orbit farther away the year _must_ get longer. I have no idea what distance would be necessary relative to Mars/Jupiter/asteroid belt.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    It is less delta-v expensive if you increase velocity to change orbit rather than a direct push away. Not sure how else you'd propose changing the orbit.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  > I'd really hate to have to learn a new calendar system. Don’t worry, we aren’t changing the Earth’s orbit in your lifetime.
  - worldsayshi 4y ago
    I'd be a bit disappointed if in a hundred years there were still software developers making exasperated sighs whenever a change were to be introduced in a date standard. Unless technological civilization collapses it seems a bit odd that we'd still need date standards in a hundred years.
kiba 4y ago
Modifying our orbit isn't the only thing we could do. We could do starlifting, which is mining our sun, and we can modify the composition of our sun such that it lasts longer and so forth.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  Maybe form a polar jet and get the whole solar system (Oort cloud excepted, sorry!) boosted out of the plane of the galaxy. It is dangerous here! You never know when a supernova or magnetar quake might sterilize the entire solar system. By the time you know it is coming, it is too late to do anything but flee with minimal baggage.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    If you boost into empty space (and not say the Magelanic Clouds or something similar) you are loosing access to a lot of usable mass. Maybe better to do a lot of backups and stay in the galaxy ?
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      Magellanic clouds are even more hazardous than where we are. If you bring the solar system along, you have that; I assume you accelerate slowly enough to bring along the Kuiper Belt. It will take a long time before you need to start thinking about dismantling Jupiter. If you solve the p-11B fusion problem (maybe you invent a mirror for x-rays?), you don't need the sun anymore, and may pick up and move operations to another solar system that is already moving off-disc at a good clip. You can bring along rotating cans of bio-stuff if you still use it (or anyway keep it as pets). The new solar system can have a dead-ish star so the planets are frozen and convenient to mine for volatiles.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    Why would the jet and the radiation emitted by such objects be limited to the plane of the galaxy? AFAIK their axis, and thus the direction of emission are randomly distributed. Doesn't matter in which direction you are positioned, except for distance. Which would mean the really deep space between galaxies. But then you'd have to watch out for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyfert_galaxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyfert_galaxy ies, too! Whose jet's could fry us even more easily, because 'out there', we wouldn't be protected by the pressure of solar/stellar/galactic wind, dust clouds, nebula, which could protect us (if we are lucky).
renewiltord 4y ago
Perhaps we should not aim so high as Earth orbit modification. What if we just figure out the Sun's fuel cycle and control that so that it doesn't hurt us.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  Star lifting! :D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47897e8b1947c https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47897e8b1947c https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02338 https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02338
bunabhucan 4y ago
This paper describes exactly that: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126 https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126

layer8 4y ago

I think the first step is to get a handle on how to sustainably (= for millions of year) live on this planet, given that we’re already slowly approaching its capacity limits in various ways. Then we can see about adjusting the orbit.

tim333 4y ago
Although it would be an interesting experiment to adjust it a little bit to check if it works similar to this asteroid experiment. Maybe when Musk has his fleet of starships but is banned from colonising Mars on environmental grounds, we could repurpose them.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  I'm not sure how you would enforce a bad on someone without also having a similar or realistically bigger fleet. But if you say there will be multiple people with big space ship fleets - sure, that's cool too!
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
In less than a million years, we will have evolved into a different species.
- layer8 4y ago
  That may or may not be relevant.
- Maursault 4y ago
  Why? What evolutionary pressure for adaptations are humans experiencing? Asking for a friend.
  - lazide 4y ago
    gestures wildly at the world Speciation happens anyways.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
postingawayonhn 4y ago
We've got the resources to do that too. There's 8 billion people on the planet already and something like 80% live in developing countries. There are massive productivity gains to be had as those people improve their education and move into more productive jobs.
- layer8 4y ago
  How does productivity translate to sustainability? Historically, as countries became more developed and increased productivity, they also increased resource consumption. Growth has its limits. It is generally sigmoidal (S curve), not exponential. It’s reasonable to assume we’ll hit the inflection point long before the sun becomes a problem. My point is that we’ll need to find some kind of equilibrium that doesn’t rely on continual growth, because that won’t be sustainable. After we manage that, there’ll be still enough time to worry about the sun. And if we don’t manage that, we’ll be doomed regardless of the sun. (Barring interstellar travel, in which case we may stop caring about the sun anyway.)

vasco 4y ago

> we should slowly expand our orbit Pop science has prepared me for this moment. I believe all it takes is for everyone in China to jump at the same time. Maybe they can do that a few times a year for a few thousand years and we're saved. I'm joking.

dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
>> we should slowly expand our orbit >Pop science has prepared me for this moment. I believe all it takes is for everyone in China to jump at the same time. Instead of the orbit perhaps changing the tilt would be better, so everyone in China and their dragons should do a sprint up north. Why should Siberia shiver in the cold while Africa scorch in the sun? the discrimination is obvious.

dylan604 4y ago

If we change our orbit to get further away, we'd need to increase our forward velocity, right? By doing that, we'd change the length of the year. Would it be possible to achieve a stable orbit so that the increased speed is offset by extra distance from the increased orbital radius? I'd really hate to have to learn a new calendar system. Also, would the mass of Earth gradually moving location in the solar system disrupt other objects like say maybe something in the asteroid belt? Would that disruption then start a chain reaction of other objects having their orbits perturbed to the point we've now unleashed a new season of asteroid danger? What about the decreased distance to Jupiter? Big boy will have some strange affects on earth too would he not? Would we lose our moon to the pull from Jupiter? What happens to our tidal systems at that point? Would the loss of the moon be countered by the new tidal pulls from Jupiter? So many questions

andyferris 4y ago
While we need to add energy to Earth to take it further from the sun's gravitational well, this actually results in us slowing down (while increasing the radius of orbit). In order to orbit farther away the year _must_ get longer. I have no idea what distance would be necessary relative to Mars/Jupiter/asteroid belt.
- dylan604 4y ago
  It is less delta-v expensive if you increase velocity to change orbit rather than a direct push away. Not sure how else you'd propose changing the orbit.
SoftTalker 4y ago
> I'd really hate to have to learn a new calendar system. Don’t worry, we aren’t changing the Earth’s orbit in your lifetime.
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  I'd be a bit disappointed if in a hundred years there were still software developers making exasperated sighs whenever a change were to be introduced in a date standard. Unless technological civilization collapses it seems a bit odd that we'd still need date standards in a hundred years.

kiba 4y ago

Modifying our orbit isn't the only thing we could do. We could do starlifting, which is mining our sun, and we can modify the composition of our sun such that it lasts longer and so forth.

moloch-hai 4y ago
Maybe form a polar jet and get the whole solar system (Oort cloud excepted, sorry!) boosted out of the plane of the galaxy. It is dangerous here! You never know when a supernova or magnetar quake might sterilize the entire solar system. By the time you know it is coming, it is too late to do anything but flee with minimal baggage.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  If you boost into empty space (and not say the Magelanic Clouds or something similar) you are loosing access to a lot of usable mass. Maybe better to do a lot of backups and stay in the galaxy ?
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    Magellanic clouds are even more hazardous than where we are. If you bring the solar system along, you have that; I assume you accelerate slowly enough to bring along the Kuiper Belt. It will take a long time before you need to start thinking about dismantling Jupiter. If you solve the p-11B fusion problem (maybe you invent a mirror for x-rays?), you don't need the sun anymore, and may pick up and move operations to another solar system that is already moving off-disc at a good clip. You can bring along rotating cans of bio-stuff if you still use it (or anyway keep it as pets). The new solar system can have a dead-ish star so the planets are frozen and convenient to mine for volatiles.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Why would the jet and the radiation emitted by such objects be limited to the plane of the galaxy? AFAIK their axis, and thus the direction of emission are randomly distributed. Doesn't matter in which direction you are positioned, except for distance. Which would mean the really deep space between galaxies. But then you'd have to watch out for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyfert_galaxy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyfert_galaxy ies, too! Whose jet's could fry us even more easily, because 'out there', we wouldn't be protected by the pressure of solar/stellar/galactic wind, dust clouds, nebula, which could protect us (if we are lucky).

renewiltord 4y ago

Perhaps we should not aim so high as Earth orbit modification. What if we just figure out the Sun's fuel cycle and control that so that it doesn't hurt us.

m4rtink 4y ago
Star lifting! :D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47897e8b1947c https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47897e8b1947c https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02338 https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02338

bunabhucan 4y ago

This paper describes exactly that: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126 https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126