5 ms·

There are conditions where humans just cannot perceive what is going on. There's a story from (I just looked it up) 1944, before it was widely known the gas gi

by vba616 3y ago

There are conditions where humans just cannot perceive what is going on. There's a story from (I just looked it up) 1944, before it was widely known the gas giants have no surfaces, about humans who modify themselves to explore Jupiter. Before the characters undergo the transformation, they see Jupiter as a terrifying wasteland of never-ending storms - and after, nobody comes back. If I remember correctly, the story is about a man and his dog who go through the process and then, when it is complete, Jupiter appears as a paradise and they realize that the reason people don't come back is because it's a better life once they become Jovians. “Four men, two by two, had gone into the howling maelstrom that was Jupiter and had not returned. They had walked into the keening gale – or rather, they had loped, bellies low against the ground, wet sides gleaming in the rain. For they did not go in the shape of men.” The end is: "'They would turn me back into a dog,' said Towser. 'And me,' said Fowler, 'back into a man.'" I hadn't realized how much that story affected me, because my reaction to colonizing Mars, for years, really, has been that it's pointless to try until it's practical to become Martians. Otherwise you might as well live in a cave anywhere. But I didn't link it consciously.

WalterBright 3y ago
I've thought for a long time that the only way to colonize the solar system would be to genetically adapt humans to the conditions. They'd still need life support, but not as much. For example, shifting the band of tolerance for gravity, temperature, gas pressure, etc.
- GolfPopper 3y ago
  I've had sort of the opposite thought (not that there's anything resembling a singular "right answer" on topics like this): we shouldn't try to colonize Mars until after we've terraformed it. Scientific outposts would be fine, but much like Antarctica, no one ought to be in a position where they have to live in caves or cans their entire life.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > Scientific outposts would be fine, but much like Antarctica, no one ought to be in a position where they have to live in caves or cans their entire life Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy changed my mind on this. There is natural beauty there that is worth trying to preserve and experience. Yes, we should terraform. But slowly and deliberately. A good way to check this is to have humans on the surface while terraforming takes place.
    - maxbond 3y ago
      Is it really possible to contain the terraforming? Even if you have domes, it seems like it's only a matter of time before single celled organisms escape and find a way to survive, and then begin to alter the environment.
    - GolfPopper 3y ago
      My concern is that humans "on the surface" (really, in habitats) are going to live pretty miserable lives for a really long time. Compare Mars to Antarctica. While there's a significant science-focused presence, no one lives there lives there. While various treaties complicate the issue, to the best of my knowledge, no one even speaks about wanting to spend their entire life there. Living permanently on Mars without extensive terraforming would mean generations of people living out their lives in caves and metal cans, never getting to go outside without putting on the equivalent of a SCUBA suit, at a minimum. It makes for great stories, but as a cradle-to-grave life is seems unethical to help create that situation. Besides, I think gradual (or no) terraforming of Mars is doomed. Getting to orbit is increasingly cheap, and that makes getting to Mars easier, whether by the ITN [1], or more direct method. You can get to Mars with a Cubesat-type spacecraft design. [2] Somebody is going to leverage those possibility to start terraforming Mars, if they haven't done so already. Optimal terraforming probably requires adding atmosphere, presumably via comet impacts. That will take more than Cubesats, but the possibility was demonstrated by DART. Unless our civilization collapses, fast terraforming of Mars is only going to get easier, and probably sooner rather than later, someone will start the process. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Netwo... 2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/cubesat-at-mars-180971213/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/cubesat-at...
shagie 3y ago
A quick survey of some of the harder sci-fi about exploration of gas giants... Arthur C. Clarke - A Meeting with Medusa Robert L. Forward - Saturn Rukh Michael McCollum - The Clouds of Saturn Ben Bova - Leviathans of Jupiter And an honorable mention to Carl Sagan - Cosmos : One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue https://vimeo.com/284643737 https://vimeo.com/284643737
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
  I eagerly read Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" but came out disappointed.
- aquir 3y ago
  I think the best book in this subject is The Algebraist from Iain M. Banks. Highly recommended reading!
  - krisoft 3y ago
    I believe somewhere in the Culture series books it is mentioned that many Culture ships also have gas dwellers as inhabitants. By neccesity in separate compartment from the usual terestrial-lineage passengers. I like to believe that alongside all the fractal complexity of Culture life depicted in the books they also have a paralel world with even more exotics. Maybe there is a gas-dweller equivalent of Contact going around Jovians galaxywide getting into all kind of schenanigans.
    - kylegordon 3y ago
      You remembered it well. Nasqueron Dwellers in The Algebraist
      - krisoft 3y ago
        Yes. That is true. But I meant a smaller part. In Excession this part about the avatar of GSV Sleeper Service as it is contemplating offloading all of its cargo: "There was an extra, perhaps deeper melancholy at the thought that it would no longer be able to play host to the living things aboard; the creatures of the sea and the air and the gas-giant atmosphere, and the woman." Previously in the same book it is implied that these "creatures of the gas-giant atmosphere" are animal level intellects. But my headcanon is that perhaps there are Culture ships with Nasqueron Dwellers or similar intelligent gas-dwellers with complex societies on-board. You are absolutely right that The Algebraist is full of gas-dwelling creatures. But as far as I can recall while they have a "Culture" feel to them there are no direct Culture references in that book. But maybe I have missed something.
dysoco 3y ago
In High School we read a book with a lot of sci-fi short stories and this one is probably the one that I remember the most.
wombatpm 3y ago
Clifford D Simak write that story. It’s contained in his book City. That collection also has uplifted dogs and ants. Frederick Pohl (another SciFi Grandmaster) tackled the Mars issue in ManPlus
- sdrothrock 3y ago
  Simak included dogs in his stories so often (and especially in that anthology you mentioned) that any time someone mentions a sci fi story with a dog, my first thought is that it has to be a Simak story. :)
echelon 3y ago
> it's pointless to try until it's practical to become Martians. We'll need to shed these bodies evolved for earth gasses, gravity, nutrients, temperatures, and radiation environment. Brain uploads to computers would let us go anywhere. Or perhaps more probably, AI will take over evolution in our stead. No human body and death to disadvantage them.
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  I’ve outlived every computer I know of and I’m not even that old. How do AI people think AI will live so long without being unplugged, losing a power source, or having errors? In a future without humans I mean. We are the universal troubleshooting organism.
  - echelon 3y ago
    Human life took a long time to evolve. In one lifetime you've seen computers jump dramatically in power. By the end of your life, I suspect that you'll see computers that may scare you. But to answer your question, it's the digital data and files to look to, not the hardware. We have files floating around from the 60's today, and we're picking up more and more fidelity with which we can represent the world every year. That won't stop.

by vba616 3y ago

WalterBright 3y ago

I've thought for a long time that the only way to colonize the solar system would be to genetically adapt humans to the conditions. They'd still need life support, but not as much. For example, shifting the band of tolerance for gravity, temperature, gas pressure, etc.

GolfPopper 3y ago
I've had sort of the opposite thought (not that there's anything resembling a singular "right answer" on topics like this): we shouldn't try to colonize Mars until after we've terraformed it. Scientific outposts would be fine, but much like Antarctica, no one ought to be in a position where they have to live in caves or cans their entire life.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Scientific outposts would be fine, but much like Antarctica, no one ought to be in a position where they have to live in caves or cans their entire life Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy changed my mind on this. There is natural beauty there that is worth trying to preserve and experience. Yes, we should terraform. But slowly and deliberately. A good way to check this is to have humans on the surface while terraforming takes place.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    Is it really possible to contain the terraforming? Even if you have domes, it seems like it's only a matter of time before single celled organisms escape and find a way to survive, and then begin to alter the environment.
  - GolfPopper 3y ago
    My concern is that humans "on the surface" (really, in habitats) are going to live pretty miserable lives for a really long time. Compare Mars to Antarctica. While there's a significant science-focused presence, no one lives there lives there. While various treaties complicate the issue, to the best of my knowledge, no one even speaks about wanting to spend their entire life there. Living permanently on Mars without extensive terraforming would mean generations of people living out their lives in caves and metal cans, never getting to go outside without putting on the equivalent of a SCUBA suit, at a minimum. It makes for great stories, but as a cradle-to-grave life is seems unethical to help create that situation. Besides, I think gradual (or no) terraforming of Mars is doomed. Getting to orbit is increasingly cheap, and that makes getting to Mars easier, whether by the ITN [1], or more direct method. You can get to Mars with a Cubesat-type spacecraft design. [2] Somebody is going to leverage those possibility to start terraforming Mars, if they haven't done so already. Optimal terraforming probably requires adding atmosphere, presumably via comet impacts. That will take more than Cubesats, but the possibility was demonstrated by DART. Unless our civilization collapses, fast terraforming of Mars is only going to get easier, and probably sooner rather than later, someone will start the process. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Netwo... 2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/cubesat-at-mars-180971213/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/cubesat-at...

shagie 3y ago

A quick survey of some of the harder sci-fi about exploration of gas giants... Arthur C. Clarke - A Meeting with Medusa Robert L. Forward - Saturn Rukh Michael McCollum - The Clouds of Saturn Ben Bova - Leviathans of Jupiter And an honorable mention to Carl Sagan - Cosmos : One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue https://vimeo.com/284643737 https://vimeo.com/284643737

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
I eagerly read Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" but came out disappointed.
aquir 3y ago
I think the best book in this subject is The Algebraist from Iain M. Banks. Highly recommended reading!
- krisoft 3y ago
  I believe somewhere in the Culture series books it is mentioned that many Culture ships also have gas dwellers as inhabitants. By neccesity in separate compartment from the usual terestrial-lineage passengers. I like to believe that alongside all the fractal complexity of Culture life depicted in the books they also have a paralel world with even more exotics. Maybe there is a gas-dweller equivalent of Contact going around Jovians galaxywide getting into all kind of schenanigans.
  - kylegordon 3y ago
    You remembered it well. Nasqueron Dwellers in The Algebraist
    - krisoft 3y ago
      Yes. That is true. But I meant a smaller part. In Excession this part about the avatar of GSV Sleeper Service as it is contemplating offloading all of its cargo: "There was an extra, perhaps deeper melancholy at the thought that it would no longer be able to play host to the living things aboard; the creatures of the sea and the air and the gas-giant atmosphere, and the woman." Previously in the same book it is implied that these "creatures of the gas-giant atmosphere" are animal level intellects. But my headcanon is that perhaps there are Culture ships with Nasqueron Dwellers or similar intelligent gas-dwellers with complex societies on-board. You are absolutely right that The Algebraist is full of gas-dwelling creatures. But as far as I can recall while they have a "Culture" feel to them there are no direct Culture references in that book. But maybe I have missed something.

dysoco 3y ago

In High School we read a book with a lot of sci-fi short stories and this one is probably the one that I remember the most.

wombatpm 3y ago

Clifford D Simak write that story. It’s contained in his book City. That collection also has uplifted dogs and ants. Frederick Pohl (another SciFi Grandmaster) tackled the Mars issue in ManPlus

sdrothrock 3y ago
Simak included dogs in his stories so often (and especially in that anthology you mentioned) that any time someone mentions a sci fi story with a dog, my first thought is that it has to be a Simak story. :)

echelon 3y ago

> it's pointless to try until it's practical to become Martians. We'll need to shed these bodies evolved for earth gasses, gravity, nutrients, temperatures, and radiation environment. Brain uploads to computers would let us go anywhere. Or perhaps more probably, AI will take over evolution in our stead. No human body and death to disadvantage them.

Mistletoe 3y ago
I’ve outlived every computer I know of and I’m not even that old. How do AI people think AI will live so long without being unplugged, losing a power source, or having errors? In a future without humans I mean. We are the universal troubleshooting organism.
- echelon 3y ago
  Human life took a long time to evolve. In one lifetime you've seen computers jump dramatically in power. By the end of your life, I suspect that you'll see computers that may scare you. But to answer your question, it's the digital data and files to look to, not the hardware. We have files floating around from the 60's today, and we're picking up more and more fidelity with which we can represent the world every year. That won't stop.