a matter of

[songbird]

social system dynamics and human interactions...

in reference to space travel, what would actually
be needed to get from this planet to another planet
with an intact ecosystem, enough people and other
organisms...

i've been kicking around in my head some sort of
writing project because it's winter and i have a
little more time now than usual.

to make a good story, need interesting characters
that people care about, exploring issues that people
find worthwhile, etc.

can't quite come up with a good enough starting
point of entry yet, but i like the general approach
of putting multiple systems in competition within the
wider confinements of a large asteroid and then sending
them off and seeing which survive and which fail and
requiring all of them to keep up to date reports sending
back and also from the home planet forwards.

so there is some confinement for the younger in
the societies as they are not "told" about the larger
system until they reach adulthood (however that may
be defined).

of course there is much drama to be gained by exploring
various points of failures, what happens when the too smart
monkeys get into the works, etc. strong character taking
over and then causing revolutions, devolutions. i would
not expect there to be actually any difference between
the dramas possible in such environments being any less
than those we already face here.

some spheres, obviously go silent, some may even be
overtaken by faster future versions of themselves, the
entire line of asteroids sent out may even be better thought
of as stepping stones, some stopped in places in between as
it is better to have subgoals along the way. in places
where local materials may be more available (the outer parts
of the oort cloud?, pluto, etc.)

hmm, i think i could write the rest of my life in this
sort of contemplated space. and likely won't do a bit of
it. after all, i've not written a single book yet. :)

perhaps i just really wanted to say happy new year to
everyone instead and go take a nap?

safe travels space fans,


songbird

[paul wallich]

On 1/3/15 12:03 PM, songbird wrote:
> social system dynamics and human interactions...

[..]

> perhaps i just really wanted to say happy new year to
> everyone instead and go take a nap?
>
> safe travels space fans,

Happy New Year. Almost didn't see this -- completely forgot to
resubscribe to ssm after borking and rebuilding my desktop machine.

If you could handwave the gravity and atmosphere issues, it might be fun
to put the different groups on separate asteroids, maybe part of a
trojan grouping, so that they could all see one another but not interact
physically except at very high cost or after reaching a relatively high
level of capability.

paul

[songbird]

paul wallich wrote:

>songbird wrote:
>> social system dynamics and human interactions...

> [..]

>> perhaps i just really wanted to say happy new year to
>> everyone instead and go take a nap?
>>
>> safe travels space fans,
>

> Happy New Year. Almost didn't see this -- completely forgot to
> resubscribe to ssm after borking and rebuilding my desktop machine.

welcome back. :)

> If you could handwave the gravity and atmosphere issues, it might be fun
> to put the different groups on separate asteroids, maybe part of a
> trojan grouping, so that they could all see one another but not interact
> physically except at very high cost or after reaching a relatively high
> level of capability.

i'm not sure what you mean by handwave gravity and atmosphere
issues?

too much is lost by breaking down into smaller pieces.
the large mass of the asteroid is needed to block radiation
and also provide a margin of error in case of collisions
with stuff in space or just having extra raw materials like
ice and minerals to use if needed.


songbird

[paul wallich]

On 1/18/15 4:58 PM, songbird wrote:
[...]

>
>> If you could handwave the gravity and atmosphere issues, it might be fun
>> to put the different groups on separate asteroids, maybe part of a
>> trojan grouping, so that they could all see one another but not interact
>> physically except at very high cost or after reaching a relatively high
>> level of capability.
>
> i'm not sure what you mean by handwave gravity and atmosphere
> issues?

Well, in our current universe living on an asteroid would require a
hugely complicated technological infrastructure, pressurized suits or
transport for being on the surface, all the usual artificial-ecosystem
issues blah blah. And unless it's one of the biggest asteroids, you're
pretty close to microgravity, which complicates things even further. If
you had artificial gravity or strategically placed neutronium or quantum
black holes and/or force screens, you could have people walking around
more or less normally and breathing air on the surface. Which would
simplify a lot of things and prevent too many cases of "the people who
knew how to run the compressors got killed/exiled/drunk and they all died".

> too much is lost by breaking down into smaller pieces.
> the large mass of the asteroid is needed to block radiation
> and also provide a margin of error in case of collisions
> with stuff in space or just having extra raw materials like
> ice and minerals to use if needed.

I'm not sure what you mean here -- as long as an asteroid is bigger
than Brooklyn or Queens, it's going to have plenty of mass for shielding
(plausibly at least) enough raw materials for a fair number of people).
And if it gets hit by anything, Idunno...

paul

[songbird]

paul wallich wrote:
>songbird wrote:

...

>> i'm not sure what you mean by handwave gravity and atmosphere
>> issues?
>
> Well, in our current universe living on an asteroid would require a
> hugely complicated technological infrastructure, pressurized suits or
> transport for being on the surface, all the usual artificial-ecosystem
> issues blah blah. And unless it's one of the biggest asteroids, you're
> pretty close to microgravity, which complicates things even further. If
> you had artificial gravity or strategically placed neutronium or quantum
> black holes and/or force screens, you could have people walking around
> more or less normally and breathing air on the surface. Which would
> simplify a lot of things and prevent too many cases of "the people who
> knew how to run the compressors got killed/exiled/drunk and they all died".

i wouldn't be putting people on the surface.
they'd be inside. spin the thing and you have
gravity for inner lining of the outwards
surfaces.

so the environment is contained by the
material which the asteroid is made from. if
the areas need to be lined with a rubbery
self-sealing sort of coating i don't know,
but in case of an unexpected stress fracture
that is likely a good idea. :)

as for the "complicated" vs. survival issues
that is perhaps the largest part of the
eventual overall puzzle. how do we design a
self-enclosed and self-recycling system that
will support people of some population size
for X numbers of years and where they have
some good chance of reaching an eventual
destination and still be able to figure out
what to do once getting there. if the people
become so dumb that they can't tell they've
arrived then they might go right on by or
end up in the middle of some star or ...

there's just too much room here for stories
and i've read so many that cover these sorts
of issues that it's hard to find something with
a new idea or to keep the stories and characters
interesting.

right now most of my studies and readings are
around things that involve whole ecological
system stuff and how they recycle nutrients,
but nothing is really being done to answer the
questions about how small such a system can be
for supporting X numbers of creatures like
ourselves. Biosphere II and a few others tried
to start answering that kind of question, but
we're still a long ways from knowing...

>> too much is lost by breaking down into smaller pieces.
>> the large mass of the asteroid is needed to block radiation
>> and also provide a margin of error in case of collisions
>> with stuff in space or just having extra raw materials like
>> ice and minerals to use if needed.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean here -- as long as an asteroid is bigger
> than Brooklyn or Queens, it's going to have plenty of mass for shielding
> (plausibly at least) enough raw materials for a fair number of people).
> And if it gets hit by anything, Idunno...

the earth is largely shielded not by the mass it
has but by the magnetic force fields due to the
rotating iron core. outside of that protection
you need a fair amount of mass to sheild cosmic
radiation. (or perhaps by then we'll have figured
out how to prevent such damage from being a problem
-- reengineering DNA to have more error correcting,
becoming different creatures alltogether...)

may need some types of detecting and warning system
looking forwards and perhaps even small mobile things
which can move objects out of the way in advance or
even capture them in some manner for use.


songbird