New estimate for the potential number of technologically advanced civilizations in our Galaxy

Discussion in 'Science' started by Monash, Jun 20, 2020.

  1. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    70% is a big number. But, we can somehow find more arable land, potable water and other resources elsewhere? And to do so, we expect to do what? Terraform another world? Solve the problems of pollution on worlds already hostile to our species? Populate other worlds hostile to earth life that has evolved on earth for billions of years so we can feed a population?
    No matter how you slice it, solving the environmental problems on earth and making better use of the resources here, developing the technology here in close proximity to the relative safety of earth where we have some level of stability for our species will be far less daunting and less costly and more feasible than in some far off world where we have far less knowledge, greater risk of the unknown, and less chance of making disastrous, population killing decisions. Hell, just trying to simulate an earth like conditions as we did with the Biosphere experiments both failed and had those that participated done so off world without the prospect of an relatively easy escape, the result would have been death for all.
    Consider, exploration by sea in the 1400’s on is a good model to consider, but with some major exceptions. First, many of the early colonization attempts weren’t going places that weren’t so devoid of similarities to the environmental conditions (water, soil, food, natural resources, etc) that colonists would be able to survive in that environment, but where they ventured to places that they lacked the knowledge and resources to survive, many colonies and colonists didn’t survive. Their sponsors funded their explorations based on some expectation of financial return; still those that didn’t contribute and had found few opportunities to economically justify the continuing financial resources to their colonies also failed and were abandoned. While we know of some that succeeded, how many do we not know about failed? I can think of dozens of other reasons for failure that are analogous to space exploration, but As with many early explorers, many of those that made the leap to participate were driven by a potential for no for the grand betterment of mankind, but were coerced, or were looking to participate in the potential of personal rewards balanced against a risk of death; what is the risk/reward for early colonists, the majority of which will not survive?
    On earth, we have a better opportunity to conflate learning to solve our existing problems, develop better technology in more controlled conditions, learn how to live in the sea environments, desert, and deep Ice conditions we are likely to find elsewhere.
    When you begin to assess the costs, challenges, risks, of exploiting other worlds, that 70% looks a bit more attractive than might be the product of fantasy.
     
  2. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Interesting points!

    I might argue that trees, hyenas, whales, etc., are just features of how one original life progresed to technological capability. But, it's probably not an indicator of the difficulty of life starting multiple times.
     
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  3. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    My guess is inhabitants of a planet depending on how they care for that planet exist only in the geological short term. I always say plants and animals are merely along for the ride. Earth will be around for a long time while inhabitants will come and go. The idea of humans exploring and inhabiting another planet/moon IMO is more about survival of the species. As Earth's population increases from 7+ billion to 9-10 billion, when we do have the capability to inhabit something other than Earth, only a 'few' humans will make the voyage. A few might find a way to escape and eek out some existence but the rest will perish. IMO the collective we are abusing Earth and how this unfolds will determine how much fun there will be...
     
  4. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes, whatever we do in space is highly unlikely to help to solve any of the key problems we have on earth.

    It IS cool that space is something mankind can work on together. We probably need as many of those as possible!
     
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  5. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    I tend to agree. I would suggest that space based industry, if it ever takes off in a big way will not be about providing resources or manufactured goods to Earth. Rather it would be about providing those resources for use in space.

    Again using the tourism example, depending on how big demand grows, eventually some accountant somewhere is going to start calculating the cost of launching all the (hundreds/thousands?) of tonnes of mass into space needed to support that industry vs the cost of mining, refining & building it up there. Say using materials mined/refined on the moon e.g steel and titanium etc. When the two cost curves cross? Tad ah you get spaced based industry.

    Interestingly there is still the possibility you might get some long, long term 'downwards' trade with Earth emerging if only because the cost of dropping stuff into a gravity well is and always will be far lower than the cost of launching it up out of one.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2020
  6. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Agreed. I'd add that the Moon and Mars are pretty good gravity wells, too. So, mining and lifting stuff off those bodies will be expensive, too. My bet is that stuff on the Moon and Mars will be used on the Moon and Mars.


    It's probably useful to think about what space based manufacturing will actually be doing.

    For one, I think it will be supporting science. Trying to launch completed telescopes form from Earth anymore is a huge problem - as James Webb demonstrates.

    For another, it will be supporting our government's effots to learn how to keep humans alive in space. That is, that's really the only goal. It's like the "Because it's there" answer given by individuals who want to climb Everest - except its being done with our tax dollars.

    I wish there were two different administrations. The effort to keep humans alive in space is STUPENDOUSLY more expensive that is science, and the current objectives set by congress can easily devour all NASA science programs aimed at Earth (like weather, etc.) and what's beyond Earth.

    The two sets of objectives just don't share enough. Trading off science for astronauts is not a valid activity.
     
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  7. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    My own thoughts regarding mining in space are that they will use solar generated electricity as the primary tool to heat and separate the minerals. These will probably be in the form of some kind of laser tools rather than the heavy equipment that we use for mining under earth's gravity.

    In my scenario the mining spacecraft filters out the dust in the asteroid belt and then heats and separates it into high value materials like gold and titanium and then packs that into unmanned shuttles for the journey back to earth. There might even be a two stage process where there are shuttles that take the material to earth orbit and then other shuttles handle the transition between orbit and the surface of earth.

    Yes, very expensive to set up but that applies to all mining IMO.
     
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  8. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

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    https://www.space.com/moon-asteroid-space-mining-with-concentrated-sunlight.html
     
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  9. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Makes a great deal of sense to start mining ice for water because that then provides a means of having a propellant for moving around in space and for decelerating shuttles returning to earth.
     
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  10. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Sigh! If only we could all live long enough to see the above come true. I suspect that (in most of our cases) this is not the case. If that's true then I guess we all have just have to trust that our descendants will be driven by the dreams of previous generations to see that all comes to fruition.
     
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  11. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    True science is mostly void of politics and bias and nonsense. When a goal is attached to science, like landing a human on the Moon, everyone gets on board focused on achieving the goal. It creates innovation and consensus and achievement around truth and facts. But it seems we are hellbent on injecting our personal crap into the issues and dialogue, meaning little consensus, and poor achievements. Difficult to discuss all the options and to select the best option when so much is subjective. Including the complete dismissal of science and truth and facts over our 'personal' opinions...
     
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  12. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes.

    The fact that we launched astronauts to the ISS by buying tickets from Russia was actually really cool. And, there is going to have to be major political work done on rules related to all activity beyond Earth's surface - property rights, pollution of orbits and moon/planet surfaces, etc., etc. What exists today is totally inadequate and everyone knows that.

    Another seriously releevant and important case of cooperateive science was Obama's "Predict" program that established superior monitoring and study of infectious diseases in China, with significant onsight participation by American epidemiologists and other bio experts from the US.

    We (and China and the wrodl) would have learned about COVID earlier and in more detail had Trump not killed that program and removed our scientists from Wuhan.

    And, that's not a one time issue. Progress in Wuhan has identified literally thousands of SARS varients carried by bats. Detecting when and how these threats enter the human population will continue to be a MARJOR issue for the world - not just for China.

    When we refust to be part of global scientific efforts it is a serious problem.

    One might wonder how we can get back to cooperative science on contagions in China and other countries where there is potential for them to cross to the human population.


    ===> Yesterday, Trump tweeted that the more he thinks about this problem, the more he HATES CHINA!!
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2020
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  13. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    In BOLD above...when we have a president with an IQ >42...
     
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  14. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Indeed, but with that I believe we shouldn't overlook the amazing things that we are currently experiencing today that those before us couldn't even fathom. I'm sure throughout history humans have all wished that they would be alive to see the day that the next big leap happened.

    The future is always bright because unlike the present it's not relative. But we certainly have accomplished some amazing things in the little time we have been alive as well. I mean, we had a guy playing golf on the moon nearly 50 years ago! We have an actual picture of a black hole that looks almost exactly like we thought it would based on nothing other than mathematical equations. Rovers chugging along on Mars all by themselves for years and a probe we launched during the Carter years that is currently in interstellar space and somehow still "alive" and sending us periodic thumbs up.

    Humans can be amazing when we want to be.
     
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  15. Dutch

    Dutch Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That estimate is bullshit. I’m rereading one of my favorite authors, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and his estimate is that there are one hundred thousand million billions civilization in the Universe, with millions in our galaxy alone. Now, you not really gonna question Arthur C. Clarke?
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2020
  16. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Not withstanding the above there is some evidence that Human population levels are stabilized and will peak around 10 billion or so at the end of this century, thereafter declining. (Indeed in most developed countries the birthrate is already below the natural level. At the same time the number of people in poverty is falling. If (big if) we can keep this process up without exhausting local resources then foreseeable developments in power generation, farming, recycling and waste management etc promise to make the World richer, safer and more prosperous far out into the future. If.....
     
  17. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    I would but sadly I don't own a ouija board so alas ......
     
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  18. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    All of this and more achieved with pathetically small budgets relative to total national spending...
     
  19. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    As long as we don't truly know what's 'out there'...it does provide a great canvass for science fiction...
     
  20. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Kind of difficult to imagine any 'evidence' when we don't know how Earth's population will evolve...or not?

    It is unlikely we can push Earth's population to 10 billion 'or so' without also greatly increasing poverty?

    Adding 3 billion or more population to Earth will definitely exhaust 'local resources'.

    We don't yet know how global climate change will play out?

    At some point in the future, in order to save Earth and it's inhabitants, we will be forced to eliminate the profit motive to do the things you mention. Until we do this, business ventures must be viable and profitable. The things you mention are not necessarily viable and profitable...
     
  21. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    The statistics/projections for global population and poverty levels are pretty clear on the subject. Global birth rates (with the exception of Africa) are trending down while at the same time so is the percentage of people living in poverty.

    Source: Our World in Data; (Global population projections and historical trends in world poverty

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2020
  22. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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  23. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Yup.

    I know we all wish we could see real life Star Trek. I personally believe that the sci fi "future" will look a lot more like the show "The Expanse" than it ever will "Star Trek" I would still be thrilled to see humans zipping around our own Solar System the way we currently do our own planet.

    Perhaps someday. But even now when what we have seems pathetic when compared to our sci fi shows when you sit back an think about it what we have accomplished really is awesome.

    I can sit here on my couch and take a look at a full HD photograph of a tiny ice dwarf planet the size of Australia that is 3 BILLION miles away from where I'm sitting....Because humans somehow managed to build a space probe and put it in a rocket and tell it to go out there and take a picture and somehow not get lost or break down.

    And decades ago we were able to build a little robot on wheels, stuff it in a rocket, shoot it at Mars, tell it to parachute down, open up it's capsule, and start rolling around and picking up dirt and rocks and stuff for YEARS all on it's own.

    There is something fascinating about that....My damn Roomba still sometimes forgets that it can't navigate down the damn stairs..meanwhile there's a robot driving around on MARS all by itself. And humans did that...

    We'll get there guys. Give us time.
     
  24. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    These are someone's projections...not evidence...
     
  25. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Higher on the list might be airplanes, computers, electric light, telephone, TV/radio, medical procedures, vaccines, etc. all of which allow us to pursue space exploration...
     
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