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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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03 Dec 2014, 1:45 pm

I saw the movie Interstellar and began contemplating other worlds. The planets surveyed in this movie all looked worse than earth to me which presented a problem they never addressed in the movie. If you are going to transport thousands if not millions from earth to another planet, shouldn't it be one that is easier to survive on than the planet you left?

It didn't appear to be the case in Interstellar. The film makers walked a fine line in trying to figure out what kind of planet humans could survive on because if we found one like earth it would already have creatures.

If humans were to move to a planet in earlier stages than earth, how would they grow enough food to support all the earthlings. Food sources would prove to be problematic unless the planet already had food sources on it.



slenkar
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03 Dec 2014, 1:59 pm

Plan B would have to be done, i.e. growing from eggs.

Plan A would only work over the course of decades.
getting all the farming machines over there, sowing millions of seeds, harvesting all that....



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03 Dec 2014, 2:01 pm

Well, it doesn't have to be easier to survive on, you just need a motive that's greater than the difference in habitability...

If the planet has an appropriate atmosphere, you can grow crops on the surface, otherwise you'll have to use greenhouses. A world that has, say, a benign atmosphere of 250mb CO2, 40mb N2, and 10mb O2, with liquid water, would be a great place to settle - you can grow crops on the surface (as long as they don't need insects to pollinate them) and freezing out the CO2 will give you a breathable air mix. Well, depending on the pressure in your habitat. But paraterraforming wouldn't be that difficult on such a world.

How much food you need depends, of course, on how many humans you're bringing...

If you have fusion, the cheapest earth-like real estate in the solar system will be Uranus and Neptune, in floating colonies at the 1-2 bar point. You could eventually construct a shell floating above the planet (supramundane world), paraterraforming it. You're building materials are carbon, carbon, and more carbon, though there's oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen available to add to that to make plastics. Metals you can import from orbit. If you balance it right, you should be able to construct supports down in the lower atmosphere, to allow heavier colonies...

Uranus and Neptune together could support trillions of people in luxury.