Feeding a High Population, Non-Agricultural world

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I just don’t think you get it.

What YOU don't get is that there isn't the data to say HOW much harm and if there is a level where the harm ceases. You are calling MODELS knowledge when they are not validated by verified predictions. A model is useful but its predictions are just that until VERIFIED by actual facts being discovered that match them. Just like weather forecasts are made using MODELS but are often wrong especially in detail.

 

[phavoc]

I just don’t think you get it. There’s no question that low gravity environments are harmful to humans the question is the degree and the viable safe time of exposure to such environments. They want more data points not to prove the harmful effects they want more data points to figure out how much exposure to various levels of lower gravity is realistically safe/reversible. You keep trying to imply that the lack of data points means that they are in some way not sure or wrong about the effects of low gravity this is not the case in any study. What they are not sure of is how long at want percentage of 1g is going to cause irreversible harm. The ideal that we are fine until we reach micro gravity is not in any way realistic or even remotely suggested by any of our research, it’s simply not the case. Never once has it been suggested that people living long terms in gravity environments such as the moon are not going to be adversely impacted. Again there is no such thing as a magic ‘OH NO THE GRAVITY WE ARE IN IS TO LITTLE’ it’s a sliding scale just like air pressure, temperatures, and many other factors needed to maintain human life.

On top of all this the moon actually has a higher gravity than would be the case for anyone living in the Astroid belt which was the whole argument to begin with.

To put this into perspective, how many people have travelled to outer space? Excluding the more recent space tourists who have gone up for a few minutes and come back down, only about 600 humans in our history have travelled to space. A few hundred have lived for a period orbiting the planet, 24 have left Earth's orbit, and only 12 have set foot on another planetary body. Much of the physical study data is relatively recent in the last few decades. What I said was that the people they studied are not average representative of the human race (which is around 8-9 BILLION), and that more research and longer-term studies were needed to better refine the data. When comparing a few hundred to billions, I feel relatively comfortable with standing behind saying it's a tiny dataset.

The article linked was focused exclusively on 1G. Traveller started as a table-driven game. So it's a fair inference to ask, what would the effects be a .9G, .8G? The moon is .16G, Mars is about .4G. Since our datasets today are from people living in zero-G, we have no actual data from even shorter-term living in these lower gravity wells to have FACTS about how the human body will respond in the longer term. We do know humans can live in microgravity - with sometimes ill effects. In 2018 NASA stopped active monitoring of the their longer-term longitudinal study on Mark Kelly since it had his identical twin as a baseline to compare to. They are still going through the data and may make further comparisons between the two (though I don't see that happening under the current administration).

As far as the comment about G in the asteroid belt, I didn't speak to that, but I will now. Luna's gravity is greater than the largest object in the asteroid belt, which is Ceres. Nobody can live in the asteroid belt without being in an artificial environment. So if one were to live there, are they on a planetoid like Ceres or smaller? Are they living in the belt but on an O'Neill cylinder (with 1G environment)? Are they on a smaller station with a rotational G-factor of .5G? Are they on a ship with spin-gravity of some rating??? Unless and until that is answered then stating someone is living in the asteroid belt has no bearing on what G field they would be living in.

Life in space is built heavily upon theory and models based on theory that have few data points when trying to compare it to all of humanity. It's a great starting point, but only that - a starting point. We know there are effects, we know there are some known counters to them and we are working on others. There's still a lot more to discover and understand. I think we'll have plenty of time when compared to plans to put colonists off our world.

 

[tytalan]

Fine Phavoc and Fluffy Bunny I’m not going to argue with you about your magic only zero-gravity only affects the human body and that you only need TL 6 to have a self sustaining population in a very low gravity environment it’s not worth the effort to argue with you. I do suggest you check out the effects of high altitude on the human body and possibly look at it as an example. The human body has been proven to only be able to adapt to a finite degree in environmental change and the closer to the extreme the greater the disabling effects on the human body.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Fine Phavoc and Fluffy Bunny I’m not going to argue with you about your magic only zero-gravity only affects the human body and that you only need TL 6 to have a self sustaining population in a very low gravity environment it’s not worth the effort to argue with you. I do suggest you check out the effects of high altitude on the human body and possibly look at it as an example. The human body has been proven to only be able to adapt to a finite degree in environmental change and the closer to the extreme the greater the disabling effects on the human body.

I am done with this conversation. I can't have a science discussion with someone who obviously knows nothing about science and who also doesn't care to learn better science.

 

[swordtart]

TL8 - fusion power is the game changer.

A fusion power plant can power a plasma rocket, ion drive and the like, it can provide all the electricity you need to control the environment in the ship. Reaction drives of up to 6g are available. In point of fact HG gives you the tools to build spacecraft at TL7 with improved fission power plants and up to 3g reaction drives. The computer/5 is TL7.

"TL8 (Pre-Stellar)
At TL8, it is possible to reach other worlds in the same star system, although terraforming or full colonisation are not within the culture’s capacity. Permanent space habitats become possible. Fusion power becomes commercially viable."

I would add asteroid mining to the list of TL8 capabilities.

I concur. The CRB lists TL 8 as the minimum required for sustainable atmosphere type 0 survival.

It should be noted however that the random generation allows TL as low as 5 with all the modifiers for 0 rated atmosphere, hydro, and size. Population is unaffected and so government need not be zero (though it is unlikely to be high enough to modify the TL downwards). These are permanent populations (such as Koenigs Rock in Bowman) and it is the job of the referee to explain it away.

As TL is the average for the main world and variation in specific technology areas might be a few points higher or lower it could be that the only TL of 8+ is life support (though in an enclosed ecosystem you could crack oxygen and water from waste as long as you had power covered). This could be government controlled (and thus a few higher TLs than the average privately owned technology). All of these could also be early prototype stuff which would also allow it to be sustainable well below TL8.

The assumption is that Travellers found a way of settling the asteroids, regardless of what 21st century scientists think about the realities of it.

 

[Vormaerin]

The reality is that they were higher tech when they arrived, because otherwise they can't get there. So they might be space hippies, living as if their tech was 5 even though behind the scenes they have a higher tech infrastructure. Or they could be a decayed colony with technopriests or an engineer's guild that does the repairs on tech they barely or don't understand any more.

Or they could just have a contract with some corp to come service their mail order space habitat.

Or the world is a crashed spaceship and their ability to produce advanced goods is the ship's fabricator, so they don't strain it and live on hand made lesser goods for most things.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Fine Phavoc and Fluffy Bunny I’m not going to argue with you about your magic only zero-gravity only affects the human body

As you have been told over and over I am not arguing that. I am arguing a LACK OF DATA to confirm that.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The reality is that they were higher tech when they arrived, because otherwise they can't get there. So they might be space hippies, living as if their tech was 5 even though behind the scenes they have a higher tech infrastructure. Or they could be a decayed colony with technopriests or an engineer's guild that does the repairs on tech they barely or don't understand any more.

Or they could just have a contract with some corp to come service their mail order space habitat.

Or the world is a crashed spaceship and their ability to produce advanced goods is the ship's fabricator, so they don't strain it and live on hand made lesser goods for most things.

You can get to asteroids without a jump drive. You can even spin the whole asteroid to generate gravity. This could be done at TL-5 with the right prototype technologies.

 

[rinku]

It might be worth noting the section in WBH that says Native Sophonts are assumed to be adapted to their homeworld and ignore minimum TL conditions (p49).

If you truly have a world that bothers you re TL vs life support, you can always pull that card. Especially the toxic atmosphere ones.

 

[swordtart]

It might be worth noting the section in WBH that says Native Sophonts are assumed to be adapted to their homeworld and ignore minimum TL conditions (p49).

If you truly have a world that bothers you re TL vs life support, you can always pull that card. Especially the toxic atmosphere ones.

Similarly sophonts that have migrated might have been permanently adapted to a less ideal environment. It might be cheaper (in the short or long term) to fit each colonist with artificial lungs (for example) than to provide a dome with a suitable atmosphere.

Prison colonies might do this without the consent of the lifetime prisoner (like prisoners sent to titan in the Judge Dredd comic). They could defray the cost by removing the artificial organs after death and reusing them in another inmate. Gruesome but ruthlessly efficient.

This probably won't help on an asteroid with no air but for marginal worlds it might explain things.

 

[swordtart]

The reality is that they were higher tech when they arrived, because otherwise they can't get there. So they might be space hippies, living as if their tech was 5 even though behind the scenes they have a higher tech infrastructure. Or they could be a decayed colony with technopriests or an engineer's guild that does the repairs on tech they barely or don't understand any more.

That is possible, but prototype tech applies equally to space travel.

There may never have been higher tech on planet and the sophonts dropped off may never have been high enough tech to do space travel. It just needs the transporting agency to be higher tech. We have an example of this in canon with the ancients who were high tech but dropped off lower tech sopohonts (some modified or uplifted ) into isolated systems.

Or they could just have a contract with some corp to come service their mail order space habitat.

"Soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us air and food and rum!"

Or the world is a crashed spaceship and their ability to produce advanced goods is the ship's fabricator, so they don't strain it and live on hand made lesser goods for most things.

Yes, or just the surviving vital components like the power plant with everything non-essential cannibalised to keep that operating.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have demonstrated that HG2022 permits unlimited if slow insystem travel at up to 3g at TL7 - this is the TL Gerard K O'Neill considered capable of building habitation cylinders. What people often forget his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space

(I have a copy) and papers also included two smaller habitation structures below that of the cylinder.

Now if you allow for the TL disadvantage - ie increased fuel use, a larger power plant - my TL7 designs could be built at TL5...

so asteroid living at TL5 using 1g reaction drives is well within the realms of Traveller. It would be an interesting system to visit in your TL12 gravitic drive far trader...