Questions tagged [space-colonization]
For questions concerning species that have settled on or near celestial bodies they are not native to and the challenges this presents.
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Would large cave systems form on an abiotic world?
I'm thinking about planet without life that humans colonize and seed with Earth life. If a planet has an abiotic history, could large cave systems form? I understand that caves form in environments ...
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Milky Way Firstborn race ascended when the universe was young, but they want to monitor and control future lifeforms evolution. How'd they do that? [closed]
I'm working on a setting that tries to be reasonably hard sci-fi, and I work with these constraints in terms of events and plot:
Firstborn (thin of the good old Precursor trope) race develops really ...
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That one star system everyone visits first -- why? [closed]
The history of the FC System is fascinating. No life arose naturally in this system (or at least, nothing macroscopic). Nevertheless, at interstellar distances, it seems like an extremely promising ...
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Technological feasibility of transporting Martian water to Earth
I understand that this is an inherently ridiculous idea. Earth is covered in water already. But in our current reality, rich people on Earth pay for bottled water that's been shipped halfway around ...
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Can a plasma thruster (using water as fuel) bring a crewed vessel from Titan to Enceladus orbit in 30 days or less?
So I've been worldbuilding a hard-ish setting in the Saturn system (science-based in Worldbuilding's terminology). I am looking for an engine that could be a good, durable and cheap workhorse that ...
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Where do human-like species make their homes in the galaxy if they can choose?
Imagine you're building a setting where humans and/or biologically similar species have dispersed among the stars over a very long time, such that they span thousands of lightyears, and let's say you'...
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Could this application of an O'Neill cylinder work?
I have recently been thinking about possible applications of an O'Neill cylinder and thought of a binary planet (specifically Pluto/Charon) being connected by a space elevator/tether.
I wonder if a ...
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The best place on uninhabited Earth for a spaceport?
In my story, Mars does not exist. Instead there's a copy of Earth in its place. this second Earth physically looks just like real life Earth, but there are no hominids on it nor evidence of human ...
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Case for interstellar trade: roundtrip is worth it by itself
Interstellar travel
Assume there is a technology that permits building starships that could travel at a speed that is a significant fraction of the speed of light. Where significant fraction is ...
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What does my 3D Printing Life-Seeder Probe need to print to populate the Universe for humans?
A visionary multi-billionaire wants to colonise the Universe with his Von Neumann probe printer to create a stunning variety of life and culture within our awe-inspiringly huge yet silent universe.
In ...
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Creating a false sense of up and down in a topopolis
I am creating a fictional society where the sovereign owner has complete control over all fully automated means of production, and treats the remaining population of this society essentially as pets (...
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Mitigating the radiation environment of an Io-analog via engineering
My setting consists of a massive gas giant like Jupiter, in the habitable zone of a G-type main sequence star, with two large moons. The inner moon is an Io analog, though a bit larger (still smaller ...
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Space Pollution at the Lagrange Points
Imagine a moderately large M-Type asteroid gets maneuvered into one of the Earth/Moon Lagrange points. The asteroid has a diameter of few kilometers and a mass of a few dozen gigatons. It has been ...
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How to calculate population growth of space colonies including immigration
My setting involves colonizing other planets over long periods of time and I am trying to calculate population growth of these colonies to determine how developed they become by a certain date. While ...
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Crash landing as a cost effective landing method for raw materials
Crash landing is bad. But what if the payload isn't fragile stuff like humans and machinery, but instead raw resources like Steel, Iron, or even Plastic? Would any of those survive a crash landing ...
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