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Anonymous Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 04:58




If you want a reasonably accurate and yet quite entertaining book about terraforming read Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (and its sequals Green Mars & Blue Mars).

You don't need full terran (1G) gravity for terraforming and there isn't really a practical way of changing a planets gravity.

As for magnetic fields - the main reason to change that would be to help protect colonists from stellar radiation. Mining into the poles (to do what exactly?) isn't the most practical way of protecting from radiation. Living underground or in protected buildings should suffice. Also increasing the atmospheric pressure will help somewhat. On planets without this protection cancers and other problems will be commonplace.

Terraforming is mainly a matter of getting the atmosphere of a planet fit for life. You'll also need to regulate the temperature somewhat so that the atmosphere doesn't freeze or boil off into space.

Temperature can be changed with _huge_ orbiting mirrors or shades. You can also increase temperature by excavating pits that reach down to a planet's hot core (effectively exposing the core to the atmosphere).

Getting the right mixtures and pressures of gases could be achieved via genetically engineered plant-life, huge atmospheric processing facilities, or via a host of other methods.

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If you want a reasonably accurate and yet quite entertaining book about terraforming read Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (and its sequals Green Mars & Blue Mars).

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Forrestwolf Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 16:22




I'm sure this has been covered elsewhere, but since I'm new...

Are we sure there IS FTL in Firefly? The whole introduction blurb changed during the series - the early episodes clearly referred to the show as taking place in a "new solar system, with hundreds of planets" or something like that. As a researcher in electric propulsion, I found this fascinating - was Whedon actually positing the idea that there was some sort of nearby solar system with LOTS of planets, thereby eliminating the need for FTL for a long time?

Then they changed the intro blurb - it became "a new galaxy with hundreds of planets", or something like that. Which means he changed his mind, or else his technical consultant(s) explained the difference between a solar system and a galaxy.

Am I the only one who noticed this, and interpreted it that way? Please point me to an earlier discussion if you get a chance!

Sorry for the aside - you seem to be going with FTL. On THAT subject, I'd say I have to agree with Stutterwarp as the way to go. Regardless, the idea of taking a few days to a week to get to the destination fits well with Firefly.

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