TO COLONIZE A PLANET

The items on this list were developed while considering a high school curriculum that would require students to plan the colonization of a planet that was assumed to have a breathable atmosphere.

Items red are idea notes/questions specifically for Ralph.

Ideas

• Link with home for questions - can link up with us (ISECCo) for questions
• Do the students/classroom have web access?
• Students could submit questions through you and you choose which to send to us.
  • We may develop this into a unit for publication, include a web page address for students to address questions to us and a page for teachers to receive online help for questions.

Questions to consider:

• Import food vs. Grow food
  • Grow food
    • Less time for research and exploration.
    • Still need a reserve, how much?
  • Bring food
    • Possible trouble with transportation and suppliers
    • Still need a reserve, how much?
• Mechanized vs. Manual Labor
  • Mechanized
    • Prone to break downs
    • Parts to repair must be brought along and would eventually run out, so would need manual tools and repair knowledge as well.
    • Fuel supplies
    • (All involve a weight penalty.)
  • Manual labor
    • Very time consuming.
• Protection from Radiation (esp. ultraviolet)
  • Natural
  • Other ways to protect crops and people
    • Glass
    • Sunscreen
    • Underwater
    • Underground
  • How much hard radiation reaches the ground?
    • National Health and Safety Administration recommends no more that 0.5 rad/year for most people (5.0 rad/year for people working around radioactive materials).
    • (Comment: 9 day Apollo mission received 1.1rads; get rest of data)
• Location
  • On land vs. On water
  • Geological stability (earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.)
  • Climate and weather variables (storms)
  • Natural resources
    • Fresh water
    • Building material
    • Landing site
    • Soil suitability
    • Dangerous wildlife
    • Minerals (Availability and how easily mined)
    • Hydropower
  • How easy is it to get around? (e.g. build trails and roads - very marshy areas very difficult, deserts easy)
  • Length of daylight day over period of year
  • Length of year and seasons (If year is 4 Earth years long, winter may be 2 Earth years long.)
  • How do you decide?
    • Long term weather observations
    • Located from orbit
    • Surface exploration
    • ??? (Blind luck = poor planning = short lives for colonists)
  • How many sites?
    • Multiple
      • Increases odds of surviving disaster
      • Could spread resources too thin
• Prefabricated vs. Ready to construct vs. Start from scratch buildings
  • Prefabricated
    • Fast construction
    • Bulky in weight and size
    • Very difficult to modify
    • VERY expensive to transport
  • Ready to construct
    • Expensive to transport
    • Less bulky
    • Still difficult to modify
  • Start from scratch
    • Time and labor intensive
    • May (or may not) be able to use native materials.
    • Easily modified and specialized
• Vegetarian vs. Omnivore diet
  • Vegetarian
    • Requires less crop area per human
    • Some concern about long term lack of certain protiens
  • Omnivore
    • More variety in diet
    • Less concern about certain proteins
    • If native grasses are edible, livestock can easily graze.
      • Less crop area
      • Possibly less work managing stocks
    • If native grasses are not useable
      • Need much more crop area (1 lb of crop = 1/6 lb meat from cow)

• Planning for disasters
  • Crop Failure
    • This is important for all decisions (Grow vs. Import and Vegetarian vs. Omnivore)
      • Causes
        • Imported pest infestation
        • Local pest infestation
        • Not enough water
        • Too much water
        • Missing nutrients
        • Radiation
        • Sunlight
          • Wrong wavelengths
          • Insufficient
        • Temperature too hot or cold
        • Winds
        • Seed failure
        • Pollination difficulties (Need bees or local insects for many crops.)
        • Competition with local wildlife and/or vegetation (Pesticides may be difficult to develop.)
      • Reserve
        • How much?
        • How to store it?
        • What to store?
      • How much crop diversity?
        • If you plant all potatoes and potatoes fail, you're in trouble.
      • Alternative Crop technologies which may be less prone to failure (or at least different failures).
        • Hydroponics
        • Aquaculture
      • Advanced Technologies that can synthesis foods (science has a Long way to go yet).
  • Natural Disasters
    • Weather related
    • Geologically related
    • Sun related
      • Solar flares
      • Variable energy output (too much = too hot; too little = too cold)
    • Local flora and fauna related
  • Other Disasters
    • Sanitation related
    • Breakdown of community structure
    • Poor planning
    • Equipment failure
    • Power failure (e.g. Solar panels don't produce as much as expected due to different solar radiation qualities.)
    • Resupply failure
  • Escape plan in case of completely inhospitable environmental factors or catastrophe
• Size and Social structure
  • Very small colonies can survive with informal structure.
  • Very large colonies must have formal structure.
• The ship that brings you
  • How many ships?
    • As with colonies more ships provide a better chance of someone getting through, but also require you to spread your resources.
    • More ships means a greater chance of ship mechanical/crew error.
  • What type of ship?
    • Generational ships (Only the great-great-grandchildren of original participants actually colonize planet.)
    • Cryogenic
    • Time compressional (At just below the speed of light, it seems to you, that time passes very slowly due to relativistic effects. e.g. You age one year, while Earth passes a decade) (This is why dull lectures take so long, and your great date is over so quickly.)
    • FTL - Faster Than Light ships (which no one knows whether we will be able to invent or not) .
  • Will ship remain?
    • Permanently
      • Keep operational or use for materials?
    • Temporarily
      • How long?
    • Leave immediately
• Communications
  • Currently there is no known way of communicating across interstellar distances without waiting years for a reply.
  • Are you going to allow for the possibility of large leaps in technology? (e.g. Subspace communications that are nearly instintaneous across interstellar distances.)
• Energy Sources
  • Solar
  • Wind
  • Water
  • Nuclear
  • Hydrocarbon
  • Other
• Arrival priorities
  • Survey planet from orbit
  • Find location for colony
  • Build a construction base
  • Build a landing field