Yes, you’re right, we can’t make an airtight container that would last long term. Guess the whole thing’s impossible, and it’s not that you’re being ridiculous about this.
What is ridiculous is your attempt at reductio ad absurdum by suggesting that I made the claim “we can’t make an airtight container that would last long term.” That is not at all what I said, and you are being either obtuse or disingenuous by implying that to be the case. What I did say, in case you have misunderstood, is that we do not have the capability to built equipment and store provisions that can last, either in operation or storage, for centuries or millennia, nor do we have the technical and logistical means to recycle or provision for a population of thousands of people for centuries or even decades without any kind of outside resources. If you would like to address this statement I’d be pleased to discuss it further and consider any evidence or rationale you present to the contrary. If you are just going to pout and lie as you’ve done here, I have no interest in participating.
Stranger
Setting up a closed system capable of sustaining generations of humans on a sunless Earth would require us to overcome many of the same engineering challenges as sending a generation ship to a different star.
OK, no propulsion system is required in the former scenario, and I guess some kinds of resources would still be closer to hand (not that this means we would be able to exploit them unless we expected to).
It’s not like it would violate any laws of physics for us to do it, but we are totally unprepared to attempt it, so we would fail. The machines and structures we build do not typically last even hundreds of years.
Many of our manufacturing processes, although we do them under a roof, are essentially reliant on being ‘open-air’ processes - i.e. consuming natural oxygen and venting fumes out into the atmosphere to disperse, etc.
What do we mean by “closed” system?
We’re obviously in science fiction territory, but I don’t see why it’d need to be a closed system. You’d definitely design such a thing to be able to tap into the forms of energy that would still exist on Earth after the Sun disappeared.
Good point. I wonder how much difference necessity would make. But given the short time frame and the fact that society and the economy would be in turmoil, I’m skeptical we could come up with a solution in time.
wormholes:
I’d been thinking about this and someone mentioned it above. If wormholes were possible (and as I understand it, they’re not impossible according to the fundamentals), wouldn’t the sun’s disappearance in a wormhole cause its gravity to disappear and reappear at the other end of the wormhole? How does a wormhole preserve conservation laws in any case?
I think he means “ecologically closed”, not “energetically closed”. I don’t think the Biosphere generated its own energy.
Underground complexes would be warmed by the Earth’s internal heat. So assuming the planet’s surface was at 4K and the crust was at thermal equilibrium, you’d need to dig down 11 kilometers to reach rock at room temperature. Luckily there are many places on Earth where the crust is warmed by geothermal activity, so these complexes need not be so deep if located intelligently. Remember as well that there is plenty of frozen CHON out on the surface which could be imported into a closed habitat.
We couldn’t make a permanent refuge today, nor would the week or so before the surface froze be long enough to make these arrangements. But if we had a century or so to prepare, I expect we could support a respectable population using the frozen oxygen etc on the surface and the average ~ 0.01 watt/square meter geothermal flow all over the planet. And the same would be possible on a respectably large number of deep space planets as well.
In a few millennia from today the vast majority of our descendants could be living on this kind of frozen world, strung out between the stars.
Yeah, a hundred years is probably along the lines of what might be possible for doing something like this.
So it may make sense to have a residential center near a geothermal heat source some distance into the Earth’s crust. But there are significant questions about how to keep the air clean and breathable on a large scale and how to produce food. Just storing a bunch of fresh air and food doesn’t seem viable to me. So instead you need to have a reliable system that can clean the air going forward and a reliable system of growing your own food, all underground.
But all of the machines that do this would need to be maintained and kept up. So there really probably isn’t anyway to make such a thing work without also an ability to send people outside of the “safe” living area out to various resource extraction/processing facilities. I don’t see us being able to create a stable ecosystem in which we never need to manufacture anything or harvest any further natural resources. It’s probably much more realistic we develop hardy but replaceable technological systems that would require external resource extraction to maintain, than it is to create systems that will run without needed replacement parts and such for thousands of years. I’m not sure materials science or even the natural properties of materials as we know them could even allow for complex machines that never wear down, in 100 years or 1000 years of advancement.
You wouldn’t need to be perfectly ecologically closed, either. You might have robotic equipment (or teleoperated, or with human operators just really well protected from the environment) that makes supply raids from the frozen outside world. Plus, you could just stockpile a bunch of canned and dried food, to fill in the gaps in what you can produce. Long run, you’re still screwed, but I’d think you could delay the inevitable for a very long time.
If nothing else, if a nuclear submarine were just setting out on a cruise at the time of the catastrophe, I’d expect that they could survive for about as long as their planned cruise. That’s what, six months, a year?
I quoted what you actually said. At this point you’re saying whatever you think supports your initial assertion whether it is plausible or consistent with earlier posts, or not. IOW, not having a discussion, just trying to win the Internet.
Yes, you quoted a segment of what I said, and then drew an inference from it that was not supported by anything I wrote, to wit that we do not have the technology to build machines that can function after hundreds or thousands of years in storage, and that attempts to make self-contained systems have demonstrated marginal feasibility for only periods of a couple of years. That is exactly what I have stated repeatedly and consistently despite your attempts to portray my position otherwise.
Stranger
Deterrence tours for USN boomersare typically 3-4 months in duration. (Two alternating crews–Blue and Gold–are used to maximize time on patrol.) It is conceivable that a sub could operate for up to a year provided it had enough provisions, but in the end it would be trapped under the permanent and thickening layer of ice until forced to crush depth. The rate at which this would occur depends on a large number of factors, but given the poor thermal conductivity of water ice it would probably take a long time before oceans become cold enough–decades at least–before the ocean became hundreds of meters thick, and it is possible that thermal equilibrium with ocean vents and tidal friction might prevent the oceans from freezing completely.
Stranger
First I said that all we need to do is store enough fuel for the habitat / community.
Then you replied “fuels will evaporate or absorb water”. So it was clear to me you were making the absurd suggestion that we cannot make a water-tight container that could survive for centuries.
Now you’ve retreated back from that, but have the cheek to suggest I am being disingenuous.
So you cherry picked a single quote pulled out of context, persistently misstated my claims, ignored the attendant issue about whether machines (“gubbins” as you refer to them) can operate after decades or centuries in storage without extensive refurbishment and replacement of age-sensitive components, and generally fallen upon ad hominem and reductio ad absurdum rather than address the issues I put forth that would pose an unassailable challenge to any attempt to establish a shelter for “sustaining a small population, say a few thousand…for thousands of years”.
Who is trying to “win the Internet”?
Stranger
And still you won’t say what you actually meant by “fuels will evaporate or absorb water”.
What an adult might well do at this stage is say “OK, I take that part back, but I feel the rest of my argument still holds, because…”
And of course, yes, I did cherry-pick that example because it was the most egregious part of your argument, and showed you were just flailing around trying to find anything to support your assertion. But, if you concede that point we can move on to the rest of your argument.
Shit guys, this is such a good OP thread, including drift, let’s not make the mods want to bounce this.
So you continue with this asinine tangent so you can avoid my “flailing around to find anything to support [my] assertion”. For the record, [POST=1728202]you are the one who said[/POST] “Yes, you’re right, we can’t make an airtight container that would last long term,” it was you began this absurd argument, and you who engaged in insults by calling me ridiculous.
Yes, it is possible to create airtight containers. How you would store the millions of liters of fuel to sustain a population for [POST=17277957]“thousands of years”[/POST] I do not know and you have not explained or addressed, nor how you would maintain an environment, store or produce perishable goods, recycle air and water, keep equipment operable, et cetera for that duration, which is vastly beyond any prior experience.
Stranger
My apologies. Since I have become the focus for this vitriol, I’ll withdraw from the thread.
Stranger
I said you were being ridiculous. That’s an expression meaning your current behaviour, not a personal characteristic.
And if it’s an absurd argument, what is absurd about it?
You said stored fuels would leak or take on water, and the only interpretation I could see is that you were saying we can’t make an airtight container.
If I misinterpreted you, in what way did I?
(Yes, I noticed that Stranger On A Train says (s)he will withdraw from the thread. A pity if so. I accept that the tone was starting to escalate, but I would be happy to dial it back and continue. I personally loathe this kind of escalation).
The tital forces you mentioned upthread could provide enough volcanic activity to slow the freezing of the oceans. A sub could stay surfaced (provided the air isn’t toxic) until such time that ice surrounds it. If they stay, the sub gets crushed in ice; if they dive, the are trapped under the ice and will certainly die eventually. Unless they find a continuously volcanic area providing enough heat to keep the ice at bay. 