Colonizing the Kuiper Belt

We often discuss our future in the Asteroid Belt, and the glorious civilizations we might one day build there. However, it is but a pale shadow of its larger twin, the Kuiper Belt, out at the edge of the solar system.
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Credits:
Outward Bound: Colonizing the Kuiper Belt
Episode 397, June 1, 2023
Produced, Written & Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur
Editors:
David McFarlane
Graphics by:
Bryan Versteeg
Jeremy Jozwik
Ken York
Kristijan Tavcar
Sergio Botero
Music Courtesy of:
Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com/creator
Markus Junnikkala, "Hail The Victorious Dead", "A Memory of Earth"
Stellardrone, "Red Giant", "Ultra Deep Field"
Sergey Cheremisinov, "Labyrinth", "Forgotten Stars"
Taras Harkavyi, "Alpha and..."

[@ManiusCuriusDenatus]

You're killing me Isaac...About to start teaching my first period class in a few minutes and you post. Delayed gratification is important, but man you're killing me...

[@arglebargle42]

You have no idea how thrilled I am to know teachers are subbed here too.

[@andrewbogard2411]

Just curious what kind of class do you teach

[@ManiusCuriusDenatus]

​@@andrewbogard2411 Middle school U.S. History for the past 11 years. Next year 8th grade World Geography. Needed a change.

[@andrewbogard2411]

@@ManiusCuriusDenatus cool, I love history. I am currently a freshman in college. Hope you have a good day teaching your class

[@SpecialEDy]

​@@ManiusCuriusDenatus Thank you for all that you do, inspiring and forging the next generation of minds that will tend to the Earth and perhaps reach for the stars. You will move minds, and one day they will move worlds. Have an excellent Arthursday!

[@thentil]

As someone with a speech impediment (stuttering) i have to say how facking impressive it is that you've built a KZbin channel of this size. I cannot count the number of times I've let mine interfere with the things I've wanted to say or do. Your courage and perseverance is humbling.

[@chazsroczynski5666]

I remember at first I found it odd and maybe even a little off-putting, but now I couldn't listen to this vlog without it.

[@jaydub2546]

​@@chazsroczynski5666 I actually understand you there

[@bbbabrock]

​@@chazsroczynski5666 I am so used to it now and/or he has improved it so that on the occasion that I listen to someone else covering similar subject matter, I miss the inflection. I figure this guy can't be all that smart, since he just doesn't sound like Issac Arthur.

[@jimc.goodfellas226]

He has improved tremendously over the last few years...got to give him a lot of props

[@ashleydolin4292]

​@@jimc.goodfellas226 yeah he really has.

[@sevensins3584]

It disturbes me how big the solar system is.. hope you are recovering alright from your surgery!

[@gnaskar]

What disturbs me is that the solar system is so big, and there are so many other solar systems, all of which are on the same scale!

[@edstoutenburg3990]

Idk- for m self I think the scale of the Sol system-(what small amount humanity has 'probed'- litterally-so far)- is awe inspiring and yet very grounding vs size of Earth. The two Voyager probes launched in the mid /late 1970s have -Only- recently passed out of the Suns heliosphere. Probably...(The pioneer probe was shut down due to cost before that) The New Horizons probe is still moving thru ort cloud, but it was only this year that JPL has realeased the last (?) Of data it sent back from Pluto/charon mini system. Amazing once you get your head around it imho.

[@stevenpilling5318]

What interests me the most about the Kuiper Belt is the availability of water, carbon and (above all) nitrogen. That's what's needed in our development of the inner solar system.

[@commiedeer]

I find it reassuring. It means there's space to find or build countless wonders

[@sevex9]

@@edstoutenburg3990 Amazing indeed. How many generations has it been since discoveries by ship & sail were considered monumental? Now we have nuclear powered satellites on the frontier of discovery. What a time to be alive. Rock on brother and or sister.

[@scottthomas6202]

My guess is a Kuiper belt colony would use multiple power systems...if you're going to be that far out, you definitely want backups...

[@AFMR0420]

Back ups or redundancy? Also, steam vacuum drives seem perfect without arming all the miners with radioactive reactors (aka don’t give your slaves nukes).

[@floridaray3380]

Clean, safe nuclear is the wat to go

[@DreadX10]

That far out, your back-ups would want to have back-ups.....

[@HrHaakon]

with all that water, we could just run hydro power! (I'm joking, I'm joking)

[@jimflask1164]

It's just entertainment. Reality is much more simple. He is limited to only using technology he understands to make these videos. He will have to scrap all of it when he learns portal technology is very ancient and also we are billions of years behind in technological development in our solar system. We have people that never left. The advanced people from our past that left evidence we can only dream of reproducing. They are still here, leaving us in isolation for 12,000 years. Waiting for us to reach level 1 in our development. Pluto already has an installation on it and they even left the lights on for us. But NASA painted it out. Soon the truth will be as plain as day.

[@mailasun]

Now the Belters will have another kind of Belters, possibly the “Kuipers” to look down upon😅

[@bradhaaf4749]

So depressing knowing what we're capable of achieving compared to what humanity is currently engaged in..😢

[@harrymills2770]

Yes. We should be mining the asteroid belt and generating electricity in space, by now. But let's waste a bunch of money to go to Mars, instead of building a civilization that can visit Mars at will, by fully exploiting near space, zero g, and free energy.

[@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman]

It'll be like that until extinction

[@bobinthewest8559]

The main thing standing in our way is ego

[@theunknown8595]

Good. We shouldn't colonise space or exploit it.

[@smileyface6583]

@@theunknown8595Why not?

[@nunofoo8620]

Trillions of people? Imagine that.. Imagine writing a poem, putting it in a search engine, and finding out several people had already wrote the exact same thing.. What a dystopian world.

[@davidbrin1]

Colonization of the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud is a core element of HEART OF THE COMET, by Benford & Brin. Based largely on my PhD thesis!

[@1003196110031961]

Mr Arthur, I simply can’t get enough of your content. The amount of time you put into your videos is insane. Thank you so much 🙏🏻😀

[@ts25679]

When you mentioned building colonies into icebergs I just got a vision of the sci-fi Titanic impacting a berg habitat.

[@justanotherfella4585]

You should make that into a movie treatment.

[@LG-qz8om]

And the inhabitants of the berg drown.

[@cannonfodder4376]

Yet another fantastic video Isaac. Asteroids remain an underexplored topic in Sci-Fi and in futurism discussions in general. Always love your ability to shine light in such topics.

[@veramae4098]

Wait 'til more people hear about the gold asteroid.

[@spaceman081447]

Science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein among many others have been writing about asteroid habitats for decades.

[@thoreau283]

Best futuristic show on KZbin, hands down! Never change Isaac!

[@patrickmchargue7122]

Onward to the Oort cloud!

[@johnwang9914]

About the resources available in interstellar space as we know there are asteroids, comets, rogue planets and brown dwarves out there. Would there be enough for space habitats to survive? or would they only extend the effective range of generation ships and how would harvesting the resources affect the speed of a generation ship?

[@patrickmchargue7122]

@@johnwang9914 Given what resources are expected to exist in the interstellar medium, it would likely be no. Closer in toward the sun, however, there should be plenty of resources for any number of habitats. Colony ships would have to stock up on the way out, I think.

[@johnwang9914]

@@patrickmchargue7122 Well, something like an O'Neill cylinder would mostly be an entirely enclosed system so resources would really only be needed to manufacture another one and a single asteroid or comet and certainly a rogue planet would be enough resources to sustain such a habitat indefinitely. There may be not enough resources on average in the interstellar medium but just one Oumuamua would be a jackpot in resources and we know Oumuamua exists. It would be more of a lottery finding such resources but not finding one only means not building another habitat or generation ship.

[@patrickmchargue7122]

@@johnwang9914 We agree

[@SpecialEDy]

Happy Arthursday, my fellow thinking and feeling beings! The world is your oyster, your playground, your sandbox, as are the moons, the planets, the kuiper belt, and the stars. I can't wait to see what amazing places and things you will construct, the elegant order and structure you will bring to this beautiful and chaotic oasis we share.

[@sevex9]

Yeah I'm prettty spun rn too breh.

[@bbartky]

25:21 You gave me a bit of nostalgia there. 😀 I remember when I read Gerald O’Neil’s “The High Frontier” where he talked about using parabolic mirrors to build space colonies far beyond Pluto’s orbit.

[@robomonkey1018]

Ive never understood why most folks think that after we claw our way out of our gravity well we should go sit at the bottom of another one. Planets just aren't that useful to us without a huge leap in tech.

[@JonahRoyes]

Happy Arthursday I already have my drink and snack ready and I was waiting for it😅

[@Gauldame]

I know I shouldn't but when you got to the asteroid to asteroid ships, and the low escape velocity allowing for just physically shoving off the body I started chuckling. "Engage the YEET drive!" "YEET engaged" Just picturing this pogo stick like system is making me giggle more than it really should.

[@MailleGrace]

We need a yeet drive in a sci-fi show now. Just a technobabble mention in passing would be awesome. A schematic in the background would be glorious!

[@kenwelch198]

Now I can't stop thinking about Yeet drive powered ships 😂

[@lgjm5562]

Developed by Dr Yeet , founder of the Yeet institute.

[@JamesDecker7]

Read Seven Eves for a great hard scifi “YEET Drive”. Orbital mechanics for the win!

[@sallyforth9905]

Postal service in the Kuiper belt; load your package into a trebuchet and yeet it at your neighbour! XD

[@thewatcher3561]

Great episode, I've always like the outwards bound series ( colonising Ceres is my favourite, but they are all good!)... Never heard of Albion before, will have to look more into it 😀 Good luck with the surgery.

[@Elara_____]

Albion was until recently known as 1992 QB1, hence the term cubewano to designate one of the Kuiper Belt's group of objects.

[@thewatcher3561]

@@Elara_____ Yes, thanks for the info 😀

[@philbristow9972]

Thank you !!!! Another amazing topic, don’t ever stop. Love it !

[@arglebargle42]

Sincerely appreciate the travel and coms estimates at 18:30, it really puts the scale of our solar system into perspective. One question: Considering the extra mass bringing an icy rock along with you would add, wouldn't it be more efficient to use EM ramscoops in particle dense areas such as the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud?

[@boobah5643]

As I understand it, when somebody actually did the math (sometime in the early 80s) they discovered that you lose more speed collecting the fuel than you gain from burning it with a ramscoop. That doesn't make one entirely useless, but you can't tour the galaxy, much less beyond, with a ramship the way we once hoped. TANSTAAFL.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Maybe but the basic ramscoop option doesn't really work, as Boo Bah mentioned, you could use it to dra win fusion fuel at less than 1% of light speed and get positive thrust out of a hypothetical fusion reactor and some sort of ion drive but the specific bussard ramjet trick probably is only helpful for slowing down - which is still pretty handy.

[@bradleyadams4496]

Hawking probes throughout the Orion spiral arm and it's a great way to advance radio satellites and it allows future generations to know more about the system they may have the technology to visit. Just because you have the technology to visit, doesn't mean you should first thing, it may be that a richer system, further away from Alpha Sentaurii is more advantageous for first colony, and it ultimately accelerates two or more colonies.

[@claytonjones932]

Best episode in a while. Thanks for the great content!

[@jayrey5390]

Part 2 , 3 and so on please! Wonderful to hear your perspective.

[@harbl99]

"No, thank you. We don't want any more visitors, well-wishers, or distant relations." -- motto of the Distributed Misanthropic Republic of the Kuiper Belt, 28th century

[@swedichboy1000]

I do believe that it is in mankinds best interest to move towards a post-scarcity civilization. Most of the exploration and mining comes down to the notion of it being too expensive to implement, even though it would provide humanity with abundant resources and further our colonization of the solar system.

[@allhopeabandon7831]

So people should work for free and companies should give away their property for free as well? I don't understand your comment...it makes no sense. All of our technology was created in the pursuit of profit. There is a reason why so many break throughs come from America and not N. Korea, where your type of utopia is forced upon it's populace. Maybe you should defect there.

[@java4653]

Delusion

[@mm650]

First I am REALLY pleased to see Kuiper settlement being discussed seriously on KZbin! I do however, think that you needlessly focus upon large objects both in the asteroid belt and in the Kuiper belt. As a consequence of focusing upon such large objects you also focus needlessly upon the settlement of of their surfaces in the classical domes city concept. I urge you to consider a MUCH MUCH easier and more dynamic settlement paradigm: SMALL objects. And I mean REALLY SMALL... 5 meters, 10 meters, maybe as large as 50 meters. How can you colonize something smaller than a house, even smaller than you? The answer is simple: You use more than one. Here's why that can work: Big objects have three major interconnected downsides: They are (1) few in number. (2) Inevitably in orbits and trajectories that are less than ideal for the economic, social, and military needs of any human colonists. (3) Too big to maneuver easily or often. Small objects have their own downsides: namely that they don't contain much material, but that's not as big a downside as it sounds, and it can be engineered around much more easily than the downsides of large bodies. Because of the power law of sizes, there are a functionally infinite number of small bodies (that is,t you'll never run out). What this means is that you can, start with an orbital trajectory that is convenient and useful, say Near Earth Orbit where it is easy to construct things and you are partially shielded from radiation, and the communication lag to Earth is manageable, and then start gathering building materials selected from only the small asteroid bodies that are already on trajectories that are convenient to redirect to your construction grounds. (If you don't like NEO it doesn't matter, this basic principle works for anywhere that has a large background population of small bodies). Redirecting these objects is easy because (1) they are small, and (2) you can detect them while they are still vast distances from your construction grounds and thus require extremely tiny nudges to alter their trajectory to the one you need. I've run the numbers, and as an example, there ought to be a 5 meter wide asteroid passing within the orbital distance of the Moon to Earth at a velocity that, if it passed at the lowest altitude of LEO would allow for it to at least transiently be captured as a mini-moon of Earth about once a day.... Such an asteroid would not need to be slowed down or sped up, only it's angle of approach would need to be changed. It's spin would also probably have to be rectified. Now, combine that fact with the fact that propellant less thrust options like Zubrin's Dipole Drive, and Solar Sails, exist and you can imagine a fleet unmanned probes that detect candidate Near-Earth-Object asteroids long before that reach Earth, interrogate them remotely with lasers and emission spectroscopy, and radar, to determine composition density, size, mass, spin, and velocity, and then send redirect probes to alter the trajectory of only the small fraction with the most convenient properties to eventually be captured and delivered to your construction grounds. Then, once you have them, they get ground to fine powder and used as raw materials to build space habitat. These habitats are BETTER PLACES TO LIVE IN EVERY WAY!!!!! (1) Unlike a surface colony on a large body such a habitat provides full gravity and is thus much more healthy a place to live. This can be partially imitated with gravity trains on large objects, but it is a distinctly easier solution when the habitat is free-floating. (2)The space habitat is really a low-performance spaceship, and can thus be moved by default. If the colonists no longer want to be in close proximity to Earth they can LEAVE. (3)Unlike a subterranean colony on a large body, the walls of the habitat are made to specification in a factory. There is no chance that they will contain inclusions, or imperfections, or fissures, or unknown materials. Such a fully artificial construction represents a PROFOUNDLY less failure prone system! (4)Perhaps most important of all, this small body paradigm doesn't run out of opportunities to continue human expansion. There are only a small number of large bodies in the solar system... and once they are colonized... that's it. No more. The small body solution is functionally infinite. We touched on one aspect of that early: that one can afford to be hyper-selective of which bodies one harvests, but in the long run, this paradigm inevitably dominates simply because it exists in a field of never ending opportunity for expansion. In essence, this approach recognizes that a Dyson swarm is optimal from the beginning even at very low technology levels... planets and big bodies are a dead-end that we can simply skip. PS. Also, in discussion of fission based kuiper/interstellar thrust solutions, don't forget fission fragment rockets and Dipole Drives.

[@rarabbb]

Would just like to say thrusday is my favourite day of the week because two of my favourite shows airs and yours is one ❤

[@charlesblithfield6182]

I loved that movie Silent Running as a kid. I’m think it affected me deeply with its environmental and corporate control messages. The robots too were amazing, I think the actors in them were amputee Vietnam Vets.

[@justanotherfella4585]

Top movie.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yeah there was a pretty good article on the amputee actors in it that someone sent me the last time I lampooned the film in an episode, at the time I had just assumed they had used robots or muppets or some other special effect without really thinking '1971 tech'. The movie definitely effected me when I first watched it as a kid too, but was one of those that left me with headscratching and dissonance when I rewatched it some years back. It still has its god points though. cyberneticzoo.com/not-quite-robots/1971-silent-running-drones-doug-trumbull-don-trumbull-paul-kraus-james-dow-american/

[@charlesblithfield6182]

@@isaacarthurSFIA thanks for the cyberneticzoo link. It’s interesting Turnbull implied the environmental message was secondary, it’s a movie more about man machine relationships. BTW your content always impresses me, very well written, and I always learn a lot so thanks very much for that too.

[@joeblough4605]

Loved those robots, wanted one when I was young, still do!

[@andrewwilson2301]

Good luck with your surgery! Your voice is very important to a lot of people.

[@greggweber9967]

7:27 Problem with them is the cost of changing the orbital inclination to meet up without just whizzing by at an odd angle.

[@accelerationquanta5816]

Changing orbital inclination becomes less and less expensive the wider the orbit is.

[@peasant8246]

@@accelerationquanta5816 Indeed. "Children of the Dead Earth" taught me that.

[@jonathanhensley6141]

Another weekend listening to issac arthur. Need a civilization game where you have to colonize the entire stellar system before you expand into the milky way.

[@scrapsteenlifeintheforks1943]

I fricking love these colonization videos

[@morphtrust]

something that would be useful for transmission too would be way-stations where the beam is refocused to ensure it makes it to it's final destination intact enough to be useful, and could also be used for refueling or recharging stations for various travel methods too.

[@kocherfamily1257]

Thank you for the video!

[@MrFLUIZZLE]

Great thought provoking video. Thanks Issac

[@jasonburbank2047]

Whenever Isaac mentions a habitat wanting its "elbow room" I take that to mean they are doing something repulsive enough that neighbors would band together to stop them if it weren't for the distance.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

That is often what I'm thinking too, or that they find their main civilization repulsive.

[@rolnokay5057]

This is Great! Love it! Both yall keep it up!

[@davidmurphy563]

God, I haven't watched one of these in years. Used to tune in every week religiously.

[@joeblough4605]

Stumbled upon this video and your channel, really like it, nice work, I'll watch lots more. Thanks. Love the animations too, do you make them?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Some, but these days I personally focus more on the script and general production

[@Chad_Thundercock]

I feel like the phrase "or just use nukes to slow down", really encapsulates SFIA in a nutshell.

[@user-vq1bl7bi8c]

Love this channel

[@mrmxyzptlk8175]

Woke up to see a new Isaac Arthur video! It's like finding money in your pocket!!

[@sangeetanarendrasingh5416]

Can't believe this wasn't covered yet!

[@arglebargle42]

Space is vast and mysterious, most people don't even talk about the Kuiper belt but it really is humanity's best stepping stone to true interstellar travel. So much free material and energy just waiting to be turned into generation ships.

[@gkr2189]

Awesome video, tyvm for making these.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

You are very welcome :)

[@dawmanchannel2837]

love watching your videos❤

[@thelegion_within]

surprised this isnt an "outward bound" titled video - it's the same sort of thing (along with the Oort cloud)

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

It is listed on on the playlist, I just didn't think adding it to the main title served much point. :)

[@mannylugz5872]

And so the Beltalowdas begin!

[@pasikiiski]

Those blinking red/green navigating lights and beacons in gigantic spaceships looks really cool and shipshape! 😎👍

[@edwardsqbp]

I love his rich Southern accent when compared to all the prim & proper English narrative on other sponsored documentaries. Thanks for the information and presentation 👍

[@MrKago1]

its important to remember that a beam of light can be spread out and refocused. when you do this, it reduces the spread of the beam. since its spreading out naturally you could have giant focusing lenses that every time they refocused the beam, decreased its divergence. and it would also be possible to ad solar collectors to said lenses to pump the light being corrected.

[@rex69832]

That far out sunlight will be a real problem. A reliable power source will be a necessity. Could be interesting to live out that far. Would certainly be an adventure.

[@TheVoiceOfReason93]

I remember reading an article which calculated that colonising the Kuiper Belt as well as the rest of the Solar System could yield enough resources to support up to 4,000 trillion humans.

[@bigemugamer]

Great place to set up an early warning grid for any objects coming into our system.

[@joenunyabidnes6233]

Why aren't skyhooks seen as an option? Placed at Lagrange points or even in their own solar orbits, then ships could be flung from hook to hook until you reach where you want to be, all without using much onboard fuel. Not to mention no hella expensive super-powerful beam machines.

[@bob13513]

You're very good at supposition. You should make a video about what a technocracy might look like.

[@KaiserSoze212]

Best book I ever read hard sci fi was Dragons Egg. And the sequel was perfect. Truly magical and inspiring. Those kooky little 🐌

[@NikolaiManning]

Just as a general question, but are there any limiting issues with building above or below the orbital plane?

[@cpypcy]

Colonizing Oort Cloud i'll re-watch next.

[@martinwashington3152]

I've always wanted to use rings which allow for a tunnel of light to be directed through and collected from the exterior of the ring from lumens/thermals from sol creating a light pipe with further rings in much the same fashion as an optical repeater.

[@greggweber9967]

9:30 Low gravity means that if you are trying to accumulate things, it will be easier for them to bounce off and away.

[@ibro796]

9:32 funniest spaceship in the history of mankind.

[@earlosandwich7433]

This is unsettling.

[@DivineMisterAdVentures]

YES!! Great stufffffff.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@airborneranger-ret]

Nice topic - isn't that where the aliens hang out (Heinlein, have space suit, will travel)? :)

[@wbrennan2253]

I seem to remember the base on Pluto was an advance post with the lunar base a scouting point. Mother Thing's people were from Vega and the Galactic Council was in one of the Lesser Megellanics.

[@airborneranger-ret]

@@wbrennan2253 I seem to recall that you are correct in what you seem to recall.

[@jaikumar848]

Hi Isaac arthur ! Which one will come first in human history ? Mining from asteroid or mining from deep earth ( mental or core of earth )

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Id say asteroids but a lot depends on which technologies arrive first

[@tturi2]

which would be easier 🤔

[@hyrumhanson3390]

Currently, asteroids however tec for deep mining is likely to be a upcoming by product of the nation's investing in large geothermal power plants.

[@tenminuteretreat807]

Have you done an episode on first attempts to mine the near earth asteroids? If not, that could be very occurring.

[@markmulligan571]

Asteroid belt, Kuiper, Oort: training wheels of bicycle novice humanity.

[@TheEyez187]

Be interesting to search the older bodies of the Kuiper belt for early signs of life or their composite components. The large number of them means there's potential, each being a separate entity that if they once shared such single cell life, it would be possible to see many varying evolutions. The chance is probably slight, but if the panspermia theory is correct then those chances would certainly not be zero. But first, Europa; though after watching 'The Europa Report' found footage film I'd now have some trepidation in going to find out! an excellent film worth a watch if you're into space (obviously since you're here) and horror.

[@chrisgriffith1573]

Thinking about mining out in the Kuiper Belt... the mining process would need for a total enclosure around the asteroid, to keep any dust or grains of sand, rock or other debris from escaping into space to later become missiles later. Its bad enough after billions of years of collisions out there, but if we just went out there hacking into giant rocks in orbit around the solar system, this could get to be a huge problem rather quickly.

[@Hunterxii]

Favorite KZbin channel and spofity channel

[@Christian85595]

Man i freaking love Elmer fudd explaining me some astro physics and astro engineering

[@emilysoda4689]

Okay, I have a couple ideas: History of futurisim (essentially, what did people think now would be like like?) Types of timetravel (the rules of Timetravel are diffrent for diffrent fictional universes, and what would be the unintended applications of each) Von Neiman probe design (how would a von Neiman probe look, if we built it with modern technology?) Containing AI (If it's just not possible to make safe AI, what would be some methods of containing it and getting it to do useful work for scociety without also inadvertently letting it hurt scociety)

[@TravisLawrence12]

Living in the Kuiper Belt would be vastly depressing.

[@MaconMedia]

Happy #Arthursday!!!

[@mill2712]

16:06 How to colonize without fusion.

[@williamburroughs9686]

Now I got to see if you have a video on the propulsion that would be used. I am hearing that it will take months just to get to Mars but you are talking about reaching the belt in just 18 days?

[@tturi2]

excellent video

[@user-lq9oi5jq3n]

Awesome.

[@kaylebtennant3317]

Eris would be a pretty great send-off point given its weird orbit.

[@eitkoml]

What do you think of the possibility that Charon is actually a mass relay that is encased in ice and would connect humans to a series of mass relays enabling quick transportation around the entire galaxy on a timescale that humans can easily handle?

[@flashraylaser157]

What evidence is there of this?

[@johno1544]

​@@flashraylaser157 none a mass relay is made up fiction from a video game

[@bclapp2483]

why go all the way to charon? Our moon is a giant space station that has gained a few feet of dust over the aeons :)

[@username-jc2tp]

Best wishes, Isaac :)

[@kevinscott7292]

What about a chain of Newton's Cradle ships? If you have a chain of ships regularly departing and returning to a location, an incomming ship could transfer its momentum to a stationary ship (either physically, or via tractor beam, or gravitationally if big enough, etc). This would solve the wastefulness of constantly acceletating and braking each ship. You would have a literal Newtons Cradle of ships at either end of the supply chain

[@markjohn4203]

Wow. Nice work Isaac. This was quite inspirational ! 🥹

[@glennscott8622]

Stellar exploration of near future expansion aside from Martian-centric. 👏

[@learning7979]

Hey Isaac I wanted to ask if you would incorporate more equation into your vedios because a mathematical relation rrally helps me grasp why are we doing things a particular way and with your narrating abilities i think you can make it interesting.

[@TraditionalAnglican]

Most of us couldn’t understand the kind of math needed to explain the concepts…

[@SCh1m3ra]

That would likely require a supercompilation involving the math. He's dove into portions scattered among the videos, but it would take a minute to genuinely go over the concepts and falls a bit outside of his usual production.

[@captrodgers4273]

i think the future space settlements will be lots of space stations......particularly oneil cylinders since we can spin them to simulate earth gravity...i think stations close to each other will have connecting cable systems to run transport cars between them to transfer people and goods between them

[@madguy8485]

I hope Neptune drags out some new Kuiper belt friends for us to meet really soon.

[@mbarker_lng]

The is interesting because the Kuiper Belt is probably the furthest object(s) we can reasonably colonize barring some kind of "Eureka!" breakthrough in propulsion/warp technology. Even a lumbering world-ship to a distant star is effectively a one-way journey fraught with peril and uncertainty.

[@TraditionalAnglican]

Isaac has discussed fleets of large (4 km diameter x 30 long) traveling at 5 to 10% of the speed of light, which would be well within the capability of a post-scarcity civilization that’s colonized the Kuiper Belt & the Oort Cloud.

[@hugoandre96]

11:25 just noting that the first ship's wing clips through the mountain

[@MrAndrewAllen]

At 9:51, Mr. Arthur says "Because the Sun and inner planets are all downhill, in gravitational terms, you can throw mined matter back into the Solar System at low cost." How does being uphill or downhill matter? There is no significant friction. You can not apply the brakes to slow down and fall inwards. You need to use Newton's laws (equal and opposite reactions) to move anything. If anything I would think that solar wind helps you go uphill easier than going downhill.

[@zharyel9890]

+100 Vespene Gas

[@SeminarChauffeur]

Early gang yoo! Also, when objects beyond Neptune gets discussed, I always imagine using one of those far-flung objects, like that proto-planet Sedna, as my personal cryo-storage locker, for everything from frozen food, to data media, and other stuff I want preserved for many thousands for years and are okay with being stored near absolute zero. 😂

[@navilandinator4479]

How about the Oort Cloud & or Hills Cloud? But still, woww

[@johnphamlore8073]

Isaac, again, I am shocked I don't recall hearing any mention of the book The Millennial Project (1992) by Marshall Savage that discusses many of these ideas.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Mostly because Savage wasn't the first to discuss them, and by the time I read his book, all those ideas were old hat to me, albeit probably often from folks referencing it to me without naming it. It's a good book but not an influence on the channel, so I don't tend to think to reference it.

[@aluminiumsloep]

Txs for helping me sleep again..

[@brettcrawford8878]

A good chance Kuiper belt would be a good area to build an interstellar space dock for Alien craft to port themselves. If it was ever built in the past its purpose would have been to get to planet with best chance of supporting life in solar system which could help to guess its location possibly. More advanced space telescopes might help in process of looking for such things in the future. There is the possibility such facilities if allready built could be abandoned for millions of years just needing viable powerplants and supplies to be made operational. Distances involved would mean substandard propulsion systems would not make it worthwhile to send a person there to investigate as they could easily die of old age before getting back to planet of origin.

[@sarcasmo57]

I want to go out there, and then farther.

[@davidkleinman5002]

How about something on colonising the planets around Bernards Star? I have had a real interest in the system since reading "On Basilik Station" by David Weber. Being the closest star after the Trisolaran Home worlds it will be in our more near future than most other suns...

[@stakantube]

Distant worlds 2 best x4 strategy in space. also it looks nice. good for background footage