Posted on 03/18/2012 7:30:40 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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Instead of a radio signal from a extraterestrial intelligence it would be a LOT damned scarier to find evidence of active stellar engineering going on.....
How do you fight against THAT?
Now that would be man-made global warming.
The problem is that there are a lot of scientific visionaries who think that everything is possible. I just don’t buy it.
I don’t think that’s a problem, but I don’t see how enough material would be available (and that’s ignoring the problem of actually using it to build with) in a given system to build a shell around the star — but millions of miles away from it of course.
If there’s a colonizing civilization, they might (ignoring the problem again) pick a red dwarf to save time and material. But again, that assumes there’s sufficient material around a smaller star.
They’d be so busy trying to fill up just one such structure (after taking who knows how much time to actually build it) with themselves, it’s not likely to become a problem. Also, if they had interstellar capability, they wouldn’t need to build such a structure. IOW, whether such structures exist or not seems like a good test for two mutually exclusive questions.
1) if there’s no evidence of any of these structures, either A) there’s might be no intelligent life to build it, or B) the intelligent life hasn’t had time to build it, or C) the intelligent life hasn’t had need to build it, or D) the intelligent life has interstellar capability.
Okay, that’s one question. I’m sure there are more possible options.
The problem would become cooling — and that’s give or take having an Electric Sun.
It seems as if every time I go to the store, all I see are the Kardashev sisters on the covers of every tabloid.
What gets me a little angry is how many scientists use the basis for comfort relating to alien species is what is good for humans and Earth biota. Oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, about one AU away from the star, and liquid water. Remember War of the Worlds, and how those aliens died from our diseases? It seems to me that nobody ever thinks that what aliens might find on this planet may kill them.
There are aquatic organisms that live on the bottom of the ocean, where arsenic is found and guess what... they’re still alive. For all we know, aliens could live on a planet like that, and then breathing an oxygen atmosphere could subsequently kill them; not because arsenic isn’t present necessarily, but maybe because they’d have an allergic reaction to any elements in our atmosphere.
But almost everything is indeed possible. Just because we’re not yet capable of creating a Dyson sphere or a space elevator, doesn’t mean that other species haven’t done it. There’s also the issue of routine space travel and even space warfare. Just because everything before being sent into space is static clean, doesn’t mean it has to be for anything else. I frankly think the effort into cleanliness is a little much.
I think you saw the Kardashev Scale mentioned and interposed that with Kardashian.
The first one is obvious, Ringworld by Larry Niven; a gigantic ring rotating around a white dwarf star. The second one is the Citadel from the Mass Effect series of video games, and that construction was made by a race ancient and extinct compared to the ones that occupy it, including humans.
ooh, I’m tempted to post the text here, or as another topic...
"Aye, an actual Dyson Sphere... Can you imagine the engineering skills needed to even design such a structure?"
“n advanced civilization inhabiting a solar system might break up the planets into very small planetoids or pebbles to form a loose shell that would collect all the light coming from the star. The shell of planetoids would vastly increase the available “habitable” area and absorb all of the visible light. “
Moties?
Trek.fm - Captain's Log - Just My Type: Kardashev Civilizations in Star Trek and Beyond
That’s because the Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable! ;’)
Yeah, I did it on purpose. Wanna know why? ;’)
That’s why the ETs are always wearing similar-looking encounter suits when they visit our surface.
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