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"Super-Earth" planets are giant-size versions of Earth, and some research has suggested that they're more likely to be habitable than Earth-size worlds. But a new study reveals how difficult it would be for any aliens on these exoplanets to explore space.
To launch the equivalent of an Apollo moon mission, a rocket on a super-Earth would need to have a mass of about 440,000 tons (400,000 metric tons), due to fuel requirements, the study said. That's on the order of the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
"On more-massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive," said study author Michael Hippke, an independent researcher affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany. "Such civilizations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission or a Hubble Space Telescope."
https://www.space.com/40375-super-earth-exoplanets-hard-aliens-launch.html
[Also Covered By]: GIZMODO
[Paper]: Spaceflight from Super-Earths is difficult
[Related]: 10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life
(Score: 5, Insightful) by choose another one on Tuesday April 24 2018, @07:39AM (13 children)
> perhaps there are other technologies than chemical rockets they could use to overcome gravity instead and might eventually discover.
Yeah, the biggest hole in the article is that it assumes intelligent aliens living on alien (non-earthlike) planets would develop technology along the same lines as earthlings and then get awfully frustrated that it didn't work in their environment. Why assume that intelligent aliens would not have _alien_ technology?
(Score: 5, Touché) by qzm on Tuesday April 24 2018, @10:05AM (2 children)
Nuclear rockets.
We developed them, but not to use due to primarily to politics (not sure to radiation, investigateme designs are very clean, and most are cleaner than true open air testing we did do).
This appears to be yet more 'science' since by people with no ability to investigate or research outside their starting assumptions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday April 24 2018, @04:44PM
> This appears to be yet more 'science' since by people with no ability to investigate or research outside their starting assumptions.
Silly humans. One day you might understand how to properly use a Higgs Field Crawler and stop letting gravity keep you down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24 2018, @08:17PM
You build a plain old fission reactor, fueled with uranium or plutonium. The cooling system is open; the goal is in fact to boil the coolant at minimum. The coolant is chosen to produce exhaust containing simple molecules (few degrees of freedom to steal energy) that have low molecular mass.
Hydrogen is great. The mass is 2, or 1 if you heat it enough to make it monoatomic.
Helium is great. The mass is 4. It is already monoatomic, which reduces degrees of freedom.
Helium-3 is as above, but a mass of 3.
Methane, nitrogen, water, cyanide, hydrogen fluoride, lithium, carbon monoxide, and ammonia are other choices. Some of them would be made monoatomic. The seemingly toxic ones might be perfectly fine for alien life forms, not that you can be fussy when trying to launch a rocket.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 24 2018, @12:47PM (9 children)
This "article" was pretty heavily covered in the Niven Known Space series by multiple authors. When a species gets into space is heavily dependent upon the technical challenges of getting into space from their planet. Thus, the less socially developed - more war-like races come from smaller gravity wells. Yeah, it's a lot of assumption, but it makes a great deal of sense that a highly technically challenging planet to leave will require cooperation of more or less the whole planet to do it, while an easy world could have multiple competing factions all independently launching and continuing their competition in space.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday April 24 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
So, what you're saying is we're an easy world and we can expect WWIII to be "In Space!!!". We're definitely don't have the whole planet cooperating as a whole to achieve space flight. Our space program was actually brought about by competition with a potentially hostile force.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 24 2018, @10:16PM
Not really. We were close to using space as a battleground in the Cold War, but... at this point in time, if we were to make a battleground of space we'd just be trashing Trillions of dollars of investment in navigation, communication and surveillance satellites - and I think the business interests of the world are powerful enough to prevent the politicians from doing that. Putting up shrapnel in a counter-directional orbit at geo-stationary altitude is not the same thing as bombing a rice patty or the desert - making geostationary un-usable would be like salting all the wheat and corn fields of the American Midwest.
I think we have enough global social cohesion to keep from slugging it out throughout the solar system, but the future may prove me wrong.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 24 2018, @05:30PM (6 children)
The more war-like races probably can't live or fight well in the higher gravity environments of the less war-like races.
The less war-like races, having overcome higher technical challenges, probably know how to build better weapons and defenses.
The more advanced race might have done away with marketing, advertising, lawyers and politicians in the sense that we think of such.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 24 2018, @10:21PM (5 children)
You (and I) would hope so, but I think that marketing, advertising, lawyers, national defense forces, etc. are just as much a sign of an advanced society as particle accelerators, telescopes, and entertainment. If you're just scraping by, you can't afford all that crap. I would wish that we could focus our efforts in such a way that marketing, advertising and lawyers were mostly unneeded and unwanted, but we're still all going in too many different directions at once; which is healthy, from a diversity perspective, but disappointing from the perspective of what we could accomplish if we would all just agree to do it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:56PM (4 children)
Think marketing / advertising versus search.
Does not scale: every single vendor in the world with a product to sell gets to put an ad in front of YOUR eyes. More than once. (Oh, and gets to call you during dinner time. And gets to erect a billboard on every road. Etc.)
Does scale: when you want something, you search for it. Results include reviews, comparisons, vendor websites, etc.
I think an advanced civilization would not need so much marketing / advertising as we have today. When I suddenly realize that I need house siding, I can find it and who sells it.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 25 2018, @06:27PM (3 children)
Some Sci-Fi flop of a movie I watched had a "aliens take over all the humans" basis, after they had control they kept all the stores, etc., but they were just marked as "Store" and people just walked in and took plain brown wrapper with simple label products as they needed them from the shelves, no payments.
Makes sense, not sure that people are wired to ever be able to work that way.
The innundation of crap that _still_ arrives at my mailbox every day is unbelievable... I'm pretty sure that more is spent on the paper that reaches us every year than we spend on products advertised in that paper, certainly more than we were influenced to buy by that paper, since almost all of it hits the trash can as soon as we're sure that nothing important got buried inside.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 25 2018, @08:54PM (2 children)
People could probably deal with not paying. Taking products that are wrapped in plain brown paper.
People will still have preferences. But probably not Brand preferences.
Do you want the Cherry Flavor or Orange Flavored . . . Brawndo! The Thirst Mutilator! It's Got Electrolytes. (Or without electrolytes)
Do you want the restroom tissue with Ronald Rump's face, or Killary Flinton's face?
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 25 2018, @09:37PM (1 child)
Funny you should mention this - I saw a Trump-Pence logo bumper sticker today and had the very same thought.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 27 2018, @06:47PM
I was referring to two hypothetical people. Not actual people. :-)
yeah, right
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