[Thought Experiment] Evacuating Earth/the Solar System with Fenspace tech

[Tennie]

This was inspired by a National Geographic Channel docudrama called Evacuate Earth, which itself was essentially a dramatization of a thought experiment.  The premise was that a neutron star is detected and it is soon learned that it will impact the Earth in 75 years.  Earth, and everything on it, will not survive such an impact.  Humanity has no way to prevent the impact.  The only option left: evacuate Earth for another planet.

The problems to be faced are:
(1.) Where do we go?  The neutron star is going to wreak havoc with the Solar System for somewhere between one and two centuries, which will make the entire system unsafe for humanity to live in.  The only other option is to find an Earth-like exoplanet and colonize it.  However, we first have to find such a planet, then determine whether it would actually be livable for humans.
(2.) How would we get there?  Until now, only a few humans have been to space, and none much further than the Moon.  Now we're going to have to take a large number of people out of the Solar System entirely--which won't be an easy task.  It'll require the use of new technology, much of which had heretofore remained mainly in the theoretical stage, in order to make it happen.  And remember, we have a deadline of less than a century...
(3.) Who should go?  Given that we're going to have to push the limits of technology very far in a short time, we most certainly cannot move everyone off of the Earth.  Indeed, we won't be able to get even one tenth of one percent of the human population off of Earth in time.  In addition, there are a number of other complications to deal with: figuring out how many people could be taken to allow the genetic survival of the human race, identifying people who (for various reasons) could pose a risk to themselves/others (and would thus be unable to go), providing food and water for large numbers of people for the long length of time it would take to get to a destination, etc.

In the show, it is ultimately decided to build a generation ship using a design similar to a Stanford torus, which holds 250,000 people on board and is powered by an Orion-type drive that accelerates the craft to 0.07c.  The destination chosen is an Earth-like planet found orbiting Barnard's Star, around 80 years' travel time from Earth.

Now, for our own take on that thought experiment:
Let's say that, sometime in the 2010s in the Fenspace verse (Fenverse?), a neutron star is spotted and its trajectory plotted, which reveals that it will hit the Earth in 75 years.  Keep in mind the same problem in that the Solar System will become a dangerous place for humanity until the neutron star has safely left, and that this will not be for another 150-200 years or so.  However, Fenspace has technology that will allow far more people to leave, as well as colonies already set up on other exoplanets by this time.

So now the questions become:
(1.) Can we evacuate everyone that's still in the Solar System, within three-quarters of a century or less?
(2.) If not, then what is the maximum number that we can save in time?
(3.) Can the colonies we've already set up elsewhere be able to support so many refugees?
(4.) If not, then can those habitable planets that we've not yet colonized be able to support those that the already-established colonies cannot?

Let's try to find out the answers to these questions...

[Dartz]

The solution isn't to evacuate earth - it's to deflect the neutron star.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Rajvik]

I think we can assume that there is no real way to redirect the star.

First problem is that there are going to be people who are going to refuse to leave. It's all a gubermint/fen conspiracy, we're not abandoning the 5000 years of our history, not willing to leave to the "barbarians" what they have taken by blood. These are all arguments that would be used against the resetlement of people without even gitting into hot political issues. Then also you wpuld have to screen for people who were willing to build civilization from scratch.
 

[HRogge]

If someone wants to watch it (don't expect TOO much ^^), Youtube declared this video with the "Official" tag:


I think with Fenspace tech they would have a good chance to evacuate the whole Solar System... and they have already a couple of other systems where they could go. Build up infrastructure for the evacuation and on the target planet for a decade or two, then start pumping out huge transporter ships (while still increasing the total infrastructure).

I do not think Fenspace has the tech to deflect an object with 2-3 times the mass of the sun, so leaving the Solar System might be the only choice for survival. The gravity of the neutron star will wreck havoc with all planetary orbits anyways, so there is no point in "coming back two centuries later".

[robkelk]

As long as we're not expecting to see the planets in their current orbits anyway...

Move the Earth.

Take the drive-of-choice from the Whole Fenspace Catalog, build a honking-great mass of them, and install them on a framework built around the planet. Also install a sun-analog on that framework (for day/night cycles during the trip), plus enough gravity-generators to keep the planet centered in the framework. When everything's set, launch the planet out of the Solar System and to the nearest system not on the neutron star's path.

Do the same to Luna, Mars, and Ganymede - they all have populations big enough to make it worthwhile.

Abandon Venus - the Crystal Cities can fly under their own power. Likewise, evacuate L3, L4, and L5 by flying the stations out.

The other settlements... if we have time, move the rocks. If we don't, build a few Island Two stations (maybe stretch them like Genaros) for the inhabitants and move those.

Then, in a few decades, we can move the planets back. The stations might move back, or they might stay in the "shelter" system, or they might head even further Out - their choice, and I'm sure all three options will be exercised.

(EDIT: Yes, I have been thinking about this off and on, ever since http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ ... ks/1042601]Mal asked how to do it.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

Move the Earth.

I am sceptical that this kind of power will be available for the Fen in the near future... moving a couple of billion people sounds more realistic.

[Bob Schroeck]

We don't need to move the planet -- just chunks of it. We have spindizzy tech, after all. Do a Disneyworld-sized land buy in an area with acceptable real estate prices, and do it the same way Disney did -- with a million little front companies to keep people from realizing what we're up to and jacking their prices. Build colonly infrastructure while taking applications and screening potential colonists. Set up a local Net with lots and lots of storage, slurp the Internet and every digital library you can reach, buy what you can't get for free, copy or buy artworks, etc. Assuming no budgetary problems, you could probably create a super-Grover's Corners in ten years or less, and fill it with upwards of a million people and still have room for farming -- or go wavetech replicators for all food and put several million in the thing. Just one such colonly would be more than enough to maintain genetic diversity and the history of human achievement -- but make several, in different parts of the world, and get redundancy in the records and more cultural diversity.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[HRogge]

We don't need to move the planet -- just chunks of it. We have spindizzy tech, after all. Do a Disneyworld-sized land buy in an area with acceptable real estate prices, and do it the same way Disney did -- with a million little front companies to keep people from realizing what we're up to and jacking their prices. Build colonly infrastructure while taking applications and screening potential colonists. Set up a local Net with lots and lots of storage, slurp the Internet and every digital library you can reach, buy what you can't get for free, copy or buy artworks, etc. Assuming no budgetary problems, you could probably create a super-Grover's Corners in ten years or less, and fill it with upwards of a million people and still have room for farming -- or go wavetech replicators for all food and put several million in the thing. Just one such colonly would be more than enough to maintain genetic diversity and the history of human achievement -- but make several, in different parts of the world, and get redundancy in the records and more cultural diversity.

Yeah, a couple of million "Living Estates" sounds more realistic...

becoming more efficient with larger mass doesn't mean you need less energy to move more mass... just that you need less energy per kilogram. And Earth still is an awful lot of mass unnecessary to rescue everyone.

[Tennie]

I'm imagining basically a mass exodus involving pretty much everything that could be thrown at the problem of getting people out of cissolar space: fleets of Living Estates that would be essentially Grover's Corners on steroids, space stations that are equipped with 'wavium drives (and more that may have to have such drives retroactively fitted if they don't have them already), even down to individual personally-owned 'waved vehicles (which might or might not make a resurgence in popularity, depending on whether 'Danelaw is changed in order to allow individuals to 'wave their vehicles in the hopes of getting even more people off the Earth in time).

Additionally, I wouldn't be surprised if at least a few Fen get blue-hair days and attempt to develp ways to deflect or even destroy the neutron star.  Now, destroying it is pretty much out of the question: even if a workable way to destroy a neutron star was found in time, actually using it poses the risk of causing far more damage than leaving the damn thing intact would.  Blowing it up would lead to so much energy being unleashed that you can kiss goodbye all life within at least several dozen light years, let alone cissolar space (which could easily be one of the biggest and most spectacular Darwin Award nominees of all time)!

Deflecting it, on the other hand, would pose less of a risk of causing a mass-extinction event, but the engineering challenge could very well tax resources and inventiveness to their limits.  One way to divert a neutron star might involve a process similar to a real-life proposal for deflecting dangerous asteroids, albeit on a larger scale: essentially, place an object close enough to the target that its own gravitational field starts to cause the target to drift ever so slightly off course.  Add in a few fast-moving objects slingshotting close by to help rob the neutron star of momentum, and you could get a fairly decent change in velocity after a while.  However, you'd need to take into account a huge number of variables, many of which could potentially set back the efforts by dangerous margins.  In addition, the timescale required to make it work may turn out to be far too long for it to actually be practical under the time constraint.

Nonetheless, I'd imagine, that there'd be at least a few Fen(1) who may give it a try...

(1) And I wouldn't be surprised if the Professor was among that number.  After all, it sounds like the kind of thing that'd be right up his alley...