Colonizing Ganymede 

Author's note: at 13:30 we've got an 'oops'. On-screen it shows Helium-3, but with one proton and 2 neutrons on the image, that would be hydrogen-3 or Tritium, He-3 would be two protons and a neutron. I'm gonna blame that one on being busy getting ready for the ISDC, though the slide is from an older episode so that's more of 'failed to catch the error again' :)

Great example is the Expanse. Huge agricultural domes powered by orbital mirrors, and underground living facilities. In that universe, its the safest place to birth and raise children off-earth, though still not better than earth!

Drinking Ganymead on Ganymede

Cool. This reminds me of an old short story "Christmas on Ganymede". In that story Ganymede had an indigenous population that funnily enough was described as "they can speak English but when they do that you wish that the couldn't". Yes the story was meant as comedy. I just checked on Wikipedia. Apparently written by Isaac Asimov. The article says written 1940 and published 1942.

For us old timer nukes, that 0.08 Sieverts figure for radiation on the surface of Ganymede is equivalent to 8 Rem per day. While not lethal short term, that's a pretty strong dose. For comparison, after working in nuclear for decades I've only had a total recorded cumulative dose of maybe half that. I could get my lifetime occupational dose on the surface of Ganymede in half a day probably. It won't kill you but do that enough times and you likely have cancer in your future. Heavily shielded or underground habs would be a must for colonization.

I have sort of a soft spot for Ganymede. Ever since an obscure scifi story from the early 80s mentioned Ganymede as being colonized by my ethnic group. I was so happy! We made it! We have a world to ourselves! Someone recognized us as worthy of that! It's an irradiated rock 2.4 times smaller than the Earth, but I'm not asking for much! Just enough space to build our dome cities or arcologies and grow our numbers! Come to Ganymede and stay awhile! The restaurant and bakeries are awesome!😋

I'd go with Callisto just because it's farther from the radiation belt.

I wonder why Callisto wouldn't be picked instead, as a "crown jewel" of Jupiter. Also rich in water and various resources, far enough from Jupiter that radiation is even lower (even taking Ganymede's magnetic field into account), and its outer orbit might be a bit easier for ship transit purposes. While also making a good base to exploit the rest of Jupiter from.

Pleased to ganymeet you!

Love your colonizing episodes. Love your world builder approach. I love a good story. I never get tired of listening one. Thanks!

Ganymede seems like a good place to set up some agricultural domes. I'm sure nothing bad could happen.

Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky and Benford's Against Infinity are my favorite novels set on Ganymede. I haven't read Poul Anderson's Snows of Ganymede but I'd like to.

Would be interesting to discuss colonizing Callisto for comparison, as it has slightly lower size and gravity but is less irradiated thanks to being completely outside of Jupiter's radiation belt, while Ganymede is not, and as mentioned here has lower escape velocity.

Farmer in the sky... But on Callisto, where the surface dose is lower, there's plenty of easily accessible ore bodies in the craters, etc.

From Ganymede to Titan, yes sir I've been around 🎵

This is a true story. Way back in high school one day we all gathered together on campus near a tree and decided to make Maddie, our strange classmate, that we were far in the future and living on Ganymede having sparked fusion on Jupiter and migrated humanity out there. We were celebrating our 50 year class reunion, that's how we all came to be together in a perfect replica of our old high school back on Earth. Maddie fell for it and was disoriented the whole rest of the day being completely unable to remember his class schedule. Sometimes Maddie ingested certain molecules that he, and anyone, probably shouldn't. Bear in mind that the aforementioned 50 year class reunion will be next year and we knew very little about Ganymede since the Voyager spacecraft had not yet arrived at the Jupiter system, and would not for several more years. Yes, I'm pretty old by now but avoided ingesting dangerous molecules for the most part and still have a functional brain. Mostly.

i think low gravity is very unhealthy for us - we need cylinders. it would make a good mining source but not long term living.

I support colonising Ganymede.

Ganymede is the true test for whether or not humanity can reach for the stars. If we can make it there, then we can make it on a lot of different worlds.

I kinda wonder what sort of damage Terra-forming our moon might have on planet Earth. I would think the differences of Sunlight due to the atmosphere of the moon might come into play in some way. A lot of biology is wired for moonlight. What happens if we toyed with that?

Jupiters moons, Callisto and all the ones further out, are going to be a massive empire one day. I can see Ganymede, Europa and Io being used for resources and production….i just think they’ll be more automated due to all the radiation. I mean, up until there are underground Silo style compounds reaching down into the sun surface oceans…… Man, someone make a KSP style colony game with real physics and all the known Jovian moons with a accurate radiation belt already lol Thank you so much for another Jupiter system colony episode!!!!!

When i think about the galilean moons, i think about ship building yards for some reason.

The first book I ever read in English was Farmer in the Sky, so Ganymede has always had a special place in my imagination

Any elemental accounting associated with colonization to me seems a little insufficient without a discussion on phosphate.

Isaac, I’d love to hear your thoughts on atomic printing. Especially if that leads into the ability to deconstruct existing materials down to fundamental particles and rebuild them with different atomic weights. This would essentially simplify many of the challenges in this episode as you’d be able to print medicines and volatile materials as necessary. Even if it was painfully slow, you could print more printers to speed the manufacturing process up.

So long as we avoid awakening the shadow vessel

Man, Callisto is beautiful.

I love your content and it's often played while I work on stuff. Your voice reminds me of an old friend.

This channel is still inexplicably under subscribed.

Happy #Arthursday!!!!

I have heard that Callisto is the best option for colony in Jupiter's moons

Callisto would be better. Specialized RTG craft could assist in diverting other carefully selected small moons around Jupiter to add to the mass of Calisto, as there's lots to choose from. Mass drivers on other moons could send select materials to Callisto. More mass, more ability to hold an atmosphere, protect from radiation and protect from micro meteorites, and make it easier for human and other organism health.

One thing to note about electrical current, amperage has a much greater effect than voltage when it comes to lethality.

Loved the video. You always do a excellent job

We would definitely need some type of artificial gravity. It would probably will just end up being a mining operation for water ice .

Your videos are the highlight of my week.

Because of what that comet chasing probe found with the airogell wings, the moons will have organic material to use.

ThankQ Issac Another Imagination Teasing Episode 😋

If you'd like to build some interstellar highway networks from Lunar to Ganymede to save time for next Jupiter meeting, why not? But before you launch Ganymede settlements establishment, preparing to meet your new galactic neighbors at their bases and spaceports on the Ganymede. Good luck bro, Sol system development projects will bringing surprises in this century.

Really fun, and lovely scenario at the end. Thank you.

A video about nuclear pulse propulsion would be cool!

Hey Isaac Arthur, because of your space interests and covering all kinds of space related topics, I'd recommend to you checking out both Talk pages that are respectively associated to the Fermi Paradox and the space colonization Wikipedia pages, and in the latter case the very bottom part.

Gregory Benford wrote ''Against Infinity'' about humanity's attempts to colonize Ganymede. However an ancient alien (robotic) entity, the Aleph, tries to counter this...

If there is a discussion about floating platforms in the Venus atmosphere, why can the same concept not be used in Jupiter and Saturn?

Heinlein wrote about this - "Farmer in the Sky"

My favorite Moon ❤

16:07 gives me "Aww sheeeit... Here we go again." vibes 😂

Interestingly in Babylon 5 the earthgov was trying to liberate a shadow vessel from the surface of Ganymede and of course when the thing went crazy it destroyed the surface domes. Thank goodness Sheridan already there waiting for it

Callisto is my favorite moon, it would be fascinating to see your take as well on that one! I say we colonize all of the four major moons of Jupiter! ❤🚀 🌝

17:10 is basically a survival game called Space Engineers

So as it happens, the length of a Martian sol and a Ganymedean "day" are almost identical: 24 hours, 39.6 minutes versus 24 hours, 31.8 minutes. Perhaps the first permanent colonists on Ganymede will be from Mars, not Earth.

With hardly any atmosphere, it should be easy enough to beam captured sunlight from a ganymede orbit to the surface.

Heinlein's " Farmer In The Sky" was set on Ganymede....I think...

Will solar panels get enough sunlight to supply electricity for the colonist? Agriculture will have to be conducted underground because of the cold temperatures.

One question though. What would be the incentive for choosing Ganymede over Callisto? Whatever advantages Ganymede has, e.g., abundance of water ice, even subsurface ocean, are present also on Callisto. However, Callisto has several advantages, such as lower ambient radiation, stable geology (Ganymede may have plate tectonics ) and being not as deep inside Jupiter's gravity well as Ganymede. As for mining Jupiter or IO, such works will be done by robots anyway. A little outpost would do. Makes no sense to build a vast colony in a hostile environment just for that. If the goal is to biologically colonize the Jovian system, I don't see much reason for choosing Ganymede over Callisto.

Moons of exo planet gas giants sounds the key phrase, as solves tidal locked main planets at red dwarf stars

Ganymede is probably the only moon we could feasibly classically terraform, as it is the only one with a magnetic field.

Callisto is the safer option, much less radiation.

great!

I recently read that some ETs grom another system landd on Gamymede and when the Space Force learned of it they wemt there to welcome these new arrivals. I haven't received any confirmation but I hope it's true.

Callisto first, same resources, less radiation

Radiation is intense, shielding humans makes problematic for humans to even land there.

I think robots will be used to find all resources needed before the crew arriving.

thanks

Why not pull it around Venus

I just hope when we do, that a giant orbital space battle between earth and mars ravages the local lunar community for months leading to a massive refugee crisis to the edge of the solar system.

Could you do a video on starship and what possibilities it's going to open? :)

how about the gravity though?

Let me know when you finish the orbital ring around Jupiter.

22:26 I think there was meant year 2156, not 2056, right? Another more mention of 2056 after this as well.

Nice Kubrick horizontal at 6'40'' Arthur- and you're not backed by the establishment?

Most technologically sophisticated people today would be vastly disappointed in humanity if by 2156, autonomous robots were not way superior to humans now in doing any tasks in space, and autonomous robots could be made in much more varied form factors and with different intrinsic capabilities. For that matter, there are many today who believe that a crash program could achieve such robots by 2056, a hundred years earlier. I just can't be sold on how biology is an advantage in space.

Why the negative view on ai?

I think we should stick to somehere more hospitable to human life,.. Gaza maybe, or North Korea, Antarctica,Atacama,Sahara,Gobi. Perhaps an active volcanic vent in Iceland!

Orth, Djuppitor, Morkuray - except these he speaks quite standard English. I'll try to use that pronounciation, as well - sounds kinda cool.

Leave me alone humans!

Read Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky. It concerns a colonist there.

Not sure if I'm missing smth, but doesn't this [13:29] show two tritium atoms fusing?

Hi, Isaac. thing is, by the end of this century I have no doubt that the first very fast sublight speed engine will have been perfected using the now theoretical FTL tech. Earth to Ganymede in a coupple months. The energy generator on board a starship is the only limit in this tech. Very definately, the first 1/4 lightspeed interstellar probes will be sent out to the nearby stellar systems by centuries end, and some may arrive within one lifetime.

I have done a lot, I mean, a lot of thinking about all this. I imagine, that until we colonize Venus we will instead live in rotating space habitats and use the Moon as a refining center and ship production facility, but live in space. Similarly, Mars we will end up abandoning as a living center and instead mine it and live in space. Venus is the only planet capable of maintaining humans as we exist right now, all other planets or moons will wait until we are uploading ourselves into robots.

I suspect a source of export from Ganymede would be nitrogen to Mars and the asteroid belt.

Isn’t this where doctor who was/is from?the home of the time lords…

I'm kind of skeptical about Ganymede's mineral wealth; AFAICT it smells like it's likely a thin sprinkle of impactor material over mostly ice, maybe enough for initial growth but not so much long term. It's a fully differentiated body with a probable subsurface ocean, afterall, all the rock from early on would have sunk, with only what's fallen on the current crust potentially accessible. Which could be significant, but at the same time it may not, and in either case is probably scattered very inconveniently for the most part as large objects tend to be obliterated and dispersed by their impact. Mining dirty ice for the dirt is probably not very economical.

Great show! very informative as always.🛰

When you have serious industry and population in space already and can cheaply and reliably build artificial habitats that are perfectly tailored to one's environmental preferences, actual planets become backwaters; terraforming is like cavemen using modern construction techniques to make better caves instead of modern cities.

I’ve been waiting weeks for this video’😁😁

Moot point, even if the radiation question were to be answered, you're still stuck in low G. That's bound to have all kinds of bad effects for long term exposure. Until a proper fix is found, telepresence and perhaps an outpost akin to the space station's time frame would be the only feasible Ganymedian effort. Not even the sight would be worth the recuperation that one would have to go through or the meds they'd need for long term habitation on Ganymede. Ultimately, it's about "effort". Is it worth the effort to colonize a moon like that when a space station would be far more appropriate (and easier as human resources go)? I think not. Humans will have to stick to same or close to same gravity as Earth does, because that's how we evolved. And THE biggest reason for that is not just because of the health issues, but also because of what humans are... which is a really vile race that still (in this long) hasn't understood that fighting each other is utterly meaningless and that money, wealth, power... wanting them, are just symptoms of a deranged mind that needs to be placed under medication. Some people tend to want to see the best in humanity, i just see what happens now, with several wars that are happening because some human shaped refuses are wanting for power, while the rest of the human race is struggling under troglodytes with ambitions of grandeur who think that it's "ok" to pollute our planet's sky (without asking anyone, really) with space trash just so they can squeeze MORE money out of people who are clueless to the effects of their actions. Yeah, no. I'd rather ban any space flight in the first place if this eventually leads to settling and therefore, creating, yet another issue. Humanity as a whole needs to cook longer before it can even consider something like this, because we think too fast and feel too slow. And honestly, this feels like it would be a mistake.

Ever read Ringmakers of Saturn?

Thanks Issac, another great video imagine how much people will know in fifty years time. Assuming the human race hasn't destroyed itself by then , as people we seem to advance intellectually and scientifically but for some reason we can't stop being savage to each other. So if you're watching this Alien race, you might want to think long and hard before paying us a visit !!! . Have a wonderful weekend everyone. PEACE AND LOVE TO EVERYONE ❤❤.

Put men on chips send chips. Done.

Didn't Heinlein do it first?

Can't we just use solar panels around earth to protect it from heating up to quickly and the direct that energy to a base there instead of using to many mirrors? The earlier you catch and redirect it the better? Certainly questionable as I imagine you will lose some energy either way and how much of that would be better sent to earth?

By Jove! Leonardo da Luni has arived.

22:23 You mean late 2156?

The eventual fate of Gamymede is probably the same as the rest of the rocky bodies in the solar system (aside from Earth): recycled into habitats. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, however, if the central hub for the mining stations were converted into a large metropolis that bore the same name, one that survived into the “habitat only” phase of our solar system.

What’s bad is the radiation from Jupiter

note to self: must research more on anti-matter.

You make as good a case as can be, which is the point of the show, but Ganymede is still basically can-fodder. It's too small/low-g, too cold, too far out, and smack dab in the middle of a nasty neighborhood. Other than a temporary-duty ground station to oversee carving it up for O'Neill Cylinder stuffing, it's just another not-worth-inhabiting speck. It would be great for that, though. It could even be an argument for primarily mining the trojan belts to make the base frames in the first place. Imagine a stream of giant metal cans of O'Neill Cylinder 12-pack ships made with metal from the ore belts, but they need a literal boatload of fine ground minerals & volatiles to compost up for their ecosystems, so they swing into the Jupiter zone, get their crispy shells lined with some nice creamy filling to line the floors, then dive in towards earth for crews/residents once the grass is growing etc. That's the future of the Jovian system: first pit stop to turn bare alloy containers into lush living habitats. It's a useful place to visit, but there's just no reason to stay there. For long-term living, the rich free energy and quick communication times are downhill where the sun shines brighter on the inner orbits.

watched

Farmer in the Sky.