Colonizing the Kuiper Belt 

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...

As someone with a speech impediment (stuttering) i have to say how facking impressive it is that you've built a RU-vid 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.

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

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

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...

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.

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

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!

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 🙏🏻😀

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.

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

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.

Best futuristic show on RU-vid, hands down! Never change Isaac!

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.

Onward to the Oort cloud!

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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

Thank you for the video!

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

First I am REALLY pleased to see Kuiper settlement being discussed seriously on RU-vid! 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.

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.

I fricking love these colonization videos

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.

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.

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

Great thought provoking video. Thanks Issac

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

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

Love this channel

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.

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.

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

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

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?

love watching your videos❤

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

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

Awesome video, tyvm for making these.

And so the Beltalowdas begin!

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

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.

YES!! Great stufffffff.

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

+100 Vespene Gas

Can't believe this wasn't covered yet!

9:32 funniest spaceship in the history of mankind.

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 👍

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.

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

Colonizing Oort Cloud i'll re-watch next.

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

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.

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

16:06 How to colonize without fusion.

Happy #Arthursday!!!

Awesome.

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)

This is unsettling.

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

Living in the Kuiper Belt would be vastly depressing.

excellent video

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.

Best wishes, Isaac :)

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A source of energy so far from the sun could be the relative motion of the bodies. One could tether to a passing rock and allow the tether to rotate a drum connected to a generator. By varying the load on the generator, you could also produce a controlled acceleration to replicate gravity. Once the tether reaches its end, disconnect and grab another.

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.

As a non native speaker of English, it took me quite a while to understand the accent - worth it though

Favorite RU-vid channel and spofity channel

Imagine that a Kuiper Belt sort of construct is common for solar system formation, and a species can only really leave its home system after it's been able to clear that clutter and use it as a resource?

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

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

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

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

I say, Transneptunians in the outer belt might as well belong to another star. Hard to even tell them apart. Asteroid belters, otoh, are the only _true_ belters. See you at the _Ceres Lounge._

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

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. 😂

Yes. That first part. Sometimes I feel (not think) we humans have been set up. The moon is a obvious target to reach and low G stepping stone with material resources. This platform is needed to reach out to…the asteroids with more resources.

I see the lack of sunlight as the biggest hurdle to outer-solar-system expansion; one has to bring along or locally mine all energy.

Awesome ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤.

Pluto is a planet. We can’t let “clearing the neighborhood” be a condition for being a planet.

Of course they found quite a few rocks about 500 of them bigger than Pluto not much bigger but maybe up to double the size or in this case may be the same size as Mercury.

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

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...

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?