The World Ends in approximately 24-28 months.

Going down is probably harder than going up.

You don't have to go that far down and heat and pressure become serious problems. The Mponeng Gold Mine is 4km (2.5 miles) deep, the rock face rock reaches 66 °C (151 °F) and slurry ice is pumped in underground to cool the air below 30 °C (86 °F). The TauTona Mine is fractioanlly shallower at 3.9km (2.4 miles), the rock face reaches 60 °C (140 °F) and the air temperature 55 °C (131 °F), which is chilled by air conditioning to 28 °C (82 °F).

So if you can keep it cool forever then you might make it, but you've got to dispose of that heat somewhere and adding nuclear reactors etc. just makes the heat exchange problem worse.

However, the Chicxulub crater went 20km (12 miles) deep at least, so you can't dig deep enough to prevent being crushed by the pressure waves in the crust.
However, your chances might be increased digging in South America or Antarctica, home to just 11% and 0% respectively of known asteroid craters (although the unconfirmed 480-500km wide Wilkes Land crater makes Chicxulub look like a pimple, so its no guarantee of safety.)
 
Hood said:
However, your chances might be increased digging in South America or Antarctica, home to just 11% and 0% respectively of known asteroid craters (although the unconfirmed 480-500km wide Wilkes Land crater makes Chicxulub look like a pimple, so its no guarantee of safety.)
Click to expand...


Keep in mind that parts of Antarctica are volcanically active, and the other parts are infested with shoggoths, so...
 
Orionblamblam said:
Hood said:
However, your chances might be increased digging in South America or Antarctica, home to just 11% and 0% respectively of known asteroid craters (although the unconfirmed 480-500km wide Wilkes Land crater makes Chicxulub look like a pimple, so its no guarantee of safety.)
Click to expand...


Keep in mind that parts of Antarctica are volcanically active, and the other parts are infested with shoggoths, so...
Click to expand...

And other Things.
 

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Then I change my answer -- I would devote the two years to trying to tame the shoggoths with telepathy. Think of what grand things you could (re)build with servants like the shoggoths!
 
Not as cool as spaceships, but given the short timeline the only realistic solution for species survival is to start digging. Hundreds, thousands, of independent underground colonies set up with artificial lighting to grow their own food and clean their own air with nuclear or geothermal energy and probably lots of frozen sperm and eggs for genetic diversity. The amount of effort and resources to send a useful number of people into space along with everything they'd need for survival could be far better spent in creating lots of little underground colonies in the hope that at least a few would survive.
 
The World At The End of Time had a section where they'd moved underground. Pretty depressing.

https://www.amazon.com/World-at-End-Time/dp/0345371976
 
There will be a practical minimum head count for each underground colony [or for that matter space ship but there probably isn't time for that....) both to provide personnel for the required skills AND to maintain a healthy gene pool. If the goal is to rebuild humanity a depleted gene pool isn't going to get you very far. Alternatively, 'genetic stock' could be taken in a frozen state.

There's the potential for controversy [and amusement] to be had around that discussion so maybe it's best left there... ;)
 
cluttonfred said:
The amount of effort and resources to send a useful number of people into space along with everything they'd need for survival could be far better spent in creating lots of little underground colonies in the hope that at least a few would survive.
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There's no reason why the two projects could run concurrently. Project Up and Project Down have a lot of different requirements, so experts and resources need not be split apart, while at the same time a lot of the lessons can be shared. Both would require a surviving functional economy up until the end. Project Up will offer far fewer "seats" for immediate survivors, but offer a long term open-ended civilization; Project Down could save more immediately, but will largely lock them into a roughly fixed society and population level until and unless the surface can be re-entered.

Unsurprisingly I'd prefer Up. But working very publicly on Down could keep the populace busy and hopeful, thus keeping the economy running so that Up actually has a chance. You need not inform the population that Down is doomed, that the chunk of Mare Imbrium that's coming in will not only boil the oceans, it'll vaporize all the salt and convert the entire surface of the planet into an ocean of liquid hot magma at 3000 degrees. Tell the people whatever lie you gotta to keep them working and *not* burning down the cities until the last of the colony ships have left.
 
shedofdread said:
If the goal is to rebuild humanity a depleted gene pool isn't going to get you very far.
Click to expand...

Seveneves dealt with that in a somewhat dubious fashion, since mankind is reduce to a grand total of seven women, no men and no stored genetic stock.

Recent developments in the field of artificial wombs ( http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=35295 ) make it seem plausible that a small number of people could spawn a large number of offspring in a relatively short time, once they have everything set up to accept them.
 
GTX said:
Surely in such a situation money becomes irrelevant. You are talking about species survival. Anyone who wanted money in return to do this instantly forfeits their chance to live.
Click to expand...

I wasn't able to catch up with this for work, but some of this is covered in Seveneves. Basically, with the world ending in two years; a lot of things go out the window -- college? The hell does it matter. Same thing for public schools. It really doesn't matter if Little Timmy drops out of school since he's statistically speaking gonna be dead in two years.

Money is still needed though, for interim resource allocation. Money provides a useful cost comparator across a wide range of disciplines -- things that are abundant will be cheap, things scarce will be expensive.
 
kcran567 said:
To all the other theories to save what's left of the planet, instead of Quadrillions of $$'s to get off planet to Mars why not just build massive DUMBs, Deep, Deep huge underground bases with all the plant life, animals, Flora, Fauna, Hot Chicks...etc. down there. Can even move large amounts of Tech and equipment, computers, aircraft, trains...whatever you need. Supposedly the original Mars inhabitants did the same thing when Mar's 'sploded or got hit with giant lightning bolts Eons ago. That way you can take you're time and build a Mars ship or Ark underground when needed.
Click to expand...

What happens in seveneves is three plans get done

(PUBLIC) Giant Space Ark. It ends up being a massively expanded ISS plus a large swarm of arklets (see attached photo to this post)

(SECRET) Underwater Base using submarines.

(PRIVATE?) One of the main character's dad is a miner in the USA; so he starts doing this crazy plan to make a underground community in a mine to survive the hard rain; and seals himself and a bunch of other people in when they start.

The big problem I have is this.

A.) Only about 1,500 or so people are alive in space when the Hard rain occurs; and due to a hilariously incompetent sequence of events, all but 7 of them die (and of course all 7 survivors are women). The human race in space somehow manages to rebuild to giant space cities over the course of 5,000 years; and splits into seven approximate subraces because they used gene editing to do shit, etc.

B.) The Miners somehow survive for 5,000 years underground and become the Diggers; etc etc.

C.) The Pingers get mentioned, and it turns out they're the descendants of a top secret project run by various governments to make undersea bases, and one of the seven main characters in the first half's significant other is a captain of a submarine that was used in the program. They retreated to the deepest trenches on earth as the hard rain slowly boiled away the oceans; and over 5,000 years, have evolved into weird deep ones type gillmen who can breathe underwater.

That's why I created this thread. Because the entire plan(s) by the governments etc in seveneves was....

Chan.jpeg.

Stephenson basically completely misread human basic psychology. People need to have a goal, they need to FEEL that what they do has a chance of having an effect.

Keeping the submarine program (which can save far far more people than a space program) secret makes no sense.

I can understand keeping the general LOCATION of where the submarines and their support systems are secret; to avoid panicking people trying to get onto the submarines in the last 24 hours before hard rain fall; but the fact they exist should not be secret.

There's more, but I'm kind of pressed for time nowadays.
 

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Basically South Korea alone built 300+ ships with a gross tonnage of like 23~ million tons in 2013.

That's at least 500-600 Sea Dragon rockets a year; or about 275,000 tonnes in LEO from a single nation's shipbuilding industry (Seadragon was to be built from standard sheets in a shipyard).

Then there's Orion, from the Wiki:

The biggest design above is the "super" Orion design; at 8 million tonnes, it could easily be a city.[12] In interviews, the designers contemplated the large ship as a possible interstellar ark. This extreme design could be built with materials and techniques that could be obtained in 1958 or were anticipated to be available shortly after.

Yet, Stephenson's story is all sorts of :eek:
 
Personally, I don't think I'd have to worry about the scenario. Being a tad over 50 yrs old I'm pretty sure my appreciative children would have sold me to the "Soylent Green" corporation well before hand. haha. On a less serious note, anyways I somehow think those folks not on the ark boarding or bunker invite lists would go away and face oblivion quietly and we would need many more "B" arks and "B" bunkers to keep all happy. Like digging your own grave.
 
sublight is back said:
You seed the stratosphere thick enough to send the planet into a hard icy state. The bolides energy then defrost the planet violently back to where it was. I don't have enough climatological data to roughly calculate how many exajoules of energy it would take to superheat the atmosphere vs an inversely proportional freeze, but that would be a theoretically plausible solution.
Click to expand...


What about dust/ejecta defense? Tens of thousands of high-fusion fraction, clean nukes buried
and command detonated such that the dust/debris cloud ablates the bolide.
 
Working on the same brief time-span from threat detection to extinction, best outcome would be one or more untested Orion nuclear pulse propulsion vehicles, built in one hell of a hurry and free from sabotage. Again the problem is who would be ready to give up their 'seat'. God knows Mars needs the Kardashians. I believe that any such scenario would be subject to monetary influence and the rest will riot - even if kept secret. Not sure how you would build it in an increasing (to quote the 80's movie "Creepshow") "meteor sh*t" bombardment anyway.

This is not my field nor within my scope of expertise but I'm dubious that blowing off thousands of 'clean' nukes to put the planet's crust through a controlled ejection and into a LEO would stop larger sized and more devastating debris given the scale and the required accretion, and could possibly negate any hope of leaving the planet. Possibly ensuring a bad time for all condemned to the planet and even the chosen few permitted to escape it through the induced debris.
 
Would Tunguska have had the size of Chicxulub neither of us would have been born.
We lost so much time praying during the Middle Ages......
 
Hi,

who always makes irony from the truth without thinking about it has no good mind,thank you
my God for clear me that,I am Muslim,although I gave a witness from Jews,their country will
be no long more than 76 years as they said and wrote in Talmud,which contains all they have
of secrets,and it is a calendar of moon years,it is not theories,it's the fact.
 
So Hesham you are saying Israel is gone by 2024? According to Talmud? Where is it going? Destroyed?

On the main issue,

I think the more practical way to plan is similar to Russia. Don't they have large civil defense areas underground. I think only the richer western countries fantasize about the luxuries of a space colony or mars colony for the few survivors left.

If funds were there, maybe humanity should start building more underground homes. At the very least you can save on heating/cooling bills if not protect from a disintegrating moon, nuke conflagration, or Meteor hit.
 

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kcran567 said:
I think the more practical way to plan is similar to Russia. Don't they have large civil defense areas underground. I think only the richer western countries fantasize about the luxuries of a space colony or mars colony for the few survivors left.
Click to expand...

Long term survival requires not just initial numbers (which you can get with a widely distributed set of small habitats), but large gene pools and diverse populations of plant and animal species. And while a million different small habs could each have their own unique ecosystems, under the circumstances under discussion there can be no meaningful transfer from hab to hab for potentially thousands of years. The atmosphere will be - for a length of time potentially longer than recorded history - unbreathable, or superheated, or simply *gone.* A shelter the size of a large house can't survive that long. one the size of a city... maybe.

A dinsaur-killer coming in? Yes, build a bajillion underground houses. The moon falling from the sky? Don't bother, except as a way to keep the populace busy and non-riotous while they work on the *real* ark project(s).
 
I'm in agreement with the group that's suggesting to get the hell-outta-the way. Protecting people on the surface or in a subterranean environment would depend on the scale of the impact. If the Moon exploded I'm picturing huge shockwaves on the Earth's surface that destroys most living organisms on the surface, with enough plate tonic action to cause accelerations that would kill any living creature above or below the surface making mass survival nearly impossible.

The only idea that I can think of is to launch a number of Skylab sized vehicles on US, Russian, and Chinese heavy ELVs with diverse crews on a highly elliptical orbit away from the Moon. After the catastrophe, the crews would pass around the Earth to measure the devastation and then deorbit into the safest area possible (if there are any). If the scale of the impact was significantly less than the impact in the video below, then a number of underground facilities could be built hoping that the impact was on the opposite ends of the earth. However, a number of issues remain with the Earth 'lifeboat' idea (just to name a few):
1. Building vehicles in time and a lottery to fly on the spacecraft.
2. The anger and possible sabotage created by those left behind on Earth.
3. Dodging debris while in orbit (potentially losing spacecraft along the way)
3. Dodging suspended atmospheric debris during reentry.
4. Surviving on the surface with little or no sunlight and no living plants on the surface.
5. And years of repopulation and struggle to survive on a barren world with limited resources.

Sounds like a sci-fi work in the making?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU1QPtOZQZU
 
Well ... everybody Wang Chung tonight. B)
 
When I worked at ATK there'd be monthly "safety meetings" where an employee would be tasked with giving the same lecture three times. The subject would be, unsurprisingly, some area of safety relevant to the workers... propellant safety, basic fire safety, how to deal with the sort of venomous critters that appear from time to time, etc. Mostly it was an opportunity for people to catch up on nap time. I got tapped to run safety meetings twice, and I got to pick the topics: the risks of the Yellowstone supervolcano going off, and the risk of an asteroid or comet impact. For the latter I used several videos, including that one from the Discovery channel showing a 500 km impactor. Coupled with nuclear airburst test vids showing houses being turned into toothpicks, I went into full-blown Mad Scientist Mode during that part of the presentation, describing the sort of horrible, horrible things that could happen (word of the day: "degloving"). Trust me: scenes of destruction coupled with a maniac going MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA ended nap time pretty quick.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Song_(McCammon_novel)

Pretty much says everything. Ooooops, I think I pressed the wrong button for coffee.
 
Kadija_Man said:
Say goodbye to my loved ones, my nation and end my own life.
Click to expand...

You all laughed. Appears now, I'm the one who should be laughing. Despite all the hubris, what I said was basically true.

As I live in Australia, I'm actually quite safe. In no Hollywood global disaster movie is Australia ever mentioned (except our own, Mad Max series) that I'm aware of. Downunder, is the "lucky country" for a reason. We are far enough away from everybody and everything that only New Zealand is safer! B) B)
 
Ever heard of "On the Beach": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film) Australia is central to the story.

Rather than end it all at the first hint of disaster, I want to see what the end looks like. I wouldn't want to miss what no one else has ever seen.

Certainly would want to avoid an "Illustrated Man" scenario where fearful parents poisoned their children to prevent them suffering and then the terrible end they dreamed of did not happen.
 
Richard N said:
Rather than end it all at the first hint of disaster, I want to see what the end looks like.
Click to expand...

Good man. Something like that in "The Forge Of God:" alien berserkers have come to Earth to destroy the planet, including dropping a giant cylinder of anti-neutronium into the planet along with an equivalent cylinder of neutronium. The two orbit around inside, barely noticing all that molten iron fluff, until the wee bit of drag finally brings them together and BLAMMO. The Earth doesn't explode like Alderaan, but it does puff up. Some of the characters who don't get to escape go to Yosemite to see the end, climb to the top of El Capitan, and ride the rock. One, IIRC, marvels at the clarity of the stars as the air thins out as the western US is shot out into space.

That there is meeting the end like A Man.

Those who off themselves at the first hint... well, we're kinda better off without them.

Certainly would want to avoid an "Illustrated Man" scenario where fearful parents poisoned their children to prevent them suffering and then the terrible end they dreamed of did not happen.
Click to expand...

See: "The Mist," movie version. D'oh.
 
Richard N said:
Ever heard of "On the Beach": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film) Australia is central to the story.
Click to expand...

Never seen the movie but I have read the book. Depressing, I admit but written by a (semi-official) Australian author - Nevil Shute-Norway. Again, not from a Hollywood perspective.

As Randy Newman suggests ironically:

We'll save Australia
Don't want to hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an all American amusement park there
They've got surfing, too
Click to expand...

B) B)
 
Orionblamblam said:
Richard N said:
Rather than end it all at the first hint of disaster, I want to see what the end looks like.
Click to expand...

Good man. Something like that in "The Forge Of God:" alien berserkers have come to Earth to destroy the planet, including dropping a giant cylinder of anti-neutronium into the planet along with an equivalent cylinder of neutronium. The two orbit around inside, barely noticing all that molten iron fluff, until the wee bit of drag finally brings them together and BLAMMO. The Earth doesn't explode like Alderaan, but it does puff up. Some of the characters who don't get to escape go to Yosemite to see the end, climb to the top of El Capitan, and ride the rock. One, IIRC, marvels at the clarity of the stars as the air thins out as the western US is shot out into space.
Click to expand...

Always liked the description of the giant nukes going off on the seabed.
 
sferrin said:
Always liked the description of the giant nukes going off on the seabed.
Click to expand...

I always thought that the nukes were an unnecessary touch on the part of the enemies, like the Enola Gay dropping a few hand grenades after Little Boy. But then, enough seawater had been broken down for the hydrogen in the bombs that the liberated oxygen had substantially jacked up the O2 partial pressure in the atmosphere, enough that the worlds forests were roaring wildfires...
 
Fun suggestions but if this happened for real we would all be like Jeff Goldblum's boss in INDEPENDENCE DAY who just has time to say Oh Crap before getting hit by a flying car.
On the other hand there are these lads living on a Pacific Island who have a big red spaceship and a boffin with blue plastic specs who will have a plan.
On the bright side it would stop BBC Radio 4 from talking about Brexit.
 
It would seem the result, regardless of science, would be the same old farewell. BOAKYAG.
 
Foo Fighter said:
It would seem the result, regardless of science, would be the same old farewell. BOAKYAG.
Click to expand...

That's defeatism. The best of mankind comes when we're faced with the unfacable and we face it anyway. On our feet, not on our knees; chin upraised, arm outstretched, middle finger raised in defiance, a colorful Anglo-Saxon metaphor on our lips. In many cases, you're going to go down in defeat no matter what, but it's always better to go down swinging than submissively. Those who simply fold do not get to go to Valhalla.

And even no-win scenarios can sometimes be won. Look at World War II: the US entered the war a broken nation, still struggling through FDR's depression-extension programs; and a few short years later we opened up some canned sunshine onto Japan.

It's facing the impossible when mankind can shine. Moon's falling down? What can we look to for inspiration? How about the development of the USS Pegasus?
https://rowanseas.tumblr.com/post/150421463696/roachpatrol-deadcatwithaflamethrower
 
Yeah that was an eye-roller on par with some you see today. "Oh, we have a cloak that will let us phase shift through a planet (or a photon torpedo through a shield)? How DARE us develop a cloaking device? Don't you know how destabilizing that is?" (Nevermind that both the Klingons and Romulans had them.) Replace the Federation with the US, Klingons and Romulans with Russians and Chinese, and cloaking devices with nukes.
 
kcran567 said:
So Hesham you are saying Israel is gone by 2024? According to Talmud? Where is it going? Destroyed?

On the main issue,

I think the more practical way to plan is similar to Russia. Don't they have large civil defense areas underground. I think only the richer western countries fantasize about the luxuries of a space colony or mars colony for the few survivors left.

If funds were there, maybe humanity should start building more underground homes. At the very least you can save on heating/cooling bills if not protect from a disintegrating moon, nuke conflagration, or Meteor hit.
Click to expand...

It will destroy as they said,not me,and the years was counted by moon year,less than
11 days from sun years,it means 2022 or 2023 ?.
 
sferrin said:
How DARE us develop a cloaking device? Don't you know how destabilizing that is?"
Click to expand...

The weird thing about the Feds: they pretend to being the nice guys, but *DAYUM,* if you want horrifically terrifying weaponry and tactics, look to the Feds, not the Klingons or the Borg. "Want to mess with us, huh? Guess what, Sparky: we can take a crappy old smelly Klingon scout ship back in time. Guess what we can do with the latest battleship off the assembly line: we can go back a few decades and make sure that your mom died on her first date. We can erase your children from the timeline. We can make your entire civilization stay in the mud. And we can create a bioweapon that will make your people, and only your people, die in screaming agony, and our best, most ethical officers will happily use it and then lie to their friends and family with a smile on their faces. We will make your entire civilization a faded memory and then we'll build a Federation Shop-N-Mart on your former homeworld."
 
Orionblamblam said:
sferrin said:
How DARE us develop a cloaking device? Don't you know how destabilizing that is?"
Click to expand...

The weird thing about the Feds: they pretend to being the nice guys, but *DAYUM,* if you want horrifically terrifying weaponry and tactics, look to the Feds, not the Klingons or the Borg. "Want to mess with us, huh? Guess what, Sparky: we can take a crappy old smelly Klingon scout ship back in time. Guess what we can do with the latest battleship off the assembly line: we can go back a few decades and make sure that your mom died on her first date. We can erase your children from the timeline. We can make your entire civilization stay in the mud. And we can create a bioweapon that will make your people, and only your people, die in screaming agony, and our best, most ethical officers will happily use it and then lie to their friends and family with a smile on their faces. We will make your entire civilization a faded memory and then we'll build a Federation Shop-N-Mart on your former homeworld."
Click to expand...

Annnnnd that's enough schnapps for you :eek:

Back at the main event, I'd have to go with Orion's. As in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall. If you're going to build ships capable of carrying thousands of people and thousands of tonnes of pre-built colonies and mining equipment then you're going to need something which you know can easily lift it all to orbit , take it to mars and land it there as well. The technology for the crew and cargo spaces is essentially the same as used in modern ship building, the drive bomb guns are easy to do (without raiding old battleships) and the drive bombs themselves can be mass produced, once you settle on a design, for a relatively low cost ($40,000 per unit in the 50s, ~$400k each now).

It's still a long shot but you could get multiple projects going around the world: China, Korea, US, Europe.
 
If we were to look at the greater likelihood that an exploding Moon (i.e. caused by an asteroid impact or some unknown phenomenon) would create a debris field that is significantly less in size than the size of the Moon and and when comparing the relative sizes and distances between the two bodies (Earth and Moon, 12,740 km dia. versus 3,476 km dia., respectively, over a distance that is 384,000 km apart), then the size of objects encountered by the Earth are diminished.

However, there would be some significant impacts on the Earth, resulting in possibly millions of deaths and wide scale destruction. Check out the asteroid impact calculator for some ideas of how the impacts would effect the Earth.
http://simulator.down2earth.eu/planet.html?lang=en-US
 

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JeffB said:
Annnnnd that's enough schnapps for you :eek:
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Never tried it. I hear good things about hard likker. Maybe it would help me get over my massively under-cynical worldview.

Back at the main event, I'd have to go with Orion's. As in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall.
Click to expand...

Sadly, nope. The basic rule of this scenario is that you have 2 years before DOOOOM. Massively insufficient time to develop Orion. Remember, you'd be basically developing Orion from scratch. There is virtually no tribal knowledge of the technology left. ten years, I could see it. Six... maybe. Two? better to devote your efforts to building rockets, and using the nukes to rain destruction upon your enemies.
 

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