Talk:Colonization of Jupiter

Merging colonization of Jupiter and its moons - a bad idea

That was a very bad idea, in my opinion. Although, Jovian moons are related to Jupiter, conceptually, colonisation of Jupiter itself sounds like a much crazier idea than its moons - more realistic. I suggest to change it back where it was. --Anatoli (talk) 12:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, good point. I'd still like to reduce the number of articles about colonizing the Jovian system. How about this new plan: send Jupiter to WP:AfD; merge Colonization of Callisto with Callisto (moon); move Europa back to Colonization of Europa. By the way, have you joined WikiProject Space Colonization? Wronkiew (talk) 06:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

We don't have an article about colonizing Saturn, Uranus or Neptune by itself, so I don't see a need for a separate article for Jupiter. Perhaps move the article content into Colonization of the outer Solar System? Chadlupkes (talk) 14:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Is the content about Jupiter itself worth keeping? It seems to be completely unverifiable, and I wasn't able to find any sources to use to improve it. Or, were you suggesting that just the moon content be merged? CoJ does get a lot of hits for now, so maybe a redirect to outer Solar System would be better than deleting it. Wronkiew (talk) 15:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Wronkiew, thank you. I don't like your new proposal either, sorry. An article about the colonisation should separate from the satellites themselves. If you really want to merge, then colonisation of Jupiter's moons could be joined together and it won't require too much work. We could move this article to "Colonization of Jupiter's moons" and remove unsourced section about Jupiter itself. Chadlupkes's suggestion is worth considering too, however to me, Jupiter's moons are quite a topic in itself, it may grow eventually.

At this stage, I won't be able to join the project but thank you for the info, I will at least follow it up. Anatoli (talk) 21:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with you on a few points. The article on Callisto already includes a section that is essentially the same as what was in Colonization of Callisto. Furthermore, the Callisto content isn't really about colonization at all, more about setting up a base for exploration of the Jupiter system. For those reasons, I'm going to go ahead and merge the duplicate content and redirect CoC to Callisto (moon)#Potential_colonization. The Jupiter content is unverifiable, and I was not able to come up with any reliable sources from which to build an article. That means that the only useable content remaining for the Jupiter system is about Europa. For now, I think that content belongs in Colonization of Europa, because it's the most descriptive title. Nothing would be left in Colonization of Jupiter, and the most appropriate redirect is to Colonization of the outer Solar System, as Chadlupkes suggested. If more in-depth studies are produced concerning the colonization of the Jupiter system, we could re-evaluate this structure, probably moving everything to a Colonization of Jupiter's moons article. Wronkiew (talk) 05:12, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not convinced that an article on the uses and colonization of the Jupiter system (with subsections, of course) is a bad idea. It has advantages because it is compact, so travel times are not so bad as for travel between the asteroids and planets further out. The present article is a start in this direction, and although there seems no credible near-term prospect for actual crewed landing (? de-orbiting, or entry are perhaps more appropriate terms), or escape from Jupiter itself even into low orbit, but still, because of its mass and the Oberth effect the planet still may be of significant use. Callisto and Ganymede appear potentially useful, and human outposts a few meters below the surface (for radiation shielding) may not even be out of the question for Io and Europa, if there is ever good reason to land there. It seems to me the more distant outer planets are likely to lag a generation or more behind, if only because of the distances involved. So I would limit it to Jupiter's system for now. The other outer planets will deserve their own separate articles someday anyhow. But also, there could possibly be sub-stellar Jupiter-like objects with large satellites nearer than the closest known stars, and settlement of the Jupiter system might well provide a model for the ways we could utilize those, if any happen to be reachable. This would mainly entail just a name change (and a redirect) for the current article, and we'd have a place to build. Wwheaton (talk) 07:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that an article about colonizing the Jupiter system would be a good idea. Do you know if any studies have been published on this concept, outside of the HOPE concept and the Artemis study? The Artemis study is notable, because it was independently reported, but I'm a little uncomfortable relying on the study itself to make factual statements about future colonization possibilities. Have you seen any published literature about human settlements on Ganymede? Wronkiew (talk) 05:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately none that I can recover from memory, though I do think I've seen some published material somewhere. John Lewis's book "Mining the Sky" might be worth a look, if I can find it. Anyhow, I think grouping these bodies together as sections of a single article might make some sense, maybe they can support one another. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 08:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, Mining the Sky does have a few things to say about Jupiter, mostly restatements of "abandon all hope ye who deorbit here". It does mention that Jupiter's trojans are an attractive colonization option after the outer asteroid belt. Also that Jupiter's outer moons are an important source of volatiles. Based on this information, Colonization of the Jupiter system would probably be a better article name than Colonization of Jupiter's moons. Wronkiew (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I keep trying to imagine ways out of there, but so far I just get depressed. I wondered about the possibilities of scooping 3He by skimming the top of the atmosphere with ion-drive near-orbiters, but Lewis claims even that is impossible, as the 3He would settle out from the H in the upper atmosphere. (sigh....) Anyhow, I think the availability of volatiles and everything else (except He) close at hand might be an advantage. -- B Wwheaton (talk) 23:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I undid the merge. Perhaps at some point these articles could be combined into Colonization of the Jupiter system. Wronkiew (talk) 04:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)