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bk27465 t1_j1mv9gw wrote

Reply to comment by datsro24 in Is the Milky Way... Normal? by cciccitrixx

Yeah i like how human ego thinks weare even gonna last another 5k years

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ncastleJC t1_j1my110 wrote

Honestly like when people start fantasizing Dyson spheres around the sun when you need over 1 million earths to fill the sun like where do we even have the resources for that? All this talk about advancing us into the stars while the poor are still poor. We just want to move our problems elsewhere without acknowledging we’re the same.

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bk27465 t1_j1n0v43 wrote

A well described piece of truth.

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Glooryhoole t1_j1n19y9 wrote

Yeah we’d need many many earths worth of actual workable material to create the sphere. Let alone figuring out how it actually harvests and transports the energy. I don’t think that would ever be possible

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fnarrly t1_j1narke wrote

IIRC, there is plenty of material available for such development without leaving our solar system, it’s just that most of it is out in the Oort Cloud. With the current tech we have this is not doable, but advances in space travel could make such things possible, over a period of millennia.

I do not personally think we will make it that long, environmental and societal collapse will end our species’ advancement first.

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GeorgeOlduvai t1_j1n5yix wrote

That's why a Niven Ring is a better idea, unless you're talking about the original concept of a Dyson sphere.

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ncastleJC t1_j1nbl4s wrote

A Niven ring is just a variant. Again where do we get the resources to surround the sun when over 99% of the systems mass is literally in the star we’re trying to orbit.

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602Zoo t1_j1noldb wrote

A Dyson sphere doesn't need a bunch of mass. It can be thinly spread out and enough material could be harvested from our solar system to build one.

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wbsgrepit t1_j1obrtj wrote

I think you are greatly missed under estimating the amount of ‘material’ that would be needed. At a distance that could be made even theoretically stable against the gravity of the sun you would need to harvest solar systems of ‘material’. Never mind you would need specific types of material not just any atoms — assuming you are spending 1000s of generations of effort (if not more) for something more worthwhile than a simple passive enclosure.

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602Zoo t1_j1orrzr wrote

I'm not underestimating the amount of material it would take to encircle the sun. Between the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets including oort cloud objects we would have enough material to encircle the sun many times over.

The gathering of said materials would be the issue not their abundance. As you stated, it would take multiple generations to complete the project of gathering minerals and forging them into something useful. That would be our road block, the solor system has more than enough to build the structure but we may not have the discipline to coordinate the resources and manpower for such an undertaking.

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wbsgrepit t1_j1p84jx wrote

I mean it is estimated that there is roughly 10^57 atoms in our solar system bodies not including the sun. Thats all types of atoms (including argon, helium etc) -- but lets assume they are all of the most optimal material to make a 1 atom thick sphere at a distance from the sun that would not collapse or blow apart from gravitational forces or solar winds. You would run out of atoms before completing half of such a sphere. And to what end? The sphere would not do anything nor would you have a planet to power as you just used all of the available atoms to construct your partial sphere..

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602Zoo t1_j1rddgt wrote

We don't need to build a solid structure around the sun just a loose formation of satellites. The real question would be is how dense do these satellites have to be to create an effective Dyson sphere.

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Legitimate_Pirate249 t1_j1nu9mx wrote

To be fair, a Dyson sphere is a bad example of your point because it's well known that a Dyson sphere is a sci-fi concept that is only theoretically possible and is obviously very far outside of our capabilities as humans currently.

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CaoPai t1_j1nv793 wrote

Dyson Spheres? Like the vacuum? I hardly think they could survive space.

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bk27465 t1_j1olo23 wrote

Sir you are in r/space this is NOT a walmart!

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