Scientists at NASA are discussing an interesting theoretical exercise in cooling off the Earth, by moving it further away from the Sun. According to their calculation it is possible to move the Earth to another orbit through controlled impact with a few meteors, which will end up prolonging the useful lifespan of the planet by about six billion years, effectively doubling it's life.
Sure, the bit with meteoric impact has me wondering if anything will be alive in that cooler planet, but still, this means that it is possible to work out the numbers for artificially engineering an existing planet's condition. It's all theoretically possible, and not at all far fetched.
Me, I'm interested in seeing this idea applied to other large masses floating around the solar system. Maybe sometime in the distant future we'll capture an asteroid the size of a planet, like the one as large as the Earth that recently impacted against Jupiter. Maybe we'll slam other large masses at the asteroid through careful application of rockets and mass drivers, putting it into a synchronous orbit around the Earth. We'll mine the asteroid for its rich minerals and other natural resources, gradually turning it into a habitable planet with its own wonders and mysteries.
Fast forward another thousand years, and such planetary system building exercise had become so trivial that you can take a course in universities (assuming they're still around in some form) for planetary systems engineering. Maybe people will even begin to see it's utility beyond resource and land grabbing. People will begin to construct large stars held together by the bonds of gravitation, slowly turning the universe into a large architecture, with myriads of different cultures and ideologies dwelling within its arches and bases.
What will happen to nationalities and histories in such a world?
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