Human history is told by the energy we use. At first we had to use our muscles, then we learned to control fire.
We industrialized the world using coal and oil and entered the Atomic Age when we learned how to split a nucleus.
At each step, we increased our energy harvest to a scale never seen before and advanced as a species.
Currently, we're slowly transitioning to renewables and if we're lucky, fusion energy will become viable in the future.
As humanity progresses further, if we don't destroy ourselves or our habitat,
we will likely gain complete control of our planet's resources.
At that stage we'll probably begin to look outwards for new places to expand into.
But space is hard and establishing a serious human presence in the solar system will require
ungodly amounts of energy.
Luckily, we know where to find it. The Sun - the ultimate source of energy.
A furnace 100 quintillion times more powerful than our most efficient nuclear reactor.
It shines with the energy of a trillion nuclear bombs per second.
So, how do we get this energy? Not some of it, all of it.
If we want to collect the most energy physically possible, we'll have to build the largest most
ambitious structure in the universe.
The Dyson Sphere, a megastructure that encompasses a whole star to capture its power output.
For an intelligent species, building a Dyson Sphere is a technological leap on a par with the discovery of fire for our ancestors.
The transition from a planetary species to an interstellar species. It would usher in an age of exploration and
expansion on a scale we can barely imagine.
So, what would it look like?
Solid shell enveloping the Sun is probably not the way to go a large rigid body like that would be vulnerable to impacts
possibly shattering it would be liable to drift and could crash straight into the Sun a
More, viable design for a Dyson Sphere might be a Dyson swarm an enormous set of orbiting panels that collect the sun's power and
beam it elsewhere
such as sward would give humanity basically unlimited energy but building it won't be easy
the Sun is very big so we need a lot of satellites if
Each satellite is a square kilometer we'd need around 30 quadrillion to surround the Sun
even if they're built as lightly as possible we need about 100 quintillion tons of material and
Then we need the energy to actually put the parts together and deliver them to their positions around the Sun on
top of all that we need to have a permanent infrastructure set up in space to start building
let's assume for the purposes of this video that our descendants will take care of that and want to create the mega structure
We can sort the challenges into three main categories
materials design and energy
To get the vast amounts of raw materials required for our Dyson swarm will have to largely disassemble a whole planet
Of the planets available mercury is the best candidate it's the closest to the Sun and very metal-rich
close to the Sun
also
Means less moving stuff around and mercury has no atmosphere and only about a third of the surface gravity of Earth making it
comparatively easy to launch material into space
Next we should consider the design of our swarm simpler is better
Conventional solar panels are far too intricate and short lives our satellites need to operate without repairs or intervention for
astronomically long times and they need to be cheap to produce
But they're most likely going to be enormous mirrors
which refocus sunlight to central collecting stations like in concentrated solar power on earth
to build and launch them efficiently they must be incredibly light made of little more than polished metal full bound to some supports and
Last we need the energy to build and launch the swarm itself taking a part of planets and launching things into space
requires an enormous amount of energy for example if we used all the fossil fuels and
Uranium on earth and we?
Were perfectly efficient we could only launch as much
Mass as Mount Everest into space a rather meager accomplishment compared to planetary disassembly
To get the energy needed to build a Dyson Sphere it's almost as if you're going to need the power output of a dyson sphere
But that's. Ok there's plenty of sunlight to be had on Mercury so let's get to work
Humans are expensive to keep alive and are very sensitive to the environment
So, we'd want to automate as much as possible
Ideally we'd have a small crew of controllers who oversee an army of autonomous machines doing the actual work
There are four major pieces of technology required solar collectors miners refiners and launch equipment
the solar collectors are going to give us the energy we need to disassemble the planet
To start maybe we deploy something like one square kilometer of them either as mirrors or as traditional solar panels
they'll provide the energy to run our miners which strip-mine the surface of the planet and our refiners which extract valuable elements and
fabricate them into our swarm satellites
to get them into space we need a creative and efficient solution
Rockets aren't too expensive and difficult to deorbit and reuse
Instead, we'll want to use a sort of railgun a longer
Electromagnetic track which launches our satellites at high speeds
Our swarm satellites will be packed tight for launch unfurling like an enormous origami once in orbit
from this point we can take advantage of
exponential growth using the energy of the existing parts of the swarm to build more infrastructure on Mercury and launch new panels faster and faster
each panel provides the energy to build another those to work together to build the next to
Four become eight eight become 16 and so on
within just about 60 doubling times the Sun would be completely surrounded by solar panels and
This can happen quickly if a square kilometer of solar collectors takes a month to build we could be done in a decade
if only our infrastructure on the planet's surface can keep up with the quickly growing budget of energy
Even collecting 1% of the sun's energy is an unbelievable change in our species energy budget
We could create the infrastructure to being basically unlimited amounts of energy around the solar system for all sorts of projects
colonies on other worlds terraforming planets
constructing more mega structures or even traveling to other stars it could be the start of an interstellar
Civilization based on physics alone this is not just possible but easy
It's such a simple process and such a necessary step for any species to expand beyond their home planet that many astronomers
Think there are probably Dyson spheres already out there in the Milky Way we haven't spotted any yet but they could be there
it's far from certain that humanity will ever get to this point our attention is too often focused on short-term political gains and
Conflicts that will not matter in the long run but if we survive the challenges we've set ourselves
we could potentially become the first species in the universe to create a structure with the scope of a star if
We? Do it the only limitation left will be our own
imagination
We've just hit you with a lot of pretty wild claims and crazy concepts if
You're like us and enjoy using the power of science to determine absurd ways to destroy stuff
you might want to hear how you can come up with something like that yourself
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Just maybe you can help to expand the human species into the universe one day
We love dyson sphere's so much that we've also made a poster about them
it will look pretty on your wall but
Also has some information about the concept of a Dyson Sphere a great way to start a conversation
Or you can just stare at it and dream about the future
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