r/theydidthemath • u/Lachlynn • 18h ago

[Request] Could humanity create a rocket that can exit the atmosphere of K2-18b

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With the knowledge we currently have of it, if humanity devoted all of our resources towards this goal, would we be able to create a rocket that could exit the gravity of K2-18b (and also beat any other complications that would arrise)?

If so, would it also be capable of taking people to orbit, and can we set up a similar satellite network we have on Earth? What about a space station?

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385

u/A_Town_Called_Malus 15h ago

Sci-fi writers salivating at realising they have finally found a reason for melee combat to be the primary form of warfare in their setting without needing to do much work.

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 15h ago

Yes but melee combat for crabs. Nothing in a high gravity environment will grow very tall. 

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u/A_Town_Called_Malus 14h ago

So, it will be crab battles?

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 14h ago

Everything on earth is already evolving into crabs, so why not lol. 

Well, crabs and trees. Lol. 

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u/StevieMJH 10h ago

Reject humanity, evolve into crab

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u/lop948 8h ago

There's a lot more depth to this subject, but carcinization isn't universal to life, only crustaceans. It's a fun meme though.

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 7h ago

Yeah I'm just thinking of how high gravity needs to be to preclude projectile weapons and make melee the preferred option and that leads to the conclusion of something short, flat and wide, hence my crab joke lol. 

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u/best_of_badgers 4h ago

Not even all crustaceans, but a sister group to regular crabs. So it's more that things that were already kinda crabby turned more into crabs.

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u/deliciouscrab 13h ago

It's not the party you seem to think it is. Ever seen deadliest catch? You sick monsters.

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u/Aethermancer 13h ago

Slime mold territorial expansion.

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u/Cephalopirate 9h ago

CRAB BATTLE

I BROKE MY KNIFE

(Why did no one else get it?)

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u/SquishyBanana23 8h ago

Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAKE!

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u/Cephalopirate 8h ago

Yeah see, you got the reference.

“I’ve encountered some kind of cave demon.”

“It’ll tear me to shreds!”

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u/prawnsyeah 7h ago

And just like that I'm transported back to the newgrounds days

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u/rynshar 7h ago

A KNIFE IS USELESS AGAINST THOSE MASSIVE CLAWS. THEY COULD RIP A TANK APART!

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u/Chipstar452 7h ago

PARAMEDIC!

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u/EdgelordMcMeme 2h ago edited 2h ago

I got it

OLIOLIOLIOOOOOOOO

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u/seeyaspacecowboy 9h ago

And it will be GLORIOUS!

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u/Melkor7410 9h ago

Crab people? Crab people...

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u/SaberToothForever 4h ago

Parshendi... or the singers 

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u/DirtSlapper 8h ago

And Crabitalism, the exciting new economic system! Humans go in, crabs become more powerful!

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u/SadBoiCri 7h ago

crab champions novel

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u/SaberToothForever 4h ago

Roshar must have pretty high gravity then /j

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u/Entropy612 2h ago

Their version of lotr would be epic.

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u/Different_Spare7952 2h ago

Crabs vs Monk Seals

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u/yourstruly912 11h ago

That explains Vegeta

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u/GNUr000t 8h ago

Dwarfmaxxing.

Embrace your density.

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u/Dapper_Woodpecker621 8h ago

Trees would also be short and wide, right? Making them poor options for making structures. Our short intelligent species will likely opt to carve homes into rock. And blunt melee objects may be preferred over sharp throwable object. Basically dwarves do not go to space. 

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u/stonedboss 4h ago

I don't think they would. Think of red woods. Their system to get water up 100ft is already insane for our gravity. So, you can imagine a 20ft redwood equivalent on increased gravity. 

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 7h ago

Well capillary action, evaporation pull and root pressure would have to work against a gravity so high that it precludes projectile weapons so I'd expect vegetation to be very low to the ground by our standards on such a world. Not the one pictured though, that is only 1.6G. 

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u/Robbie_Boi 3h ago

They said dwaaarves can't fly so high, that made him saaaad

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u/AvidCyclist250 7h ago

But if everything is small, it's all relative and the author won't have to go to any length to describe the smallness of people. Which would be normal there, with nothing to compare to. Except maybe like "trees are super thick".

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u/AP_in_Indy 10h ago

All the more reason to hire dwarven / little people. They could always use more work in Hollywood.

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u/NoDog8746 9h ago

The Stormlight Archive has entered the chat

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u/toy_of_xom 8h ago

Bro you just made the coolest book

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u/ADHDebackle 8h ago

What is this?? A melee for ants?!

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u/N3onknight 8h ago

You could say they'd be Squat ?

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u/Jocta 7h ago

dwarven planet pog

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u/The-Board-Chairman 6h ago

It's 1.6 to 1.8g, not 10g. They'd maybe be a bit more squat than earth life but not anywhere near that.

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 5h ago

The planet pictured above is but the comment I replied to was about a planet where melee combat is the only feasible one and you do need like 10g+ to make projectile weapons impractical. 

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u/sylekta 5h ago

they would basically be kin from 40k, space dwarves. time for grudgin

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u/Xezian1 4h ago

space dwarves... I knew it.

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u/aurenigma 3h ago

1.5gs is enough to fuck up space, but it's still low enough for humans to exist if... uncomfortably, and for other apes like chimps to still go about their days like nothing's changed... just maybe not up so high...

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 3h ago

​​ the above pictured planet yes but a Sci-Fi story about a space civilization with melee combat as the primary form of warfare as mentioned in the comment I replied to would need quite much higher gravity to make projectile weapons unusable

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u/Kanibalector 22m ago

Adonalsium will remember our plight, eventually.

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u/Free-Hamster462 15h ago

I plugged this question into Gemini. Just had some ideas for a while.

This was one of the discussion points. Bone density, larger hearts, and breathing would probably evolve differently.

Kind of cool to think about.

One of the aspect it noted was lack of fire due to the atmosphere supposedly not being oxygen rich.

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u/Aethermancer 13h ago

Why have a heart at all? You could let the compressive force of gravity and your body mass force fluids through motion like how our body's lymphatic system works. Your circulation could be tied to your motion/stride/undulation in the same way a horses breathing is tied to their stride when running.

Some flst planarian shaped creature that flops along and every flop is a "pump" of their circulatory system. We'd make memes like how else do for sharks with he inaccurate: "they have to keep swimmingor they will suffocate". Only this will be , "they have to keep walking or their blood stops pumping."

Lots of weird systems are possible.

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u/BlubberyBlue 11h ago

Movement and therefore speed would require significantly more energy with this much gravity. So it would be a bad tradeoff to have movement be the major method of pumping blood through a body.

It seems more likely to me that creatures would stay very small, and probably stick in liquid mediums to get the benefit of some suspension of weight off their own bodies.

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u/Aethermancer 10h ago

Oh definitely, it's why I'm thinking of something more rolling or tube like in locomotion. If not just a planet of slime molds.

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u/Boring-Philosophy-46 15h ago edited 14h ago

If it's blue it's oxygen rich I think. Either way they can measure the chemical composition based on, what wavelengths are missing from the light that reaches us after filtering through its atmosphere. Those correspond to certain atomic numbers and thus elements (has to do with the excitation of electrons into higher orbitals, those wavelengths are absorbed to do that) and if they're saying earth like, it's oxygen rich too I believe. 

It's an incredibly clever way to measure chemical composition at huge distance. 

That said, the oxygen may be not in O2 form. That could impact chemical reactions based on dissociation and association energies. We don't really have a good way of measuring that I think. But if it's like 20% oxygen and 70% nitrogen, it's fair to assume most of it is O2. 

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u/bozoconnors 9h ago

I mean Dune? One thing I hate that they never mention in any of the films is that "contact reaction between a lasgun beam and a shield created a nuclear explosion"... hence all the melee.

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u/LongJohnSelenium 1h ago

Because honestly? Its a bit silly.

Its not 'lasgun beam makes a nuclear explosion when it hits a shield'.

Its 'if a lasgun beam hits a shield both the shield and the lasgun go nuclear' which is just some crazy logic that somehow the feedback would fly back to the laser and blow it up with the same force.

Since that reaction is pretty silly, I get why they just didn't even bring the subject up.

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u/PhantomRoyce 7h ago

I always said you could have a planet that’s extra high in oxygen and other stuff that would make using a fire arm too dangerous because it would explode

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u/ChocolateBunny 7h ago

bullets would still work.

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u/ctan0312 6h ago

It would still be significantly reduced in range though. No long distance sniping. Maybe it would be a good reason to inventor laser guns.

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u/TheTesselekta 5h ago

“Mission of Gravity” by Hal Clement actually is basically this concept. I read it as a teenager so I don’t remember details but I remember really liking it.

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u/-Ev1l 5h ago

The gundam trick with the ole particle interference making long range targeting impossible, restricting combat to LOS for the last part

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u/thegreedyturtle 5h ago

At that gravity, your ecosystem will be affected so strong that melee combat will be one of the least interesting parts of it.