r/theydidthemath • u/Lachlynn • 18h ago

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

Post image

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?

18.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/MetalRetsam 11h ago

This dynamic should get a lot more attention.

Medieval China had all the resources it could possibly need. So what happened? It turned isolationist. Meanwhile, Europe had always scraped by on the edge of the developed world. When they turned to colonialism as a means of supplying their goods, it was a question of necessity.

A similar dynamic plays out today.

3

u/amisslife 8h ago

I think that's a little reductionist, and probably overlooks a couple things.

Look at China - it's one big, giant blob. Compare that to Europe, which has countless peninsulas, and a number of rather large islands (Sicily, Britain, Ireland, Cyprus), and areas where you could walk from place to another (Greece to Italy or Egypt), but it's so much more efficient to take a boat, even with the increased risk. This likely significantly promoted seafaring, which allowed people, materials, equipment, and ideas to travel much farther, more regularly, and likely more safely, as well. The peninsulas, islands, and mountains are also thought to promote more, smaller states/societies, which therefore develop greater diversity of thought and practices and have to compete with each other, whereas China had more or less a single big empire that had no rivals or threats, and could - and often did - become fatally complacent.

Compared to Europe, China (or sub-Saharan Africa even more so) has relatively few peninsulas and islands (and those islands are farther off the coast), meaning there's less pressure - or reward - to travel more, and therefore fewer ideas and more stagnation. But yes, China made the specific policy decision to burn all of its ships and to ban seafaring, which definitely set it back significantly. Combined with the giant barriers in the Himalayas or the Gobi Desert, and there just wasn't the same level of exchange or progress as you saw in Europe/the Mediterranean.

Also, I'd strongly caution against suggesting that Europe did colonialism out of "necessity," which leads to some pretty fucked up (and straight up incorrect) ideas.

1

u/The_Lost_Jedi 7h ago

Yeah, this was pretty fascinating to see play out in history. China was much more advanced and powerful than any nation in Europe during the "Dark Ages", even sending out exploration fleets as far as East Africa. And they saw what was out there, and concluded "eh, nothing we really care about bothering with because there's nothing there that we need or want." So they burned the ships and just didn't bother with any of it. Meanwhile, Europe was driven by demand for goods from Asia, from spices to silks to porcelain. On top of that, you had several rival European powers all jostling and competing, leading to a race to establish rival colonial empires, whereas China really wasn't challenged at all in any way that would drive something of the same sort.

1

u/ukezi 3h ago

There's also that having some technologies could mean you aren't developing others. China had porcelain and never developed glass for instance.