The silly dream of space colonization

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Taboo
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The silly dream of space colonization

Post by Taboo »

Two great articles about why colonies on Mars (and other solar system planets) are more of a Cereal Box idea and why they'll likely stay there for a while.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/1984-case.htm

http://www.science20.com/robert_invento ... ore-118531

Basic points:
1) Cold
2) Vaccum
3) Toxic Dust\Powder and Dust Storms
4) Our best self-contained habitats leak like a sieve
5) Low gravitation
6) No industrial base to rely on.

I think the point is worth making that Antarctica, Sahara and Submarine Continental Shelf are much more friendly to human colonization that Mars (or the Moon, or any other large Solar body) will ever be. Once the Sahara is a lush, solar-powered garden, perhaps I'll change my mind.
Mr. Perfect
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Re: The silly dream of space colonization

Post by Mr. Perfect »

aferim used to make this point all the time and I think he was right.
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Endovelico
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Re: The silly dream of space colonization

Post by Endovelico »

If people only lived where it is good and comfortable, we would all be living on the shores of the Mediterranean...
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Torchwood
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Re: The silly dream of space colonization

Post by Torchwood »

Indeed, the other bits of rock in the solar system are quite unsuitable. Small, airless (Mars, Moon), a vision of hell (Venus).

All those exoplanets they have discovered ?

" Go to warp drive, Scotty!" "Er, it doesn't exist, Cap'n. and there are good physical reasons why it probably never will..."

This , however, or a variant of it (e.g perhaps toroidal) is perfectly feasible and habitable in principle, although we are a long long way from being able to construct one. All the materials to do so are accessible in space. The number of such space habitats could be replicated almost indefinitely, removing the environmental constraints on human technological civlisation.

Actually the second link provided by Taboo makes the same point.
noddy
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Re: The silly dream of space colonization

Post by noddy »

balanced sealed systems are awfully difficult and so far none of the experimental domes has survived without external inputs of water and air.

from my own tinkering with aquaponics i think they need to be on a huge scale to provide inherit safety buffers
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Torchwood
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Re: The silly dream of space colonization

Post by Torchwood »

Yes, they need to be made large and yes, there will be some leakage which needs to be topped up. If the latter is small, it is not insuperable.

Structurally, a cylinder or torus of 10km diameter and 20km long is quite feasible. This gives an internal surface area of some 1,300 sq.kms, able to support a self sufficient population of some 0.5-1 million at a reasonable population density and conventional agriculture. It would probably made of titanium metal from moon ores - note that certain metals not that common on earth (Ti, Ni) are plentiful on the moon and others accessible through tectonic action on earth (Cu, Zn, Pb etc.) are scarce. Iron and aluminium are plentiful. A layer of lunar regolith 2 metres deep is adequate shielding against cosmic rays, and when fertilised makes adequate soil. Quite a slow rotation rate is adequate to give 1g pseudo gravity. Such a big habitat is an end goal, smaller prototypes would be needed first.

Where do you get the air and water from? Energy should be cheap from 24/7 solar or nuclear:
- Venus has a super dense CO2 atmosphere, split it into C and O2. Has plenty of nitrogen as well . CO2 from Venus as dry ice would make a good propellant for nuclear or solar powered space transports.
- lunar ores for metals are oxides. Current electrolytic production of such metals on earth uses carbon anodes which emit CO2, but research is ongoing for inert anodes which emit oxygen
- there seems to be a lot of water ice in the asteroid belt, maybe (not proven) near Martian poles. Jupiter's moon Europa seems to have a huge water ocean, but it may sustain life.

Collecting all this stuff with unmanned vessels takes time and invested capital, but not a lot of energy (no gravity well to escape from, unlike from the earth)

Eventually a self sufficient space economy would need nothing from Earth except people, information and capital. The latter two are electronic and weightless, and for people there are mass transport systems possible which are much more efficient and lower cost than rockets (space loop, space elevator etc.)
noddy
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Re: The silly dream of space colonization

Post by noddy »

Taboo wrote:Two great articles about why colonies on Mars (and other solar system planets) are more of a Cereal Box idea and why they'll likely stay there for a while.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/1984-case.htm

http://www.science20.com/robert_invento ... ore-118531

Basic points:
1) Cold
2) Vaccum
3) Toxic Dust\Powder and Dust Storms
4) Our best self-contained habitats leak like a sieve
5) Low gravitation
6) No industrial base to rely on.

I think the point is worth making that Antarctica, Sahara and Submarine Continental Shelf are much more friendly to human colonization that Mars (or the Moon, or any other large Solar body) will ever be. Once the Sahara is a lush, solar-powered garden, perhaps I'll change my mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen–S ... le_Station

the coldest nastiest place on earth, never warmer than minus 20c and in total darkness 6 months a year.

apparently that base has been self sufficient for a while now and grows its own food... water and air are obviously "free" :)
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Post by monster_gardener »

Taboo wrote:Two great articles about why colonies on Mars (and other solar system planets) are more of a Cereal Box idea and why they'll likely stay there for a while.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/1984-case.htm

http://www.science20.com/robert_invento ... ore-118531

Basic points:
1) Cold
2) Vaccum
3) Toxic Dust\Powder and Dust Storms
4) Our best self-contained habitats leak like a sieve
5) Low gravitation
6) No industrial base to rely on.

I think the point is worth making that Antarctica, Sahara and Submarine Continental Shelf are much more friendly to human colonization that Mars (or the Moon, or any other large Solar body) will ever be. Once the Sahara is a lush, solar-powered garden, perhaps I'll change my mind.
Thank You VERY Much for your post, Taboo.
I think the point is worth making that Antarctica, Sahara and Submarine Continental Shelf are much more friendly to human colonization that Mars (or the Moon, or any other large Solar body) will ever be.
Currently true* but Antarctica, the Sahara & undersea colonies would still be within quick and easy reach of nukes controlled by Crazy Depraved Sinful Egotistical Chaos Monkey Killer Apes... :(

That said I agree that even Mars, the best of the true planets after Earth, is still problematic with just enough atmosphere to be annoying and no magnetic field to guard against solar radiation.....

I suspect it might not be that difficult to correct the atmosphere problem by crashing comets into Mars which is likely the way Earth got its atmosphere but better to first go after low hanging fruit like Near Earth Asteroids (which need to be put to good use rather than being a potential problem (see below)) and the Lunar polar regions.

The important thing is to get sustainable space colonies going before we or Mean Green Mother Nature do for us like she did for the Dinosaurs among many others......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

The Dinosaur Killer space rock was not even the worst extinct event......
The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) extinction event, informally known as the Great Dying,[2] was an extinction event that occurred 252.28 Ma (million years) ago,[3] forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as well as the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. It is the Earth's most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species[4] and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct.[5] It is the only known mass extinction of insects.[6][7] Some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on Earth took significantly longer than after any other extinction event,[4] possibly up to 10 million years.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2 ... tion_event

The Human Race needs to get dispersed into many nests instead of just one......

*Given present levels of radioactivity, toxins and pathogens :roll:
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