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>The future of humanity is not only on earth. Where are you going to go? Outside of Earth, there is no place for us in the entire Solar System. Sure we may bu

>The future of humanity is not only on earth. Where are you going to go? Outside of Earth, there is no place for us in the entire Solar System. Sure we may build some research stations here and there, just as we did in inhospitable places on Earth (like Antarctica), but there's no long-term option anywhere. Interstellar travel is science fiction, but even if it wasn't, there is no place for us to go as well.

travisoneill1 6y ago
You make the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder Obviously this is far beyond our current level of technology, though.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  It's absolutely not beyond our current level of technology. Unfortunately, there are not economic incentives yet. Now, this(1) it's beyond our current level, but one can dream. It's obvious to me that this is the most probable future and I would not be surprise if, at some point, most humanity is living in this kind of environment instead of planets. Planets have a lot of disadvantages. (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)
  - nine_k 6y ago
    There can't be an economic incentive, only political ones. Much like pilgrims who founded Massachusetts, founders of space habitats will be groups of people who don't enjoy living on Earth badly enough (due to persecution, or because of desire of some grand reforms) to fund a move elsewhere. I bet the first Martian colony will quickly be recognized as a place not controllable by any Earth government, and that will be a huge selling point for tickets to Mars.
    - soylentcola 6y ago
      I would imagine that any colony would be dependent on Earth (for survival) for quite a while. I think that it would take a certain level of self-sufficiency in order to reach a point of not being controllable by earth. Being far away is one thing, but when I look at how powers on Earth exert influence and control over others, it seems you also need to be self-sufficient (protection from blockades, trade embargoes, or other modern "seiges"), and also sufficiently defended/defensible to avoid military threats. Sure, your Martian buildings may be underground, but would they be safe from heavy objects flung at them at high velocity? Seems like it would be easy enough for Earth to "put down" any Martian activities that rubbed people the wrong way for the foreseeable future.
      - aftbit 6y ago
        Maybe that will be MAD for the 23rd century - you blow up our habitats, we'll drop rocks on your cities.
        Balgair 6y ago
        It may be a bit more like the Triangle Trades of old [0]. Raw/rare materials and elements are mined in the Belt and are then sent to Earth for use in manufacture. You pick up the high quality goods and tools from Earth and ship them to Mars/Moon. Since there is water on Mars/Moon, you grow food, 'wet' supplies, and unfinished goods in the weaker gravity well for shipment to the Belt. These arrive in the Belt and you repeat the process, profiting at every spaceport. As the metropole has overwhelming manpower/firepower due to it's high class manufacturing base and population, the threat of violence is just plain bad for business all around and is discouraged. Now I'm gong to speculate very hard: Eventually, the lesser manufacturing base (Moon/Mars) will gain in economic and political power as their frontier life becomes more civilized and independent of the metropole. And they may try to declare independence fully. However, in the case of Moon/Mars, you're looking at a fully independent multi-generational extraterrestrial biospheres at that point and probably millions of people, if not 10s of millions, to run the whole thing. Lots of people that have never been to Earth and never plan on going. I really don't see that much trade/mining would be needed to go to Earth to build up and support permanently independent biospheres of a few generations of native Martians/Moonies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Has anyone demonstrated manufacturing non-trivial centrifuges in space yet? Or mining and refining in space, given we can’t possibly afford to launch that much mass from the ground? Or fully modelled the lifecycle of that sort of megastructure to find out how, why, and when the chemistry of the occupants/internal farms/etc. causes fatal problems? I’m eager to live in one of these, but I don’t think we actually know enough to build one at all yet, never mind safely.
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      There is a FDM 3D printer on the ISS & there have been many material science experiments done. A centrifuge module was planned for the ISS but later cut on cost reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Modu... Humble beginnings.
  - e_y_ 6y ago
    I think it might be better to say that's not beyond our current level of scientific understanding (it doesn't require any exotic materials or new physics). However it's likely beyond our practical engineering capabilities. Early spaceflight up through Apollo was done with an army of humans with slide rules and rivet guns. We did it because there was a political imperative to do so. A lot of new technology was developed as a result. But it ended up being unsustainable because it was too expensive. I think the key to making O'Neill cylinders feasible will be large scale outer space resource mining and in-space manufacturing. Both will require advanced robotics and AI. We could throw a bunch of money into developing that ... or we could just wait for the technology to develop here on Earth and then apply it to space. Likewise, as much as I'd like to see a Mars outpost in my lifetime, it would be a lot cheaper and safer if we didn't rush it. Maybe by 2075 we'll have cured cancer and radiation won't be an issue, and we'll have self-repairing life support systems and one of those automated medical pods from the Alien movies.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    Yeah - I'm a bit alarmed on how many people can't think out of the blue ball (sorry for the pun) - there are many many ways we can build our own environments as needed about anywhere in space given some resources and energy. Also while Earth is pretty ideal, it is not perfect - for example some places in Japan can be regularly hit by earthquakes, tsunami, flooding, Typhoons and even volcanic eruptions! If done right, habitats could be much better than planetary environments.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
We can change Mars in large ways. Lots of stuff written about that. Heck, we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat. On the order of decades from now.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >We can change Mars in large ways. No we can't. The gravity of Mars is always going to be a problem. The lack of magnetic field is always going to be a problem. Most of its atmosphere was lost to space and there is not enough water on the planet to replenish. >we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat. I read the Mars trilogy too. >On the order of decades from now. Sure.
  - mkaic 6y ago
    We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. I agree low gravity would be a problem, but life finds a way, right? Current generations of humans wouldn’t do well in 1/4 G, but maybe we’ll see significant adaptations 100 generations down the line! Who knows?
    - ben_w 6y ago
      In principle, the cities themselves could have angled bases and be spinning, adding mass-gravity to centrifugal-gravity. I’m not sure if this is actually a good idea (and why would you want to build on a planet if you’re going to live in spin gravity?) but in principle it can be done.
    - bmitc 6y ago
      > We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. How? Because to me, that seems extremely far-fetched. My understanding as to why Earth has a magnetic field and why Mars does not (or has a weak one) is that Earth has a highly dynamic molten core surrounding a solid inner core, whereas Mars only has a molten core with not as much activity. It is my understanding that Earth's geodynamo plus its rotation helps create the magnetic field that protects our atmosphere. So unless humans are able to alter planets in such...planetary ways, then I don't see how we'll suddenly be able to give Mars a sustainable magnetic field.
jupp0r 6y ago
What do you think would prevent a self sufficient colony on Mars in a few hundred years? I don't see any fundamental obstacles to it.
- Retric 6y ago
  Self sufficient requires a manufacturing base to include everything needed to sustain it’s self, including redundancies. Going from zero humans on mars to 100’s of millions is a massive bootstrap problem with minimal incentive for the the people involved or the multiple years worth of earth’s GDP to get to that point. It’s like the “self replicating” 3D printers where they can produce 98% of the structure by weight and approximately 0.001% by complexity. A base that’s producing it’s own food is doable, shipping machines to say build solar panels or a specific chip isn’t a problem. However, even just the effort to figure out a minimal slice of earth’s technology to be self significant is hard. Aka building even a single type of LCD requires a massive number of different components, and the ability to build all the machines to make those components, and machines to make those machines, ... Now realize that’s just for an LCD, manufacturing every type of Medicine is a whole other list. Finally you need to accept everyone on Mars living in relative poverty for generations due to the inefficiencies involved.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    Why does it need hundreds of millions of people?
    - Retric 6y ago
      That’s not a requirement, that’s the goal. In theory you could have a self sufficient base with 0 people and AI, or 100,000+ people for long term genetic diversity and an automated wonderland, or ...
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      Elon's estimate is that 1 million people are needed for Mars to industrialize sufficiently to become self-sufficient. A good reference is Casey Handmer's blog or book. https://www.amazon.com/How-Industrialize-Mars-Strategy-Self-Sufficiency-ebook/dp/B07GN3BJX3/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1603994976&refinements=p_27%3ACasey+Handmer&s=books&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/How-Industrialize-Mars-Strategy-Self-... https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of-space-industrialization/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of...
Animats 6y ago
Right. That was modded down, but it's realistic. All the off-earth real estate in the solar system is inhabitable only at huge cost. Mars barely has an atmosphere.

travisoneill1 6y ago

You make the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder Obviously this is far beyond our current level of technology, though.

RobertoG 6y ago
It's absolutely not beyond our current level of technology. Unfortunately, there are not economic incentives yet. Now, this(1) it's beyond our current level, but one can dream. It's obvious to me that this is the most probable future and I would not be surprise if, at some point, most humanity is living in this kind of environment instead of planets. Planets have a lot of disadvantages. (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)
- nine_k 6y ago
  There can't be an economic incentive, only political ones. Much like pilgrims who founded Massachusetts, founders of space habitats will be groups of people who don't enjoy living on Earth badly enough (due to persecution, or because of desire of some grand reforms) to fund a move elsewhere. I bet the first Martian colony will quickly be recognized as a place not controllable by any Earth government, and that will be a huge selling point for tickets to Mars.
  - soylentcola 6y ago
    I would imagine that any colony would be dependent on Earth (for survival) for quite a while. I think that it would take a certain level of self-sufficiency in order to reach a point of not being controllable by earth. Being far away is one thing, but when I look at how powers on Earth exert influence and control over others, it seems you also need to be self-sufficient (protection from blockades, trade embargoes, or other modern "seiges"), and also sufficiently defended/defensible to avoid military threats. Sure, your Martian buildings may be underground, but would they be safe from heavy objects flung at them at high velocity? Seems like it would be easy enough for Earth to "put down" any Martian activities that rubbed people the wrong way for the foreseeable future.
    - aftbit 6y ago
      Maybe that will be MAD for the 23rd century - you blow up our habitats, we'll drop rocks on your cities.
      - Balgair 6y ago
        It may be a bit more like the Triangle Trades of old [0]. Raw/rare materials and elements are mined in the Belt and are then sent to Earth for use in manufacture. You pick up the high quality goods and tools from Earth and ship them to Mars/Moon. Since there is water on Mars/Moon, you grow food, 'wet' supplies, and unfinished goods in the weaker gravity well for shipment to the Belt. These arrive in the Belt and you repeat the process, profiting at every spaceport. As the metropole has overwhelming manpower/firepower due to it's high class manufacturing base and population, the threat of violence is just plain bad for business all around and is discouraged. Now I'm gong to speculate very hard: Eventually, the lesser manufacturing base (Moon/Mars) will gain in economic and political power as their frontier life becomes more civilized and independent of the metropole. And they may try to declare independence fully. However, in the case of Moon/Mars, you're looking at a fully independent multi-generational extraterrestrial biospheres at that point and probably millions of people, if not 10s of millions, to run the whole thing. Lots of people that have never been to Earth and never plan on going. I really don't see that much trade/mining would be needed to go to Earth to build up and support permanently independent biospheres of a few generations of native Martians/Moonies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade
- ben_w 6y ago
  Has anyone demonstrated manufacturing non-trivial centrifuges in space yet? Or mining and refining in space, given we can’t possibly afford to launch that much mass from the ground? Or fully modelled the lifecycle of that sort of megastructure to find out how, why, and when the chemistry of the occupants/internal farms/etc. causes fatal problems? I’m eager to live in one of these, but I don’t think we actually know enough to build one at all yet, never mind safely.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    There is a FDM 3D printer on the ISS & there have been many material science experiments done. A centrifuge module was planned for the ISS but later cut on cost reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Modu... Humble beginnings.
- e_y_ 6y ago
  I think it might be better to say that's not beyond our current level of scientific understanding (it doesn't require any exotic materials or new physics). However it's likely beyond our practical engineering capabilities. Early spaceflight up through Apollo was done with an army of humans with slide rules and rivet guns. We did it because there was a political imperative to do so. A lot of new technology was developed as a result. But it ended up being unsustainable because it was too expensive. I think the key to making O'Neill cylinders feasible will be large scale outer space resource mining and in-space manufacturing. Both will require advanced robotics and AI. We could throw a bunch of money into developing that ... or we could just wait for the technology to develop here on Earth and then apply it to space. Likewise, as much as I'd like to see a Mars outpost in my lifetime, it would be a lot cheaper and safer if we didn't rush it. Maybe by 2075 we'll have cured cancer and radiation won't be an issue, and we'll have self-repairing life support systems and one of those automated medical pods from the Alien movies.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Yeah - I'm a bit alarmed on how many people can't think out of the blue ball (sorry for the pun) - there are many many ways we can build our own environments as needed about anywhere in space given some resources and energy. Also while Earth is pretty ideal, it is not perfect - for example some places in Japan can be regularly hit by earthquakes, tsunami, flooding, Typhoons and even volcanic eruptions! If done right, habitats could be much better than planetary environments.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

We can change Mars in large ways. Lots of stuff written about that. Heck, we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat. On the order of decades from now.

macspoofing 6y ago
>We can change Mars in large ways. No we can't. The gravity of Mars is always going to be a problem. The lack of magnetic field is always going to be a problem. Most of its atmosphere was lost to space and there is not enough water on the planet to replenish. >we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat. I read the Mars trilogy too. >On the order of decades from now. Sure.
- mkaic 6y ago
  We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. I agree low gravity would be a problem, but life finds a way, right? Current generations of humans wouldn’t do well in 1/4 G, but maybe we’ll see significant adaptations 100 generations down the line! Who knows?
  - ben_w 6y ago
    In principle, the cities themselves could have angled bases and be spinning, adding mass-gravity to centrifugal-gravity. I’m not sure if this is actually a good idea (and why would you want to build on a planet if you’re going to live in spin gravity?) but in principle it can be done.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    > We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. How? Because to me, that seems extremely far-fetched. My understanding as to why Earth has a magnetic field and why Mars does not (or has a weak one) is that Earth has a highly dynamic molten core surrounding a solid inner core, whereas Mars only has a molten core with not as much activity. It is my understanding that Earth's geodynamo plus its rotation helps create the magnetic field that protects our atmosphere. So unless humans are able to alter planets in such...planetary ways, then I don't see how we'll suddenly be able to give Mars a sustainable magnetic field.

jupp0r 6y ago

What do you think would prevent a self sufficient colony on Mars in a few hundred years? I don't see any fundamental obstacles to it.

Retric 6y ago
Self sufficient requires a manufacturing base to include everything needed to sustain it’s self, including redundancies. Going from zero humans on mars to 100’s of millions is a massive bootstrap problem with minimal incentive for the the people involved or the multiple years worth of earth’s GDP to get to that point. It’s like the “self replicating” 3D printers where they can produce 98% of the structure by weight and approximately 0.001% by complexity. A base that’s producing it’s own food is doable, shipping machines to say build solar panels or a specific chip isn’t a problem. However, even just the effort to figure out a minimal slice of earth’s technology to be self significant is hard. Aka building even a single type of LCD requires a massive number of different components, and the ability to build all the machines to make those components, and machines to make those machines, ... Now realize that’s just for an LCD, manufacturing every type of Medicine is a whole other list. Finally you need to accept everyone on Mars living in relative poverty for generations due to the inefficiencies involved.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  Why does it need hundreds of millions of people?
  - Retric 6y ago
    That’s not a requirement, that’s the goal. In theory you could have a self sufficient base with 0 people and AI, or 100,000+ people for long term genetic diversity and an automated wonderland, or ...
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Elon's estimate is that 1 million people are needed for Mars to industrialize sufficiently to become self-sufficient. A good reference is Casey Handmer's blog or book. https://www.amazon.com/How-Industrialize-Mars-Strategy-Self-Sufficiency-ebook/dp/B07GN3BJX3/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1603994976&refinements=p_27%3ACasey+Handmer&s=books&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/How-Industrialize-Mars-Strategy-Self-... https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of-space-industrialization/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of...

Animats 6y ago

Right. That was modded down, but it's realistic. All the off-earth real estate in the solar system is inhabitable only at huge cost. Mars barely has an atmosphere.