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I wonder why no one tries to colonize Antarctica as a stepping stone for future space colonization. We can test and develop our greenhouse and energy tech there

by maga 6y ago

I wonder why no one tries to colonize Antarctica as a stepping stone for future space colonization. We can test and develop our greenhouse and energy tech there. E.g. create a colony that gets all its energy from solar and uses it to grow greenhouse plants supplying most if not all of its food.

madaxe_again 6y ago
There’s no sun in the winter for solar, and the winds are often too high for wind power - they’ve got I think three turbines over at Scott, just around the corner from McMurdo, but they only cover a small percentage of their power - the rest is diesel. They tried nuclear at McMurdo, way back when, and ended up with 10,000m3 of contaminated rock they had to export, as the aptly named nukey poo was a bit... poo. Poor reliability, not much power, lots of contamination. All that’s there now is a plaque and an NSF rad monitor a little bit up Obs hill. In Antarctica, geothermal would probably be the most reliable renewable power source for somewhere like McMurdo, as they’re practically on Erebus - but way out in the interior, you’d have a few km of ice to contend with before getting to any kind of geo-anything. Weirdly, I was walking along behind a tractor yesterday, and found myself enjoying the stink of diesel fumes - it took me a few minutes to realise why - it’s the smell of Antarctica, minus the Penguin shit, as practically all power there comes from burning diesel! As to a Mars analogue, the dry valleys, just over the sound from McMurdo, are pretty close, and a lot of research of the “will it work on Mars?” type is carried out there - much of the Viking hardware was tested out in Taylor Valley, for instance.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  And it is likely still orders of magnitudes easier than actually living on Mars. So you'd expect that long before a Mars mission is feasible/desirable Antarctica would be colonized.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    The motivations for colonizing Mars are quite different from the motivations for colonizing Antarctica.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > 10,000m3 of contaminated rock they had to export Wouldn't it be better left in Antarctica than where ever else it was dumped?
  - madaxe_again 6y ago
    Probably, but those optics are almost as bad as mildly irradiating the port of Dunedin (yeah, that happened) and then shipping it on to California and Georgia for internment. For a long while, waste management at McMurdo was “tow it out onto the sea ice, and wait for summer”. The sound is littered with who only knows what.
  - molofaha 6y ago
    Antarctic Treaty forbids the disposal of nuclear waste there.
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      What actually backs up the treaty? What happens if it is broken?
      - saiya-jin 6y ago
        Some parts of the world luckily still seem to run on this obscure ancient thing called morality, trump didn't have time to mess up this part of the world
        smabie 6y ago
        What part of the world is that?
        Chris2048 6y ago
        Oh really? Please name those places, and the relevant agreements/treaties they uphold for purely moral reasons.
      - bayesian_horse 6y ago
- Jedd 6y ago
  > ... and the winds are often too high for wind power ... Maybe this is a great candidate for vertical axis wind mills / turbines? As I understand it, vertical axle don't suffer the red-lining problem of horizontal axle / fin based turbines, and while generally less efficient than conventional wind turbines, they'd ultimately be more effective in this environment.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >They tried nuclear at McMurdo, way back when, and ended up with 10,000m3 of contaminated rock they had to export, as the aptly named nukey poo was a bit... poo. Poor reliability, not much power, lots of contamination. All that’s there now is a plaque and an NSF rad monitor a little bit up Obs hill How did they F that up? The Russians manage to successfully use nuclear power for similarly remote stuff and it works well until locals decide they want to steal parts to sell for money (which is a problem you don't have in Antartcia).
  - mikewarot 6y ago
    The Russians are using thermopiles driven by radioactive decay, not actual reactors that go critical. Such devices are indeed quite stable for decades unless they get targeted by scrappers. A few hundred watts from a large RTG is a drop in the bucket compared to the power required to keep a base going, so those aren't applicable. If you need a transmitter or relay station hundreds of miles from people to run for years without fueling... RTGs are an option for governments.
  - bayesian_horse 6y ago
    I suspect Russians care a little less about cleaning up after themselves or keeping the radiation levels down in the first place...
  - michael1999 6y ago
    None of the marines, the army, nor the Air Force have successfully fielded nuclear power. The navy is the only branch to pull it off. It might be harder than you think.
yakshaving_jgt 6y ago
Supposedly, it would be difficult to set up for space exploration there given the Americans are [apparently, allegedly, rumoured to be] using it as a covert military missile silo[0]. [0]: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm
- andylynch 6y ago
  This is a great travelogue. I've always wanted to visit Antartica, and now I have a reason to. (On of my HS teachers spent a summer at Scott Base, the NZ one near McMurdo; I didn't realise they are in walking/skiing distance).
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Somewhat north of that location: Project Iceworm and Camp Century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuBrQLMUAZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuBrQLMUAZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acSpI9mheAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acSpI9mheAI
redis_mlc 6y ago
> I wonder why no one tries to colonize Antarctica as a stepping stone for future space colonization. Most of Canada and Russia (still) qualifies for that in the winter, and there's more frequent airline service.
codingdave 6y ago
There are people doing such research, but they use the Utah desert: http://mdrs.marssociety.org/ http://mdrs.marssociety.org/
alod 6y ago
It is a very different environment with different challenges, it isn't that useful an analog. Many of the Antarctica challenges relate to the ice. One thing it does share (on smaller stations, not McMurdo) is the isolation and the impact on social structures. Concordia, run by the French and Italians, it has an ongoing relationship with the European Space Agency.
Chris2048 6y ago
I imagine you can get a similar effect with an underground bunker without travelling to the pole. You'd have to the bunker would have to derive all it's needs from a solar-cell-like electricity feed, and the solar-panel tech could probably be developed independently from the colony project. Maybe you could even remove the air from a case if feasible?

by maga 6y ago

madaxe_again 6y ago

There’s no sun in the winter for solar, and the winds are often too high for wind power - they’ve got I think three turbines over at Scott, just around the corner from McMurdo, but they only cover a small percentage of their power - the rest is diesel. They tried nuclear at McMurdo, way back when, and ended up with 10,000m3 of contaminated rock they had to export, as the aptly named nukey poo was a bit... poo. Poor reliability, not much power, lots of contamination. All that’s there now is a plaque and an NSF rad monitor a little bit up Obs hill. In Antarctica, geothermal would probably be the most reliable renewable power source for somewhere like McMurdo, as they’re practically on Erebus - but way out in the interior, you’d have a few km of ice to contend with before getting to any kind of geo-anything. Weirdly, I was walking along behind a tractor yesterday, and found myself enjoying the stink of diesel fumes - it took me a few minutes to realise why - it’s the smell of Antarctica, minus the Penguin shit, as practically all power there comes from burning diesel! As to a Mars analogue, the dry valleys, just over the sound from McMurdo, are pretty close, and a lot of research of the “will it work on Mars?” type is carried out there - much of the Viking hardware was tested out in Taylor Valley, for instance.

jacquesm 6y ago
And it is likely still orders of magnitudes easier than actually living on Mars. So you'd expect that long before a Mars mission is feasible/desirable Antarctica would be colonized.
- adrianN 6y ago
  The motivations for colonizing Mars are quite different from the motivations for colonizing Antarctica.
WalterBright 6y ago
> 10,000m3 of contaminated rock they had to export Wouldn't it be better left in Antarctica than where ever else it was dumped?
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  Probably, but those optics are almost as bad as mildly irradiating the port of Dunedin (yeah, that happened) and then shipping it on to California and Georgia for internment. For a long while, waste management at McMurdo was “tow it out onto the sea ice, and wait for summer”. The sound is littered with who only knows what.
- molofaha 6y ago
  Antarctic Treaty forbids the disposal of nuclear waste there.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    What actually backs up the treaty? What happens if it is broken?
    - saiya-jin 6y ago
      Some parts of the world luckily still seem to run on this obscure ancient thing called morality, trump didn't have time to mess up this part of the world
      - smabie 6y ago
        What part of the world is that?
      - Chris2048 6y ago
        Oh really? Please name those places, and the relevant agreements/treaties they uphold for purely moral reasons.
    - bayesian_horse 6y ago
Jedd 6y ago
> ... and the winds are often too high for wind power ... Maybe this is a great candidate for vertical axis wind mills / turbines? As I understand it, vertical axle don't suffer the red-lining problem of horizontal axle / fin based turbines, and while generally less efficient than conventional wind turbines, they'd ultimately be more effective in this environment.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>They tried nuclear at McMurdo, way back when, and ended up with 10,000m3 of contaminated rock they had to export, as the aptly named nukey poo was a bit... poo. Poor reliability, not much power, lots of contamination. All that’s there now is a plaque and an NSF rad monitor a little bit up Obs hill How did they F that up? The Russians manage to successfully use nuclear power for similarly remote stuff and it works well until locals decide they want to steal parts to sell for money (which is a problem you don't have in Antartcia).
- mikewarot 6y ago
  The Russians are using thermopiles driven by radioactive decay, not actual reactors that go critical. Such devices are indeed quite stable for decades unless they get targeted by scrappers. A few hundred watts from a large RTG is a drop in the bucket compared to the power required to keep a base going, so those aren't applicable. If you need a transmitter or relay station hundreds of miles from people to run for years without fueling... RTGs are an option for governments.
- bayesian_horse 6y ago
  I suspect Russians care a little less about cleaning up after themselves or keeping the radiation levels down in the first place...
- michael1999 6y ago
  None of the marines, the army, nor the Air Force have successfully fielded nuclear power. The navy is the only branch to pull it off. It might be harder than you think.

yakshaving_jgt 6y ago

Supposedly, it would be difficult to set up for space exploration there given the Americans are [apparently, allegedly, rumoured to be] using it as a covert military missile silo[0]. [0]: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm

andylynch 6y ago
This is a great travelogue. I've always wanted to visit Antartica, and now I have a reason to. (On of my HS teachers spent a summer at Scott Base, the NZ one near McMurdo; I didn't realise they are in walking/skiing distance).
dredmorbius 6y ago
Somewhat north of that location: Project Iceworm and Camp Century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuBrQLMUAZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuBrQLMUAZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acSpI9mheAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acSpI9mheAI

redis_mlc 6y ago

> I wonder why no one tries to colonize Antarctica as a stepping stone for future space colonization. Most of Canada and Russia (still) qualifies for that in the winter, and there's more frequent airline service.

codingdave 6y ago

There are people doing such research, but they use the Utah desert: http://mdrs.marssociety.org/ http://mdrs.marssociety.org/

alod 6y ago

It is a very different environment with different challenges, it isn't that useful an analog. Many of the Antarctica challenges relate to the ice. One thing it does share (on smaller stations, not McMurdo) is the isolation and the impact on social structures. Concordia, run by the French and Italians, it has an ongoing relationship with the European Space Agency.

Chris2048 6y ago

I imagine you can get a similar effect with an underground bunker without travelling to the pole. You'd have to the bunker would have to derive all it's needs from a solar-cell-like electricity feed, and the solar-panel tech could probably be developed independently from the colony project. Maybe you could even remove the air from a case if feasible?