5 ms·
> For a few decades (assuming fixed rate), until the population doubles and we'll be overpopulating two planets. By the time mankind would be able to populate
by baybal2 6y ago
> For a few decades (assuming fixed rate), until the population doubles and we'll be overpopulating two planets.
By the time mankind would be able to populate Mars, we would've probably have no effort to just build cities in space.
The amount of steel, and aluminum you can make just from moon, and earth is enough for billions of space cities.
- ta988 6y agowhat about food? wouldnt that be the limiting factor?
- baybal2 6y agoIf you can lift exatons of steel into space, you can probably already afford to solve the problem of direct synthesis of all, and every fertilizer, and probably nearly every other chemistry process just by throwing more energy at it.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoRaw materials will be cheap in space, once we crack orbital manufacturing.
- vbezhenar 6y agoPlants convert light to food, you don't even need anything from science fiction.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoYou still need carbon; plants just extract it from the air using light.
- vbezhenar 6y agoReuse CO2 and human waste. You need some income, as reuse can't be perfect, but I think it's manageable.
- esperent 6y agoAstronauts on the ISS have proven that living in space even for a few months is extremely unhealthy. Seems like that might be a harder problem to solve than building the space cities.
- ballenf 6y agoHow much of that is just because it’s not spinning/ no gravity? That plus better shielding should help right?
- dodobirdlord 6y agoHigh energy cosmic rays are tough to shield against. On Earth there’s 60 miles of atmosphere, in space you would have to reproduce that with several meters of dense material.
- kungito 6y agoWhat if you were orbiting a planet always on the opposite side of where the Sun is?
- TeMPOraL 6y agoThe view would suck. You'd have to pack nuclear reactors to provide power (though that's a given for any kind of serious activity in space anyway), and your scientific and operational capabilities would be limited/made difficult by the lack of sunlight.
- the8472 6y agoCosmic rays aren't caused by the sun. If anything the heliosphere shields us from some of them.