6 ms·

A Mercury Colony?

77 points by drocer88 5y ago

8bitsrule 5y ago
Discussion from 8 years back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333 UniverseToday 2016: "How Do We Terraform Mercury?" [https://www.universetoday.com/128531/terraform-mercury/ https://www.universetoday.com/128531/terraform-mercury/]
gorgoiler 5y ago
Are there fundamental limits to mechanical reliability? Towards the end the article talks about how the initial startup period for the colony will be the hardest. If the startup process were automated, no one would be at risk. Send the first colonists once the tomatoes are ripe. But is there a practical limit on how much can be automated, remotely? Are we approaching (or have we already passed?) a singularity in the human race based on our ability to product fault tolerant ball race bearings and machine screws that never snap?
- qayxc 5y ago
  > Are we approaching (or have we already passed?) a singularity in the human race based on our ability to product fault tolerant ball race bearings and machine screws that never snap? I guess not [0]. I don't know of any artificial autonomous self-diagnosing and self-repairing mechanism either. The current approach is to hope that either nothing breaks or that built-in redundancy is sufficient to compensate for mechanical failures. [0] https://safety4sea.com/autonomous-vessel-prototype-pauses-atlantic-crossing-due-to-mechanical-problem/ https://safety4sea.com/autonomous-vessel-prototype-pauses-at...
  - toss1 5y ago
    Yup, and notice that the autonomous voyage was "interrupted by a small mechanical problem" and "no one on board to repair". It doesn't take much to shut down mechanical devices. The problem with the "machine screws that never snap" is that we are still dealing with physical materials - everything is a trade-off; we could spec a screw with 100x the strength of the max expected load instead of a standard 2.4x margin, but we've probably blown both the weight and dollar budgets, and/or merely shifted the failure point to another component. And this doesn't even count for disasters to the mission from unexpected events. Seems that we'll need to get well into the realm of self-repair and self-replicating devices before such massive remote autonomous are reasonably feasible.
surajcm 5y ago
Is the chances of mercury hit by an asteroid is higher than that of Earth ? It seems so, as it is close to sun.
- deviledeggs 5y ago
  Possibly not. Most asteroids are far out, and the giant planets tend to knock them our way. Mercury is also a smaller target. Earths atmosphere protects us from all but the biggest rocks. Micrometer impacts on Mercury are a real danger, but that's also true in space/moon/mars
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  I would expect quite the opposite. A. Mercury is small. B. Sun is close, and huge objects like sun tend to clear their neighbourhood of small rocks. (There are comets coming your way, though.) C. Even if something hits Mercury, there are no oceans, so zero risk of a tsunami wreaking havoc 1000 km from the original point of impact. This is one of the disadvantages of having a liquid ocean on our surface. That said, asteroids are not the main problem. The radiation on the surface of Mercury would be a challenge. Humans wouldn't be able to work outside during Mercury day at all, unless we can construct much better protective suits. Even getting there would be a challenge, you would get a lot of exposure during the flight. But Mercury is rich in minerals, so perhaps we can find something of value in mineable concentration there. And building a space elevator on Mercury should be possible with current materials. So in my case, the jury is out.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    You'd also need to get anything you mined on Mercury to where it's needed. Probably a lot further out in the solar system. That sounds like a lot of delta-v.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      True, but when moving stuff away from the Sun, perhaps you could use solar sails. Pressure of solar radiation is significantly higher at Mercury's orbit than in proximity of the Earth, so solar sails should be more efficient there. Cargo, unlike humans, can take its time on the way. In case of minerals, it likely won't be damaged by vacuum or radiation exposure. The only thing that really interests you is that it arrives on schedule.
exporectomy 5y ago
"us humans will consume the Earth's non-renewable energy and mineral resources almost completely within the next 50-100 years, severely reducing our discretionary income for costly activities such as space travel." I know this is an old article. Perhaps written in the hype of peak-oil days or something like that.
- a3w 5y ago
  Old, as in ~2019~ 2013. It mentions four, not five mars rovers. So its from before 30. Juli 2020. It might have been writing during the fourth mission, so from 2004-2018 any date might be valid. But i would guess it is very new. Update: Appeared on HN in 2013.
- colordrops 5y ago
  The next generation of rockets use methane, which can be made in a renewable fashion, making this point moot.
mattowen_uk 5y ago
FYI, Kim Stanley Robinson's book '2312'[1] has a large chunk of the story set on Mercury - with a novel concept for the colony. (Small story spoilers in the link below) --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)
- justshowpost 5y ago
  Caution, the author is communist and it severely affects his social sci-fi imaginations, almost to revolting notch. That made me to ditch martian trilogy at ⅔ despite of absence of other sci-fi reading.
javajosh 5y ago
If you want an insurance policy against a large asteroid strike, then the best bet would still be on Earth - but perhaps deep under the ocean, or deep underground. The arguments for this project (and against) are largely the same (e.g. it's not likely to be economically viable because of trade). Space is for robots. Earth is for life.
- senko 5y ago
  "Air is for birds and gods. Ground is for people." -- unknown person, AD 1000 Why are we so shortsighted? The future is an incredibly long time. If self-sufficient human settlements on, say Mars, are out of the question with our current level of technology and are unlikely in the next few centuries, does that imply they'll be just as unlikely in 10,000 years? Will our descendants be so stupid they won't be able to solve new technology challenges? Today is not the end of history.
  - blooalien 5y ago
    Bad impression of announcer voice: Will humanity survive long enough to find out the answers to these questions and more? Tune in next time to find out! Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!
    - chii 5y ago
      given that humans took less than 100 years to get powered flight, less than 50 yrs to get rocketry, i expect interplanetary colonization to not be in the too distant future...
      - arminiusreturns 5y ago
        I mean isnt the main question if we destroy ourselves before that time?
      - blooalien 5y ago
        I'ma have to see a viable colony on Earth's moon before I'ma able to even consider the possibility we have a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving someplace like Mars. Problem is… Can humanity survive itself long enough to even get a colony on the Moon?
akomtu 5y ago
The best way to live on Mercury is to become some sort of etheric creature that's not affected by the brutal radiation there.
lmilcin 5y ago
It kinda forgets one very small detail. Getting there is requires almost twice as much delta v as to Mars or Venus. Also, since you are going deep into Sun's gravity well, getting from there to practically anywhere is going to be very expensive. Setting a base on Mars actually helps further colonization as you are setting further from Sun on a planet with less gravity. Though my understanding is that future of space exploration is going to be swarms of robotic factories that can replicate itself from minerals from asteroids.
- r34 5y ago
  It doesn't forget - it's stated in the article (close to the end).
- Tuna-Fish 5y ago
  The potential trick for dealing with this is sundiving with a solar sail. That is, you set out of earth orbit for Venus, and while there, do a gravity assist to drop your perihelion very low. Then, you use the sail to brake (lower aphelion) the whole way in, and as the thrust you get from the sail goes up the closer you get to the sun, by the time you reach your perihelion you have sufficient thrust to be in complete control of your orbit, with infinite Δv. Then you can match your aphelion to Mercury at your leisure, and arrive with a slow constant raise of your perihelion to make entering low orbit very cheap. The math works out so far as thrust is concerned, even with relatively conservative solar sail designs. The bigger question is how much risk does unpredicted solar activity cause. (On the other hand, you might have the ability to just dodge any you encounter... Solar sails very close to the sun operate more like cartoon spaceships than any other real spacecraft.)
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Solar sails might be acceptable for unmanned probes, but for an actual manned mission so close to Sun you need a huge vessel, which would require proportionately gigantic sail. While you can deal easily with heat by reflecting the light, you need to contend with a lot of shielding necessary to deal with solar winds that are much more stronger and frequent so close to the sun. It might be possible to run a train of supply missions this way, I would have to check the math but I am too lazy today to do it:) IN general it does not matter a lot how long it takes for a supply mission to reach the planet, you can have as many of them in flight as you want (and your budget allows). It could actually be interesting to see if it would be possible to have a fleet of these vessels constantly moving between Earth/Mercury, taking cargo by randezvous at Earth's orbit and dropping it off at Mercury's orbit to come back for more cargo. Kind of light-powered conveyor belt.
axilmar 5y ago
Wouldn't the money spent for such an operation be better spent in asteroid defense? it would be a lot cheaper as well.
sMarsIntruder 5y ago
Is there a TL;DR version?
nickserv 5y ago
It doesn't make for a very pleasant life, stuck underground on a planet with no atmosphere. Better to strip mine Mercury and use the metals for building a Dyson swarm.

77 points by drocer88 5y ago

Discussion from 8 years back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333 UniverseToday 2016: "How Do We Terraform Mercury?" [https://www.universetoday.com/128531/terraform-mercury/ https://www.universetoday.com/128531/terraform-mercury/]

gorgoiler 5y ago

Are there fundamental limits to mechanical reliability? Towards the end the article talks about how the initial startup period for the colony will be the hardest. If the startup process were automated, no one would be at risk. Send the first colonists once the tomatoes are ripe. But is there a practical limit on how much can be automated, remotely? Are we approaching (or have we already passed?) a singularity in the human race based on our ability to product fault tolerant ball race bearings and machine screws that never snap?

qayxc 5y ago
> Are we approaching (or have we already passed?) a singularity in the human race based on our ability to product fault tolerant ball race bearings and machine screws that never snap? I guess not [0]. I don't know of any artificial autonomous self-diagnosing and self-repairing mechanism either. The current approach is to hope that either nothing breaks or that built-in redundancy is sufficient to compensate for mechanical failures. [0] https://safety4sea.com/autonomous-vessel-prototype-pauses-atlantic-crossing-due-to-mechanical-problem/ https://safety4sea.com/autonomous-vessel-prototype-pauses-at...
- toss1 5y ago
  Yup, and notice that the autonomous voyage was "interrupted by a small mechanical problem" and "no one on board to repair". It doesn't take much to shut down mechanical devices. The problem with the "machine screws that never snap" is that we are still dealing with physical materials - everything is a trade-off; we could spec a screw with 100x the strength of the max expected load instead of a standard 2.4x margin, but we've probably blown both the weight and dollar budgets, and/or merely shifted the failure point to another component. And this doesn't even count for disasters to the mission from unexpected events. Seems that we'll need to get well into the realm of self-repair and self-replicating devices before such massive remote autonomous are reasonably feasible.

surajcm 5y ago

Is the chances of mercury hit by an asteroid is higher than that of Earth ? It seems so, as it is close to sun.

deviledeggs 5y ago
Possibly not. Most asteroids are far out, and the giant planets tend to knock them our way. Mercury is also a smaller target. Earths atmosphere protects us from all but the biggest rocks. Micrometer impacts on Mercury are a real danger, but that's also true in space/moon/mars
inglor_cz 5y ago
I would expect quite the opposite. A. Mercury is small. B. Sun is close, and huge objects like sun tend to clear their neighbourhood of small rocks. (There are comets coming your way, though.) C. Even if something hits Mercury, there are no oceans, so zero risk of a tsunami wreaking havoc 1000 km from the original point of impact. This is one of the disadvantages of having a liquid ocean on our surface. That said, asteroids are not the main problem. The radiation on the surface of Mercury would be a challenge. Humans wouldn't be able to work outside during Mercury day at all, unless we can construct much better protective suits. Even getting there would be a challenge, you would get a lot of exposure during the flight. But Mercury is rich in minerals, so perhaps we can find something of value in mineable concentration there. And building a space elevator on Mercury should be possible with current materials. So in my case, the jury is out.
- adrianN 5y ago
  You'd also need to get anything you mined on Mercury to where it's needed. Probably a lot further out in the solar system. That sounds like a lot of delta-v.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    True, but when moving stuff away from the Sun, perhaps you could use solar sails. Pressure of solar radiation is significantly higher at Mercury's orbit than in proximity of the Earth, so solar sails should be more efficient there. Cargo, unlike humans, can take its time on the way. In case of minerals, it likely won't be damaged by vacuum or radiation exposure. The only thing that really interests you is that it arrives on schedule.

exporectomy 5y ago

"us humans will consume the Earth's non-renewable energy and mineral resources almost completely within the next 50-100 years, severely reducing our discretionary income for costly activities such as space travel." I know this is an old article. Perhaps written in the hype of peak-oil days or something like that.

a3w 5y ago
Old, as in ~2019~ 2013. It mentions four, not five mars rovers. So its from before 30. Juli 2020. It might have been writing during the fourth mission, so from 2004-2018 any date might be valid. But i would guess it is very new. Update: Appeared on HN in 2013.
colordrops 5y ago
The next generation of rockets use methane, which can be made in a renewable fashion, making this point moot.

mattowen_uk 5y ago

FYI, Kim Stanley Robinson's book '2312'[1] has a large chunk of the story set on Mercury - with a novel concept for the colony. (Small story spoilers in the link below) --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)

justshowpost 5y ago
Caution, the author is communist and it severely affects his social sci-fi imaginations, almost to revolting notch. That made me to ditch martian trilogy at ⅔ despite of absence of other sci-fi reading.

javajosh 5y ago

If you want an insurance policy against a large asteroid strike, then the best bet would still be on Earth - but perhaps deep under the ocean, or deep underground. The arguments for this project (and against) are largely the same (e.g. it's not likely to be economically viable because of trade). Space is for robots. Earth is for life.

senko 5y ago
"Air is for birds and gods. Ground is for people." -- unknown person, AD 1000 Why are we so shortsighted? The future is an incredibly long time. If self-sufficient human settlements on, say Mars, are out of the question with our current level of technology and are unlikely in the next few centuries, does that imply they'll be just as unlikely in 10,000 years? Will our descendants be so stupid they won't be able to solve new technology challenges? Today is not the end of history.
- blooalien 5y ago
  Bad impression of announcer voice: Will humanity survive long enough to find out the answers to these questions and more? Tune in next time to find out! Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!
  - chii 5y ago
    given that humans took less than 100 years to get powered flight, less than 50 yrs to get rocketry, i expect interplanetary colonization to not be in the too distant future...
    - arminiusreturns 5y ago
      I mean isnt the main question if we destroy ourselves before that time?
    - blooalien 5y ago
      I'ma have to see a viable colony on Earth's moon before I'ma able to even consider the possibility we have a snowball's chance in Hell of surviving someplace like Mars. Problem is… Can humanity survive itself long enough to even get a colony on the Moon?

akomtu 5y ago

The best way to live on Mercury is to become some sort of etheric creature that's not affected by the brutal radiation there.

lmilcin 5y ago

It kinda forgets one very small detail. Getting there is requires almost twice as much delta v as to Mars or Venus. Also, since you are going deep into Sun's gravity well, getting from there to practically anywhere is going to be very expensive. Setting a base on Mars actually helps further colonization as you are setting further from Sun on a planet with less gravity. Though my understanding is that future of space exploration is going to be swarms of robotic factories that can replicate itself from minerals from asteroids.

r34 5y ago
It doesn't forget - it's stated in the article (close to the end).
Tuna-Fish 5y ago
The potential trick for dealing with this is sundiving with a solar sail. That is, you set out of earth orbit for Venus, and while there, do a gravity assist to drop your perihelion very low. Then, you use the sail to brake (lower aphelion) the whole way in, and as the thrust you get from the sail goes up the closer you get to the sun, by the time you reach your perihelion you have sufficient thrust to be in complete control of your orbit, with infinite Δv. Then you can match your aphelion to Mercury at your leisure, and arrive with a slow constant raise of your perihelion to make entering low orbit very cheap. The math works out so far as thrust is concerned, even with relatively conservative solar sail designs. The bigger question is how much risk does unpredicted solar activity cause. (On the other hand, you might have the ability to just dodge any you encounter... Solar sails very close to the sun operate more like cartoon spaceships than any other real spacecraft.)
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Solar sails might be acceptable for unmanned probes, but for an actual manned mission so close to Sun you need a huge vessel, which would require proportionately gigantic sail. While you can deal easily with heat by reflecting the light, you need to contend with a lot of shielding necessary to deal with solar winds that are much more stronger and frequent so close to the sun. It might be possible to run a train of supply missions this way, I would have to check the math but I am too lazy today to do it:) IN general it does not matter a lot how long it takes for a supply mission to reach the planet, you can have as many of them in flight as you want (and your budget allows). It could actually be interesting to see if it would be possible to have a fleet of these vessels constantly moving between Earth/Mercury, taking cargo by randezvous at Earth's orbit and dropping it off at Mercury's orbit to come back for more cargo. Kind of light-powered conveyor belt.

axilmar 5y ago

Wouldn't the money spent for such an operation be better spent in asteroid defense? it would be a lot cheaper as well.

sMarsIntruder 5y ago

Is there a TL;DR version?

nickserv 5y ago

It doesn't make for a very pleasant life, stuck underground on a planet with no atmosphere. Better to strip mine Mercury and use the metals for building a Dyson swarm.