4 ms·

> But we're crazy to keep all of our existential eggs in a single basket and hope it all works out. While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to

> But we're crazy to keep all of our existential eggs in a single basket and hope it all works out. While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" it does make sense to preserve the basket we have. At least until we can afford to buy another basket without ruining the original.

roryisok 4y ago
> While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" I'm not sure where this idea is coming from. I think the idea of most modern colonisation plans is to use materials at the location to build habitats etc, by 3d printing using martian soil or lunar regolith, not ship millions of tons of natural resources into space.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  That's just magic woo though. You can't just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors or furnaces to smelt metal. Pretty much all heavy industry on Earth that makes all our high technology runs on petroleum products in some fashion. You can't just "3D print" lubrication and good luck building heavy industrial pieces without it.
  - L_226 4y ago
    Luckily space is already clean, the trick will be converting current production processes to work in microgravity - process heat offtake without convection etc. LEO or higher orbit based manufacturing will probably occur before 2050, once that is solved then deploying infrastructure onto the Martian surface will become relatively trivial.
    - giantrobot 4y ago
      That's just a string of nonsense. There's not a single aspect of deploying infrastructure anywhere in space is trivial.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > You can't just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors or furnaces to smelt metal. The idea isn't that you'll <<just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors>>. But yes, the idea is to "3D print" furnaces to smelt metal (basic furnaces are prehistory-era tech) using heat provided from the solar, wind and/or nuclear power you arrived with. Then use that to mine more ore to smelt more metal to "3D print" more... and so on, and so on, adapting production processes to local environment piece by piece, until you eventually reach basic self-sustainability, and yes, eventually you may be able to build a clean room using entirely local resources and processes. (Of course, there's the matter of whether people living on other planets will want to go for full self-sufficiency, and then if Earth even allows it. There's a potential for trade here, but the flip side of that is political power. E.g. as long as a Mars colony depends on Earth for complex organics or high-tech industry products, they're effectively under control / at the mercy of Earth.) > Pretty much all heavy industry on Earth that makes all our high technology runs on petroleum products in some fashion. It didn't until recently, though. I imagine that between those older techniques from early-to-mid XX century, and modern advances in organic chemistry, you'd be able to eliminate some of the hydrocarbons used and synthesize others, without a need to dig dead plants/dinosaurs out of the ground. > You can't just "3D print" lubrication and good luck building heavy industrial pieces without it. That's all part of the R&D work for off-world habitats and industrializing space.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      > basic furnaces are prehistory-era tech) Which require water and air in huge quantities, and ore, none of which you have on Mars. > That's all part of the R&D work for off-world habitats and industrializing space. You might as well say "magic" - it would be more plausible.
      - 6510 4y ago
        One thing to remember is that our guessing how things would work out has always been laughable with [say] 5 insanely complex problems we didn't see coming for every 1 thing turning out much less complicated than anticipated. How much of what we did just the last 100 years was accurately anticipated and how much of it is down right magical? In hind sight, how complicated an idea was it really to heat water, get it to expand and do work? I think execution was hard but the idea was kinda obvious. Most stuff we build is made of stone/rocks? It seems we can dig caves, just ship the front door an we can start our usual hoarding :)
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Hmmm. While I would be actively surprised if the Moon, for example, had every element necessary for semiconductors, one of the things I absolutely do expect to be possible on its surface is 3D printing an extremely clean clean-room. Furnaces? Well, I think it would take a polishing step after printing, but if you have aluminium you can do a rough parabola out of it and focus sunlight on a patch of regolith. Can you turn that molten alumina into aluminium and oxygen only by carbon rods and electricity? Or would electrolysis still work if you used a high-current election beam? (I genuinely don't know, I didn't do material science). Don't get me wrong, even if this is ultimately all fine without petrochemicals, I expect there is a lot of postgraduate research between now and any significant space manufacturing.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      > electrolysis That's a process that involves drawing ions through solution towards a cathode and anode. A direct beam won't do. A solar furnace would suffice for the first half of the smelting process if you have access to ore which is not pure alumina, as well as melting the cryolite flux. Actually separating out the aluminum from alumina requires PV panels, high temperature rods and some means of synthesizing the cryolite or similar solvent / flux.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        > That's a process that involves drawing ions through solution towards a cathode and anode. A direct beam won't do. OK, thanks for the info. Can you go into more depth about this specific part, or is this a thing where I need to do the whole degree to understand the answer?
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      > one of the things I absolutely do expect to be possible on its surface is 3D printing an extremely clean clean-room. My understanding is that there is lots of very fine dust near the surface of the moon. It's continually being bombarded with micrometeorites that kick up the dust. So perhaps a moderately cleanish room.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    It's space. Orbit is in all likelihood cleaner than your average clean room. Planets/moons add dust and thin atmospheres as concerns, but that's quite obviously easier to mitigate than the "dust and much thicker atmosphere and microbes and moisture" that Earth-based clean rooms have to mitigate. As for bootstrapping industry beyond Earth, the amount of Earthborne equipment and supplies to build a self-sustaining extraterrestrial supply chain is far below necessitating stripmining the Earth bare - obviously, since we were able to bootstrap terrestrial industry just fine without (yet) doing so.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      > the amount of Earthborne equipment and supplies to build a self-sustaining extraterrestrial supply chain is far below necessitating stripmining the Earth bare - obviously, since we were able to bootstrap terrestrial industry just fine without (yet) doing so. Considering how quickly industrialization has damaged Earth's ancient ecology I sincerely doubt industry could be sustainably stood up on a planet like Mars. You may be underestimating how special Earth is as a home, and vastly overestimating how suitable Mars would be for carbon-based life.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        > Considering how quickly industrialization has damaged Earth's ancient ecology I sincerely doubt industry could be sustainably stood up on a planet like Mars. There is no ecology (at least to anyone's knowledge) on Mars to destroy in the first place, nor is there one in orbit or on the Moon or anywhere else other than Earth. "Sustainability" is therefore not a factor except in the sense of raw resources - and in the infinity of space that's a lot of raw resources at our disposal. > You may be underestimating how special Earth is as a home, and vastly overestimating how suitable Mars would be for carbon-based life. What makes you think I may be underestimating or overestimating (respectively) anything? Earth is special, which is precisely why we should be maximizing the preservation of the one thing that makes it special: its biosphere. That maximization entails moving everything that is even merely irrelevant (let alone actively harmful) to said biosphere off of Earth; anything less than literally all human industry (and all human population aside from non-industrialized peoples and maybe conservationists/biologists and their support staff) being moved to orbit and beyond represents a failure to achieve such maximization and puts that one special thing in jeopardy.
Consultant32452 4y ago
The Earth is a giant ball of resources and we have only just begun to scratch the surface.
renewiltord 4y ago
Ultimately, you will protest and we will build. And we will both get what we want: we will get our rockets and you will get your protests. Everyone is happy.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  If the real cost of the rockets is an uninhabitable Earth, and an uninhabitable Mars, then everyone is some combination of unhappy or dead.
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Sure, but it's not. Which everyone knows but some people will pretend it is so that they can get the thing they want: the protesting. So we'll just let them say that and pay the increased costs so we can "recognize the contributions of the original habitants of this land: the stripe tailed gecko" and we'll launch the rockets. They'll take the money and buy a bigger office to go after the next target. And everyone is happy and alive.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      > Which everyone knows but some people will pretend it is so that they can get the thing they want: the protesting. Just want to say what a repugnant and mocking answer this is. There are real issues here. You can't deal with them, so you resort to rudeness.
      - renewiltord 4y ago
        This sort of ever-escalating pearl clutching is exactly what I mean. Fine, this is your domain. Enjoy it whole. I shall return to mine. And when the time comes we'll pay the toll. But we've got work to do, so don't seek too high a rent.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Bad idea. I want us to actually get to Mars. Protesters are generally sincere about their dislike of whatever they protest about. To echo your own language, they will cost a lot more than mere rent, if you don't talk them down.
yellowapple 4y ago
> While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" it does make sense to preserve the basket we have. The cost of keeping human civilization on Earth is currently "(eventually, at this rate) mine the earth to a wasteland". We need to get as much of humanity's industry as possible into orbit and beyond if we want to avoid mining the Earth into a wasteland. That industry includes agriculture if we want to avoid clear-cutting the Earth into a wasteland, while we're at it.

roryisok 4y ago

> While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" I'm not sure where this idea is coming from. I think the idea of most modern colonisation plans is to use materials at the location to build habitats etc, by 3d printing using martian soil or lunar regolith, not ship millions of tons of natural resources into space.

giantrobot 4y ago
That's just magic woo though. You can't just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors or furnaces to smelt metal. Pretty much all heavy industry on Earth that makes all our high technology runs on petroleum products in some fashion. You can't just "3D print" lubrication and good luck building heavy industrial pieces without it.
- L_226 4y ago
  Luckily space is already clean, the trick will be converting current production processes to work in microgravity - process heat offtake without convection etc. LEO or higher orbit based manufacturing will probably occur before 2050, once that is solved then deploying infrastructure onto the Martian surface will become relatively trivial.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    That's just a string of nonsense. There's not a single aspect of deploying infrastructure anywhere in space is trivial.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > You can't just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors or furnaces to smelt metal. The idea isn't that you'll <<just "3D print" a clean room to build semiconductors>>. But yes, the idea is to "3D print" furnaces to smelt metal (basic furnaces are prehistory-era tech) using heat provided from the solar, wind and/or nuclear power you arrived with. Then use that to mine more ore to smelt more metal to "3D print" more... and so on, and so on, adapting production processes to local environment piece by piece, until you eventually reach basic self-sustainability, and yes, eventually you may be able to build a clean room using entirely local resources and processes. (Of course, there's the matter of whether people living on other planets will want to go for full self-sufficiency, and then if Earth even allows it. There's a potential for trade here, but the flip side of that is political power. E.g. as long as a Mars colony depends on Earth for complex organics or high-tech industry products, they're effectively under control / at the mercy of Earth.) > Pretty much all heavy industry on Earth that makes all our high technology runs on petroleum products in some fashion. It didn't until recently, though. I imagine that between those older techniques from early-to-mid XX century, and modern advances in organic chemistry, you'd be able to eliminate some of the hydrocarbons used and synthesize others, without a need to dig dead plants/dinosaurs out of the ground. > You can't just "3D print" lubrication and good luck building heavy industrial pieces without it. That's all part of the R&D work for off-world habitats and industrializing space.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    > basic furnaces are prehistory-era tech) Which require water and air in huge quantities, and ore, none of which you have on Mars. > That's all part of the R&D work for off-world habitats and industrializing space. You might as well say "magic" - it would be more plausible.
    - 6510 4y ago
      One thing to remember is that our guessing how things would work out has always been laughable with [say] 5 insanely complex problems we didn't see coming for every 1 thing turning out much less complicated than anticipated. How much of what we did just the last 100 years was accurately anticipated and how much of it is down right magical? In hind sight, how complicated an idea was it really to heat water, get it to expand and do work? I think execution was hard but the idea was kinda obvious. Most stuff we build is made of stone/rocks? It seems we can dig caves, just ship the front door an we can start our usual hoarding :)
- ben_w 4y ago
  Hmmm. While I would be actively surprised if the Moon, for example, had every element necessary for semiconductors, one of the things I absolutely do expect to be possible on its surface is 3D printing an extremely clean clean-room. Furnaces? Well, I think it would take a polishing step after printing, but if you have aluminium you can do a rough parabola out of it and focus sunlight on a patch of regolith. Can you turn that molten alumina into aluminium and oxygen only by carbon rods and electricity? Or would electrolysis still work if you used a high-current election beam? (I genuinely don't know, I didn't do material science). Don't get me wrong, even if this is ultimately all fine without petrochemicals, I expect there is a lot of postgraduate research between now and any significant space manufacturing.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    > electrolysis That's a process that involves drawing ions through solution towards a cathode and anode. A direct beam won't do. A solar furnace would suffice for the first half of the smelting process if you have access to ore which is not pure alumina, as well as melting the cryolite flux. Actually separating out the aluminum from alumina requires PV panels, high temperature rods and some means of synthesizing the cryolite or similar solvent / flux.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      > That's a process that involves drawing ions through solution towards a cathode and anode. A direct beam won't do. OK, thanks for the info. Can you go into more depth about this specific part, or is this a thing where I need to do the whole degree to understand the answer?
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    > one of the things I absolutely do expect to be possible on its surface is 3D printing an extremely clean clean-room. My understanding is that there is lots of very fine dust near the surface of the moon. It's continually being bombarded with micrometeorites that kick up the dust. So perhaps a moderately cleanish room.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  It's space. Orbit is in all likelihood cleaner than your average clean room. Planets/moons add dust and thin atmospheres as concerns, but that's quite obviously easier to mitigate than the "dust and much thicker atmosphere and microbes and moisture" that Earth-based clean rooms have to mitigate. As for bootstrapping industry beyond Earth, the amount of Earthborne equipment and supplies to build a self-sustaining extraterrestrial supply chain is far below necessitating stripmining the Earth bare - obviously, since we were able to bootstrap terrestrial industry just fine without (yet) doing so.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    > the amount of Earthborne equipment and supplies to build a self-sustaining extraterrestrial supply chain is far below necessitating stripmining the Earth bare - obviously, since we were able to bootstrap terrestrial industry just fine without (yet) doing so. Considering how quickly industrialization has damaged Earth's ancient ecology I sincerely doubt industry could be sustainably stood up on a planet like Mars. You may be underestimating how special Earth is as a home, and vastly overestimating how suitable Mars would be for carbon-based life.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > Considering how quickly industrialization has damaged Earth's ancient ecology I sincerely doubt industry could be sustainably stood up on a planet like Mars. There is no ecology (at least to anyone's knowledge) on Mars to destroy in the first place, nor is there one in orbit or on the Moon or anywhere else other than Earth. "Sustainability" is therefore not a factor except in the sense of raw resources - and in the infinity of space that's a lot of raw resources at our disposal. > You may be underestimating how special Earth is as a home, and vastly overestimating how suitable Mars would be for carbon-based life. What makes you think I may be underestimating or overestimating (respectively) anything? Earth is special, which is precisely why we should be maximizing the preservation of the one thing that makes it special: its biosphere. That maximization entails moving everything that is even merely irrelevant (let alone actively harmful) to said biosphere off of Earth; anything less than literally all human industry (and all human population aside from non-industrialized peoples and maybe conservationists/biologists and their support staff) being moved to orbit and beyond represents a failure to achieve such maximization and puts that one special thing in jeopardy.

Consultant32452 4y ago

The Earth is a giant ball of resources and we have only just begun to scratch the surface.

renewiltord 4y ago

Ultimately, you will protest and we will build. And we will both get what we want: we will get our rockets and you will get your protests. Everyone is happy.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
If the real cost of the rockets is an uninhabitable Earth, and an uninhabitable Mars, then everyone is some combination of unhappy or dead.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Sure, but it's not. Which everyone knows but some people will pretend it is so that they can get the thing they want: the protesting. So we'll just let them say that and pay the increased costs so we can "recognize the contributions of the original habitants of this land: the stripe tailed gecko" and we'll launch the rockets. They'll take the money and buy a bigger office to go after the next target. And everyone is happy and alive.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    > Which everyone knows but some people will pretend it is so that they can get the thing they want: the protesting. Just want to say what a repugnant and mocking answer this is. There are real issues here. You can't deal with them, so you resort to rudeness.
    - renewiltord 4y ago
      This sort of ever-escalating pearl clutching is exactly what I mean. Fine, this is your domain. Enjoy it whole. I shall return to mine. And when the time comes we'll pay the toll. But we've got work to do, so don't seek too high a rent.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        Bad idea. I want us to actually get to Mars. Protesters are generally sincere about their dislike of whatever they protest about. To echo your own language, they will cost a lot more than mere rent, if you don't talk them down.

yellowapple 4y ago

> While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" it does make sense to preserve the basket we have. The cost of keeping human civilization on Earth is currently "(eventually, at this rate) mine the earth to a wasteland". We need to get as much of humanity's industry as possible into orbit and beyond if we want to avoid mining the Earth into a wasteland. That industry includes agriculture if we want to avoid clear-cutting the Earth into a wasteland, while we're at it.