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The more I think about a human future in space the more I wonder whether settling space itself is a better idea than trying to settle a planet. None of them ar
by api 2y ago
The more I think about a human future in space the more I wonder whether settling space itself is a better idea than trying to settle a planet.
None of them are habitable. All of them have too little gravity for us. So build factories on the Moon, which has only 1/6 gravity, and use those to build huge stations with rotational gravity that we can launch from the Moon (with its low gravity) and live in those. Use ion engines or solar sails to slowly push them around the solar system if we want.
Eventually the Lunar and asteroid-based mining and factories would be mostly robotic. We would live in things that look like the giant stations in The Expanse or O'Neill Cylinders.
Life support on such a station is not substantially harder than it would be on the surface of the Moon or Mars. It could be easier due to the absence of things like nasty abrasive dust, storms, etc.
Over millennia eventually our solar system ends up with something like a living/inhabited Dyson swarm. We become actually spacefaring, not just living on another planet.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> more I think about a human future in space the more I wonder whether settling space itself is a better idea than trying to settle a planet It's explored in A City on Mars [1]. It's technologically more remote than planetary habitation. Mars gives you some gravity, some pressure, some protection from radiation (less from the atmosphere than from the planet) and asteroids and plenty of ISRUs, from water to CO2 to dry mass. With a space station you have to do all of that yourself. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_on_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_on_Mars
- api 2y agoMars gives you ~1/3g, which might be enough for humans but we don't know. A spin station can give you up to 1g if it's big enough. The difference between air pressure on Mars and hard vacuum is not that large. The radiation point is valid but we don't really know the real world long-term biological effects and limits and it's something we need to learn before we try any of this. All forms of radiation aren't created equal. The easy availability of raw materials right on the surface is probably the biggest thing a planetary body has going for it over living in space, but if you can launch stuff from the Moon with a rail gun then shipping water, CO2, etc. up from there isn't going to be that hard. As for A City on Mars I'm generally not a fan of popular science "it'll never work" books. https://dsimanek.vialattea.net/neverwrk.htm https://dsimanek.vialattea.net/neverwrk.htm They're always popular because negativity sells and is an easy way to sound smart. Being negative and wrong tends to be forgotten, see Paul Ehrlich for one well known example. Being positive or optimistic and wrong is something you'll never live down. Humans have a powerful pervasive negativity bias.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> As for A City on Mars I'm generally not a fan of popular science "it'll never work" books Have you read it? That's not the authors' conclusion.
- api 2y agoI must admit that I haven’t and am going on reviews, summaries, and reactions, all of which seem to paint that picture. Maybe I should give it a read. It’s entirely possible that people are just not understanding it.