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Consider ocean-going freight transportation: the container ships and the containers, the port facilities and the cranes. Now imagine that you were able to witn

Consider ocean-going freight transportation: the container ships and the containers, the port facilities and the cranes. Now imagine that you were able to witness the very first round-trip sailing of such a container ship between two newly constructed still-experimental-and-heretofore-unproven ports. That'd be pretty cool right? The dawn of a new era in global trade. This is that, for space. (Booster as container ship, Orbital vehicle as container, launch tower as literal crane, launch complex as port)

tialaramex 2y ago
No. The ports were just expanding on an existing idea. I live in a port city, a thousand years ago middle ages people with much smaller boats used this same area to travel much shorter distances with fewer goods, today it has those cranes and a railway and moves inter-modal containers which have travelled from across the world, but it's just the same idea. Why is there a port here? Because of the unusual tidal pattern? Deep water? No. People. The other reasons are reasons to put the port here maybe in particular rather than a few miles in either direction, but the people are why there's a port. In 1024 there were thousands of people, today perhaps closer to half a million depending on how you count. There are no people on Luna, and no people on Mars. Visiting these barren rocks is like going up Everest. This damp rock is where our species was born and it's where it will die. It's not much, but its ours, and there's nothing like it within any plausible travel distance.
- politician 2y ago
  People congregate around water sources. They don't just gather anywhere and make it happen. Ports are where they are due to the location having the necessary resources to support a population servicing a useful(1) industry. Similarly, moon or Mars bases will be where they are if the location has some useful(1) industry and sufficient resources to support a population servicing that industry. (1) 'Useful' to them, and not necessarily to everyone everywhere all the time.

tialaramex 2y ago

No. The ports were just expanding on an existing idea. I live in a port city, a thousand years ago middle ages people with much smaller boats used this same area to travel much shorter distances with fewer goods, today it has those cranes and a railway and moves inter-modal containers which have travelled from across the world, but it's just the same idea. Why is there a port here? Because of the unusual tidal pattern? Deep water? No. People. The other reasons are reasons to put the port here maybe in particular rather than a few miles in either direction, but the people are why there's a port. In 1024 there were thousands of people, today perhaps closer to half a million depending on how you count. There are no people on Luna, and no people on Mars. Visiting these barren rocks is like going up Everest. This damp rock is where our species was born and it's where it will die. It's not much, but its ours, and there's nothing like it within any plausible travel distance.

politician 2y ago
People congregate around water sources. They don't just gather anywhere and make it happen. Ports are where they are due to the location having the necessary resources to support a population servicing a useful(1) industry. Similarly, moon or Mars bases will be where they are if the location has some useful(1) industry and sufficient resources to support a population servicing that industry. (1) 'Useful' to them, and not necessarily to everyone everywhere all the time.