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I really hope I get to see a permanent settlement on Mars or the moon. I don't care who settles it I just want to see humanity reach for the stars.
by BoxedEmpathy 5mo ago
I really hope I get to see a permanent settlement on Mars or the moon. I don't care who settles it I just want to see humanity reach for the stars.
- elevaet 5mo agoWe don't even have permanent settlements on Antarctica. Don't hold your breath.
- AlexErrant 5mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctica#Permanent_active_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Las_Estrellas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Las_Estrellas
- ActorNightly 5mo agoPermanent means self sustaining. I.e biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere. None of those are self sustaining.
- femto 5mo agoThere's an argument that Earth, as a biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere, also isn't self sustaining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day I'd keep the Moonraker film in mind as a metric for self sustaining colonies created by billionaires. They can't be trusted unless they are also working to fix what we already have.
- kelnos 5mo ago> Permanent means self sustaining. No it doesn't. "Permanent settlement" just means it's not temporary, only intended for a short-term mission.
- hvb2 5mo agoWhy on earth (pun intended), would you want that? You don't want to be there? Almost every other place on earth is better. So you send a skeleton crew along with what they need. If it is to test an actual community living isolated, sure. But I think it'll always be different because you know that help is at most a few months away and probably a lot less. I don't think you can fake that, unless you're never told you're not alone
- ActorNightly 5mo agoThe point is that we don't have technology (or at least not proven) to make a habitat on earth that can reliably provide isolation from harsh atmosphere. When you are sending people to space on an experimental rocket, with experimental supply for an experimental habitat, all of that shit better be engineered to a huge safety factor, because its not a matter of if things will go wrong, its how often will they go wrong and what the impact will be. To deal with that kind of unknown requires a level of technology that should make it possible to live in Antarctica for extended period of time without any external shipments coming in to resupply. That means heating, oxygen generation, food resources, air filtration, full medical bay capable of advanced surgery, and a bunch of other smaller things that all matter in the end.
- christophilus 5mo agoPlus insane storms and winds that I’m not sure Antarctica will properly simulate.
- MagicMoonlight 5mo agoAmerica still isn’t self sustaining and it’s been hundreds of years.
- notachatbot123 5mo agoAnd the planet is dying
- hagbard_c 5mo agoThe planet cannot die since it doesn't live. Planet life isn't dying either.
- ponector 5mo agoYes, but it has some extra 5 billion years to live.
- Recurecur 5mo agoThat’s a misconception. The Sun is slowly growing more luminous, and inescapable global warming is expected to make the Earth uninhabitable in about a billion years. Life on Earth is about 3/4 of the way through its existence…
- echoangle 5mo ago> Permanent means self sustaining. I.e biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere. According to whom exactly? For me, permanent means "permanently without breaks".
- mapt 5mo agoIf you want another word for that, go with "Continuous". The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000. But it was not, in fact, expected by anyone to be a permanent station; It is made of non-replaceable parts that age and fail (decade scale), it only has very limited life support supplies on board (month scale).
- echoangle 5mo agoI would call the ISS a permanent station. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#:~:text=module%29-,The,98%2E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#:~... > It is made of non-replaceable parts Every part of the ISS is replaceable if you want to. > it only has very limited life support supplies on board (month scale) I still don't see why self-sustainability is a part of being "permanent".
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo ago> I would call the ISS a permanent station. Since the ISS end of life is scheduled for 2030 - just four years from now - I really would not call it "permanent". Even if gets a few years reprieve, that's quite temporary. > Every part of the ISS is replaceable if you want to. There comes a point with buildings and with space stations where tearing down and completely replacing them is a better and cheaper option than repairing or extending them. The ISS is nearing that point.
- echoangle 5mo agoSomething that was permanent and is now scheduled for destruction is still permanent, no? Or can we at least agree that it was permanent at some point of its life? > There comes a point with buildings and with space stations where tearing down and completely replacing them is a better and cheaper option than repairing or extending them. The ISS is nearing that point. Sure, but that's the case for everything, including permanent things. My house won't be around forever, I would still call it a permanent housing.
- api 5mo agoNobody’s tried because they are a short flight away from South America. No point. It’s cheaper and easier to fly it in. There are skeptical arguments against Mars settlement but the Antarctica thing is kind of a weak one. To point out one more problem with it: there’s legal and treaty restrictions in play for that continent. You can’t just go. That’s another limiting factor.
- general1465 5mo agoYou can try the same thing in Greenland or far north of Canada. But nobody does that either, because there is no reason to do so. However put a reason to go to Mars, i.e. alien shipwreck and there is going to be multiple cities within end of the decade.
- elevaet 5mo agoCan you explain why and how we would build cities on Mars if we found an alien shipwreck there? That doesn't make any sense to me. It would likely cost bare minimum 10-100 billion dollars to put a few boots on the ground on Mars, how could we possibly build cities there within the end of the decade?
- ponector 5mo agoAccording to this, New York is not permanent settlement because it's not self sustaining.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- elevaet 5mo agoObviously there are research stations on Antarctica. And presumable your argument is that these are "permanent"? My point is that they are not, not in the sense that we will need for Mars. No one lives there full time, people aren't raising families there, they are very dependent on regular deliveries from the outside. Supply runs to Mars will be in the range of 10000x as expensive, possibly even higher. Something that costs $100 to get to Antarctica will cost $1million to get to Mars. Permanent Mars settlement will entail a level of self-sufficiency that we haven't proven on a place that is comparitively balmy and has the benefit of a breathable atmosphere and abundant water (Antarctica). Not to mention radiation... Don't hold your breath. I'm as much a fan of space colonization of as the next nerd, but it's premature.
- damnitbuilds 5mo agoThere's a whole book positing that a permanent settlement on Mars is unlikely to work, and I have not seen their arguments debunked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_on_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_on_Mars
- philipallstar 5mo agoIs it possible that their arguments haven't been noticed to be debunked? These are apparently the authors: > The book was written by married couple Kelly Weinersmith, an adjunct professor at Rice University in the BioSciences Department, and Zach Weinersmith, a cartoonist known for the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
- slumberlust 5mo agoIts a good read. I'd encourage you to read it and come to your own conclusion on your question. Personally, they earned my trust but other members of our book club did not agree. Space is very very unforgiving and they ultimately conclude humanity is better served focusing our resources here on earth first. But the Trekkies have a tough time with that answer because its a bit of a let down.
- philipallstar 5mo ago> Its a good read. I'd encourage you to read it and come to your own conclusion on your question. Personally, they earned my trust but other members of our book club did not agree. I'm not saying I'm dismissing the arguments for that reason, at all, to be clear! Thanks for the recommendation. > Space is very very unforgiving and they ultimately conclude humanity is better served focusing our resources here on earth first. But the Trekkies have a tough time with that answer because its a bit of a let down. Well - it's a tricky one because that is susceptible to slippery slopes. If we hadn't gone to space at all and focused on Earth first we wouldn't have GPS, for example. We can always spend more on Earth to achieve a temporary boon for the current population. We could have not spent money on developing Golang and used the salary to dig wells in Africa, for example. Spending a tiny amount on space for the chance of a permanent upgrade for the species does sound like quite a good idea, and I'm personally glad the American taxpayer is doing it.
- schainks 5mo agoMoon more likely than mars, but “permanent” is a big lift in that sentence. Humans gestate at 1g and only 1g. Try doing it elsewhere and you’ll have horrible problems.
- timmmmmmay 5mo agothere is literally zero evidence to support that assertion
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo agoThere is also zero evidence to oppose it. We know some things from experience about the long term (1 year or so) effects on human health of 0g (tl;dr: not good). We know very very little about the long-term effects of 0.166g on human health, because it's never been done. (best guess: also not good).
- addaon 5mo ago> We know some things from experience about the long term (1 year or so) effects on human health of 0g (tl;dr: not good). But we don't know anything about the long term effect of 0g on human fetuses, which live in a very different environment than the humans we have tested. They live in an environment that combines fluid immersion and surface support, with buoyancy playing a major role -- which could (or could not -- absence of evidence etc) seriously change the importance of gravity for development. I'd be more concerned about the impact of zero and low gravity on newborns than fetuses.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo ago> I'd be more concerned about the impact of zero and low gravity on newborns than fetuses I agree with that. If (and it's if) it turns out that zero and low gravity are OK for foetal development, then there's the around 20 years of development that comes after birth and before adulthood, where "fluid immersion" is not part of the normal development process.
- lopsotronic 5mo agoDepends on how you define "permanent" but the closed ecological systems (CES) problem is nowhere near solved. Best case all the Martians get eaten alive by their own skin fungus and/or bacteria in a generation or two. There'll be a collapse in the personal or macro biome - biological systems have Kalmagorov complexity in a vertical like direction. Shorter term, drawing from actual ISS problems, you get really weird and durable "biofilm" ecosystems sometimes literally exploding since there's nothing up there eating any of the material shedding from the crew and their food and poop and whatever else. Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium (skin commensals) and Bacillus species dominate surfaces. Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and Rhodotorula are some of the fungi. The Japanese Kibo module sampling found communities that shifted noticeably year over year. Thicker biofilms with novel "column-and-canopy" architectures not seen on Earth; probably related, E. coli and Salmonella studies showed increased virulence gene expression in microgravity. There's a Russian paper documenting 234 species recovered from Mir, including fungi actively degrading polymer materials. And this is on an orbital station after a few decades, constantly supplied, wiped down with sterilizers and lysol regularly, with individuals able to deorbit when they feel like it.
- dotancohen 5mo agoSo there is a problem to be solved. Great! The history of human spaceflight is pretty much: Problem -> Difficult to find solution -> Solution leads to better spaceflight -> Solution leads to better life for humans on Earth. Then repeat that cycle for each new problem. Think of the new medicine and hospital protocols that are waiting to be developed as biologists explore the solution to this problem.
- lopsotronic 5mo agoCouldn't agree more. But I'd recommend solving the problem before shooting ten men and ten women into the Martian regolith forever and telling them to make babies. Alternatively, it's not the scale of problem you try and solve fifteen timeslipped minutes and (at least) eighteen months away. We're not even sure what the shape of a solution even looks like, apart from "Generic Future Technology Tree Numbers 4 through 90". Mastery of bioengineering would probably fix it, but it would need to be desktop science, like 3d printing. We are not anywhere near that - mostly because we don't have things like "generic bioreactors" that can grow organisms like a universal womb/seedbed/strata/media. I recognize human advancement comes with sacrifice. But human advancement also comes with prudent decisions like "don't built the village in the lava".