- cross-posted to:
- space@kbin.social
- cross-posted to:
- space@kbin.social
A book review on the latest Weinersmith creation. It’s true, there is so much we don’t know.
Just throwing this out there on this forum because missing technology is the problem that kills the dream of Mars, according to the authors.
Once there’s a fully space-based supply chain up and running using materials from the asteroid belt, I strongly question the utility of a Moon colony. Any resource you could find on the Moon that would be necessary to get us out there would also be available in the asteroid belt, and once there’s a pipeline of extraction, processing, and manufacturing in space, there’d be no reason to make an extra stop on the SURFACE of the Moon except to drop off resources for people already living there. It’d be an economic atavism at that point.
Now, using planets and moons for their gravity to park space stations and perform slingshot-type maneuvers, that makes a lot of sense. But we’re all still so stuck in our 20th century imaginations of space colonization being like, idk, settling the Plains but on Mars we can’t think through what a space-based economy would actually look like.
The book’s exploration of what cIty oN mArS would look like is insipid at best. If people settled Mars for some insane reason, it would look like the Expanse – miserable, desperate, nobody lives on the surface, and as soon as the space based economy hits a certain point of development it would be pointless and everyone would realize it. You might have rich people building vacation homes there for the views, that’s it.
Why tf would you figure out how to cope with Lunar and Martian regolith when you could just not?
Gravity is kind of necessary for long term human health though, at least until we figure out a way around that…
The most not caveat is we don’t know how much gravity is how necessary. We know that microgravity in orbit is too little and not really sustainable. Is gravity on the moon enough more for long term health? Is that on Mars? That’s just two of the questions we can’t know until we get there
Settlers routinely sacrifice their health to be part of the first wave of people to stake a claim on fresh territories, considering how insane that got during more or less every colonization effort in past history I strongly doubt that harming human health will be a barrier to the whole thing, for better or worse. (I think mostly for worse tbqh, but I still see it happening unless climate change ruins everything, or nuclear war, etc)
So you build spinning space stations instead of settlements on the martian or lunar surface. Likely close to the same material cost, if not cheaper, while allowing us to actually choose the amount of gravity to generate. We don’t know if martian or lunar gravity would even be sufficient to avoid negative health affects.
Do those count for gravity ? Are there other downsides that we haven’t even thought of? Many unknowns.
You do realize that Martians abandon Mars because the protomolecule opens up worlds that are already habitable, so terra forming becomes pointless? It has nothing to do with infrastructure or economy, Mars is supposed to be an eventual second home, not a place to mine. They leave because interstellar travel becomes a reality before Mars becomes viable.
Unless we discover that Charon is actually a Mass Relay, Mars is the best possible second place for humans.
Titan is too cold and the atmosphere would require a full changeover, and the Galilean moons are constantly bombarded with radiation, Venus could support a floating colony but thats tenuous at best. Mars is basically it, if we can develop the tech to turn it into a reasonable place to be.
Yeah, but the point is that if you want the real-world equivalent to the habitable worlds opened up by the protomolecule as regards Mars, that’s actually just the entire rest of the outer solar system, especially the moons and asteroid belt. They’re exactly as habitable as Mars will ever be in actual reality. Mars stops mattering except as an orbital pitstop as soon as there are places that are just as good if not better developed farther out, in smaller or non-existent gravity wells.
Mars has no active geology, therefore no Van Allen belts, therefore the only shielding you get is if you bury yourself. And to generate the energy required to artificially generate Van Allen belts that can actually protect us from cosmic rays… first, it’s a preposterous amount, second, it’s energy rent you have to pay in perpetuity to get an inferior environment anyways and zero resources that aren’t available in greater abundance in cheaper gravity wells, because you’re not realistically going to be spinning up the core anytime soon. Then you need to initiate planetary-wide processes to erode the toxic regolith. The numbers just do not add up.
Then there’s the 38% Earth gravity, which A - is likely to be as unhealthy as a spun-up semi-microgravity environment B - isn’t strong enough to retain any atmosphere thick enough to support humans, which means not only do you have to pay a continuous gargantuan energy rent just to one day walk on the surface without being killed by cosmic rays, you also have to import atmosphere which you’re guaranteed to have to replace.
I enjoy the Expanse, but in spite of its hard science reputation it’s honestly about as realistic as Star Trek in a lot of ways. Terraforming Mars is a fun thought experiment but Jules Verne level out of date at this point. Take it as an unrealistic backdrop for a very fun geopolitical space drama, not a realistic exploration of how space development would actually go. They needed a third power to make the politics complicated. Nobody’s ever gonna breathe the free air of Mars, that’s a fantasy, and that’s knowable today, which means it’ll never be invested in seriously.
But gravity may be useful in many applications. We don’t really know how to effectively manufacture many things in microgravity at the moment. The moon would still be important for early space infrastructure.
Edit: In addition, the moon will be useful for mining and resource extraction for a long time, most likely, due to its proximity to earth and size.
The gravity problem is also best solved away from the surface of any celestial bodies. Massive spinning space stations would be much more pleasant to live in in almost every way. Unless a planet or moon has a good reason to land on it (e.g. material to be mined) it makes much more sense to simply build a habitat away from the gravity well and build smaller work camps on the surface that can be supported by the main habitat(s).
The problem is that such space stations are very complex to build and maintain, and can more easily catastrophically fail. It’s certainly an option, but it may not be worth it.
Of course, all of this is speculation, but my point is mostly that if we don’t have sufficiently advanced space construction capabilities, surface habitats and infrastructure on the moon may be preferable.
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