What is your opinion on a Moon/Mars settlement?

[Chimpzy]

Point one: Venus has the enormous advantage of an atmosphere and active geology. Sure, that atmosphere is corrosive and actively hostile, but that's easier to deal with than the wisps around Mars or hard vacuum on the Moon. We're nowhere near the requisite tech level yet, but basically what Venus needs is...remember in Aliens, the Xenomorphs nested in the bottom of a giant atmosphere reprocessor on LV-426? That

Have fun building one of those on a planet with an atmospheric pressure about 90 times that of Earth and average surface temps of 464°C. Either will ruin your day something fierce. But there is one place on Venus where humans could survive relatively comfortably: in the clouds. At a height of 50-55km temperatures drop to 75-27°C and pressure reduces to 1.066-0.531 atmospheres. Not ideal, but honestly much better than what either the Moon or Mars have on offer. Venus' troposhere is mostly carbon dioxide, which is denser than breathable air, so you could feasibly build giant balloons filled that would naturally come to float at that survivable height. Basically, Columbia from Bioshock Infinite.

You still can't breathe the air, and the clouds would also be made up of sulfuric acid, and you'd also have to contend with wind speeds up to 340km/h. But the cloud tops of Venus do have several advantages. Similar gravity and atmospheric pressure. Survivable temperatures. Availability of vital elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sulfur. While Venus does not have a geologically induced magnetic field to shield from solar radiation, its upper atmosphere can provide about the same level of protection. It's the most Earth-like environment known in the entire solar system. Also, Venus' orbit brings it closer to Earth than Mars', and more frequently, so more launch opportunities and shorter trips.

Not that colonizing Venus' clouds wouldn't be rife with problems. Just that the list of problems to solve is comparatively shorter compared to the alternatives.

 

[Pyrian]

Get me a self-sustaining and indeed self-expanding robot colony and then we'll talk about maybe considering sending people there long-term.

 

[Baffle]

Have fun building one of those on a planet with an atmospheric pressure about 90 times that of Earth and average surface temps of 464°C. Either will ruin your day something fierce. But there is one place on Venus where humans could survive relatively comfortably: in the clouds. At a height of 50-55km temperatures drop to 75-27°C and pressure reduces to 1.066-0.531 atmospheres. Not ideal, but honestly much better than what either the Moon or Mars have on offer. Venus' troposhere is mostly carbon dioxide, which is denser than breathable air, so you could feasibly build giant balloons filled that would naturally come to float at that survivable height. Basically, Columbia from Bioshock Infinite.

You still can't breathe the air, and the clouds would also be made up of sulfuric acid, and you'd also have to contend with wind speeds up to 340km/h. But the cloud tops of Venus do have several advantages. Similar gravity and atmospheric pressure. Survivable temperatures. Availability of vital elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sulfur. While Venus does not have a geologically induced magnetic field to shield from solar radiation, its upper atmosphere can provide about the same level of protection. It's the most Earth-like environment known in the entire solar system. Also, Venus' orbit brings it closer to Earth than Mars', and more frequently, so more launch opportunities and shorter trips.

Not that colonizing Venus' clouds wouldn't be rife with problems. Just that the list of problems to solve is comparatively shorter compared to the alternatives.

Wouldn't it just be easier to be dead?

 

[Drathnoxis]

Wouldn't it just be easier to be dead?

One of the great questions about life in general.

 

[Chimpzy]

Wouldn't it just be easier to be dead?

Sure. Dying is pretty easy in general on Earth, and our pale blue dot is not hilariously antithetical to life like every other place that we know of. So yeah.

"Jumped off a Venusian floating colony" IS a cool epitaph, tho probably not fun for whoever's doing the dying. Nor really a "cool" way, come to think of it.

 

[Baffle]

Sure. Dying is pretty easy in general on Earth

I'm doing my best, but it's taking aaaaaaages.

 

[Chimpzy]

I'm doing my best, but it's taking aaaaaaages.

I wouldn't worry, you'll get there eventually. Just you wait.

 

[Satinavian]

I don't think there is nay reason ever to settle on the moon. Everything you might want to do there is easier done by robots. And it is cheaper to build and maintain inhabitable space stations than a moon colony of the same size.

Mars might be practical somewhat eventually. But we are not even remotely able to start such an adevture.

 

[Pyrian]

And it is cheaper to build and maintain inhabitable space stations than a moon colony of the same size.

Not so sure about that. Material availability on the moon isn't great (it's certainly worse than Mars), but it's not zero.

 

[Satinavian]

Yes, but is way easier to travel and transport between a space station and earth than between the moon and earth. And it would take a very long time to build some kind of moon industry to be able to make materials for a colony and you would need to bring the materials for that moon industry from earth as well.

And even if you were able to build automatic factories on the mood to make stuff, travel between colony and earth will remain extremely relevant, for stuff you can't make and for people.

 

[Agema]

Not so sure about that. Material availability on the moon isn't great (it's certainly worse than Mars), but it's not zero.

There's no evidence there's anything much useful on the moon that's readilly obtainable, unless you count rock and perhaps water (ice). Although water's jolly handy. A lot of the useful minerals in a planet and their accessibility can derive from forms of geological activity (as far as I am aware, although I'm totally not an expert), and the moon I don't think has had a lot of that. There are lots of metals - iron, titanium, etc. - but extraction is potentially very difficult from the rock they're in.

 

[Baffle]

Surely the easiest thing would be to blow up the moon and wait for the goodies to fall out of the sky?

 

[Breakdown]

Titan has a thick Nitrogen atmosphere and plenty of ice. Might be a bit chilly for the colonists though.

 

[Pyrian]

...it would take a very long time to build some kind of moon industry...

...extraction is potentially very difficult...

Indeed. But it's possible; plausible, even. You can't squeeze blood from a vacuum. A orbital platform can't really host anything you could call a "colony". It can't expand; it can only be expanded.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Indeed. But it's possible; plausible, even. You can't squeeze blood from a vacuum. A orbital platform can't really host anything you could call a "colony". It can't expand; it can only be expanded.

Actually, thinking about it, a space station has a lot of things going for it. Power generation from solar panels and solar wind generators would be a lot easier without an atmosphere in the way. And you could mine asteroids for raw materials for expansion and profit.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Indeed. But it's possible; plausible, even. You can't squeeze blood from a vacuum. A orbital platform can't really host anything you could call a "colony". It can't expand; it can only be expanded.

Space isn't entirely empty. There are many asteroids and small planetoids which are often extremely rich in minerals. The asteroid belt alone contains mass equal to earth's moon, and significant proportion of that mass is metal.

Of course, the mass we find in space is very dispersed, but that's not as much of a problem as you might think. Moving around interplanetary space is very efficient because there's barely any gravity, and because it doesn't really matter how long our cargo takes to move around, we can use very low thrust but efficient rocket engines. Long term, fusion rockets or stellar lasers may make travelling the solar system even easier.

And it's this ease of travel which makes space habitats so attractive. From a space station, you can get anywhere in the solar system without needing to spend a huge amount of energy escaping a gravity well. For a future humanity which is colonising the solar system, space stations could very easily end up being the urban centres of that interplanetary society, fed by a constant stream of resources from across the solar system, while the planets remain lonely frontiers cut off from the rest of the solar system by their own gravity wells.

 

[Tiger King]

If we can't set-up colonies on the Moon, we'll just have to nuke it to be safe

it's the only way to be sure.

I think we can do it. I mean look how far we have come, it was only last century that the first plane flew! I think there are two ways it can be done. the first is that someones gunna have to take one for the team and volunteer to spend the rest of their life/lives setting up shop on a barren rock that is very hazardous, so that others can follow later. the other way would be to, as someone said before, send robots to set up a facility. This is something that would be further down the line though.

Someone said we shouldn't bother and should be trying to sort out our own issues here first? whilst I don't disagree I fear that it's not possible. people are too greedy and mean to each other to get things sorted. Just look at those people protesting the lockdowns as an example. their whole attitude is 'I'm alright, fuck everyone else. why should I have to stay indoors?'

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeah, I don't see it happening. I can't say for certain about the rest of the planets in our system, but neither the Moon nor Mars have a magnetic field, which is pretty essential against getting killed by space. And so far we have no technology to shield us from all that space radiation.

Just send robots. I don't see any reason to send humans, other than the romaticized idea of living on another planet.

 

[Dalisclock]

Yeah, I don't see it happening. I can't say for certain about the rest of the planets in our system, but neither the Moon nor Mars have a magnetic field, which is pretty essential against getting killed by space. And so far we have no technology to shield us from all that space radiation.

Just send robots. I don't see any reason to send humans, other than the romaticized idea of living on another planet.

That's pretty much what most space agencies have been doing anyway, because it's easier, cheaper and Robots don't have families who will be mad if one of them doesn't come home from Mars.

It's generally politicians who want crewed missions, because putting a human on mars is a lot more flashy then a robot.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Yeah, I don't see it happening. I can't say for certain about the rest of the planets in our system, but neither the Moon nor Mars have a magnetic field, which is pretty essential against getting killed by space. And so far we have no technology to shield us from all that space radiation.

Space radiation wouldn't be as much of a problem as you might think on a terrestrial planet. It's a huge problem in space (at least for us right now) because our spaceships have to be very, very light. To protect them against radiation while also keeping them as light as possible, we have to keep the hull very thin and use reflective foil to cover sensitive areas which doesn't actually work very well. Because our spaceships are very small, they also have a lot of surface area for radiation to hit relative to their internal volume.

But it turns out, it doesn't take very much mass to stop the majority of space radiation. For example, a mars colonisation ship would need to carry a lot of mass (water, fuel, supplies) which could be wrapped around the crew quarters to protect them from most radiation. Water is really good at stopping radiation. Because of the inherently high mass of such a craft, it might also become worthwhile to use dedicated high-density radiation shielding, because in order to even consider such a mission you'd need to have some way to get a lot of mass into earth orbit far more cheaply and safely than is currently possible.

Once you get to your destination, it becomes even easier. Just pile mass on top of your habitat. Long term, you could even consider moving underground.

But yes, for any practical purpose it's always going to be better to send robots. Just bear in mind, robots aren't immune to space radiation. If we want to get better at sending robots to places, we're going to need to get better at solving the radiation problem anyway.