The thread for space cadets!

[Colon]

You haven't actually addressed what I said. Just because the pay off will be delayed doesn't justify delaying the start. You can say it's better to wait until technology matures and I say we should start now to force the technology to mature.

I sort of did address what you said actually. Since there's over 7 billion people on Earth, it seems very likely to me that spillovers from R&D spending in robotics, AI... for Earth purposes are going to do much more to make a future Martian colony self-sufficient, than R&D spending specifically aimed at such a colony is going to. A fully autonomous mine, including autonomous maintenance, with the only human input being supervision, makes your average mining firm salivate and much of the technology would presumably be applicable on other planets. Same when it comes to manufacturing or transportation. I think even future R&D spending aimed at commercial space mining alone would do much more to bring about a self-sufficient colony than few hundred people on Mars. Practical, immediate applications always have done much more to bring about technological progress than far-off dreams. Rockets and computers weren't invented for the purpose of space travel either.

Bottom-line: I just don't see colonizing Mars sooner rather than later doing much to bring about a self-sufficient Martian colony more quickly.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I strongly disagree but I'll leave it at that because I'd just end up repeating what I already posted.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Fotget Mars. Too easy. We should colonize Venus first. After that Mars and anything else will become a piece of cake. Win-win.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Fotget Mars. Too easy. We should colonize Venus first. After that Mars and anything else will become a piece of cake. Win-win.

Uranus FTW!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

NASA is putting up $100m for cubesat/microsatellite missions going forward. They are also going to begin putting an ESPA ring on all NASA-procured launches. ESPA allows the easy attachment of secondary payloads likes cubesats as rideshares. The NASA administrator also talked about Rain Cube (which I helped commission) in his speech.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-bolsters-smallsat-science-programs/


Here's an example of another new space company taking off with investor backing:
https://spacenews.com/terran-orbital-series-b/

 

[Colon]

I strongly disagree but I'll leave it at that because I'd just end up repeating what I already posted.

I'm not at all denying there has been rapid progress in space technologies, but I think that's a little beside the point because I think that due the hostile environment the viability of a self-sustaining colony on Mars is rather dependant on the advance of (planetary) autonomous technologies. I think these technologies will advance rapidly regardless of a colony existing there. Case in point being is that they are already rapidly advancing, because they're just as useful on Earth as they would be on Mars.

Even when it comes strictly space technologies it seems to me that technological spillovers have played a major role. Those microsatellites you just posted about, haven't those been made possible by the miniaturization of technology driven by the demands of smartphones and the like?

 

[Lexicus]

Uranus FTW!

Last game of Stellaris I played I got a random event involving gas-based life forms who had to escape their home planet and migrate to a new gas giant in my empire which I allowed them to do because I am the beneficent, the merciful.

 

[warpus]

I have a question which might or might not have an accurate answer.

Let's say that SpaceX begins colonization of Mars (in 10 years or whatever). Given what their current plans for this are, how much infrastructure would have to be sent down to the red planet for the colony to be more or less sustainable, without supplies from Earth? From what I understand their plan is to first send down a factory to produce fuel, and then a couple modules for colonists to live in. Also something to supply the colony with fresh water? Have they figured out yet where food is going to come from?

Let's say they start their flights to Mars but 10 years into the program there is some war on Earth and supplies stop (potentially forever). What would those colonists on Mars require in terms of infrastructure, in order to be self-sufficient and survive without supplies from Earth? By self-sufficient I mean that they'd have food & shelter, but not necessarily the fuel and/or capability to get back into orbit, or return to Earth.

Or does this whole plan rely on uninterrupted supplies from Earth? If so, for how long until the colony is self-sufficient (if they had to be)? Are there clear answers to these questions?

 

[Hygro]

Uranus FTW!

I'm goin' in!

 

[Broken_Erika]

Space Force: Trump 2020 asks supporters to vote on logo

I like the second one. I'm sure the fine people at a certain chan site will ensure that it gets chosen.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45123606

 

[Hygro]

See, Democrats? This is why you don't succumb to Republicans' demands for being practical because the moment you do they jump in and do the cool thing you wanted to do.

The older I get the dumber Democrats become to me, for not know how politics works and to know who's playing what games and what games there are to play. ARRRRRRg

 

[Lexicus]

Is it amazing to anyone that "health care for every American" is treated as a pie-in-the-sky nonsense proposal but "Space Force" is like 100% serious

 

[Broken_Erika]

The Moon Nazi's are the greatest threat the world has ever known. It is absolutely imperative that we start making preparations to fight them while we still can!

 

[Hygro]

That movie had a fun premise and terrible (not in a fun/funny way) execution.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Last game of Stellaris I played I got a random event involving gas-based life forms who had to escape their home planet and migrate to a new gas giant in my empire which I allowed them to do because I am the beneficent, the merciful.

IIRC, you get screwed somehow later in the game when you do that, don't you? It's been a while since I've played, maybe the developers have changed all that. They keep changing everything else.

Sorry for the interruption. Now back to our award-winning content: Space, and Space Cadets!

 

[Lexicus]

IIRC, you get screwed somehow later in the game when you do that, don't you?

I didn't get screwed. I got a bunch of messages about a civil war later, they settled another planet somewhere else in my empire for which I lent them a ship. Then I think they gave me some kind of inconsequential temporary buff and I never heard anything more about it again.

 

[Colon]

I have a question which might or might not have an accurate answer.

Let's say that SpaceX begins colonization of Mars (in 10 years or whatever). Given what their current plans for this are, how much infrastructure would have to be sent down to the red planet for the colony to be more or less sustainable, without supplies from Earth? From what I understand their plan is to first send down a factory to produce fuel, and then a couple modules for colonists to live in. Also something to supply the colony with fresh water? Have they figured out yet where food is going to come from?

Let's say they start their flights to Mars but 10 years into the program there is some war on Earth and supplies stop (potentially forever). What would those colonists on Mars require in terms of infrastructure, in order to be self-sufficient and survive without supplies from Earth? By self-sufficient I mean that they'd have food & shelter, but not necessarily the fuel and/or capability to get back into orbit, or return to Earth.

Or does this whole plan rely on uninterrupted supplies from Earth? If so, for how long until the colony is self-sufficient (if they had to be)? Are there clear answers to these questions?

How much supplies is one thing, but how many people is just as important, which is also why I was referring to economies of scale before. You don't just need the machinery, you need people with the skills to operate the machinery, people with the skills to maintain the machinery, people to produce replacement parts for the machinery, people to produce the materials for the parts and people to obtain the raw resources for the materials. And things kind of snowball from there: people producing replacement parts will need equipment and tools that will have to be produced and maintained by yet other people, who will need yet other equipment and tools. There need to be people who can coordinate the various operations and the logistics between them. And the logistics will require yet more equipment and infrastructure that requires yet more people for production and maintenance. And all of these people will need people to educate them for their respective jobs. And I can keep going on like that.
The fact that some types of jobs require years of schooling and experience is especially problematic IMO. On Earth, this education is economical because highly specialised jobs have populations of many millions they cater to but that won't be so on Mars. For instance, there are 4000 mobile heavy equipment mechanics in the US (for cranes, bulldozers, excavators etc) so to be very simplistic you'd need a population of 80,000 to make it economical to educate a person for such a job. That's assuming such a mechanic will be able to work on every type of heavy equipment in all its aspects. Admittedly, set against that is the fact that people are often competent to do multiple jobs, but there's a trade-off breadth and depth of skills and knowledge. We only got so many hours a day to learn things.

You could say that's all the more reason to get ball rolling as soon as possible to build up the needed critical mass for a self-sustaining colony. However, why would a significant number of people choose move, especially when it comes to highly qualified people that would live a very comfortable life on Earth? I could see it if there's a prospect for these people to have future generations live on a green Mars, but what if that's just not possible? It's not very stimulating to know your offspring will be condemned to live under constant threat of radiation or air supply loss due mechnical failure. I doubt there's a lot of people who are willing to live on Mars for the sake of existing as a fail-safe for humanity, and those who are willing may not bring needed skills.

 

[warpus]

How much supplies is one thing, but how many people is just as important

Exactly, I am curious what the minimum amount of stuff on Mars you need before everything is "self sufficient to a survivalist degree", including how many humans that includes, how big the base has to be, what sort of components it would need, etc. Not to give the colonists a comfortable life, but just enough to get by every day, with enough of an error margin to guarantee colony survival for at least the full generation.

The fact that some types of jobs require years of schooling and experience is especially problematic

Yeah that would probably be a problem.. So let's say my original question specifies that the colony only needs to be sustainable for only 1 generation. So once all the engineers and pilots die, everyone else dies too.. but until then the colony can chug along sustainably no problem

 

[Cutlass]

Based on lots of scifi books, and some actual history, I've read, I'd say the minimal sustainable colony is in the 10s of 1000s of people. Less than that and too many skills will be lost.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm not at all denying there has been rapid progress in space technologies, but I think that's a little beside the point because I think that due the hostile environment the viability of a self-sustaining colony on Mars is rather dependant on the advance of (planetary) autonomous technologies. I think these technologies will advance rapidly regardless of a colony existing there. Case in point being is that they are already rapidly advancing, because they're just as useful on Earth as they would be on Mars.

Even when it comes strictly space technologies it seems to me that technological spillovers have played a major role. Those microsatellites you just posted about, haven't those been made possible by the miniaturization of technology driven by the demands of smartphones and the like?

My points still apply. I do not doubt that technology will eventually get to the point where a Mars colonization effort becomes much easier. That still isn't a reason not to push for it now which will accelerate the technology further and coincidentally improve life on Earth.

And yes, microsatellites have been helped enormously by the miniaturization of electronics brought on by consumer-oriented industries. But it's also true that consumer electronics were given a huge boost by the early efforts of the space program which pushed the overall technical sophistication to new heights and thereby made many of these consumer electronics viable in the first place. This isn't to say the space program invented Walkmans and iPhones but they did require the electronics industry to step up in a huge way to support the program which in turn fed back into the consumer side.

I have a question which might or might not have an accurate answer.

Let's say that SpaceX begins colonization of Mars (in 10 years or whatever). Given what their current plans for this are, how much infrastructure would have to be sent down to the red planet for the colony to be more or less sustainable, without supplies from Earth? From what I understand their plan is to first send down a factory to produce fuel, and then a couple modules for colonists to live in. Also something to supply the colony with fresh water? Have they figured out yet where food is going to come from?

Let's say they start their flights to Mars but 10 years into the program there is some war on Earth and supplies stop (potentially forever). What would those colonists on Mars require in terms of infrastructure, in order to be self-sufficient and survive without supplies from Earth? By self-sufficient I mean that they'd have food & shelter, but not necessarily the fuel and/or capability to get back into orbit, or return to Earth.

Or does this whole plan rely on uninterrupted supplies from Earth? If so, for how long until the colony is self-sufficient (if they had to be)? Are there clear answers to these questions?

Water is easy - there is lots of ice in the soil. Energy to get the water will have to come from power plants shipped over. There will also need to be a huge amount of medicines sent over due to the level of infrastructure and biological resources it takes to get a viable pharmaceutical industry going. Back before Red Dragon was cancelled, I actually proposed to management at SpaceX that they stock Red Dragon capsules with long-shelf-life medicines for retrieval by future colonists both as a practical measure and as a way of showing the companies intent to colonize is 100% serious.

I think a colony will need at least a thousand people and a ton of imported manufacturing equipment to become viable. They will need a set of Earth moving equipment and the aforementioned power generators and a way to store excess energy. They will only need a few pre-fab living and working structures for the first couple of years until they can excavate and kit new living spaces underground. They will need a massive communications infrastructure including an orbital relay network that provides full coverage over the settlement area and nearby resource-extraction areas as well as communication with Earth. They will need a data center shipped in from Earth as with pharmaceuticals, it will be a while before the infrastructure is to the point where they can make their own servers and computers.

The early effort will be all about getting food, breathing gases and living space set up. After that the focus will be on rapid industrialization to begin the process of weaning the colony off of technological imports from Earth.

See, Democrats? This is why you don't succumb to Republicans' demands for being practical because the moment you do they jump in and do the cool thing you wanted to do.

The older I get the dumber Democrats become to me, for not know how politics works and to know who's playing what games and what games there are to play. ARRRRRRg

The Democrats aren't supporting this and don't have the power in Congress to stop it.

That movie had a fun premise and terrible (not in a fun/funny way) execution.

I thought it was a fun movie.

How much supplies is one thing, but how many people is just as important, which is also why I was referring to economies of scale before. You don't just need the machinery, you need people with the skills to operate the machinery, people with the skills to maintain the machinery, people to produce replacement parts for the machinery, people to produce the materials for the parts and people to obtain the raw resources for the materials. And things kind of snowball from there: people producing replacement parts will need equipment and tools that will have to be produced and maintained by yet other people, who will need yet other equipment and tools. There need to be people who can coordinate the various operations and the logistics between them. And the logistics will require yet more equipment and infrastructure that requires yet more people for production and maintenance. And all of these people will need people to educate them for their respective jobs. And I can keep going on like that.
The fact that some types of jobs require years of schooling and experience is especially problematic IMO. On Earth, this education is economical because highly specialised jobs have populations of many millions they cater to but that won't be so on Mars. For instance, there are 4000 mobile heavy equipment mechanics in the US (for cranes, bulldozers, excavators etc) so to be very simplistic you'd need a population of 80,000 to make it economical to educate a person for such a job. That's assuming such a mechanic will be able to work on every type of heavy equipment in all its aspects. Admittedly, set against that is the fact that people are often competent to do multiple jobs, but there's a trade-off breadth and depth of skills and knowledge. We only got so many hours a day to learn things.

You could say that's all the more reason to get ball rolling as soon as possible to build up the needed critical mass for a self-sustaining colony. However, why would a significant number of people choose move, especially when it comes to highly qualified people that would live a very comfortable life on Earth? I could see it if there's a prospect for these people to have future generations live on a green Mars, but what if that's just not possible? It's not very stimulating to know your offspring will be condemned to live under constant threat of radiation or air supply loss due mechnical failure. I doubt there's a lot of people who are willing to live on Mars for the sake of existing as a fail-safe for humanity, and those who are willing may not bring needed skills.

I agree there won't be a ton of people lining up to go for altruistic reasons to save humanity or whatever. However, you can't discount the plethora of personal reasons why people will go.