Why are there no space colonies?

[Josephus]

So I'm reading a panel in Playboy magazine from 1963 (July and August). It includes such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov and others. I'd cut and paste, but it won't let me and it's behind a pay wall.

Here's a scan I found:

https://pipeandpjspictorials.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/the-playboy-panel-1984-and-beyond-july-1963/

Or you might be able to d/l it from here... I didn't check:

http://www.heinleinarchives.net/upload/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=250

It's interesting. Of course as S/F writers they are wrong on many things but right on some. They couldn't have been more wrong about most things.

Clarke does get close on some things. He predicts self-driven cars and that gasoline driven cars will be replaced by electric vehicles by 1984.

Heinlein talks about phones small enough to fit in people's pockets and Rod Serling predicts 3D television "in living color", satallite broadcasts and wall-sized screens by 1984 and another talks about how the "facsimile receiver" will change the way we read newspapers and effectively remove censorship. (replace fax machine with Internet and he's bang on)

Bradbury says that by 1984, whilst marriage may not be necessary for religious or moral reasons, most people will continue to do it.

They tend to agree that it's likely that by 1984 working for money will not be necessary. "it may not be important even to have a job." But Algis Budrys [don't know him] says that by 1984, a foreman will be able to run his automated production facility from a phone in his pocket whilst lying on a beach in the Bahamas.

Ironically it's in space travel they seem to get it wrong.

They agree, for instance, that the Russians will get to the moon first. They agree that in our time there will be colonies. As Clarke puts it, "the moon by 1970, Mars and Venus by 1980."

Another says that his children will be able to go to the moon on a commercial ship.

Ted Sturgeon, predicts that the Soviet Union will cease to be communist but will remain an adversary. "Do you think there will be less of a space race or economic race than we have now?" "Do you think Russia is our number one enemy only because it is communistic?"

To which Clarke responds: "I cant see US capitalism lasting longer than Soviet state socialism. They'll pass each other in 1980 and head in opposite directions."

Another predicts that by the end of that century there will no longer be illnesses and no one will be wearing glasses or corrective lenses.

Bradbury predicts that there are already children in maternity wards (in 1963) who will likely live to be 200 years old.

Poul Anderson says that within 20 years, "with the help of non toxic drugs" people will be able to stay awake for several days at a stretch.

They predict 2000 mile an hour aircraft "within five years" but become impractical after 3000 mph.


Anyway if you could get your hands on it, it is interesting.

But here's a question for discussion: Why did we get the space race so wrong? Why are there no colonies on Mars?

And also...why no Internet?

[Grey Fox]

Because Capitalism won the race and Space is not yet profitable.

[Josquius]

I guess the issue is that they extrapolated the world as they knew it forward. Technology in the area of getting stuff into the sky had leapt forward at a huge pace. Old school colonialism was just starting to fade.
Also they had wrong ideas that there was a destination- that Venus and Mars would be basically habitable. How they misthought this one is particularly curious.

That mid 20th century sci fi writers thought 2001 would be a world of routine space travel is fairly well known. What I'd be interested in seeing is those of them who correctly predicted it wouldn't be so.

[Josephus]

That mid 20th century sci fi writers thought 2001 would be a world of routine space travel is fairly well known. What I'd be interested in seeing is those of them who correctly predicted it wouldn't be so.

None of those on this panel did. They were very gung ho about space travel. never mind 2001, they thought it would be routine by 1984.

[Josephus]

Also they had wrong ideas that there was a destination- that Venus and Mars would be basically habitable. How they misthought this one is particularly curious.

Mars and Venus being the closest were the obvious ones. They didn't think it would be habitable in and of themselves, but through building hospitable environments.

[grumbler]

Colonizing Mars is much, much more difficult than most SF writers realize (though many of the issues were unknown in 1963).  For instance, plant life needs a lot of phosphorus, and Mars has very, very little.  A self-sustaining Mars colony (growing plants in greenhouses, for example) would need tons and tons of phosphorous to be sent from earth.  Another essential element, nitrogen, is very uncommon on Mars and would require a lot of ore processing to extract (you'd probably need to choose the site based on access to nitrogen-bearing minerals).  You could get nitrogen from the atmosphere (it makes up a bit less than 3% of the atmosphere) but processing energy requirements would be massive.

So, the problem is that Mars lacks some of the basic elements needed for life in easily-obtained quantities, and there's no easy way out of that.

[grumbler]

Space travel is very routine today.  Just not for humans.  Speculative writers in the mid-20C way overestimated the need to have humans to do things in space.

[viper37]

But here's a question for discussion: Why did we get the space race so wrong? Why are there no colonies on Mars?


And also...why no Internet?

No internet because they couldn't conceive it.

No space colonies because it is not profitable.  We developed colonies in Americas and Africa and Asia for commerce and to extract resources when it became impossible/hard to get these resources.

When the Byzantines controlled the flow of trade through the silk roads, the Europeans traded with them.  The Romans and the Byzantines could send expeditions to China and ships to India.

Once the Turks, the Persians and the Arabs took over, that commerce was impossible for Europe or too prohibitive.  The Mongol devastation probably didn't help either.

So they started looking at other ways to bypass the middle men.

Is there any resources that we need and we don't have right now on Earth?  We have space, we have water, we have food, we have minerals.

Once global warming really hits us and life on Earth is difficult to sustain, the very rich will move on to outer space for sure, or more likely, some domed cities high up in the mountains, or very far inland.

But until there's some crucial element that we need and we can't find on Earth, I don't really see space colonies being a real thing.  Research colonies, sure.  But colonies, like New France, New England, New Spain, nope, there was and still is no need.

It's still more advantageous to wage war on a neighbour than try to expand into outer space.

[Barrister]

Colonizing Mars is much, much more difficult than most SF writers realize (though many of the issues were unknown in 1963).  For instance, plant life needs a lot of phosphorus, and Mars has very, very little.  A self-sustaining Mars colony (growing plants in greenhouses, for example) would need tons and tons of phosphorous to be sent from earth.  Another essential element, nitrogen, is very uncommon on Mars and would require a lot of ore processing to extract (you'd probably need to choose the site based on access to nitrogen-bearing minerals).  You could get nitrogen from the atmosphere (it makes up a bit less than 3% of the atmosphere) but processing energy requirements would be massive.

So, the problem is that Mars lacks some of the basic elements needed for life in easily-obtained quantities, and there's no easy way out of that.

So everything you said is completely true.

But we haven't even gotten to that stage yet.  Humans haven't even visited Mars, never mind setting up self-sustaining colonies.

We're still at the stage that the distance is so great, that the amount of propellant and supplies is so great to get there, that we haven't been able to get that much into earth orbit in order to fly there and back.

And that's without worrying about the radiation on the way (and the radiation on Mars, which lacks a magnetosphere).

[Josquius]

Colonizing Mars is much, much more difficult than most SF writers realize (though many of the issues were unknown in 1963).  For instance, plant life needs a lot of phosphorus, and Mars has very, very little.  A self-sustaining Mars colony (growing plants in greenhouses, for example) would need tons and tons of phosphorous to be sent from earth.  Another essential element, nitrogen, is very uncommon on Mars and would require a lot of ore processing to extract (you'd probably need to choose the site based on access to nitrogen-bearing minerals).  You could get nitrogen from the atmosphere (it makes up a bit less than 3% of the atmosphere) but processing energy requirements would be massive.

So, the problem is that Mars lacks some of the basic elements needed for life in easily-obtained quantities, and there's no easy way out of that.

So everything you said is completely true.

But we haven't even gotten to that stage yet.  Humans haven't even visited Mars, never mind setting up self-sustaining colonies.

We're still at the stage that the distance is so great, that the amount of propellant and supplies is so great to get there, that we haven't been able to get that much into earth orbit in order to fly there and back.

And that's without worrying about the radiation on the way (and the radiation on Mars, which lacks a magnetosphere).

I don't think this is such an issue.
If surviving on Mars wasn't a problem then we would have long since gone there already decades ago.
The journey is tough no doubt, but its manageable when you've a safe destination on the other end. When that would be a long and difficult survival experience in itself then that the journey is tough is amplified.

[viper37]

Yes, and there's nothing we need from Mars.  If we find something we really need on Mars, we'll find ways to overcome the limits.
The Romans did not need to travel across the Atlantic, they didn't develop a way to cross it.  Their trade was around the Mediterranean, and later then Indian ocean, once they found the right winds to sail to India.

The Europeans kept using galleys and cogs until such a time they needed to go further because they couldn't get the spice they needed.  Then the Portuguese thought it'd be nice if they could sail a little further down Africa, and others followed them.  The same will happen with Mars.  If the surveys find some rare minerals, we will find ways to explore it.

[crazy canuck]

We are exploring it already.  But as Grumbler pointed out, what we do in space does not need human involvement.

[Josquius]

I can see quite a bit of mining and space tourism this century. But I can't see this meaning "colonies" in the romantic historic sense of the word.
Mining will be robotic and tourism staffed by temporary workers.
I'd imagine having kids in space will be actively banned with mandatory contraception given how micro gravity can do a number on developing fetuses

[Maladict]

And also...why no Internet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC3E2qTCIY8

[Admiral Yi]

It would be incredibly expensive and not much upside.  Same reason we haven't colonized the sea bed or the interiors of active volcanoes.