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Why are there no space colonies?

Started by Josephus, March 22, 2023, 06:53:39 AM

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Josephus

Quote from: Barrister on March 22, 2023, 10:36:57 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 22, 2023, 08:47:26 AMColonizing 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).

Quote from: Maladict on March 22, 2023, 12:45:11 PM
Quote from: Josephus on March 22, 2023, 06:53:39 AMAnd also...why no Internet?


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

Close enough  :)
Civis Romanus Sum

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Jack Layton 1950-2011

Valmy

Quote from: Barrister on March 22, 2023, 10:36:57 AMAnd that's without worrying about the radiation on the way (and the radiation on Mars, which lacks a magnetosphere).

Yeah. Any colony on Mars would need to be underground to protect us from the radiation I think.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Valmy

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 22, 2023, 01:03:30 PMIt would be incredibly expensive and not much upside.  Same reason we haven't colonized the sea bed or the interiors of active volcanoes.

Yeah we have 75% of the earth's surface uncolonized. Seems like we should be creating deep sea colonies before we go to Mars.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Syt

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
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Sheilbh

Let's bomb Russia!

Josquius

Quote from: Valmy on March 22, 2023, 01:46:46 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 22, 2023, 01:03:30 PMIt would be incredibly expensive and not much upside.  Same reason we haven't colonized the sea bed or the interiors of active volcanoes.

Yeah we have 75% of the earth's surface uncolonized. Seems like we should be creating deep sea colonies before we go to Mars.

Or Yukon/Outback/Lappland/Wherever colonies.
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Razgovory

The problem lies not in science or economics but philosophy.  Gayatri Spivak founded postcolonial studies and kicked the legs out of any colonization, space or otherwise.  By showing that the very epistemology that backed our science was a European imperialist construct that ignored the views of the subaltern she forced the US to adopt the less ambitious shuttle program.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017