Quote from: CuddlyRocket on 02/05/2016 01:45 am(An additional advantage is the 24-hr day/night cycle.)I don't see that as an advantage myself. It robs you of solar power for at least half the time, and if you have to do work outside at night, increases the difficulty of seeing where you are and what you are doing.
(An additional advantage is the 24-hr day/night cycle.)
Quote from: CuddlyRocket on 02/05/2016 01:45 amOnce you've developed the transportation to enable Mars settlement you can use it elsewhere. The Moon, obviously. Use what you've learned there to go to Ceres. And the Asteroid Belt. Beyond that? We can leave to our descendants to decide.Sounds like a step backwards to me.. learn how to get out of deep gravity wells, go back down other deep gravity wells to learn how to operate out of deep gravity wells?
Once you've developed the transportation to enable Mars settlement you can use it elsewhere. The Moon, obviously. Use what you've learned there to go to Ceres. And the Asteroid Belt. Beyond that? We can leave to our descendants to decide.
Why not just learn how to live in LEO, then GEO, then the Libration points, then NEOs, then the asteroid belt, then the trojans of Jupiter, then the Oort cloud, then the stars?
Starting with bigger space stations around Earth and retrieving asteroids to mine them and grow your space stations into cities isn't inspirational enough for ya?
It doesn't have to jump straight to an O'Neil type habitat. There could be something smaller, made out of Earth-made sections and that eventually has enough people to start bringing dependents, a bit like an overseas US military base that is its own little world with schools, shopping, jobs for family members, college classes, etc. It would be like living in a large shopping mall, with an attached zero-gee factory, perhaps. All delivered by a space transportation company of some sort (just to keep a LITTLE on-topic). Probably not with BFR/MCT, but with the next generation past them.
And eventually that first habitat would re-pay its investment and work for itself.
It's no more inspirational than Mars. In any event, it's not about inspiration; but practicality. Where can you go next with a view to permanent habitation that's both compelling and needs the minimum development?
I agree with most of that in principle. I read Drexler's Engines of Creation in 1987 and have been a believer ever since.
All human life on Mars, or anywhere else, is going to be extremely fragile and vulnerable. This concept that we are doing it in case of an extinction level event on Earth seems backwards to me. It is far more likely that our destination will have the extinction level event and wipe out the colony. We are so much more vulnerable on a non-earth environment.The most likely near term destination for hundreds of humans is a LEO vacation. SX seems to be close to dramatically lowering the cost to reach LEO. Some entrepreneur billionaire in the next 20-30 years will likely build a LEO hotel with Bigelow style habitats. That is a reasonable near term destination and the safety risks can be managed.I am a SX fan and I admire the advances being made. But Mars won't have a significant population of more than a few scientists, similar to Antartica. We will study it and visit it, but I doubt we will ever colonize it.
Technology will advance (providing the extinction even doesn't occur before the race becomes multi-planetary) to the point where Mars can be colonised.
My guess: we can solve those problems, we learned a lot about that, and we will learn en route what we don't know yet.
Quote from: punder on 02/05/2016 02:07 pmI agree with most of that in principle. I read Drexler's Engines of Creation in 1987 and have been a believer ever since. Don't read "Radical Abundance" then, it'll tell you more than you want to know about the man and his efforts since. Merkle and Freitas Jr. are pursuing the most realistic path to atomic precise manufacturing. You could say they've found the dry road, while Drexler has been bogged down on the wet road suffering bandits of various stripes.