Quote from: Vultur on 11/13/2016 08:44 pmTrue.Now that I'm not sure holds true. Depends on how the economics are set up. It's quite possible (likely, IMO) much if not all will be paid for by a "Mars Colony Foundation" nonprofit's investments on Earth. There needn't be actual Mars-side exports.I'd love to see if this has ever been done for any other settlement efforts and if so how they worked out.
True.Now that I'm not sure holds true. Depends on how the economics are set up. It's quite possible (likely, IMO) much if not all will be paid for by a "Mars Colony Foundation" nonprofit's investments on Earth. There needn't be actual Mars-side exports.
Several flaws in that article, starting with the idea you'd ever make a pressure vessel on Mars just 25 microns thick (Mylar balloon-like).
Not that idle speculation isn't fun, but work has been done to provide real numbers for the micrometeor threat:http://data.spaceappschallenge.org/ICES.pdfThis gives an impact probability of 0.7% per year per square meter. Using a conservative interpretation of values from https://msis.jsc.nasa.gov/sections/section14.htm, you get a 95% spacesuited male as having a cross sectional area of 0.56 square meters inclusive of life support backpack (which might be notably smaller on a suit designed for the Martian surface).This gives puncture-causing impact probability of 0.4% per year of someone standing outside on the Martian surface.
But that is not to say that microgravity new processes are bad. There is evidence that some new processes in microgravity result in higher quality materials.
If what you want is an Earth backup, the two essential requirements are (a) grow your own food, and (b) build your own shelters. If you can do this, the colony can survive, though not pleasantly. On Mars, this would seem to require early 20th century technology - you need to mine materials, refine them, and build engines, pumps, chemical processes, and greenhouses. You don't *really* need computers, radios, modern medicine, etc. If you can survive, and grow your colony, these can all be reconstructed. Might be handy to have a set of paper encyclopedias, though.This type of primitive independence seems much easier to achieve on Mars than in space.
"build your own shelters" on Mars means quite a bit more than it does on earth, of course. Same with food. But I could see a very steampunk style tech arising if some cataclysmic cutoff happened...
I like the idea of the pre-IC tech colony approach. LES1, AMSAT-OSCAR 7, IMP-8 (not counting Pioneers, Voyagers) show that robust low-tech electronics can be used meaningfully for decades in extremely harsh environments.
Steampunk STYLE. With solar arrays and electric motors, but no ICs. Try to think out of the box and try not to be so negative. When I look at this thread and do a word count, what percentage is you being negative? If you're just repeating the same arguments? Save the electrons.
No oil + no coal --> No steam.
Steampunk STYLE. With solar arrays and electric motors, but no ICs.
If you're just repeating the same arguments? Save the electrons.
You can even make simple ICs without a huge industrial base. People have done DIY semiconductor device fabrication on the cheap. Universities have the right equipment.
If you're willing to compromise on 5-nm-scale feature sizes and live with 5-microns, then you can definitely do it.
Instead of crazy multi core Multiteraflops CPU/GPU chips, you'd have an Arduino-like microcontroller for the same die size, but so what? There's a heck of a lot you can do with an Arduino, even a slow one.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 11/14/2016 05:17 pmIf you're willing to compromise on 5-nm-scale feature sizes and live with 5-microns, then you can definitely do it. If you can do 5nm you're ahead of Intel. They've been struggling with 14.