Colonization of Mars

[Kat Tsun]

I mean if you're a 1g enjoyer you might as well go the Full O'Neill.

It's an option for the Moon, honestly. Robotic factories build stuff on the Moon before lofting it into L4 or L5. Beats a manned research station, since it won't expose anyone to deleterious osteoporosis that prevents them from returning to Earth, or worse.

Might take a while and cost a bit but it's still better than Evil Antarctica or Evil Antarctica 2: Mars Harder.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

It's an option for the Moon, honestly. Robotic factories build stuff on the Moon before lofting it into L4 or L5. Beats a manned research station, since it won't expose anyone to deleterious osteoporosis that prevents them from returning to Earth, or worse.

Might take a while and cost a bit but it's still better than Evil Antarctica or Evil Antarctica 2: Mars Harder.

There is technically probably nothing stopping you from building a giant merry-go-round-shaped apartment building on the surface of the Moon or Mars, on a giant set of circular maglev tracks inside some sort of vacuum chamber. I would wager that it is probably "easier" to do that than to try to live in a giant blimp in the skies of Venus, or god forbid actually try to terraform either Venus or Mars, although I might estimate that genetically engineering humans to live on either the Moon or Mars might be of equivalent or intermediate difficulty.

 

[Kat Tsun]

There is technically probably nothing stopping you from building a giant merry-go-round-shaped apartment building on the surface of the Moon or Mars, on a giant set of circular maglev tracks inside some sort of vacuum chamber. I would wager that it is probably "easier" to do that than to try to live in a giant blimp in the skies of Venus, or god forbid actually try to terraform either Venus or Mars, although I might estimate that genetically engineering humans to live on either the Moon or Mars might be of equivalent or intermediate difficulty.

Genetically engineering a species would make them no longer human tbf.

You could probably build a planet sized ring but that would be more urban area constructed on Moon or Mars than has been built on Earth since the dawn of cities. An L4/L5 O'Neill Cylinder would be a significantly smaller pressurized vessel. Unless you mean building an O'Neill Cylinder inside a lava tube or something. That's also practical but it would require people living on the Moon in some manner.

Robots building an O'Neill Cylinder that gets populated by humans in orbit gives you a work base for colonization that isn't Earth and helps people stay healthy. That's the most important thing for colonization because it's never not going to be a generational project.

 

[Josh_TN]

More research needs to be done on reproduction in space for us to determine the limits of habitability. If we are hooked on 1g, then Venus is the only natural option, and if you are going to simply rotate a habitat, that’s a lot easier to do in space or on the moon than on mars. But we need to establish boundaries for what humans can live in generationally to have a good idea of the limitations. I suspect 1/3g is problematic. It would not surprise me if there were also limits to centrifugal gravity due to coriolis forces of higher angular velocities. Literally hundreds of millions of years of development has taken place to adapt mammals to their home planet; I think a lot of people over simply the complications of a complete human life cycle off earth.

 

[BlueAbyssal]

Making a planet cooler is easy. You put it in the shade. Making Mars heavier is harder. We can't exactly slam a second or third Mars into it.

As much as I agree that Martian gravity may be a problem, centrifuges on the Martian surface are dramatically easier to build than a solar shade large enough to cool Venus.

It would not surprise me if there were also limits to centrifugal gravity due to coriolis forces of higher angular velocities.

The only testing done so far shows up to 6 RPM can be tolerated after a fairly short acclimation period.

 

[Kat Tsun]

As much as I agree that Martian gravity may be a problem, centrifuges on the Martian surface are dramatically easier to build than a solar shade large enough to cool Venus.

True, but a spinning habitat in a volcanic tube can be built on the Moon, too. Not that much of a reason to go to Mars when the Moon has a smaller light speed lag, takes about as much delta-v, way less time, etc. I guess if there isn't a lot of water it would suck though. Still would be easier to ship essentials and evacuate sick people though regardless. An extraterrestrial jump off point for nuclear engines could be nice too, if anyone ever builds those.

 

[BlueAbyssal]

True, but a spinning habitat in a volcanic tube can be built on the Moon, too. Not that much of a reason to go to Mars when the Moon has a smaller light speed lag, takes about as much delta-v, way less time, etc. I guess if there isn't a lot of water it would suck though. Still would be easier to ship essentials and evacuate sick people though regardless. An extraterrestrial jump off point for nuclear engines could be nice too, if anyone ever builds those.

That depends. The Moon is lacking in many useful raw materials, such as copper, sulfur, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen, and while there is water, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of it. If we want to build a new branch of industrial civilization beyond Earth, Mars is one of the better options we’ve got. Any stations such as you describe at the end are likely to be in free space rather than on a planetary surface, whether the Moon, Mars, or otherwise, outside of the asteroids where the gravity is very low indeed. The Moon seems better suited for factories, mines, and research/scientific/tourist facilities than as a second home for mankind.