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China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

bbc.com

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Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#11

Post by wefarrell »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6
simion314 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff. The main obstacle a colony will have is the initial buildings/bunker with all the life support and safety tech, plus extra redundancy and a backup plan if something bad happens there or on Earth . If the colony would manage to generate…

Sure, becoming 100% self sufficient wouldn't be a reasonable short term goal but I can't imagine there being any product worth trading in the long term over such distance and given such cost for logistics?

Tourism will probably be the first private industry.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#12

Post by worldsayshi »

cafebabbe wrote: post #10
worldsayshi wrote: post #2

To me it seems that the greatest obstacle to space colonization would be maintenance and production of materials and technology needed to sustain and expand the colony. Seems like the last step for truly becoming self sustaining. You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. I wonder what that would take. What the smallest amount of shipments and time would be.…

We're not even self-sustaining on Earth .

Fair point. Perhaps forcing us to be on Mars can teach us something about sustainability here on earth. Here's hoping.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#13

Post by stubish »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6
simion314 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff. The main obstacle a colony will have is the initial buildings/bunker with all the life support and safety tech, plus extra redundancy and a backup plan if something bad happens there or on Earth . If the colony would manage to generate…

Sure, becoming 100% self sufficient wouldn't be a reasonable short term goal but I can't imagine there being any product worth trading in the long term over such distance and given such cost for logistics?

Maybe nothing worth shipping back to earth, but perhaps resources for shipping to orbit. Fuel, space ship components, or entire ships or satellites.

If nothing else, there is real estate. Might not be worth much, but there is a lot of it.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#14

Post by Aardwolf »

cafebabbe wrote: post #10
worldsayshi wrote: post #2

To me it seems that the greatest obstacle to space colonization would be maintenance and production of materials and technology needed to sustain and expand the colony. Seems like the last step for truly becoming self sustaining. You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. I wonder what that would take. What the smallest amount of shipments and time would be.…

We're not even self-sustaining on Earth .

We also have significantly more people on Earth though. If anything, more planets makes us more self sustainable in the future.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#15

Post by wklauss »

worldsayshi wrote: post #2

To me it seems that the greatest obstacle to space colonization would be maintenance and production of materials and technology needed to sustain and expand the colony. Seems like the last step for truly becoming self sustaining. You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. I wonder what that would take. What the smallest amount of shipments and time would be.…

> You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization.

It's not as much as you'd think, specially if you can survive on the first couple of decades with regular shipments from earth, mostly for very advanced materials and electronics.

A lot of manufacturing capacity in our society is redundant and focused on non-essential items. In addition, some manufacturing processes are complex because of the scale of our society but could be made simpler for a small colony, especially if you are not worried about details or finishing quality and approach it from a more utilitarian perspective.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#16

Post by pfisch »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6
simion314 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff. The main obstacle a colony will have is the initial buildings/bunker with all the life support and safety tech, plus extra redundancy and a backup plan if something bad happens there or on Earth . If the colony would manage to generate…

Sure, becoming 100% self sufficient wouldn't be a reasonable short term goal but I can't imagine there being any product worth trading in the long term over such distance and given such cost for logistics?

I imagine people used to think that when it was France trading with China beyond things exclusively in China like silk. Prices go down over time.

Also it might be worth it for gold.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#18

Post by richardknop »

worldsayshi wrote: post #6
simion314 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should you have a 100% complete industry, a colony can trade with Earth like countries trade with each other, a colony could trade some rare resources and buy high tech stuff. The main obstacle a colony will have is the initial buildings/bunker with all the life support and safety tech, plus extra redundancy and a backup plan if something bad happens there or on Earth . If the colony would manage to generate…

Sure, becoming 100% self sufficient wouldn't be a reasonable short term goal but I can't imagine there being any product worth trading in the long term over such distance and given such cost for logistics?

Water possibly could be of great value in the future? Moon has plenty of drinking water. Maybe gold, not sure if there’s gold on the Moon?

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#19

Post by k9s9 »

worldsayshi wrote: post #2

To me it seems that the greatest obstacle to space colonization would be maintenance and production of materials and technology needed to sustain and expand the colony. Seems like the last step for truly becoming self sustaining. You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization. I wonder what that would take. What the smallest amount of shipments and time would be.…

Replicators. Feels like no one watches Star Trek anymore. Those writers had more time to think about this stuff than most science labs and engineering teams imho.

Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout

#20

Post by rusk »

cperciva wrote: post #7
baybal2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smallest scale fabs can fit the whole cycle in one building: wafer production, CMP, gases facility, front-end, back-end and etching/deposition/doping lines. Some 180nm level fabs are like that, and rely on equipment unification in between back-end/front-end/etch/deposition/doping lines. Big questions: 1. How to make wafers in low/no gravity? Without convection, you can't purify silicon. May be you will rely on an ent…

If you want gravity, you use centrifuges. Not really a problem.

is this kind of simulated gravity sufficient for the convection processes described?
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