Why cotton?
China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
131–140 of 164 posts
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the dark side of the moon BTW, this isn't a real thing
> BTW, this isn't a real thing Yes, the dark side of the Moon is a real thing. It's the side that doesn't get Earth-lit nights.
That's an odd convoluted definition that I've never heard of before.
I think the point the other poster was making is that "far side of the moon" is far more specific, accurate and useful term.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#133Earlier 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?
The most obvious trading I can imagine would be selling in-orbit manufacturing of spacecraft and space facilities to planet-based interests, in exchange for hi-tech electronics and food.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
O'Neill cylinders don't work on the moon.
"Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on the moon with Dad?" "Now, Billy, you know your bones and brain need at least .85G to develop properly. You can go live with Dad when you turn 16."
Would be more worried about this eventually happening the other way around.
"Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on Earth with Dad?"
"Now, Billy, you know your bones and muscles are used to lunar 0.16G, and won't support your body in full 1G. Your heart isn't strong enough for those conditions either."
See also: Belters from The Expanse.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you on this one. Along the way on the amazing expansion into space, we'll rediscover the critical importance of maximizing efficiency in meeting our basic needs. It would serve us well to get everyone associating that level of efficiency with our greatest feats of technological progress. Also, what better way to get kids on board from a young age? "Susie, if you really want to be an astronaut, you must learn…
I don't understand human psychology well enough to be sure, but I could see it easily going the other way for some people. "We've got a self-sustaining colony on Mars! Finally, we can stop obsessing over such petty terrestrial details like CO2 and plastic waste that we once thought were so important to our species."
I can easily see it going both ways at the same time.
Space colonization will be a strong forcing function for developing high-efficiency technology. Hell, it'll force us to comprehend the energy budgets to much deeper levels. I could see this resulting in a lot of new products and new ways of doing things.
At the same time, if on the social/cultural level, people start to feel that Earth is just but one place available to people, I can imagine them naturally care less.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on the moon with Dad?" "Now, Billy, you know your bones and brain need at least .85G to develop properly. You can go live with Dad when you turn 16."
Would be more worried about this eventually happening the other way around. "Aw, Mom, why can't we go live on Earth with Dad?" "Now, Billy, you know your bones and muscles are used to lunar 0.16G, and won't support your body in full 1G. Your heart isn't strong enough for those conditions either." See also: Belters from The Expanse .
Yup, also Andy Weir's Artemis, and to a lesser degree Larry Niven's everyone-except-Jinxians.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's one of my arguments for space colonisation. In the process of colonising other bodies and planets we'll learn how to be more sustainable here. In other words we would use the promise of new resources and exciting new worlds to learn how to avoid destructing our own.
Solving just about any of our sustainability problems on earth will be easier and less work than establishing a self-sustaining colony any place else.
Learning to swim in a shallow pool is _easier_ than just getting thrown into the deep end, but it's not faster, and the learning isn't as likely to occur.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Maybe nothing worth shipping back to earth Helium 3 is certainly worth shipping even at a premium.
Moon-mined Helium 3 is currently a non-solution in search of a problem.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#139To 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.…
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…
You can ship a 40ft container with about 25t capacity for about $2000-$5000 between any major ports on Earth, and probably for even less for bigger volumes.
SpaceX BFR has about 100t capacity to Mars. While the total cost of a Mars mission has not been publicized, I suspect it would be fair bit more than $20k.
Biggest container ships these days carry about 20k TEU, or about 500000 tons of cargo. You can try putting that number to the rocket equation just for fun.
Re: China's Moon mission sees first seeds sprout
#140To 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.…
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.
Zubrin's estimate of this in The Case For Mars is a half million people. That's an estimate for the minimum size of the population which can support the knowledge base required to make everything to sustain a modern industrialized civilization.
You'd need extremely small scale factories that can build everything needed for a modern civilization.
It's been demonstrated that a single person can build up the infrastructure of an 1800's colonial village all by himself, up to and including a blacksmith's shop. That guy from Turtle Island Preserve could do it, dropped into a forest with a single knife. There's a YouTuber who does all that sort of stuff without the knife to begin with.
It will be harder to do such bootstrapping on Mars, of course. I'm not sure that the half million estimate above included chip fabs. I somehow doubt it.