Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

History of Biosphere 2

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 91 posts

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#61

Post by apocalypstyx »

njarboe wrote: post #47
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always get downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, but the Elon Musk hype squad is just not being realistic about how far we are from establishing a permanent colony on mars. Severe issues remain.

If people look at creating a Mars colony as a voluntary extreme sport, like climbing Everest, BASE jumping, or wingsuit flying, with their corresponding death rates, you might understand the motivation of the people wanting to go to mars a bit better. For those types of people risking death to do something extreme is fun and going to Mars would be both very high risk and extreme. A safety first attitude won't build a…

> For those types of people risking death to do something extreme is fun and going to Mars would be both very high risk and extreme.

Getting there would be. Living there would be constant danger plus tedium, the space equivalent of working on a farm barely making ends meet for the rest of your life. Such lives don't have enough dopamine hits to keep people of such dispositions around long.

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#62

Post by DanBC »

simonh wrote: post #53
gryfft wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Mars colony is something humanity should start thinking seriously about once we successfully run a production-grade lunar colony for about a decade-- long enough to recognize and tackle the worst bugs.

The trouble is many of the problems of living in those environments are very different. Mars does have an atmosphere, which means cheap abundant CO2. It has much stronger gravity. The numerology is completely different. The moon’s vacuum environment is much harsher with starker temperature differences. It looks like sharp moon dust will be a significant abrasion risk to equipment - not a problem on Mars. Also while b…

> It looks like sharp moon dust will be a significant abrasion risk to equipment - not a problem on Mars

Mars has dust fine enough to be effectively aerosolised, and the low pressure makes removing it a bit tricky.

NASA has some ideas. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/kennedy-scientists-developing-t...

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

apocalypstyx wrote: post #61
njarboe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people look at creating a Mars colony as a voluntary extreme sport, like climbing Everest, BASE jumping, or wingsuit flying, with their corresponding death rates, you might understand the motivation of the people wanting to go to mars a bit better. For those types of people risking death to do something extreme is fun and going to Mars would be both very high risk and extreme. A safety first attitude won't build a…

> For those types of people risking death to do something extreme is fun and going to Mars would be both very high risk and extreme. Getting there would be. Living there would be constant danger plus tedium, the space equivalent of working on a farm barely making ends meet for the rest of your life. Such lives don't have enough dopamine hits to keep people of such dispositions around long.

Getting there would be lots of tedium, too.

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#64

Post by CuriousCosmic »

asark wrote: post #48
gryfft wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Mars colony is something humanity should start thinking seriously about once we successfully run a production-grade lunar colony for about a decade-- long enough to recognize and tackle the worst bugs.

I understand a Martian colony as a kind of romantic dream. I understand a longish-term Martian outpost for scientific purposes. I don't get a Martian colony as a serious proposal for pretty much any reason. It's like 1000x more expensive, dangerous, and inconvenient than colonizing any number of very-inhospitable places on Earth. To survive planetary disaster? Well 1) Mars is already worse than most imaginable post-d…

While imo the moon is probably a better immediate target for approaching space fairing status, I think Mars does provide useful opportunities.

I think on the architectural & engineering side developing structures for Mars would provide immense progress in understanding sustainability for life on earth or elsewhere. This has applications for doomsday scenarios if you care about that as well as just general efficiency and sustainability of structures.

Likewise I think Mars has benefit as a potential launch point for space travel as it has an abundance of fuel and a significantly lighter gravity well.

Another part is the whole "necessity is the mother of invention" aspect. There is no quicker way to progress than doing. Yes it may be horribly dangerous but trial by fire has been repeatedly shown as a very effective way of exploring the unknown.

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#65

Post by XaspR8d »

Lots of people sharing their tour anecdotes, but I wanted to add: my favorite part of the experience is when they take you inside the "lungs".

Due to the immense amount of atmosphere inside, they needed a way to handle the expansion and contraction over the course of the day, so they built a giant diaphragm roof that can raise and lower on top of an auxiliary dome. During the tour they take you inside to see it inflated, then take you into the outer shell and crack a door so you can watch the whole thing collapse.

Super simple mechanism, but it really hit home the complexity of the problem space.

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#66

Post by notabee »

DanBC wrote: post #62
simonh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is many of the problems of living in those environments are very different. Mars does have an atmosphere, which means cheap abundant CO2. It has much stronger gravity. The numerology is completely different. The moon’s vacuum environment is much harsher with starker temperature differences. It looks like sharp moon dust will be a significant abrasion risk to equipment - not a problem on Mars. Also while b…

> It looks like sharp moon dust will be a significant abrasion risk to equipment - not a problem on Mars Mars has dust fine enough to be effectively aerosolised, and the low pressure makes removing it a bit tricky. NASA has some ideas. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/kennedy-scientists-developing-t...

The Martian dust also contains a lot of toxic perchlorate, which could cause thyroid issues if it gets into the habitats. https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals...

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#67

Post by notabee »

nobody_nowhere wrote: post #4

I toured the facility around 2005-6 (iirc). Looks like you still can. It had a futuristic and lightly post-apocalyptic vibe. The jungle plants were growing out of control, pressing up against the glass panes of one of the habitats. Ants streamed in and out from the desert outside through a crack in a glass panel. If you check it out ( http://biosphere2.org/visit/tour-schedule-hours ), you can have a full post-apocaly…

Don't forget Trinity test site. It's only open for touring one day a year now, I believe.

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#68

Post by maxxxxx »

njarboe wrote: post #47
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always get downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, but the Elon Musk hype squad is just not being realistic about how far we are from establishing a permanent colony on mars. Severe issues remain.

If people look at creating a Mars colony as a voluntary extreme sport, like climbing Everest, BASE jumping, or wingsuit flying, with their corresponding death rates, you might understand the motivation of the people wanting to go to mars a bit better. For those types of people risking death to do something extreme is fun and going to Mars would be both very high risk and extreme. A safety first attitude won't build a…

"You won't know the what the severe issues are till you are there and trying to stay alive will be a great motivator to solve problems quickly. Simulating Mars gravity on Earth is impossible so Mars is going to be the best place to build a working model of a Mars colony. "

Gravity is probably one of the smaller problems. I don't see the point of going to Mars until we have a lot of experience doing similar things on the Moon or just on Earth. We should also have done a lot of long-distance flights like going to an Asteroid or just orbiting Mars first.

Right now a Mars colony would be plain suicide.

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#69

Post by merlincorey »

asark wrote: post #48
gryfft wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Mars colony is something humanity should start thinking seriously about once we successfully run a production-grade lunar colony for about a decade-- long enough to recognize and tackle the worst bugs.

I understand a Martian colony as a kind of romantic dream. I understand a longish-term Martian outpost for scientific purposes. I don't get a Martian colony as a serious proposal for pretty much any reason. It's like 1000x more expensive, dangerous, and inconvenient than colonizing any number of very-inhospitable places on Earth. To survive planetary disaster? Well 1) Mars is already worse than most imaginable post-d…

> 2) you could build a couple highly-survivable emergency bunker-habitats and pay people to live in them (in shifts, say, so there are always enough inside to ensure survival but they're not stuck in there full time) for, surely, less money than Martian colony establishment & maintenance would cost.

We could call these bunker-habitats "vaults", maybe. Then proceed to raise some capital for our startup and eventually call it "Vault-Tec"[0].

> You might still screw it up and they might not succeed if things really got that bad, but I'd bet their odds are better than any Martian colony we're likely to manage to put up in the next 100 years.

We could further fund it by conducting various sociological experiments. What could go wrong?[1]

[0] https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault-Tec_Corporation

[1] https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Vault

Re: History of Biosphere 2

#70

Post by schoen »

notabee wrote: post #67
nobody_nowhere wrote: post #4

I toured the facility around 2005-6 (iirc). Looks like you still can. It had a futuristic and lightly post-apocalyptic vibe. The jungle plants were growing out of control, pressing up against the glass panes of one of the habitats. Ants streamed in and out from the desert outside through a crack in a glass panel. If you check it out ( http://biosphere2.org/visit/tour-schedule-hours ), you can have a full post-apocaly…

Don't forget Trinity test site. It's only open for touring one day a year now, I believe.

https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/historyculture/trinity-site.h...

> the first Saturdays of April and October

... so, a week from tomorrow!

Post reply on HN