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Last Flight Out

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Re: Last Flight Out

#211

Post by shawndrost »

ryandrake wrote: post #85

Whenever I read about how humans are about to colonize Mars, I think about how much logistics it takes to keep even a single base with a handful of people populated on the South Pole. It's like Mars, but with plentiful oxygen and atmospheric pressure, plentiful (albeit frozen) water, shielded from radiation, low-latency communication with civilization, and is reachable by air and ground vehicles. Given how difficult…

I think everyone envisions Mars as harder than the South Pole. The reason people like Elon envision colonizing Mars instead of the South Pole is that they posit a big prize for succeeding at the former (becoming the emperor of a large, viable landmass, out of range of other nation-states' control and blast radius) but not the latter.

(I think this is an accurate observation of motives, but I disagree with the posit.)

Re: Last Flight Out

#212

Post by floxy »

mlindner wrote: post #157
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's roughly a million times easier to grow food on the South Pole than it is to grow it on Mars.

On Mars you have soil you can process into something plants can use (note: needs to be washed free of its perchlorate contamination first) whereas at the South Pole there is no soil that is not buried under hundreds of meters of ice. You can't just create a heated greenhouse on top of the ice because it will melt the ice underneath. They've already done tests where they've grown plants in Martial soil simulant.

>at the South Pole there is no soil that is not buried under hundreds of meters of ice.

https://www.scenic.com.au/news/seasons-of-antarctica

https://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2015/scientists-heading-t...

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-antarctica-managed-t...

Re: Last Flight Out

#213

Post by rtkwe »

rootusrootus wrote: post #204
jrochkind1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone is free to stand in the physical shower stall as long as they want! As long as they keep water flow within the allocated quota. I'm going to be turning on the water to get wet, soaping up, turning on the water to rinse. If I have some extra maybe I'll let the water just run for some seconds to enjoy it. More people in the shower isn't going to help, they're just going to get in the way. Also, at least 10 y…

> I'm going to be turning on the water to get wet, soaping up, turning on the water to rinse. Commonly called a military shower[0], and exactly what I do in my RV when boondocking. [0] In the military, ironically, even in boot camp we didn't shower this way, we just went very quickly. just the pits...

I've heard that specifically called a Navy shower in most cases not generically military.

Re: Last Flight Out

#214

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #85

Whenever I read about how humans are about to colonize Mars, I think about how much logistics it takes to keep even a single base with a handful of people populated on the South Pole. It's like Mars, but with plentiful oxygen and atmospheric pressure, plentiful (albeit frozen) water, shielded from radiation, low-latency communication with civilization, and is reachable by air and ground vehicles. Given how difficult…

[deleted]

Re: Last Flight Out

#215

Post by ta1243 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #149
stickfigure wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more curious about what they do with the greywater. If you just dumped it you'd end up with a giant, evergrowing pile of dirty ice.

There's another post on his blog about visiting the sewage treatment plant at McMurdo (not Pole, I don't know what they do there). At McMurdo it's like any other sewage treatment plant: they release the cleaned water into the sea.

Which can't be done at the pole. The options are either drive it (and all waste) out to McMurdo, or leave it there.

Re: Last Flight Out

#216

Post by rtkwe »

Reason077 wrote: post #24

> "Slow and intermittent Internet access." Hmm, how long until Starlink (or similar) reaches the South Pole?

Starlink isn't sending many satellites into the polar orbits because there are basically no customer there to make the extra cost worth it. To make the whole network cover the poles you'd need even more satellites to cover the tiny fraction of additional customer it would bring.

Also until recently there wasn't a way to downlink from polar sats even if they were lofted. Most Starlink data is immediately downlinked instead of being sent to neighboring satellites so you need a downlink relatively close to the customer which isn't possible on the poles.

Now with the intra=constellation lasers online, though I think they're still around 50% of satellites only, it could in theory be done but the required extra birds makes it really tough economically.

Re: Last Flight Out

#217

Post by morsch »

hcrisp wrote: post #128
foobarbecue wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, here's a taste: https://aaroncurt.is/frozenplanet.html

I remember watching this. Turns out BBC Natural History documentaries are more theater than just documentaries. If you watch the "making of" clips at the end of some of the series, you do get the sense that they may not be just captured natural footage as much as highly-scripted activities with the actions of the cameramen, crew, etc. edited out. Still fun to watch, but isn't being manipulated as a viewer disingenuou…

At this point I can't really enjoy documentaries like that anymore. I keep thinking "they brought a steadicam down there?" or "where is all that light coming from?" The fourth wall is thoroughly broken.

Thanks, I'd rather watch a poorly lit Youtube video with a guy talking to his Gopro. I wonder what the equivalent of that would be for animal documentaries.

Re: Last Flight Out

#218

Post by tomalpha »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #172
Aeolun wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, instead of all that. You can spend your entire summer at the south pole playing a single game of Factorio.

the joke's lost on me? I know the game (never played it, though) but why "a single game"?

A single game of Factorio can take a long time. Mine usually take around 100 hours.

The craving to (tweak|move|refactor|grow) the base for certain personality types that are richly represented on HN can mean you can spend hundreds more on it too.

Re: Last Flight Out

#219

Post by Maxion »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #168
gnatman wrote: post #126

I thought those fuel bladders were pretty cool! Never thought about transporting volatiles in anything other than a rigid tank. Also had to look up what AN-8 Fuel is: "AN8 is a special fuel blend unique to the Antarctic and Arctic. It has a lower flash point of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which also lowers the gelling point when extreme cold temperatures can cause wax crystals to start forming in the fuel. AN8 will remai…

Now I wonder what the cost per gallon is!

With these type of operations it becomes a bit semantic and depends entirely on how you define costs and over what timespan.

You have to ship it there via tanker, store at McMurdo, and ship across the ice on special purpose vehicles. If you divide the whole cost of all that up per gallon of fuel you get a price. But if you need more, the margin cost for the next gallon is going to be an interesting one, and probably come with a free extra 9999 gallons or something.

Re: Last Flight Out

#220

Post by Maxion »

jedberg wrote: post #187

Why do they make the buildings black and white? Both of those blend in with the snow at night (which is 1/2 the year). Why not make them day glow yellow or something, so they are always visible?

Black to save on heating?

During a polar night it gets so dark that once you’re out of flashlight range it doesn’t matter.

The issue is the wind blown snow reducing visibility.

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