J -
Thanks for this prompt. I recently tripped over:
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/martians-wanted-nasa-opens-call-for-simulated-yearlong-mars-mission/
and was reminded of my maunderings when Musk first stated his
aspirations for Mars colonization acutely or eloquently enough to
convince me he was serious, not just attention-seeking.
1. Antartica has been continuously "colonized" for about 100 years, but
by various international scientific researchers at extremely well
funded (per capita) habitats. The conditions there (for the most
part) are *much* more welcome to human life and definitely easier to
supply.
2. Seafloor habitats (these were a rage to consider in the 50s and 60s,
but have lost popularity) seem at least as welcoming as Antartica
and (for the most part) nicely buffered from wild climactic and
weather shifts? Also easier to resupply from "topside"? I don't
know how deep you have to go to get the "buffering" I mentioned, but
certainly not Titanic explorer implosion depths. Kurzweil recently
claimed a synthetic "hemoglobin" replacement/supplement (suggested
dosage == 50/50 mix with natural) which would gift the average human
something like 6 hours without breathing? Add oxy/rebreather tech
and you have homo aquatic methinks? Don't know about pressure...
scuba wonks anyone?
3. Asteroid belting seems to make much more sense for gravitational and
resource acquisition reasons? Lots of basic needs available
"somewhere" in the same gravity well
(Ice/Oxygen-compounds/metals?). If you gotta live indoors most of
the time, why not orbiting in a resource rich environment where you
never have to dig too deep for molecular resource stock and all
travel is frictionless and low-gravity-gradient? Atmosphere is good
for cosmic shielding but not as good as planetary magnetic field?
4. Biosphere/II were part of a big movement as I came of age and lived
within 100-200 miles of the project at the time... It looked like a
folly and rich-person's conceit at the time... little did I know
what would follow!
5. Various ideas around Arcologies, starting with the (also Arizona
Desert) Arcosanti (Paolo Soleri) and made totally over the top (the
Saudis' Line City of Noem) have intrigued me, and since any
moon/mars/europa colony we try to build will be much more
resource-demanding and personally and external-supply restricted, I
feel like at-worst we should be exploring those concepts while Musk
tries to fling a million people to Mars (many of them is direct
descendents? Maybe a a few thousand vials of his frozen sperm or
with the Alabama nonsense, a few thousand IVF embryos of his
parentage (and gawdess knows whose ova?) for genetic diversity?
It all (Mars/Moon/Asteroid Belt colonization) strikes me as being fueled
by too much the GOFF (good old fashioned futurism) too many of us
boomers and some GenX were raised on.
If Musk thinks the "woke mind virus" is the earth's (or humanity's)
biggest threat, I don't know how he thinks colonizing Mars will help.
Some strange resonance with the aspirations of the break-away European
Colonies of the Age of Exploration? How much of the Americas was
colonized with this desire to leave the "old country" baggage behind,
only to repeat the same mistakes or trip over the Utopia/Dystopia
duality? And then we have to (almost exclusively failed, and usually
catastrophically) cults and communes of the current era.
I avoided reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars series for
the longest time, not being a big fan of Space Opera, but when he hooked
me on his climate disaster novels (Washington DC, California settings,
then his magnum opus a few years ago Ministry for the Future) I went
ahead and let him update me on the Barsoomian conceits I was raised on
as a pre-teen. His Terraforming Mars (red/green/blue Mars) stuff was
pretty good with lots of tech exploration of just how do you survive on
mars-as-it-is then get enough water to the surface to start greening up
some parts, then yet enough more water to start having surface water.
I forget the tech details now, but suffice it to say I was mildly
convinced he had researched the basic physics and ideated honestly on
the engineering challenges. Of course the social/economic/political
implications interested me more. He played around in that space well.
I'm not convinced we have any business colonizing Mars (or any Solar
planetary body really) soon. Seems like we have an excellent
Goldilocks Zone planet whose nurturance (or at least our multi-billion
year evolution/adaption/co-evolution to/with it) is a fine fit if we
could just "cool our jets" (literally and figuratively) enough to keep
the keep the oscillations we are driving into it's medium term
(centuries?) stability so thoughtlessly. Drill Baby Drill!
I just started watching the series "the Expanse" which as best I can
tell is constrained to the general range I've described of
Earth/Mars/Belt... it seems pretty long on tech and special effects
and flashy weapons and space-collisions and bad blood/intentions, and
really weak on any deference to the realities of orbital mechanics and
semi-absurdity of the implied economics (measured in delta-V?) but I am
doing this to be conversant with a good friend. What we both agreed on
was that by the time our tech/energetics support that kind of
free-ranging through the middle of the solar system, genetic engineering
and cybernetic tech, you would at least expect the humans going about
all this spacefaring to be *tiny*, maybe giant brains with minimal
bodies and probably reverting to grasping feet/toes and maybe throw
(back) in an articulating tail for balance in 0G and an extra
gripper/poker? A 30lb human with a 2-3lb brain is a lot more obvious
than the 150-300 lb'rs shown on the show. The metabolic needs just
don't make sense? replace a bunch of the muscle/bone/pumps/fluids of a
human body with cyber versions and the "engineering"
support/maintenance/repair becomes more suitable to the environment.
Maybe the brain/mind/spirit upload business will come about eventually,
then the burden of the human-on-board become even more well aligned with
other systems? Or maybe we go the other way and engineer our bodies to
become the space-ships... let organic chemistries and biomechanics and
biomaterials do all the work of radiation shielding, vacuum resisting,
thermal management, etc. might be a bit much to do
ion-thrusters/chemical-rockets/nuclear-rockets with bio-materials?
Light Sails! Nicholas van Rjin/ Falkayne anyone? James Blish? Ian Banks?
Mumble,
-S
On 3/1/24 10:04 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Corentin de Chatelperron and Caroline Pultz tried to live for 120 days
in the Mexican desert self sufficiently, growing their own food. Using
their own desalination machines they generated fresh water for the
plants and themselves
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/110239-000-A/the-biosphere-experiment/
Biosphere 2 near Tuscon was a similar, even more extreme experiment to
create a self-sustaining ecosystem. The experiment was considered a
failure and the whole center belongs now to the University of Arizona.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
Both experiments showed how difficult it is to support human life in a
closed, self-sustaining environment. Do you think self-sustained life
on Moon or Mars is possible? Or as the book "A City on Mars" asks "Can
we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought
this through?"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/14/a-city-on-mars-by-kelly-and-zach-weinersmith-review-one-way-ticket-to-muskow-anyone
-J.
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p
Zoomhttps://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIChttp://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru presenthttps://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
