Space colonies

[Anonymous No.10099773]

My Astronomy professor says that it is likely that there will be colonies on the moon in 20-30 years and colonies on Mars in a 100. What does /sci/ think? Is it feasible to have a long standing viable colonies on moons or planets with little to no atmosphere?

[Anonymous No.10099797]

>>10099773

yes if totally automated.

[Anonymous No.10099812]

>>10099773
Colonies on the moon for what?
It's like saying we'll have cities underwater or floating in the sky. For what?

[Anonymous No.10099823]

>>10099812
For coolness

[Anonymous No.10099837]

>>10099812
helium 3 mate

[Anonymous No.10099839]

>>10099823
i mean, there is a certain cool factor there

[Anonymous No.10099989]

>>10099812
mining materials and operating mass drivers to build space colonies

[Anonymous No.10100039]

>>10099812
>It's like saying we'll have cities underwater or floating in the sky. For what?

Neither of those are practical or useful. Even a small moon base has perks - you can mine the fuck out of it for helium if fusion doesn't turn out to be a meme and raw materials if not. 0.166g makes it trivial to launch this shit back to Earth, a launch loop would actually be practical in this case. A polar colony would have permanent daylight and frozen ice nearby.

You could also build telescopes on the far side which will benefit from no noise from Earth.

[Anonymous No.10100076]

>>10099773
>What does /sci/ think?

[Anonymous No.10100079]

Colonies will be limited to orbital stations which rotate to provide gravity so astronauts stay healthy. The surface will be limited to industrial purposes and workers will decend to the surface to work in shifts.

[Anonymous No.10100118]

>>10100079
this.

[Anonymous No.10100122]

Not colonies , scientific bases like the ones in Antarctica. Maybe in 100+ a legit moon colony.

[Anonymous No.10100124]

>>10100118
Sometimes I make those stations in level design software and walk around pretending it's real. Next time I make one I'll post some inspirational pictures to show the guys desperate to have jello babies that habitat life is best life.

[Anonymous No.10100252]

>>10099773
Colonies?
...
On Mars and the Moon?

[Anonymous No.10100257]

>>10100076

[Anonymous No.10100273]

>>10100079

[Anonymous No.10100359]

>>10099773
That's impossible because nobody is trying to colonize the moon.
They're intentionally reaching for mars because it's out of reach.

[Anonymous No.10100370]

>>10100359
Nothing will happen until we get rid of the boomers and their parents.

[Anonymous No.10100371]

>>10099812
you can do stuff in space thats too dangerous to do on earth.

[Anonymous No.10100766]

>>10100124
Check out, "High Frontier."

[Anonymous No.10100909]

>>10100039
>0.166g makes it trivial to launch this shit back to Earth

No, not really. Sure it's easier to get off the moon and on a trajectory to get back into Earth, but how will it survive the descent to Earth? You have to remember that the command module for the apollo missions was about as light as it could possibly be. If you have several tons of minerals from the moon you're going to need some complex as fuck aerobraking to slow down to a reasonable speed to start the actual descent. Then when you make it to the lower atmosphere, how do you keep it from just crashing into the ground and disintegrating? Parachutes aren't going to work, it's going to be way too heavy. You'd have to use rockets, which just complicates everything even more. You'll require a decent amount of fuel to slow down, and you'll need an engine itself that can handle that.

[Anonymous No.10101126]

Current tech allows it, but current infrastructure does not. I'm not just talking a lack of spaceports and other physical infrastructure, but legislative, geopolitical, and logistical infrastructure. Logistics is the most important aspect to colonizing a resource-poor environment successfully, and we can't just 1:1 translate the concept of shipping lanes to space travel or freighting.

[Anonymous No.10101128]

>>10100039
>raw materials
What “raw materials” do you think are more economical to mine on the fucking MOON than back on Earth?

[Anonymous No.10101358]

>>10099773
Colony? NO!
Small science outpost? Maybe.

[Anonymous No.10101389]

>>10099812
In 0g you can manufacture stuff you simply can't in a gravity environment. This includes certain fibres as well as potentially growing organs one day. So having significant manufacturing capabilities in 0g can be necessary to build future technologies.

[Anonymous No.10101401]

>>10100079
this

[Anonymous No.10101408]

>>10099773
Not sure if a colony is feasible, but a large, mostly self-sufficient base is a realistic scenario for Mars, and there is no technical showstopper. Even the money is there in theory, but it all depends on whether those countless $ billions that go to NASA will be redirected to companies like SpaceX or continue to be wasted on pork jobs.

[Anonymous No.10101456]

>>10099812
Moon will never be a substantial colony, however there might be some research bases, mining bases(largely automated) and dark side can have radio telescopes

[Anonymous No.10101461]

>>10100079
this, human future is in space habitats

[Anonymous No.10101470]

>>10101461
short term it is cislunar and Mars, long term space habitats will win tough

[Anonymous No.10101475]

>>10099812
50 people supervising a fleet of Helium-3 mining bots is still colonization.

[Anonymous No.10101478]

>>10101475
Colonization implies self-sufficiency and sustainable growth without much input from Earth.

A base or an outpost is not a colony.

[Anonymous No.10101498]

>>10101408
fuck off shillboy.

[Anonymous No.10101564]

>>10099773
If by colonies you mean a little lab ISS style on the moon and mars? Sure. But there won't be anything Antarctica tier that soon (~1000 people across 37 stations year round)

[Anonymous No.10101673]

>>10099773
And I saw your astronomy professor is likely a fucking retard. Want to bet on who's correct?

Hopping in my flying car now, the jetsons called it grandma told me so.

[Anonymous No.10101674]

>>10099773
And I say your astronomy professor is likely a fucking retard. Want to bet on who's correct?

Hopping in my flying car now, the jetsons called it grandma told me so.

[Anonymous No.10101688]

>>10099773
Depends on if we sterilize ourselves first, or leave all of our offspring sickly, defective, and or generally autistic..

[Anonymous No.10101807]

>>10099773
It would be nice to have moon colony.

[Anonymous No.10101814]

>>10101688
The fact your kids would be retarded doesn't mean kids of others would be too. It may not be "we" which should be sterilized, but just "you".

[Anonymous No.10101828]

>>10101814
It's actually the inverse...

[Anonymous No.10101859]

>>10101828

[Anonymous No.10101866]

>>10101859
Not wrong, but in fact, right.

[Anonymous No.10101879]

>>10101866
Ouch, good anon, bring your children to be the only non autistic creatures on planet and bring us the light.

Sound kind of autistic too.

[Anonymous No.10101979]

>>10101674
I mean, you are some faggot who probably thinks he knows much more than he actually does, while my professor has a PhD in the field and worked at NASA for many years.
Which one SHOULD I listen too?

[Anonymous No.10101988]

>>10101879
What is the matter with you people? What is so hard to believe about being sterilized by the elite? This is absolutely happening, and you're fortunate you had a chance to realize in time. You're unfortunate in that you seem unable to use it.

[Anonymous No.10101993]

A small outpost for scientific research and spacecraft/telescopes manufacturers on the moon sounds like the only reasonable way to have a few hundred people up there.

[Anonymous No.10102056]

the bigger question is, when are they going to make the first porn movie in space?
The first webcam whore on mars?
What will low gravity do for poledancers?
will the boobs be more perky?

so many questions, lets find out, together.

[Anonymous No.10102476]

>>10100909
You could fly it back in disposable vehicles, like the space shuttle and the X-37B

[Anonymous No.10102817]

Your astrology professor is a atypical rich privileged urbanite liberal who is of the kind responsible for the degradation of modern society

its Certainly laughable to hear these people talk about progress or space colonies while our countries are imploding due to their short sighted brainwashed views

[Anonymous No.10102825]

>>10101126
There is no such thing as a “space port”....

[Anonymous No.10102827]

If we were throwing the massive sums of money required at making colonies off-Earth, I believe will will need orbital infrastructure for manufacturing along with fuel creation, storage, and exchange in place first. The cost of launching everything from Earth is too damn high. We need dry docks for building ships, and fabrication plants to create things from metal sourced from local asteroids. We can use the mond process to extract iron easily.
We could use ram accelerators or large coilguns on earth to launch freight to geostationary orbit and catch&correct its orbit as well.

[Anonymous No.10102828]

>>10102825
What would you call the space coast?

[Anonymous No.10102830]

>>10102828
A nature preserve

[Anonymous No.10102834]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYqXE51q24

[Anonymous No.10102836]

>>10102827
The price in fuel to reach orbit is not much different from flying around the world, something people do all the time.

Orbital manufacturing is a stupid idea, for the same reason you have limited amounts of large factories on earth

[Anonymous No.10102861]

>>10102836
The price isn't just fuel, it's rockets as well
After the upfront cost of setting up a closed loop set of orbital manufacturing stations, it is cheaper than fabricating on Earth and launching. This is because you have eliminated the most expensive leg in the logistics chain: from Earth to Earth orbit.

[Anonymous No.10102896]

>>10102861
Why do you imagine that anything can EVER be done in space if the simplest part, reusable rockets, cannot be mastered?

[Anonymous No.10102902]

>>10102896
>cannot be mastered
pessimist

[Anonymous No.10102913]

>>10102896
Oh, there will be reusable rockets-for transporting humans that is.
Raw materials for infrastructure in orbit will be sourced from low delta-v sources wherever possible.
Making an I beam in orbit from steel smelted in orbit from iron and carbon from asteroids will always be cheaper than doing so on Earth and transporting it up, even with rockets that can operate for a significant number of use cycles.

[Anonymous No.10102916]

>>10099839
>>10099823
>>10099812
>tfw all these spacefaring frens who know tf

[Anonymous No.10102917]

>>10102916
space for the spacenoids

[Anonymous No.10102919]

>>10102917
Spaceship? More like Frenship

[Anonymous No.10102921]

>>10102919
death to all feddie scum

[Anonymous No.10102936]

>>10102913
Delta-v is irrelevantcompared to time and capital investment
Who would build a mine that takes 2 years to get to? How do you intend to get meaningful productivity out of that mine....

[Anonymous No.10102950]

>>10102936
>2 years to get to
We aren't colonizing anything at those speeds, improving propulsion is a prerequisite
Additionally, you mine and send what you are projected to use continuously. The travel time is merely latency once the first stream of material arrives.

[Anonymous No.10102951]

>>10099773
The resources on the Moon are not different enough to make it economically interesting to colonize. For scientific work, there isn't much that requires human presence. Targeted geology would be a good human endeavor. But that doesn't bring the shekels.
It's a good platform from which to launch interplanetary missions. But you still have to get the fuel there, and you have to waste fuel delivering it to the surface in a controlled fashion. So space docks are more logical.
There will be a flurry of activity as nations that haven't been there try for new 'firsts', and a manned lab would be very likely.
But a colony? Meh. Not going to happen for a very long time.
Mars? I think it has a better chance. The search for life will provide better motivation, and manned excursions to Mars are extremely costly and dangerous. Better to land someone there and let them stay a while. Since it's difficult to bring them back, colonization makes a good option.
A long time from now, but maybe that 50 years, if the Musks and Bransons of the world come forth and deliver

[Anonymous No.10102956]

>>10102951
there's going to be human presence on the moon, and it's not going to be a colony, it's going to be a trading post/supply depot/gas station/casino

[Anonymous No.10102975]

>>10102956
Says who? The direction of the west is towards contraction, not expansion, our populations are declining, there is no excess of people seeking to leave

Anticipate no colony at all

[Anonymous No.10103014]

>>10101389
But that has nothing to do with the moon.

>>10101475
And fifty people mining will soon need somebody singing torch songs, somebody behind the bar, a couple of whores...

Where people start living, more people come to live and do business with them.

[Anonymous No.10103025]

>>10102975
People seeking to leave /= excess population, necessarily. In a contracting civilization, there is a strong incentive for some folks to want to get themselves and their posterity the fuck out of town.

There are Heinleiners everywhere.

[Anonymous No.10103032]

>>10099773

You sure it wasn't your Astrology professor who said that?

[Anonymous No.10103067]

>>10099773

Yes Anon, yes. We are going to live in colonies on the moon. No white males allowed. Because they are evil and ruin everything. In fact we have forced them into building us a bunch of big comfy moon colonies and all the colored folk and all us white liberals are going to live there happily every after! We going to leave the white men all alone on planet Earth while we have fun and diversity on the Moon!

The white men have told us that money can be found under the rocks on the moon and that we wont be needing to take supplies of food or water or nuthin' with us cos we will have plenty of money!

Got to say some of them white men seem to be okay, they sure seem happy to help us go live on the moon, although none of them are allowed to come with us. But rules are rules, cant have them oppressing us on the moon!

[Anonymous No.10103082]

>>10103067
Weak whites would just get mutated from cosmic radiation anyway. Dark skins absorb the particles and only become stronger and more based.

[Anonymous No.10103241]

>>10102825
There is at least one being built right now in the SW US, New Mexico I believe. But you're right, I'm sorry: space pier is what I meant to say

[Anonymous No.10103245]

>>10103241
what's their launch trajectory?

[Anonymous No.10103264]

>>10099773
If they drill into the moon and find oil, you’d see complete moon colonies sprout in less than 2 years.

[Anonymous No.10103276]

>>10103082
if by based you mean radioactive, then yeah
white people be reflective yo

[Anonymous No.10103318]

>>10103245
There is none. It's like the boomtowns in the rural US: built up preemptively to take advantage of an implied space industry boom that may take far longer than they anticipated. It's just a big empty promenade with a few large facilities currently. I haven't heard anything about it for a few years though, back when Elon was starting to come out with Mars colonization boasts.
Because you were too lazy to Google it I did for you: it is quite literally called the American Spaceport, located in New Mexico. Licensed by the FAA and all

[Anonymous No.10103321]

>>10103318
*Spaceport America

[Anonymous No.10103687]

>>10099812
No cities but the moon is pretty important as a staging ground. Low gravity and atmosphere make it convenient, and there's plenty to research and mine.

[Anonymous No.10103808]

>>10099812
Mining water. Mainly for propellant for use mainly in earth orbit. The colonists won't necessarily be people.

[Anonymous No.10103819]

>>10102056
>will the boobs be more perky?
They wont get saggy as quick because less gravity stretching out the funbags.
Haven't you read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"?

[Anonymous No.10104243]

>>10103819
It is brought up in The Gods Themselves too

[Anonymous No.10104909]

Within 30 years
Earth orbit
20-100 people-on American,Chinese,European space stations plus possible Bigelow/Chinese hotel/casino

Luna
20 people on American and Chinese stations, some mining recon labs, dark side telescope build site

Mars
10 to several hundred:Chinese and US bases, if Musk pulls it off at least partially a small base of ultra rich and ultra capable

[Anonymous No.10105175]

>>10099773
>My Astronomy professor says that it is likely that there will be colonies on the moon in 20-30 years and colonies on Mars in a 100

Lol, a guy whos work is to look at charts and see where the stars are, a job that could literally be done by people 1000 years ago thinks he has the expertise to determine the rate of technological advancement of space industries several sociopolitical issues and somehow even begin to understand an aproximation of em, dont make me roflol

[Anonymous No.10105177]

>>10101126
this, if every country in the world had the industrial capacity of japan then maybe, currently even tough its possible we simply lack the resources to do it

[Anonymous No.10105179]

>>10099773

[Anonymous No.10105186]

>>10101389
>as potentially growing organs
Why can this be done on space but not on earth?

[Anonymous No.10105466]

>>10105186
sometimes it's actually the opposite... some tissues seem to develop worse the more you deviate from natural circumstances, including gravity.
but there are some tissue printing techniques that they hope will work better in zero g

[Anonymous No.10105617]

>>10102921
Thas no very nice, fren.

[Anonymous No.10105655]

>>10103014
>But that has nothing to do with the moon.

It does, because to create large-scale industrial capacities in space, a moon base comes in handy.

[Anonymous No.10105679]

>>10105655
don't forget the massive quantities of iron and titanium on that thing

[Anonymous No.10106384]

>>10105175
>a guy whos work is to look at charts and see where the stars are
You have no idea what you are talking about

[Anonymous No.10107820]

>>10101475
>>10099837

Useless for fusion and wouldn't be economically viable even if we could use it.

At current prices is would be much cheaper to just use 1950's style fission reactors for all our energy, making helium 3 fuel completely unviable to begin with.

The concentrations of helium 3 on the Moon are laughably low, parts per billion at best. To extract it you need to crush the Moon's surface regolith (extremely hard corundum for the most part) into very fine powder to release the trapped gas. 100 billion kilograms of finely crushed Moon rock yields 20 to 30 kilograms of helium 3, at best, enough to supply the world's energy needs for a few hours.

Meanwhile, deuterium in Earth's hydrosphere is readily accessible and easy to extract by comparison, there's trillions of tons of it on Earth, it's significantly easier to fuse than helium 3 (and is even easier to fuse if we use the fusion reactors to breed tritium and fuse the deuterium with that instead). Deuterium is easier to get, thousands of times cheaper, billions of times more plentiful, much easier to actually use as a fusion fuel, and would actually be able to support a fusion energy economy.

Literally the only advantage of helium 3 is that it produces very few neutrons when fused, one for every two hundred fusion reactions or so. However, the neutron production of deuterium fusion is actually beneficial if we're using those neutrons to breed tritium, and regardless it would be way easier to build a radiation-proof reactor than to build a helium 3 reactor anyway.

Helium 3 is never happening because it doesn't work and it makes no economic sense.

[Anonymous No.10109208]

>>10100079
colonists will just wear weighted clothes. Orbital stations would still get blasted by radiation but underground habitats would be shielded.

[Anonymous No.10109230]

>>10099773
I think he's optimistic but not to the point of being naive. It will be more efficient for larger colonies to exist in orbital habitats, especially since for the moon taking back off from it's surface and reaching it's orbit requires only a trivial quantity of propellant. Colonizing other celestial bodies for anything but mining and resources extraction is pointless because increasingly large orbital habitats are more efficient. I think this >>10100079 is most likely, large numbers of orbital habitats linked to space elevators or using large cargo ship chains to bring resources up and send professional miners, drillers, and surveyors down.

[Anonymous No.10109241]

>>10109230
IT'LL HAPPEN, BABY
MOON ELEVATOR

[Anonymous No.10109277]

>>10099773
Imo there are a few steps to getting there, so I would conjecture moon habitation by 2035

[Anonymous No.10110793]

>>10107820
Tl;dr