this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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244
A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
123 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A book review on the latest Weinersmith creation. It’s true, there is so much we don’t know.

Just throwing this out there on this forum because missing technology is the problem that kills the dream of Mars, according to the authors.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

But gravity may be useful in many applications. We don't really know how to effectively manufacture many things in microgravity at the moment. The moon would still be important for early space infrastructure.

Edit: In addition, the moon will be useful for mining and resource extraction for a long time, most likely, due to its proximity to earth and size.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The gravity problem is also best solved away from the surface of any celestial bodies. Massive spinning space stations would be much more pleasant to live in in almost every way. Unless a planet or moon has a good reason to land on it (e.g. material to be mined) it makes much more sense to simply build a habitat away from the gravity well and build smaller work camps on the surface that can be supported by the main habitat(s).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

The problem is that such space stations are very complex to build and maintain, and can more easily catastrophically fail. It's certainly an option, but it may not be worth it.

Of course, all of this is speculation, but my point is mostly that if we don't have sufficiently advanced space construction capabilities, surface habitats and infrastructure on the moon may be preferable.