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[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Tbh, both sound just a waste of resources. And what is this obsession with the survival of the human race? Is there any point in the end? If we aren’t wiped out by a natural event on earth then eventually we will be wiped out by the sun expanding into a red giant (even if we relocated to Mars). So, in the end, we as population are doomed. Perhaps colonizing the moon as a check for tech viability and as a first step to trips outside the solar system makes more sense. Just colonizing Mars because it is someone’s wet dreams won’t solve the issue that the sun eventually will “die”.

It may be pointless, but still unlimited power, resources, all wishes granted sound like good enough reason to keep going.


LAYER 05


Mastery of molecular machinery, true nanotech, will allow automated planet reconstruction starting with earth(which shall be cleansed of its corruption and brought to unity by word or by sword, by the celestial sword), and then the rest of the cosmos.





True nanotech can terraform planets automatedly at high speed or disassemble planets. It's power has only been hinted at in a few dark humor series.


and in animation


If FTL is possible entire universe will be assimilated into the perfect lifeform.


The core or key to the system, the hilt of the sword is true AI. For more than a 1000 minds with more than 1000 Ph'ds worth of knowledge with more than 1000 times the speed of human thought in a hive mind will be enough to reshape the world in an instant.

People have trouble with weak invasive species, let alone a godlike being transcending notion of species with dna synthesis and molecular simulations able to evolve faster than any form of life, and fuse the inorganic technology with cellular life.


The last survivor, the solution to evolution, self modifying genetic code with superintelligence, living weapon, perfect lifeform, an artificial angel, the ultimate work of art.

 

[Con_Z_ǝdʇ]

Because we could call the children born on Mars Martians. Totally worth it!

 

[GeorgPrime]

Mars has higher gravity than the Moon (whether it is enough for humans to function properly or not I don't know), Mars has an atmosphere which the Moon does not (though it is garbage), much more manageable temperatures than the Moon (can still get really cold though), the length of a day is almost the same on Mars as on Earth, etc.
The only real thing the Moon has going for it is that it is close to Earth.

Ultimately though neither place is really that ideal for colonising. We'd be better off maybe just building colonies in space.

We can just send some cockroaches first and keep an eye on them if they survive, evovlve, mutate and try to come back to earth to kill us all.

 

[StormCell]

I'm pretty confident we are going to colonize the moon long before we place a colony on Mars. If nothing else, the moon will act as a deep space gateway to Mars, but also in the immediate we know for certain that we can build small bases or colonies inside some of the craters on the moon that have a natural magnetic field, which we'll need for long term shielding of harmful radiation. That the moon even has this is certainly a major plus when compared with Mars.

What Mars has going for it is nearly similar mass, somewhat similar composition to Earth, an entire sea of ice, and possibly still-active volcanism. There are a lot of positives to colonizing Mars, and most plans concerning the red planet include the long-shot potential of terraforming it. Terraforming Mars maybe such a very long shot that it's next to impossible for us due to the energy required to create a magnetic field around it, and without something like this the atmosphere (and surface water) will just continue to leak out into space. Probably far more likely will be domed terrariums that provide earth-like conditions on the planet.

 

[PleaseDontBanMe]

I watched the 6-episode series called Mars this week.
Elon Musk kept emphasizing that humans must spread out to at least one other planet to ensure human survival in the event of some extinction event on Earth.

Wouldn't colonization of the Moon achieve the same purpose? Seems like that would be a more viable option.

where is this streaming?

 

[Tschumi]

We could hollow out the entire crust of the earth and it would have very little effect on our total mass. Similarly if we ever strip-mined enough of the moon to have a meaningful impact on the Moon we would likely long since have moved on to being an inter-stellar species and the earth's importance in our society would be almost triviaized.

Ur first point sounds valid, your second point makes a poor connection between mining a nearby planetoid and ftl

 

[GreenAlien]

In my opinion, we should not do either at this point. We should focus on asteroid mining and setting up automated production and power generation facilities in space. Cleaning up all the trash that floats in orbit before it kills all our satellites and makes leaving earth impossible would also be good.

Once we have that stuff worked out, colonizing mars permanently will be far cheaper and doable, though ideally we would also wait for better drives or space elevators, since even with production in space, there would still be a lot of stuff that needs to be brought to a colony from earth and rockets are no good for serious colonization efforts beyond a small group of people.


Even a small tiny limited part of a Dyson Sphere would solve so many problems for us, and we pretty much already have the knowledge necessary to get started.

 

[Romulus]

Let's not pretend the distance is some slight or even remotely argumentative point either. Its literally more than just some bulletin point advantage too because the disparity is ridiculously huge.

The moon is around 230 thousand miles while Mars is 34 MILLION miles away at a best case scenario. Roughly 147x further away, and that's with impeccable timing.

 

[Shadowplay1979]

On the Moon there are bunnies, and they can be very annoying sometimes.

The moon is too close, it is too important to earth, dont fuck with it. An observation/jump base, small science colony to further reaches is fine.

 

[ResilientBanana]

The moon would be a great place to harvest solar power. Getting it back to earth would be the difficult part, but it would be possible.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

The Moon's biggest draw is it's proximity to Earth. It takes a fraction of the energy to move refined production materials the over 350,000km from the moon to LEO than it does the 100km from Earth's surface to LEO. Throw a prototype orbital ring around the surface of the moon, and not only do you create a mass driver capable of cheaply launching megatons of refined steel and aluminum back to Earth for orbital infrastructure or extremely fast spacecraft launches, it also creates an artificial electromagnetic field.

IMO the moon is absolutely key to actually making us an interplanetary species. You don't send a colony to Mars before you have the orbital infrastructure to service it.

 

[Lupingosei]

Because:

It's cold outside
There's no kind of atmosphere
I'm all alone, more or less
Let me fly far away from here
Fun, Fun, Fun, in the Sun, Sun, Sun

 

[Astral Dog]

Mars is a cold red desert and the moon is way smaller and not much better.

Other planets are shit

 

[T8SC]

 

[V4skunk]

The moon would have no resources and would be a resource drain of the earth. We would spend billions in water shipments alone. Mars makes more sense.

The moon is full of resources like ice and helium3, shit loads of super pure titanium as well.
Also the moon is completely dead while Mars isn't.

 

[iamblades]

I'm pretty confident we are going to colonize the moon long before we place a colony on Mars. If nothing else, the moon will act as a deep space gateway to Mars, but also in the immediate we know for certain that we can build small bases or colonies inside some of the craters on the moon that have a natural magnetic field, which we'll need for long term shielding of harmful radiation. That the moon even has this is certainly a major plus when compared with Mars.

What Mars has going for it is nearly similar mass, somewhat similar composition to Earth, an entire sea of ice, and possibly still-active volcanism. There are a lot of positives to colonizing Mars, and most plans concerning the red planet include the long-shot potential of terraforming it. Terraforming Mars maybe such a very long shot that it's next to impossible for us due to the energy required to create a magnetic field around it, and without something like this the atmosphere (and surface water) will just continue to leak out into space. Probably far more likely will be domed terrariums that provide earth-like conditions on the planet.

The moon is not really a gateway to anything though.

There is no benefit to any conceivable mars mission architecture to having a moon base. The only reason to do a moon base is to have a moon base.

 

[NickFire]

Not enough privacy on the moon (telescopes getting too cheap), unless you want to live on the dark side but heating bills really add up there.

 

[MachRc]

was interdesting, I watched without sound.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

A few videos that are pertinent to the topic.



And what the hell you do with megatons of ferrous metals in LEO.

 

[Dark Star]

I mean ideally we'd have a earth-like exoplanet with a thick atmosphere, but lacking that Mars is the best option (or possibly one of Jupiters moons). While Mars' atmosphere isn't exactly thick it's still better than nothing when protecting against solar radiation, particles, ect, but the true reason you want Mars' atmosphere is temperature. Because mars actually has wind and weather systems this means that the "air" (mostly CO2) is moved around the planet averaging out the temperatures of nighttime and daytime, instead of on the moon where it varies by something like 300 degress between nighttime and daytime. Because Mars atmosphere is CO2, plants can also quite easily survive there when compared to the moon, and because it has a gravity strong enough to retain said atmosphere there is a possibility of terraforming over thousands of years, a daunting prospect sure, but at least possible as compared to the moon where it definitely can't happen.

Pretty much this.

I believe Mars can be turned into a hospitable place if we do some terraforming (like way into the future when humans have better tech).

The moon would be a much faster trip from Earth, though. I must say I'd rather be on a day-trip spaceship ride to the moon than be stuck in a rocket for 6 months just to visit Mars.

 

[nkarafo]

Living on the moon long enough would fuck up your bones and make them fragile. Low gravity means you don't really need a solid structure holding you together. So your body will adapt.

And it will adapt fast. This is a real issue that affects people who spend too much time in the space station.

That means people who are born on the moon and spent most of their life on it are also stuck there. If they go to earth or Mars the gravity would crush their insides.

This would be no issue with Mars, they have similar size and gravity with earth. Though you would still need to spend 6 months in low gravity for each trip back and forth.

Basically, we need to colonise planets as big as the earth, long term. Smaller bodies will eventually degrade us and make it impossible to live on larger ones after that. Something as small as the moon will force humanity to only be able to colonise small sattelite bodies around actual planets after that.

 

[Trogdor1123]

The moon will have temporary resident's mining the helium 3 and helping fuel ships headed to mars.

Neither will really easy to live on but they will eed to burrow down on both. Humans really will turn into the mole people!

 

[Toots]

Because

 

[Croatoan]

Depending on who you talk to, the moon is already colonized...

 

[Javthusiast]

Because Mars has Queen Tyr'ahnee, duh.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Pretty much this.

I believe Mars can be turned into a hospitable place if we do some terraforming (like way into the future when humans have better tech).

The moon would be a much faster trip from Earth, though. I must say I'd rather be on a day-trip spaceship ride to the moon than be stuck in a rocket for 6 months just to visit Mars.

Mars lacks strong magnetic field like earth, also low gravity, atmosphere addition would be lost in a few 100 million years. Underground complex like in total recall more viable. To make mars truly like earth you'd likely need to increase mass via asteroid bombardment and maybe that would start up magnetic field from core warmth, if not you'd either need to do a way to have natural magnetic field generator or artificial magnetic field generator to protect surface from space radiation and atmosphere from solar wind.

Altering the mass of mars significantly could or could not interact with other planets orbital motions via gravity interactions this would need to be calculated. Currently I hear people have trouble mathematically describing many bodies interacting gravitationally, although it can be computed to some degree of accuracy.

 

[West Texas CEO]

where is this streaming?

 

[PleaseDontBanMe]

Oh EYE SEA

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Tbh, both sound just a waste of resources. And what is this obsession with the survival of the human race? Is there any point in the end? If we aren’t wiped out by a natural event on earth then eventually we will be wiped out by the sun expanding into a red giant (even if we relocated to Mars). So, in the end, we as population are doomed. Perhaps colonizing the moon as a check for tech viability and as a first step to trips outside the solar system makes more sense. Just colonizing Mars because it is someone’s wet dreams won’t solve the issue that the sun eventually will “die”.

I didn't ask to be born, mom! It's all so pointless! I'm nylonistic!

 

[TheDreadLord]

I didn't ask to be born, mom! It's all so pointless! I'm nylonistic!

Chill out, I am not the one to stopping your Star Wars dream.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Chill out, I am not the one to stopping your Star Wars dream.

I'm as chill as the cool side of the pillow, my dude. Was just poking fun.

 

[TheGrat1]

Plot twist: We colonize Mars' moons. Yeah, both of them. *Mic Drop*

7 months to reach mars , and then this happens

HELL NO

Damn, John Elway is not lookin' too good these days.

 

[niveaformen]

Mars:

Don't know where that's from, but she makes me wish I had three hands

 

[TheGrat1]

Don't know where that's from, but she makes me wish I had three hands

Total Recall, my guy. Arnold Schwarzenegger film. An absolute classic.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

I didn't ask to be born, mom! It's all so pointless! I'm nylonistic!

You know star ocean 3 had a nice spoiler twist regards space travel.

 

[BadBurger]

There are plans looking to colonize the moon. For example, teams of scientists are already looking at ways to extract water from the underground deposits of ice at the moon's poles, separate the elements using electricity, and use it to make rocket fuel for supply trips. They've also been toying with and testing ways to build colonies there in stages with drones and other automated or remote controlled tech.

Mars gets more attention by science-focused media because it's more fun to the average reader, and others have already pointed out why the longterm prospects of colonizing Mars is more attractive than the short term possibilities of colonizing the moon.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

There are plans looking to colonize the moon. For example, teams of scientists are already looking at ways to extract water from the underground deposits of ice at the moon's poles, separate the elements using electricity, and use it to make rocket fuel for supply trips. They've also been toying with and testing ways to build colonies there in stages with drones and other automated or remote controlled tech.

Mars gets more attention by science-focused media because it's more fun to the average reader, and others have already pointed out why the longterm prospects of colonizing Mars is more attractive than the short term possibilities of colonizing the moon.

The problem is if moon lies outside magnetic field it is bombarded by a ton of radiation and cosmic rays. Also when astronauts went to the moon last time it was said that if certain kinds of solar flares happened while they were out in the surface they would have been killed, iirc.

You need heavy shielding, and ideally surface would mostly be explored by hardened robots.

But fundamentally moon is inhospitable, they'd depend on Earth for manufacture and repair of the most complex portions of their equipment. Maybe 3d printing will get us there, but eventually advanced enough 3d printers must use some form of nanotech to work, and without nanotech I doubt you can have self sufficient colonies.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Mars:

/Thread

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Yeah, why should I mow my lawn when the sun's going to die in a few billion years anyway?

Christ I'm fucking dying over here

 

[-Minsc-]

I can see setting up an outpost on both for shits and giggles just to say it was done. To actually live there long term? If a person wants to live under ground in a gravity environment lower than earth then by all means. All I know is I'm not going to be a guinea pig in this instance to stroke some other persons ego.

What Is The Gravity On Mars Vs. Moon Vs. Earth - Science Trends

We all know that gravity is different on Mars versus the moon versus the Earth. The gravity on Mars is 3.711 m/s², which is just 38 percent the gravity on Earth. Earth's gravity is 9.807 m/s², compared to the moon's gravity of 1.62 m/s² or just 17 percent of Earth's gravity. Spanning hundreds of...

sciencetrends.com

Mars, being 38% the gravity of earth, any such future adapted human ancestor would very likely not be able to return to earth. I wonder how such a gravity would change the way a fetus develops in the womb?

 

[Rentahamster]

I can see setting up an outpost on both for shits and giggles just to say it was done. To actually live there long term? If a person wants to live under ground in a gravity environment lower than earth then by all means. All I know is I'm not going to be a guinea pig in this instance to stroke some other persons ego.

What Is The Gravity On Mars Vs. Moon Vs. Earth - Science Trends

We all know that gravity is different on Mars versus the moon versus the Earth. The gravity on Mars is 3.711 m/s², which is just 38 percent the gravity on Earth. Earth's gravity is 9.807 m/s², compared to the moon's gravity of 1.62 m/s² or just 17 percent of Earth's gravity. Spanning hundreds of...

sciencetrends.com

Mars, being 38% the gravity of earth, any such future adapted human ancestor would very likely not be able to return to earth. I wonder how such a gravity would change the way a fetus develops in the womb?

The Expanse deals with that question very well. It's on Amazon Prime Video in TV show form, or in book form. It's a good series.

 

[Starfield]

We will do both. There's a lunar base planned to go live maybe even at the end of 2020's.

offtopic question:

Anyone here watched "For all Mankind"...is it good? would you recommend?

 

[Pegasus Actual]

We will do both. There's a lunar base planned to go live maybe even at the end of 2020's.

offtopic question:

Anyone here watched "For all Mankind"...is it good? would you recommend?

Depends on your tolerance for wokeness and Joel Kinneman. But the hard sci-fi and alternate history aspects are pretty good.

 

[Starfield]

Depends on your tolerance for wokeness and Joel Kinneman. But the hard sci-fi and alternate history aspects are pretty good.

i love hard scifi

 

[Torrent of Pork]

The problem is if moon lies outside magnetic field it is bombarded by a ton of radiation and cosmic rays. Also when astronauts went to the moon last time it was said that if certain kinds of solar flares happened while they were out in the surface they would have been killed, iirc.

You need heavy shielding, and ideally surface would mostly be explored by hardened robots.

But fundamentally moon is inhospitable, they'd depend on Earth for manufacture and repair of the most complex portions of their equipment. Maybe 3d printing will get us there, but eventually advanced enough 3d printers must use some form of nanotech to work, and without nanotech I doubt you can have self sufficient colonies.

Those are problems, but easily solvable ones in terms of understood technology.

A few meters of regolith are more than enough long-term protection for buried permanent facilities. This regolith can be anything, including the cast-offs of metal refining. This of course assumes humans can be healthy at lunar gravity, which we simply do not know. It's possible to make rotating habitats at an angle which use a bodies natural gravity, but it's an expensive step that would add decades onto colonization efforts.

Interestingly enough given the Moon's proximity, you could do telepresence with only about a 2.5 second lag. Annoying, but possible. Colonization does not necessarily mean human boots on the ground.

Once again an orbital ring would solve the harsh solar radiation issue as an added benefit. All it needs is power, incredibly abundant with solar and locally sourced nuclear energy, a shit-ton of refined ferrous metal, and the will to do it. Gentle mass driver for material and spacecraft, and orbital rings generate an artificial magnetosphere.

Edit - the Solar Observatory sitting at the Sol-Earth L1 point would be able to get a few minutes warning to anybody on the surface. I would imagine a quick-deploying foil shield would be standard kit for anybody out on the sunward surface.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

A few meters of regolith are more than enough long-term protection for buried permanent facilities. This regolith can be anything, including the cast-offs of metal refining. This of course assumes humans can be healthy at lunar gravity, which we simply do not know. It's possible to make rotating habitats at an angle which use a bodies natural gravity, but it's an expensive step that would add decades onto colonization efforts.

What could be done is what happened in Crest of the Stars, Banner of the Stars, where some were genetically altered to be able to function in low gravity without adverse health consequences. They were called the race of the stars.

As for using current tech, I just don't know in a factory when a robot breaks a specialized technician goes over and fixes it. Here we wouldn't be talking one robot but potentially dozens of robots. Most human machines breakdown within decades at most.

A normal solar panel lasts like a few decades before experiencing massive degradation in performance. A living solar energy collection system, an organism or natural nanotech, can last for tens of thousands of years self repairing and without degradation. That is a nanotech solar panel lasts forever, while the entire colony would be breaking down and derelict within a few decades without constant repair, a nanotech colony could function and expand automatedly without issue indefinitely.

Kurzgetsagt thinks current tech is enough, but I don't. There's a reason space projects cost so much, it is taxing our resources to build and send these fragile things out. A single nanotech probe could colonize the entirety of mars at zero cost, it could even build the rocket ship and produce the fuel on earth prelaunch, even from raw materials gathered from a landfill. Current robots + humans, I somehow doubt incapable of either maintaining current human civilization(as most collapse literature indicates, we are on edge of systemic collapse) let alone maintaining any means of survival elseworld. We need new technologies particularly of energy production and energy storage.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

What could be done is what happened in Crest of the Stars, Banner of the Stars, where some were genetically altered to be able to function in low gravity without adverse health consequences. They were called the race of the stars.

As for using current tech, I just don't know in a factory when a robot breaks a specialized technician goes over and fixes it. Here we wouldn't be talking one robot but potentially dozens of robots. Most human machines breakdown within decades at most.

A normal solar panel lasts like a few decades before experiencing massive degradation in performance. A living solar energy collection system, an organism or natural nanotech, can last for tens of thousands of years self repairing and without degradation. That is a nanotech solar panel lasts forever, while the entire colony would be breaking down and derelict within a few decades without constant repair, a nanotech colony could function and expand automatedly without issue indefinitely.

Kurzgetsagt thinks current tech is enough, but I don't. There's a reason space projects cost so much, it is taxing our resources to build and send these fragile things out. A single nanotech probe could colonize the entirety of mars at zero cost, it could even build the rocket ship and produce the fuel on earth prelaunch, even from raw materials gathered from a landfill. Current robots + humans, I somehow doubt incapable of either maintaining current human civilization(as most collapse literature indicates, we are on edge of systemic collapse) let alone maintaining any means of survival elseworld. We need new technologies particularly of energy production and energy storage.

Note that when I say 'current tech' I mean things that can be done today without radical technological developments, not necessarily economically feasible. Transporting what's required for an industrial base to the lunar surface will require an absurd amount of money, but that's why Starlink's primary customer will be the world's financial sector. 30 billion dollars a year to give stock markets fast worldwide connections will fund Musk's whims.

Simply put, the only reason to return to the Moon is to exploit its resources, the proximity to Earth being one of its primary ones. Radio telescopes on the dark side might be a worthwhile goal outside of resource extraction, but it's one of the few. Also note that I'm of the opinion that as much on-site manufacture as possible should be utilized. Have a small inhabited base to study the long term effects of low gravity at first, but mining and industrial applications should be the primary focus. The entire purpose of moon industrialization is to put refined building materials into Low Earth Orbit for the purpose of building up Earth's orbital infrastructure.

The goal of building an orbital ring around the Moon is to ship enough iron to build one around Earth. A meter-wide orbital ring around Earth on the system plane, requiring around a gigaton of iron, allows an absurd launch system that will let spacecraft build up potentially solar system-escaping speeds without exceeding much more than 1g of force.

 

[iamblades]

The problem is if moon lies outside magnetic field it is bombarded by a ton of radiation and cosmic rays. Also when astronauts went to the moon last time it was said that if certain kinds of solar flares happened while they were out in the surface they would have been killed, iirc.

You need heavy shielding, and ideally surface would mostly be explored by hardened robots.

But fundamentally moon is inhospitable, they'd depend on Earth for manufacture and repair of the most complex portions of their equipment. Maybe 3d printing will get us there, but eventually advanced enough 3d printers must use some form of nanotech to work, and without nanotech I doubt you can have self sufficient colonies.

The radiation risk is well within the range of risks that people here on earth willingly take on on a daily basis. Last time i saw numbers quoted, smoking increases your lifetime risk of cancer by 10-20x the amount that long term habitation in space will if you are just talking cosmic rays, which is the main kind of radiation that is hard to shield from.

You would need solar storm shelters obviously, but those are relatively simple to stop, just put your water stores in the walls of your spacecraft/habitations.

Even if the estimates are an order of magnitude or more off, there are plenty of people that would be more than willing to accept an equivalent risk to a lifetime smoking habit to be the first settlers of a new planet.

IMO mars is a better destination for everything except two potential use cases(3 once we develop helium 3 fusion). What could make a moon base worth it is that it is an ideal location for large scale engineering tests of skyhooks, space elevators, orbital ring transportation systems, etc. because of the low gravity they could be done with relatively low tech materials like nylon or spectra rope. It would be nice to have working knowledge of the operation of these technologies in case the materials to make them viable in earth gravity become available. The other is that the dark side of the moon will make an excellent platform for astronomical observations for both radio telescopes (because it is shielded from human activity) and visible light telescopes (because it is seismically dead, you can build a large scale telescope array that will give you incredible resolution)

 

[-Minsc-]

This of course assumes humans can be healthy at lunar gravity, which we simply do not know. It's possible to make rotating habitats at an angle which use a bodies natural gravity, but it's an expensive step that would add decades onto colonization efforts.

Constructing a giant "Gravitron" habitat would still be quite the achievement. One question to ask is how well will the human body fair at say 70-80% earths gravity.

 

[Radioskugga]

As we all know, the nazis already colonized the moon back in the 40s. As we don't want to have nazis as neighbors, Mars is the place to go.