The Lunar Deeps
Inspired by, and also posted to as a comment, johncwright's post at http://johncwright.livejournal.com/281607.html
====While the very first Lunar outposts will be surface huts with some regolith tossed on top for radiation shielding, I think it's almost inevitable that within 100-200 years from now ( Read more... )
====While the very first Lunar outposts will be surface huts with some regolith tossed on top for radiation shielding, I think it's almost inevitable that within 100-200 years from now ( Read more... )
I am not sure it'd be a great idea to grow dinosaurs even if we could.
I'm also not sure how you deal with the long-term effects of the lower gravity on the human body, including the growth of children. Or, for that matter, on animals and plants.
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What do you expect to prevent large-scale Lunar colonization over a period of one or two centuries? Note that this is a timescale over which the issue of whether the American Republicans or Democrats support or oppose such endeavors is irrelevant: within merely a century virtually every Great and Regional Power on Earth will have either public or private agencies capable of transporting humans and cargo over such a relatively short hop, and hence the only way to prevent Lunar colonization from happening would be for the dominant Powers to declare Luna off-limits to human activities and enforce this prohibition at gunpoint.
Such may certainly happen, of course, but it does not appear likely.
I am not sure it'd be a great idea to grow dinosaurs even if we could.Why? What bad thing -- so bad that it is far worse than the benefits and pleasures to be derived from studying living dinosaurs -- is at all likely to happen in consequence of growing ( ... )
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Countless politicians will complain that money spent on space is money that should be spent on earthly and human needs; and given that the practice of socialism tends to impoverish people to the point that the socialist belief in the economy as a zero-sum game tends to come true, they may be right. NASA is going to cling to space exploration for the rest of this century at least, which is going to keep the pace slow. And colonization of the Moon won't take place in one magnificent swoop like you're describing, it will have fits and starts, and its non-impressiveness (like that of the International Space Station) will make it easier to look at the whole thing as vain.
the benefits and pleasures to be derived from studying living dinosaurs
I don't see a whole lot of benefit to it. Think of the enormous costs of such an enterprise.
I rather suspect that over a hundred to two hundred years, we'd discover a solution.I think that, if ( ... )
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Countless politicians will complain that money spent on space is money that should be spent on earthly and human needs; and given that the practice of socialism tends to impoverish people to the point that the socialist belief in the economy as a zero-sum game tends to come true, they may be right.
While I'm certain that plenty of politicians in plenty of countries will refuse to fund space ventures, and lots of socialists will regard the economy as a zero-sum game, I don't see how this will prevent large-scale Lunar colonization over the next 100-200 years! Some countries, corporations and other agencies will choose to launch colonization efforts, and some will succeed. Those who opt out of colonization simply won't have as much say over the future destiny of the Moon, that's all.
NASA is going to cling to space exploration for the rest of this century at least, which is going to keep the pace slow.NASA is going to be able to ( ... )
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So I'd guess that, if you lived in a Lunar city centuries from now, you'd make sure to buy a spacesuit or the cyborg augmentations needed to walk about freely on the Lunar surface? Ok, sure, whatever works for you.
Tangent of a tangent: Don't you suppose that an existence where absolute environmental control is a matter of life and death invites the development of a very unfree society?
Only if this "absolute environmental control" must, for economic or legal reasons, be highly centralized. I see no reason why people in future societies on vacuum planets couldn't own their own mini fabbers (fabrication units), volpers (volatiles processors) or vittlers (victuals provisioners).
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I do not believe that only governments or only America ever do anything worthwhile, but I do note that people have an annoying tendency to sacrifice their liberty and prosperity to governments whenever they degenerate morally to the point where they can't govern themselves, which is pretty frequently. I don't expect this pattern to change.
OK, maybe in 200 years there will have been enough progress toward this goal to make a start of it, assuming that people want to do it. But do you really think all this is beyond all doubt? Or that Murphy's Law won't ever come into play? That's what makes me nervous about extraterrestrial artificial environments. They're likely to have been built by the lowest bidder -- and even the smallest mistakes might mean millions of deaths.
Only if this "absolute environmental control" must, for economic or legal reasons, be highly centralized.It probably will be so because it will be more efficient and I expect that is how the designers will think. ( ... )
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My belief that the human race will, unless wiped out within the next few centuries, eventually expand to other worlds is not a "religion." It is based on a rational analysis of human capabilities and intentions, coupled with the behavior of replicating systems in general when presented with the opportunity for expansion.
I do not believe that only governments or only America ever do anything worthwhile, but I do note that people have an annoying tendency to sacrifice their liberty and prosperity to governments whenever they degenerate morally to the point where they can't govern themselves, which is pretty frequently. I don't expect this pattern to change. Maybe in 200 years there will have been enough progress toward this goal to make a start of it, assuming that people want to do it. I don't see how any of this is supposed to prevent Man's expansion to the Moon, unless you are implying a world government which actively prevents space ventures by any entity other than its own ( ... )
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???
Yes, we most certainly have. The general solution is "shield the habs." When we colonize Mars, Ceres, etc. we will almost certainly locate our large settlements under meters of rock, for that exact reason.
The greater problem is how to shield crews and passengers in flight. We have partial solutions (put the ship's water tankage around the hab modules), but these are imperfect especially for crews (who would get much more cumulative exposure).
Personally, I think that part of the solution will be simply accepting cancer as one of the hazards of space travel, coupled with the capabilities of a medical technology decades and centuries beyond our own, for which "cancer" will be no more than a minor problem, easily cured.
Another part will be superior powerplants and drives, which will both reduce travel times and enable ships to be more heavily constructed.
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