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... )
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 there is a solution, it will be developed only after the colonization has been underway for a century or more.
Assuming, that is, that there is a real problem.
The real problem I'm thinking of is that humans who grow up on the Moon won't be able to live on Earth.
On a tangent: I am not comfortable with the idea of one's home being a completely artificial ecosystem and being literally, physiologically, unable to leave the artificial boundaries.
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?
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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 prevent Lunar colonization not only by the American government, but also by governments and private corporations all over the world, "for the rest of this century" ...???!!! How?
the benefits and pleasures to be derived from studying living dinosaurs ...
I don't see a whole lot of benefit to it.
You don't grasp how much more can be understood of an animal, and its interactions with other animals, by studying the living creatures than by studying its fossilized bones?
Think of the enormous costs of such an enterprise.
"Enormous costs" over what timescale?
Today it would be almost impossible. Fifty years from now simply very expensive. 100 years from now, it'll be something any big company could do for a theme park, and 200 years from now, it'll be done by home hobbyists on their Personal Bio-Replicators (tm).
Consider the "enormous costs" of building and operating motor vehicles from the POV of 1800, or electronic computers from the POV of 1950.
I think you're demonstrating a lack of grasp of time scales here, coupled with the assumptions that Only Governments Do Anything and that Only America Is Real. Unless you seriously believe that NASA is going to successfully attempt armed suppression of Lunar colonization ventures on the part of other agencies. Do you really believe that?
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.
Who said anything about "one magnificent swoop?" I'm assuming all sorts of colonization ventures, public and private, launched at different times with different targets on Luna and for different motivations.
Assuming, that is, that there is a real problem.
The real problem I'm thinking of is that humans who grow up on the Moon won't be able to live on Earth.
Assuming that's true (I doubt it will be, from the POV of the augmentation technology of 200 years from now), they'll somehow drown their sorrows in the immense wealth which will come to them from controlling the entrepot of the whole Terrestrial System, and their superior biological pre-adaptation to Mars, Ceres and Callisto.
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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. That a central air system implies that the government can shut off the air to the homes of political dissidents (a la Total Recall) probably will not occur to them.
they'll somehow drown their sorrows in the immense wealth which will come to them from controlling the entrepot of the whole Terrestrial System
That will be even longer in coming. We still haven't figured out how to keep cosmic radiation from killing people beyond the Van Allen belts. At least we can get to the Moon without worrying about that.
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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 designated space agency, which also refuses to engage in Lunar colonization (America and NASA in the late 20th century, write large). This is certainly possible, but would be increasingly difficult as the cost of such ventures got cheaper and cheaper, and in that case the colonization of Luna would occur at some point during the fall of that world government, simply being put forward some centuries.
But do you really think all this is beyond all doubt?
Barring human extinction or something equally drastic, yes. With time and technological progress the cost and difficulty of Lunar colonization ventures drop, while human wealth per capita rises. Given how close Luna is to the Earth on the scale of the Solar System, I don't see how we could overlook colonizing her.
Or that Murphy's Law won't ever come into play?
It will come into play as usual. But it is difficult to see any one accident able to put an end to Lunar colonization forever, unless you're thinking of an accident on such a scale that it effectively destroyed the whole Moon. Most plausible accidents would at the most destroy a particular colony.
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.
When the first such systems are built -- the ones on which the making of serious mistakes are the most likely -- they will support relatively few people. By the time that there are cities of millions of people on Luna, all likely problems capable of killing everyone in a whole city will have been worked out long, long ago. We won't worry about them any more than, today, we worry about a fire spreading explosively through a city's whole gas main system, engulfing the whole conurbation in a Hamburg-style firestorm, or the boiler on an ocean liner exploding in a manner capable of scalding most of those onboard -- and yes, similar accidents did happen in the early days of municipal gas and marine steam propulsion.
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.
Because at some point in the next 100-200 years, civil engineers forget everything they ever learned about protecting systems from the consequences of single-point failure? You're also being mighty selective about your hypothetical disasters, here -- I don't think it will take more than one or two centralized life support systems failures (if that many) before the inhabitants of Lunar and other enclosed hab conurbations realize the advantage of decentralized backups to their main life support system.
That a central air system implies that the government can shut off the air to the homes of political dissidents (a la Total Recall) probably will not occur to them.
Don't you think that it would occur to said "political dissidents?" Who could easily counter such a ploy by building or buying their own life support systems?
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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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