You say "humanity surviving" as if it's a *good* thing...

OMG!  Did you hear the fantastic groundbreaking news that Artemis II made radio contact with the ISS?  The radio link was across near vacuum through a direct line of sight.  Media outlets are buzzing about this milestone.  How did NASA manage to accomplish such an amazing feat?  This is truly the golden age of spaceflight.

In reply to Charlie Stross.

You'd get most of the insulation (thermal, radiation) from 10m of powdered regolith. You'd *always* need to live in pressure vessels with airlocks. For humans, the machines can live outside.
Hmmm, caveat repairs. Which also applies to repairing the pressure vessels.

In reply to thielges.

Almost.  In fact you're paying to have fascists punch you in the face.  I used to think that there were rather specialised clubs where people went for that sort of thing, but now I realise that that club is called 'America'.

In reply to MisterFlibble.

Not sure if the double post was accidental or some sort of meta-statement about "rehashed sequels".

In reply to jwz.

As someone who put some real time and effort into the Artemis II NASA request for comments something like four or five years ago, I'm glad they are actually flying. I was sure Musk would figure out a way to cancel them, but luckily his spat with Trump over The Files kept him away.

In reply to Mozai.

Escaping Earth orbit is entirely irrelevant to ICBMs.  The first US ICBM, Atlas, was operational in 1959.  Liquid-fueled ICBMs (such as Thor, Atlas, Titan) are a catastrophe while solid-fueled human-carrying vehicles are disasters waiting to happen (Challenger, so far is the only actual disaster I think).

The 2960s space program used several vehicles originally designed and tested as ICBMs: it was downstream, not upstream of them.

No, it wasn't really about exploration (except, neither is exploration), but it absolutely was not a proof of concept for ICBMs: saying it was is ahistorical and stupid.

In reply to Western Infidels.

Exploration wasn't the goal; proof-of-concept for intercontinental ballistic missiles was the goal.  "Escaping Earth orbit is halfway to the rest of the universe" and halfway to your nation's capital.

In reply to Western Infidels.

In “A City on Mars” @ZachWeinersmith suggests a self-sufficient settlement in Antarctica as a good first step towards demonstrating that we might be able to settle Mars.

The book in general is excellent, it demolishes any naive idea that we might colonize Mars within our lifetimes.

In reply to jwz.

I have a simpler (possibly) set of requests:
Show that you can grow algae in a spaceship, enough for people to subsist on (you will still need to ship minimal media nutrients and water into space periodically).

Show that you can repeatedly extrude meters of aluminum extrusion (you will still need to ship aluminum into space periodically).

Ideally, demonstrate that you can also mine the source materials in space without having to go down and back up a big energy well.

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

JFC what is your damage?

In reply to tfb.

Yeah touting that bit of trivia is kind of pathetic but every news-person seems to be breathlessly exclaiming that tiny incremental feat as something earth shattering.  Even the PBS News Hour science correspondent, someone who usually deserves respect, is foaming at the mouth.  Perhaps the NASA press release lists that fact in a large bold font and the press is just parroting.

All of this makes one reflect back on the first moon excursion over half a century ago, built with primitive 1960s technology.  Now that was impressive.

In reply to tfb.

Whenever I see a figure in the proximity of $90 billion, the first thought is "That's enough to complete the California High Speed Rail project, even considering the costs of incompetence and gouging contractors."

We're about to pass that mark in this short (so far) adventure into Iran's airspace and it would have been really nice to have used that $90B to complete CAHSR instead.  The state would have world class sustainable transportation and Iran would have thousands fewer innocent civilians dead.

We are punching ourselves in the face and paying huge sums for the privilege.

But, you know, they've gone further from Earth than anyone has ever before!  It's completely heroic!  They're American heroes!  Well, we can't count the the Canadian one, and the woman, and the black one, so, well, he's an American hero! It's a whole new feat of splendid American engineering.  It didn't blow up!  The heatshield will be fine!

... 1.6% further than Apollo 13, in 1970, mostly because the Moon's orbit isn't a circle.  Truly this is progress.

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

... and doesn't solve the radiation problem (it does make it somewhat better).

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

Maybe that's the entire point to you, but lower gravity is practically necessary for human habitation of low gee environments such as the Moon or Mars.

And reduced spin gravity requirements is an advantage for orbital habitats also.

A spin gravity station that only needs to provide 1/6 gee and 1/3 gee on its ends would be much smaller and less expensive than one which is able to provide 1 gee, and 1 gee does NOT provide for useful scientific experiments.

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

Might conceivably be useful for Europa?

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

The point is you get to find out what would happen on the Moon or Mars if you want to be there for a long time.  We know free-fall is bad, what about 1/6g? or 4/10g?  Also bad?

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

It is at least possible (and I think probable) that there was or is life on Mars.

Human colonization (which, OK, isn't going to happen, but even human landings if not done rather carefully), is going to crap all over our ability to make probably the most important discovery we could make as a species.

But plutocrats don't care about that, if course.

In reply to jwz.

Others have addressed the Qomolangma Hilton, so what is your point with the 500m depth SeaCity?

- It's half the depth needed to test Venus tech.
- Totally worthless for developing Mars or other vacuum tech.
- It's below the photic zone, so ... imitates what space environment?

A 500m depth MineCity would be almost as pointless. Even on Mars that would only get you a few %/10 of an atmosphere pressure (going straight down ; no effect going sideways).

In reply to Isaac Ji Kuo.

The entire *point* of spin gravity is to *avoid* the need for humans (and our plants) to adapt to low-gee.

When you've built it, you can study low-gee near the rotation axis, if you feel a need to.

In reply to dr2chase.

I have never heard of *any* coherent plan for Martian agriculture. All the planning I've heard is for the insanity of humans trying to live there long term. Just building an atmosphere is a 600yr (Martian) project, *if* you can find the materials.

In reply to WellsiteGeo.

It's not about thunderbolts, it's about cultural significance.

Take a somewhat more secular example + building a hotel on top of Mount Olympus (not Olympus Mons) would be technologically viable, people would still be pissed even though there are hardly any Hellenic pagans in Greece today.

In reply to Montessori Space Programme 🛸.

That - the sacredness - is probably the smallest problem for the project. Divine thunderbolts being notoriously absent for all religions.
It remains a stupid idea, nonetheless.

In reply to Montessori Space Programme 🛸.

And let's not forget, Mars is sacred to astrologers!

In reply to jwz.

I feel like point 3 will happen first. point 4, hopefully (and not only because Vegas shrinks), point 2? a long time away.
point 1: hopefully never.

In reply to tfb.

I wonder how close to $93 billion Microsoft has spent on Copolit so far?

https://www.techradar.com/pro/copilot-is-for-entertainment-purposes-only-even-microsofts-official-terms-and-conditions-say-you-really-shouldnt-be-using-its-ai-at-work

In reply to Isaac Ji Kuo.

Yes I agree, definitely prefer robotic exploration. What's the point of cooking humans in space radiation on Mars? Just build more robot bases

In reply to jwz.

Crewed rocket launch is an asbestos-age technology

In reply to MidgePhoto.

Especially if it's pee.