Science fiction taught us that Mars cities are inevitable. That we will sooner or later have those cool looking glass domes with spaceports and stuff. But the world is a cruel place and reality is unforgivable. So, how will a realistic Mars habitat of the future will look like? Discussing it with Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.
📖 “A City on Mars” by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith
https://www.acityonmars.com/
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00:00:00 Intro
00:01:10 Space sucks. The Reality of living in space
00:09:35 Why go to space
00:22:28 Minimum size of the population
00:30:30 Fascination with the apocalypse
00:33:51 Simulating Mars missions
00:38:12 Childbirth is space
00:40:24 Technological progress
00:44:32 Economical growth
01:01:38 Current obsessions
01:05:21 More thoughts and more interviews
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Regarding the possibility of terrorism by people living in space colonies – making impact weapons of asteroids, Martian nukes, etc. – we seem to be regarding Earth as some sort of privileged place and that all the danger is to people living on Earth. In fact, everyone, regardless of where he lives, has the same risk. We should proceed anyway, and we ought to lose the idea that Earth is the human abode of Primary Concern. A few thousand years from now, Earth might not be where most humans live, and it might not be where the highest human cultures are to be found. Earth will be only one more place where people live.
I used to be a space adventurer. Then I took a piece of orbital debris in the knee.
I read their book, and all I know for sure is that I absolutely hate those two.
Thank you for an excellent show, great guests and they have serious valid points. One of the best shows of the year thus far!
Why should we go to Mars? Like a certain American president said in 1961. Not because it's easy but because it's hard.
If humanity can come up with a way to make radiation decay faster it could probably be applied to speed mass to help weekend the strength of radiation outside the space vessel.
Humanity can survive space traveling inside a giant rocket air balloon built out in space.
If someone can come up with a new plan for dropping an air cable line from space inside earth atmosphere to help blow up giant space balloons and no ifs and buts about it we're good to go visit Mars.
I think interstellar parks are actually something that will require some level of human exploration to really hash out. You need to capture the public's imagination with something like that to really get it protected in that way.
There's nothing at the top of Everest but people still die trying to get there. Tourism and exploration will be the reason they go, serving the rich will be why we have to stay. Simple as that.
Mostly agree and add on top the unknown-unknowns. The one caveat I will add tho is the historically poor track record of linear extrapolation of current paradigms to predict the future. The Moon might be the best "near" future for permanent settlement. I can see low gravity, vacuum environment, and sunlight unfiltered by an atmosphere as being unique resources.
Really interesting. More biosphere projects are needed. Maybe with enough vocal volunteers, the relatively modest funding will be found.
T 35:50: Sofar no closed loops. That's, where we are – this will take some time! And, for the first (at least some decades!) a Mars colony will be dependend on a lot of supply from Earth. https://youtu.be/OQ8sZtg-Kdc?t=2223
Time 44: there has never been a constant 2% economic growth going on for >50a. Surprize: in developed economies growth is NOT exponential.
No no it’s not.
mars will be its own civilization. the best thing about being on mars will be the people, their culture, their ideas, their creations and martian society. the same is true of many places on earth. we want to start something new and different, and that is easily worth the dependence on technology and hardships on mars. how many people on earth spend time playing games, watching movies, watching youtube videos or going to "burning man". the time delay to communicate with earth will make it truly its own world, the way earth continents used to be hundreds of years ago. with increasing globalization, the species faces new existential risk. we saw this with the virus. we need to cross a new boundary, or we will not survive as a species.
I agree, no reason to go there in person. Instead we should build self replicating robots that will harvest resources and build space industry with zero Earth involvement. Then they will convert Mercury into Dyson swarm of habitats and then humans can start moving there.
Maybe a more ethical way to leapfrog the life support problem is livestock? Launch a small human crew and a large group of sheep for them to manage (plus a vast quantity of starter sod), and they can experiment in real time to find out where the best available models and estimates break down. If it does start to go wrong, they can make mutton to free up O2 etc. resources for the humans before they have to flee to the escape pods. I know there are ethical debates around eating meat, but a formal ethics committee could hardly condemn a practice that's nonetheless quite familiar and conventional across the planet already.
All of this is WHY I think that we should allow people to enjoy space right now today,, the correct way. We launch sub-orbital rockets that carry inflatable courses and RC thruster powered drones, and pilots sitting safely on the ground fly them FPV around the small courses. We stay here, we use the space right there, and we do the main thing that space offers, zero-g spaceship navigation.
Seriously, though.
It will never happen . The world we know as earth has many problems and no billionaire fever dream can overcome them. Not in space ,not underground or buried in layers of ice and rock.
It's hilarious to think that if by some slim chance it actually occur that the domestic problems of geopolitical hellscapes wouldn't follow immediately thereafter .
A waste of money and time will be the result as God will see to that.
There's no mentioning of space colonies in the Bible.
Atheistic America is being played by all sorts of people and their leader
The Father of the Lie,Satan.
So…the last word I recommend you find redemption and salvation through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and get your lives together.
I recommend to look up the term "Ephemeralization" by R. Buckminster Fuller, visavis your discussion "more with less".
Since you mentioned him as your inspiration for starting universe today… Would be awesome if you could also interview Robert Zubrin (again) about this topic. He just wrote a review about why he hated this book and how Zack and Kelly are wrong about everything. So it would be a fun conversation 🤭 🍿🍿🍿
“Shouldn’t have kids on mars because of ethical concerns”
Glad my ancestors didn’t think that during the Black Death….
19:50 Now that is one part I actually disagree with, I don't think it would take generations to become self sufficient on Mars at all !
Other than the "it's awesome" reason, there's also the "we want to live the way we want to live and can't do it here, so we want to go where we can." Puritans didn't move to North America because they expected to extract resources and get rich or because they thought it would be awesome. They wanted a place where their weird ways wouldn't be interfered with. Same reason why Mormons moved west. I bet libertarians might like to make their own colony in space or on another celestial body.
TERRIBLE HUMAN MOMENT WARNING!!!! What if we set up a human organ farm in space? I understand the microgravity issue and so on and so forth and this is an absolutely terrible idea especially since most countries habe outlawed human cloning, but would it possibly allow us to circumvent ethical issues if these are grown in "test tubes" specifically for medical reasons?
Will look like? It's already there
How to create a sustainable closed biosphere, on Moon or Mars (look up "Life in a Jar", "Bottle Terrarium" or "Bottle Garden", to understand the basic idea):
1) Fill 1000, or more, large glass vessels with random samples of dirt, plants and critters from around the Earth. Hermetically seal them.
2) Store these vessels under conditions attainable in your Moon/Mars station. Match light-, radiation- and temperature cycles as close as possible.
3) Wait a year or two, inspect and select the best performing vessels.
4) Randomly pair the content of selected vessels, into half the number of triple sized vessels. Add 1/3 regolith from destination (simulated?). Hermetically seal.
5) Repeat from step 2, until you have 3-6 very large, high performing, somewhat diverse, self-sustaining, regolith-adapted biospheres.
6) Send these to your station, containing a large "grow room" matching the environmental conditions you determined in step 2.
7) Empty the biospheres into this new space, and let it grow, until it can support small scale farming, and eventually larger animals for meat.
The beauty of this approach is the lack of labor and guesswork involved. It is simply guided selection, for a novel environment. The difficulty is the time taken. Perhaps a decade or two.
To say that there are no resources in space is just wrong on so many levels, Wil it be easy? NO will it be worth it? YES it will be, I prefer a mind open in wonder to a mind closed by belief, so I have no use for naysayers of any type.
@21:30… "Can we do this?" Wrong question in my view. The forward thinking question is "HOW do we do this?"
I don’t think this was all doom and gloom, they are all great questions, concerns and challenges we will have to overcome. That doesn’t at all mean it can’t or won’t happen, it just might be harder and take longer. There are also technological advances that may come up and surprise us in ways we can’t currently imagine.
Heheh Weinersmith
A lot of “ Food for Thought”. Very interesting
"All of these boring things that they leave out of the movies, are going to make up most of your life in space."
Good point, but also true of basically every movie ever made, except some by Andy Warhol.
This was a fun interview! We'll get to Mars. We just need to properly prepare. More incremental steps and more Biospheres.
Colonizing other worlds and moons is a beautiful fantasy, but it won't happen before we extinct ourselves one way or another.
Imagine humans inhabiting other worlds, and disagreeing with people on earth or one of the other planets, and a planetary war breaks out. 😳
tell ya what else is nonsense. current recruitment policy. the ideal spacers are loners… not soldiers.
I know what a blacksmith is, but Weinersmith?
Fascinating. And they are very smart. You have to slow down talking and stop using acronyms. Also lower the volume level. I could not even get through the entire video. Finally stick to the salient points.:)
Very good discussion and valuable perspective on the whole business of space exploration.
A lot of their arguments are circular. We can't build anything in space because there's no infrastructure up there, there's no infrastructure up there because no one lives/works there. Yes, permanent settlements on Mars and the Moon are a terrible idea inside this century, but that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made and there won't be people living and working up there like they do on modern day oil derricks and container ships in the relatively short term. There's going to be a bootstrapping process.
Humanity needs to get ready and start figuring out laws and jurisdiction, not pretend that it's never going to happen because the world will be much nicer and kinder for everyone for a while if it doesn't.
I am so pleased to see someone balance Sunshine and Lollipops against cold hard cynicism in the discussion for space.
It was very refreshing and high time someone covered this topic. Thank you so much.
I don't need this kind of negativity in my life. I'm going to Mars. 🚀
Joy killer!!! 😂😆👨🏻🚀
Finally …. REALISTS.
These people seem to think that people around the world have some collective set of ethics. We don't, and never will.
Death Valley is paradise compared to Mars. On the space station in low earth orbit water is $10,000 a pint. Elon Musk can charge 100 thousand dollars for a pint of water on Mars