The European Space Agency just unveiled its plans to build a base onthe moon

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

What you need to drop in is most of the Earth.


Utter bull****. By your 'definitions' there has never been a 'colony'
anywhere on Earth at any time.


Wrong again, space cadet.


Yeah, me and Elon Musk. So how are you doing, Chimp?

I'm doing just fine, starry eyed ass hole.


--
Jim Pennino

In sci.physics Uncle Steve wrote:
On Thu, Apr 07, 2016 at 10:43:48PM -0000, wrote:


Your point seems to be you want to cozy up to a three titted hooker
in a Martian bar just like in the movies.

Fred is more of a "what happens on Mars, stays on Mars" sort of fella.
He would love an environment free from the all the stupid rules he has
to follow. No lawyers, no courts, no oversight, just a wide-open
horizon of possibilities as far as he can see.

In a setting where a multitude of high tech systems needs to be constantly
monitored and maintained to survive more than a few minutes, I think the
societal structure would be more like a miltary post than a hippy love in.


--
Jim Pennino

In article ,
wrote:
Could you offer Martian colonists high pay?

Possibly, but what would they do with it?

They'd do what people working for high pay in unfriendly environments
have always done: they'll remit it to their family at home. You don't
go out to build skyscrapers in Sharjah or care for entitled brats in
Riyadh in order to spend money in Sharjah or Riyadh; you do it to get
the money that builds your family a nice concrete house and sends your
kids to university back in Kerala or Sumatra.

Tom

Fred J McCall schrieb:
Thomas Koenig wrote:

Fred J McCall schrieb:

This will be more complicated and more 'expensive' than on Earth,
since you don't have the complex hydrocarbon feedstock on Mars. But,
as the link points out, "You can make every plastic available on Earth
from resources on Mars.

Sure.

The main question is how much complexity this entails, and how
many people and what sort of technological organization this needs
for a colony to work.


snip irrelevancies

Not quite irrelevant, it shows that you need thousands of people
working in the proposed Mars chemical industry alone to be able
to make simple parts we take for granted here.

So what you've shown is that it's exactly what I claim; incremental
growth as you go. You're not independent on Day 1. You get that way
as you grow and add capability. If it's cheaper to ship, you ship. If
it's cheaper to make, you make. Industry makes these decisions all
the time here on Earth. Why would Mars be different?

I would tend to concur in principle. In practice, the size of
population you need to be even approach self-sustainability is
quite large.

The example above is for the chemical industry only. Multiply this
by a none-too-small factor for other relevant industries (metals,
electrical, computers etc). Other people will have to grow food,
repair habitats, build machine tools, make drugs, mine resources,
make (pharmaceutical) drugs, be doctors, teachers, nurses,
hairdressers, make implements for daily life, ...

You'll need a at least few hundred thousand people to get a mostly
self-sufficient colony going, and you will need to supply them
while the aren't yet self-sufficient.

For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

Perhaps I should have said the vast majority of people wouldn't bother
attempting to colonize airless, barren rocks.

That’s another non-statement. Whether settling new frontiers is easy or
difficult, it has never been something the “vast majority� did. All it
takes is enough of them to do it, and survive, and spread.

If Star Trek technology did exist, there are currently several million
refugees in Europe that would jump at the chance to colonize somewhere
else, but not an airless, barren rock.

Nonsense. If you have Trek tech, it won’t be airless and barren for
long. Or, hell, the whole habitat could be nothing but a holodeck!

Your solutions lack imagination.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

On 4/8/2016 3:25 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Sergio wrote:



silly boy,

the moon and mar have NO AIR, NO WATER, NO FOOD, NOTHING but sand and
rocks, and high radiation.



The key here is the horrendous cost of getting things to the Moon or Mars
in the first place and that any equipment used there will likely be a
one off custom design that will come at another huge expense.


take O2, how do you extract that from rocks ? What is needed rate of
production? What does it take ? how much does the O2 plant weigh ?


Oven. Whatever is needed. Oven. Whatever it needs to.

no answer ? try to think it through.

man needs 500 liters of O2 per day
there are 10 men up there, 2 are needed to run the O2 plant, and 2 are
needed to run the Water plant, and 2 are needed to run the N2 plant.

so your O2 flow rate is 5,000 liters per day,
your N2 flow rate is 15,000 liters per day (assume a 25% O2)
and about 7.5 liters of water per day per person

so how many tons rocks do you cook per day ?
How much energy is needed to run the rock cooking plant?
What type of rocks work for O2 that are on the surface ?

where do you get 24 liters of water per day ? (assume a 25% recapture rate)

Biofilm questions: where does the lost water go? will the biofilm cause
dammage to the electronics? How much energy is used to keep the
Humidity down to below 70% ?

how do you reprocess the salt bath used for cooking the rocks ?

What rocks do you cook to get N2 ???






now, where do you get the N2 ? not from rocks...


Why not? Does Google not work on your machine, either?

you cannot find any common rocks with N in them, right ?

you have not thought this through have you?

go look on the NASA site, you wont see answers to the hard problems
either, although there are lots of studies on these issues.

Radiation! requires men on either moon or mars to live below ground 20
feet, and only go to surface 5% of the time. 95% of the time they must
be in the underground shelter, large tin can, to keep the radiation from
making them all go blind.






what is the rate of water you can get from the vaccuum of moon/mars
surface ? 100 grams per day ?


As much as you need. Both have lots of ice deposits

dream on, tell your moon men to go suck on ice cubes at the poles.

On 4/9/2016 8:55 AM, Thomas Koenig wrote:
Fred J McCall schrieb:
Thomas Koenig wrote:

Fred J McCall schrieb:

This will be more complicated and more 'expensive' than on Earth,
since you don't have the complex hydrocarbon feedstock on Mars. But,
as the link points out, "You can make every plastic available on Earth
from resources on Mars.

Sure.

The main question is how much complexity this entails, and how
many people and what sort of technological organization this needs
for a colony to work.


snip irrelevancies

Not quite irrelevant, it shows that you need thousands of people
working in the proposed Mars chemical industry alone to be able
to make simple parts we take for granted here.

So what you've shown is that it's exactly what I claim; incremental
growth as you go. You're not independent on Day 1. You get that way
as you grow and add capability. If it's cheaper to ship, you ship. If
it's cheaper to make, you make. Industry makes these decisions all
the time here on Earth. Why would Mars be different?

I would tend to concur in principle. In practice, the size of
population you need to be even approach self-sustainability is
quite large.

The example above is for the chemical industry only. Multiply this
by a none-too-small factor for other relevant industries (metals,
electrical, computers etc). Other people will have to grow food,
repair habitats, build machine tools, make drugs, mine resources,
make (pharmaceutical) drugs, be doctors, teachers, nurses,
hairdressers, make implements for daily life, ...

You'll need a at least few hundred thousand people to get a mostly
self-sufficient colony going, and you will need to supply them
while the aren't yet self-sufficient.



Air, Water ??

try to think it through.

man needs 500 liters of O2 per day
there are 10 men up there, 2 are needed to run the O2 plant, and 2
are needed to run the Water plant, and 2 are needed to run the N2 plant.

so your O2 flow rate is 5,000 liters per day,
your N2 flow rate is 15,000 liters per day (assume a 25% O2)
and about 7.5 liters of water per day per person

so how many tons rocks do you cook per day ?
How much energy is needed to run the rock cooking plant?
What type of rocks work for O2 that are on the surface ?

where do you get 24 liters of water per day ? (assume a 25% recapture rate)

Biofilm questions: where does the lost water go? will the biofilm cause
dammage to the electronics? How much energy is used to keep the
Humidity down to below 70% ?

how do you reprocess the salt bath used for cooking the rocks ?

What rocks do you cook to get N2 ???

For your reference, records indicate that
wrote:

I use economic thinking.

Think about thinking more rationally. Think about thinking about
not finance and banking, but survival.

It is well known that there is lots of gold in sea water but it costs
far more to extract than the gold is worth.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? First you bring up
Antartica and then say it’s irrelevant, and now you do the same with
gold. Nobody on a planet other than Earth is going to give a ******
about gold. Unless it relates to survival, everything you’re thinking
about is irrelevant.

There are no forests, no lakes, no rivers, no life and no air.

You seem to have more knowledge than NASA on those things. How is that?

When did NASA announce there are forests, lakes, rivers, life, and
air anywhere else than Earth?

You again demonstrate a lack of logical thinking. You set out to prove
a negative; that’s *your* burden, not mine.

But, of course, it is entirely irrelevant. A moon/planet can be devoid
of those resources and yet still have many other ones to work with. It
just becomes a different problem to solve. Perhaps more complex, from
a “let’s see if we can transplant Earthlings there� standpoint, but
there is nothing a priori that says it couldn’t be done.

something usefull to build the domed and pressurized buildings
required to survive and do anything.

If thats how you think about what is *required* to survive, you clearly
havent thought much about the problem. These are *your* straw men.

So you think you can survive on the Moon or Mars without a presurized
building? Are you going to live in a pressure suit 24/7?

Maybe. The point is to solve the problems that *actually* exist, not
dream up straw men like the “need� to build domed cities.

It is my opinion that an off Earth true colony would cost far too much
for anyone to ever try it and few people would be willing to permanently
move to one.

“Ever� is a mighty long time. The only real question is *how much* would
it cost at any particular time, and how might those costs be reduced
until it *does* become something that some impossibly stupid billionaire
is willing to try it in order to stake a claim on an entire new world.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

For your reference, records indicate that
Thomas Koenig wrote:

Fred J McCall schrieb:

Colonies always need supply and support initially. Colonies off the
Earth will be no different.

The main problem I see for space coloies is the complexity of the
technology that is needed for survival, if spare parts cannot be
imported.

Take a simple O-ring used as a seal as as an example.

No, don’t! The entire problem here is that people are coming at the
challenge from an Earth-based perspective. Yes, it is absolutely true
that everything that comes from Earth is going to have Earth-optimized
production and Earth-centric uses. But you need to immediately shift
your thinking to the location you’re at, whether it’s the Moon or Mars
or elsewhere, and begin thinking about what you can do with the r
esources you have at hand. It might mean thinking up an entirely new
solution to the problem than using something from Earth.

So, is there a way around this? You can try to restrict yourself
to the materials that you really, really need. This will mean
that your solutions will be much worse than what you could get on
Earth by just ordering the products you needed. I am not sure
that this will be easy given the harshness of your environment,
where your solutions should be good if you want to survive.

This may be true. There must be some minimum mix of resources that allow
a human-level colony to self-sustainingly survive on a world. We’ll find
it by exploring the problem, not by dismissing it out of hand just because
our thinking is limited by some “irreducible complexity� argument.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 6:01:26 PM UTC+12, Greg Goss wrote:
wrote:
In sci.physics Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

On top of that, the space cadet likely believes that sane people, including
female sane people, would want to migrate to one.
...
Most everyone that was foolish enough to go would screaming to get off
the lifeless, airless rock before very long. The gays and the anti-social
types might stay.


So you'd stay, then.

I would never go to such a place.

FYI I was offered, and turned down, a stint at the DEW line for huge
bucks way back when, and that was for less than two years, including
travel time.

I was offered big bucks to work as the in-house computer geek for a
minesite in the islands halfway to the North Pole from North America.
I accepted the job, then the job disappeared in a re-org. For complex
reasons I couldn't get back to my original job. The job was
"permanent" but I was thinking of it as a two-to-three year run. But,
a two to three year run at a mine is closer to a "research station"
than to a "colony" in the context of this argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_mine

--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

Tending an automated robot swarm that is extracting materials for return to Earth, and building a spec built human habitat, may be the twenty-first century equivalent of lighthouse keepers!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?n...eum-180956183/

The company would send a keeper and his family - in suspended animation - awakened on the site by AI. They would at the very least serve as designers and some would say guinea pigs and Judas goat for buyers of remote spec built habitats on the remote rock. They would be part owner of the output of the facility, and given advances against that income to help organise their life on the mine site.

A $60 million Falcon Heavy rocket that is slightly advanced over today's model, that is reused 150 times and cost $200,000 to refuel and reuse each time, and is re-flown within four hours of launch, is flown 6x per day and retired in 25 days. The cost per launch is $240,000. A factory that produced a rocket every five days could sustain 5 rockets flying continuously delivering 30 payloads of 53 tons each to orbit every day, with launches occurring every 48 minutes.

This near term objective transforms the nature of space launch. It puts pressure on reducing the price of payloads themselves. This is achieved through improved manufacturing technology as well as increased scale of production combined with standardisation of useful components avionics and software, built in large quantity.

Professor Dava Newman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfsmEYPSTtk

inspiration for fictional Weyland Industries' biosuit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRwnWMYpAi8

With advanced materials, not only is putting on and taking off the suit easier, its also possible to consider a long duration suit, one that is worn constantly and maintains cleanliness, comfort, and health throughout the mission - and more.

Advances in suspended animation involve controlling the temperature and atmosphere of subjects and their respiration and heart rates. Something that can be done in a spacesuit or spacecraft. So, the biosuit also doubles as a stasis chamber.

Controlling cell biology with manipulation of stem cells lead to advanced medical treatments that repair radiation damage and other damage and eventually even reversing the aging process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVAaZVz9pDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPlQFs4G1fk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUyQHvLfO0Q

which has been treated in fiction as well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brCu_ifpE28

The suits themselves will when attached to a power supply and propellant source possess the ability of flight, like today's wing suits and wearable wings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q971MCu8MyY

Once landed on an asteroid, a moon, a dwarf planet, or planet, astronauts will use sunlight and found materials, with a small bag of tricks, to shape the environment to meet their needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IweRDzvS9Fo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ms5qoMO3gQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1t4M2XnIhI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeUT_AL6t4A

again this was predicted by fiction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52XlyMbxxh8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvvPZ6zwPE

A tiny machine system that reorganises materials at the molecular level and capable of self reproduction has the ability to transform worlds in time periods that are short.

AI is also a solved problem. The Jeopardy Challenge was promoted by IBM to announce this fact. The Turing Test was solved. Anyone who has an iPhone need only contact Siri to see a demonstration. A cloud based AI much in advance of Siri will be operational later this year.

We have built tiny machine systems since the creation of the integrated circuit. We have built self-replicating machine systems in 2005. We are well on our way to creating an intelligent robot swarms under AI control.

Earth crossing asteroids pass by Earth every day. Here's a notable example of one;

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4625
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1566_Icarus

Aphelion............ 1.96932 AU
Perihelion...........0.18652 AU
Semi-major axis.1.07792 AU
Eccentricity........0.82696
Orbital period.....1.12 a (408.77 d)
Mean anomaly....231.08964°
Inclination..........22.82786°
Longitude of ascending node..88.02445°
Argument of perihelion............31.35823°

Physical characteristics

Dimension..........1.27 km
Mass..................2.9×10^12 kg
Mean density......2 g/cm³
Surface gravity.....0.000 39 m/s²
Escape velocity.....0.000 74 km/s
Rotation period.....2.273 h (0.094 71 d)
Albedo..................0.4
Temperature ~242 K

For a solar powered system the first thing that is replicated is a solar collector. For Icarus this is important because an efficient solar panel operates as a sheild for anything behind it, when you're close to the sun.

At 0.18652 perihelion sunlight is 28.7x as intense at at Earth. That's 39,322 Watts/m2 at perihelion.

This energy when used efficiently to break material down and reorganise it on a molecular level, requires 45 MJ/kg, so each square meter reorganises 3..15 kg per hour at perihelion. This rate drops to 0.11 kg per hour at Earth.

A high efficiency thin film solar collector covers 16 sq meters per kg. So, at 1 AU at Earth doubling time is 34 minutes. At perihelion doubling time is less than 2 minutes. Arriving at Icarus with a solar powered self replicating machine swarm, as it passes Earth, means that it takes about 24 hours to undergo 41.4 replications to process the entire asteroid into a thin sheet 7,686 km in diameter facing the Sun starting with 1 kg of machinery. At 0.18652 AU less than six months later, we have the ability to harvest significant amounts of hydrogen and power.

Cell cultures brought along have the ability to double every 33 hours under the right conditions. Depending upon the elemental abundance of Icarus, if 1% of the asteroid is made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, potassium, calcium, etc., then 2.9x10^10 kg of biomass can be organised. Starting with 1 kg of cells, this takes 34.76 replications which at 33 hours each is 48 days after arrival.

A year after first arrival, the entire asteroid is processed into useful and precious materials, and returned to Earth and Earth orbit. Parts might be made to enter close solar orbit as well.

Let's check that out.

A stable orbit at 0.18652 AU requires an object orbit at a speed of 67.25 km/sec. Icarus passes by at a speed of 90.82 km/sec before flying out to beyond Mars! So, each kg must slow by a speed of 22.48 km/sec at perihelion if it is to stay there.

Using sunlight to power an ion rocket that ejects 1.73 kg of the less useful mass at 22.48 km/sec to impart 22.48 km/sec to the remaining 1 kg of useful mass - requires 434.2 MJ/kg be added to the ejected mass. So, at perihelion it takes 11.5 minutes to slow an object down to enter a stable near sun orbit.

Using less material and more energy, takes longer at perihelion, but more material can enter a stable orbit close to the Sun. Using lower exhaust speeds increases propellant mass and energy requirements. Using higher exhaust speeds reduces propellant mass while increasing energy requirements.