Assessment of Extraplanetary Bases

[MrZayas1]

The prospect of a moon base is not a new one, as we all know. But a common missing question of extraplanetary bases is: why? I am starting this post to analyze the pros and cons of base building, and in what circumstances would building a base be both beneficial, and practical. Down below is my analysis of the pros and cons of base building, and why or why not we should start allocating more money to a galactic endeavor such as colonizing the solar system.

Pros

1: Colonies, for human beings to live on in case of worldwide emergency.

2: En situ resource utilization of resources scarcely found on Earth. (Ex. Helium-3 on the moon)

3: Possible tourism opportunities after funding.

4: Human exploration.

5: Understanding of universal laws and principles difficult to test on Earth.

6: Boost economy after startup, for raw minerals and valuables.

7: Human understanding of orbital mechanics.

8: Investment in new technologies.

Cons

1: Huge initial cost of management and startup of base.

2: Huge costs of launch limit in situ resource utilization without proper tools.

3: Habitation costs/problems with survivability in microgravity.

4: Possible microorganism escape.

5: Lack of some fundamental resources on other bodies(Ex:low amounts of water on the moon)

6: Body contesting (Ownership rights, etc.)

7: Long times away from Earth.

8: Prolonged exposure to solar radiation.

9: Adaptability concerns.

10: Deflation of once valuable commodities.

These are some of the few things I have come up with, if you happen to think of some other pros and cons, leave them in the replies section, and discuss bases in general, What should we do next? What planets/moons should we colonize?

Discuss! And safe flying!

[sndrtj]

Some other pros, all based around the same concept: lack of resources on Earth itself

1) Overpopulation on Earth requires new lands

2) Related to this, Earth could no longer sustain own population, requiring off-planet food production (e.g. a series of habitats circling Earth). Becomes especially relevant when space elevators come on line

3) This is rather unethical, but space provides a convenient place to put your most uncooperating citizens to good use (i.e. penal colonies), without them being able to harm you at home

Related to pro 8: Not just investment, but one can reasonably expect a whole range of new technology emerges quite rapidly in response to the need to survive in a completely different environment. Could boost human development tremendously.

Some more possible cons:

1) Encounter with alien microorganisms could result in epidemic/pandemic (e.g. similar to what happened to native Americans after they came into contact with Old World diseases)

2) Encounter with alien intelligence - however unlikely - could have devastating effects, primarily because technological and cultural divide is likely to be gigantic.

[kStrout]

Have any of you tried using extraplanetary launchpads to make lunar mining bases? The rocket required to get stuff from the Mun to LKO is miniscule, this means that a lunar mining base could allow space colonies to be constructed WAY cheaper than launching the hardware from earth. A Mars base is pointless though, just mine Phobos and Demos.

[sndrtj]

Mars does provide space, and most importantly, water. You could cake its surface and get an atmosphere that retains heat. It's less hostile for human habitation than the Moon. But I most definitely agree with you that the Moon provides an optimal staging center for space travel.

[Bill Phil]

Mars does provide space, and most importantly, water. You could cake its surface and get an atmosphere that retains heat. It's less hostile for human habitation than the Moon. But I most definitely agree with you that the Moon provides an optimal staging center for space travel.

ah, but Mars takes less Dv to get into orbit.

And the Moon takes less as well, but Deimos has practically no gravity, so mining it and Phibos is preferable.

[Kaos]

Pro moon: You can do much better astronomy on the moon, as there is no atmosphere in the way. Gravity is smaller, hence your telescopes may be bigger. You could build even bigger telescopes in space, but then you have to bring all your ressources with you, while on the moon, most of the stuff you need for building a telescope is already there.

Pro mars: There are more ressources, so the colony will be self-sustaining faster. As soon, as the colony can survive on its own, it will grow ongoing without further investements from earth. So in the long term it will pay nearly any price it costed to construct the colony in the beginning.

[kStrout]

Wait, are you talking about permanent habitation on the surface of mars? I was looking at this from a science/military/mining base perspective, 100 or so people that don't spend there whole lifetime there. For permanent habitation orbital colonies make much more sense. For one thing, getting stuff to orbital colonies is much easier(anybody that has tried to make both a space station and a base knows this). Another big part is that mars is 1/3 g and the moon is 1/6 g, we don't know the effects of living in low g environments for many generations, and you would always live at 1g in a orbital colony.

Edited November 17, 2014 by kStrout

[Kaos]

If you start a base in an environment, that is in principal inhabitable, you will end in a colony there.

Furthermore, for orbital colonies, you have to get all the stuff there, while on celestial bodies, you have everything laying around. This is why an orbital colony is much harder to be independend, than a planetary one: You would need to extract everything from the atmosphere and most atmospheres are not very metal-rich in the higher layers.

And for the gravity: Artificial gravity works as well on planets as in space. The only difference is, that on planets you have to spin slower and you can anchor the ring better, hence you do not have to take care as precise for your mass distribution, as you have to do in space.

[NFUN]

1) Encounter with alien microorganisms could result in epidemic/pandemic (e.g. similar to what happened to native Americans after they came into contact with Old World diseases)

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack plants.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack insects.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack fish.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack reptiles.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack other mammals.*

Hell, humans are immune to most pathogens that attack other primates.

Even assuming panspermia is true, it is incredibally unlikely that any organisms on other worlds, with billions of years of evolution seperating us and them, will be able to affect us in any way. There is a good chance the very proteins that foreign organisms use would be different than ours.

Old World human-borne diseases helped eradicate most Native Americans because the natives are human too, and just hadn't been exposed to smallpox, etc for thousands of years.

*Mostly. Don't be pedantic, and I'm not including parasites that have evolved to use different classes of life to live.

[Idobox]

The best reason to have a Moon base is rocks, really.

Momentum exchange tethers are wonderful contraptions that could grab a ship on a suborbital trajectory and accelerate it to orbit or beyond, but they need to "recharge" the momentum, either by using high isp thrusters, or better, by decelerating stuff. A moon base with a mass driver that sends bags of rocks or dust toward a momentum exchange tether in LEO would make access to space much easier.

The second reason is fuel. The Moon has ice, which can be turned into LOx LH2, and also plenty of aluminium and magnesium oxides, that can be turned in metal and LOx for hybrid rockets.

The third reason is still ISRU. We won't build complex components on the moon any time soon, but things like nuts, bolts, girders, lumps of rocks to use as radiation shields can relatively easily be manufactured (we still need to develop vacuum metallurgy processes). Slightly more complex components, like solar arrays, tanks, heatshields, could also be imagined with small facilities.

Forget He3, it's useless, and the concentration is tiny.

Forget living space, oceans, deserts or Antarctica are much more hospitable than any planetary body.

There is plenty of science to be done on the Moon. As noted, it's a great place for astronomy, especially on the hidden face, where you'd get no light or radio pollution, and natural very low temperatures half of the time (good for infrared telescopes). The mineralogy of the Moon is of great interest too, and we only have a few samples of the surface, with a permanent base, we could start digging, or conveying much more thorough surveys, although some kind of "hopper" vehicle would likely be required.

There is also the question of how humans fare in reduced gravity for a long time.

Seriously, there have been several research stations at both Earth poles for decades, and we haven't run out of science to do there

[MrZayas1]

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack plants.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack insects.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack fish.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack reptiles.

Humans are immune to pathogens that attack other mammals.*

Hell, humans are immune to most pathogens that attack other primates.

Even assuming panspermia is true, it is incredibally unlikely that any organisms on other worlds, with billions of years of evolution seperating us and them, will be able to affect us in any way. There is a good chance the very proteins that foreign organisms use would be different than ours.

Old World human-borne diseases helped eradicate most Native Americans because the natives are human too, and just hadn't been exposed to smallpox, etc for thousands of years.

*Mostly. Don't be pedantic, and I'm not including parasites that have evolved to use different classes of life to live.

I don't believe that you are immune to salmonella, which thrives in chickens and foul alike. And the infamous Ebola Virus, which is from animals, so I do think it is very likely that viruses from extraplanetary organisms is definitely probable (if any exists).

[Kryten]

I don't believe that you are immune to salmonella, which thrives in chickens and foul alike. And the infamous Ebola Virus, which is from animals, so I do think it is very likely that viruses from extraplanetary organisms is definitely probable (if any exists).

You're assuming alien organisms would be more similar to us than we are to the vast majority of the organisms on our own planet-unless you've met someone who's ever come down with T4 bacteriophage or tobacco mosaic virus. That's not exactly a very tenable assumption.

[sndrtj]

You're assuming alien organisms would be more similar to us than we are to the vast majority of the organisms on our own planet-unless you've met someone who's ever come down with T4 bacteriophage or tobacco mosaic virus. That's not exactly a very tenable assumption.

Actually, since you have no clue what the normal biochemistry of alien species is, you must take extra care. I'm not postulating anything would have evolved to be pathogenic to any Earth life form - that'd indeed be ridiculous - but alien by- and waste products could potentially be very toxic. What if some alien metabolic byproduct happens to be a small molecule inhibitor of GAPDH, Actin or some kind of basic neurotransmitter, just to name a few ideas. Such a thing would have difficulty evolving on Earth (as any pathogen like that would kill its host quite rapidly), but if the biochemistry on alien world X is strikingly different, there is no reason why it couldn't evolve there. The complex cocktail of small molecules that makes up the metabolism of some alien life form is sure to be toxic to at least some of our one billion protein species.

Edited November 17, 2014 by sndrtj
typo

[sndrtj]

ah, but Mars takes less Dv to get into orbit.

And the Moon takes less as well, but Deimos has practically no gravity, so mining it and Phibos is preferable.

How exactly do you intend to mine something with an escape velocity on the order of just a few meters per second? Any drill would fling off bits and pieces of your favorite moonlet into an escape trajectory. Not only is it difficult to capture, you're also creating some dangerous Kessler bomb around your primary (i.e. Mars in this case).

[GregA]

It seems to me that the first elemental resources astronaut colonists would want (after water) would be:

Calcium, and nitrogen.

First, the Calcium deposits we find on earth are all the result of billions of years of biological filtration and sedimentation. Limestone seems pretty fundamental to civilization to me, and we wont find it anywhere else in the solar system. No one gets excited by the moon dust concrete because it is not very good compared to the stuff we make here on earth out of limestone. Any large scale building project will need a replacement material. The one time in recent history that calcium deposits were found, the scientists mistakenly thought they found martian life...

I am looking for science on the topic just now, nothing comes up.

The other one is nitrogen. While Nitrogen seems abundant on planets like Venus and Titan... Well I think you get the picture... It is absolutely necessary to have nitrogen, and lots of it, if there is going to be any substantial manufacturing of food in space. With the exception of earth, it looks pretty hard to get at.

[GregA]

Actually, since you have no clue what the normal biochemistry of alien species is, you must take extra care. I'm not postulating anything would have evolved to be pathogenic to any Earth life form - that'd indeed be ridiculous - but alien by- and waste products could potentially be very toxic. What if some alien metabolic byproduct happens to be a small molecule inhibitor of GAPDH, Actin or some kind of basic neurotransmitter, just to name a few ideas. Such a thing would have difficulty evolving on Earth (as any pathogen like that would kill its host quite rapidly), but if the biochemistry on alien world X is strikingly different, there is no reason why it couldn't evolve there. The complex cocktail of small molecules that makes up the metabolism of some alien life form is sure to be toxic to at least some of our one billion protein species.

Yeah, I am not understanding his thinking. When you think about how close a nerve gas like Sarin is to other totally harmless chemicals found in our environment, and even other necessary chemicals right in our own biology, it seems bordering on irresponsible to think that an alien biology would be in any way compatible with our own.

I mean, it is an accident of nature that acetylcholine clears the neural receptors instead of Sarin. To the point that an alien biology could use Sarin instead of acetylcholine but otherwise be very similar to our own biology. Just a waif of flower pollen from that alien world would be nearly instantly totally deadly.

[Kryten]

Sarin acts by forming a covalent bond with the acetylcholinisterase active site, not competitive inhibition; it's not structurally related to acetylcholine or particularly similar to any naturally occurring molecules. It's also the end result of about a century's work on modifying organophosphate pesticides to be ever more potent-it's not like it was just stumbled upon by chance.

[kStrout]

If you start a base in an environment, that is in principal inhabitable, you will end in a colony there.

Furthermore, for orbital colonies, you have to get all the stuff there, while on celestial bodies, you have everything laying around. This is why an orbital colony is much harder to be independend, than a planetary one: You would need to extract everything from the atmosphere and most atmospheres are not very metal-rich in the higher layers.

And for the gravity: Artificial gravity works as well on planets as in space. The only difference is, that on planets you have to spin slower and you can anchor the ring better, hence you do not have to take care as precise for your mass distribution, as you have to do in space.

Yes there are lots of resources on planets, and yes artificial gravity works on planets(ex. centrifuges). I don't have any idea what you are talking about extracting materials from atmospheres, are you imagining something cloud city like? It would be quite easy to obtain and build with materials in an orbital colony if there are reasonable asteroids around, so you could for example build a colony in the asteroid belt. If you wanted to build around mars, the mass of Phobos is 1.0659×10¹⁶ kg or 10,659,000,000,000 tons (I think that's right), Not going to be exhausting that any time soon are we? Assuming a standard colony of 32 megatons with a population of 3,600 (built in highfrontier, works fine), you could build 333,093 colonies with a total population of 1,199,137,500 people!!!!!!!. And that's not even taking into account Deimos. Then think of how many asteroids there are in the asteroid belt.

[GregA]

Sarin acts by forming a covalent bond with the acetylcholinisterase active site, not competitive inhibition; it's not structurally related to acetylcholine or particularly similar to any naturally occurring molecules. It's also the end result of about a century's work on modifying organophosphate pesticides to be ever more potent-it's not like it was just stumbled upon by chance.

You have my sincere apology. Alien biology will be exactly like human biology, it was blasphemy for me to think otherwise.

[Kryten]

Stop talking about things you know nothing about, it's pretty clear you don't even know the difference between acetylcholine and acetylcholinisterase-this is high-school level stuff. Given the major differences in biological pathways we already have between organisms, and how easy you're suggesting producing lethal toxins by chance is, why isn't the world already completely full of poisons? There's just as much reason for an alien organism to produce Sarin as there is for most plants to, given they don't utilise acetylcholinisterase; why hasn't your scenario already come to pass?

[Bill Phil]

How exactly do you intend to mine something with an escape velocity on the order of just a few meters per second? Any drill would fling off bits and pieces of your favorite moonlet into an escape trajectory. Not only is it difficult to capture, you're also creating some dangerous Kessler bomb around your primary (i.e. Mars in this case).

Drills are not practical in space. At least on very low gravity objects.

First off, why would you assume we would use a drill? There's laser cutters now, although they have a big power requirement, but it's not impossible (in theory). Considering that there's a lot of empty space that we can put solar arrays at...

Or we could use shovel-esque devices. Then you use various methods of seperating materials.

The space shovels would need to be hard enough, and I don't know how hard Phobos or Deimos is. Probably not very, considering they have little gravity.

[Vanamonde]

No need to turn the thread into an argument, folks. Please take a moment to cool your tempers.

[Bill Phil]

No need to turn the thread into an argument, folks. Please take a moment to cool your tempers.

How'd you pick that up?

[Nuke]

the best reason to colonize the moon is to use it as a shipyard. use as much local material as possible for industry and import only what you need from earth. construct spacecraft, engines, rovers, prefab bases for other colonies, possibly semiconductors. fuel is something we know we can produce locally, eventually moving into nuclear fuels for ntrs and power reactors for nuclear electric and for colony/station power.

this would allow rapid expansion into the rest of the solar system. its better to launch multiple colonies in parallel so that nearby colonies can help each other in an emergency, rather than send help from earth and be too late (for example a colony at ceres may be able to evacuate to mars colony to avoid an asteroid impact). you also set things up for inter-colony trade so that colonies need not rely so much on earth to supplement their resource needs.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Nuke

[Kaos]

Yes there are lots of resources on planets, and yes artificial gravity works on planets(ex. centrifuges). I don't have any idea what you are talking about extracting materials from atmospheres, are you imagining something cloud city like? It would be quite easy to obtain and build with materials in an orbital colony if there are reasonable asteroids around, so you could for example build a colony in the asteroid belt. If you wanted to build around mars, the mass of Phobos is 1.0659×10¹⁶ kg or 10,659,000,000,000 tons (I think that's right), Not going to be exhausting that any time soon are we? Assuming a standard colony of 32 megatons with a population of 3,600 (built in highfrontier, works fine), you could build 333,093 colonies with a total population of 1,199,137,500 people!!!!!!!. And that's not even taking into account Deimos. Then think of how many asteroids there are in the asteroid belt.

Then it is only a naming difference: When you build a colony in Phobos or an asteroid, then I would not call it orbital colony, because its on a celestial body. But I see, that this can be seen different. I was only arguing against colonies that are build into nowhere with the need to get the ressources from somewhere else or even the earth to build it.