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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   30046 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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I think these are all arguments to colonize the moon first as a trial run. The moon is much cheaper, much closer, and very easy to get back from if something goes wrong. The radiation from travel is comparatively minor, the travel time is much shorter, and you can bury yourself under the lunar regolith and chill without worrying about radiation overmuch. The moon has a lot of materials that can be used for spacecraft manufacturing, making the moon a natural hub for the production of spacecraft in low gravity. Over time this would reduce costs, likely even for placing Earth satellites (since it's cheaper to launch from the moon than the Earth).

I also question whether the Biosphere-type experiments are directly relevant to a space colony. A colony on Mars or even the moon won't be a sealed landscape even if it's not receiving meaningful resources from Earth. If the air starts to go bad in a biosphere, you're toast. If it starts to go bad on Mars, you can just...manufacture more air. The problem set of "sustaining life on Mars" is not exactly the same as the problem set of balancing an ecosystem in e.g. Biosphere 2. You can just manipulate the atmosphere however you desire it, and then grow food with an eye to "what do I need to eat" rather than "how will this balance the ecoystem." There are some pretty cool ideas for long-term terraforming but in my opinion if Mars can get a self-sufficient industrial stack, the biological stack will be doable. This isn't to say that either would be a trivial problem, just that "Biosphere 2" isn't the correct model for an initial space colonization effort.

In space, there is almost 0 monetary incentive for colonization. Satellites and telecommunications operate fine without any human astronauts, and even asteroid mining, which is a dubious economic proposition in the first place, doesn't really benefit from humans being in space

This isn't exactly true inasmuch as the closer you are, the less time-lag there is for robotic control. It's also probably true that at a certain point of industrial complexity, it's easier just to have a human in a space suit doing repairs than it is to have a robot to fix a robot to fix a robot that can fix the robot. And there are certain types of complex manufacturing (such as semiconductors) that might benefit from a space environment.

But you've forgotten the most persuasive reason to do space colonization, which is to move all gain of function research offworld and to a place we can easily glass without harming any civilians.

But you've forgotten the most persuasive reason to do space colonization, which is to move all gain of function research offworld and to a place we can easily glass without harming any civilians.

I like this reason. But it will become moot when the next super virus starts on the space station wet market, because a vendor was selling space raised pangolin meat.

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