If you want another word for that, go with "Continuous".
The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000. But it was not, in fact, expected by anyone to be a permanent station; It is made of non-replaceable parts that age and fail (decade scale), it only has very limited life support supplies on board (month scale).
You don't want to be there? Almost every other place on earth is better. So you send a skeleton crew along with what they need.
If it is to test an actual community living isolated, sure. But I think it'll always be different because you know that help is at most a few months away and probably a lot less. I don't think you can fake that, unless you're never told you're not alone
Are you talking a Mars or Antarctica settlement? ;)
(eg any place on Earth is infinitely better than any place on Mars, maybe a couple of scientists are ready to endure Mars for a couple of months at a time, but beyond that? It will be like living in a labour camp in (frozen) hell.
The point is that we don't have technology (or at least not proven) to make a habitat on earth that can reliably provide isolation from harsh atmosphere.
When you are sending people to space on an experimental rocket, with experimental supply for an experimental habitat, all of that shit better be engineered to a huge safety factor, because its not a matter of if things will go wrong, its how often will they go wrong and what the impact will be. To deal with that kind of unknown requires a level of technology that should make it possible to live in Antarctica for extended period of time without any external shipments coming in to resupply. That means heating, oxygen generation, food resources, air filtration, full medical bay capable of advanced surgery, and a bunch of other smaller things that all matter in the end.
Nobody’s tried because they are a short flight away from South America. No point. It’s cheaper and easier to fly it in.
There are skeptical arguments against Mars settlement but the Antarctica thing is kind of a weak one.
To point out one more problem with it: there’s legal and treaty restrictions in play for that continent. You can’t just go. That’s another limiting factor.
I'd keep the Moonraker film in mind as a metric for self sustaining colonies created by billionaires. They can't be trusted unless they are also working to fix what we already have.
Permanent means self sustaining. I.e biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere.
None of those are self sustaining.
> Permanent means self sustaining. I.e biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere.
According to whom exactly? For me, permanent means "permanently without breaks".
If you want another word for that, go with "Continuous".
The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2, 2000. But it was not, in fact, expected by anyone to be a permanent station; It is made of non-replaceable parts that age and fail (decade scale), it only has very limited life support supplies on board (month scale).
1 reply →
Why on earth (pun intended), would you want that?
You don't want to be there? Almost every other place on earth is better. So you send a skeleton crew along with what they need.
If it is to test an actual community living isolated, sure. But I think it'll always be different because you know that help is at most a few months away and probably a lot less. I don't think you can fake that, unless you're never told you're not alone
Are you talking a Mars or Antarctica settlement? ;)
(eg any place on Earth is infinitely better than any place on Mars, maybe a couple of scientists are ready to endure Mars for a couple of months at a time, but beyond that? It will be like living in a labour camp in (frozen) hell.
The point is that we don't have technology (or at least not proven) to make a habitat on earth that can reliably provide isolation from harsh atmosphere.
When you are sending people to space on an experimental rocket, with experimental supply for an experimental habitat, all of that shit better be engineered to a huge safety factor, because its not a matter of if things will go wrong, its how often will they go wrong and what the impact will be. To deal with that kind of unknown requires a level of technology that should make it possible to live in Antarctica for extended period of time without any external shipments coming in to resupply. That means heating, oxygen generation, food resources, air filtration, full medical bay capable of advanced surgery, and a bunch of other smaller things that all matter in the end.
3 replies →
> Permanent means self sustaining.
No it doesn't. "Permanent settlement" just means it's not temporary, only intended for a short-term mission.
Nobody’s tried because they are a short flight away from South America. No point. It’s cheaper and easier to fly it in.
There are skeptical arguments against Mars settlement but the Antarctica thing is kind of a weak one.
To point out one more problem with it: there’s legal and treaty restrictions in play for that continent. You can’t just go. That’s another limiting factor.
You can try the same thing in Greenland or far north of Canada. But nobody does that either, because there is no reason to do so.
However put a reason to go to Mars, i.e. alien shipwreck and there is going to be multiple cities within end of the decade.
There's an argument that Earth, as a biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere, also isn't self sustaining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day
I'd keep the Moonraker film in mind as a metric for self sustaining colonies created by billionaires. They can't be trusted unless they are also working to fix what we already have.
America still isn’t self sustaining and it’s been hundreds of years.
And the planet is dying
1 reply →