[samstave]

The year is 2051, SpaceX has made significant progress on building out infrastructure on mars. In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. Starting with the seed efforts on earth, robotic rockets have been flowing to Mars in droves. The exceptional thing is how they have delivered the infrastructure to the planet once there.

These rockets are far superior to their ancestors. With orbital factories around earth, and regular deliveries of colonization supplies, the network is vast, complex and efficient.

Starting with battery manufacturing on earth, all the colonization components required of earth are delivered to the orbital factories where humans and robots work in a beautiful synchronized effort to prepare each packet to Mars. Batteries and other components are delivered to orbit. They are then constructed into the various machines to be delivered to mars on the massive Falcon-33s that will haul them to Mars.

The autonomous Tesla Landers are quite complex, they have impressive batteries, but its their job which is more impressive.

Once orbiting Mars, the payload shall be unpacked and deployed to the surface, where they will continue the construction of the massive solar arrays which already have a large contingent of batteries to slurp up the solar energy and store it for all the other needs of the build-out.

The project has been going on for decades, but we are starting to see some serious results in this phase...

The original idea was laughed at, but it was all backed by sound science and a simple phased approach:

* Develop seed infra at home; Batteries, rockets, robots

* Consumerize these to fund later phases

* Proof-out orbital autonomous delivery services via the ISS

* Commoditize space tourism, popularize it with celebrities

* Exploratory missions to Mars

* Develop orbital manufacturing capabilities, where supplies can be delivered autonomously

* Build Ultra-heavies in orbit, modularly to avoid launch costs from surface (required tethering technology to be developed)

* Deploy communication relay probes between spatial bodies

* Deliver initial robots to surface of Mars, they prep for solar install

* initial solar install to feed robot population already on surface

* Add batteries

* further infrastructure to follow, but with a working autonomous robot service group ready to build out

We are now at the deployed battery stage, the Organization is now preparing the life support systems for long-term human colonization, and within the next 25 years, we will have a permanent Human Civilization2 on the planet Mars... perhaps, Again?

[olivermarks]

aah, there's nothing like utopian geek idealism...

[Eerie]

Much better than the hollow cynicism of your post, though...

[olivermarks]

"In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. " - you have to admit that is pretty funny...

[Arizhel]

Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really useful for mining or offworld/low-g manufacturing, and it's close enough for quick trips back to Earth.

Venus is far too hot to be useful for anything besides dirigible cities, and what are you going to do there except sightsee the yellow clouds? Maybe it could be terraformed to something livable, but that would take a long time. If that could be done though, it'd be a great place, since it's close to Earth's size and gravity.

Mercury is too close to the Sun and too hot. You could put a city on the dark side, but the city would have to move constantly to stay on the dark side.

The asteroid belt might be useful for mining, as would other places farther beyond, but anything that far out is going to be very cold, because it's so far from the Sun. Also, the Moons of Jupiter are bombarded with massive amounts of radiation from their planet. And all those places have horribly low gravity too, which probably won't work well with human biology, unless perhaps we genetically engineer ourselves to fix that.

Space exploration is great for science and maybe resource extraction, but I just don't see the point of colonization except for a couple of somewhat-convenient places, at least not in this star system. I really can't imagine an "empire" across this solar system. Now it would be really cool if we could explore the TRAPPIST system and maybe find livable worlds there.

[robbiep]

Why leave town? why jump on a ship and sail to unknown horizons? why get out of bed in the morning? Some people like the idea of adventure and the unknown. Practical realities be damned

[samstave]

TBH, I really really admire those ancestors of our past who jump a ship and sail into the unknown. That takes serious balls.

If you meditate on this you will see that the amount of gumption doing this, especially when info was not so easily begot and Safeway didnt exist... jesus - humanity was REALLY tenacious in the past. So, if given the opportunity to go on a craft to mars with even a single digit % survival probability - I would do it, if anything just to honor those who have done the same in the past...

[Arizhel]

That's nice, but no one can afford to go establish a colony in orbit around Saturn by themselves; that money has to come from somewhere, and it's a huge amount. That means you need to justify that expenditure of resources, and get other people to fund it. Personally, I'm not willing to work my ass off to spend a bunch of my money funding such a project. An automated probe, sure; a mission to investigate the potential for asteroid mining, sure; a Moon base, maybe. Some silly project with nothing going for it besides a few people who want me to fund their fantasy? And they want me to work hard here so they can have fun with no practical benefit? Hell no.

Even with your "jump on a ship" bit, European exploration of the "New World" was very expensive and required investment from wealthy patrons. It wasn't something a small group of adventurers could just do on their own.

[nickjarboe]

Political freedom has often been the primary motivation for groups of people to emigrate. Hypothetical sea-steading aside, moving somewhere with no existing political system in place is not possible on Earth. Wealthy patrons might sponsor the pioneers. This was how much of early New England was settled by Europeans.

[Arizhel]

Yeah, but the problem here is that it seems unlikely that it'll be affordable to set up a self-sustaining colony any time in the foreseeable future without the resources of a large nation-state. And again, remember my previous post is talking about (and questioning the idea of) colonizing places other than Mars and the Moon (see the line about "except for a couple of somewhat-convenient places"), which are certainly the two easiest places in the solar system to colonize. I see I've been downvoted by some jerk, but of course no one can come up with a logical response to my question; how typical. So again, why would anyone bother colonizing one of these places (again, *other than Moon or Mars)? If you have that much money, and want to set up a self-sustaining colony and those two worlds aren't available for some reason, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just build an independent space station? Then you could just stick it in Solar orbit not too far from Earth, or at a Lagrangian point, so you're not too far from or too near to the Sun, you're close enough to Earth for resupply in case that becomes necessary, you're close enough to Earth/Moon to take advantage of and participate in any space-based industrial activity there, and there's effectively unlimited space for space stations.

[cat199]

you hollow cynic!