The moon doesn't actually require human colonization.A robotic mining station could be placed in orbit on the dark side of the moon and resupplied and controlled via the ISS with occasional visits by maintenance crews.
It really makes you think, with so many of the millennial generation being so aggressively against meritocracy a saying like that is lost nowadays. If he were to say that publicly as a politician he'd be instantly branded as being a white supremacist.
In my opinion, the moon. The benefits of having a stable, close-by, low (but not zero) gravity shipyard/forge-world to further expand into the solar-system is too much to be ignored.
@Cognitive Ape Don't forget that for construction and metalwork, an absence of atmosphere is a benefit rather than a hindrance. Welding, forging and casting are all much improved by being done in a vacuum. Not to mention it's easier to insulate materials when there's no convection. The moon screams "Industrial hub" to me.
@@PwntifexMaximus yeah 1/6 gravity and no Atmosfer you can haul 20 Times or more Cargo with the same fuel to the mars or earth. Just like Cargo ship then unloaded it to reusable Rocket in LEO to take it to earth. Probably built in cargo with re entry capabilities is a waste of scarce and pricey moon resource. So only wasting fuel from earth is better option
The signal delay factor, by itself, is honestly enough of a reason for me to say go Moon first. That, and I’d really love to see Heinlein’s lunar society be realized.
I'm glad you addressed the "we need to use the moon as a testbed for mars" argument first. I find that argument really frustrating to address because you can't flat out say "you're wrong" since there's plenty to learn, but the two places are SO different that, like you said, you're better off just prepping at a simulation site here on Earth than putting all that money and resources into prepping on the moon. But of course, if you jump into thread where someone's saying this, it doesn't matter that that's true because "but I'm not wrong!" And it's like, exhausting because I mean come on - let's go to the moon because we WANT TO GO TO THE MOON, not as an overly expensive jumping off point for going to Mars. And if we want to go to Mars then let's just go to goddamn Mars, not drag our feet doubling our budget with a moon testbed that doesn't even tell you everything you need to know...
moon first seems safer, as you can trial some of the tech an long term space habitation outside the earth's magnetic field and such, without being too far from the Earth.
@@carlosandleon close enough for only about a second and a half of communications lag and able to have replacement parts delivered if something unexpected breaks.
@@carlosandleon The Moon is pretty close on a scale of the entire solar system. While the Moon has a semi major axis of around 384,000km, thats still way easier than Mars. The Moon doesnt require Hohmann interplanetary transfers, and we don't need to wait 2 years and 2 months for another transfer window.
You can't trial anything Mars specific, like the in situ fuel manufacturing plants that will depend on Martian atmosphere. And you can't test how well equipment holds up against Martian dust storms. The stuff you can test on the Moon, you can test without going to the moon even more easily. Honestly, I think the Moon is super over rated as a stepping stone. It's a dead, airless rock.
In short, if you want cloud cities on Venus, a terraformed Mars, O'Neil cylinders at all the Lagrange points. It's best to get industry and transportation hub on the moon first.
When it comes to the moon, there seems to be so many other things it can be useful for other than mars colonization. Being a popular tourist destination, scientific hub, and general industrial center will give a moon base several reasons to be done first. Although everyone gets hyped about landing on another planet since it's something we've never done before, I still think spending some time developing waysides will go a long way to help further space development.
Political factors must also be taken into consideration. Somewhat paradoxically, Mars first may be more likely to produce a permanent presence on the moon than moon first would, because Mars may have a better chance of holding the public interest. A second visit to the moon could end up the same way our first visit did. We go there a few times, until the public is no longer interested in funding it.
On the other hand. The boring delay in updates due to Mars launch windows, travel time, cost. If we just want an ISS environment on the Moon, yes it will get boring quick. If we want an ISS environment on Mars it will get boring quick. The ISS is good for microgravity research. However it is not catching asteroids and building space vehicles to bootstrap further and greater numbers of people in space.
Who pays attention to Antarctica? Yet there are thousands of people living their year round. And the ISS is still up there. Once you've been to Mars, anyway, what's the point of going back? :p
You could make the same argument about Mars as well. I say the moon because we have been there already and it's easier to deal with due to its close proximity.
The Moon is easier to resupply and it's more tangible in the human experience. Most people don't know where Mars is in the sky but they definitely know where the Moon is.
Typo in the CC/transcript at 16:47. Reads "easily able to trade back and forth, or come to each other's ais, does seem a better" Should read "easily able to trade back and forth, or come to each other's aid, does seem a better"
Has any study been made on utilising regolith? Conceivably a few spadesful of it in a 60 tonne press could fabricate stable bricks. Without wind & weather on the moon, combined with low gravity, we could build some awesome structures with less energy than 3D printing. One small brick for man. One giant condo for mankind.
yep quite a few. they've looked into making cement & earthbag construction too. regardless of the celestial body that's likely to be a pretty common approach to base building, at least anywhere that radiation & micrometiorites are a concern.
Yeah there has been some suggestions on it but probably not near enough in the practical outlooks one of the problems is just how deep the regolith can extend
NASA has pretty reliably come to the conclusion that mining the Moon is equivalent to sending a much larger mission to the Moon. The main problem is that it's lacking in e.g. hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, so is better suited to a mining colony to support other efforts, than as a primary colony site. Attention naturally then drifts to where the primary colony site would be, and never drifts back to how to optimize the trip to the primary colony site.
Other research has shown that regolith contains nano particle iron and aluminum. Making a brick form and puting it in the microwave can melt the nanoparticles and form bricks. They have thought of small road grading rovers that would first level the regolith and then with a wide towed microwave emitter melt a dust free path. Also using such paving tech for 3d printing structures for habitation. Lots of great tech already theorized and some tested. Just need to get there to implement it.
It's such a shame that Isaac Arthur doesn't have over 1 million subs. This is the most fantastic, most thought-provoking science channel on youtube. But due to the dreaded algorithm, and vids over 10 mins long. It's not the case!
The risk of failure can never be eliminated, just reduced and reduced at greater and greater cost. Some of this is cultural. Given a task at the ISS, the American way is to anticipate every possible failure mode and to rehearse the heck out of everthing, until it is rote. The Russian is to practice some, but go in with a flexible mental attitude and wing it a bit if needed. Both have their pluses and minuses. However, the way NASA is and its culture, they are penalized for failure by the public more than they are praised for success. So the tendency is to *avoid failing* - which is not the same as succeeding.
It's pretty cool how you put the title and upload date of the video in the intro of the video. Metadata gets lost across archival efforts (UA-cam won't be able to sustain the storage needs for long) so embedding it in the video is a great idea.
Imagine dumping all of your effort into the Red God only for a competing power to snowball into a bigger space power because of Moon's lower gravity and take it from you.
That only goes for the ease of launching things, Mars has other advantages, such as more real estate, less temperature differences, easier access to water, some shielding by the atmosphere. The biggest advantage for the moon is simply its proximity to earth, which allows for faster and much cheaper transport to and from those bases.
@@rey_nemaattori : It's also easier to launch from the Moon, or even just to take long-distance trips across the Moon. Also, the proximity makes any early robotic missions easier to oversee, and the lower launch cost also reduces the landing cost. It's not a perfect Mars-killer, but it's a good stepping stone to one.
@@3gunslingers I mean you can, (compare them in terms of difficulty) . There's a reason Apollo chose the moon instead of Mars. Mars is harder, like a lot harder! If it weren't, we could have sent Apollo 18 there.
@@3gunslingers in the time it takes to establish a permanent moon base, technology will advance, allowing for better or more convenient travel to Mars. While the specific challenges of life on Mars will differ from the challenges of life on the Moon, some will be similar to learn from and the challenge of getting there will be developed further as well.
I think that establishing a moon base will require a compelling reason that exists independently of being an intermediate step to Mars, i.e. mining. If the infrastructure for sustaining the lunar base can be established, then they can build upon that for launching missions to Mars. Failing that, it makes more sense just to work on sending colonists to Mars without going to the moon first.
My preferred location is called *”Any Damn Place Beyond Low Earth Orbit As Long As We Actually Go Somewhere Instead Of Fracking Around In Committee Meetings and Giving Billions To Lazy Vendors Who Spend Decades Doing Nothing”* That means: 1) subsequent White House administrations must maintain previous admin’s overall goals 2) the mission must be goal-driven, not vendor-driven or senator-driven 3) a minimum of Pork - useless, look-busy make-work Pork.
Number 1 especially. This wish-wash BS of shifting priorities needs to stop. Without a long-term, politically neutral focus, we may as well sit our butts on Earth and wait patiently for the next asteroid to wipe us out.
This is why we now have a lot of private companies involved in Aerospace. SpaceX is pushing technological advances faster than ever. This will force other companies to innovate or go out of business. Historically, there are two reasons for rapid tech advancements. War and money. As soon as there is money to be made, new and better ships will be built. If we have the ability to go to asteroids, people will go. It's our nature. We can't rely on governments to advance aerospace. I think mining will be a big reason to go to space. Just like the Alaska, Canadian, and California gold rushes.
@@TexanUSMC8089 I believe Isaac have mentioned space mining in another video and got to the conclusion that there's little reason to mine in space and use it on Earth. The fuel to go back and forth will be prohibitively expensive, especially because the value of mining is in large quantity of raw materials which means large amount of mass (i.e. the worst thing to do a safe, controlled landing for). So it's reasonable to assume that monetary incentive to mine will only exist when we already have to utilize the raw material in space (e.g. moon base). So I actually lean towards governments and/or non profit ventures to establish space colonies first, as there's little immediate monetary incentive for commercial entities to do so. Which is similar to how commercial entities like SpaceX have worked anyways. It's governments (primarily NASA) establishing the base technology and economical benefits to orbital exploitation first (e.g. communication satellites); which then enabled commercial entities to join in and make further innovations after there's immediate profit to be made. If NASA didn't start it out, companies like SpaceX would have very little reason to develop their technology.
12:42 One of Bungie’s first computer games was a game called Marathon, in which they converted Phobos and Deimos into huge resupply ships, and eventually colony ships. So Bungie did it first, I guess?
A moon base may not be a great analogue for a Mars base, but I imagine it'd make a superb one for a Phobos base, from which help could be sent to Mars if needed.
I wouldn't say so. Phobos has no gravity, like almost none at all. Jumping is enough to reach escape velocity. It will be incredibly challenging to settle because of this. Phobos to me is more valuable as a testing range for colonizing the Asteroid Belt
Greatest advantage for Moon first: Moon is also in handy reach to build stuff for Earth orbit outside of a gravity well. A Mars base may be interesting for science, a Moon base can easily become an industrial asset for Earth's economy. If you manage to build your satellites for Earth orbit on the Moon, you save enormous amounts of fuel by not having to bring them up the gravity well. If you ever plan to complete a ring around Earth, the sheer amount of material needed means building a moon station, with a decent industrial output, first is the logical way.
The smart thing would be to make a new big spinning station at LEO and then go to the Moon and Mars from there. Skipping that step just adds to the complexity of any mission, you need to refuel in orbit anyway so why not add a training area there, maybe some construction too just to see if we can do that.
Emphasis on spinning. Personally, I think having an environment with a level of gravity natural for humans would be a huge advantage for any venture. It would make transitioning people from Earth to space environments a lot easier than the current standard of in the ISS involving extensive physical exercise, which even then still leads to a messy period of adjustment after returning to a gravity environment. It would also help ensure our space craft or infrastructure is large enough to avoid the tin-can environments of our current crop of space tech, which should lessen the mental load on astronauts, at least a little.
I think we should develop the Moon so we can refine some sort of fuel there. That way we can refuel ships without the need to haul all of the fuel out of the Earth's gravity well. That would help reduce the cost of Mars missions. On the other hand, I don't think we need to wait for the Moon industry to be fully developed before we start working on a Mars base. I think we could start developing industry on the Moon and then start the early setup on Mars while the Moon base is just starting to spin up fuel production.
Honestly, the best choice is to go to the Moon to mine first, and use _materials_ mined there for everything else. The environment should be close enough to that of Deimos, Phobos, and any asteroids to be a decent testing ground, it's close enough that most or all of the testing could be done remotely but semi-live, and in case of success the material mined in the process would likely be easier to use in bulk amounts for various non-Lunar missions than material obtained from the Earth, including if we wanted to make a spin-gravity habitat. What the Moon should _not_ be is a major habitat colony, because there's not a lot of benefit for that. Better to leave it as a mining colony.
I feel there are more types of concerns like you have two air pumps for a base, it can run on either for awhile, but its meant to use both. One of them fails, oh well, you go grab the spare... but the spare unit doesn't work either. Now, you have one unit running, and it wont last way too long, so you want a fast resupply of backup parts. If there's anything you learn looking at factory incidents and stuff on earth, it's that backups are NEVER as reliable as you'd think. They fail, they weren't there in the first place, someone doesn't use it right since it wasn't a normally touched item, or it broke but no one realized since its not looked at often enough, or the generator just doesn't spin since it sat stationary in one spot for too long without being spun. Stuff happens, stuff fails, but backups can't be counted on, and if you lose your mechanical systems for air, water filtration, converters for the solar panels into usable power, or anything else... so many of these are things you might survive for a week or two without but not a few months. Air, just don't excercise, and go to sleep for a couple days, you won't use up the air in a decently sized room that quickly. And if only one scrubber is left then you still have some just not enough for ideally clean perpetually. Ok for a week or so if you just gret minor headaches, but a few months of that and it could get worse. Power converter fails, you have the batteries already in the grid, shut down non essentials and wait out the few days for the freshly tested replacement parts, on mars, you need to fix that more complex part in situ, or you're probably freezing and dying within a week. In general, there are LOTS of things that you can help with a few days time, yet not with a few months. And more importantly for me, its closer to earth so we can help improve local Earth infrastructure with the moon base, where as a Mars base is basically a money sink for a long time to come. The best way to really make space travel and stations and stuff spring up is for everyone to want one, that happens when there's cheaper build options around Earth where there's money to be made. That local investment in resources and money for space travel and isolated living systems and stuff will in many cases apply to the moon as well as Mars, and if one gets a ton more funding early on it helps the overall development speed up for everything after it. Imagine you're setting up a mine, you have five spots available with resource deposits, one is near by, easily accessible, and has decent resources, others have similar resources for the most part, though a few better or worse, but they are in general much smaller or further out from local infrastructure. Obviously you build your mine at the closest deposit that's good, because that's the best investment. You make good money there on output, and the costs to set up are the cheapest and its the lowest risk of them all, the same goes for space. A company wont invest much into something with low or limited return over a long timescale and large distance, as opposed to over a shorter timescale and a very near distance, especially when that more local investment will have vastly greater returns in most situations within the next hundred years.
You misunderstand the reasons why these islands were colonised, they weren’t ‘stepping stones’. The Spanish didn’t know America existed. We know Mars and the Moon exist.
@@s4098429 practically, the effects would be the same, the Portuguese colonized many spaces first to act as ports and shit too. Besides, the Moon is stills easier and more usefull
@@s4098429 No, but on his first voyage Columbus stopped at the Canary Islands to refit his ships - the _Pinta_ needed a new rudder and the _Niña_ needed her sails re-configured. He also stopped in the Azores to repair his remaining two ships after a storm on the way back to Europe (his flagship was wrecked in the New World and scrapped for timber). Having intermediate stops on the five- or six-week crossing between Spain and the West Indies, with the infrastructure needed to deal with unforeseen setbacks, definitely improved the probability of success. Bermuda wasn't discovered until 1500, but it would later serve the same purpose as a rest stop for Atlantic crossings. The main thing I was referring to, though, is the fact that Spain and Portugal used the Canaries and Azores (respectively) to work out best practices for navigation, logistics, and colonization. Sailing down the west coast of Africa towards the equator had served the same purpose. Columbus was already following a checklist for what to do when he encountered the natives, how to make charts, how to keep track of his latitude, and so on. I'm not a historian of this particular period, but I wouldn't be surprised if the small taste they got of trans-Atlantic discovery from these islands was what made them try for a sea route to China in the first place.
The moon is our gateway to the heavens and beyond. All of the myths, if you use modern understanding. Pointing to the moon being nearly vital to interplanetary travel.
@@VAL9THOU i'm a believer of the ancient alien hypothesis because the ancient people are describing scenes they should have had no concept of. The aliens left to let us develop without further interference.
@@josephlawson1796 i think you're underestimating ancient humans imagination. What kind of things did they describe that they shouldn't have been able to?
@@VAL9THOU a nuke in the sky shot out of a flying ship. A magic bow and arrow shot from a burning flying chariot. Yes the Hindu scriptures do describe radiation poisoning symptoms, all of them.
@@josephlawson1796 i don't see why they couldn't have known or imagined all of those without alien intervention. You can watch Isaac's video on ancient aliens, he argues it better than I can. But honestly i think that evidence is pretty flimsy
Isaac: Aldrin Cycler Me: Aldrin Cycler Isaac: Is a Me: Is a Isaac: Ferry-craft Me: Ferry-craft Isaac: Aldrin Cycler is a ferry-craft Me: Aldrin Cycler is a fairy-craft
You could probably estimate that by comparing the insurance rates over time. Lloyd's of London was the go-to insurer for English merchant shipping from the late 17th century - not sure about the other nations.
@@CountArtha You'll need to go back much further than the 17th century though. The Mediterranean is big and surprisingly dangerous. However, I won't entirely rule out the ancient Roman empire having sailing ship insurers who could be looked up
Hey, I love these near term episodes, greatly done! I was wondering: Isn't the option that gets us out there fastest the best? So, how about an updated "What are the current missing steps to the solar system" episode? :) I know, you did one on the 25 steps to space (forgot the name), but that is an ordering of steps, not a list of missing steps
Unless there is something very compelling about Venus's location in space or some resource to be extracted, it is hard to imagine a compelling reason for humans to settle there.
There are lots of resources to be extracted. Even wind and atmospheric-thermal induction with lowering down sky tethers from space and Venus may well become our solar systems largest graphene factory. But personally not a fan of anyone suggesting “blimps…”. cause the safe altitude for those blimp floaty ideas also happens to be Venus’s 300kph jetstream and alot can go terribly wrong.
A most comprehensive and thoughtful video on the debate Isaac. I myself am also in agreement with you over preferring the moon first, but progress anywhere is welcome.
Functionally speaking I’d lean towards space habitats first. More involved initially but then leaves us with a point to operate from while building both of those up.
I'm Moon first, because I don't consider habitat stations viable if we launch raw materials from Earth. We need an easier launch source, and the Moon is the most available of those alternate sources.
Isaac, have you ever considered putting these fascinating videos into a series of books? Your channel is great, and I would love a version that I could read (and read to my son) as well.
I think the distance factor will decide it. Plus, a presence on the moon has clear military applications, whereas Mars is more of a prestige project - basically what the moon was in the 60s.
My 2¢: focus on a station at Earth's L2, anything else is short term in comparison. At some point, we as a species need to plan beyond what's possible with current tech. Everything else should be considered 'temporary'.
I would always say Moon first because we need dry runs to test Mars features on short trips before taking the journey. There will always be unknown knowns that will come up at the worst time. I would be very uneasy sending anyone on a maiden flight to Mars with unproven technology. Food and water contamination from dust would be a real problem. Apollo 17 had so much dust on them, it was all over the interior of the LEM. They could smell it weeks after returning to Earth.
Since we don't know what minimal G is required for long term human health, we really don't know if we are going to have to spin bases on .37G Mars. The missing step was to contruct a spinning habitat at the ISS. We have been fiddling around in LEO for decades, yet failed to set a more complete groundwork there necessary for building habitats for long-term human occupation. And where are the concepts and plans for precursory surveying and fabricating robots for the Moon? The more I think about things, the more I think that we will end up needing to spin habitats on the Moon or limit humans' stays there. If we also have to spin habitats on Mars, then we are just building O'Neill's on the Moon and Mars which begs the question ... why bother? The concentrated resources in shallow gravity wells and with low-delta v access are found upon the Asteroids.
Why? I think the amount of resources and elemental protection is the same no matter where someone is. If there's a catastrophic failure, people will die. Self rescue first, last, and backup plan.
@@MayhemKeys Self-rescue is best, but we want to be able to have the option of sending a craft if that isn't possible. The moon is ~240,000 miles away, and takes a couple days to get to. If the people on the moon have 2 weeks of emergency air/water/etc, we CAN get there in time. Not so with Mars.
I suspect the Mars missions will be proceed by large robotic missions to set up infrastructure for a permanent habitable base. The distances involved suggest that the prudent course would be to send large reserves of not just food but of duplicate shelter .
Asteroids first, NEO asteroids to be more precise (because of the lower deltaV than the moon or Mars, and shorter transit times at least than on the Mars travel ) , so Eros first?
@@rexmann1984 you are mistaken, that was last year on Bennu, a 500 meters diameter asteroid but on more than 6 km radius asteroid with a similar density as earth you have one miliG of acceleration, that means that if you drop a thing you could literally see falling with 1 cm/s square acceleration, and the probe that landed on Eros wasn't designed to do that or take sample, but that happened more than 20 years ago so maybe your not old enough to remember, ua-cam.com/video/mQHfGP5kpr8/v-deo.html
I've been taking it for granted that the moon is a better first site, but Isaac did a nice job of showing that is not necessarily the case. I guess in order to answer the question, "Which site is better?", we must first answer the question, "What are we trying to accomplish?". Well done.
From a PR standpoint ("no Buck Rogers, no bucks"), Mars wins handily, by virtue of the fact the Moon has already been reached. From a financial standpoint, a Near-Earth asteroid makes the most sense, given that they are a source of raw materials that would probably offset some portion of the mission's cost. The Jovian moons are another candidate that makes more sense than the Moon. My own chief argument against returning to the Moon is the concern that a lunar base might end up being a resource (time, money, &c.) sink that will make it easy to defer a mission to Mars or anywhere else because it has eaten the available budget appropriation.
Uhhhh you are ignoring how orbital mechanics function. Near Earth asteroids pass by anywhere from decades between transfer windows to months or years. They aren't very viable. Secondly as much as I would like a mission to Jupiter its not happening right now. Jupiter has less transfer windows with Earth and Mars firstly, and while exploring Europa, Callisto, Ganymede and Io would be amazing, we need to get our foot in the door if space exploration first.
If done sanely, the Moon is a resource source rather than sink in very short order. The only compelling reason to colonize the Moon first is as a mining colony, because it's the easiest of the convenient places to launch materials from (Earth is more convenient, but also harder to launch from; various asteroids & other moons are easier, but less convenient). The main struggle will thus be to fight against the science-first and comfort-first crowds, in favor of industry-first.
@@absalomdraconis Having your facilities free-floating in cislunar space makes even more sense than locating them at the bottom of a gravity well. An industrial facility in a high orbit will also be available to process resources from a variety of sources, rather than be limited to those extracted from the local environment (be that Mars, the Moon, or elsewhere). If the only compelling reason to colonize the Moon is as a mining colony, then such a colony should be as fully automated as possible, given its mission of resource extraction and subsequent transfer of those resources to an off-world orbital processing facility. The only human presence required should be dedicated to filling the gaps not adequately filled by automation.
@@radtech497 Free floating industrial base makes industry harder not easier. A little gravity is very helpful as is no atmosphere. The moon is almost and idea industrial spot.
There's 2 reasons why I think the Moon is a better start. 1. We've been there before. Anything in space is a challenge, but getting people to the Moon is no longer breaking new ground, and thus we've already completed the first few critical steps towards setting up long term colonization as it is. It would arguably be easier to go back there now with all of the technological developments that had occurred since the end of the Apollo Program too. Setting up long term habitats is going to be a massive endeavor from both a technological and logistical standpoint, and choosing the rock that doesn't require people to go where no man has ever gone before thus stands as the best starting point. 2. Because of the Moon's proximity, it's possible to engage in smaller scale trips. Unless we figure out FTL travel or have streamlined space travel to such a degree it's as ordinary as trips on a plane on Earth (which by that point, we would have a colony on both Moon and Mars anyways), it's simply going to take a lot longer to get to Mars and the amount of risks that come with it increase as a result. Every rocket sent to Mars for colonization efforts is going to be packed with as much as possible to maximize the returns on the trip, and that's going to create a lot of hassle and logistical issues. Meanwhile the Moon is only a few days away which should thus allow for flights over to be initiated faster and for them to be less critical. If we do have colonies on both the Moon and Mars, it's very possible that frivolities like furniture and artwork and snacks and game consoles could be shipped over every so often to the Moon where as with Mars, rockets are likely going to be strictly business so to say. Now while it may seem odd to send such trivialities to space at all, the crux of this debate really comes down to showing that space travel is a viable option for mankind in the near future, and having luxuries in colonies would go a lot farther in showing how well we've mastered the art of setting up shop on other worlds than if everything was strictly utilitarian and scientific. It would also help with the psychology of the astronauts. Furthermore, it's not just sending things over but sending things back. Imagine how valuable the first ever painting made on the Moon would be, or a small sculpture made from a Moon rock. From an economic perspective, being able to make some returns on the costs by selling priceless artwork not from Earth would do any company well, and it would again further establish the fact we've mastered colonization as it would be at the point where rather than just raw survival, we're now creating cultural outputs from the Moon. With this, I think space travel in general will end up becoming a more welcomed notion to a lot of people who might otherwise be ambivalent over the idea and would open the doors to longer, more difficult endeavors like colonizing Mars and eventually artificial habitats like O'Neil cylinders.
Both, do both... All those Starships waiting for the next Mars launch window could be used to ship metric shitloads of crap to the moon. Use a few HLS Starships to build landing pads so Mars Starships can land and watch that Moonbase go!
In the Mars Direct plan, it is intended to send along seeds and 26 MONTHS of extra dried food, so if needed, they can survive until the next Hohmann orbit can resupply them. Mars Direct has backups on top of backups. If the extra food is not used, it is left for other teams which will land within rover range of the first base. Warm regards, Rick.
The moon is the first step. It's damn expensive to ship heavy colony and spacecraft parts into orbit. Colonization becomes feasible if launch costs are cut and manufacturing is done in space already.
If I had to choose, it'd definitely be Mars. Its greater distance can actually be an advantage, if the goal is making a human frontier. That being said, I think space habitats are going to be the real (main) frontier, and we could conceivably get one even if no one ever lands on either the Moon or Mars. Their role as inspirational destinations is clearly working. Also: 1. An Aldrin cycler will have to change its orbit a lot, every flight, because of the orbits of Earth and Mars (particularly Mars' eccentricity). This means repurposing an asteroid, which would make if a lot more massive, would make it much more expensive in rocket power. Not that the cycler is a bad idea per se. 2. The moons of Jupiter (and the main asteroid belt) aren't reachable by humans with spacecraft built on Earth. The Moon, Mars, and near-Earth objects will be within reach for a generation first. 3. I don't see anyone paying for the development of carbon dioxide nuclear thermal ramjet SSTO spaceplanes-awesome as that would be-in order to reach an environment whose physical resources are limited to carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and trace amounts of sulphuric acid, anytime soon. "Venus first" is silly.
My issue with the moon is that whatever disaster might befall Earth is pretty much surely going to affect the Moon as well. Mars could be a little safer, even if it's a nightmarish proposition compared to our satellite given the silicate dust, distance from us and atmosphere.
I think this question will be no more, if the SLS is not speeding up a bit. At some point in time the development of modern space ships will make it possible to send several vessels to different locations. I believe that space opens up like air travel.
If humanity would get together instead of constantly competing (and yes, I know competition has its benefits if it doesn't get out of hand) I don't see why both approaches couldn't be tried.
16:33 Speaking as an amateur astronomer, this view of Jupiter and it's four major moons is impossible in real life. Io, Europa and Ganymede are on resonnant orbits that forbid all three being on the same side of the planet at the same time.
visual depictions of most bodies in the solar system are necessarily inaccurate in some way or other, sometimes because depicting two things at accurate distance from each other and keeping them both on a 1920x1080 screen would leave one or both of them at sub-pixel sizes. that said, it's interesting to know the reason it's inaccurate even though I accept that inaccuracies are necessary to make images of space compatible with my primate brain.
The bottom line of any long term space presence is economics. Spending billions of dollars to get three people to the Moon is not economically sustainable. We have to develop a space economy that supports such activity. Right now, demand and supply reaches an equilibrium point in the service of near Earth satellites. As launch costs drop, the potentiality is there to develop Moon products that have a economic return. It seems less likely in the near term Mars can have an economic rationale for investment. The Moon has raw materials that can be used to build near Earth structures for tourism and space ferries. Once a thriving Earth / Moon economy is developed a Earth / Mars economic entanglement becomes possible.
Not just fuel. If we can start producing metals on the moon, we use them to build the hulls of actual spaceships, ones never intended to land on a planet. Even if we need to ship up the computers and some other components, being able to source the hulls and fuel on the moon means not having to bring them out of Earth's gravity well. Once we have those big ships, we can go to Mars, or to Venus, or anywhere else, eventually.
Except that it takes more fuel to stop at the Moon, and go on to Mars than it would to go directly to Mars (not counting the fuel taken on at the moon). So it makes no sense.
@@CorwynGC it's not just the fuel, it's the metal for the ships hulls. Mining those on the Moon (or a NEA) and then making fuel on the moon will provide your savings.
@@stefanb6539 It's actually way more complicated than a station. If you want a cloud city on Venus, you're better off just making a LVO space station - it would do exactly the same things but with way less effort
I think the order of space colonization should go something like this - Moon - Space Cities - Mars - Asteroid Belt - Venus - Mercury - Sun (for its energy and not really colonization) - Jovian System - Saturnian System - Uranian System - Neptunian System - Kuiper Belt - Nearby Stars - Building Megastructures (we need these because going to other stars will still take years with their technology) - The Rest of the Galaxy - Beyond That’s it I guess
If we settle the Moon first, then it will be for the sake of industry, so it may _delay_ Mars a little bit, but the resulting missions to Mars will be _much larger,_ and will similarly grow _faster_ than they otherwise would. The Moon is honestly a lousy colony site, but it is a _great_ place to get the bulk materials required for space ships and stations.
@@absalomdraconis Thats the hope anyways. I honestly would like to see them both happen but a martian settlement not hinged or delayed whatsoever by the moon. We’ve already twiddled our thumbs for far too long with the moon as is.
Nazis use the same logic 😅 "stop talking about it online and do something" but just like political advancements technological advancements are easier said than done and likely will be done through nothing but sheer time unless it's an authoritarian government that can just demand these advancements
@@godlikemachine645 like if you spend any time around modern NS communities you'll hear some guy complain about how all we do is talk about stuff and we never do anything and it's just not that simple to just "do"
Maybe there could be an "Autumn on Earth" episode discussing the removal of excess greenhouse gases and the recovery of Earth's ecosystems in the near-to-mid term.
That's a mid-to-long term thing, _not_ near term. There is no credible method of doing that stuff that makes a sustainable improvement in the next century, and possibly the next 5. Reject idealism, embrace reservoir populations.
While much of this is agreeable in principal what kind of factories would you make on Mars? The gravity thin atmosphere and pesky global dust storms make it much worse for industrial applications compared to our moon.
@@Dragrath1 One plus side of mars for factories is if you have any industry that releases a lot of CO2. On the Mars you won't have political or economical penalties for doing that as your benefitting the terraforming. Though I'm not sure how much of a plus side that is, as the only thing that jumps to my mind is that would be good for the coal industry.. But I have my doubts about Mars being coal powered.
For a fusion economy, Saturn and Uranus seem like good colonization options to me, due to low gravity (for mining the planet for helium) and multiple moons without too much radiation threat.
Good points! The moon is only a few days away instead of 2 years away so in case of emergency, replacement, or re-supply, we can send another ship quicker. It also results in quicker iterations so we can learn, adapt, and improve faster on the moon. However, with larger ships like Starship, we can send hundreds of tons of supplies in advance so it helps mitigate some of the risks if we go to Mars before long.
Moon is a much better choice than Mars. It spares us from having to endure the whines and complaints from settlers about their 4th world problems.
LOL
Lmao
They can fling rocks out of a massdriver at earth though ...
HA!
The moon doesn't actually require human colonization.A robotic mining station could be placed in orbit on the dark side of the moon and resupplied and controlled via the ISS with occasional visits by maintenance crews.
"Success requires no excuses; failure tolerates none."
Nice saying Isaac!
Success based on other's suffering sure does.
@@brll5733 True that, Brother.
Sucess has a thousand parents, failure is an orphan.
It really makes you think, with so many of the millennial generation being so aggressively against meritocracy a saying like that is lost nowadays.
If he were to say that publicly as a politician he'd be instantly branded as being a white supremacist.
It's a variation on a quote by Author Napoleon Hill "Success requires no apologies. Failure permits no alibis". Although I do prefer Isaac's version.
In my opinion, the moon. The benefits of having a stable, close-by, low (but not zero) gravity shipyard/forge-world to further expand into the solar-system is too much to be ignored.
@Cognitive Ape
Don't forget that for construction and metalwork, an absence of atmosphere is a benefit rather than a hindrance. Welding, forging and casting are all much improved by being done in a vacuum. Not to mention it's easier to insulate materials when there's no convection. The moon screams "Industrial hub" to me.
Georgie how'd the Moon by 2020 go?
The moon's gravity is low enough for a working space elevator.
@@PwntifexMaximus yeah 1/6 gravity and no Atmosfer you can haul 20 Times or more Cargo with the same fuel to the mars or earth. Just like Cargo ship then unloaded it to reusable Rocket in LEO to take it to earth. Probably built in cargo with re entry capabilities is a waste of scarce and pricey moon resource. So only wasting fuel from earth is better option
@@matta5498 This is so true, It'll enable easy travel to and from space without the need for landing capable vehicles.
The signal delay factor, by itself, is honestly enough of a reason for me to say go Moon first. That, and I’d really love to see Heinlein’s lunar society be realized.
I'm glad you addressed the "we need to use the moon as a testbed for mars" argument first. I find that argument really frustrating to address because you can't flat out say "you're wrong" since there's plenty to learn, but the two places are SO different that, like you said, you're better off just prepping at a simulation site here on Earth than putting all that money and resources into prepping on the moon. But of course, if you jump into thread where someone's saying this, it doesn't matter that that's true because "but I'm not wrong!" And it's like, exhausting because I mean come on - let's go to the moon because we WANT TO GO TO THE MOON, not as an overly expensive jumping off point for going to Mars. And if we want to go to Mars then let's just go to goddamn Mars, not drag our feet doubling our budget with a moon testbed that doesn't even tell you everything you need to know...
"We can learn from moon for mars" is technically correct. Which famously is the best kind of correct.
moon first seems safer, as you can trial some of the tech an long term space habitation outside the earth's magnetic field and such, without being too far from the Earth.
"without being too far" bruh you know how far the moon is?
@@carlosandleon close enough for only about a second and a half of communications lag and able to have replacement parts delivered if something unexpected breaks.
@@carlosandleon The Moon is pretty close on a scale of the entire solar system.
While the Moon has a semi major axis of around 384,000km, thats still way easier than Mars. The Moon doesnt require Hohmann interplanetary transfers, and we don't need to wait 2 years and 2 months for another transfer window.
@@carlosandleon About 1000 times closer than mars. 238k miles versus 233 Million miles.
You can't trial anything Mars specific, like the in situ fuel manufacturing plants that will depend on Martian atmosphere. And you can't test how well equipment holds up against Martian dust storms. The stuff you can test on the Moon, you can test without going to the moon even more easily. Honestly, I think the Moon is super over rated as a stepping stone. It's a dead, airless rock.
Autumn on Mercury: What will happen to Mercury's colonists when it gets disassembled to make the Dyson sphere?
They get to live in oneil cylinders.
They'll know once the genengineered dolphins up and start flying away, so they should have warning.
Is it destined to be swallowed by the Sun, or can we move ir from it's orbit and make a new Jovian Moon? Next week on SFIA
They get moved into low end mass housing in an oneil cylinder.
@@iainballas engineered space dolphins are scientifically possible
There is nothing the mind cannot achieve :)
The average "mars first" fan vs the average "moon first" enjoyer.
God dammit why has this meme hit this channel
Vs "venus first" phylosipher
Vs Jovian moon prophet
Vs thicc purple Titan man
Phobos and deimos enthusiast
In short, if you want cloud cities on Venus, a terraformed Mars, O'Neil cylinders at all the Lagrange points. It's best to get industry and transportation hub on the moon first.
We should have been doing the moon since the 70's.
@@crp9985 We wasted plenty on far far far less important things.
But we barely know her!
Doin' your moon, doin' doin' your moon!
And vertical landing or rockets was demonstrated in the 1990s.
@@henrytjernlund source?
When it comes to the moon, there seems to be so many other things it can be useful for other than mars colonization. Being a popular tourist destination, scientific hub, and general industrial center will give a moon base several reasons to be done first. Although everyone gets hyped about landing on another planet since it's something we've never done before, I still think spending some time developing waysides will go a long way to help further space development.
"Autumn on Ganymede" is of course a soundtrack from one of the episodes of "Cowboy Bebop".
Political factors must also be taken into consideration. Somewhat paradoxically, Mars first may be more likely to produce a permanent presence on the moon than moon first would, because Mars may have a better chance of holding the public interest.
A second visit to the moon could end up the same way our first visit did. We go there a few times, until the public is no longer interested in funding it.
On the other hand. The boring delay in updates due to Mars launch windows, travel time, cost.
If we just want an ISS environment on the Moon, yes it will get boring quick. If we want an ISS environment on Mars it will get boring quick.
The ISS is good for microgravity research. However it is not catching asteroids and building space vehicles to bootstrap further and greater numbers of people in space.
Who pays attention to Antarctica? Yet there are thousands of people living their year round.
And the ISS is still up there.
Once you've been to Mars, anyway, what's the point of going back? :p
You could make the same argument about Mars as well. I say the moon because we have been there already and it's easier to deal with due to its close proximity.
The Moon is easier to resupply and it's more tangible in the human experience. Most people don't know where Mars is in the sky but they definitely know where the Moon is.
Typo in the CC/transcript at 16:47.
Reads "easily able to trade back and forth, or come to each other's ais, does seem a better"
Should read "easily able to trade back and forth, or come to each other's aid, does seem a better"
"success requires no excuses, failure tolerates none." That's deep
40k iirc
Edit: Also Arthur Napoleon or smt
It's not deep its humane nature.
I'm with you, I don't care which comes first, as long as we get there. Great episode, thanks !
Has any study been made on utilising regolith? Conceivably a few spadesful of it in a 60 tonne press could fabricate stable bricks.
Without wind & weather on the moon, combined with low gravity, we could build some awesome structures with less energy than 3D printing. One small brick for man. One giant condo for mankind.
yep quite a few. they've looked into making cement & earthbag construction too. regardless of the celestial body that's likely to be a pretty common approach to base building, at least anywhere that radiation & micrometiorites are a concern.
There has been a lot of work done on figuring out how to use it as a material as well as how to turn it into a soil for growing plants
Yeah there has been some suggestions on it but probably not near enough in the practical outlooks one of the problems is just how deep the regolith can extend
NASA has pretty reliably come to the conclusion that mining the Moon is equivalent to sending a much larger mission to the Moon. The main problem is that it's lacking in e.g. hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, so is better suited to a mining colony to support other efforts, than as a primary colony site. Attention naturally then drifts to where the primary colony site would be, and never drifts back to how to optimize the trip to the primary colony site.
Other research has shown that regolith contains nano particle iron and aluminum. Making a brick form and puting it in the microwave can melt the nanoparticles and form bricks.
They have thought of small road grading rovers that would first level the regolith and then with a wide towed microwave emitter melt a dust free path. Also using such paving tech for 3d printing structures for habitation. Lots of great tech already theorized and some tested. Just need to get there to implement it.
"Let's celebrate our 300 episodes landmark. By destroying earth." -Isaac Arthur or something.
Arthur’s evil AI will complete its take over of the UA-cam.
"Didn't I promise you fireworks?" Will Smith as Captain Steven „Steve“ Hiller in Independence Day (1996)
Autumn on Earth
It's such a shame that Isaac Arthur doesn't have over 1 million subs.
This is the most fantastic, most thought-provoking science channel on youtube. But due to the dreaded algorithm, and vids over 10 mins long. It's not the case!
17:37 - WAIT ... There are (delta-v)closer asteroids than the moon??? - That's awesome. I want to learn more.
I do think that the US space program is so allergic to risk that it carries out "preparation procrastination".
analysis paralysis
They don't have enough funding to afford failed moon missions
@@ThomasBomb45 : Shoot, they sometimes don't have the funding for successful ones.
The risk of failure can never be eliminated, just reduced and reduced at greater and greater cost.
Some of this is cultural. Given a task at the ISS, the American way is to anticipate every possible failure mode and to rehearse the heck out of everthing, until it is rote.
The Russian is to practice some, but go in with a flexible mental attitude and wing it a bit if needed. Both have their pluses and minuses. However, the way NASA is and its culture, they are penalized for failure by the public more than they are praised for success. So the tendency is to *avoid failing* - which is not the same as succeeding.
Fun fact: During the Apollo programme era, NASA had about 4% of the US budget. Nowadays, it has less than 0.5%.
Before I even watch the episode, put me down as a MOON MAN. You got that, moon, moon, moon.
6:11 "success requires no excuses, failure tolerates none" I love that one :).
It's pretty cool how you put the title and upload date of the video in the intro of the video. Metadata gets lost across archival efforts (UA-cam won't be able to sustain the storage needs for long) so embedding it in the video is a great idea.
I used to love mars but thanks to Isaac Arthur i now lust for full planetary smelt
Same. The idea of off-earth factory is so fascinating
Imagine dumping all of your effort into the Red God only for a competing power to snowball into a bigger space power because of Moon's lower gravity and take it from you.
That only goes for the ease of launching things, Mars has other advantages, such as more real estate, less temperature differences, easier access to water, some shielding by the atmosphere. The biggest advantage for the moon is simply its proximity to earth, which allows for faster and much cheaper transport to and from those bases.
@@rey_nemaattori : It's also easier to launch from the Moon, or even just to take long-distance trips across the Moon. Also, the proximity makes any early robotic missions easier to oversee, and the lower launch cost also reduces the landing cost.
It's not a perfect Mars-killer, but it's a good stepping stone to one.
I haven't watched this yet, but I'm going with definitely "the moon" for sure. Walk before you can run.
It's more like swimming vs running. You can't really compare it.
@@3gunslingers I mean you can, (compare them in terms of difficulty) . There's a reason Apollo chose the moon instead of Mars. Mars is harder, like a lot harder! If it weren't, we could have sent Apollo 18 there.
@@3gunslingers in the time it takes to establish a permanent moon base, technology will advance, allowing for better or more convenient travel to Mars. While the specific challenges of life on Mars will differ from the challenges of life on the Moon, some will be similar to learn from and the challenge of getting there will be developed further as well.
I think that establishing a moon base will require a compelling reason that exists independently of being an intermediate step to Mars, i.e. mining. If the infrastructure for sustaining the lunar base can be established, then they can build upon that for launching missions to Mars.
Failing that, it makes more sense just to work on sending colonists to Mars without going to the moon first.
Me to moon just makes more sense
I've done elliptical orbit to my fridge - tv back to fridge base alpha
My preferred location is called *”Any Damn Place Beyond Low Earth Orbit As Long As We Actually Go Somewhere Instead Of Fracking Around In Committee Meetings and Giving Billions To Lazy Vendors Who Spend Decades Doing Nothing”*
That means:
1) subsequent White House administrations must maintain previous admin’s overall goals
2) the mission must be goal-driven, not vendor-driven or senator-driven
3) a minimum of Pork - useless, look-busy make-work Pork.
Number 1 especially. This wish-wash BS of shifting priorities needs to stop. Without a long-term, politically neutral focus, we may as well sit our butts on Earth and wait patiently for the next asteroid to wipe us out.
Maybe give the space programs a set budget with which they can do whatever they want?
This is why we now have a lot of private companies involved in Aerospace. SpaceX is pushing technological advances faster than ever. This will force other companies to innovate or go out of business. Historically, there are two reasons for rapid tech advancements. War and money. As soon as there is money to be made, new and better ships will be built. If we have the ability to go to asteroids, people will go. It's our nature. We can't rely on governments to advance aerospace. I think mining will be a big reason to go to space. Just like the Alaska, Canadian, and California gold rushes.
@@TexanUSMC8089 I believe Isaac have mentioned space mining in another video and got to the conclusion that there's little reason to mine in space and use it on Earth. The fuel to go back and forth will be prohibitively expensive, especially because the value of mining is in large quantity of raw materials which means large amount of mass (i.e. the worst thing to do a safe, controlled landing for).
So it's reasonable to assume that monetary incentive to mine will only exist when we already have to utilize the raw material in space (e.g. moon base). So I actually lean towards governments and/or non profit ventures to establish space colonies first, as there's little immediate monetary incentive for commercial entities to do so.
Which is similar to how commercial entities like SpaceX have worked anyways. It's governments (primarily NASA) establishing the base technology and economical benefits to orbital exploitation first (e.g. communication satellites); which then enabled commercial entities to join in and make further innovations after there's immediate profit to be made. If NASA didn't start it out, companies like SpaceX would have very little reason to develop their technology.
@@10gamer64 Fun fact: During the Apollo programme era, NASA had about 4% of the US budget. Nowadays, it has less than 0.5%.
12:42
One of Bungie’s first computer games was a game called Marathon, in which they converted Phobos and Deimos into huge resupply ships, and eventually colony ships. So Bungie did it first, I guess?
I’m so glad someone else knows about marathon. I’m obsessed with that series.
A moon base may not be a great analogue for a Mars base, but I imagine it'd make a superb one for a Phobos base, from which help could be sent to Mars if needed.
I wouldn't say so. Phobos has no gravity, like almost none at all. Jumping is enough to reach escape velocity. It will be incredibly challenging to settle because of this.
Phobos to me is more valuable as a testing range for colonizing the Asteroid Belt
No helicopter has ever flown on the moon. I say "Get to the choppers!" :-D
air's too thin for that
No helicopter ever will...
A drone has been flown on Mars.
Peace
Greatest advantage for Moon first: Moon is also in handy reach to build stuff for Earth orbit outside of a gravity well. A Mars base may be interesting for science, a Moon base can easily become an industrial asset for Earth's economy. If you manage to build your satellites for Earth orbit on the Moon, you save enormous amounts of fuel by not having to bring them up the gravity well.
If you ever plan to complete a ring around Earth, the sheer amount of material needed means building a moon station, with a decent industrial output, first is the logical way.
The smart thing would be to make a new big spinning station at LEO and then go to the Moon and Mars from there. Skipping that step just adds to the complexity of any mission, you need to refuel in orbit anyway so why not add a training area there, maybe some construction too just to see if we can do that.
Emphasis on spinning. Personally, I think having an environment with a level of gravity natural for humans would be a huge advantage for any venture. It would make transitioning people from Earth to space environments a lot easier than the current standard of in the ISS involving extensive physical exercise, which even then still leads to a messy period of adjustment after returning to a gravity environment. It would also help ensure our space craft or infrastructure is large enough to avoid the tin-can environments of our current crop of space tech, which should lessen the mental load on astronauts, at least a little.
I think we should develop the Moon so we can refine some sort of fuel there. That way we can refuel ships without the need to haul all of the fuel out of the Earth's gravity well. That would help reduce the cost of Mars missions.
On the other hand, I don't think we need to wait for the Moon industry to be fully developed before we start working on a Mars base. I think we could start developing industry on the Moon and then start the early setup on Mars while the Moon base is just starting to spin up fuel production.
@@atk05003 It's easier to get fuel from Phobos and Deimos than it is the Moon.
Honestly, the best choice is to go to the Moon to mine first, and use _materials_ mined there for everything else. The environment should be close enough to that of Deimos, Phobos, and any asteroids to be a decent testing ground, it's close enough that most or all of the testing could be done remotely but semi-live, and in case of success the material mined in the process would likely be easier to use in bulk amounts for various non-Lunar missions than material obtained from the Earth, including if we wanted to make a spin-gravity habitat.
What the Moon should _not_ be is a major habitat colony, because there's not a lot of benefit for that. Better to leave it as a mining colony.
Would a spinning space station be more usable in low Earth orbit, or Lunar orbit?
Grabbing a drink and a snack!
I may or may not have grabbed a cheeseburger.
@@gigastrike2 no, you both did and did not.
A drink and a snack procured!
In an unrelated point, I vote moon first, since the gravity is lower.
I feel there are more types of concerns like you have two air pumps for a base, it can run on either for awhile, but its meant to use both. One of them fails, oh well, you go grab the spare... but the spare unit doesn't work either. Now, you have one unit running, and it wont last way too long, so you want a fast resupply of backup parts.
If there's anything you learn looking at factory incidents and stuff on earth, it's that backups are NEVER as reliable as you'd think. They fail, they weren't there in the first place, someone doesn't use it right since it wasn't a normally touched item, or it broke but no one realized since its not looked at often enough, or the generator just doesn't spin since it sat stationary in one spot for too long without being spun. Stuff happens, stuff fails, but backups can't be counted on, and if you lose your mechanical systems for air, water filtration, converters for the solar panels into usable power, or anything else... so many of these are things you might survive for a week or two without but not a few months. Air, just don't excercise, and go to sleep for a couple days, you won't use up the air in a decently sized room that quickly. And if only one scrubber is left then you still have some just not enough for ideally clean perpetually. Ok for a week or so if you just gret minor headaches, but a few months of that and it could get worse.
Power converter fails, you have the batteries already in the grid, shut down non essentials and wait out the few days for the freshly tested replacement parts, on mars, you need to fix that more complex part in situ, or you're probably freezing and dying within a week.
In general, there are LOTS of things that you can help with a few days time, yet not with a few months. And more importantly for me, its closer to earth so we can help improve local Earth infrastructure with the moon base, where as a Mars base is basically a money sink for a long time to come. The best way to really make space travel and stations and stuff spring up is for everyone to want one, that happens when there's cheaper build options around Earth where there's money to be made. That local investment in resources and money for space travel and isolated living systems and stuff will in many cases apply to the moon as well as Mars, and if one gets a ton more funding early on it helps the overall development speed up for everything after it.
Imagine you're setting up a mine, you have five spots available with resource deposits, one is near by, easily accessible, and has decent resources, others have similar resources for the most part, though a few better or worse, but they are in general much smaller or further out from local infrastructure. Obviously you build your mine at the closest deposit that's good, because that's the best investment. You make good money there on output, and the costs to set up are the cheapest and its the lowest risk of them all, the same goes for space. A company wont invest much into something with low or limited return over a long timescale and large distance, as opposed to over a shorter timescale and a very near distance, especially when that more local investment will have vastly greater returns in most situations within the next hundred years.
The Moon makes more sense, for the same reasons the Spanish colonized the Canary Islands and Cape Verde before they attempted to cross the Atlantic.
You misunderstand the reasons why these islands were colonised, they weren’t ‘stepping stones’. The Spanish didn’t know America existed.
We know Mars and the Moon exist.
@@s4098429 practically, the effects would be the same, the Portuguese colonized many spaces first to act as ports and shit too.
Besides, the Moon is stills easier and more usefull
@@s4098429 No, but on his first voyage Columbus stopped at the Canary Islands to refit his ships - the _Pinta_ needed a new rudder and the _Niña_ needed her sails re-configured. He also stopped in the Azores to repair his remaining two ships after a storm on the way back to Europe (his flagship was wrecked in the New World and scrapped for timber). Having intermediate stops on the five- or six-week crossing between Spain and the West Indies, with the infrastructure needed to deal with unforeseen setbacks, definitely improved the probability of success. Bermuda wasn't discovered until 1500, but it would later serve the same purpose as a rest stop for Atlantic crossings.
The main thing I was referring to, though, is the fact that Spain and Portugal used the Canaries and Azores (respectively) to work out best practices for navigation, logistics, and colonization. Sailing down the west coast of Africa towards the equator had served the same purpose. Columbus was already following a checklist for what to do when he encountered the natives, how to make charts, how to keep track of his latitude, and so on. I'm not a historian of this particular period, but I wouldn't be surprised if the small taste they got of trans-Atlantic discovery from these islands was what made them try for a sea route to China in the first place.
@@s4098429 Exactly what I was thinking. They thought they had discovered a new path to the indies.
The moon is our gateway to the heavens and beyond. All of the myths, if you use modern understanding. Pointing to the moon being nearly vital to interplanetary travel.
While I don't disagree, I don't think the people inventing these myths had any insight we don't have on the subject of space travel
@@VAL9THOU i'm a believer of the ancient alien hypothesis because the ancient people are describing scenes they should have had no concept of. The aliens left to let us develop without further interference.
@@josephlawson1796 i think you're underestimating ancient humans imagination. What kind of things did they describe that they shouldn't have been able to?
@@VAL9THOU a nuke in the sky shot out of a flying ship. A magic bow and arrow shot from a burning flying chariot. Yes the Hindu scriptures do describe radiation poisoning symptoms, all of them.
@@josephlawson1796 i don't see why they couldn't have known or imagined all of those without alien intervention. You can watch Isaac's video on ancient aliens, he argues it better than I can. But honestly i think that evidence is pretty flimsy
Isaac: Aldrin Cycler
Me: Aldrin Cycler
Isaac: Is a
Me: Is a
Isaac: Ferry-craft
Me: Ferry-craft
Isaac: Aldrin Cycler is a ferry-craft
Me: Aldrin Cycler is a fairy-craft
Agreed, sooner rather than later. What was the failure rate of the early sailing merchant enterprises on the oceans?
You could probably estimate that by comparing the insurance rates over time. Lloyd's of London was the go-to insurer for English merchant shipping from the late 17th century - not sure about the other nations.
@@CountArtha You'll need to go back much further than the 17th century though. The Mediterranean is big and surprisingly dangerous. However, I won't entirely rule out the ancient Roman empire having sailing ship insurers who could be looked up
Spain also had a strong naval presence.
One would argue that humanity can now really afford to start colonizing both (all 3, 4 or 10) potential sites at the same time.
Hey, I love these near term episodes, greatly done!
I was wondering: Isn't the option that gets us out there fastest the best? So, how about an updated "What are the current missing steps to the solar system" episode? :)
I know, you did one on the 25 steps to space (forgot the name), but that is an ordering of steps, not a list of missing steps
Hell... just mentioning Asteroids First gets you an instant like!
Unless there is something very compelling about Venus's location in space or some resource to be extracted, it is hard to imagine a compelling reason for humans to settle there.
Lots of Nitrogen
There are lots of resources to be extracted. Even wind and atmospheric-thermal induction with lowering down sky tethers from space and Venus may well become our solar systems largest graphene factory.
But personally not a fan of anyone suggesting “blimps…”. cause the safe altitude for those blimp floaty ideas also happens to be Venus’s 300kph jetstream and alot can go terribly wrong.
@@MarsStarcruiser : Ironically, I'm a fan of the blimps idea, because I can't imagine very much going _right_ if you go any lower.
@@antiboyscout Oh yes, nitrogen to pack Lays :D
The trouble with Venus, even 50km up, is there's no resources to be able to live off the land
My own feeling is we should do a LOT more robotic missions to all destinations before further human missions.
No politician would back that
Is it possible to make an episode on the book "All Tomorrows"?
That and/or Man After Man.
Yes please
23:38 - Centuries later, they're STILL fighting over this, and it's about to go kinetic.
6:51 "I don't like Lunar regolith. It's weathered, and sharp, and it clings to everything."
A most comprehensive and thoughtful video on the debate Isaac.
I myself am also in agreement with you over preferring the moon first, but progress anywhere is welcome.
Functionally speaking I’d lean towards space habitats first. More involved initially but then leaves us with a point to operate from while building both of those up.
I'm Moon first, because I don't consider habitat stations viable if we launch raw materials from Earth. We need an easier launch source, and the Moon is the most available of those alternate sources.
"Hey Boo-Boo! This guy says there's no space bears. Let's develop a space program and go steal us some picinic baskets!"
"I dunno Yogi. What about Buzz Lightyear and the other space rangers?"
Isaac, have you ever considered putting these fascinating videos into a series of books? Your channel is great, and I would love a version that I could read (and read to my son) as well.
I think the distance factor will decide it. Plus, a presence on the moon has clear military applications, whereas Mars is more of a prestige project - basically what the moon was in the 60s.
My 2¢: focus on a station at Earth's L2, anything else is short term in comparison.
At some point, we as a species need to plan beyond what's possible with current tech. Everything else should be considered 'temporary'.
Wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that it doesn't matter much what comes first, as long as it happens and soon. :-)
"but odds are good something that destructive killed a couple people at least who now don't need food"
Issac always the optimist I love it.
I would always say Moon first because we need dry runs to test Mars features on short trips before taking the journey. There will always be unknown knowns that will come up at the worst time.
I would be very uneasy sending anyone on a maiden flight to Mars with unproven technology.
Food and water contamination from dust would be a real problem.
Apollo 17 had so much dust on them, it was all over the interior of the LEM.
They could smell it weeks after returning to Earth.
Since we don't know what minimal G is required for long term human health, we really don't know if we are going to have to spin bases on .37G Mars. The missing step was to contruct a spinning habitat at the ISS. We have been fiddling around in LEO for decades, yet failed to set a more complete groundwork there necessary for building habitats for long-term human occupation. And where are the concepts and plans for precursory surveying and fabricating robots for the Moon? The more I think about things, the more I think that we will end up needing to spin habitats on the Moon or limit humans' stays there. If we also have to spin habitats on Mars, then we are just building O'Neill's on the Moon and Mars which begs the question ... why bother? The concentrated resources in shallow gravity wells and with low-delta v access are found upon the Asteroids.
The moon being closer, means in an event of catastrophic failure, the amount of supplies needed to avoid death before rescue is far less.
Why? I think the amount of resources and elemental protection is the same no matter where someone is. If there's a catastrophic failure, people will die. Self rescue first, last, and backup plan.
@@MayhemKeys Self-rescue is best, but we want to be able to have the option of sending a craft if that isn't possible. The moon is ~240,000 miles away, and takes a couple days to get to. If the people on the moon have 2 weeks of emergency air/water/etc, we CAN get there in time. Not so with Mars.
I suspect the Mars missions will be proceed by large robotic missions to set up infrastructure for a permanent habitable base. The distances involved suggest that the prudent course would be to send large reserves of not just food but of duplicate shelter .
Asteroids first, NEO asteroids to be more precise (because of the lower deltaV than the moon or Mars, and shorter transit times at least than on the Mars travel ) , so Eros first?
A lack of gravity is as much of a pain as too much gravity. With something like that you're docking with it not landing on it.
@@rexmann1984 Eros have some gravity, enough to land on it, how the first probe that visited a asteroid prove it.
@@theOrionsarms if I'm not mistaken it basically bounced off of it after picking up it's sample.
@@rexmann1984 you are mistaken, that was last year on Bennu, a 500 meters diameter asteroid but on more than 6 km radius asteroid with a similar density as earth you have one miliG of acceleration, that means that if you drop a thing you could literally see falling with 1 cm/s square acceleration, and the probe that landed on Eros wasn't designed to do that or take sample, but that happened more than 20 years ago so maybe your not old enough to remember, ua-cam.com/video/mQHfGP5kpr8/v-deo.html
@@theOrionsarms oh, i was in the middle of a war back then. 😁
An Issac Aurthur video on something that I might actually live long enough to see? Sweet.
The SFIA equivalent of best waifu discussion? LMAO
Luna-chan is best girl.
The Gas Giant Girls are better !
Please no
@@lordhefman
Sailor Mars > Sailor Moon :p
(really? my reply got removed? I thought it wasn't that bad.... :( oh well)
I've been taking it for granted that the moon is a better first site, but Isaac did a nice job of showing that is not necessarily the case. I guess in order to answer the question, "Which site is better?", we must first answer the question, "What are we trying to accomplish?". Well done.
From a PR standpoint ("no Buck Rogers, no bucks"), Mars wins handily, by virtue of the fact the Moon has already been reached. From a financial standpoint, a Near-Earth asteroid makes the most sense, given that they are a source of raw materials that would probably offset some portion of the mission's cost. The Jovian moons are another candidate that makes more sense than the Moon. My own chief argument against returning to the Moon is the concern that a lunar base might end up being a resource (time, money, &c.) sink that will make it easy to defer a mission to Mars or anywhere else because it has eaten the available budget appropriation.
If you're going to mine asteroids the moon make a very handy processing point.
Uhhhh you are ignoring how orbital mechanics function. Near Earth asteroids pass by anywhere from decades between transfer windows to months or years. They aren't very viable.
Secondly as much as I would like a mission to Jupiter its not happening right now.
Jupiter has less transfer windows with Earth and Mars firstly, and while exploring Europa, Callisto, Ganymede and Io would be amazing, we need to get our foot in the door if space exploration first.
If done sanely, the Moon is a resource source rather than sink in very short order. The only compelling reason to colonize the Moon first is as a mining colony, because it's the easiest of the convenient places to launch materials from (Earth is more convenient, but also harder to launch from; various asteroids & other moons are easier, but less convenient). The main struggle will thus be to fight against the science-first and comfort-first crowds, in favor of industry-first.
@@absalomdraconis Having your facilities free-floating in cislunar space makes even more sense than locating them at the bottom of a gravity well. An industrial facility in a high orbit will also be available to process resources from a variety of sources, rather than be limited to those extracted from the local environment (be that Mars, the Moon, or elsewhere). If the only compelling reason to colonize the Moon is as a mining colony, then such a colony should be as fully automated as possible, given its mission of resource extraction and subsequent transfer of those resources to an off-world orbital processing facility. The only human presence required should be dedicated to filling the gaps not adequately filled by automation.
@@radtech497 Free floating industrial base makes industry harder not easier. A little gravity is very helpful as is no atmosphere. The moon is almost and idea industrial spot.
There's 2 reasons why I think the Moon is a better start.
1. We've been there before. Anything in space is a challenge, but getting people to the Moon is no longer breaking new ground, and thus we've already completed the first few critical steps towards setting up long term colonization as it is. It would arguably be easier to go back there now with all of the technological developments that had occurred since the end of the Apollo Program too. Setting up long term habitats is going to be a massive endeavor from both a technological and logistical standpoint, and choosing the rock that doesn't require people to go where no man has ever gone before thus stands as the best starting point.
2. Because of the Moon's proximity, it's possible to engage in smaller scale trips. Unless we figure out FTL travel or have streamlined space travel to such a degree it's as ordinary as trips on a plane on Earth (which by that point, we would have a colony on both Moon and Mars anyways), it's simply going to take a lot longer to get to Mars and the amount of risks that come with it increase as a result. Every rocket sent to Mars for colonization efforts is going to be packed with as much as possible to maximize the returns on the trip, and that's going to create a lot of hassle and logistical issues. Meanwhile the Moon is only a few days away which should thus allow for flights over to be initiated faster and for them to be less critical.
If we do have colonies on both the Moon and Mars, it's very possible that frivolities like furniture and artwork and snacks and game consoles could be shipped over every so often to the Moon where as with Mars, rockets are likely going to be strictly business so to say. Now while it may seem odd to send such trivialities to space at all, the crux of this debate really comes down to showing that space travel is a viable option for mankind in the near future, and having luxuries in colonies would go a lot farther in showing how well we've mastered the art of setting up shop on other worlds than if everything was strictly utilitarian and scientific. It would also help with the psychology of the astronauts.
Furthermore, it's not just sending things over but sending things back. Imagine how valuable the first ever painting made on the Moon would be, or a small sculpture made from a Moon rock. From an economic perspective, being able to make some returns on the costs by selling priceless artwork not from Earth would do any company well, and it would again further establish the fact we've mastered colonization as it would be at the point where rather than just raw survival, we're now creating cultural outputs from the Moon.
With this, I think space travel in general will end up becoming a more welcomed notion to a lot of people who might otherwise be ambivalent over the idea and would open the doors to longer, more difficult endeavors like colonizing Mars and eventually artificial habitats like O'Neil cylinders.
Both, do both... All those Starships waiting for the next Mars launch window could be used to ship metric shitloads of crap to the moon. Use a few HLS Starships to build landing pads so Mars Starships can land and watch that Moonbase go!
12:47 - If you're going to set up shop on Mars, why not colonize Mars moons too?
Venus: I don't want to catch a case of "the humans."
I mean earth is having fever right now.
Humans building a big mirror- “too bad”
Venus will get their chance soon enough😏
😂
Humans on Venus would be a blessing you misanthropic pos
That rocket taking off from the moon in the intro (especially the dirty exhaust) is what I imagine Morning-Light-Mountain's ships would look like.
In the Mars Direct plan, it is intended to send along seeds and 26 MONTHS of extra dried food, so if needed, they can survive until the next Hohmann orbit can resupply them. Mars Direct has backups on top of backups.
If the extra food is not used, it is left for other teams which will land within rover range of the first base.
Warm regards, Rick.
The moon is the first step. It's damn expensive to ship heavy colony and spacecraft parts into orbit. Colonization becomes feasible if launch costs are cut and manufacturing is done in space already.
I have to say some of this stock footage is hilarious for some reason.
If I had to choose, it'd definitely be Mars. Its greater distance can actually be an advantage, if the goal is making a human frontier. That being said, I think space habitats are going to be the real (main) frontier, and we could conceivably get one even if no one ever lands on either the Moon or Mars. Their role as inspirational destinations is clearly working.
Also:
1. An Aldrin cycler will have to change its orbit a lot, every flight, because of the orbits of Earth and Mars (particularly Mars' eccentricity). This means repurposing an asteroid, which would make if a lot more massive, would make it much more expensive in rocket power. Not that the cycler is a bad idea per se.
2. The moons of Jupiter (and the main asteroid belt) aren't reachable by humans with spacecraft built on Earth. The Moon, Mars, and near-Earth objects will be within reach for a generation first.
3. I don't see anyone paying for the development of carbon dioxide nuclear thermal ramjet SSTO spaceplanes-awesome as that would be-in order to reach an environment whose physical resources are limited to carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and trace amounts of sulphuric acid, anytime soon. "Venus first" is silly.
6:41 Sandworms, every non freman's worse nightmare.
The spice must flow.
Don't forget about that rover that was smashed by Decepticon.
My issue with the moon is that whatever disaster might befall Earth is pretty much surely going to affect the Moon as well. Mars could be a little safer, even if it's a nightmarish proposition compared to our satellite given the silicate dust, distance from us and atmosphere.
The second mission to Mars will be just to bury the settlers from the first mission.
What if they disappeared without trace? Roanoke-on-Mars.
@@scipioafricanus5871 haha yea I was gonna say "so basically like every first colony attempt then?"
I think this question will be no more, if the SLS is not speeding up a bit. At some point in time the development of modern space ships will make it possible to send several vessels to different locations. I believe that space opens up like air travel.
O`neil cylinder makes the most sense
Every Time I hear Oneal Cylinder I think of Col. O'neal of Stargate SG1
Drink? Grabbed. Snack? Acquired.
Ah yes. It is video time
...Is it too much to ask for both?
Deciding which destination to get to first doesnt exclude the other, unless its NASA I guess.
If humanity would get together instead of constantly competing (and yes, I know competition has its benefits if it doesn't get out of hand) I don't see why both approaches couldn't be tried.
"Bang! Zoom! Straight to the Moon Alice!"
- Ralph Kramden, 'The Honeymooners'
16:33 Speaking as an amateur astronomer, this view of Jupiter and it's four major moons is impossible in real life. Io, Europa and Ganymede are on resonnant orbits that forbid all three being on the same side of the planet at the same time.
visual depictions of most bodies in the solar system are necessarily inaccurate in some way or other, sometimes because depicting two things at accurate distance from each other and keeping them both on a 1920x1080 screen would leave one or both of them at sub-pixel sizes.
that said, it's interesting to know the reason it's inaccurate even though I accept that inaccuracies are necessary to make images of space compatible with my primate brain.
The bottom line of any long term space presence is economics. Spending billions of dollars to get three people to the Moon is not economically sustainable. We have to develop a space economy that supports such activity. Right now, demand and supply reaches an equilibrium point in the service of near Earth satellites. As launch costs drop, the potentiality is there to develop Moon products that have a economic return. It seems less likely in the near term Mars can have an economic rationale for investment. The Moon has raw materials that can be used to build near Earth structures for tourism and space ferries. Once a thriving Earth / Moon economy is developed a Earth / Mars economic entanglement becomes possible.
Moon, then use that to refuel before heading off to Mars.
@Shirley 🌹 Lee John Madden.
Not just fuel. If we can start producing metals on the moon, we use them to build the hulls of actual spaceships, ones never intended to land on a planet. Even if we need to ship up the computers and some other components, being able to source the hulls and fuel on the moon means not having to bring them out of Earth's gravity well. Once we have those big ships, we can go to Mars, or to Venus, or anywhere else, eventually.
Except that it takes more fuel to stop at the Moon, and go on to Mars than it would to go directly to Mars (not counting the fuel taken on at the moon). So it makes no sense.
@@CorwynGC it's not just the fuel, it's the metal for the ships hulls. Mining those on the Moon (or a NEA) and then making fuel on the moon will provide your savings.
@@jesseberg3271 Sure. But the OP was talking about fuel.
Glad I found your channel. As always good show sir.
The Asteroid first seems to be a nice option.
You can make the Asteroid a spaceship!
You also face the inconvenience of long and highly variable signal delays.
@@absalomdraconis true!
The Moon is probably the most practical first colony, and it could become sort of a truck stop for other destinations...
Great video!
All of this makes me wonder when, if ever, humans will go to Venus.
Probably not for awhile
Going to Venus would require a lot of terraforming unless you want to limit your habitats to a few cloud cities. Mars is a good place to start.
@@sanjivjhangiani3243 A cloud city is just another type of station. You wouldn't be able to live on Mars outside a station, either.
Only to steal some of their nitrogen and carbon atmosphere
@@stefanb6539 It's actually way more complicated than a station. If you want a cloud city on Venus, you're better off just making a LVO space station - it would do exactly the same things but with way less effort
I think the order of space colonization should go something like this
- Moon
- Space Cities
- Mars
- Asteroid Belt
- Venus
- Mercury
- Sun (for its energy and not really colonization)
- Jovian System
- Saturnian System
- Uranian System
- Neptunian System
- Kuiper Belt
- Nearby Stars
- Building Megastructures (we need these because going to other stars will still take years with their technology)
- The Rest of the Galaxy
- Beyond
That’s it I guess
I feel like the biggest reason to go to Mars first is that if we settle for the moon first, it will end up taking even longer before we go to Mars
Nah, Elon’s time line hasn’t changed(which still way (optimistic) and it sounds like he’ll work towards sending to Mars, with or without NASA.
If we settle the Moon first, then it will be for the sake of industry, so it may _delay_ Mars a little bit, but the resulting missions to Mars will be _much larger,_ and will similarly grow _faster_ than they otherwise would. The Moon is honestly a lousy colony site, but it is a _great_ place to get the bulk materials required for space ships and stations.
@@absalomdraconis Thats the hope anyways. I honestly would like to see them both happen but a martian settlement not hinged or delayed whatsoever by the moon. We’ve already twiddled our thumbs for far too long with the moon as is.
Also keep in mind that Martian dust contains perchlorate, which is INSANELY toxic.
One thing for sure, we're getting nowhere by only talking about it.
Nazis use the same logic 😅 "stop talking about it online and do something" but just like political advancements technological advancements are easier said than done and likely will be done through nothing but sheer time unless it's an authoritarian government that can just demand these advancements
@@enklaev1933 "Nazis use the same logic" wtf? Which Nazis???
@@godlikemachine645 like if you spend any time around modern NS communities you'll hear some guy complain about how all we do is talk about stuff and we never do anything and it's just not that simple to just "do"
@@enklaev1933 sorry bro, there aren't any Nazis here in America. Where do you live?
@@godlikemachine645 America and I disagree the majority of NS guys I meet are from america britain and australia maybe the netherlands
This is what we call a wider perspective
Great work Isaac
Keep it up
I'm here to back Venus
~Sanskar Tarte
Maybe there could be an "Autumn on Earth" episode discussing the removal of excess greenhouse gases and the recovery of Earth's ecosystems in the near-to-mid term.
That's a mid-to-long term thing, _not_ near term. There is no credible method of doing that stuff that makes a sustainable improvement in the next century, and possibly the next 5.
Reject idealism, embrace reservoir populations.
Ah so we should remove all water vapor from the atmosphere.
... my god you're stupid. And you have no idea what I'm talking about either.
1:35 The yellow ship looks like a cross between the Sajuuka and the Progenitor Dreadnaughts from Homeworld 2
Should be space station ,moonbase, asteroid belt, mars for giga press factory's, Venus second home.
While much of this is agreeable in principal what kind of factories would you make on Mars? The gravity thin atmosphere and pesky global dust storms make it much worse for industrial applications compared to our moon.
Factories in orbits to take advantage of fulltime and more efficient solar.
@@Dragrath1 One plus side of mars for factories is if you have any industry that releases a lot of CO2. On the Mars you won't have political or economical penalties for doing that as your benefitting the terraforming.
Though I'm not sure how much of a plus side that is, as the only thing that jumps to my mind is that would be good for the coal industry.. But I have my doubts about Mars being coal powered.
Venus is on an even shorter fuse than the earth my friend. I would go for a moonbase on Io or other gas giant moons.
It is amazing we are having this conversation to begin with....lets just take that in for a second.
For a fusion economy, Saturn and Uranus seem like good colonization options to me, due to low gravity (for mining the planet for helium) and multiple moons without too much radiation threat.
Lunar and Mars soil can be 'greased' in carbon and tumbled and rolled to eliminate the sharpness.
Interesting concept. Basically, lunar asphalt analogue?
Good points! The moon is only a few days away instead of 2 years away so in case of emergency, replacement, or re-supply, we can send another ship quicker. It also results in quicker iterations so we can learn, adapt, and improve faster on the moon. However, with larger ships like Starship, we can send hundreds of tons of supplies in advance so it helps mitigate some of the risks if we go to Mars before long.