In my personal opinion the difference between an outpost, a settlement and a colony is as follows: An outpost is a “transient” location. You live there for work (such as scientific research) for some arbitrary length of time. When your duties are done, you return home. A settlement is a place that you relocate to. You don’t intend to return to where you came from other than for brief visits. However, all (or almost all) of its inhabitants moved there from somewhere else. A colony is what a settlement transitions into when the settlers have children of their own there. The distinction between a settlement and a colony is like the language distinction between a pidgin and a creole. A pidgin is a hybrid language made by combining aspects of two different languages to facilitate communication between them. A creole is when the children of the pidgin’s creators speak it as their native language. So too, once a settlement is the natural home and birthplace of a generation of its inhabitants, it becomes a colony.
@@bustavonnutz Well he said "is like". The U.S wasn't very different from England in many ways, although they didn't always admit it due to Nationalistic contrarianism.
The biggest issue with space elevators is always the most overlooked - a space elevator would be an incomparable conductor shortcut, giving a lower resistance path from the ionosphere and beyond to the surface and would make it potentially one of the most catastrophic disasters we could create. If the thing were to stay up, it would have a permanent radiation field around it frying unshielded electronics, and likely a permanent storm system around it... not to mention explosive if a solar flare event occurs.
A settlement, or colony, is a pioneering station where agriculture is established, and people intend to stay and raise families. Lacking any intent to stay, it's not a settlement, but only a temporary station. A ghost town that had a school alongside the general store was indeed a settlement, even if the mine closed down and everyone left. A lasting settlement will become a town, because it was successful. But if the station only has men, or women, who intend to serve out their contracts and go home, it's not a settlement, no matter how many people are present. The intent to stay is the key point, even if the infrastructure slowly migrates to follow the resource base along the same body, whether by mineral or biological type. It would also be a good point to say that they should be self-sustaining, either by trade or resource exploitation.
I mostly agree but I lived in a tourist town most of my life, until moving recently and during around a decade spent away in college and military. And in retrospect I never really planned for that to be my permeant home and yet it was and still is a community I'm active with even though I moved a couple towns over. It's a touch nitpicky but I'm not sure, especially going into an ever more digital age, that the classic definition is likely to apply, and it would already be stretched by examples like college town or military towns where . Like that Cycler Castle, it might be a two year trip some place then some years later it might be another two home, with a handful of folks you recognize who either made the trip with you originally or have been there the whole time. Same direction, there are definitely digital communities, those will probably only grow with time and better tech, and it really is not hard to imagine to people living on opposite sides of the world having tight relationships or even getting married but not moving, if the VR is good enough.
@@isaacarthurSFIA- maybe I see your point, but the critical issue for me was the decision to raise a family in situ. This eliminates all the VR possibilities, and stresses the semi-permanent aspects. The cycler-castle may be intentional, but it has a known endpoint, so the settlement is technically the destination, however sight unseen, for as long as it may last. Many families mean to "settle" in one place to raise kids for as long as the jobs last, but the train ride to get there is not a settlement... and yet they plan to settle when they arrive. It all depends on the open-ended commitment to stay for a purpose until it is accomplished or it otherwise ends. A lunar base can become a settlement when a worker can decide "this is my home and I'm staying put" and gathers with any others who also want to stay for the long haul... at least until the commercial viability crashes, and they have to leave or die. And we really need to avoid confusing the ideas of settlement and community. They are not the same thing. An orbiting habitat is a settlement, regardless of independence, while a generation starship would be also, because of the intention to stay for a lifetime, as either dying or being born there equally implies. But the "cycler" is just a train, at least for everyone except the permanent crew who live there.
I mostly agree with you with one caveat. I don’t think it matters exactly if the residents have an intent to stay. I think it matters that there is a broader social, political, or economical reason for the settlement to exist. For example, let’s say a research station has researchers on a 10 year contract and their families come along. During this contract period, the station developed agricultural and infrastructure to support the residents. The researchers and their families leave after 10 years but are replaced by a new contingent of researchers. Not a single person at this station has an intent to stay and no other immigration is allowed. The population will overturn 100% every 10 years. So now you have a research station with infrastructure and agricultural but a completely transient population. Is this a settlement? I would say yes because the broader society has the intent for this station to be functional.
i saw the Deep Space 9 Epi when the doctor gets mind trapped by the alien and 5 people are on the Station how many more Epi like that are their ? or ill goggle it when id like to ask rather .
I imagine that the settlement "county" fairs would feature attempts at breeding low-g or variable g tolerant animals. Cats with extra poofy tails to swish them thru the air, dogs with robust but gene augmented skeletal structures to withstand launch and maneuvering gs, Cows with tinier legs to decrease the necessary size of a stall and chickens who can successfully lay eggs in zero G, that sort of thing.
Oh my. I love near future space stuff. What we can do now, to start exploring and colonization of near space. Robert Zubrin style. These videos are great.
If I'm sure of one thing, is that humans will always learn or re-learn fast how to make alcohol, in a post-apocalyptic or space colonization scenario or anything else.
If you run against the rotation of the ring city you would start to feel lighter which would be handy for getting around. While if you run with it you'd feel heavier and would probably be good for physical training.
That's an interesting point. I never thought of that! Rotation also causes coriolis force, which would make you dizzy when you turn your head. Your muscles would certainly benefit from the resistance generated by centripetal force, but your sense of balance would be messed up. These effects would be minimized however if the radius of rotation is sufficiently large.
Hey Isaac, I was ganged and beaten last Thursday and im currently in the hospital with my right eye blinded, This video made me smile when I saw the notification, I can't wait to finish it, Love you from Jamaica 🇯🇲❤
Sorry bud. But just think about it. In the future Dyson Swarm, there will be one station with hundreds of McKendree Cylinders all bound together in a colossal space settlement, and it will be populated by nothing but Isaac Arthur fans. And we may live to see it ;p
Well, when looking at history, many big or successfull citys built near a river or busy streets. The space analogue would be a point that has a - rich ressources on its own and B- good transport routes to have a constant supply of ressources and a connection to earth First settlements should be inside near earth rocks or maybe the moon, but in the end the moon just has more perks, radiation protection and ressources and so on, but also the popuparity a country would gain to settle the moon would make this the perfect first location for a settlement. On the other side, If industrialisation in space would happen mainly with robots, maybe there will never be space settlements as the provided orbital infrastructure could be 100% automated. Genetically engineered humans are a wildcard here, everything could be possible here, space and moon humans, bioships, biomining, 0g specialisation, true independence from earth after some time, etc.
Honestly I can see multigenerational ships serving that role. We will need the technology anyways, so advancing it makes sence. IMHO hollowed out asteroids mined on their way to earth, minerals sold upon arrival and used in "colonizing" the rock
Settlements can start as fuel depots for spaceships. It could be some kind of propelant and antimatter to use as a heat source for propelants. This would cut mass by at least 2 thirds by not needing a oxidizer and the dry weight to contain it. Then later it could also have fusion fuel for antimatter catalyzed fusion which would need a thousand times less antimatter. Anywhere there is solar power or high energy particles is a good place to make antimatter. The moon, Venus and near Jupiter. Infact almost anyplace because once antimatter catalyzed fusion is available it can also be used to make antimatter. Then we could use liquid fuel molten salt reactors to make antimatter because fuel for this is everywhere. This would be larger for power output unlike antimatter catalyzed fusion which could be a lot smaller for spaceships. Liquid fuel molten salt reactors would be ideal for mining colonies because the waste from mining could be used as fuel. And a surplus of power could be used to make antimatter.
@@stixinst5791 true, Its just that ive read much Scifi and even thinking about it just makes it apparent that humans by themselves with all the biological necessities are one of the biggest problems for easy space colonialisation, just think about the need for food, air, radiation protection, sports, etc. Just sending a human or human commands to a robot would make things faster and I dont know when humanity will be able to build o neil cylimders, but even when you look at it optimistically, it would still take some decades, whereas gene manipulation is already possible, just not to that extent. That said, of course you cant say for sure wich scenario will come to be, but If you can change humans that at least some factors arent as problematic or even invent cryosleep, I think this would be a cheaper variant and thats what most big Money donators or idk will look out for. As for asteroid space bases, it seems to be very promising, because even if all the materials are mined you can still probaply direct the base to orbit around the moon if you use the ice. One question though: Are there any "valuable" rocks near earth that one could turn into a base? Of course the asteroid belt and ceres, but actual candidates in cislunar space? Tldr: O neil cylinders are awesome yet are there other technologies that could make them obsolete and are there asteroids we can use to turn into a settlement near earth?
@@clementvining2487 Sounds like a good idea, but can you tell me more about how antimatter catalyzed fusion can make new antimatter? Im a bit new when it comes to antimatter, yet I thought the production is very expensive/difficult, at least one earth. Of course antimatter drives would be the best option then If you can make it easier in space. It would make sense to turn an asteroid into a station, yet are there good options near earth?
Historic cities aren't always built near rivers. Where 2 (or 3 or 4) roads cross is also an ideal place. Or close to natural resources. Or a combination of rivers roads etc.
I really liked this thumbnail design! I hope you will keep this design and especially this font in your future videos. As always, this video was really wonderful! Thank you so much for everything Isaac! :D
Love the picture of your nephew and the "monster truck" For many years I drove a truck of that body style, just not those tires and running gear. Need a space elevator to get in the one in your picture. This was a great episode as usual.
Oh, that's BRILLIANT! Set up a few stations in an orbit between Earth and Mars. If you set up 3 or 4, evenly spaced on their orbital track, one will always be close to Earth, and can act as a layover stop between the two planets, changing that 23 month round trip drastically! Or, at least, creating infrastructure between the two. Hotel, food accommodations, search-and-rescue, a shorter communication time for rescue or technical help... this is NEEDED before any Mars exploration/settlement is feasible. Well done, Isaac!
With the ring cities they could store things, especially heavy things in the middle where it would experience less gravitational force and therefore could be moved around with much less effort.
I'm naive to think I'm not bonded to this Earth in ways unknown. I was born to go down with the ship for the greater good. My children and yours the stars. Semper Fi, Sir you stir the mind. Thank's
Thanks. I can already imagine astronauts considering Moonbase a plum assignment (plumb assignment?), because they 'appreciate the gravity of the situation', & because of "toilets that don't suck". Also, you could bench press 1000lbs, and literally anyone could slam dunk. tavi.
I think this thumbnail is a better version of the style of 2019. It’s nice that the text on the thumbnail can say something other than the episode title and can describe a different theme of the episode
- I don't think we will see people permanently living is space until we also have a 'post-scarcity' economy - an economy where project viability does not require a large or rich customer base. - Until then, a viable space settlement needs an economic rationale. The one that is most easily 'created' is tourism. Mining to provide materials for other settlements is problematic because those other settlements also require an economic rationale. What would justify the expense of constructing a Stanford Torus? Living space on Earth is much easier to construct and there is a large amount of deserted land available. - The idea of people leaving the planet due to political motivations assumes getting off planet is cheaper or easier than assembling real estate. Currently, if you have a few hundred 'friends' who want to create an independent community, there are much simpler ways to host them than going to space.
Personally I wouldn't consider something a proper settlement unless at least some of the inhabitants are planning to stay permanently and raise children.
I see many comments (both in this vlog and elsewhere) about windows. Both their good points and bad. However, for a gravity ring (select your own name for this) on a planet, it would probably be better to replace windows with (possibly high rez) monitors showing a more normal view that works with what the brain feels and what the person thinks of as up and down. So the view may be moving (not sure if this would help or not) as if the viewer was on a train at some speed but it should still show the "ground" as being on the same plane as the floor. The view should change as the person moves from one window to the next as well, in a continuous manner. What should the view be? If there is some kind of garden at the facility, that might be a good thing but others will want to see "outside". Probably a live scene from Earth might cause more problems than not but experimenting should not leave it out. On a ship in open space, some windows might be available when people wanted to see them but I expect that their popularity would only be high when there was something to see at the beginning of the trip when Earth was huge and at the end as the destination grew and maybe unwelcome otherwise (space ships shown with huge windows like Star Ship are probably making bad design choices). But if the habitat is spinning, again, monitors might be the better solution not only for physiological reasons but easier shielding as well. On a ship, I think people looking forward would want to be able to see their destination even if it meant magnifying the image of the destination from the starting point and even towards the end when the ship flips for deceleration. Higher rpms for AG may also work better without windows though, in open space when the stars are hard to see anyway, the sight of the seemingly unmoving other side of the ring may seem stationary anyway. The very small amount of experimentation with artificial gravity at higher than 1G with open sided cylinders, does not tell us very much of what human requirements are. There is talk about motion sickness with certain parameters but at the same time motion sickness is already common for planes, trains, boats and automobiles. There has been no (that I can find) research into how long motion sickness lasts (aside from one that says most people could acclimate themselves to as much as 10rpm in as little as 10 hours) yet it is considered normal on ocean crossings to feel at least a bit off for a few days (the number 3 comes up a lot), after which people are fine. There has been no research into what people's bodies want to see when experiencing AG or the maximum amount of felt gravity difference from head to foot that is acceptable. It may be that delta gravity is more of a problem than rpm or that the effect attributed to rpm has more to do with delta gravity. There has been no research as to what angle the floors and walls (and pictures hanging on the wall) should be to the direction of motion or if there should be steps instead of ramps, if a ring should be broken into segments so people can't see very far in the ring. No research to see if an uneven floor would help people feel "right". Basically, the research done into rotational AG has just started and will not really progress until there is an AG lab available to study all these things in a lower than 1G place for long periods of time... probably the Moon with a gravity train?
After about 10m of the semantics of "what is a settlement" I'm questioning the value of the term being used at all. Unless the term was chosen specifically to have this exposition of the myriad ways our preconceptions could cause our expectations to vary from potential realities. Though I feel like you really could make an episode on that topic all on its own without tagging it on to this video
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I am in the moon first camp, it makes the most sense because of the ability to use a moon settlement to make the mars missions a lot easier. very good video sir!
Isaac: spinning wheel stations are in danger of Dzhanibekov effect. How can we possibly avoid mass imbalance on the wheel? With people congregating in groups and ships arriving and departing, cargo moving around and water moving all over the place, as well as hydroponic gardens all over the place and sewage and air reprocessing distributed around the wheel... it seems as though it's an impossible task.
This video is stored and sent your way from a youtube google server. Along the way, it streams trough a bunch of switches, firewalls, network nodes and repeaters - all of them owned and operated by some other companies even before it reaches your particular ISP.
settelment is in my opinion a building or buildings that is there for permenent-living in . and it can be on a moon ,planet, or in space ,on a asteroid ..
I'm almost certain that the first space settlement will be by technicality. Some ambitious entrepreneur will set up a "temporary" station that "accidentally" ends up becoming permanent while slow and inefficient governments argue over who has a right to this or that. No offense to viewers who like government programs, but generally speaking, a government's first and most important priority is remaining in power, not settling space, so even if they try it, they're going to be opposed by other governments seeking to deny a military or economic advantage and the whole process gets mired in delays. I don't think they'll be the first to do anything of consequence.
While I agree, governments wanting to stay in power could motivate permanent space or moon bases of military function that then develop "civilian" functions for the sake of its own sustainability and thus becomes a proper space/moon city
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Assuming one of them finds a terribly clever way to do that without presenting themselves as a threat, maybe. The Space Race supports your case. Supposedly, it was for the good of humanity, and it ended up more or less being for that, tons of new tech and markets were born but it also stopped prematurely as governments focused on issues more pressing to them. And they never made any money off their own venture, sadly, instead choosing to spend themselves into suffering or oblivion for support that never worked out. So I'm not optimistic about their chances, especially given their latest great crusade, where they're going to save the planet by relying on antiquated technology, and its predictable meet with disaster. Europe told us for decades that it was the Green Energy revolution, and then it lost its oil, and it fell apart in days. Oops. Catastrophic failures like that are many, and people get wise over time. If they didn't, marketing wouldn't earn the paychecks it does for endlessly creative ways to sell stuff, regardless of quality. Look at government marketing. Same nonsense going on four decades now. They just can't keep up, so I'd give them one in random odds of just happening upon a circumstance where they start the first settlement as a military base.
@@SniperKatX eh, the lack of stealth in space makes piracy as we think of it kinda impractical if not outright impossible. Now smuggling contraband might be a lucrative business, but that's a completely different shipping and cargo related crime.
@@RipOffProductionsLLC TLDR: if there isn't enough political and economic will to prevent piracy I think it can happen. Maybe not the best analogy, but currently if one looks at a crime like shoplifting. The vast majority of it takes places on camera. There's no stealth in any major chain store, and even if you go to Aisle B17 and then pocket the items in the area that there is bad camera angles and can't be seen. We still got you on camera taking the items there and leaving without the items in view. I can't be sure of what percentage of shoplifters get caught even in the store I work at, but its a very low percentage, of those that are caught only some are prosecuted. There just isn't enough economic, and political will to really stop it. There's been talk for over a decade of switching stores to pick up only not letting the customers in, which would drop the shoplifting to zero. There's also just fully utilizing the camera's and aggressive actions that could drop it significantly, but that's seen as costing more money to implement then it would save. When it comes to something like piracy, IF there isn't the effort put in to prevent it. I could see it being somewhat viable. Especially if the main targets are autonomous cargo freighters. As we draw a huge distinction between a crime that has an economic loss, with one that endangers people.
My two cents: An outpost is just a collection of facilities dedicated to one purpose: eg:- mining outpost, early warning outpost. An outpost exist only for that specific purpose that created the need for the outpost. Absent that purpose, an outpost is generally abandoned. And the occupiers of an outpost is largely transient and highly specialised and the support facilities are by design, minimal. A settlement however, is a collection of facilities that is intended to be grown into a permanent location with native population growth. The initial impetus of settlement might be mining or military or farming or others, but has since been the locus of local expansion in purpose. Meaning, as the collection point of some mining outposts or the central location for trade. Furthermore, settlements has a higher percentage of support population (eg, families, schools, hotels, service...) compared to the initial population. I would imagine an outpost growing in importance to become a settlement, and finally a village or town as the purpose of the original location be expanded.
The concept of a space cycler can be expanded upon, if you made it large enough, I can imagine a Space Opera Interstellar setting, but with no faster than light travel.
As a direct descendant of the Mayflower crew I feel most of the people who decide to settle will be those wanting to get away from Earth gooberment. The Others in the breakaway may have different criteria for selection. World changing things can happen really fast and seemingly come out of the last place one might expect. Turns and twists will just make it that much more interesting in the long run
Some of the best science fiction is when both psychology and politics is considered along with the science. The Expanse series and the Mars trilogy are probably my favorite examples. Interestingly, both show how immigration is not a viable solution to most problems. In Expanse, after Belters basically destroy Earth there just isn't enough capacity in the rest of the solar system to get the survivors off the planet, and in Mars trilogy, showing how millions of colonists from post-climate-change-catastrophy Earth coming to Mars destroys the culture and environment on Mars while not actually removing enough people from Earth to give more space or resources for the remaining people. As in, moving a substantial percent of a population is neither a good idea, nor is it usually a feasible one. I seriously cannot wait until clean energy is abundant enough that we no longer need to worry or fight over it.
An outpost is a camp. People don't live there for more than a few months at a time, like a mining camp or the International Space Station. At least historically, a colony is a territory ruled by the government of a foreign country. The few colonies that exist on Earth today are called "dependencies" or "crown colonies". A settlement is a city, town or village.
The mental image I have is a lunar colony that's mostly hydroponics, with a selection of 3D printers making parts as needed. With some sort of social center, maybe a church, general store, or pub. Not really a bar, where you go to get drunk, but more of a pub, that's a gathering point...for general discussion, games, and the like...
Not really related to the video, but I have a question related to using lasers to push spacecraft to near relativistic speeds. So, let's say you have a pushing station. So, from that station, you have a spacecraft that was launched from it. Now, over time, the spacecraft will be moving further and faster, however, the laser station will move from its original path because it is in orbit around the sun. So the question is, how would the spacecraft maintain a constant direction as the pushing station is shifted laterally from its original starting point? Another question, would the pushing station have recoil from outputting the laser beam because, if the photons can be used to push a spacecraft, does that mean those photons were also giving an equal but opposite reaction on the pushing station? How would the pushing station counteract this then, without expelling reaction mass? Sorry for the long series of questions 😓... I've really thought about this for a while and can't think of a solution? Do you have an answer for this? Oh, and thanks for releasing videos every week btw, I genuinely look forward to new ones each time, it's really a good break from all the "Humanity iz bad!!! We will nuke ourselves!!!" folks lmao ;)
The lazor (Once fully charged) is in heliosynchronous polar orbit (or any polar orbit, really) around the sun so it's ALWAYS pointed at the craft, albeit from different angles. At those distances, it wouldn't matter, but if you needed a narrower angle a ring of mirrors with station-keeping thrusters to select from would do the trick. And yes, the lazor itself needs station-keeping thrusters. They're just really easy to have because even a super-powerful lazor generates negligible recoil compared to simple retro-rockets. Lightships like that take forever to accelerate for the same reason, and would ideally start out with nuclear or chemical propulsion.
@@arcdecibel9986 I'm not exactly sure about the station having neglible recoil though. If the laser beam itself can push megaton massing spacecraft without a sweat, won't that mean that the laser would provide thrust to the station as well, equal and opposite reactions and all that.
@@j-twd930 well the spacecraft would be heavy, but you'd have years or decades to accelerate it, and friction in space is negligeable. So even if you just had a dude gently slap it every second, it'd get to speed eventually. For what counteracts it, it needs to get the energy to emit the beam from somewhere, and if it's from solar power, then it would need to catch sunlight, which conveniently pushes away from the sun.
@@j-twd930 In order for it to push a megaton craft, the laser itself would likely be considerably larger, since it has to contain the power and cooling systems for all that, which the lightship doesn't have. Indeed, they are intentionally built to be quite spindly precisely so they can get acceleration out of that huge laser. With such mass and power, the amount of effort directed towards station-keeping would be comparatively negligible. After all, force is a function of mass times velocity squared, so double the mass takes double the time to push. In all likelihood, these lasers weigh at least twenty times what the spacecraft does, and given their proximity to fuel, they should have a relatively easy time using conventional thrusters with a MUCH higher specific impulse than a laser.
Well, I spent 14 months of my life in Alert, Nunavut - 400 miles from the North Pole. A mini Antarctica. Drinking up there was a given, and drink we did. Course in the decade or 2 since I was there they have shut down the bars. Now only 2 beer a day, supervised - ah the age we live in where one can't get blind drunk in a isolated posting.
And let's hope that the colonists are treated equally. I can't help but thinking of Gundam's Earthnoid vs Spacenoid thing. Let's not discriminate the colonists, okay?
Whenever I see a video about " when/where will the first settlement be" , that tells me that these settlements have already occurred long ago. The public is just not being told about it. Likely they are underground on the Moon and Mars.
Amazing video! Thank you, as always. And hey, congratulations on your prizes at the fair! That takes me back to my 4H days when I was a wee lad.. a long, long, long time ago.
What a wonderful Idea. Congratulations on the awards at the fair. I'd love to see a "belter" County Fair. A Rodeo could be Contestants in spacesuit, riding randomly broken EVA units. The Bucking equivalent is Adaptive Piloting and or Problem Solving or "MacGyvering" to a destination and or best time.
I'd like to submit a video topic: Plastics in space. How/if we would manufacture, substitutes materials for different applications, sourcing raw materials, durrability, etc.
I'd suggest the first space settlement to be in geosynchronous orbit around the Moon. This way the station/settlement can be used as a fabrication and launching location for intra-system travel. Craft construction could be mostly accomplished in low-to-zero G and launched from zero G. Meanwhile personnel could live on a rotating ring at 1 or greater G as needed for health maintenance.
Rocket Rodeo. A big elastic net with convenient sized astroids bouncing around inside. Purpose built armored 1 man ships go in and try to get the most mass into their goal. Could be timed, could be adversarial, could be teams... Maybe composition of what you collecting your goal matters too.
Every time I watch one of Arthur’s videos and he says “you might want to grab a drink and a snack” I get this warm excited feeling and want to grab a Capri Sun and some Goldfish crackers
I always half-joke that when I'm an old man I'm gonna take my grandkids to the Disney theme park on the moon and they are going to complain that im a boring old man for takeing a side trip to visit the sites of the Artemis missions.
McMurdo is kept up in the winter by a small cadre of contract workers, who are often there for multiple years. As the saying goes, "the first year, you do it for the adventure. The second year, you do it for the money. And the third year you do it because you're too weird to fit in anywhere else." Speaking of weird, you might want to tell your listeners about the "300 Club." But families and children do exist on the continent. These are in the Argentine and Chilean "military bases" on the Antarctic peninsula. They are military bases to stay within the limits of that Treaty, but basically they are settlements by virtually any definition. Their main purpose, though, is to "prove up" the claims of their respective nations when and if the Antarctic Treaty (which neither denies nor endorses but merely suspends all claims without prejudice) ever lapses. Meanwhile, it's all there. Families, supermarkets, schools, and even telephone numbers in the Punta Arenas or Ushuaia phone directories!
My personal take is that an output is a strategic base used as a remote jump-off point or place to garrison forces. The outpost could expect to be 100% dependent on outside resources being imported to sustain it. There are no humans around that don't serve a specific job in support of the base or military purposes. A settlement would be as close to 100% self-sufficient as possible. The population living there would have other occupations besides sustaining the settlement. A dance instructor, poet, retirees, or athlete living in/on the settlement would be indicative of settlement vs an outpost. People would have the expectation of living the rest of their lives and birthing children at this location.
Should the chance ever come around in my lifetime sign me up to be on the first trip out! To help found a space settlement would be rad! Live long and prosper my friends!🖖🏻
Dude, best UA-cam video URL ending of all time, hands down! And I love this show, it has been a big influence on me and my project codenamed "FTL" (part video game, part video series/narrative) that I will be unveiling soon and hope people support. 🙂
I don't think prolonged stays in the weak lunar gravity will be all that harmful in and of itself, but it will make it tricky for lunar (or martian) natives to visit higher gravity places like Earth or Venus. Until we learn to adjust our bodies as needed, of course.
It seems that you have to work out a ton to keep your muscles from atrophy. Then again that’s in microgravity without the acceleration of centripetal force.
You wouldn't need to manually activate an airbag if you fall off a rotocity; auto-inflating airbag jackets already exist for motorbike gear, and can set themselves off if triggered by a ripcord attached to the bike or by sensors detecting freefall at speed. It'd be very easy to set up an 'invisible fence' type arrangement, where it sets off a suit's airbag rather than electrocuting a pet.
I always figured it made way more sense for us to attempt to make a big ship yard style space station in orbit before we headed to make a base on the moon or Mars.
Mankind already has a first space settlement. It is the four moon cars, capsule bases and golf clubs boxed and stored in National Archives in Washington DC
But how can cycler save fuel? To dock with it you have to match trajectory, which would require you essentially spent the fuel that already put you on trajectory to coast to your destination. I suppose you could use a mass driver and mass, uh, braker, and jhooks to rendez-vous with the cycler which will borrow and lend kinetic energy with ships travelling to and from the various points on its orbit
I'm designing a space exploration game and have been struggling with the terms "settlement"and "colony" myself. I've usually held that a settlement is a small collection of people in a localized area, like a village, town, or even a suburb. It is a tiney bastion of your culture and lifestyle in an otherwise alien environment, that is basically a primordial town or future city. A colony is much more overarching, like the overall government of several settlements. So settlement is to town/city as colony is to state/province. But you could go the entire Roman city-state rout also, a settlement that grows into a much larger entity being a colony. I could imagine an O'Neal cilindar being considered the "colony", while small pockets of people gathering in communities in it's surface would be settlements. But also several small settlements on the moon being part of an overarching colonial government.
I like the idea that you make a video about the colonization of Antarctica. I am writing a story where, among other things, there is a civilization of Antarctic natives, as a mixture of the Eskimos from the Arctic and the Fuegians from Patagonia, and I would like to have inspiration to work on that concept.
In my personal opinion the difference between an outpost, a settlement and a colony is as follows:
An outpost is a “transient” location. You live there for work (such as scientific research) for some arbitrary length of time. When your duties are done, you return home.
A settlement is a place that you relocate to. You don’t intend to return to where you came from other than for brief visits. However, all (or almost all) of its inhabitants moved there from somewhere else.
A colony is what a settlement transitions into when the settlers have children of their own there.
The distinction between a settlement and a colony is like the language distinction between a pidgin and a creole. A pidgin is a hybrid language made by combining aspects of two different languages to facilitate communication between them. A creole is when the children of the pidgin’s creators speak it as their native language. So too, once a settlement is the natural home and birthplace of a generation of its inhabitants, it becomes a colony.
So, an outpost is somewhere you work.
A settlement is somewhere you live.
A colony is somewhere you raise your kids
Don’t care
You don't start a settlement with people of different languges, cultures, or religions unless you want to cause unnecessary problems.
@@willfitz100
"Right back at you, kiddo"
@@bustavonnutz
Well he said "is like". The U.S wasn't very different from England in many ways, although they didn't always admit it due to Nationalistic contrarianism.
10 minutes into establishing space settlement and chill, Preston hits you with: "I got word from a settlement that needs our help."
Oh god...
Hahaha
Thanks no I have trauma again 😂😂
*spends 100 years getting out to an Oort Cloud settlement to help defend it
That's why you never pass through Concord
The biggest issue with space elevators is always the most overlooked - a space elevator would be an incomparable conductor shortcut, giving a lower resistance path from the ionosphere and beyond to the surface and would make it potentially one of the most catastrophic disasters we could create. If the thing were to stay up, it would have a permanent radiation field around it frying unshielded electronics, and likely a permanent storm system around it... not to mention explosive if a solar flare event occurs.
A settlement, or colony, is a pioneering station where agriculture is established, and people intend to stay and raise families. Lacking any intent to stay, it's not a settlement, but only a temporary station. A ghost town that had a school alongside the general store was indeed a settlement, even if the mine closed down and everyone left. A lasting settlement will become a town, because it was successful. But if the station only has men, or women, who intend to serve out their contracts and go home, it's not a settlement, no matter how many people are present. The intent to stay is the key point, even if the infrastructure slowly migrates to follow the resource base along the same body, whether by mineral or biological type. It would also be a good point to say that they should be self-sustaining, either by trade or resource exploitation.
I mostly agree but I lived in a tourist town most of my life, until moving recently and during around a decade spent away in college and military. And in retrospect I never really planned for that to be my permeant home and yet it was and still is a community I'm active with even though I moved a couple towns over. It's a touch nitpicky but I'm not sure, especially going into an ever more digital age, that the classic definition is likely to apply, and it would already be stretched by examples like college town or military towns where . Like that Cycler Castle, it might be a two year trip some place then some years later it might be another two home, with a handful of folks you recognize who either made the trip with you originally or have been there the whole time. Same direction, there are definitely digital communities, those will probably only grow with time and better tech, and it really is not hard to imagine to people living on opposite sides of the world having tight relationships or even getting married but not moving, if the VR is good enough.
@@isaacarthurSFIA- maybe I see your point, but the critical issue for me was the decision to raise a family in situ. This eliminates all the VR possibilities, and stresses the semi-permanent aspects. The cycler-castle may be intentional, but it has a known endpoint, so the settlement is technically the destination, however sight unseen, for as long as it may last. Many families mean to "settle" in one place to raise kids for as long as the jobs last, but the train ride to get there is not a settlement... and yet they plan to settle when they arrive. It all depends on the open-ended commitment to stay for a purpose until it is accomplished or it otherwise ends.
A lunar base can become a settlement when a worker can decide "this is my home and I'm staying put" and gathers with any others who also want to stay for the long haul... at least until the commercial viability crashes, and they have to leave or die.
And we really need to avoid confusing the ideas of settlement and community. They are not the same thing. An orbiting habitat is a settlement, regardless of independence, while a generation starship would be also, because of the intention to stay for a lifetime, as either dying or being born there equally implies. But the "cycler" is just a train, at least for everyone except the permanent crew who live there.
I mostly agree with you with one caveat. I don’t think it matters exactly if the residents have an intent to stay. I think it matters that there is a broader social, political, or economical reason for the settlement to exist. For example, let’s say a research station has researchers on a 10 year contract and their families come along. During this contract period, the station developed agricultural and infrastructure to support the residents. The researchers and their families leave after 10 years but are replaced by a new contingent of researchers. Not a single person at this station has an intent to stay and no other immigration is allowed. The population will overturn 100% every 10 years. So now you have a research station with infrastructure and agricultural but a completely transient population. Is this a settlement? I would say yes because the broader society has the intent for this station to be functional.
i saw the Deep Space 9 Epi when the doctor gets mind trapped by the alien and 5 people are on the Station how many more Epi like that are their ? or ill goggle it when id like to ask rather .
@@isaacarthurSFIA Sounds like, a simulated dream world, to me if VR is good enough !
encampment < station < outpost < base < settlement < colony < country < nation < empire
Isn’t country suppose to be here as a country is effectively a self governing state without sovereignty.
@@KRYMauL added
If Issac Arthur were to create a space settlement I would join it--or I would join it, if I wasn't so busy with work right now.
I would drop everyone and everything for that
That's the beauty of remote work, you can do it (almost) anywhere, even space!
I would totally go be a space medic right now
I used to build high voltage substations PICK ME PICK ME! You
@@spacetexan1667 I think it's up to Issac to pick you or not. Not me. I'm not qualified as I am just a humble Zebra who types 60 words a minute.
I imagine that the settlement "county" fairs would feature attempts at breeding low-g or variable g tolerant animals. Cats with extra poofy tails to swish them thru the air, dogs with robust but gene augmented skeletal structures to withstand launch and maneuvering gs, Cows with tinier legs to decrease the necessary size of a stall and chickens who can successfully lay eggs in zero G, that sort of thing.
Oh my. I love near future space stuff. What we can do now, to start exploring and colonization of near space. Robert Zubrin style. These videos are great.
Big fan of Zubrin.
I really like how open minded you are. I'm 100% sure there will be distilleries and hydroponics grow rooms haha
Ain't much weed out there better than space weed
If I'm sure of one thing, is that humans will always learn or re-learn fast how to make alcohol, in a post-apocalyptic or space colonization scenario or anything else.
"Unlicensed hydroponics"
@@sorcikator993 "These plants, they're growing 3d towards the light!"
If you run against the rotation of the ring city you would start to feel lighter which would be handy for getting around. While if you run with it you'd feel heavier and would probably be good for physical training.
That's an interesting point. I never thought of that! Rotation also causes coriolis force, which would make you dizzy when you turn your head. Your muscles would certainly benefit from the resistance generated by centripetal force, but your sense of balance would be messed up. These effects would be minimized however if the radius of rotation is sufficiently large.
@@ChickensAndGardening examplify large, how many meters "at least"? Or enough radius for at max how many RPM ?
@@blyat7276
454 meters diameter
At 2 rpm will give u 1G
Without getting dizzy
Hey Isaac, I was ganged and beaten last Thursday and im currently in the hospital with my right eye blinded, This video made me smile when I saw the notification, I can't wait to finish it, Love you from Jamaica 🇯🇲❤
@@abhiprakash74999 I did surgery yesterday so maybe I'll be able to see from my right eye again soon
That's messed up man. Glad you seem very positive. This world is really out of hand.
@@bongscott3738 being positive is the least I can do , if I become stressed it will only make things worse, thanks for your kind words
May you recover quickly
Sorry bud. But just think about it. In the future Dyson Swarm, there will be one station with hundreds of McKendree Cylinders all bound together in a colossal space settlement, and it will be populated by nothing but Isaac Arthur fans. And we may live to see it ;p
Congratulations Sarah for getting those awards at the fair! Quite the accomplishment.
SFIA. Still the best youtube channel. I don't know what life brings but Thursdays I get a drink and a snack
Well, when looking at history, many big or successfull citys built near a river or busy streets. The space analogue would be a point that has
a - rich ressources on its own and
B- good transport routes to have a constant supply of ressources and a connection to earth
First settlements should be inside near earth rocks or maybe the moon, but in the end the moon just has more perks, radiation protection and ressources and so on, but also the popuparity a country would gain to settle the moon would make this the perfect first location for a settlement. On the other side, If industrialisation in space would happen mainly with robots, maybe there will never be space settlements as the provided orbital infrastructure could be 100% automated. Genetically engineered humans are a wildcard here, everything could be possible here, space and moon humans, bioships, biomining, 0g specialisation, true independence from earth after some time, etc.
Honestly I can see multigenerational ships serving that role. We will need the technology anyways, so advancing it makes sence.
IMHO hollowed out asteroids mined on their way to earth, minerals sold upon arrival and used in "colonizing" the rock
Settlements can start as fuel depots for spaceships. It could be some kind of propelant and antimatter to use as a heat source for propelants. This would cut mass by at least 2 thirds by not needing a oxidizer and the dry weight to contain it. Then later it could also have fusion fuel for antimatter catalyzed fusion which would need a thousand times less antimatter.
Anywhere there is solar power or high energy particles is a good place to make antimatter. The moon, Venus and near Jupiter. Infact almost anyplace because once antimatter catalyzed fusion is available it can also be used to make antimatter. Then we could use liquid fuel molten salt reactors to make antimatter because fuel for this is everywhere. This would be larger for power output unlike antimatter catalyzed fusion which could be a lot smaller for spaceships.
Liquid fuel molten salt reactors would be ideal for mining colonies because the waste from mining could be used as fuel. And a surplus of power could be used to make antimatter.
@@stixinst5791 true, Its just that ive read much Scifi and even thinking about it just makes it apparent that humans by themselves with all the biological necessities are one of the biggest problems for easy space colonialisation, just think about the need for food, air, radiation protection, sports, etc. Just sending a human or human commands to a robot would make things faster and I dont know when humanity will be able to build o neil cylimders, but even when you look at it optimistically, it would still take some decades, whereas gene manipulation is already possible, just not to that extent. That said, of course you cant say for sure wich scenario will come to be, but If you can change humans that at least some factors arent as problematic or even invent cryosleep, I think this would be a cheaper variant and thats what most big Money donators or idk will look out for. As for asteroid space bases, it seems to be very promising, because even if all the materials are mined you can still probaply direct the base to orbit around the moon if you use the ice. One question though: Are there any "valuable" rocks near earth that one could turn into a base? Of course the asteroid belt and ceres, but actual candidates in cislunar space?
Tldr: O neil cylinders are awesome yet are there other technologies that could make them obsolete and are there asteroids we can use to turn into a settlement near earth?
@@clementvining2487 Sounds like a good idea, but can you tell me more about how antimatter catalyzed fusion can make new antimatter? Im a bit new when it comes to antimatter, yet I thought the production is very expensive/difficult, at least one earth. Of course antimatter drives would be the best option then If you can make it easier in space. It would make sense to turn an asteroid into a station, yet are there good options near earth?
Historic cities aren't always built near rivers. Where 2 (or 3 or 4) roads cross is also an ideal place. Or close to natural resources. Or a combination of rivers roads etc.
Thanks for not putting several ad breaks in all of your videos.
I really liked this thumbnail design! I hope you will keep this design and especially this font in your future videos. As always, this video was really wonderful! Thank you so much for everything Isaac! :D
I wish Isaac would update that trillion people on Earth video, it's great content and it deserves the production quality he has now.
Loved the video, i think "The Expanse" like world in future is more likely than Star trek world.
Love the picture of your nephew and the "monster truck" For many years I drove a truck of that body style, just not those tires and running gear. Need a space elevator to get in the one in your picture.
This was a great episode as usual.
Isaac Arthur: I just started Firefly the other day for the first time and couldn't get you out of my head! 😁
Oh, that's BRILLIANT! Set up a few stations in an orbit between Earth and Mars. If you set up 3 or 4, evenly spaced on their orbital track, one will always be close to Earth, and can act as a layover stop between the two planets, changing that 23 month round trip drastically! Or, at least, creating infrastructure between the two. Hotel, food accommodations, search-and-rescue, a shorter communication time for rescue or technical help... this is NEEDED before any Mars exploration/settlement is feasible. Well done, Isaac!
With the ring cities they could store things, especially heavy things in the middle where it would experience less gravitational force and therefore could be moved around with much less effort.
I'm naive to think I'm not bonded to this Earth in ways unknown. I was born to go down with the ship for the greater good. My children and yours the stars. Semper Fi, Sir you stir the mind. Thank's
Always a wonderful Thursday when you watch Isaac Arthur.
Thanks. I can already imagine astronauts considering Moonbase a plum assignment (plumb assignment?), because they 'appreciate the gravity of the situation', & because of "toilets that don't suck". Also, you could bench press 1000lbs, and literally anyone could slam dunk. tavi.
I think this thumbnail is a better version of the style of 2019. It’s nice that the text on the thumbnail can say something other than the episode title and can describe a different theme of the episode
- I don't think we will see people permanently living is space until we also have a 'post-scarcity' economy - an economy where project viability does not require a large or rich customer base.
- Until then, a viable space settlement needs an economic rationale. The one that is most easily 'created' is tourism. Mining to provide materials for other settlements is problematic because those other settlements also require an economic rationale. What would justify the expense of constructing a Stanford Torus? Living space on Earth is much easier to construct and there is a large amount of deserted land available.
- The idea of people leaving the planet due to political motivations assumes getting off planet is cheaper or easier than assembling real estate. Currently, if you have a few hundred 'friends' who want to create an independent community, there are much simpler ways to host them than going to space.
Personally I wouldn't consider something a proper settlement unless at least some of the inhabitants are planning to stay permanently and raise children.
I see many comments (both in this vlog and elsewhere) about windows. Both their good points and bad. However, for a gravity ring (select your own name for this) on a planet, it would probably be better to replace windows with (possibly high rez) monitors showing a more normal view that works with what the brain feels and what the person thinks of as up and down. So the view may be moving (not sure if this would help or not) as if the viewer was on a train at some speed but it should still show the "ground" as being on the same plane as the floor. The view should change as the person moves from one window to the next as well, in a continuous manner. What should the view be? If there is some kind of garden at the facility, that might be a good thing but others will want to see "outside". Probably a live scene from Earth might cause more problems than not but experimenting should not leave it out.
On a ship in open space, some windows might be available when people wanted to see them but I expect that their popularity would only be high when there was something to see at the beginning of the trip when Earth was huge and at the end as the destination grew and maybe unwelcome otherwise (space ships shown with huge windows like Star Ship are probably making bad design choices). But if the habitat is spinning, again, monitors might be the better solution not only for physiological reasons but easier shielding as well. On a ship, I think people looking forward would want to be able to see their destination even if it meant magnifying the image of the destination from the starting point and even towards the end when the ship flips for deceleration. Higher rpms for AG may also work better without windows though, in open space when the stars are hard to see anyway, the sight of the seemingly unmoving other side of the ring may seem stationary anyway.
The very small amount of experimentation with artificial gravity at higher than 1G with open sided cylinders, does not tell us very much of what human requirements are. There is talk about motion sickness with certain parameters but at the same time motion sickness is already common for planes, trains, boats and automobiles. There has been no (that I can find) research into how long motion sickness lasts (aside from one that says most people could acclimate themselves to as much as 10rpm in as little as 10 hours) yet it is considered normal on ocean crossings to feel at least a bit off for a few days (the number 3 comes up a lot), after which people are fine. There has been no research into what people's bodies want to see when experiencing AG or the maximum amount of felt gravity difference from head to foot that is acceptable. It may be that delta gravity is more of a problem than rpm or that the effect attributed to rpm has more to do with delta gravity. There has been no research as to what angle the floors and walls (and pictures hanging on the wall) should be to the direction of motion or if there should be steps instead of ramps, if a ring should be broken into segments so people can't see very far in the ring. No research to see if an uneven floor would help people feel "right". Basically, the research done into rotational AG has just started and will not really progress until there is an AG lab available to study all these things in a lower than 1G place for long periods of time... probably the Moon with a gravity train?
After about 10m of the semantics of "what is a settlement" I'm questioning the value of the term being used at all. Unless the term was chosen specifically to have this exposition of the myriad ways our preconceptions could cause our expectations to vary from potential realities.
Though I feel like you really could make an episode on that topic all on its own without tagging it on to this video
I am in the moon first camp, it makes the most sense because of the ability to use a moon settlement to make the mars missions a lot easier. very good video sir!
Antarctica seems like a great place to practice settling other planets.
We're truly spoiled by these amazing videos. Thank you so much for making them
Really brought out the big guns for this episode! I love the caliber of your content! It was right on target!
My opinion is a settlement is a place you plan to move to “permanently”
Isaac: spinning wheel stations are in danger of Dzhanibekov effect. How can we possibly avoid mass imbalance on the wheel? With people congregating in groups and ships arriving and departing, cargo moving around and water moving all over the place, as well as hydroponic gardens all over the place and sewage and air reprocessing distributed around the wheel... it seems as though it's an impossible task.
This video was brought to me by THE INTERNET.
No shill company required
This video is stored and sent your way from a youtube google server. Along the way, it streams trough a bunch of switches, firewalls, network nodes and repeaters - all of them owned and operated by some other companies even before it reaches your particular ISP.
Thank you very much. This explanation helps me to understand space settlement and solve physics problems ❤❤
settelment is in my opinion a building or buildings that is there for permenent-living in . and it can be on a moon ,planet, or in space ,on a asteroid ..
I'm almost certain that the first space settlement will be by technicality. Some ambitious entrepreneur will set up a "temporary" station that "accidentally" ends up becoming permanent while slow and inefficient governments argue over who has a right to this or that. No offense to viewers who like government programs, but generally speaking, a government's first and most important priority is remaining in power, not settling space, so even if they try it, they're going to be opposed by other governments seeking to deny a military or economic advantage and the whole process gets mired in delays. I don't think they'll be the first to do anything of consequence.
While I agree, governments wanting to stay in power could motivate permanent space or moon bases of military function that then develop "civilian" functions for the sake of its own sustainability and thus becomes a proper space/moon city
@@RipOffProductionsLLC Assuming one of them finds a terribly clever way to do that without presenting themselves as a threat, maybe. The Space Race supports your case. Supposedly, it was for the good of humanity, and it ended up more or less being for that, tons of new tech and markets were born but it also stopped prematurely as governments focused on issues more pressing to them. And they never made any money off their own venture, sadly, instead choosing to spend themselves into suffering or oblivion for support that never worked out.
So I'm not optimistic about their chances, especially given their latest great crusade, where they're going to save the planet by relying on antiquated technology, and its predictable meet with disaster. Europe told us for decades that it was the Green Energy revolution, and then it lost its oil, and it fell apart in days. Oops.
Catastrophic failures like that are many, and people get wise over time. If they didn't, marketing wouldn't earn the paychecks it does for endlessly creative ways to sell stuff, regardless of quality. Look at government marketing. Same nonsense going on four decades now. They just can't keep up, so I'd give them one in random odds of just happening upon a circumstance where they start the first settlement as a military base.
Just thinking of the day space pirates will be a real thing
@@SniperKatX eh, the lack of stealth in space makes piracy as we think of it kinda impractical if not outright impossible.
Now smuggling contraband might be a lucrative business, but that's a completely different shipping and cargo related crime.
@@RipOffProductionsLLC
TLDR: if there isn't enough political and economic will to prevent piracy I think it can happen.
Maybe not the best analogy, but currently if one looks at a crime like shoplifting. The vast majority of it takes places on camera. There's no stealth in any major chain store, and even if you go to Aisle B17 and then pocket the items in the area that there is bad camera angles and can't be seen. We still got you on camera taking the items there and leaving without the items in view.
I can't be sure of what percentage of shoplifters get caught even in the store I work at, but its a very low percentage, of those that are caught only some are prosecuted.
There just isn't enough economic, and political will to really stop it. There's been talk for over a decade of switching stores to pick up only not letting the customers in, which would drop the shoplifting to zero. There's also just fully utilizing the camera's and aggressive actions that could drop it significantly, but that's seen as costing more money to implement then it would save.
When it comes to something like piracy, IF there isn't the effort put in to prevent it. I could see it being somewhat viable. Especially if the main targets are autonomous cargo freighters. As we draw a huge distinction between a crime that has an economic loss, with one that endangers people.
My two cents:
An outpost is just a collection of facilities dedicated to one purpose: eg:- mining outpost, early warning outpost.
An outpost exist only for that specific purpose that created the need for the outpost. Absent that purpose, an outpost is generally abandoned. And the occupiers of an outpost is largely transient and highly specialised and the support facilities are by design, minimal.
A settlement however, is a collection of facilities that is intended to be grown into a permanent location with native population growth. The initial impetus of settlement might be mining or military or farming or others, but has since been the locus of local expansion in purpose. Meaning, as the collection point of some mining outposts or the central location for trade. Furthermore, settlements has a higher percentage of support population (eg, families, schools, hotels, service...) compared to the initial population.
I would imagine an outpost growing in importance to become a settlement, and finally a village or town as the purpose of the original location be expanded.
The concept of a space cycler can be expanded upon, if you made it large enough, I can imagine a Space Opera Interstellar setting, but with no faster than light travel.
FSIA is the dose of sanity we need
As a direct descendant of the Mayflower crew I feel most of the people who decide to settle will be those wanting to get away from Earth gooberment.
The Others in the breakaway may have different criteria for selection.
World changing things can happen really fast and seemingly come out of the last place one might expect.
Turns and twists will just make it that much more interesting in the long run
Some of the best science fiction is when both psychology and politics is considered along with the science. The Expanse series and the Mars trilogy are probably my favorite examples. Interestingly, both show how immigration is not a viable solution to most problems. In Expanse, after Belters basically destroy Earth there just isn't enough capacity in the rest of the solar system to get the survivors off the planet, and in Mars trilogy, showing how millions of colonists from post-climate-change-catastrophy Earth coming to Mars destroys the culture and environment on Mars while not actually removing enough people from Earth to give more space or resources for the remaining people. As in, moving a substantial percent of a population is neither a good idea, nor is it usually a feasible one. I seriously cannot wait until clean energy is abundant enough that we no longer need to worry or fight over it.
Another informative video Isaac, you never fail to teach me something new every week.
And congrats to you and Sarah on the Fair awards.
Artemis 1 launching tomorrow!!! POG
love it! Thanks, Isaac
An outpost is a camp. People don't live there for more than a few months at a time, like a mining camp or the International Space Station.
At least historically, a colony is a territory ruled by the government of a foreign country. The few colonies that exist on Earth today are called "dependencies" or "crown colonies".
A settlement is a city, town or village.
Congrats on the fair awards Isaac. You guys have all kinds of things going on.
The mental image I have is a lunar colony that's mostly hydroponics, with a selection of 3D printers making parts as needed. With some sort of social center, maybe a church, general store, or pub. Not really a bar, where you go to get drunk, but more of a pub, that's a gathering point...for general discussion, games, and the like...
Not really related to the video, but I have a question related to using lasers to push spacecraft to near relativistic speeds.
So, let's say you have a pushing station. So, from that station, you have a spacecraft that was launched from it. Now, over time, the spacecraft will be moving further and faster, however, the laser station will move from its original path because it is in orbit around the sun. So the question is, how would the spacecraft maintain a constant direction as the pushing station is shifted laterally from its original starting point?
Another question, would the pushing station have recoil from outputting the laser beam because, if the photons can be used to push a spacecraft, does that mean those photons were also giving an equal but opposite reaction on the pushing station? How would the pushing station counteract this then, without expelling reaction mass?
Sorry for the long series of questions 😓... I've really thought about this for a while and can't think of a solution? Do you have an answer for this? Oh, and thanks for releasing videos every week btw, I genuinely look forward to new ones each time, it's really a good break from all the "Humanity iz bad!!! We will nuke ourselves!!!" folks lmao ;)
2 lasers in oposite direction and more stations/burst firing one
The lazor (Once fully charged) is in heliosynchronous polar orbit (or any polar orbit, really) around the sun so it's ALWAYS pointed at the craft, albeit from different angles. At those distances, it wouldn't matter, but if you needed a narrower angle a ring of mirrors with station-keeping thrusters to select from would do the trick.
And yes, the lazor itself needs station-keeping thrusters. They're just really easy to have because even a super-powerful lazor generates negligible recoil compared to simple retro-rockets. Lightships like that take forever to accelerate for the same reason, and would ideally start out with nuclear or chemical propulsion.
@@arcdecibel9986 I'm not exactly sure about the station having neglible recoil though. If the laser beam itself can push megaton massing spacecraft without a sweat, won't that mean that the laser would provide thrust to the station as well, equal and opposite reactions and all that.
@@j-twd930 well the spacecraft would be heavy, but you'd have years or decades to accelerate it, and friction in space is negligeable. So even if you just had a dude gently slap it every second, it'd get to speed eventually.
For what counteracts it, it needs to get the energy to emit the beam from somewhere, and if it's from solar power, then it would need to catch sunlight, which conveniently pushes away from the sun.
@@j-twd930 In order for it to push a megaton craft, the laser itself would likely be considerably larger, since it has to contain the power and cooling systems for all that, which the lightship doesn't have. Indeed, they are intentionally built to be quite spindly precisely so they can get acceleration out of that huge laser.
With such mass and power, the amount of effort directed towards station-keeping would be comparatively negligible. After all, force is a function of mass times velocity squared, so double the mass takes double the time to push. In all likelihood, these lasers weigh at least twenty times what the spacecraft does, and given their proximity to fuel, they should have a relatively easy time using conventional thrusters with a MUCH higher specific impulse than a laser.
by my guess we'll see the founding of the first settlement, intended as such, within 20 years. How big and how fast it'll grow are the questions to me
Well, I spent 14 months of my life in Alert, Nunavut - 400 miles from the North Pole. A mini Antarctica. Drinking up there was a given, and drink we did. Course in the decade or 2 since I was there they have shut down the bars. Now only 2 beer a day, supervised - ah the age we live in where one can't get blind drunk in a isolated posting.
Bless Isaac, and your family
This could have been humanity's future if not for the great reset.
And let's hope that the colonists are treated equally. I can't help but thinking of Gundam's Earthnoid vs Spacenoid thing. Let's not discriminate the colonists, okay?
every illustration of your all video is sooooo awesome! and I like it! thank you to make these videos!
I miss stargate, I wish some one capable would get the franchise.
Whenever I see a video about " when/where will the first settlement be" , that tells me that these settlements have already occurred long ago. The public is just not being told about it. Likely they are underground on the Moon and Mars.
Oh hey people living in giant Asteroid Mining Squids, another thing to add onto the list.
Amazing video! Thank you, as always.
And hey, congratulations on your prizes at the fair! That takes me back to my 4H days when I was a wee lad.. a long, long, long time ago.
What a wonderful Idea. Congratulations on the awards at the fair. I'd love to see a "belter" County Fair. A Rodeo could be Contestants in spacesuit, riding randomly broken EVA units. The Bucking equivalent is Adaptive Piloting and or Problem Solving or "MacGyvering" to a destination and or best time.
I'd like to submit a video topic: Plastics in space. How/if we would manufacture, substitutes materials for different applications, sourcing raw materials, durrability, etc.
Gratz to your better half on 1st place. That's awesome
I really enjoy these videos.
In the future at county fairs, our robot overlords would bring and vote on their favorite pet humans.🙃
I can't believe we have people that are willing to be astronauts.
Most birds need gravity to swallow, so chickens in space may need to be genetically modified in the absence of sufficient gravity.
I'd suggest the first space settlement to be in geosynchronous orbit around the Moon. This way the station/settlement can be used as a fabrication and launching location for intra-system travel. Craft construction could be mostly accomplished in low-to-zero G and launched from zero G. Meanwhile personnel could live on a rotating ring at 1 or greater G as needed for health maintenance.
Rocket Rodeo. A big elastic net with convenient sized astroids bouncing around inside. Purpose built armored 1 man ships go in and try to get the most mass into their goal. Could be timed, could be adversarial, could be teams... Maybe composition of what you collecting your goal matters too.
Every time I watch one of Arthur’s videos and he says “you might want to grab a drink and a snack” I get this warm excited feeling and want to grab a Capri Sun and some Goldfish crackers
I always half-joke that when I'm an old man I'm gonna take my grandkids to the Disney theme park on the moon and they are going to complain that im a boring old man for takeing a side trip to visit the sites of the Artemis missions.
I never get tired of Isaac's positive outlook for the future. Right now I doubt we could come together any major project. But this too shall pass...
I hope we build these things soon.
Definitely read the title card as "Space Balls"... you go brain!
perfect video to get me through the work morning
McMurdo is kept up in the winter by a small cadre of contract workers, who are often there for multiple years. As the saying goes, "the first year, you do it for the adventure. The second year, you do it for the money. And the third year you do it because you're too weird to fit in anywhere else." Speaking of weird, you might want to tell your listeners about the "300 Club." But families and children do exist on the continent. These are in the Argentine and Chilean "military bases" on the Antarctic peninsula. They are military bases to stay within the limits of that Treaty, but basically they are settlements by virtually any definition. Their main purpose, though, is to "prove up" the claims of their respective nations when and if the Antarctic Treaty (which neither denies nor endorses but merely suspends all claims without prejudice) ever lapses. Meanwhile, it's all there. Families, supermarkets, schools, and even telephone numbers in the Punta Arenas or Ushuaia phone directories!
Time to start a luxury space settlement. Spare no expense!
My personal take is that an output is a strategic base used as a remote jump-off point or place to garrison forces. The outpost could expect to be 100% dependent on outside resources being imported to sustain it. There are no humans around that don't serve a specific job in support of the base or military purposes.
A settlement would be as close to 100% self-sufficient as possible. The population living there would have other occupations besides sustaining the settlement. A dance instructor, poet, retirees, or athlete living in/on the settlement would be indicative of settlement vs an outpost. People would have the expectation of living the rest of their lives and birthing children at this location.
Fun fact. New York was once new Amsterdam.
And you now have that song about Constantinople stuck in your head
A minute and a half in and I am saying to myself, This guy knows how to think. This is the guy I want to model my own thinking practices on.
21:37 Yes PLEASE make an Antarctica colonization episode.
The cooking footage was great lol
You are the MAN Isaac.
Should the chance ever come around in my lifetime sign me up to be on the first trip out! To help found a space settlement would be rad! Live long and prosper my friends!🖖🏻
I loved this one. I enjoy them all but these sort of subjects especially peak my curiosity
Dude, best UA-cam video URL ending of all time, hands down! And I love this show, it has been a big influence on me and my project codenamed "FTL" (part video game, part video series/narrative) that I will be unveiling soon and hope people support. 🙂
I don't think prolonged stays in the weak lunar gravity will be all that harmful in and of itself, but it will make it tricky for lunar (or martian) natives to visit higher gravity places like Earth or Venus. Until we learn to adjust our bodies as needed, of course.
It seems that you have to work out a ton to keep your muscles from atrophy. Then again that’s in microgravity without the acceleration of centripetal force.
You wouldn't need to manually activate an airbag if you fall off a rotocity; auto-inflating airbag jackets already exist for motorbike gear, and can set themselves off if triggered by a ripcord attached to the bike or by sensors detecting freefall at speed. It'd be very easy to set up an 'invisible fence' type arrangement, where it sets off a suit's airbag rather than electrocuting a pet.
Sorry, you forgot to pay your life vest subscription this month, you've been downgraded to the lithobraking package.
@@DFPercush They DO come with a subscription package and will disable themselves if it lapses.
Some of us watching right now might live long enough to see the first settlement, regardless it is quite nice to contemplate it :D
I always figured it made way more sense for us to attempt to make a big ship yard style space station in orbit before we headed to make a base on the moon or Mars.
Mankind already has a first space settlement. It is the four moon cars, capsule bases and golf clubs boxed and stored in National Archives in Washington DC
The second one is a red Tesla occupied by AI slowly colonizing the solar system
A cycler is something I never considered, but that is very possible, akin to pitstop port cities like Cape Town. Greetings from South Africa.
But how can cycler save fuel? To dock with it you have to match trajectory, which would require you essentially spent the fuel that already put you on trajectory to coast to your destination. I suppose you could use a mass driver and mass, uh, braker, and jhooks to rendez-vous with the cycler which will borrow and lend kinetic energy with ships travelling to and from the various points on its orbit
I love this channel.
Huh I didn't realize the angle for Earth gravity on the moon would be so extreme. But I haven't done the vector addition calculation myself yet so...
I'm designing a space exploration game and have been struggling with the terms "settlement"and "colony" myself. I've usually held that a settlement is a small collection of people in a localized area, like a village, town, or even a suburb. It is a tiney bastion of your culture and lifestyle in an otherwise alien environment, that is basically a primordial town or future city. A colony is much more overarching, like the overall government of several settlements. So settlement is to town/city as colony is to state/province. But you could go the entire Roman city-state rout also, a settlement that grows into a much larger entity being a colony. I could imagine an O'Neal cilindar being considered the "colony", while small pockets of people gathering in communities in it's surface would be settlements. But also several small settlements on the moon being part of an overarching colonial government.
42! The answer!
I cant be the only one having a silly giggle at youtubes selection of letters to reference this video. Hehe
We could easily conceive of settlements without pets. I don't really understand that point
I like the idea that you make a video about the colonization of Antarctica. I am writing a story where, among other things, there is a civilization of Antarctic natives, as a mixture of the Eskimos from the Arctic and the Fuegians from Patagonia, and I would like to have inspiration to work on that concept.