Living Universe Foundation certainly agrees with that approach. Of course that was an engineer writing a book for other engineers, so no surprise it all sounds great to me. Turns out engineering is barely a fraction of the work that needs to be done (and to be fair Savage said as much). I hope we really do it someday.
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Before I clicked, I kind of thought it would be Darling Clementine - the first couple of verses scanned to that pretty well.
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I think we did that in 2021…
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Agreed! Folks like Musk seem to see Mars colonies as purely an engineering challenge but we don’t even know how to have a few would-be astronauts get along without trying to kill each other or rebel from mission control in a simulated Mars base after a few months. And we aren’t that much closer to learning how to keep plants alive in a sealed habitat after the failure of Biosphere 2 in the early ‘90s.
That, and I’m pretty sure there have never been any colonies anywhere that were successful long-term if they weren’t either economically self-sustaining or of other critical strategic importance. I don’t think there’s much of a realistic case for an underwater city in that regard but at least it’s a much smaller investment than a moon colony.
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Between the jagged edged moon dust and the cosmic radiation we really arent anywhere close to having anybody stay on the moon for any length of time at all.
Astronauts on the space station are somewhat protected from cosmic radiation due to the Earth’s proximity. This is not the case on the moon.
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Stop trying to make seaQuest DSV - Wikipedia happen. /s
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…if space is a vacuum… why is the Moon still covered in dust?
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One thing that seems a bit implausible with SF underwater cities is they are so clean of encrusted seaweed, barnacles and coral. That stuff sticks to everything standing down there. But realism isn’t as fun visually, especially in SF.
Btw Pod Six sucks
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Hoovers just aren’t what they used to be. I blame that Dyson guy.
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Well that sucks.
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In space, no one can hear you hoover.
Yeah. He hasn’t even managed a Dyson Sphere yet, right?
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I hate how initially appealing these “let’s do x first” arguments are, when the logical extension is so absurd.
“Let’s stop spending money on foreign aid until we fix our schools.”
“Let’s stop spending money on education until everyone is fed.”
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I understand what a false dichotomy is.
Could you point to a single concrete and/or practical benefit of further trips to the moon, beyond fueling the collective egos of the countries that do so…?
There are very effective anti-fouling coatings, but they are also very expensive. So, like much classic scifi, many imagined things are plausible but not yet practical.
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Technology development for space exploration carries over to benefit many other disciplines. I hear the same objection to vehicle racing, but that has contributed greatly to consumer vehicle safety and efficiency.
Hey, no space program, no Tang!
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I refer you to the mighty Gil Scott-Heron:
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