Why Space Colonization Discussions Annoy Me

[roseembolism]

I always find myself in the position of saying the equivalent of "Your plan to cheaply reach the South Pole is neat, but I think you really should start heavier clothing than bathing suits, and there's no trees there for you to chop down for firewood".

And for some reason they call me a naysayer.

Comments

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Argh. Successfully colonizing the south pole and living there for a few years without resupply really does seem like a prerequisite for doing the same in space.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

It's mainly what I took away from discussion where people were arguing that the success of radio and tv satellites meant that cost-to-orbit wasn't a factor in space colonization.

But yeah, I'd expect to see Antarctica colonized well before Mars.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

There are legitimate differences. While the South Pole has air and some radiation shielding and is somewhat easier to access, its material resources consist, AFAIK, of ice and six months of sunlight. As a homesteading location this is pretty crappy; you need some diversity of elements, and random dirt or regolith is much more usable than pure water ice, as is more frequent sun than "six months of darkness". There's a real sense in which "yes, we can visit or live here more easily, but we can't *colonize* here."

Colonizing the Gobi desert, or even an industrially self-sufficient colony in Montana, seem more apropos comparisons to me. What we see these days is that most people don't want to live in isolated rural areas; they might visit for resource extraction, but they don't stay there. And space is really rural as well as really expensive. We haven't "colonized the oceans" but we do have off-shore oil platforms.

Granted, most people isn't all, and land that wasn't politically claimed (also not Antaractica) could have appeal.