Anyone seriously interested in this topic will love https://www.isaacarthur.net/
Colonizing Mars or any other planetary surface is pointless. Rotating habitats in space are the ticket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86JAU3w9mB8 The author has more videos on the subject.
Alternatives to rockets? Mass drivers for the moon, basically a linear induction motor like on a monorail train. For Earth, orbital rings.
I believe Jeff Bezos is taking the correct approach with Blue Origin though I wish he would pick up the pace. The idea is to slowly build up an infrastructure and manufacturing base on the moon. This will have to come before building megastructures like the O'Neil cylinders with internal areas larger than the island of Guam. There is simply no way to lift that much material from Earth. You have to mine the material from the moon and launch it with a mass driver.
Elon Musk has won over a lot of skeptics as far as how cheap we can make rockets. If he keeps up with what he has been doing, he could help get the space-based infrastructure started. Unfortunately, he's infatuated with Mars, misguided though I believe that is. Long-term settlers is one thing but raising children in 1/3 gravity? That's probably pure fantasy short of major genetic engineering.
Colonizing Mars or any other planetary surface is pointless. Rotating habitats in space are the ticket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86JAU3w9mB8 The author has more videos on the subject.
Alternatives to rockets? Mass drivers for the moon, basically a linear induction motor like on a monorail train. For Earth, orbital rings.
I believe Jeff Bezos is taking the correct approach with Blue Origin though I wish he would pick up the pace. The idea is to slowly build up an infrastructure and manufacturing base on the moon. This will have to come before building megastructures like the O'Neil cylinders with internal areas larger than the island of Guam. There is simply no way to lift that much material from Earth. You have to mine the material from the moon and launch it with a mass driver.
Elon Musk has won over a lot of skeptics as far as how cheap we can make rockets. If he keeps up with what he has been doing, he could help get the space-based infrastructure started. Unfortunately, he's infatuated with Mars, misguided though I believe that is. Long-term settlers is one thing but raising children in 1/3 gravity? That's probably pure fantasy short of major genetic engineering.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
