Comment on A City on Mars: Reality kills space settlement dreams
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months agoBut gravity may be useful in many applications. We don’t really know how to effectively manufacture many things in microgravity at the moment. The moon would still be important for early space infrastructure.
ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 10 months ago
The gravity problem is also best solved away from the surface of any celestial bodies. Massive spinning space stations would be much more pleasant to live in in almost every way. Unless a planet or moon has a good reason to land on it (e.g. material to be mined) it makes much more sense to simply build a habitat away from the gravity well and build smaller work camps on the surface that can be supported by the main habitat(s).
SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
The problem is that such space stations are very complex to build and maintain, and can more easily catastrophically fail. It’s certainly an option, but it may not be worth it.
Of course, all of this is speculation, but my point is mostly that if we don’t have sufficiently advanced space construction capabilities, surface habitats and infrastructure on the moon may be preferable.