[HN Gopher] Establishment of a closed artificial ecosystem to en...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Establishment of a closed artificial ecosystem to ensure human
       survival on moon
        
       Author : phreeza
       Score  : 56 points
       Date   : 2021-01-15 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.biorxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.biorxiv.org)
        
       | tesalrk wrote:
       | despite extraodinary good data regarding human experience of
       | living in isolated/enclosed conolies, we persist on believing the
       | fundmantal obstacle to livign on the moon is technological.
        
         | JoeAltmaier wrote:
         | But we've addressed this repeatedly, with submarine crews,
         | Antarctic populations, iceberg outposts. It's manageable.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | IMO it won't count as a proper colony until it is big enough to
         | not feel isolated.
        
         | xwdv wrote:
         | Personally I believe the fundamental obstacle is gravitational.
        
         | wincy wrote:
         | Neuralink will make sure we don't feel lonely on the colony.
        
           | wizzwizz4 wrote:
           | Neuralink (or, at least, the designs I've seen) would be
           | worse than VR, and it's a little amusing to consider the idea
           | that it might somehow _directly_ prevent lonelinesss.
        
             | handol wrote:
             | You just load up the map for the kind of lobotomy you want
             | to simulate and say good bye to loneliness.
        
         | DylanBohlender wrote:
         | Assuming we establish communication relays between the Earth
         | and Moon, Moon dwellers would probably be able to use the
         | internet (albeit probably with a laggy connection by Earth
         | standards). While remote socialization during the pandemic has
         | been far from ideal, I think our last year's experience
         | collectively has proven that socializing digitally is somewhat
         | possible and might prevent (or at least mitigate) the worst
         | effects of isolation.
         | 
         | If there are any physicists/engineers reading this that have
         | the appropriate expertise to potentially work on something like
         | it, I'd be super curious to hear your thoughts about how it
         | could work.
         | 
         | Assuming we're supporting a Moon colony of nontrivial scale
         | (~100 people maybe?), what would the experience of connecting
         | to Earth's internet be like for the colonists? What
         | infrastructure would we need to create to make it possible
         | and/or improve it?
        
       | etaioinshrdlu wrote:
       | To me it seems like the Moon has a pretty unhelpful elemental
       | composition. Especially, a distinct lack of carbon and nitrogen.
        
       | phreeza wrote:
       | I wonder how this compared to the Biosphere 2 experiments
       | conducted in the 90s. It seems this is a much more artificial
       | environment, and thus probably closer to an actual moon mission.
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Am I the only one thinking that Elon should already be testing
         | some beta Mars habitats on Earth by now? Why aren't we seeing
         | more Biosphere-style experiments?
        
           | Meerax wrote:
           | My understanding was that Elon was interested in providing
           | the bus service (so to speak) of getting people and cargo
           | there. Less interested in the colony building aspect? But, I
           | believe The Boring Company tunneling machine will fit inside
           | a launch vehicle and the Tesla truck will function on
           | extraterrestrial world's with a pressurized cabin so I could
           | be completely mistaken.
        
             | colordrops wrote:
             | He's focused on the critical path to colonizing mars. If an
             | sustainable ecosystem becomes the critical path, he'll
             | focus on it. There's so much else that is more important
             | now though, and funding is limited.
        
             | handol wrote:
             | > the Tesla truck will function on extraterrestrial world's
             | with a pressurized cabin so I could be completely mistaken
             | 
             | I suppose that's true, in the same way it's true of all
             | electric cars. But a pressurized cabin and an airlock is a
             | pretty massive change.
        
               | amluto wrote:
               | The cooling system would need to work in a very minimal
               | atmosphere.
        
         | woleium wrote:
         | iirc, biosphere failed because the concrete absorbed carbon
         | dioxide and caused crop failure. interestingly, this allowed Dr
         | Roy Walford et al to study calorie restricted optimal nutrition
         | (CRON) diets and discover their effects, slowing the aging
         | process.
        
           | LatteLazy wrote:
           | The concrete absorbed oxygen not CO2. I don't think there was
           | a crop failure so much as too many people, not enough plants?
           | Apparently they also miscalculated the amount of sunlight
           | coming through the windows and so the amount of
           | photosynthesis occurring, so maybe that is form of crop
           | failure: does X grams of crop have fewer calories in of its
           | been light deprived?
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-01-15 23:00 UTC)