Personally I always thought the prospect of colonizing Mercury in a non-earth-like way at our current technology level made more sense (if not financial sense)- it could be done in subsurface caverns, harvest energy from the surface, ice is present inside permanently shadowed craters. Water is constantly being created from solar wind blasting the surface (sputtering creates water vapor when solar wind hits oxide-laden rocks. ).
The real problem? While the average distance between Earth and Mercury is only 48million km, around a third the distance to Mars (140 million km), the orbital speed is 47.87 km/s per second compared to Earth's 29.78km/s, and Mars 24.08km/s. The transits could potentially be relatively short, but still end up consuming as many resources in the end. Mercury is also considerably less mass- while Mars and its gravity is 1/10th earths, Mercury is half that, which could have pretty bad long-term consequences for colonists.
What's always intrigued me was air pressure and altitude. We all know air gets thinner as you go up, the inverse is true as well. A crater seven miles below "sea" level on Mars would have air pressure similar to the pressure of mountainous regions on Earth.
They'd probably still need a tent to block radiation, but they'd be livable breathable habitats. A few of these crater cities could dot the landscape while preserving the rest of Martian beauty, no terraforming required.
The fundamental question of all space colonization - whether the planet next door or the other side of the galaxy - is: why? Who on earth would want to do that, and what could possibly be a sufficient economic incentive? Space travel is so outrageously difficult, expensive, and dangerous that it would without a doubt be easier to synthesize any special space resources (which probably don't exist anyways btw). We don't need the space because even Antarctic winters are cozier than the nicest day on Mars and population growth is about to level off globally.
In terms of other planets it really doesn't make any sense outside of pure scientific exploration (frankly it's a good thing that it doesn't make economic sense) and for the strategy I described the moon is a better candidate anyways, for the reasons mentioned. That's what the Chinese moon missions have been investigating at least.
Scientific outposts are literally the only plausible reason. And we can get 90% of that value without a single human stepping foot on the given body, especially as robotics tech develops.
And we can get 90% of that value without a single human stepping foot on the given body
Considering the toll long-term low gravity takes on people it's almost certain that's going to be the case. Having human habitats there is a lot of unnecessary complexity, but maintaining healthy humans in those conditions is categorically worse.
Personally I always thought the prospect of colonizing Mercury in a non-earth-like way at our current technology level made more sense (if not financial sense)- it could be done in subsurface caverns, harvest energy from the surface, ice is present inside permanently shadowed craters. Water is constantly being created from solar wind blasting the surface (sputtering creates water vapor when solar wind hits oxide-laden rocks. ).
The real problem? While the average distance between Earth and Mercury is only 48million km, around a third the distance to Mars (140 million km), the orbital speed is 47.87 km/s per second compared to Earth's 29.78km/s, and Mars 24.08km/s. The transits could potentially be relatively short, but still end up consuming as many resources in the end. Mercury is also considerably less mass- while Mars and its gravity is 1/10th earths, Mercury is half that, which could have pretty bad long-term consequences for colonists.
What's always intrigued me was air pressure and altitude. We all know air gets thinner as you go up, the inverse is true as well. A crater seven miles below "sea" level on Mars would have air pressure similar to the pressure of mountainous regions on Earth.
They'd probably still need a tent to block radiation, but they'd be livable breathable habitats. A few of these crater cities could dot the landscape while preserving the rest of Martian beauty, no terraforming required.
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The fundamental question of all space colonization - whether the planet next door or the other side of the galaxy - is: why? Who on earth would want to do that, and what could possibly be a sufficient economic incentive? Space travel is so outrageously difficult, expensive, and dangerous that it would without a doubt be easier to synthesize any special space resources (which probably don't exist anyways btw). We don't need the space because even Antarctic winters are cozier than the nicest day on Mars and population growth is about to level off globally.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Like, what would we gain from colonizing Mercury?
In terms of other planets it really doesn't make any sense outside of pure scientific exploration (frankly it's a good thing that it doesn't make economic sense) and for the strategy I described the moon is a better candidate anyways, for the reasons mentioned. That's what the Chinese moon missions have been investigating at least.
Scientific outposts are literally the only plausible reason. And we can get 90% of that value without a single human stepping foot on the given body, especially as robotics tech develops.
Considering the toll long-term low gravity takes on people it's almost certain that's going to be the case. Having human habitats there is a lot of unnecessary complexity, but maintaining healthy humans in those conditions is categorically worse.