Good luck with that 96% carbondioxide atmosphere chief

  • happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    When they test space vehicles like rovers, they do so in the deserts of the southwest with similar topography. Absolute inhospitable hellscapes that barely simulate the real thing, but the best we can do on this planet.

    Musk should have to do that. Build a colony in rural Arizona using only the materials you can bring in a spaceship-sized load with Mars-length resupply cycles. Make it self-sustaining in every way for a population that won't face genetic bottlenecks. Bring an animal and feed it. Keep that population alive on hydroponically-grown food using machines that can't be repaired or fertilised without a resupply ship. Colonists can go outside, but only in full Mars kit and only using Mars surface exposure protocols. The colony has to survive for ten years and to make it easy they're physiologically on Earth so it won't cause chronic health issues or stress machinery beyond Earth conditions. If at any point anyone wants to live or is injured beyond what a remote colony can deal with, knowing that we have to medevac sailors from ships if they develop a wisdom tooth infection, the only way they can leave is by waiting for the next ship after the colony constructs a launchpad and enough fuel to escape Mars orbit.

    I don't care if they succeed or not, I just want Elon Musk to suffer Rimworld.

    • poppy_apocalypse [he/him, any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      You should pitch that to Netflix. Elon would never agree to do it but it never hurts to try. I would watch the fuck out of that.

    • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      They did something like that back in the 90s build a biosphere and it failed miserably. They had to eat their seed stocks, they had severe crop failure which required them eating an emergency supply of food just to survive, when leaving the experiment they were all rather emaciated. There was substantial strife with 2 distinct factions rising up. They couldn't supply enough oxygen so they then started pumping oxygen into the place. Sure technology has advanced a fair bit over the past few years, but this shows a substantial problem where even on earth in a very large facility designed to be rather comfortable with help immediately available, that basically everything that could go wrong, did. The fucking man doesn't even think cosmic or solar radiation is a problem.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          https://archive.curbed.com/2019/7/11/20686351/what-is-biosphere-2-curbed-podcast-nice-try

          Great one-off podcast on it from the Serial folks.

          Apparently, harvesting potatoes (their primary food stock) produced carbon dioxide gas, which slowly drove down the supply of breathable oxygen. Not only were they emaciated at the end, but they were asphyxiating themselves, to boot.

          Great experiment and it yielded a ton of useful data. But it's highly illustrative of the hurdles we've yet to clear.

          But rather than building a Biosphere 3 and improving our attempts at creating a human sustainable terrarium, we seem to insist on playing at space colonist entirely within our minds.

        • Coolkidbozzy [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          lmao wikipedia says Steve Bannon managed the project, and the scientists were concerned because he had a reputation for jeopardizing the safety of scientists in other projects

          Leading managers of Biosphere 2 from the original founding group stated both abusive behaviour by Bannon and others, and that the bankers’ actual goal was to destroy the experiment. During a 1996 trial, Bannon testified that he had called one of the plaintiffs, Abigail Alling, a "self-centered, deluded young woman" and a "bimbo." He also testified that when the woman submitted a five-page complaint outlining safety problems at the site, he promised to shove the complaint "down her throat." Bannon attributed this to "hard feelings and broken dreams." At the end of the trial, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered Space Biosphere Ventures to pay them $600,000, but also ordered the plaintiffs to pay the company $40,089 for the damage they had caused.

        • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I thought that Bud and Doyle were able to help the scientists restore the ecosystem after they threw that rager in the desert. Doesn't seem like that much of a failure to me.

    • Vncredleader
      ·
      4 years ago

      That feels like reverse experimental archeology

    • ToastGhost [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Elon Musk to suffer Rimworld

      Yeah it would be great if he got mauled to death by a turtle