Why do people believe this? The microgravity and radiation are an occupational hazard, and worth taking seriously, but it's a lot better for you than like machining beryllium or something
Replies
It's recent science, but: in vitro rat (?) embryos appeared to develop normally on the ISS, so the empirics (such as they are) suggest that microgravity is not a dealbreaker. I know a lot of people were wondering if conception/fetal development were even possible in orbit
jul 14, 2025, 2:53 am β’ 38 0 β’ view
I think pregnancy would probably be fine, I also don't think it'd be ethical to do by choice. It's also totally clear that we can support enough habitation that "natural experiments" occur. I think these kids would have health problems but like 2 sigma ones
jul 14, 2025, 2:59 am β’ 25 0 β’ view
Ok but like could that generation have healthy children and survive childbirth? Thats an unknown at this point and necessary for permanent human habitation in space.
jul 14, 2025, 6:56 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Like what's being left unsaid here is that a whole bunch of children used to die constantly and aren't anymore. We can treat more spaceflight damage than we're comfortable admitting because all the harm is studied in excruciating detail
jul 14, 2025, 2:59 am β’ 32 3 β’ view
This is definitely one of this ones were we *can* maybe do it but all reasonable people are a bit opposed because there doesnβt seem to be a good reason. Iβm all in on USSF and mechanical space but human space flight seems a little like giving up only to propagate the same shit we gave up on
jul 14, 2025, 3:04 am β’ 2 0 β’ view
I think China will probably just go for it at this point. They need the propaganda value and we aren't willing to put up the funds. We used to put money into cathedrals, and now it's just infrastructure built to cope with low density zoning. It's a huge waste, but the political economy demands it
jul 14, 2025, 3:08 am β’ 7 0 β’ view
The funny counter example would be Trump is convinced that a colony is the way to cement his legacy but oops no more Trump so a bunch of colonists get stranded in orbit because they canβt get landing clearance and have to live on the ship so we beat the Chinese to a space colony by accident
jul 14, 2025, 3:14 am β’ 3 0 β’ view
Nature is also straight up crazy badass. My development during first and second brachial arches went funky but I still survived, olayed hs volleyball, and got a BS in physics. I'm no gold standard of humankind, but shit works.
jul 14, 2025, 3:02 am β’ 11 0 β’ view
I assume in large part itβs because so many people left of center are negatively polarized against manned space exploration precisely because of Musk.
jul 14, 2025, 3:02 am β’ 5 0 β’ view
Though to be fair itβs an attitude that has predated his rise.
jul 14, 2025, 3:03 am β’ 2 0 β’ view
Honestly weak shit here from the negatively polarized, the real reason why you'd be against manned exploration is because for the most part unmanned exploration is better in every single way
jul 14, 2025, 3:59 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
10000000000%
jul 14, 2025, 3:06 am β’ 2 0 β’ view
living in space would be a giant pain in the ass and you would need a compelling reason to do it. there isn't one
jul 14, 2025, 7:27 am β’ 7 0 β’ view
We could do a lot of things if we simply just reoriented all economic activity around it. There's no reason we couldn't build a pontoon bridge to Hawaii.
jul 14, 2025, 2:28 pm β’ 2 0 β’ view
I dunno, i can think of some use cases: zero gee manufacturing. More closely spherical ball bearings alone would be a big leap. Steel forging. Gibson's Freeside comes to mind (I'm sure they'd have Poor People Week, & fly up some orphans once a year π)
jul 14, 2025, 5:43 pm β’ 1 0 β’ view
Within the next 10 or 20 years, assuming things go OK down here, I expect some basic robotic asteroid mining and some long-term habitation experiments. Probably a few dozen people will have stayed in space continously for 5 to 10 years by 2050 Full-on colonies? Probably not this century
jul 14, 2025, 3:54 am β’ 2 0 β’ view
Agreed, colonization is totally unnecessary and wonβt happen any time soon. We need like ten generations better technology for it to even be *possible* let alone feasible. Scientific missions, sure. But we donβt even have meaningful LEO luxury tourism for normies.
jul 14, 2025, 4:01 am β’ 2 0 β’ view
I think its least a matter of tech and more a matter of logistics and infrastructure. Like, we would need local resource extraction and industrial processes already set up to support a permanent population on any body but the moon. The travel time to mars is usually more than 6 months
jul 14, 2025, 4:12 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
You can't keep people alive off of a supply chain that takes the majority of year to get any request delivered And building up that infrastructure will take a pretty long while because, well, travel time. Any shipment of raw materials from an asteroid or supplies from earth would take months
jul 14, 2025, 4:15 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
We donβt have the launch tech to send sufficiently shielded habitats to enable long-term habitation on the Moon, let alone Mars. And weβre not particularly close to having that technology.
jul 14, 2025, 4:19 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
We do have the technology to shield ourselves from radiation on the moon. Its called "dirt". Food, water, spare parts, and living space are much harder challenges to solve than radiation. You can just bury your shelter after you land and boom no radiation worries.
jul 14, 2025, 4:22 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
But, like, thats just a bunch of people buried in a tiny tube waiting for something or someone to break. In order to be a proper colony you need mining and manufacturing and agriculture and those are the hard parts that will require a good deal of time and prep work to solve
jul 14, 2025, 4:26 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
Burying habitats on the moon requires sending equipment able to excavate. We donβt have that technology.
jul 14, 2025, 4:25 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
We've sent vehicles to the moon before. With increased payload capacity you could make a moon buggy into a janky bulldozer
jul 14, 2025, 4:29 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Or, like, give each person a shovel and tell em to go at it. It's not like they are gonna drop dead instantly
jul 14, 2025, 4:30 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
How are you launching enough oxygen to support that level of physical exertion?
jul 14, 2025, 4:37 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Let's remember that we literally have an ongoing lunar program that (if trump wasn't gutting it) is supposed to establish infrastructure planned to support yearly lunar landings Burying 1 (one) shelter for maybe 20 people would be easier than this
jul 14, 2025, 4:41 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Weβd *maybe* be able to send 1 small excavator to the moon per launch using our most advanced and capable launch technology. It would weigh 100x what the Apollo moon buggy weighed.
jul 14, 2025, 4:36 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Why would it weigh that much the LRV could already carry something like 1000 pounds. And thats on the moon mind you, with much lower gravity
jul 14, 2025, 4:44 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Weight on the moon is irrelevant, what matters is payload capability.
jul 14, 2025, 4:46 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Machines can mine rare minerals. Machines can go into space. You can call it an "occupational hazard" but micro gravity has severe immediate impacts on your entire body that we have never done lone term study on because of how expensive and potentially dangerous that idea is.
jul 14, 2025, 4:23 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
He is right. Microgravity and radiation are real serious things that we are nowhere close to technologically solving. It is not an occupational hazard at the death sentence. If you spent any time researching what it would take you would have known why this is just not a doable thing for humans.
jul 14, 2025, 5:47 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
It's a mild occupational hazard. We'd ban welding if we studied it with this much granularity
jul 14, 2025, 5:48 am β’ 5 0 β’ view
Wow this is so ignorant I don't even know where to start. Maybe you should actually read some scientific studies and actually read about the research that has already been done and why this is a horrible idea.
jul 14, 2025, 5:58 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
I've literally had 1 on 1s with the people who study this. They want to be through, and they're doing their jobs well. They also acknowledge that we could trade a foot for a mile if we took risks as much as we studied them. The issue is that study is cheaper than investment
jul 14, 2025, 6:01 am β’ 3 0 β’ view
*thorough
jul 14, 2025, 6:02 am β’ 3 0 β’ view
Itβs probably mostly the lack of oxygen
jul 14, 2025, 3:27 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
Now, living in a *container* in space, sure, that Iβd buy
jul 14, 2025, 3:27 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
Okay, right, or a sufficient source of mass to trap the right kind of atmosphere but not too much of it
jul 14, 2025, 3:28 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
We're living in space right now
jul 14, 2025, 2:41 am β’ 26 0 β’ view
God dayummm whoa
jul 14, 2025, 2:43 am β’ 12 0 β’ view
βDo you realize?β
jul 14, 2025, 1:39 pm β’ 0 0 β’ view
Beltalowda
jul 14, 2025, 4:37 am β’ 2 0 β’ view
That one Defector article keeps getting passed around as a gotcha when anyone talks about space habitats.
jul 14, 2025, 3:36 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
It's the 20 companies cause global warming headline of space sciences.
jul 14, 2025, 3:39 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
If the GOAT Tomino says it it must be true
jul 14, 2025, 2:55 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
I'm just glad Tomino maintained his tradition of always trolling his fanbase during interviews.
jul 14, 2025, 2:45 am β’ 5 0 β’ view
Like without protection and means for load bearing exercise? Sure, I agree to that. π
jul 14, 2025, 2:42 am β’ 4 0 β’ view
I mean, "live in space" in space stations temporarily, yes. Space colonies, there's enormous technical obstacles which may not actually be surmountable with existing or foreseeable technologies.
jul 14, 2025, 2:56 am β’ 12 1 β’ view
A City on Mars is pretty on point with this. We have not even the first clue how to do so many things which would be required to sustainably live on another planet.
jul 14, 2025, 2:58 am β’ 12 0 β’ view
I think a lot of people take the wrong thing away from this book - the Weinersmiths are arguing that colonizing Mars (or anywhere else) is going to be vastly more difficult than Elon Musk or Bob Zubrin would have you believe, but theyβre by no means saying itβs impossible/unworthy of pursuit
jul 14, 2025, 3:40 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
I didn't say it's unworthy of pursuit; I said that it's not feasible with anything we can foresee right now. It's not going to happen in my lifetime.
jul 14, 2025, 4:11 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
I think surgical interventions are going to be the big unknown. Digging holes outside Earth's atmosphere is incredibly challenging to figure out, but easy once done. If that's covered, everything else gets pretty easy all at once
jul 14, 2025, 3:00 am β’ 12 0 β’ view
Rocket engines make great digging machines off-world, surprisingly enough.
jul 14, 2025, 5:44 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
For no reason at all I remember talking to a former McDonnell Aircraft production worker who used to drill holes in molybdenum alloy thermal shingles for Gemini spacecraft, while the shingle was in a bucket of water to catch the dust.
jul 14, 2025, 3:26 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
One nice thing about Star Trek is that it created a lot of people with both left wing political beliefs and support for science as a tool for progress and creating a better future.
jul 14, 2025, 2:50 am β’ 61 1 β’ view
Star Trek is deeply American because it features the captain passionately reading out the US constitution to the survivors of nuclear war Gundam is deeply Japanese because it features the emperor calling his own son Hitler about a year after they killed billions in the name of anticolonialism
jul 14, 2025, 3:44 am β’ 21 2 β’ view
space nerds havenβt done nearly enough to reach out to urbanists imo. every community is walkable. efficient land (volume) use is mandatory.
jul 14, 2025, 8:13 pm β’ 1 0 β’ view
One thing is objectively true: on the worst day in the history of complex life on earth (take a pick from any of the βbig fiveβ mass extinctions of the last half-billion years) earth was still a far, far more hospitable place for life than literally anywhere else in our solar system.
jul 15, 2025, 8:07 pm β’ 0 0 β’ view
I think a big part of this is that people see tech development as a function of time, instead of demand. The way to get better at going to space is by going to space
jul 14, 2025, 4:26 am β’ 0 0 β’ view
Holy shit, batko is still alive?
jul 14, 2025, 2:44 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
I thought he died in Paris in the mid 30s but apparently not
jul 14, 2025, 2:45 am β’ 1 0 β’ view
A related point on this topic is that so many reasons people state for why space colonization isn't possible just illustrates how little they understand about technological development and risk management. A lot of talk about "current technology" and "unknown risks" as if these are insurmountable.
jul 14, 2025, 3:42 am β’ 15 1 β’ view
By definition a serious attempt at space colonization will not be using "current technology" and will have discovered, and mitigated, risks that are unknown to us because the work will have been done.
jul 14, 2025, 3:48 am β’ 7 0 β’ view
As an aside, this is why I have been an Elon Musk hater from the start. If he really understood what colonizing Mars meant, he would be building habitats. He would be funding food growth experiments. He would be in conversation with miners, metallurgists, machinists, architects, agriculturalists.
jul 14, 2025, 3:51 am β’ 9 0 β’ view
The rocket is only how you get there. It is not worth building if you have nothing to launch. And he has neither taken that initiative himself nor worked with those interested in developing the actual infrastructure required to live on another world.
jul 14, 2025, 3:54 am β’ 7 0 β’ view
Tbf as of a couple years ago they did have public facing engineers talking about all that stuff, writing research papers, talking to NASA/other companies. they seem to have gone quiet in the starship tests era though. maybe theyβll be back at some later date.
jul 14, 2025, 7:58 pm β’ 1 0 β’ view
I don't think they will. SpaceX's long-term success was premised on being able to manage Elon, and the repeat failures and bullheadedness of the starship era is conclusive proof that that has failed. He's got his hands in the operations now, and we can see just what that's done to Twitter and Tesla.
jul 14, 2025, 8:17 pm β’ 3 0 β’ view
SpaceX has some very talented and experienced engineers and managers, but so did OceanGate, until the boss disagreed with them. Given that Elon is choosing to lobby against minor regulatory inconveniences in Texas instead of following law, I expect he'll go ballistic if he faces internal pushback.
jul 14, 2025, 8:20 pm β’ 3 0 β’ view
In my experience modern living standards and lifespans lead the average layman to assume that an adverse environment causes outright death rather than a statistical impact. Societies in the not distant past had populations or segments thereof who lived short and painful lives doing necessary work.
jul 14, 2025, 2:54 am β’ 8 0 β’ view
But why would have one want to return to that kind of life if given the choice ? unless we want to colonize space via slavery and genocideβ¦
jul 14, 2025, 1:10 pm β’ 1 0 β’ view
My point in the follow-ups is that there is no need for a return; these risks can be mitigated just as any other. However, the unfamiliarity of these risks leads many to assume that mitigation is impossible and that these risks are substantially worse than those endured by people in the recent past.
jul 14, 2025, 1:19 pm β’ 1 0 β’ view
Like why send humans to mine anything anywhere when machines are so much less likely to be completely consumed by cancer and donβt need to eat and drink !?
jul 14, 2025, 1:25 pm β’ 0 0 β’ view
Why are you assuming space colonization would utilize manpower in the same way as historical mining? I brought up past risk to show that worse risks have been endured; that the risks of space are not impossible. I am not proposing that we subjet space dwellers to conditions resembling a salt mine.
jul 14, 2025, 1:42 pm β’ 0 0 β’ view
Radiation is not an unsolved risk. We know how to prevent it, full stop. The problem is that it is expensive to place shielding in orbit, so instead the decision was made to manage this risk via exposure limits. In scenarios where you can't manage exposure, other mitigations must be employed.
jul 14, 2025, 1:46 pm β’ 0 0 β’ view
Modern medicine and safety practices have allowed us to greatly mitigate this to a point where some people act as if creating an environment that assumes a new kind of potentially fatal or lifespan-affecting risk is the same as consigning someone to death, without considering the degree of risk.
jul 14, 2025, 2:54 am β’ 9 0 β’ view
This goes doubly so for risks with high potential for death or injury that are nonetheless easy to mitigate. For example, as an electrical engineer who works with a high voltage product I routinely work on devices that could kill me, but I am significantly safer than the average farm worker.
jul 14, 2025, 3:01 am β’ 9 0 β’ view
People have spent over a year in space, on what amounts to a shambly little raft, maintained by agencies on shoestring budgets. The idea that weβre at the edge of whatβs possible is ludicrous.
jul 14, 2025, 2:57 am β’ 10 0 β’ view
He might not be speaking just technologically here, but most likely civilly. The UC timeline is all about how a capitalistic move to space does little more than just increase the wealth gap, along with more to struggle. So i think he means our social structure needs space telekineses to even try.
jul 14, 2025, 3:19 am β’ 3 0 β’ view