Will anyone alive today see a permanent colony on the Moon or Mars?

[Ken Fabian]

But are you accounting for the fabulously expensive transport costs?

Up out of one gravity well, across 50 million miles and down into another?

That was in reference to the difference between bases and colonies - not so clear with a quote of previous quote. I think the Earth economy could manage to build and supply a Mars or moon base - at great expense. Whilst some in-situ resources can help I don't think a local economy - a colony - can supply itself, even feed itself. Supplement the imported supplies maybe, like some fresh greens under lights in Antarctica.

The avoided transport costs still aren't enough advantage when it takes such a massive pre-investment to build the infrastructure for growing food.

Copper? I was thinking motors for pumps and wiring for lighting. Lots of pumps, lots of lights. But I was also thinking it is premature to attempt a permanent settlement in expectation it has the potential to become self sufficient later without knowing the essential resources are there. Not only available on Mars (or moon) but nearby. Maybe aluminium could substitute for copper but is that present in concentrated ore bodies?

 

[PeroK]

I feel this reply may be a setup for an old SF reader, but will take the bait. SF author Robert Heinlein in 1966 posited a future Lunar penal colony populated by prison guards made up of Federated Nations (aka UN) dragoons and a Warden appointed by a Lunar Authority watching over aging deportees and their rather prosperous descendants. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

Written as a prequel to Heinlein's juvenile novel "The Rolling Stones", "Mistress" incorporates many of the objections to off-world colonies in this thread using some fancy literary footwork. Humans survive underground on Luna, drilling and sealing "cubit" and mining ice deposits to replenish fresh water. Colonists undergo "irreversible physiological changes" from low gravity after a few months making deportation a life sentence. An excellent gimmick IMO.

This sets the stage for an isolated "locked room" Lunar culture with avant garde marital customs and fanciful language variants. Fascinated by international 20th Century politics, the author leads us, central characters, and a self-aware AI computer to an inevitable revolution against the Lunar Authority.

The first priority in a thread like this is to distinguish what is science fiction, made up as the basis for a story. This is pure fantasy.

 

[DaveC426913]

What if we looked at "permanent" from a different angle? For example, when they start having babies.

A base/colony will always trade for precioius resources with its motherland because: commerce, but if it can't have natives, it's not self-sustaining.

 

[BWV]

What if we looked at "permanent" from a different angle? For example, when they start having babies.

A base/colony will always trade for precioius resources with its motherland because: commerce, but if it can't have natives, it's not self-sustaining

A good body of research indicates it’s not possible to bring a healthy fetus to term in microgravity, then even if you could, what do you have to do? Some sort of spinning crèche to facilitate normal muscle development? You need a couple of hundred meter diameter to offset the inner ear / motion sickness. And what kid gets selected to be the first test case?

 

[berkeman]

Thread is closed for Moderation.

 

[berkeman]

After some cleanup, the thread is reopened provisionally. Please try to avoid making political statements at PF. Thanks.

 

[Klystron]

The first priority in a thread like this is to distinguish what is science fiction, made up as the basis for a story. This is pure fantasy.

Agree with the first sentence, accepting this admonishment. The second item begs the questions, "What is fantasy? How do we distinguish science fiction from pure fantasy?", a subject for a different discussion.

Apropos space colonies, many SF authors have turned to recent colonial history such as Botany Bay, French Guiana, Siberian Gulags, etc. for examples of science exploration missions later exploited as penal colonies. This subject would be better explored at a political site such as CivicsWatch, but this does not abrogate the responsibility for observing human rights in future space exploration and exploitation.

 

[Ken Fabian]

My pessimism is mostly grounded in resources and economics, at both ends - Earth and 'colony' - but don't dismiss other concerns like human biological responses to low gravity (which, like most aspects, there can be solutions to, eg centrifuge habitats (spinning pie dish style?). Quotes around colony because I think this is far more unlike the Earth historical comparisons than like - more like a large scale experiment in human survival in extreme conditions than any kind of opportunity.

I see no inevitability, not of technological progress making such things so much cheaper and easier that the technical issues go away, nor do I see any innate human desire to explore and expand into space; promoting unreasonable expectations can make it superficially popular. Fantasy is more popular than SF. One humorist has suggested we are more likely to develop and breed telepathic fire breathing dragons than colonise Mars.

Low cost transport made a lot of colonial expansion possible and (where present) the abundance of readily exploitable resources and trade in physical resources made colonies successful and self supporting... within the greater economy they were tied to and part of. Few if any were ever sufficiently self sufficient that they could not only survive prolonged isolation but could thrive in that isolation.

We have to go back to the earliest human migrations to find successful colonising based in self sufficiency. Because the environments they found were rich in readily usable resources that were exploitable using the existing knowledge and skills in a few heads.

 

[Klystron]

We have to go back to the earliest human migrations to find successful colonising based in self sufficiency. Because the environments they found were rich in readily usable resources that were exploitable using the existing knowledge and skills in a few heads.

Correct, and these colonies were Terran. Consider complexity of space habitats.

• No breathable air.
• No accessible potable water.
• No edible plants nor animals.
• No native food sources.
• Little protection from solar and cosmic radiation in transit.
• Exposure to space debris.
• Extremely long distances among natural objects.

This partial list eschewing aforementioned low gravity, barely covers inherent difficulties of human life outside our home planet. These problems can be solved with sufficiently advanced technology and ingenuity but habitats must be maintained indefinitely. Consider the cost of maternity crèches and an environment safe for raising children added to the 'outpost' colony.

 

[DEvens]

SpaceX did 165 launches in 2025, including putting up 3000 Starlink satts. Including Starlink, SpaceX made a profit of about $8 billion last year. This is based on about 9 million subscribers to Starlink, and various launches for various other customers. The number of Starlink customers is growing rapidly, close to doubling each of the last two years. One supposes that Starlink is not close to saturation, and so it could easily reach income levels of 10 times that quite soon. Possibly much more.

As the monkey said when he urinated into a cash register, that's running into a lot of money. Elon is going to pile up all his money and walk there.

But seriously, his stated reason for going to Mars is to place humans at far removed locations to reduce the possibility of a catastrophe destroying all humans. Anything that could wipe us out on Earth would have a good chance of not jumping to Mars.

He has secondary notions as well. Like putting folks "way over there" so they can have different ideas, different viewoint, etc. Try new things and see if something works better. Long term, that might be very important.

The target is to have a fleet of 1000 reusable launch vehicles, and launch each one at least 10 times with cargo for Mars. The plan is for unmanned landings in the next few years, then human crewed landings to start in the next 5 to 10 years after that, then large numbers of people 10 years after that. The estimate is 10 millin tons of cargo and about 1 million people to make a self sustaining city on Mars.

I voted yes. If I manage to get an Ozempic prescription, I could conceivably live to see it. And I'm pretty old.

 

[Baluncore]

He has secondary notions as well. Like putting folks "way over there" so they can have different ideas, different viewoint, etc. Try new things and see if something works better. Long term, that might be very important.

That can be achieved with LSD, or the hallucinations of AI, without any need to contaminate Mars with the human epidemic from Earth.

 

[DEvens]

That can be achieved with LSD, or the hallucinations of AI, without any need to contaminate Mars with the human epidemic from Earth.

Somebody who thinks humans are an epidemic might benefit from taking mind altering drugs.

 

[russ_watters]

SpaceX...
The target is to have a fleet of 1000 reusable launch vehicles, and launch each one at least 10 times with cargo for Mars. The plan is for unmanned landings in the next few years, then human crewed landings to start in the next 5 to 10 years after that, then large numbers of people 10 years after that. The estimate is 10 millin tons of cargo and about 1 million people to make a self sustaining city on Mars.

Apropos; he's tabled the Mars thing in favor of the Moon. Details thin at this point though:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/08/science/elon-musk-spacex-priorities-moon-intl-hnk

As I said before I think Mars is fantasy for right now, but the moon is doable if we (Musk) choose to (depending on definitions, per prior discussion). Aside from the direct issues of cost and capability of his rockets, he's going to run into an issue if he takes SpaceX public (speculated to happen this year) and has to answer to shareholders. If they think a Lunar base is a boondoggle they may shut it down.

 

[Grinkle]

Are there enough people willing to live permanently on the moon or mars to make it viable?

I think it likely that there are plenty of valuable resources under the surface of many major bodies of water right here on Earth, and there are no mining colonies or even discussion of any. Whatever the technical challenges involved in establishing a permanent colony underwater, they seem more tractable to me than the challenges and expense involved in a permanent moon colony. No one wants to live their life under the ocean, even if they can come back above ground for the weekends.

I think if it came down to a real choice, the moon would be a difficult sell, unless things had really gone to pot here on Earth, and Mars would be better than certain death for some (not me, but I'm old), but not much short of that, assuming its a one way trip. What kind of lifestyle could one expect on the moon? Pretty indoorsy and stressful I think. The closest thing to compare it to imo is working on an offshore drilling platform, and I'll grant that can get folks to sign up if we are talking about stints lasting no more than a handful of years.

 

[russ_watters]

Are there enough people willing to live permanently on the moon or mars to make it viable?

Millions, absolutely.

What kind of lifestyle could one expect on the moon? Pretty indoorsy and stressful I think. The closest thing to compare it to imo is working on an offshore drilling platform, and I'll grant that can get folks to sign up if we are talking about stints lasting no more than a handful of years.

Even if we assume it will be that bad, we've seen stampedes for worse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia

 

[PeroK]

But seriously, his stated reason for going to Mars is to place humans at far removed locations to reduce the possibility of a catastrophe destroying all humans. Anything that could wipe us out on Earth would have a good chance of not jumping to Mars.

To many of us Elon Musk (and his kind) are the catastrophe that will destroy life for the vast majority of humans. There would be no escape on Mars. As Orwell put it: imagine a jackboot stamping on a human face - forever.

 

[Grinkle]

Millions, absolutely.

I'm sure we are both applying myriad unstated assumptions in our individual 'theatres of the mind' when we make our assertions, and if we could somehow swap assumptions efficiently we might end up agreeing with each other. So I'll grant you that I might potentially agree if we spent enough time talking about it.

My own assumptions boil down to it would be roughly as satisfying as living on a submarine, lifestyle-wise, with the addition that you would know that you could never, ever surface. There's not a lot going on in a submarine besides mission. That is why I ended up with stints being viable to recruit for, but not lifelong commitments.

If that were to be roughly the scenario, would you still say millions? Or maybe I'm not being visionary enough and I'm only able to describe the initial stages with my submarine visual?

Can you give me a 10k foot visual as to what lifestyle you envision people signing up for?

 

[Grinkle]

Even if we assume it will be that bad, we've seen stampedes for worse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown,_Virginia

Klondike is a stint scenario, I concede that one is viable to recruit for.

Jamestown is a good analogy for the discussion in the thread, I agree. The difference I see is that every human being who chose to go to Jamestown could easily and realistically envision a scenario where they would be able duplicate their current lifestyle and improve on it wrt material wealth. This, in my mind, is a key difference. Does material wealth even mean anything on the moon? I don't know, it would have to be explained to me in a manner that made sense to me, and maybe it could be, but it would have to be. I don't think people would get too excited about earning ship-chits to use at the cafeteria for the rest of their lives, so there has to be a vision of more, and with the Jamestown analogy (again, a good one in many ways I agree) that vision was self-supplied. They were all going there either to come back again richer, or to duplicate Europe and then be richer in the new Europe.

 

[Baluncore]

Everyone's Gone To The Moon - Jonathan King - 1965

 

[Filip Larsen]

Interestingly enough, the vote may represent a nice (PF-audience biased) estimate of the probability this will actually happen, i.e. currently around a 20% chance

 

[Baluncore]

And in the news:
Today, we cover Elon Musk's audacious plan to build an AI satellite factory on the Moon following the xAI-SpaceX merger.
In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Musk described the moon as a steppingstone to Mars. First, he said, the company would build “a self-sustaining city on the moon,” then travel to Mars and finally explore star systems in search of aliens.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Elon said we were going to Mars in ten years in 2012.