I feel like this timeline runs into something that bothers me about a lot of space colonization scifi: why are there millions of people living in space colonies when in our timeline, there aren’t millions of people living in Antarctic colonies? Antarctica is a lot more habitable and resource rich than the moon or Mars, building cities there would require a pretty small fraction of the cost of doing so in space, and the standard of living for residents would be a lot higher. The same seems to be true of cities on the ocean floor and underground. Shouldn’t we expect to see a lot of colonization like that first, before moving to space becomes economically sensible?
Granted, there is the old idea of space colonies as a sort of “backup civilization” in case something happens to civilization on earth, which your setting touches on- but I think that probably has the same issue. A city underground would be a lot less vulnerable to nuclear war than a moon colony, and an Antarctic or ocean-floor city probably no more so. These settings also often involve things like moving asteroids, which would be new existential risks in their own right.
I guess it’s true that the drama and mythos of space exploration might drive initial investment in a way that an Antarctic or underground city couldn’t- but if that’s the only advantage it has, I feel like it runs into pretty extreme diminishing returns- a Mars colony of six million is only a bit more dramatic than a colony of 100.
Maybe you could have the space colonization be driven by the discovery of some incredibly valuable resource that doesn’t exist on Earth, like ancient remnants of alien nanotech?
Or maybe the alternate timeline actually could involve people building lots of cities in less habitable areas on Earth before going into space. Maybe there’s a limited nuclear exchange in the 50s that kills 20% of the global population and leads to a widespread belief that living aboveground is unsafe. Then there’s another limited exchange in the 80s, which doesn’t do as much damage because so much of the population and infrastructure has already been moved underground, but which leads to a strong demand for even safer cities deep under the crust of Mars and the moon- which is a smaller step for people in this timeline, since lots of people are already surviving on hydroponics and in cramped, enclosed living spaces.
I think that the reason is a precise point of bifurcation in Daniel’s scenario: we have treaties that ban colonization of Antarctica and Outer Space Treaty does effectively the same.
That’s true, but we also don’t see a rush to build cities similar extreme environments on earth where treaties aren’t a barrier, such as the interior of Greenland or the coastal shelves. I’d argue that the treaties remaining in place are probably a result of very low demand to colonize these areas rather than the opposite.
Yes, plus also, there are three good economic reasons Space > Antarctica: (1) Tourism. I think there would be tens, maybe hundred million people wanting to visit LEO every year, if the cost was $15/kg. That’s enough to support a city of millions on tourism income alone I think. Antarctica would be somewhat cheaper to visit, but much less exciting. (2) Asteroid mining and zero-G manufacturing. While Antarctica probably has some nice mineral deposits or whatever, it’s not anything that doesn’t already exist on Earth elsewhere in large quantities, whereas e.g. a single asteroid might have a ginormous amount of rare elements in it. (3) Solar power is significantly cheaper in space than on earth, due to being more efficient / less intermittent. Antarctica meanwhile basically can’t use solar power. In a world where solar power is the cheapest form of power in general, this is a pretty big deal.
I suspect that the reason is that a colony in Antarctica would also receive less sunlight per square meter (and, therefore, have lower harvests or outright fail to produce food) than a colony in space where one can, for example, gather light by mirrors.
As for Kokotaljo’s world itself, I don’t think that it is of little interest. How close are already existing sci-fictional worlds to the one described in the post?
However, these mirrors could also be used to direct sunlight toward photovoltaic or solar thermal power stations in Antarctica, deserts, or at sea. The advantages of space colonies in this regard seem difficult to offset against the disadvantages of material scarcity and high logistics costs.
Perhaps a more plausible scenario is that human colonies in space were initially established to maintain the mirrors/space power stations, and after a nuclear war broke out, these space stations took in many refugees and became independent?
I feel like this timeline runs into something that bothers me about a lot of space colonization scifi: why are there millions of people living in space colonies when in our timeline, there aren’t millions of people living in Antarctic colonies? Antarctica is a lot more habitable and resource rich than the moon or Mars, building cities there would require a pretty small fraction of the cost of doing so in space, and the standard of living for residents would be a lot higher. The same seems to be true of cities on the ocean floor and underground. Shouldn’t we expect to see a lot of colonization like that first, before moving to space becomes economically sensible?
Granted, there is the old idea of space colonies as a sort of “backup civilization” in case something happens to civilization on earth, which your setting touches on- but I think that probably has the same issue. A city underground would be a lot less vulnerable to nuclear war than a moon colony, and an Antarctic or ocean-floor city probably no more so. These settings also often involve things like moving asteroids, which would be new existential risks in their own right.
I guess it’s true that the drama and mythos of space exploration might drive initial investment in a way that an Antarctic or underground city couldn’t- but if that’s the only advantage it has, I feel like it runs into pretty extreme diminishing returns- a Mars colony of six million is only a bit more dramatic than a colony of 100.
Maybe you could have the space colonization be driven by the discovery of some incredibly valuable resource that doesn’t exist on Earth, like ancient remnants of alien nanotech?
Or maybe the alternate timeline actually could involve people building lots of cities in less habitable areas on Earth before going into space. Maybe there’s a limited nuclear exchange in the 50s that kills 20% of the global population and leads to a widespread belief that living aboveground is unsafe. Then there’s another limited exchange in the 80s, which doesn’t do as much damage because so much of the population and infrastructure has already been moved underground, but which leads to a strong demand for even safer cities deep under the crust of Mars and the moon- which is a smaller step for people in this timeline, since lots of people are already surviving on hydroponics and in cramped, enclosed living spaces.
I think that the reason is a precise point of bifurcation in Daniel’s scenario: we have treaties that ban colonization of Antarctica and Outer Space Treaty does effectively the same.
That’s true, but we also don’t see a rush to build cities similar extreme environments on earth where treaties aren’t a barrier, such as the interior of Greenland or the coastal shelves. I’d argue that the treaties remaining in place are probably a result of very low demand to colonize these areas rather than the opposite.
Yes, plus also, there are three good economic reasons Space > Antarctica:
(1) Tourism. I think there would be tens, maybe hundred million people wanting to visit LEO every year, if the cost was $15/kg. That’s enough to support a city of millions on tourism income alone I think. Antarctica would be somewhat cheaper to visit, but much less exciting.
(2) Asteroid mining and zero-G manufacturing. While Antarctica probably has some nice mineral deposits or whatever, it’s not anything that doesn’t already exist on Earth elsewhere in large quantities, whereas e.g. a single asteroid might have a ginormous amount of rare elements in it.
(3) Solar power is significantly cheaper in space than on earth, due to being more efficient / less intermittent. Antarctica meanwhile basically can’t use solar power. In a world where solar power is the cheapest form of power in general, this is a pretty big deal.
I suspect that the reason is that a colony in Antarctica would also receive less sunlight per square meter (and, therefore, have lower harvests or outright fail to produce food) than a colony in space where one can, for example, gather light by mirrors.
As for Kokotaljo’s world itself, I don’t think that it is of little interest. How close are already existing sci-fictional worlds to the one described in the post?
However, these mirrors could also be used to direct sunlight toward photovoltaic or solar thermal power stations in Antarctica, deserts, or at sea. The advantages of space colonies in this regard seem difficult to offset against the disadvantages of material scarcity and high logistics costs.
Perhaps a more plausible scenario is that human colonies in space were initially established to maintain the mirrors/space power stations, and after a nuclear war broke out, these space stations took in many refugees and became independent?