The Moon or Mars which should be the first settlement?

[Ryzael]

Anyone who grows up in space will be unable to set foot on a planet like Earth. Gravity defines the human body in many ways.

that's only important when humanity is based on planets, not on ships. if everybody's on ships there's no need to set foot on earth.

Yes at first but eventually we should settle, transform, and populate every viable planet.

which immediately takes planets out of the running for harvest. won't be allowed to destroy mars when humans are living on 0.00001% of its surface. never gonna leave the solar system if we limit ourselves like that, gotta go macro.

[Shadowferal]

Sustaining the ISS is hard, but still a lot easier than sustaining a "colony" on the moon. The ISS is easy mode. Regularly landing and starting supply flights on the moon is a whole different beast nad yields no merit whatsoever.

Better to find out the exact logistics from a distance of 239k miles than 42 million miles.
...and then there's the "human" problem.

[Zantos]

Itd be stupid to try mars first. Purely because its so far away. How are they realistically supposed to figure out how to solve problems if anyone they send to mars could die by going there? The moon is perfect to ensure they have an easy way to send experts to the field to gather information on anything thats gone wrong. Seeing it in person will always be vastly superior for figuring out a problem than never actually seeing it or only seeing photos.

[PACOX]

Sustaining the ISS is hard, but still a lot easier than sustaining a "colony" on the moon. The ISS is easy mode. Regularly landing and starting supply flights on the moon is a whole different beast nad yields no merit whatsoever.

The proposal on the books is to use the Lunar Gateway as sort of a dock to an outpost on the Moon. The Gateway would be very modular, being able to couple and decouple modules as needs. The outpost on the Moon will only be manned as need. Example, say some lab wants to place a science experiment on the Moon. The experiment would be flown to the Gateway where astronauts will unpaxk/prepare it. The experiment would then be sent to the Lunar outpost with or without astronauts if needed (coming and going to the Moon via the Gateway would be relatively cheap with time being the big hurdle due to the low gravity of the Moon). The outpost would be able to temporarily support astronauts but only temporarily, they station will be where they actually 'live'.

But theres not many experiments that people want to put on the Moon that wouldn't be better/cheaper on a station.

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If we intend to be serious about Mars rather than just doing a one-time plant-a-flag mission, we want a cycler. Or preferably, at least two of them.

I'm surprised no one has designed a ship around the concept of a the Mars cycler. You could build what's essentially bus In space that goes from a station around the Moon (or L-Point) and to a mirrored one around Mars. A ship that only exists in space means you can build it spacious and heavy enough to accommodate astronauts during the multiple month trip. The trajectory cuts down on fuel a lot. Sending capsules to the thing would be cheap and it would be reusable.

Of course the upfront costs are huge. Such is frontier technology.

[dextersmith]

The moon because it's closer and could be used as a base. Things could be launched from there due to its lower gravity.

[Ashleyxoxo]

Moon, for obvious reasons.

[Grimbold21]

We need the equivalent of the epstein drive for human space travel

[Coolthulhu]

Neither. I'd build an extensive number of underground and underwater (or at least buoyant, perhaps submergible, versatility would be welcome I suppose) structures first, preferably connected to each other somehow. Only if successful I'd set my eyes on Mars (of which the Moon is a part) or other targets.

[Rustedsaint]

The moon to practice.
Mars would be a one way trip for afew generation till they set Everything up.

[Afrospinach]

Solar panel windows, technically yes, but there's a few problems with that idea. First is that windows are a terrible super bad idea in a space station. They're an obvious weak point.

This is not necessarily true. All it is is one additional construction constraint.

Take for example deep sea submarines. The glass bubbles are almost perfect structurally, they resist compressive forces to a point they are almost a preferred material. They happen to be translucent as well. I am not sure why you think they are "an obvious weak point". The glass panels in Auckland's sky tower are stronger than the concrete floor that holds them.

Glass could also potentially be reflowed to fix any holes left by micro asteroids that would ordinarily lead to metal fatigue. Probably not a solar window though.

[Endus]

This is not necessarily true. All it is is one additional construction constraint.

Take for example deep sea submarines. The glass bubbles are almost perfect structurally, they resist compressive forces to a point they are almost a preferred material. They happen to be translucent as well. I am not sure why you think they are "an obvious weak point". The glass panels in Auckland's sky tower are stronger than the concrete floor that holds them.

Glass could also potentially be reflowed to fix any holes left by micro asteroids that would ordinarily lead to metal fatigue. Probably not a solar window though.

It's not just physical strength that matters. Also radiation protection, thermal transmission, lack of thermal expansion/contraction (if your station/ship will be seeing day/night cycles, rather than maintaining a single face towards the Sun), etc. All issues that can be mitigated through multiple layers anywhere but a window, which has to handle all of these at the same time, and at an equivalent performance capacity as whatever other materials you're using elsewhere. There's also that any such window necessarily involves a transition between one structural system and another; that transition itself is another potential point of failure.

Those deep-sea submersibles are using glass that's essentially designed for one structural purpose; compression resistance. It's not just material strength that matters; I'm well aware that glass can be fantastically strong material. There's a lot more going on, though. And there's a reason the ISS and pretty much every space vehicle we've made have tiny windows.

[Morae]

Moon is the only answer. Low gravity and close to earth means easier to supply until self sufficient. I would guess once moon is settled properly, then will be turn for mars, which is closer to asteroid belt. We totally want to start mining asteroids. Because of this, I expect first mars base to be a space station that involves a refinery. From there materials which we will be running out on earth can be sent back somehow. There is no need to land on mars itself since getting stuff back up requires fuel. Not as much as earth, but still quite a bit.

[plz delete account]

To get either you need a super-heavy vehicle to get there.

The Saturn V is still the largest successful launch vehicle, and that was just to essentially touch down on the moon and get back. Far from a perfect vehicle and probably wouldn't pass certification today.

Point being the vehicle that gets to the Moon will be the same size if not larger (which basically the case with the SLS and SpaceX Spaceship), which a lot of the size being dedicated just carry the fuel to get the thing off the ground.

If we're already building these behemoths just to get humans to the Moon could you imagine how large a human-rated rocket going straight to Mars would have to be? One thats carrying a shielded module capable of protecting the astronauts throughout the journey, all the necessary supplies, equipment, fuel to get there and back plus redundancy? Remember in Interstellar where they were trying to figure out a way to defeat the limitations of gravity? Thats what we're facing.

So the better route for a Mars trip would be to assemble in space instead of trying to launch one massive piece at a time. A lot easier to launch segments into orbit one piece at a time than all at once. And if you're going to do that you're going to want an outpost in outer space as a staging point. Thats where something like the Lunar Gateway comes in, and why a Moon outpost comes way before a Mars one.

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The ISS isn't exactly in a dangerous position though. Its in a very controlled orbit where potential dangers are mostly known/tracked on top of the ISS being able to shift its orbit if necessary. The risk of something hitting the ISS is minimal. Either way, the ISS is relatively small and still shielded for stray uncontrollable impacts.

Just hypothetically speaking, a Moon settlement would lack the advantage of a controlled orbit like the ISS. Its harder to track objects about the hit the Moon versus objects that intersect with the path of the ISS. The Moon is a straight-up garbage collector while ISS while the ISS is still within Earth's atmosphere, the Earth is constantly slowing down and clearing anything that might cross the path of the ISS. The Moon has no such atmosphere, anything hitting it is going to slow down, its hitting at max velocity, max integrity until it hits the surface of the Moon. I rather take my chances on the ISS.

With that said though, the chances of something randomly hitting either is very small. We're talking small moving objects in the vastness of space randomly hitting another small moving AND spinning object in the vastness of space. You sort of just take your chances.

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If we can sustain an outpost in Antarctica and the ISS we can sustain one on the Moon. The challenges are money and logistics. The real question is why? What are we getting out of it? Theres nothing to really gain from a permanent outpost right that would place a dent in costs. Not even scientific merit.

1. the ISS constantly has to change it's orbit slightly to avoid space debris bruh; see NASA getting pissy at India when they shot a satellite down
2. Even something "very small" is moving extremely fast relative to the ISS up there. a mere paint chip millimeters across can do some damage.
3. NASA has a long and storied history of inventing things that eventually filter their way to common usage.

[PACOX]

1. the ISS constantly has to change it's orbit slightly to avoid space debris bruh; see NASA getting pissy at India when they shot a satellite down
2. Even something "very small" is moving extremely fast relative to the ISS up there. a mere paint chip millimeters across can do some damage.
3. NASA has a long and storied history of inventing things that eventually filter their way to common usage.

I said the ISS changes orbit to avoid debris, if it didn't seem that way then it was a typo.

One your #3 I'm not sure what you mean by your reply. Never said NASA has no merit, I believe otherwise. It's very valuable. What I said is that there's no need for there to be a permanent human presence on the Moon. Any micro gravity experiment would be better on a station or observed remotely. Collection sample is done better with robotics.

You can't eliminate the human touch altogether, which is where an orbital station would come into play. You could ferry samples to the station are humans to a lunar lab as needed without logistic and financial hurdles of trying to establish a permanently manned lab on the Moon. Coming and going to the Moon is cheap if you're doing it from, say, the Lunar Gateway.

Even if you came up with a way to efficiently harvest H3 from the Moon tonight, such a facility would be automated with very minimal if any direct human involvement.

[Pony Soldier]

I think the obvious answer would be the Moon simply because it's closer and easier to get to. I would imagine they would use the moon as some sort of forward base or checkpoint and from there they would resupply, rest, and plan their trips to other planets or whatever.

[Ghostpanther]

The Moon of course. Much, much closer. Good place to dump our most toxic wastes.

[thanhan]

The moon !

[Egomaniac]

The Moon of course. Much, much closer. Good place to dump our most toxic wastes.

Why am I not surprised that this is the first thought that comes to your head?

[Ghostpanther]

Why am I not surprised that this is the first thought that comes to your head?

Why am I not surprised you are not surprised?

You rather store toxic wastes here on the earth, which has abundant life, which it could pose a danger sometime? I am talking primarily about Nuclear waste. Which by the way, is the cleanest way to generate electricity to billions of people which can be safely done if done right.

[Egomaniac]

Why am I not surprised you are not surprised?

You rather store toxic wastes here on the earth, which has abundant life, which it could pose a danger sometime? I am talking primarily about Nuclear waste. Which by the way, is the cleanest way to generate electricity to billions of people which can be safely done if done right.

No, I'd rather we learn not to pollute the places we live in. Rather than just be like "Well, new planet (moon)...let's see how bad we can fuck this one up, too"