Comment by max76 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by max76 | Hacker News Reader

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The idea that 1000 people can be largely self sufficient on Mars is laughable, unless we make unrealistic predictions about where tech will be.

For one example, a village of 1000 people would clearly have newborns. If newborns are avoided then the colony isn't real self sufficient. Launch windows to Earth are wide enough, and travel time is long enough, that sending pregnant women back to Earth is probably not a good idea. It's inadvisable for pregnant women to ride roller coasters, much less enter Earth's atmosphere. The birth will have to be on planet. The colony would need to have OB-GYNs, atleast one pediatrician, nurses, infant care specialist, teachers, janitorial staff for these facilities, administrator staff for these facilities. Mars level gravity births are uncharted territory, and we have no clear idea what complications can arise from it. Easily 2-4% of the population would have to be dedicated to the inevitability bringing in children and taking care of them. Do the children count towards the 1000?

There are enough big problems with being humans that require specialist that 1000 is just not enough, unless you assume unrealistic labor cuts in some areas such as farming, construction, mining, manufacturing, etc.

I don't see your argument- you say 4% of the colony would be required for child-rearing duties (so, 40 people, which seems a bit high, but whatever) and posit that as a fundamental barrier? There's still 960 (adult) colonists left over, and it's hard to see how 960 is a less tenable number than 1000.

More generally- sure, there are well over a thousand specialist jobs that make our Earth-bound economy go. Probably more like millions. But that economy builds way more than is required for self-sustainability. The Martian lifestyle is necessarily going to be much more spare; so there's your "labor cuts."

You really believe out of 1,000 people, only fourthy will fuck?

You must be living in a monastery.

I think you're confused by what "child-rearing" means: it is the process of raising children, which includes education and specialized medical care. That is very different than "child-having" or "child-bearing."

If they put their teeth in it might be fithty!

We clearly don't need an entire hospital and school system to handle children. Yes, the infant mortality rate would surely be high compared to our own, especially with the effects of stress and lower gravity, but a few doctors should be enough to handle basic birthing and the occasion C-section. People managed for thousands of years with much less. As for teaching, I'd expect a more communal model, with less structure and dedicated staff per student than the American system. Parents would likely be much more personally responsible.

> managed for thousands of years with much less

Well, on a planet which is basically benign and with high rates of infant mortality

What if all doctors die due to a catastrophy? Will we send 10 more doctors to Mars for children waiting to be born? Is this ethical?

Multi-disciplinary studies would likely be mandatory for the initial colonists. “Field medic” training will ensure a sufficient number of colonists could deliver babies and manage cases which required non-specialty medicine. Much like it was during other periods of outward-expansion when your local grocer or saloon owner doubled as a medic (in some case probably the medic).

I don't think a field medic level of medical training will be enough to handle the complications involving living/birthing/growing in reduced gravity.

The effects of reduced gravity are largely an unknown. It could range from minor physical alterations to crippling disabilities. We won't know until mammal trials. Due to the cost it's likely the mammal trials will be human.

It's possible extra medical staff could have other jobs, but professional doctors will be a requirement of the population.

Humanity managed to get this far without specialists in every conceivable field herding us the whole time. I think our expectations need adjusting to the sparser/harsher realities of what an early extra-terran colony would look like. In shared living situations (dorms, apartments, families etc) there is generally a division of shared labor so that the whole unit can exist. Sending people with the sole purpose of functioning as a custodian is wasteful and preposterous. As is administration staff for obgyn's. Or, for another example, what good is your HR department if the habitation section of the colony experiences explosive decompression?

Humanity did all of that on a planet every generation of organism evolved to thrive on for billions of years, not a completely hostile environment. All of our ancestors, going back to protoplasmic goo evolved on one planet. All of our mammalian ancestors evolved just on an incredibly narrow window on or near the surface of said planet.

Maybe we won’t need all of our current specialists, but we’re going to need rafts of new ones. You’re also making the “Golgafrincham” mistake when you arbitrarily dismiss existing specialties. It would be a shame for our first colony to die from a disease contracted from the proverbial “unexpectedly dirty telephone.” Having dedicated personal to keep th place clean might be one of the more essential jobs for all we know. HR might be another essential, or something similar unless you want that explosive decompression to have been the result of sabotage because of co-worker conflict.

This strikes me as a mentality born of a dying civilization.

If the goal is a thriving and permanent Martian colony, the production of children should be _the entire point_ of the operation, and it disturbs me that this isn't intuitive.

Long-term, sure that's the goal; it's not self-sustaining otherwise. But short term, there are huge benefits to having every member of your colony be a productive adult. So ship in 25 year olds, ship out babies and people who've become unable to work.

I'm unsure it's a wise decision to send infants into null gravity for 3 months.

This is a colony on a frontier, life will not be easy.

We can't just teleport a functioning city to the surface of mars, the first few waves will be hard, as it always has been in the history of human exploration.

Well, there's always contraceptives.

Importing human mass from mars is not really self sufficient.

1. The website estimates $500/kg for Earth to Mars, but that number has to go significantly up for human cargo. It could easily be $250k to ship a human if cargo weight is $500/kg. The math works out that replacing the population would cost $250M per rotation. It's probably easier to have kids, even if 4% of the population is dedicated to the task.

2. Finding colonist that will be psychologically prepared to not have kids will be significantly harder than not filtering on that variable. This is the type of thing that can weigh heavy on the mental health of colonist.

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