#colonization
7 posts
Assessing Whether Mars’s Low Gravity Blocks Human Colonization Efforts
Explore how Mars’s weaker gravity could impact human health and settlement plans, and what it means for future colonization.
Terraforming Venus: The Alternative to Mars That Nobody Talks About
Venus is almost exactly Earth's size and mass, sits in the inner solar system, and has a solid surface. It is also 460 degrees at the surface, crushed under 90 atmospheres of CO2, and rains sulfuric acid. Some researchers argue it is actually a better long-term terraforming target than Mars.
The Ethics and Philosophy of Space Colonization
Expanding humanity into the cosmos raises questions that go beyond engineering: Who gets to go? Who owns the Moon or Mars? If we find life on another world, do we have the right to alter it — or even to be there? The ethics of space colonization is one of the most contested and underexplored fields in philosophy, and the decisions made in the next few decades will set precedents for centuries.
Settling the Moons of Jupiter and Saturn: Europa, Titan, and Enceladus
The outer solar system's moons have long been science fiction staples, but they are now serious targets for exploration and, much further out, potential homes for humanity. Europa hides a liquid ocean. Titan has lakes of liquid methane and a thick atmosphere. Enceladus jets water vapor into space. Each is alien, cold, and potentially habitable.
O'Neill Cylinders and the Case for Living in Rotating Space Habitats
In the 1970s, physicist Gerard K. O'Neill proposed that the future of humanity lies not on planetary surfaces but inside enormous spinning cylinders in space. Half a century later, his ideas have never been more relevant.
Terraforming Mars: What It Would Actually Take and How Long
Transforming the cold, thin, radiation-soaked Martian surface into something resembling a living world is one of civilization's grandest proposed engineering projects. The honest answer about feasibility is both more promising and more sobering than the headlines suggest.
Generation Ships and the Centuries-Long Voyage to Another Star
The nearest star system is so far away that any realistic spacecraft would take thousands of years to arrive. Generation ships — self-contained worlds carrying thousands of people across the void — are the most serious solution anyone has proposed.