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kobullso t1_j42vzfe wrote

Reply to comment by Bigram03 in At NASA, Dr. Z Was OK With Some Missions Failing by Maxcactus

We don't have "difficulty" living in Antarctica... we have been doing it for years. We have also had people on the ISS for a large chunk of the last decade. What do you mean "not even close"?

Edit. In fact there are a lot of small towns in rural areas with lower populations than the antarctic research stations.

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Bigram03 t1_j42zw4z wrote

No base in Antarctica is self sustaining, and the cost to keep the people on the ISS alive is in the 100s of millions a month and requires the full time work of thousands of people to support.

We can and should visit the places. But living anywhere but earth is fanciful at best for even the most optimistic view of the technology's on the horizon.

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kobullso t1_j430g5j wrote

The antarctic isn't more self sustaining because no one has ever been motivated enough to make it that way. Just because it hasn't been does mean the technology doesn't exist to do it.

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RollinThundaga t1_j43yazj wrote

It's functionally unplantable and literally goes dark for months of the year. The outposts are run off of diesel generators. Unless you either set up a nuclear plant or an entire oil/gas refining industry there (which will wreak havok on what fragile ecosystems there actually are) then there's not many avenues to do so with current technology.

It's not that we're 'not motivated' as much as 'motivated not to'.

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kobullso t1_j43ypff wrote

But you could. The technology exists to put solar panels and modular reactor. The technology exists the make buildings with grow lights. The argument isn't that it is worth it. It certainly isn't. The argument was that the technology exists to do it if we had any good reason to.

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Mr_SkeletaI t1_j44xpi9 wrote

It isn’t self sustaining because there is literally zero reason to do so. No one even bothers. Cheaper to ship stuff to it

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TK-741 t1_j42yqxh wrote

Curious — how many people live in the Antarctic research stations and how many are there?

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kobullso t1_j42zekp wrote

A quick Google says a little over 3000 people for the US. Most of which aren't scientists. Looks like there about 70 permanent stations operated by 29 different countries. So without spending too much time digging there is probably between a couple thousand to over ten thousand people living on the continent at any point in time.

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