Nuclear Engineer Reacts to Kurzgesagt "Building a Mars Base is a Horrible Idea: Let's Do It!"

Поделиться
HTML-код
  • Опубликовано: 1 ноя 2024

Комментарии • 105

  • @tfolsenuclear
    @tfolsenuclear  11 месяцев назад +12

    Thanks so much for watching! If you want to see my reaction to a terraforming Mars video, please check out: ruclips.net/video/AK1cPaQp0n8/видео.htmlsi=KHlnDdr5GyKJ_rPG

    • @KGTiberius
      @KGTiberius 4 месяца назад

      Terraforming would be great… if we could move the Pluto-Charron system. 1 as an impactor, the other as a moon. Water, potential dynamo assistance, heat, evaporative action for atmosphere… no we just need to relocate a binary system. lol

    • @KGTiberius
      @KGTiberius 4 месяца назад

      Underground… use existing lava tubes. 👍

  • @Alice.59
    @Alice.59 11 месяцев назад +38

    To put the whole building underground would mean digging pretty deep, which is hard without some really heavy machinery, and you will probably hit solid rock slab a few cm deep...
    Covering the building with ice and dirt don't require you to dig deep, only to gather dirt on the surface on a larger area, much more feasible by a small sized loader

    • @Skyte100
      @Skyte100 10 месяцев назад

      Plus they'd have to...build the habitat on mars. Instead of building it here and landing it on mars.

  • @Idontknow83829
    @Idontknow83829 10 месяцев назад +7

    "make more nuclear reactors"
    -Tfolsenuclear

  • @roykositzky2252
    @roykositzky2252 11 месяцев назад +28

    Thank you for making these videos I'm very happy that you do this this is a distraction on my daily life I am currently living in my wife's aunt's backyard with 2 kids looking for a new place to call home. I am a stay-at-home dad, wife works full time. you give me something to smile about thanks

    • @cegicreator2476
      @cegicreator2476 11 месяцев назад +3

      you'll find your forever home soon! best of luck to ya!

    • @S1L3NTIGamer
      @S1L3NTIGamer 11 месяцев назад +2

      Hey man, from one guy struggling to another. Just keep your head up. Life can throw a lot of shit our way but things are better on the other side. Stay strong brother.

  • @jdrissel
    @jdrissel 11 месяцев назад +5

    Somewhere in this process some nation or corporation will deploy a thermonuclear rocket, which will cut travel time and open the transit window. We have already built such rockets, so it is just a matter of getting one built in orbit and building a ship around it. Then it would boost back and forth between earth and mars, spending a little time at each end in orbit while it is unloaded and reloaded and people get transferred to and from the surface. Most cargo will be left in orbit and most of the new cargo will already be in orbit. What can't be in orbit or left in orbit is people and other cargos that are sensitive to radiation - this is because of the radiation in space more so than radiation from the thermonuclear rocket.

  • @patrickmorrissey2271
    @patrickmorrissey2271 11 месяцев назад +3

    @ 4:33 I agree with you... Even let's say an "office building" sized outpost??? One small reactor would run that for many years.....

  • @HELLO-15G
    @HELLO-15G 11 месяцев назад +2

    Love your content man due to you adding your own knowledge about the subject!! 😊😊

  • @mythiccass3837
    @mythiccass3837 11 месяцев назад +12

    I'd imagine a base would be made with prefabricated parts & probably in a crater which is already half way to being underground, then later dig into the sides one you've got your initial setup settled. Saves having to dig just to get your first base set up.

    • @conorstewart2214
      @conorstewart2214 11 месяцев назад +1

      The problem with prefabricated parts is that you have to get them to Mars, which takes a long time and since the parts would be large and heavy it would be very expensive. That’s why there is a lot of interest on using material on Mars to build with. The first small settlements will probably be prefabricated though.

    • @mythiccass3837
      @mythiccass3837 11 месяцев назад

      @@conorstewart2214 Makes sense, can't rely on everything to be prefabricated, so probably something as small as possible to get started with before using local materials as much as possible.

  • @d4rk0v3
    @d4rk0v3 2 месяца назад

    One idea for an easy improvement. Cameras on the outside of the habitat that project their view to displays inside that look like windows. Can even program the background to other scenes to set moods or whatever. The benefits of such a thing for morale and mood are more than worth their cost.

  • @patrickmorrissey2271
    @patrickmorrissey2271 11 месяцев назад +1

    @ 8:00 Let's imagine for a second what it would take, to take apart say a full size Excavator to Mars... Like a CAT 336... That thing is hard to move around on earth.... I mean, you'd need it, to build underground.... and you'd need it to basically "cover" your base after you built it.....

  • @Achmedsander
    @Achmedsander 11 месяцев назад +12

    Most have this obsession of living on a surface of a planet so a lot of sci-fi seems to focus on this. You just avoid so many problems by just digging holes instead.

    • @ancapftw9113
      @ancapftw9113 11 месяцев назад +3

      Or living in lava tubes. That's my favorite way to live on other planets.

    • @kolyashinkarev7366
      @kolyashinkarev7366 11 месяцев назад +1

      ​@@ancapftw9113or living on asteroids, much less of a hussle

  • @ancapftw9113
    @ancapftw9113 11 месяцев назад +5

    Let me correct a few issues he raised:
    1) "water won't really be an issue if you build at the poles"
    Or anywhere, really. Martian regolith is 5-14% water by mass, whereas moist soil on Earth is 40%. So you would only need to freeze dry 1.5-7 times the soil volume depending on where you were to get it up to that level. And this would be easy, as the outside temperature and pressure are already near the correct level.
    2) "the soil is alkaline" "there isn't any nitrogen in the soil"
    those two issues solve each other. Nitric acid can be made by setting off a spark in a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen (nitrogen and CO2 are the main components of the atmosphere) to make Nitrous oxide (whoch also exists in the air in small amounts, probably due to lightning), letting it react with more oxygen to make NO2, and reacting that with water. When that mixes with an alkeline substance, like the soil, it will make nitrate salts.
    3) various radiation and low gravity issues.
    Didn't you start this with the assumption that we had a moon base for support? Both issues would be worse on Luna, so we would likely have at least partially solved both of them by then.
    4) "the soil is toxic"
    Mostly due to perchlorates, which are water soluable and decay into cloride salts and oxygen when baked, thus helping you make some of your initial oxygen. Except for ammonium perclorate, which decays into nitrogen, oxygen, and chlorine, thus also making nitrogen for nitric acid production or atmospherics.
    5) "with no communication with the outside world"
    Do satelites not exist? There is no reason we can't launch a few cubesats in orbit to relay messages to a few more powerful ones that can get messages to Earth. Sure, there is an 8-30 minute delay on the signal getting there, but email is low bandwidth and even sending video might be possible with a good enough signal.
    So, in conclusion, air, water, and growing crops arent major issues, communications can be handled by a descent satellite, and energy issues can be fixed by nuclear.

    • @neon1718
      @neon1718 11 месяцев назад +2

      3) Wouldn't it be less of a problem due to the fact that the launch window for an optimal trajectory to the moon is a couple of weeks or a few months instead of 26 months like Mars. The travel time is also vastly different between the 3 days from the moon to earth vs 6 months from Mars to Earth at 0g. You could probably cycle out the astronauts before any significant muscle and/or muscle deterioration happens plus cancer risks.

  • @andrewreynolds912
    @andrewreynolds912 10 месяцев назад

    As someone who wants to become an astronaut buildong a base on the moon is such an obvious thing we should do first as a pit stop and as a way to sent stuff to mars at lower costs once we get infrastructure set up

  • @Merennulli
    @Merennulli 11 месяцев назад

    Even on Earth, it's often cheaper to bury a small structure rather than construct it underground. The initial phase of tunneling is digging that isn't benefiting your subsurface structure, so the length of tunnel defines the tradeoff where initial cost of angled digging outweighs the cost of digging vertically until the structure becomes large enough. Nobody ever uses a tunnel boring machine (TBM) to bury a storage tank here on earth, they always dig straight down and then bury it. And that's going to be roughly the size of a Mars structure for several generations. There's also the issue of getting equipment to Mars. A TBM is a lot harder to transport in pieces to Mars than a tracked excavator. And with the lower gravity, the work of excavating is lower while the work of digging horizontally is almost the same.
    The only way it would make sense to tunnel on Mars is if you expand civilization there enough to need a subway, or if you develop high-duration autonomous tunnel boring machines. We're certainly working on the latter, but let's just say the Mars colony is closer to reality right now.

  • @steelplasma256
    @steelplasma256 11 месяцев назад +1

    5:13 I think the implication is that it is not an actual reactor but a simple RTG. Less maintenance, less moving parts, already proven to work reliably on Mars. With the different gravity the reactor design would need some modifications and fluid dynamics might not be the same as on earth.
    Then again this is a hypothetical scenario so perhaps a reactor was already designed to be usable in microgravity or mars gravity. Carry on.

    • @ancapftw9113
      @ancapftw9113 11 месяцев назад

      The only issues with that is that the cost is massive due to the rarity of P238, and the output is limited to kilowatts. Something like the SNAP series of reactors would be far better.

  • @imarchello
    @imarchello 11 месяцев назад

    Valles Marineris canyon. Walls on both sides. Dome it over and you're good.

  • @JanHejjou
    @JanHejjou 5 месяцев назад

    There is a reason that Doom is in its core a Horrorgame and it plays on mars.

  • @Kivas_Fajo
    @Kivas_Fajo 11 месяцев назад

    It is, because Mars has no dynamo, which means Total Recall all become mutants...and die.

  • @peter5.056
    @peter5.056 12 дней назад

    the low gravity of mars will be deadly.

  • @dylanherrera5395
    @dylanherrera5395 11 месяцев назад

    i feel like hes had "a little over 10 years or experience" for around 10 years now

  • @WolfkunDotInfo
    @WolfkunDotInfo 11 месяцев назад

    Second work shift has ended. Miners, return to barracks.

  • @shardinhand1243
    @shardinhand1243 11 месяцев назад

    1:06 we very simply must reach and colinize mar, if we refuse to or fail to, we are doomed. isolation on this sigle planet will inevitably end with our extinction, its a matter of when, not if.

  • @DanielAusMV-op9mi
    @DanielAusMV-op9mi 10 месяцев назад

    We are citizens of Earth ❤🌎🌍🌏❤

  • @chrstfer2452
    @chrstfer2452 11 месяцев назад

    If we actually moved real nuclear tech into space, the 2yr travel window/time goes down to like 6mo on average iirc, because we dont need to worry about transfer windows we can just steam there.

    • @chrstfer2452
      @chrstfer2452 11 месяцев назад

      Building our interplanetary ships in space is a prerequisite too, and SMRs will help fantastically because theyre so self-contained. So basically it comes down to returning a single iron/nickel asteroid to translunar orbit (i think thats the term) and bootstrapping infrastructure on that. Afterwards we're ready to colonize wherever in the solar system, difficulty scaling with radial distance from the sun instead of with complicated slingshot calendars.

  • @Bzysio.
    @Bzysio. 11 месяцев назад +2

    it all takes so long

  • @beansnrice321
    @beansnrice321 11 месяцев назад

    I'm really only interested in colonizing planets after we master geoengineering on earth. We haven't even made a successful isolated climate on earth. Both bio domes were failures beyond the use for rudimentary research.

  • @57thorns
    @57thorns 11 месяцев назад

    But first we need to crawl by creating a moon base, and orbital industry. Right now, all we have is ISS, a small scientific outpost barely outside the atmosphere. The moon base is probably easier than orbital industries.

  • @patrickmorrissey2271
    @patrickmorrissey2271 11 месяцев назад +1

    Okay, my comments aside, great job on this video.
    Colonizing America was no picnic.... Trying to go to the North Pole was no picnic.... Lotta people died, trying to do that....

    • @tfolsenuclear
      @tfolsenuclear  11 месяцев назад +1

      Glad you liked it, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

    • @patrickmorrissey2271
      @patrickmorrissey2271 11 месяцев назад

      @@tfolsenuclear Listen, some of my comments are a little snarky, and I apologize for that.... I love what you are doing in these videos. You are bringing to light that nuclear is our future... Both here and in outer space.... So, thank you for doing what you are doing....
      Solar and wind, would be great compliments, to a robust nuclear power system..... But, I do not know, how you advance that discussion into the mainstream of society....

  • @MatthewSuffidy
    @MatthewSuffidy 11 месяцев назад

    You could just about colonize Mars if you had like an anti-gravity means or something like that to get there. With rockets it is just too much stuff to get there.

  • @mikeyunovapix7181
    @mikeyunovapix7181 11 месяцев назад

    We can probably obtain nuclear fuel for reactors from mining asteroids.

  • @DanielAusMV-op9mi
    @DanielAusMV-op9mi 10 месяцев назад

    🌐🌍🌎🌏🗺️ We are Citizens of World, that was a nice flag in the video ❤

  • @Claudiu_S_from_Canada
    @Claudiu_S_from_Canada 11 месяцев назад

    We were really meant to only live on this planet.

  • @An_M4A3
    @An_M4A3 11 месяцев назад

    I have seen martion to many times

  • @network_king
    @network_king 11 месяцев назад

    How would you even grow anything once the soil was cleaned with poor atmosphere. In my thinking unless you can make a magnetic field then recreate some valid atmosphere doing anything like this on mars is just a waste or time and resources. I think we know more about mars than some spots on earth. I used to like the mars idea but it just seems so incredibly impractical and think resources can be better put to use here.

  • @BelgorathTheSorcerer
    @BelgorathTheSorcerer 11 месяцев назад +1

    I agree with their conclusion. It is going to be difficult and there are going to have to be sacrifices made to achieve a colony on Mars, but it will be worth it.
    I think the first step we need to take though is getting it together here on Earth. We need to start being one unified species and stop with all the nationalism and racism and other bullshit dividing us.

  • @kewinkarlsjo9248
    @kewinkarlsjo9248 11 месяцев назад

    Yay new video

  • @As3th8r
    @As3th8r 11 месяцев назад

    The constant promotion for nuclear on this channel is leaving marks in my brain. Repeated messages work wonders for people who are on the border between liking or disliking.

  • @isakrynell8771
    @isakrynell8771 11 месяцев назад

    I don’t think we will colonise Mars. There are plenty of places on earth that are much less hostile to life that we have not inhabited. The Sahara, the bottom of the Atlantic, Antarctica just to name a few. Unless there is something insanely valuable on Mars that requires our presence I don’t think we will ever build cities there. A couple of research stations maybe but not much more than that.

    • @clarenceorozco5300
      @clarenceorozco5300 6 месяцев назад

      You ain't convincing those fanatics

    • @DaWaffleman
      @DaWaffleman Месяц назад

      Well we ARE going to colonize the moon as long as NASA's Artemis missions continue happening. Their whole goal is to colonize the moon. I'm excited for the second Artemis mission in September I believe next year. We will have people on the moon again for a bit setting up a bit of testing equipment before coming back on the third mission. So, at least it's a step forward towards mars. Please note that they did have to delay the second mission due to rocket difficulties, so someone reading in the future might have another delay.

    • @isakrynell8771
      @isakrynell8771 Месяц назад

      @@DaWaffleman
      It is not that I don’t want there to be cities on Mars. I rely hope I’m wrong. But we are not colonising large parts of our own planet because they are not hospitable enough and they are all infinitely me hospitable than any moon or planet. There has to be a reason for us to do it and we are not going to colonise the moon either just because. The moon could be come a launching pad and distribution hub for space mining in the future and as such we could colonise it. But we are talking by the middle of the next century at the earliest. The Artemis program will have been long over by then. What we will have in our life time is a research station on the moon similar to the ISS but no cities with thousands of people.

    • @DaWaffleman
      @DaWaffleman Месяц назад

      ​@@isakrynell8771 I agree with what you said. As proof to backup your claim, the Artemis mission is setting up a gateway system that orbits around the moon like the ISS except for transfer between the earth and landing on the moon. Just like you said, going to the moon and back could allow for a launching pad and distribution hub for space mining and other things.
      At the same time I disagree in other ways. Humans strive for things like power and energy to create new products. Leaving our planet allows for more capabilities like resources (like you said) but also ways we can experiment with energy. There are many reasons to colonize the solar system and farther. Expanding our technology and helping ourselves to keep us from extinction are some of the many ways it would be useful to leave the solar system and colonize as far as we can go. So there is reasoning yes.
      So, we are quiet likely to start leaving our planet. As you said it may take a very long time, but hopefully that knocks off your idea of "we WILL not colonize mars." It's more of, it'll take a very long time UNTIL we colonize mars.

  • @TonyNL87
    @TonyNL87 11 месяцев назад

    Don't forget to clean the airlock with a wet piece of cloth before closing because Mars dust will prevent a good seal.

  • @cheeseparis1
    @cheeseparis1 11 месяцев назад

    Looks easier to terraform our own planet first!

  • @Claudiu_S_from_Canada
    @Claudiu_S_from_Canada 11 месяцев назад

    And that's why we should stay on the earth, and stop dreaming and wasting money on space.

  • @patrickmorrissey2271
    @patrickmorrissey2271 11 месяцев назад

    @ 3:12 We're going to assume there's already a MoonBase, to act as a hub for Mars Missions.....
    Uhhhh.... Heh heh!!! We're a LONG LONG LONG LONG WAYS from that happening.....
    At this moment, we can't even visit the INt'l Space Station on our own, we have to pay those fun loving Russians Cab Fare to go.... Which is not ideal...
    Moonbase.... Hmmm. I daresay, by the time we got our sh&t together, got organized, and got after it???? Tyler will not be alive to see an "Up & running" functional robust Moonbase in his lifetime.... Let alone mine. I doubt my Nephew will see it....
    Heh heh heh!!! I love the narrator's casual nonchalant "Let's assume we have a Moonbase".... Heh heh heh heh!!! Sure, why not... While we're at it, let's just assume that "Solex Agitator" thing from the Bond Movie exists & works, and we can pop up a solar panel the size of a US Flag and get 1000 amps of 220 AC off of it..... Heh heh heh!!! And store the excess power in a stable cell also, and use on demand at our leisure, any excess coming off the solar panels.... Why not? That might actually be less far-fetched than a Moonbase....
    We can't even build a pipeline from Canada to Baton Rouge without people getting their panties in a twist.... Moonbase??? Don't hold your breath....

    • @_AcatHat
      @_AcatHat 11 месяцев назад +2

      Does SpaceX go to the space station? Cargo and crew? I realize Elon wasn't born in America but he's not Russian.

    • @sephrot6830
      @sephrot6830 11 месяцев назад +1

      honestly with NASA starting to roll out artemis missions we could start having functioning moon base in 1-3 decades. Its insane how well our collaborative efforts were with building the International Space Station that we know it’s feasible to do it again
      We pay for Russia Space station because NASA prefers just spending our time and money on other Artemis and other projects and leave the quick traveling to space to Space x or any Russia space craft

    • @Royallblu
      @Royallblu 11 месяцев назад

      @@_AcatHat The Problem is SpaceX is way more expensive than the russians.... But unfortunately they decided to want some Ukraine so we can't use them anymore.

    • @patrickmorrissey2271
      @patrickmorrissey2271 11 месяцев назад

      @@_AcatHat From what I can gather, you are correct Sir. At one time, The Russians were the only option. I was under the impression that SpaceX had flown supplies to the space station, but not astronauts. Apparently I was wrong. They have flown both Astronauts and supplies to the space station.... I apologize.

  • @jobanh7ify
    @jobanh7ify 11 месяцев назад +1

    After watching all of that my question is; what would be the point if our lives there depends on the function and maintenance of all the equipment we need to survive? If something breaks down we’re doomed

    • @jirkavebr-czmapper8059
      @jirkavebr-czmapper8059 11 месяцев назад +1

      It was the same when colonizing America. If there was one bad harvest, a lot of people died from starvation. No supplies could get to the colony in time as sending ship to Europe and back took atleast month. Also if the colony was attacked by natives or other colonial power, sending a message to home country, collecting army and sending it back also meant that the colony could be in hands of others weeks prior to arrival of said army. Nonetheless we Europeans still done that and that is the reason USA exists for example. People weren't afraid to travel really far and estabilish new settlements even tho it wasn't easy and chance to die was pretty high

    • @ancapftw9113
      @ancapftw9113 11 месяцев назад

      That's why you have redundancy.

  • @splaturials9156
    @splaturials9156 11 месяцев назад

    Wrong video lol they just did A new one but it thats not nuclear

  • @chuckschillingvideos
    @chuckschillingvideos 11 месяцев назад +24

    A Mars base is not just a horrible idea. It's a completely idiotic idea.

    • @dreadpiraterobertsnumba5
      @dreadpiraterobertsnumba5 11 месяцев назад +10

      Definitely not the worst idea. Better than living in space.

    • @sephrot6830
      @sephrot6830 11 месяцев назад +4

      with so little to gain too. Sending out rovers or anything else to do any experiment or resource we need is much safer and smarter.
      Atleast until we have sci fi technology to terraform mars centuries into the future

    • @chuckschillingvideos
      @chuckschillingvideos 11 месяцев назад +1

      @@dreadpiraterobertsnumba5 And what makes you believe we would ever have to face living "in space" ????

    • @dreadpiraterobertsnumba5
      @dreadpiraterobertsnumba5 11 месяцев назад +3

      @@chuckschillingvideos If we ever want to leave the solar system,
      which we will.

    • @chuckschillingvideos
      @chuckschillingvideos 11 месяцев назад

      @@dreadpiraterobertsnumba5 Who is "we" that you are referring to. Why do you assume that this would ever be an imperative? Are you under the assumption that the funds and resources for these absurd propositions are just going to drop out of the sky?

  • @FalcoGer
    @FalcoGer 11 месяцев назад

    I don't see the "benefit for us all". Mars is a wasteland that has nothing to offer.

    • @An_M4A3
      @An_M4A3 11 месяцев назад

      But space

    • @TearMetoBitsDarling
      @TearMetoBitsDarling 11 месяцев назад

      But space!

    • @golden--hand
      @golden--hand 11 месяцев назад

      And it will always be that way unless we choose to start putting in the work to make it something else at some point. It might take decades or a century to make habitable, but the benefit at the end could be a 'backup Earth'; a second safe space for our species to doge a mass extinction event ending us out of the blue. Which would be a safety net our species has never had in all of our history. It would be worth 100 years of work even if it doesn't benefit us TODAY.