Isaac Arthur
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2017–2022
34:32 · 820K views · Aug 17, 2017
Isaac Arthur's in-depth look at what it would take to settle and eventually terraform Mars. He covers the challenges and the scale of the work needed to make it a home for humanity.
Recommended as a thorough, speculative-but-grounded overview of the magnitude of colonizing Mars.
4 comments from Hacker News
Highly recommended video on Colonizing Mars by Isaac Arthur this video Equally amazing Asteriod Mining by Mr. Arthur [LINK]
The Sun radiates about 400 trillion trillion Watts in all directions, and only a couple of billionths of it crosses Earth. There's a lot more radiant energy spreading out into the void waiting to be Dyson Swarmed. There's no way we're going to rocket launch billions to Mars, and there isn't another planet worth living on without unreasonable amounts of energy for Terraforming. But we are capable of rebuilding the atoms of Earth into much larger living environments - there are so many atoms it wouldn't mean destroying the Earth to do it. A Space Elevator doesn't need diamond nanowire, it could be built with enough steel chain. An orbital ring around the Equator would be enormous and would take approximately nothing of the Earth's matter to construct. Isaac Arthur's YouTube channel is full of speculation and plans for all kinds of possible or nearly-possible futures, as well as more distant dreams. e.g. the playlists: - "The future of Energy, Industry and Agriculture" - [LINK] - "Earth v2.0" - [LINK] - "Outward Bound" - near-Earth space exploration and living - this video - "Visions of Earth" - arcologies, megacities, ecumenopolises, geoengineering, weather control - [LINK] And somewhere in there, megastructures such as Dyson Spheres, ringworlds, etc.
The sum total of human activity in the last 100 years also eclipses the sum total of all human activity prior (300k years worth). Humanity didn't do a lot for a long time. But yes, Mars would be a mega project. Isaac Arthur does great stuff on Youtube which gives an idea of the magnitude of the works necessary. this video
Perfect timing! Isaac Arthur just kicked off Outward Bound with an in depth look at colonizing Mars. this video