In my personal opinion the difference between an outpost, a settlement and a colony is as follows: An outpost is a “transient” location. You live there for work (such as scientific research) for some arbitrary length of time. When your duties are done, you return home. A settlement is a place that you relocate to. You don’t intend to return to where you came from other than for brief visits. However, all (or almost all) of its inhabitants moved there from somewhere else. A colony is what a settlement transitions into when the settlers have children of their own there. The distinction between a settlement and a colony is like the language distinction between a pidgin and a creole. A pidgin is a hybrid language made by combining aspects of two different languages to facilitate communication between them. A creole is when the children of the pidgin’s creators speak it as their native language. So too, once a settlement is the natural home and birthplace of a generation of its inhabitants, it becomes a colony.

10 minutes into establishing space settlement and chill, Preston hits you with: "I got word from a settlement that needs our help."

A settlement, or colony, is a pioneering station where agriculture is established, and people intend to stay and raise families. Lacking any intent to stay, it's not a settlement, but only a temporary station. A ghost town that had a school alongside the general store was indeed a settlement, even if the mine closed down and everyone left. A lasting settlement will become a town, because it was successful. But if the station only has men, or women, who intend to serve out their contracts and go home, it's not a settlement, no matter how many people are present. The intent to stay is the key point, even if the infrastructure slowly migrates to follow the resource base along the same body, whether by mineral or biological type. It would also be a good point to say that they should be self-sustaining, either by trade or resource exploitation.

I imagine that the settlement "county" fairs would feature attempts at breeding low-g or variable g tolerant animals. Cats with extra poofy tails to swish them thru the air, dogs with robust but gene augmented skeletal structures to withstand launch and maneuvering gs, Cows with tinier legs to decrease the necessary size of a stall and chickens who can successfully lay eggs in zero G, that sort of thing.

I really like how open minded you are. I'm 100% sure there will be distilleries and hydroponics grow rooms haha

If Issac Arthur were to create a space settlement I would join it--or I would join it, if I wasn't so busy with work right now.

Oh my. I love near future space stuff. What we can do now, to start exploring and colonization of near space. Robert Zubrin style. These videos are great.

If you run against the rotation of the ring city you would start to feel lighter which would be handy for getting around. While if you run with it you'd feel heavier and would probably be good for physical training.

SFIA. Still the best youtube channel. I don't know what life brings but Thursdays I get a drink and a snack

Well, when looking at history, many big or successfull citys built near a river or busy streets. The space analogue would be a point that has a - rich ressources on its own and B- good transport routes to have a constant supply of ressources and a connection to earth First settlements should be inside near earth rocks or maybe the moon, but in the end the moon just has more perks, radiation protection and ressources and so on, but also the popuparity a country would gain to settle the moon would make this the perfect first location for a settlement. On the other side, If industrialisation in space would happen mainly with robots, maybe there will never be space settlements as the provided orbital infrastructure could be 100% automated. Genetically engineered humans are a wildcard here, everything could be possible here, space and moon humans, bioships, biomining, 0g specialisation, true independence from earth after some time, etc.

Congratulations Sarah for getting those awards at the fair! Quite the accomplishment.

Hey Isaac, I was ganged and beaten last Thursday and im currently in the hospital with my right eye blinded, This video made me smile when I saw the notification, I can't wait to finish it, Love you from Jamaica 🇯🇲❤

I spent most of my teens and early twenties researching and considering this topic. My personal definitions are: Outpost: A permanent or semipermanent station that is only short term habitable. An outpost is primarily designed for staging for further projects, for research and a base for expeditions and support, and for emergencies and resupply. Zero self sufficiency. Settlement: A permanent station with facilities for long-term habitation. A settlement is designed to support long-term and permanent residence and has varying degrees of self sufficiency, and is designed with a specific mission profile. Mission profiles can varying and change; scientific research, mining, manufacturing, etc. Colony: A permanent station or collection of stations that serves as a community. A colony is designed with a moderate to full level of self sufficiency and self support. The design is capable of accommodating changes in the community such as changes to available resources and jobs, changes in culture and values and changes to governance. A colony must be capable of continuing in the case of being cut off from the main/parent civilization. Note: there can be a great deal of overlap between these three depending on many factors. A colony hosting a military or mining settlement or outpost.

The biggest issue with space elevators is always the most overlooked - a space elevator would be an incomparable conductor shortcut, giving a lower resistance path from the ionosphere and beyond to the surface and would make it potentially one of the most catastrophic disasters we could create. If the thing were to stay up, it would have a permanent radiation field around it frying unshielded electronics, and likely a permanent storm system around it... not to mention explosive if a solar flare event occurs.

I wish Isaac would update that trillion people on Earth video, it's great content and it deserves the production quality he has now.

encampment < station < outpost < base < settlement < colony < country < nation < empire

I really liked this thumbnail design! I hope you will keep this design and especially this font in your future videos. As always, this video was really wonderful! Thank you so much for everything Isaac! :D

I think the biggest specific separators between an Outpost and a Settlement are: 1.) Basic self-sufficiency. As you said, many settlements are either supported through trade or specifically kept in need of goods for trade purposes, but that usually isn't food/water/air/wood to build with. It tends to be things like nicer food stuffs (tea, for example) or more advanced tools (steel tools, for example). Also, a native trade resource to buy these things COULD be considered 'self-sufficient' for these purposes. So, maybe not 'self-sufficient' but 'self-justifying'? On the other hand, outposts are often just a net cost for the group running it. There may be a reason, but they're spending a lot of money sending food/water/supplies/people and not getting much or anything monetary back. 2.) Purpose. While many outposts did turn into settlements, that tends to only happen after the purpose has been established as long-term. An outpost on the fringe of a nation at war, that may change hands any moment, isn't likely to become a settlement. Lighthouses are a form of outposts, and I wouldn't really call those settlements, even though there are a number that are quite isolated, out on otherwise uninhabited islands in the middle of the sea. On the other hand, an outpost on the edge of an unsettled frontier of an expanding nation is VERY likely to become a settlement itself, as everyone looking to do anything out in that unsettled frontier probably wants the safety and supplies of a military outpost at their back, or guarding their sleep, or the like. For space, I could see a transit station between Earth and Mars, or even Earth and the Moon, becoming the first real settlement, just because whatever's going on with that planet or moon isn't enough to be a 'settlement'. If the transit station brings supplies and people for a variety of mining and research stations, none of those stations may be a 'settlement' until long after the transit station is. Essentially, the transit station becomes the trade hub on the river, where everyone settles and lives regularly, while the Moon/Mars stuff becomes all those single mines in the mountains looking for gold. Someone may live there for as much as a year or two, but once supplies run out, they head back to the trade hub for more goods. Of course, that assumes that making the transit loop more than just a fancy bus is somehow more sustainable/profitable/desirable than making the stuff on the surface sustainable itself. Maybe a nation/organization specifically looking to specifically transition to O'Neil Cylinders or the like might do that. "Here's our miniature proof of concept, and to fund it, it's on a trade loop with this place everyone wants to go to cheap."

Loved the video, i think "The Expanse" like world in future is more likely than Star trek world.

Love the picture of your nephew and the "monster truck" For many years I drove a truck of that body style, just not those tires and running gear. Need a space elevator to get in the one in your picture. This was a great episode as usual.

Isaac Arthur: I just started Firefly the other day for the first time and couldn't get you out of my head! 😁

With the ring cities they could store things, especially heavy things in the middle where it would experience less gravitational force and therefore could be moved around with much less effort.

- I don't think we will see people permanently living is space until we also have a 'post-scarcity' economy - an economy where project viability does not require a large or rich customer base. - Until then, a viable space settlement needs an economic rationale. The one that is most easily 'created' is tourism. Mining to provide materials for other settlements is problematic because those other settlements also require an economic rationale. What would justify the expense of constructing a Stanford Torus? Living space on Earth is much easier to construct and there is a large amount of deserted land available. - The idea of people leaving the planet due to political motivations assumes getting off planet is cheaper or easier than assembling real estate. Currently, if you have a few hundred 'friends' who want to create an independent community, there are much simpler ways to host them than going to space.

Thanks. I can already imagine astronauts considering Moonbase a plum assignment (plumb assignment?), because they 'appreciate the gravity of the situation', & because of "toilets that don't suck". Also, you could bench press 1000lbs, and literally anyone could slam dunk. tavi.

Antarctica seems like a great place to practice settling other planets.

Oh, that's BRILLIANT! Set up a few stations in an orbit between Earth and Mars. If you set up 3 or 4, evenly spaced on their orbital track, one will always be close to Earth, and can act as a layover stop between the two planets, changing that 23 month round trip drastically! Or, at least, creating infrastructure between the two. Hotel, food accommodations, search-and-rescue, a shorter communication time for rescue or technical help... this is NEEDED before any Mars exploration/settlement is feasible. Well done, Isaac!

I'm naive to think I'm not bonded to this Earth in ways unknown. I was born to go down with the ship for the greater good. My children and yours the stars. Semper Fi, Sir you stir the mind. Thank's

I think this thumbnail is a better version of the style of 2019. It’s nice that the text on the thumbnail can say something other than the episode title and can describe a different theme of the episode

I see many comments (both in this vlog and elsewhere) about windows. Both their good points and bad. However, for a gravity ring (select your own name for this) on a planet, it would probably be better to replace windows with (possibly high rez) monitors showing a more normal view that works with what the brain feels and what the person thinks of as up and down. So the view may be moving (not sure if this would help or not) as if the viewer was on a train at some speed but it should still show the "ground" as being on the same plane as the floor. The view should change as the person moves from one window to the next as well, in a continuous manner. What should the view be? If there is some kind of garden at the facility, that might be a good thing but others will want to see "outside". Probably a live scene from Earth might cause more problems than not but experimenting should not leave it out. On a ship in open space, some windows might be available when people wanted to see them but I expect that their popularity would only be high when there was something to see at the beginning of the trip when Earth was huge and at the end as the destination grew and maybe unwelcome otherwise (space ships shown with huge windows like Star Ship are probably making bad design choices). But if the habitat is spinning, again, monitors might be the better solution not only for physiological reasons but easier shielding as well. On a ship, I think people looking forward would want to be able to see their destination even if it meant magnifying the image of the destination from the starting point and even towards the end when the ship flips for deceleration. Higher rpms for AG may also work better without windows though, in open space when the stars are hard to see anyway, the sight of the seemingly unmoving other side of the ring may seem stationary anyway. The very small amount of experimentation with artificial gravity at higher than 1G with open sided cylinders, does not tell us very much of what human requirements are. There is talk about motion sickness with certain parameters but at the same time motion sickness is already common for planes, trains, boats and automobiles. There has been no (that I can find) research into how long motion sickness lasts (aside from one that says most people could acclimate themselves to as much as 10rpm in as little as 10 hours) yet it is considered normal on ocean crossings to feel at least a bit off for a few days (the number 3 comes up a lot), after which people are fine. There has been no research into what people's bodies want to see when experiencing AG or the maximum amount of felt gravity difference from head to foot that is acceptable. It may be that delta gravity is more of a problem than rpm or that the effect attributed to rpm has more to do with delta gravity. There has been no research as to what angle the floors and walls (and pictures hanging on the wall) should be to the direction of motion or if there should be steps instead of ramps, if a ring should be broken into segments so people can't see very far in the ring. No research to see if an uneven floor would help people feel "right". Basically, the research done into rotational AG has just started and will not really progress until there is an AG lab available to study all these things in a lower than 1G place for long periods of time... probably the Moon with a gravity train?

My two cents: An outpost is just a collection of facilities dedicated to one purpose: eg:- mining outpost, early warning outpost. An outpost exist only for that specific purpose that created the need for the outpost. Absent that purpose, an outpost is generally abandoned. And the occupiers of an outpost is largely transient and highly specialised and the support facilities are by design, minimal. A settlement however, is a collection of facilities that is intended to be grown into a permanent location with native population growth. The initial impetus of settlement might be mining or military or farming or others, but has since been the locus of local expansion in purpose. Meaning, as the collection point of some mining outposts or the central location for trade. Furthermore, settlements has a higher percentage of support population (eg, families, schools, hotels, service...) compared to the initial population. I would imagine an outpost growing in importance to become a settlement, and finally a village or town as the purpose of the original location be expanded.

I don't think prolonged stays in the weak lunar gravity will be all that harmful in and of itself, but it will make it tricky for lunar (or martian) natives to visit higher gravity places like Earth or Venus. Until we learn to adjust our bodies as needed, of course.

After about 10m of the semantics of "what is a settlement" I'm questioning the value of the term being used at all. Unless the term was chosen specifically to have this exposition of the myriad ways our preconceptions could cause our expectations to vary from potential realities. Though I feel like you really could make an episode on that topic all on its own without tagging it on to this video

Always a wonderful Thursday when you watch Isaac Arthur.

This Channel has become more and more of an Science-ASMR and i´m starting to avoid watching it, because i feel bad about it. The long videos with their huge amounts of information, combined with Isaac Arthur´s calm voice are making me always so sleepy - even in the mid of a day. It´s like watching nature-related documentations on TV. I like it very much and i want to watch it, but i get always so sleepy of it, too. I can hear the narrator´s voice, but at some point i can´t understand any longer most of what he´s saying. But pretty close to the end of the video, i´m waking up from my "slumber" - pretty tired and also pretty sad (and mad about myself) for missing out half of the episode, again. There are some other (not science-related) channels on KZfaq, where i have the same issue. Man! Getting old isn´t funny - not even for someone in his 40s.

Thanks for not putting several ad breaks in all of your videos.

Really brought out the big guns for this episode! I love the caliber of your content! It was right on target!

Isaac: spinning wheel stations are in danger of Dzhanibekov effect. How can we possibly avoid mass imbalance on the wheel? With people congregating in groups and ships arriving and departing, cargo moving around and water moving all over the place, as well as hydroponic gardens all over the place and sewage and air reprocessing distributed around the wheel... it seems as though it's an impossible task.

every illustration of your all video is sooooo awesome! and I like it! thank you to make these videos!

As a direct descendant of the Mayflower crew I feel most of the people who decide to settle will be those wanting to get away from Earth gooberment. The Others in the breakaway may have different criteria for selection. World changing things can happen really fast and seemingly come out of the last place one might expect. Turns and twists will just make it that much more interesting in the long run

We're truly spoiled by these amazing videos. Thank you so much for making them

Amazing video! Thank you, as always. And hey, congratulations on your prizes at the fair! That takes me back to my 4H days when I was a wee lad.. a long, long, long time ago.

The concept of a space cycler can be expanded upon, if you made it large enough, I can imagine a Space Opera Interstellar setting, but with no faster than light travel.

settelment is in my opinion a building or buildings that is there for permenent-living in . and it can be on a moon ,planet, or in space ,on a asteroid ..

Another informative video Isaac, you never fail to teach me something new every week. And congrats to you and Sarah on the Fair awards.

love it! Thanks, Isaac

An outpost is a camp. People don't live there for more than a few months at a time, like a mining camp or the International Space Station. At least historically, a colony is a territory ruled by the government of a foreign country. The few colonies that exist on Earth today are called "dependencies" or "crown colonies". A settlement is a city, town or village.

Congrats on the fair awards Isaac. You guys have all kinds of things going on.

The mental image I have is a lunar colony that's mostly hydroponics, with a selection of 3D printers making parts as needed. With some sort of social center, maybe a church, general store, or pub. Not really a bar, where you go to get drunk, but more of a pub, that's a gathering point...for general discussion, games, and the like...

What a wonderful Idea. Congratulations on the awards at the fair. I'd love to see a "belter" County Fair. A Rodeo could be Contestants in spacesuit, riding randomly broken EVA units. The Bucking equivalent is Adaptive Piloting and or Problem Solving or "MacGyvering" to a destination and or best time.

Every time I watch one of Arthur’s videos and he says “you might want to grab a drink and a snack” I get this warm excited feeling and want to grab a Capri Sun and some Goldfish crackers

by my guess we'll see the founding of the first settlement, intended as such, within 20 years. How big and how fast it'll grow are the questions to me

I loved this one. I enjoy them all but these sort of subjects especially peak my curiosity

I really enjoy these videos.

Well, I spent 14 months of my life in Alert, Nunavut - 400 miles from the North Pole. A mini Antarctica. Drinking up there was a given, and drink we did. Course in the decade or 2 since I was there they have shut down the bars. Now only 2 beer a day, supervised - ah the age we live in where one can't get blind drunk in a isolated posting.

perfect video to get me through the work morning

Bless Isaac, and your family

Rocket Rodeo. A big elastic net with convenient sized astroids bouncing around inside. Purpose built armored 1 man ships go in and try to get the most mass into their goal. Could be timed, could be adversarial, could be teams... Maybe composition of what you collecting your goal matters too.

I like the idea that you make a video about the colonization of Antarctica. I am writing a story where, among other things, there is a civilization of Antarctic natives, as a mixture of the Eskimos from the Arctic and the Fuegians from Patagonia, and I would like to have inspiration to work on that concept.

My opinion is a settlement is a place you plan to move to “permanently”

Not really related to the video, but I have a question related to using lasers to push spacecraft to near relativistic speeds. So, let's say you have a pushing station. So, from that station, you have a spacecraft that was launched from it. Now, over time, the spacecraft will be moving further and faster, however, the laser station will move from its original path because it is in orbit around the sun. So the question is, how would the spacecraft maintain a constant direction as the pushing station is shifted laterally from its original starting point? Another question, would the pushing station have recoil from outputting the laser beam because, if the photons can be used to push a spacecraft, does that mean those photons were also giving an equal but opposite reaction on the pushing station? How would the pushing station counteract this then, without expelling reaction mass? Sorry for the long series of questions 😓... I've really thought about this for a while and can't think of a solution? Do you have an answer for this? Oh, and thanks for releasing videos every week btw, I genuinely look forward to new ones each time, it's really a good break from all the "Humanity iz bad!!! We will nuke ourselves!!!" folks lmao ;)

You wouldn't need to manually activate an airbag if you fall off a rotocity; auto-inflating airbag jackets already exist for motorbike gear, and can set themselves off if triggered by a ripcord attached to the bike or by sensors detecting freefall at speed. It'd be very easy to set up an 'invisible fence' type arrangement, where it sets off a suit's airbag rather than electrocuting a pet.

FSIA is the dose of sanity we need

McMurdo is kept up in the winter by a small cadre of contract workers, who are often there for multiple years. As the saying goes, "the first year, you do it for the adventure. The second year, you do it for the money. And the third year you do it because you're too weird to fit in anywhere else." Speaking of weird, you might want to tell your listeners about the "300 Club." But families and children do exist on the continent. These are in the Argentine and Chilean "military bases" on the Antarctic peninsula. They are military bases to stay within the limits of that Treaty, but basically they are settlements by virtually any definition. Their main purpose, though, is to "prove up" the claims of their respective nations when and if the Antarctic Treaty (which neither denies nor endorses but merely suspends all claims without prejudice) ever lapses. Meanwhile, it's all there. Families, supermarkets, schools, and even telephone numbers in the Punta Arenas or Ushuaia phone directories!

I'd suggest the first space settlement to be in geosynchronous orbit around the Moon. This way the station/settlement can be used as a fabrication and launching location for intra-system travel. Craft construction could be mostly accomplished in low-to-zero G and launched from zero G. Meanwhile personnel could live on a rotating ring at 1 or greater G as needed for health maintenance.

Isaac, what do you say about the life prolongation advancements and research and theories. There have been several very advanced developments in recent years from cryogenic suspension to brain computer control interface cavities to robotic body hosts for these brain container cavities to keeping cell regeneration locked at a certain age so when all your cells regenerate themselves they won't be older more fragile cells but reproductions of the same age and resiliency. Don't answer here if you don't want to. Answer in a video. Your videos and thoughts are always exceptional tiers of modern/postmodern passage, Isaac. Thank you for them.

I'm almost certain that the first space settlement will be by technicality. Some ambitious entrepreneur will set up a "temporary" station that "accidentally" ends up becoming permanent while slow and inefficient governments argue over who has a right to this or that. No offense to viewers who like government programs, but generally speaking, a government's first and most important priority is remaining in power, not settling space, so even if they try it, they're going to be opposed by other governments seeking to deny a military or economic advantage and the whole process gets mired in delays. I don't think they'll be the first to do anything of consequence.

I never get tired of Isaac's positive outlook for the future. Right now I doubt we could come together any major project. But this too shall pass...

Artemis 1 launching tomorrow!!! POG

I miss stargate, I wish some one capable would get the franchise.

Hey Isaac, I've got a simple idea regarding rotating space habitats and wonder if those folks who generate those stellar vignettes for you might take it into consideration. Spinning up and spinning down a habitat would take fuel -- thrust. But, if you imagine a yoyo, and rotate the discs in opposite rotational directions, all you'd need would be an electric motor and a gear system. Depending on the balanced inertia, one half could spin some factor faster than the other. The central hub could, in theory, remain relatively stationary in its orientation. Thoughts?

25:35 The people who made that stock clip must have waited years for this moment.

A cycler is something I never considered, but that is very possible, akin to pitstop port cities like Cape Town. Greetings from South Africa.

My personal take is that an output is a strategic base used as a remote jump-off point or place to garrison forces. The outpost could expect to be 100% dependent on outside resources being imported to sustain it. There are no humans around that don't serve a specific job in support of the base or military purposes. A settlement would be as close to 100% self-sufficient as possible. The population living there would have other occupations besides sustaining the settlement. A dance instructor, poet, retirees, or athlete living in/on the settlement would be indicative of settlement vs an outpost. People would have the expectation of living the rest of their lives and birthing children at this location.

Where do you get those incredible animations? Self-produced or stock footage from somewhere? Outstanding.

I'm designing a space exploration game and have been struggling with the terms "settlement"and "colony" myself. I've usually held that a settlement is a small collection of people in a localized area, like a village, town, or even a suburb. It is a tiney bastion of your culture and lifestyle in an otherwise alien environment, that is basically a primordial town or future city. A colony is much more overarching, like the overall government of several settlements. So settlement is to town/city as colony is to state/province. But you could go the entire Roman city-state rout also, a settlement that grows into a much larger entity being a colony. I could imagine an O'Neal cilindar being considered the "colony", while small pockets of people gathering in communities in it's surface would be settlements. But also several small settlements on the moon being part of an overarching colonial government.

You are the MAN Isaac.

I love this channel.

The cooking footage was great lol

This could have been humanity's future if not for the great reset.

I'd like to submit a video topic: Plastics in space. How/if we would manufacture, substitutes materials for different applications, sourcing raw materials, durrability, etc.

Congratulations on your wins!!! 🏆 👏

In the future at county fairs, our robot overlords would bring and vote on their favorite pet humans.🙃

Hm, ... interesting. I do honestly love your take that, a spacecraft of spaceship size, at a minimum, must be a settlement in order to go colonize, moving said settlement, therefore settling locally, and then turning the logistical location into a planetary colony over time. So: - An Earth Settlement colonizes a shapeship. - Said spaceship colony then settles, or settlements, inside of their new spaceship home. - This spaceship then goes to its target other place to offload its settlement population to then localize into a colony. - Said settling population then moves itself and creates a settlement upon the target location, usually on another celestial body. - The now at least hopefully locally settled settlement population then sets to the long term task, of: - The end goal: a colony, for long term survival, on a, usually, different celestial body. On logistics: - Logistics is life. - Life is logistics. - ? No, seriously. Of and by example, "just" by looking at not only local, county, state, and national shipping,... The single worst part of the modern logistical footprint is the international shipping trade. And then, realizing, that at least until rocketry can compete with said major cargo container movers,...? The many space launch rocketry companies thus far seriously have their work cut out for them. I mean, here's a rather nasty idea: - ...? - Um, no offense, the single biggest problem for logistics is shipping, or at the very least its equivalent. Until we, as a species, get a "rocket" equivalent vessel able to move better than a fully functional Starship and Superheavy Booster, or even Starship II, ...? The Starship's cargo hold can ... hold... www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/ PAYLOAD VOLUME HEIGHT 18 m / 59 ft PAYLOAD FAIRING DIAMETER 9 m / 30 ft PAYLOAD VOLUME 1,100 m3 / 38,800 ft3 USEFUL MASS 100+ t / 220+ klb So that's a 59 foot tall 30 foot wide cylinder able to fit up to 38,800 cubic feet and a normal max weight of 100 metric tons. A metric ton is 2,204.62 pounds, versus the Imperial ton of 2,000 pounds instead. The metric ton, or tonne, has been changed over time, although maybe it should be resampled. I'm not going into details as to why yet, however,... it involves ... well, the stars "swapped" somehow at least twice. The Native Americans who wrote a letter on this fact, were ignored. ... I figure a revisit of the mass of said metric ton, or tonne, is best. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship - Spec's, on the right: Launch mass: 5,000 metric tons Max propellant mass: 1,200 metric tons Cargo mass: 100+ metric tons. Cap appears to be up to 150 metric tons, if dense things are going up. Or, if launch efficiency is preferred. So. Oh. Tonne(s) I think is still short for metric ton(s)? 5000 tonnes on lift off. Per Starship. (Superheavy's lift off mass not listed.) ... 5000 tonnes per Starship. Up to 1,200 tonnes of fuel, both types. I wonder if 1,000 tonnes could be enough for large volume rocketry. That's 1,200 for 5 launches, or 1,000 for 6 launches. There's,... tradeoffs. Up to 150 tonnes is listed, and 100 tonnes seems to be favored. Quickly put: 1,000 tonnes of fuel mix will likely orbit* 100 tonnes of stuff. *Rockets go boom. And, sometimes, in the wrong direction! And, as on the, "Up to 1,200 tonnes," line, that's for five or six launches. If 1,200 tonnes of fuel proves to be needed for said 100 tonnes, then that's only five launches, for the same total fuel mix. While not even knowing the actual lift off weight for the Superheavy Booster assist rocket being the first stage! 1,000 tonnes is easier overall, and for the same 6,000 tonnes of fuel mix, that's six launches, instead of only five. The,... well, quick hypothetical, "average" cargo carrying weight, of said, cargo, ships does appear to be a closely guarded secret, as the online and available shipping data does not seem to make this value easy to find... Figuring normal shipping then, perhaps a ratio. Because as a purely hypothetical guess, 65,000 tonnes, would mean that: - Rounding, for ease of below: - 66,000 tonnes, just because of the lift off value of cargo to fuel mix weight. - 1,100 tonnes gives 1,000 tonnes of fuel mix to orbit 100 tonnes of cargo. An "average" cargo ship can carry six times, with an obviously assumed average, sideways, versus the one time, going up. And again, to be clear, that's without figuring in the fuel mix lift off weight for the Superheavy, listed at ... 3,400 tonnes per launch. So.... For: 4,500 tonnes... 4,400 tonnes of propellant, puts, 100 tonnes of stuff, "up." Hm... Which means that a 45,000 tonnes cargo ship on the ocean is moving ten Starships worth of stuff sideways, versus said one Starship and Superheavy pair going up. ... Yeah, I know. Welcome to the, "Reverse Glory," of the Specific Impulse rocketry equation. If there's ever a time to start and then pour even further more research into Fusion reactors,... Especially the Fusion thruster like Battletech variants, because,... "JUST" putting 45,000 tonnes into orbit once, versus the roughly ten Starship & Superheavy paired launches needed...? Again. Life is logistics. Logistics is life. If you aren't over 100% self sufficient? And often, even if you are? This is why the economy of weight, especially with by air cargo,...? Might be at least working into for even rocketry nuts!

Gratz to your better half on 1st place. That's awesome

Great episode everybody! thanks and congrats on the veggies!

14:11 If a disk was "vertical" meaning an edge was closer to the Earth than the other part of it's edge then microgravity would be greater across the disk but there would be no difference between one atom and it's immediate neighbors based on orientation to the Earth. That's my understanding.

I always figured it made way more sense for us to attempt to make a big ship yard style space station in orbit before we headed to make a base on the moon or Mars.

I heard something about a moon Bottle structure it has a perfect condition for a base it has a hole but inside it's wide .you are protected from the elements like Meteorites and radiaton. Also the temperatures are very friendly +17° C .

Oh hey people living in giant Asteroid Mining Squids, another thing to add onto the list.

I enjoy the topics you discuss a lot but it will be very cool if you add the text as an articles on your website?

I can't believe we have people that are willing to be astronauts.

Most birds need gravity to swallow, so chickens in space may need to be genetically modified in the absence of sufficient gravity.

Something many seem to forget is that plants provides two things, by converting CO2 and H20 (both of which we breathe out) plus urine and faeces of course, into O2 for us to breathe in, plus carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins and fats which we consume. Thus, I think a successful space colony, be it mobile or stationary, will likely have much more plant matter per human than we've envisioned so far

Dude, best KZfaq video URL ending of all time, hands down! And I love this show, it has been a big influence on me and my project codenamed "FTL" (part video game, part video series/narrative) that I will be unveiling soon and hope people support. 🙂

I would pay to see the Isaac Arthur tech ladder, the build sequence. Like a rough map of deep time, but local to 700 years then to 1,2,3,4,20 thousand years. Local statistics.

21:37 Yes PLEASE make an Antarctica colonization episode.

But how can cycler save fuel? To dock with it you have to match trajectory, which would require you essentially spent the fuel that already put you on trajectory to coast to your destination. I suppose you could use a mass driver and mass, uh, braker, and jhooks to rendez-vous with the cycler which will borrow and lend kinetic energy with ships travelling to and from the various points on its orbit

Should the chance ever come around in my lifetime sign me up to be on the first trip out! To help found a space settlement would be rad! Live long and prosper my friends!🖖🏻

Huh I didn't realize the angle for Earth gravity on the moon would be so extreme. But I haven't done the vector addition calculation myself yet so...

Some of us watching right now might live long enough to see the first settlement, regardless it is quite nice to contemplate it :D