
Architects have designed a Martian city for the desert outside Dubai - simonebrunozzi
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/mars-science-city-design-spc-scn/index.html
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whywhywhywhy
Yet another paid off Dubai marketing puff piece advertorial, yet another
article by a so called journalist that doesn't question the architect Bjarke
Ingels Group on the ethics of what will almost certainly be built by basically
slave labour.

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dogma1138
the likelihood of it actually being built are about zero, Dubai has had a lot
of these projects these are just marketing vaporware.

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mrpopo
CO2 emissions per capita in the United Arab Emirates are equivalent to 23.37
tons per person, one of the few countries with higher per capita emissions
than the USA.

This is including the massive (60-70%) low-paid immigrant worker population
that I assume doesn't have a significant foodprint compared to the Emiratis
and Western expats living there.

Those "martian" cities will be needed as giant shelters on Earth before we can
build them on Mars.

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Saad_M
>> They don't even have a space program.

Actually this is factually incorrect. They do have a space program and
planning to send their first satellite to Mars this year:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/it-is-about-
ou...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/it-is-about-our-survival-
uaes-mars-mission-prepares-for-launch)

~~~
gpm
Without getting into a semantics argument:

They do have a satellite program.

They don't have a launch program, that mission will launch from Japan on a
Japanese rocket.

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PyErr_SetString
While I think this looks really cool, there are people who think domes are not
the way to go. Part of the reasoning kind of makes sense.

[https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/11/28/domes-are-
very...](https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/11/28/domes-are-very-over-
rated/)

Either way, these things are fun to read about...

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culturestate
This isn't strictly related but in the section on tensile structures the
author mentioned the Goodyear Inflatoplane[1], which is one of the craziest
things I'd never heard of.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Inflatoplane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Inflatoplane)

~~~
twic
Pah! If you're going to get crazy with inflatables, why not ride one all the
way to low earth orbit:

[http://www.jpaerospace.com/ATO/ATO.html](http://www.jpaerospace.com/ATO/ATO.html)

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bloopernova
_" on Mars, a pressurized dome actually supports its own weight and then some.
As a result, the structure is under tension and the dome is attempting to tear
itself out of the ground. Since lifting force scales with area, while
anchoring force scales with circumference, domes on Mars can’t be much wider
than about 150 feet, and even then would require extensive foundation
engineering."_

Huh, I always knew you could "float" domes from reading _Red Mars_ but the
lifting force sounds pretty gnarly.

Boring rectangular boxes for all!

~~~
nickparker
Casey Handmer argues [0] that The best solution is an “air mattress” structure
where anchor cables are spaced throughout the structure to resist the pressure
load.

The anchor cables can scale linearly with area just like the pressure does,
while a perimeter wall anchor scales with radius and therefore sets a limit on
enclosure size.

The cable anchor approach also lets you build arbitrarily high ceilings, like
kilometers up hypothetically.

I really wish someone would build one of these on Earth. It would actually be
easier because you’d just set the pressure high enough to resist wind loads.
You could make an incredibly gigantic greenhouse in some otherwise
inhospitable climate

[0]: [https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/11/28/domes-are-
very...](https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/11/28/domes-are-very-over-
rated/amp/)

~~~
gpm
> I really wish someone would build one of these on Earth. It would actually
> be easier because you’d just set the pressure high enough to resist wind
> loads. You could make an incredibly gigantic greenhouse in some otherwise
> inhospitable climate

This would require 2atm pressure (to be equivalent to mars) - how well do
humans react to that sort of pressure for long periods of time?

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DarthGhandi
Humans do remarkably well at high pressures. 2 atm pressure is the equivalent
of being 10m underwater.

If you go a lot higher you run into some issues and need to modify the gas
composition/ratio, this has been thoroughly studied for diving purposes.

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imglorp
Domes aside, underground is obviously the right idea. You can use the tailings
to mine for ice while you're digging the spaces.

The one surprise here: water filled skylights are brilliant. They let light
through, block radiation, and you can use them for fish and excess water
storage.

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LargoLasskhyfv
Irradiated space Sushi. Yummie!

Wanna try to get Biosphere-III right, first?

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buboard
Just about every architectural firm has made big bucks by selling glorious
empty buildings to those oil barons. It's almost comical to hear them talk of
"sustainability" in the world's least sustainable place and autocracy, where
the coming tourism collapse collides with decades of unprecedented real estate
waste, borrowed money and oil drying up.

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Mediterraneo10
"These oil barons"? Dubai is not oil rich. That is why it has built its
economy on trade. I could understand people misunderstanding this in the early
millennium when Dubai was just starting to rise to its global importance, and
they had only Arabian-peninsula stereotypes to go by. But it baffles me how
people don't know this by now. They most might have learned it, for example,
from the fallout of the 2008 crisis which hit Dubai's trade and real estate-
based economy and forced it to turn to other parts of the UAE which do have
oil.

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sweeneyrod
What is your basis for saying this? The UAE has the third highest oil
production per capita in the world.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
The contribution which oil makes to Dubai's economy has been in the single-
digit percentages for many years.[0] While the UAE overall is known for oil
output (though this chart[1] states that it is lower per capita then you
suggested, at least for 2017), the UAE is an only loosely joined federation,
and so the oil output of other emirates is not reflective of Dubai.

[0]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-14/dubai-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-01-14/dubai-
s-the-very-model-of-a-modern-mideast-economy) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production)

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athenot
I don't know the details of this project—and the UAE's affinity with grand
projects certainly warrants a grain of salt—but I've often thought these baby
steps could be useful for space exploration.

Sure, Mars, the Moon, etc. are not like anything found on earth. But at the
same time getting good at surviving in the least hospitable places on Earth
could certainly yield some insight when living in even lesser hospitable
places.

And like so many other space research projects, there might even be useful
outcomes for everyday life on earth.

Wishing them all the best, and even if they "fail", I hope valuable insight is
learned from this.

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FerretFred
_I think the biggest challenge in terms of a sustained presence on Mars is not
the engineering [or scientific] challenge, but the human [and] personal one,
"_

Politics/location aside, that seems to imply that if you come out of lockdown
self-isolation without going crazy, you may well be suited to live in an
environment like that.

~~~
mc32
I see it differently.

People who initially go there will self-select.

The problem is, to my mind, people’s mental breakdowns—maybe induced by the
new enviro, but also other things, including perhaps genetic.

And that’s the people who self-select. What about new generations? Large
populations will produce a variety of minds. Many will be sound, some not.

How do you deal with the Kaczynskis of the world?

Could you even have protests that could erupt into collapse? One thing you
could do is compartmentalize “cities” so that if one implodes/explodes it
doesn’t take the whole “mars civilization” with it, but still...

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
China style full spectrum surveillance with predictive policing like in
Minority Report, orwellian telesupervisor gadgets everywhere, any time, and
implants, from the beginning. Tracking not only YOU, but every object, tool,
material, ingredient, keeping stock of everything in real time.

What else?

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carapace
I think you're going to want a system of nested spheres. Each "layer" of
nested sphere has a pressure gradient. With Martian gravity (~0.4G if i recall
correctly) and geodesic designs you can make really big structures (tens of
kilometers).

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wmf
Speaking of Martian cities, shouldn't SpaceX start working on their Mars base
already? I assume it will need years of testing on Earth before it's ready to
launch.

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vulcan01
I think that NASA is doing that research for now... They'll most likely
collaborate on the Mars base.

[https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/nasa-
mars-b...](https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/nasa-mars-base-
competition-produces-inspiring-designs-for-life-outside-earth/news-
story/0bb4cb7d9caa542cfb19e3fd5f50e254)

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nsonha
Architects? What do these clowns knowabout Mars conditions? Shouldn't we get
engineers building working stuff first before engaging more vain activities.

