this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Oh! Oh! I've thought about this!
It would make more sense to build habitat craters, dug deep enough into the ground that the surface air pressure would be at a level tolerable to humans (even if the atmosphere mixture was bad, being able to simply wear a respirator instead of an entire suit would be huge).
I did some math once, on Mars a crater several miles deep would have a pressure similar to Earth's surface.
I think the Moon was like 40 miles or something, which at that point would probably run into other problems that I am not smart enough to worry about lol
That sounds like a really cool Sci Fi concept!
Like the inverse of doing Floating airship cities on Venus where the altitude 's atmosphere is earth equivalent
Edit: equivalent pressure wise, not necessarily component wise
Craters also have the added benefit of sheltering the occupants from radiation and falling debris that the non-existent atmosphere couldn't protect from
You won't even need to dig the hole! If you do this before much other habitations on the planet, you could precisely direct astroids to impact the same place to dig the whole for you. I think Cody's Lab did a video about it, but I can't find it right now.
Good odds thereβs already a bunch of craters too, one of them will fit the bill
Awesome answer but could you still answer the question for those still curious?
Well the craters could be domed off to maintain a healthy Earth-like atmosphere, and because the pressure is maintained by the depth of the crater the dome itself wouldn't actually have to hold the air pressure in against a low pressure environment.
Also, presumably the reason a habitat would be planet-side is to take advantage of mineral resources, so a lot of digging will happen anyway.
Weren't they doing this in The Expanse?
Getting closer to the core also means you get free heating.