A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

by Kelly Weinersmith

literally nobody has been to space for longer than 437 days in a row,

But if you’ve ever wondered “can we find out how to do a craniotomy in space?” the answer is yes. When pigs fly.

You might wonder why astronauts—elite superhumans doing their dream jobs—have psychological issues at all. The short version is that space on a day-to-day basis isn’t so great. It’s not the least bit Star Trekky. There are tedious chores: meal prep, cleaning the bathroom, scrubbing mold, taking inventory. Private accommodations are the size of a coffin, funny smells waft from the waste containment facility, the food is mediocre, exercise clothing gets reused for more days than Earthlings would dare. Bits of human waste frequently find their way to airborne status, as do sloughed-off foot callouses from feet that no longer strike the ground. The equipment is quite loud, it’s hard to get enough sleep, and historically space stations are pretty crowded. The ISS has about the habitable volume of two average American apartments, but it contains six people, all their equipment, food, exercise stuff, experiments, and every kind of astronaut waste from food containers to feces.

Maybe I don't want to go to space

At greatest distance, it takes forty minutes for a signal to get from Earth to Mars and back.

At the moment, there are precisely six small caches of high-concentration carbon on the Moon—the Apollo Moon landing sites, where the Heroes of the Space Age left behind a grand total of ninety-six bags of feces, urine, and vomit.

Eww