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DoktoroKiu t1_j8nbh8z wrote

Reply to comment by SoylentRox in Would an arcology be conceivably possible? by peregrinkm

>As long as you have some minimum number of people (specialized skills) and enough manufacturing machinery, this won't happen.

You'd need quite a large number of people with many specialties, I think. The idea of a small self-contained system is more of the problem. You also can't forget about materials (how are you getting them?). Much of our technology relies heavily on the global economy, and there has been no effort put in to try to make these self-contained systems even on a nation-sized basis (except maybe North Korea, and even they rely on the global economy despite every desire not to).

We don't necessarily have a good reason to believe we can for sure make a smaller self-contained system. It may be possible, but it isn't a given, an. it's certainly not an easy problem.

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SoylentRox t1_j8nzxgj wrote

We're not talking about self contained per say. We are saying "if the earth is no longer inhabitable" but we still have access to it, so we can send people out in space suits or robots and get water, air, and minerals that have to be decontaminated and then can be used.

Every human not in your hab is now dead.

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DoktoroKiu t1_j8znbsv wrote

Odds are in such a scenario you starve to death when your mini biome has some minor issue that disturbs the balance and ends up killing some crucial part of the system. Assuming all life is also dead outside your hab, you are dead.

If it's something that kills animals but not plants/fungi then maybe you'd have options, but it's still a massively complex system that you are trying to keep stable.

Maybe a system of many different but self-contained habs would have more resiliency. If you lose some component to a blight then maybe the other hab has some different strain that is unaffected.

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SoylentRox t1_j8znqe0 wrote

Yes. And/or isolated equipment for most life support steps. So far example oxygen processing comes from growth tubes isolated in groups, and their feedstock supply gets sterilized before feeding into the machinery.

Energy and spare manufactured part intensive though.

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