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mertats t1_j8djpjo wrote

Define self-sufficient.

If you define it as energy, food, water and oxygen self-sufficiency. I believe it is possible.

But if you expand that to more complex products like computers etc. It would not be achieveable for a long time, I believe.

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peregrinkm OP t1_j8dk01i wrote

Why is that? Is it because they would require more energy, or more materials to upgrade hardware?

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mertats t1_j8dkqkg wrote

Modern CPUs and GPUs require highly sophisticated machines and processes, even today only handful of countries can produce them.

The more complex the product gets, and more exotic materials the product requires it becomes harder to be self-sufficient.

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kjm16216 t1_j8dmkxm wrote

Plus if you are going to build complex things that you didn't set up for at the beginning, you will need to be more than self sufficient, you will need a surplus of time, energy, minerals to expand the equipment of the colony.

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UnfeignedShip t1_j8ezylh wrote

Along with the people to operate them/

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kjm16216 t1_j8f0gww wrote

And the supplies to sustain them. Your population growth has got to match your surplus, and your surplus has to grow with population growth. I feel like I'm explaining how to play SimCity all the sudden.

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OriginalCompetitive t1_j8dtpz6 wrote

There isn’t even a nation on earth, much less a colony, that is self-sufficient in this sense.

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earthsworld t1_j8ds1pw wrote

why is that we can't manufacture chips and circuits on the moon? what in the absolute fuck? did you just crawl out of the swamp or something? where do you people come from that you understand so little about how anything works?

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guarks t1_j8dsudc wrote

Somebody needs coffee and a hug

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earthsworld t1_j8e8eu4 wrote

no, i need to talk to people who aren't idiots.

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Void_vix t1_j8eh8g7 wrote

You aren’t really talking; you’re ranting

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annomandaris t1_j8e648x wrote

Lack of gravity plays havoc with crystal formation. It might be a lot harder to grow a workable silicon wafer on the moon without some kind of centerfuge facility.

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h2opolopunk t1_j8dt8fn wrote

>why is that we can't manufacture chips and circuits on the moon?

We can't manufacture chips and circuits on the Moon for a myriad of reasons, one of which is the blasts of solar and cosmic radiation that the surface is regularly subjected to.

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Matthayde t1_j8e0sim wrote

You would need radiation shielding anyway for people.. any moon base is likely to be built like a bunker

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Sweet_Ad_426 t1_j8e7fdt wrote

You need extremely modern chip manufacturing equipment to manufacture the equipment to make the next generation of chips. Even if you had all the knowledge/plans for a modern chip manufacturing facility it would take you decades to build up the capabilities to manufacture your own modern chips. We could build a manufacturing plant here and transport it to the moon, after adding a ton of shielding, but it would likely be damaged in transport. You'd have to start several generations back at best to get something that could be transported safely.

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peregrinkm OP t1_j8dscrs wrote

Condescension aside, I figure the necessary chips could be sent up from the earth. Once they’re installed would there really be a need for new ones?

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ButterflyCatastrophe t1_j8dwbn5 wrote

Stuff breaks. Given enough time, absolutely everything breaks, and delicate microprocessors break fairly quickly. The atoms may all still be there, but you need to be able to reconstruct the original molecular and physical structure, and that's often not possible, even on earth.

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