> it won’t be pressure tested until the world collapses.
- so I’m saying it should not only be pressure tested but be in continuous operation in order to flush out failure modes before a catastrophic scenario plays out, it needs to be providing value way before an extinction level event plays out.
- I agree about your point with the bio/virus with a long incubation time, I think the only way round this would be to have shifts like on an oil platform or mine, where different groups spend a period of time (say 1-3 months) working in isolation from the general population.
> I don’t see how digging underground is going it make it better at water treatment, electricity generation etc than the equivalent aboveground services.
- it may not make it better but would make it more resilient, an open water treatment plant for example is going to become immediately polluted with nuclear dust if is built in standard outdoor settings, where as an isolated underground facility would be protected from that risk. A geothermal power plant may not be more efficient than a wind turbine or solar panels, but again is more resilient to hurricanes or nuclear winter.
> Fwiw my take is that offworld bases have much better longterm prospects—they’re pressure tested every moment of every day;
- I agree they are better as they are pressure tested by necessity, to do this on-world we have to simulate the necessity, in my mind it’s good to have 3 options, 1) Don’t destroy earth’s ecosystem 2) Have off-world bases 3) Have Citadelles or something similar - They each address different needs, 1) Addresses Reliability, 2) Redundancy 3) Disaster recovery.
> But on the other hand, it sounds expensive to build a whole city (and would you or I really want to uproot our lives and move to a random tiny town in the middle of nowhere just to help be the backup plan in case of nuclear war?)
- I agree, it seems the obvious solution would be to build the citadelle on existing infrastructure and an existing town so no one need to move to the middle of nowhere. A sensible approach might be to pick towns with one existing relatively well established educational facility, and then start progressively constructing services underground to replace aging infrastructure above ground of the town like water recycling, power generation, food production, slowly making the town infrastructure more resilient and incrementally adding the extra capabiliites in as it becomes prudent.
> even most nuclear wars probably wouldn’t result in the comically barren and devastated world of the Fallout videogames
- That’s probably true, but as I understand it even a nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause a nuclear winter large enough to cause a famine that would kill 1/3rd of the worlds population—in which case underground vertical farming—would be pretty helpful...