Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebula.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

Beneath the Martian Dome We D dwell, where crimson skies and dreams do tell, a refuge

against the voids embrace, humanity's bold, newfound space. One of the biggest questions we have about settling the red planet right after asking

if we should or not is if we should be building domes there or living underground, or

even favoring settlements up in space on rotating ring or cylinder habitats.

Today I thought we would discuss if we should be building those domes on Mars, and if so,

what purposes would they serve, where we should build them, how big and from what?

Needless to say, a transparent dome is unnecessary in some cases, or even counterproductive,

for the same reason we don't make transparent roofs on houses, likewise some cases require

them even when inconvenient or adding a hazard, though we can also see hybrids where

a skylight in opaque ceilings and windows are used, with

blast shutters to handle sudden damage to that transparent glass.

But before we get into a summary of the pros and cons of domes, by which we mostly mean

transparent or translucent ones, we should note that the classic fear of the dome shattering and sucking

everybody out to die in a near vacuum is not a realistic one.

Any dome is likely made of triangular segments no more than a meter wide, and it would be

one of those that shattered.

We can build out of much stronger transparent materials than glass these days, and given

that diamond can now be economically manufactured and is just carbon, as is graphene, that

...