Why Not Mars(idlewords.com)
idlewords.com
Why Not Mars
https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm
1,087 comments
Part of article’s argument, can be summarised as “US Congress spends over $10 billion a year on grandiose and unachievable Martian vision-imagine what we could achieve if they gave that to JPL for robotic missions instead”. But that isn’t how Congress works. If they cancelled all expenditure on human space flight, they’d be unlikely to redirect any more than a fraction of that to robotic science missions. Instead, it will probably go to a new weapons system, or Medicare, or farm subsidies, or whatever. Spending it on human spaceflight likely even has indirect benefits for the robotic program-some NASA resources are shared by both programs, and taking away the human spaceflight component of their funding may threaten their overall viability, and hence their ability to serve the robotic programs
The article gets the numbers right but the human part absolutely wrong. I'd love it if humans were the kind of creatures that could make big advances by taking them one small boring step at a time with no unachievably ambitious end goal driving them forward, but that's absolutely not how it works.
The first advances in science were made by people trying to get rich turning worthless metals into gold. A lot of computer science grunt-work in decades past was done by or funded by people who thought they could build C-3PO.
Reasonable people who avoid likely financial ruin, who don't dream of building impossible machines or visiting other planets, simply don't take the risks needed to make actual technological leaps. Reasonable scientific goals that can't make headlines don't get billions from Congress.
We're not capable of building Mars colonies any time soon, that's true, but who knows what we'll invent as we blunder our way in that direction nonetheless?
The first advances in science were made by people trying to get rich turning worthless metals into gold. A lot of computer science grunt-work in decades past was done by or funded by people who thought they could build C-3PO.
Reasonable people who avoid likely financial ruin, who don't dream of building impossible machines or visiting other planets, simply don't take the risks needed to make actual technological leaps. Reasonable scientific goals that can't make headlines don't get billions from Congress.
We're not capable of building Mars colonies any time soon, that's true, but who knows what we'll invent as we blunder our way in that direction nonetheless?
Actually - It doesn't get the numbers right either. If you look at the first reference, "[1]", the author says:
"I’ll justify this figure in detail later on. For now, consider that each SLS launch costs $4.2B, and that developing just the Orion space capsule has cost $20B. The ISS, which is functionally close to a Mars transfer vehicle, has so far cost $250 billion."
With absolutely no regard for the massive cost per kg to orbit improvement being achieved by new space companies (SpaceX, RocketLab, etc.)
The author has cherry-picked his facts to fit his opinion.
"I’ll justify this figure in detail later on. For now, consider that each SLS launch costs $4.2B, and that developing just the Orion space capsule has cost $20B. The ISS, which is functionally close to a Mars transfer vehicle, has so far cost $250 billion."
With absolutely no regard for the massive cost per kg to orbit improvement being achieved by new space companies (SpaceX, RocketLab, etc.)
The author has cherry-picked his facts to fit his opinion.
> The first advances in science were made by people trying to get rich turning worthless metals into gold.
And the planetary motions were discovered by somebody trying to prove that the 5 planets all fit inside a babushka doll of the 5 platonic solids. This says nothing of what would happen if these scientists had different creeds or different goals. Most scientific discoveries are indeed very boring. Vera Rubin discovered dark matter while trying study the rotation curves of spiral galaxies, a very simple and very down to earth goal that lead to a remarkable discovery. At the same time Jane Goodall’s big creed was that maybe it is OK to empathize with the individual animals you are studying.
Grand goals are neither necessary nor sufficient for making scientific advancements. And while some goals might be useful, others are just as likely to be a major distraction. There is reason to believe that a human mars landing falls in the latter category.
And the planetary motions were discovered by somebody trying to prove that the 5 planets all fit inside a babushka doll of the 5 platonic solids. This says nothing of what would happen if these scientists had different creeds or different goals. Most scientific discoveries are indeed very boring. Vera Rubin discovered dark matter while trying study the rotation curves of spiral galaxies, a very simple and very down to earth goal that lead to a remarkable discovery. At the same time Jane Goodall’s big creed was that maybe it is OK to empathize with the individual animals you are studying.
Grand goals are neither necessary nor sufficient for making scientific advancements. And while some goals might be useful, others are just as likely to be a major distraction. There is reason to believe that a human mars landing falls in the latter category.
Love your perspective. It reminds me of the technological advances from the space race to the moon as well. We aren't taking casual trips up there ever, but the tech that came from it was revolutionary
i feel like this is all propaganda to convince tax payers to fund this stuff. it's like we never invented anything worthwhile at all if it wasn't used for war or space. maybe we should just try? try spending some money on good for a change and we'll see if good comes out of it.
Yeah, the obvious reason why funding spaceflight yields useful technology is that we also fund e.g. laser technology. We can fund science research without also spending billions of dollars going to the moon.
But will the money actually go there ? The track record is not very good so far in this regard.
Displacing all coal- and oil-generated power with renewables in a short enough time to fend off climate catastrophe would be a good choice.
If it is propaganda, it is to detract from the fact that we could actually be on Mars already, if we hadn't spent a Trillion dollars a year bombing the shit out of everyone for the last two - or so - decades ..
People tend to forget that we are still murdering each other over this planet.
Getting to Mars would either be a solution to that problem, or just an extension.
I guess, therefore, it matters who gets there first.
(See also: Psyche 16)
People tend to forget that we are still murdering each other over this planet.
Getting to Mars would either be a solution to that problem, or just an extension.
I guess, therefore, it matters who gets there first.
(See also: Psyche 16)
The Apollo mission that reached the moon was preceded by very rational steps to get there, and get back.
Prematurely shooting for Mars could literally bankrupt resources on Earth and still have worse odds than a more methodical approach.
Prematurely shooting for Mars could literally bankrupt resources on Earth and still have worse odds than a more methodical approach.
The Apollo program was insane for the 1960's. It was announced by JFK just one year after NASA's first successful manned space rocket. Engineering was still primarily done with pencils and slide-rules, the US had only just achieved widespread household electrification, and the first supersonic flight was only 15 years earlier.
NASA's budget during the Apollo era was about 10 times that of the Manhattan Project, about 1% of the entire US government budget. It could have turned into history's largest money incinerator if things had gone bad organizationally. I can't really think of any project like it that has been attempted before or since--not at such a huge scale and on such a short timeline.
The Soviet Union's own moonshot ended up a gigantic disaster, and it was only diligence and commitment (and luck) at every level of NASA that allowed them to succeed given such a monumental goal. But the goal itself was very close to madness.
NASA's budget during the Apollo era was about 10 times that of the Manhattan Project, about 1% of the entire US government budget. It could have turned into history's largest money incinerator if things had gone bad organizationally. I can't really think of any project like it that has been attempted before or since--not at such a huge scale and on such a short timeline.
The Soviet Union's own moonshot ended up a gigantic disaster, and it was only diligence and commitment (and luck) at every level of NASA that allowed them to succeed given such a monumental goal. But the goal itself was very close to madness.
"The Soviet Union's own moonshot ended up a gigantic disaster..."
For All Mankind on Apple TV+ has a lot of fun extrapolating from the premise of the Soviet moonshot succeeding and beating the US to the moon. Then presenting an alternate history of how events unfold differently because of it.
Basically extrapolating the insanity of the Apollo program up until the present day, as USA and Soviet Union continually try to one up each other in the space race.
It's a lot of fun.
For All Mankind on Apple TV+ has a lot of fun extrapolating from the premise of the Soviet moonshot succeeding and beating the US to the moon. Then presenting an alternate history of how events unfold differently because of it.
Basically extrapolating the insanity of the Apollo program up until the present day, as USA and Soviet Union continually try to one up each other in the space race.
It's a lot of fun.
Beside that, it did not seem to result any direct advancements in technology. We can't even build a Saturn-V any more. (But we can build SLS and Falcon Heavy though, after 50+ years.)
It did result in a number of smaller-scale advancements across the field, AFAICT, from radiation-hardened electronics to material science.
It did result in a number of smaller-scale advancements across the field, AFAICT, from radiation-hardened electronics to material science.
> We can't even build a Saturn-V any more.
It's not that we can't, we just decided to redirect those resources to other areas (i.e. the Space Shuttle) and now those designs are very out of date.
It's not that we can't, we just decided to redirect those resources to other areas (i.e. the Space Shuttle) and now those designs are very out of date.
No, we actually can't. In short, we've lost enough knowledge: https://space.stackexchange.com/a/6290
We can build a replacement, more capable than Saturn-V, and less expensive even. But we cannot reproduce Saturn-V the way it flew in 1970s.
We can build a replacement, more capable than Saturn-V, and less expensive even. But we cannot reproduce Saturn-V the way it flew in 1970s.
It's like saying we can't build the pyramids anymore just because we can't build them the exact same way the Egyptians did. Is the goal to get to the moon or is the goal to build a faithful replica of the rocket along with a faithful replica of the tools that built the rocket?
We developed a particular pinnacle of tech and lost it through disuse. This happens in aerospace and high-end weapon-making areas regularly, because the runs are small, and much of the knowledge and technology is uniquely purpose-built, with thick layers of secrecy protecting the know-hows.
Speaking of military technology, humans lost the secret of "Greek fire" [1], which apparently was a medieval form of napalm, not extinguishable by water. All the current knowledge of chemistry did not help restore the recipe yet (because history studies have a smaller budget than the actual military, of course).
We haven't lost the ability to fly to the Moon, of course, because the principles remain the same, and the technologies advance. But we had to build completely different rockets, not reusing many, if any, bits of Saturn-V.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire
Speaking of military technology, humans lost the secret of "Greek fire" [1], which apparently was a medieval form of napalm, not extinguishable by water. All the current knowledge of chemistry did not help restore the recipe yet (because history studies have a smaller budget than the actual military, of course).
We haven't lost the ability to fly to the Moon, of course, because the principles remain the same, and the technologies advance. But we had to build completely different rockets, not reusing many, if any, bits of Saturn-V.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire
It just goes to show that human progress is not monotonically increasing, we must travail to make it so, as without such effort, we slide back.
> It did result in a number of smaller-scale advancements across the field, AFAICT, from radiation-hardened electronics to material science.
Has it though? These are requirements for our normal earth orbit satellites, surely these would have advanced at a similar pace without the moon mission.
> We can't even build a Saturn-V any more.
Isn’t that a demonstration of the fact that the moon mission was an engineering dead end?
Has it though? These are requirements for our normal earth orbit satellites, surely these would have advanced at a similar pace without the moon mission.
> We can't even build a Saturn-V any more.
Isn’t that a demonstration of the fact that the moon mission was an engineering dead end?
> Isn’t that a demonstration of the fact that the moon mission was an engineering dead end?
Dead end, yes; engineering, no. More: we didn't need it for so long that everyone who was responsible has since gotten old/died.
And even then, only a dead end given the scientific and industrial position at the time; those can change to turn dead ends into open ends.
Dead end, yes; engineering, no. More: we didn't need it for so long that everyone who was responsible has since gotten old/died.
And even then, only a dead end given the scientific and industrial position at the time; those can change to turn dead ends into open ends.
It succeeded because the Saturn V had enough heavy-lifting capablity that we could do the entire mission with one launch vehicle for the complete round-trip.
It was the power of the Saturn V being sufficient to get us out of the Earth's gravity well, plus the cleverness of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mission plan that allowed us to pull it off. Once those two things were worked out and understood, the rest was just a matter of executing. But it was pure happenstance that the laws of Physics and the Earth/Moon orbital mechcanics lined up to make it possible.
It was the power of the Saturn V being sufficient to get us out of the Earth's gravity well, plus the cleverness of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mission plan that allowed us to pull it off. Once those two things were worked out and understood, the rest was just a matter of executing. But it was pure happenstance that the laws of Physics and the Earth/Moon orbital mechcanics lined up to make it possible.
And the Saturn V only had enough lifting capacity because the Air Force had issued a requirement to Rocketdyne back in 1955 for an engine powerful enough to deliver the huge H-bombs in use at the time. Within a few years, nuclear weapons researchers had figured out how to build lighter weapons so the huge F-1 engine was no longer needed for ICBMs, but fortunately it was ready for use in the Apollo program. The USSR had nothing comparable.
Well, the USSR did something similar - for a while you could only really sell a new space rocket by branding it as an ICBM.
Even the bloody 700 ton UR-500 which became the Proton eventually piggybacked on this, marked on paper as a 50-100 megaton warhead ICBM!
But looks like the Americans were thinking even bigger. :-)
Even the bloody 700 ton UR-500 which became the Proton eventually piggybacked on this, marked on paper as a 50-100 megaton warhead ICBM!
But looks like the Americans were thinking even bigger. :-)
I doubt anyone is actually going to “shoot prematurely for the Mars”. I expect what SpaceX is going to do, is once they get Starship up and running, and tick off some intermediate goals such as Artemis III and DearMoon, they’ll start launching demo Mars missions-no crew, but demonstrating some of the technologies a crewed mission will need-and NASA will probably pay for some of it. And that’s likely to take a lot longer than all their optimistic estimates suggest. But they’ll continue to dangle those timelines in front of everybody to create buzz which increases the odds of Congress/NASA paying for some of it. SpaceX might be a bit less risk-averse than NASA, but no way are they sending humans (even privately) to Mars unless they have reasonable odds of surviving, and there is a lot of further technology development and demonstration required to have reasonable confidence in that.
Like with reusable rockets before, its very important to a do real world demonstration that this is possible. This way a lot of the naysayers blocking Mars related projects in other companies/organizations/countries will be much less of a problem.
And in general will make more people consider to get involved as this is real now, not another power point, computer model or study.
And in general will make more people consider to get involved as this is real now, not another power point, computer model or study.
i think musk has basically said he doesn't mind risking/losing some lives. and people have volunteered. whether or not the world allows him to actually do that is another story though
Musk is prone to speak in a somewhat hyperbolic fashion, and may well be more risk-averse when it actually comes time to actually decide whether to put human lives at risk, than he is when talking about that decision as an abstract future. It also isn't entirely up to him–it is also what the rest of the SpaceX executive team feels comfortable with (especially Gwynne Shotwell), and also the comfort level of the regulators and lawyers.
Even NASA "doesn't mind risking/losing some lives", in that while they drive the "probability of loss of crew" as low as feasible, they never can get it to zero. Possibly, a private SpaceX mission might have a higher go/no-go threshold for that probability – but if it adds up to (say) 50%, I really doubt they'll go ahead with the mission, they'll likely instead delay so they can invest further engineering resources in reducing it to a more reasonable level.
Even NASA "doesn't mind risking/losing some lives", in that while they drive the "probability of loss of crew" as low as feasible, they never can get it to zero. Possibly, a private SpaceX mission might have a higher go/no-go threshold for that probability – but if it adds up to (say) 50%, I really doubt they'll go ahead with the mission, they'll likely instead delay so they can invest further engineering resources in reducing it to a more reasonable level.
Haha, not really - the original Apollo program was reasonable - lets doe a low Earth orbit space station or two, build some space infra, improve and ideally reuse launchers...
Then Kennedy came with "LETS DO A LUNAR LANDING LIKE RIGHT NOW, LOL!" & then got himself killed so it could not be taken back.
What followed was an ultimately successful mad dash with great emphasis on cost-is-not-an-option which did bring us some nice inventions but did not really help to build any real space infra or to lower the launch costs.
And arguably also entrenched the bad idea that space needs to be horrendously expensive and always will be. Not really, until you are on a mad dash with a singular unrelated objective.
But hey, it might still be useful experience next time a killer asteroid or hostile aliens show up.
Then Kennedy came with "LETS DO A LUNAR LANDING LIKE RIGHT NOW, LOL!" & then got himself killed so it could not be taken back.
What followed was an ultimately successful mad dash with great emphasis on cost-is-not-an-option which did bring us some nice inventions but did not really help to build any real space infra or to lower the launch costs.
And arguably also entrenched the bad idea that space needs to be horrendously expensive and always will be. Not really, until you are on a mad dash with a singular unrelated objective.
But hey, it might still be useful experience next time a killer asteroid or hostile aliens show up.
As long as people need to worry about things like their own financial ruin, need to worry about their investors each quarter, people aren't going farther than the earths orbit, and if they do, it will surely be a one way ticket to death. Doing it right now its like asking someone to play an impossible chess game where your side only has pawns and you lose $100 billion everytime one is taken.
this seems likely to be ignorant of all the small steps needed in everything everywhere, to romanticize people that marketed themselves well.
I can give you a concrete counterexample to that. The Perserverance rover is carrying an entire experiment (MOXIE, which makes oxygen from CO2) whose only purpose is to serve a future human mission. NASA is encouraging more of this stuff, and it means automated Mars rovers will go to the boring sites that we need to prep rather than look at the phenomena of highest scientific interest on Mars.
That said, I'd love to hear what people who work at JPL and NASA have to say to your point.
That said, I'd love to hear what people who work at JPL and NASA have to say to your point.
Oxygen production is also useful for sample return missions.
The biggest flaw with the rovers is that they’re terribly slow, so they can only explore a small range around a landing site. If they could cover even 100km/day, which seems plausible on RTG or solar power, we could explore many sites.
The biggest flaw with the rovers is that they’re terribly slow, so they can only explore a small range around a landing site. If they could cover even 100km/day, which seems plausible on RTG or solar power, we could explore many sites.
The limitation isn't the RTG or solar, it's that a rover moving at that speed would likely get itself stuck in the sand within a day.
It happened to Spirit, and it was moving at a glacial pace, with a team of people carefully reviewing its every move.
It happened to Spirit, and it was moving at a glacial pace, with a team of people carefully reviewing its every move.
Use helos as scouts for the rovers, then. Hmm..wait..
Sample return missions would also be robotic.
https://mars.nasa.gov/msr/
Sample return step 1 (collect samples) is already underway.
Sample return step 1 (collect samples) is already underway.
I think the assertion was that oxygen would be used to fuel the trip back to earth.
Probably an unpopular opinion around here, but honestly I think defense, healthcare, and food security to be more practical than human space exploration. I know that major advances in computing were made during the Apollo mission, but that was 60 years ago. What have you done for us lately?
Maybe Starlink ? That already showed serious defense implications for example. And while not in-your-face visible I'm sure all the remote sensing sats launched in the last two decades improved our weather forecast, disaster monitoring and agricultural production significantly.
Yeah, but those aren't related to human space exploration. Not saying we should get rid of the space program 100% - just reduce it's cost by cancelling all the human spaceflight projects.
there are too many existential threats when looking on a long enough timeline to not justify making humanity interplanetary. It just has to happen at some point and i'd like to get moving before i giant asteroid comes hurtling at the planet, or the yellowstone volcano decides to erupt.
I see this as an AM/FM problem. If one of these disasters happen, then we should rely on "actual machines" to mitigate or avoid them, and not rely on "F*ing Magic" like interplanetary colonization.
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to expand what's possible with "actual machines", but that should be up to academia - and they're pretty clear that human space exploration isn't worth the money.
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to expand what's possible with "actual machines", but that should be up to academia - and they're pretty clear that human space exploration isn't worth the money.
Yeah, but that's kind of how human progress works. For each Edison or SpaceX which successfuly commercialised a technology, there are Nicola Teslas and Apollo programs which did it way before both the tech and the society were ready for it, in a one-shot way that's a bit difficult to replicate.
What did Tesla do that was so far ahead of time that was difficult to replicate? Surely Tesla, together with Westinghouse, is why we have AC power distribution and polyphase AC motors and neither of those things are difficult once they are properly described.
Edison and DC lost that battle.
Edison and DC lost that battle.
Keep in mind that some of Tesla's effects are still under U.S. Government lock and key.
At the time, whatever it was, it was warranted as being worthy of classification. Another tragic loss to the scientific community as I understand it.
At the time, whatever it was, it was warranted as being worthy of classification. Another tragic loss to the scientific community as I understand it.
Empirically, congress has sent nobody to Mars but funds repeated successful probes.
Each of those probes has been justified in part via “this will help get humans to Mars” to earn approval.
Usually governments have some kind of plan how much they want to spend on science. A big, but ultimately useless project can kill the funding for a lot of other research.
Yes, but this is NASA's flagship mission. It's inevitably going to get special treatment from congress.
Still it means that other more useful research will likely not get funded by congress. These big hype projects can do a lot of harm for everyone else.
+1.
"...not because it's easy, but because it's hard."
"...not because it's easy, but because it's hard."
It's silly to do things just because they are hard. Extraordinarily silly.
What Kennedy did not say, was "it's just hard enough". Hard enough that we can pull it off, and the Soviets can't, and the world can see that. Much better to gain a space upmanship victory than a shooting nuclear missile victory.
Now we are in a different place. Well, maybe not for too long, you never know. China has its own space ambitions, and military ambitions too.
But just doing hard things for the sake of doing hard things makes no sense.
What Kennedy did not say, was "it's just hard enough". Hard enough that we can pull it off, and the Soviets can't, and the world can see that. Much better to gain a space upmanship victory than a shooting nuclear missile victory.
Now we are in a different place. Well, maybe not for too long, you never know. China has its own space ambitions, and military ambitions too.
But just doing hard things for the sake of doing hard things makes no sense.
Listen: I am still reading this - it is delightfully long - but this is the takedown I've been waiting for for years. Maciej has been particularly critical of the idea of extra Earth colonization while an entire continent goes uncolonized.
In the interest of discourse, who is the greatest proponent of Mars colonization who has been to Antarctica?
In the interest of discourse, who is the greatest proponent of Mars colonization who has been to Antarctica?
Antarctica is not "uncolonized" due to a lack of interest; there are relatively few people there because we have collectively agreed not to allow more. If there were no such restrictions, there would be people building tourist hotels all over it, and everything that comes with that.
Mars is disconnected from Earth's biosphere. To most people, we wouldn't be ruining anything ecologically important or otherwise sacred by colonising it and bending it to our needs.
The Mars-Antarctica connection isn't particularly strong.
Mars is disconnected from Earth's biosphere. To most people, we wouldn't be ruining anything ecologically important or otherwise sacred by colonising it and bending it to our needs.
The Mars-Antarctica connection isn't particularly strong.
Not to mention the massive amount of unexploited natural resources below the 80th parallel. There would be huge oil rigs and mining companies all over Antarctica if it were allowed.
> Mars is disconnected from Earth's biosphere. To most people, we wouldn't be ruining anything ecologically important or otherwise sacred by colonising it and bending it to our needs.
I'm sure colons back in the day thought something similar about "the new world". There are so many questions we need to answer first.
How are we going to terraform Mars? What kind of technology are we going to use to change the thermo-chemical properties of an entire planet? What impact is it going to have with its magnetic fields, its gravity, and its orbit? How are humans going to evolve to live there? Slight endocrine disruptors are making people infertile, what would living in another planet cause?
The solar system is an ecological system, just like Earth. Introducing massive changes like that is bound to come back to bite us. This kind of mindset in the past caused tremendous damages to our current ecosystem. Are we really ready to play god with the solar system?
I'm sure colons back in the day thought something similar about "the new world". There are so many questions we need to answer first.
How are we going to terraform Mars? What kind of technology are we going to use to change the thermo-chemical properties of an entire planet? What impact is it going to have with its magnetic fields, its gravity, and its orbit? How are humans going to evolve to live there? Slight endocrine disruptors are making people infertile, what would living in another planet cause?
The solar system is an ecological system, just like Earth. Introducing massive changes like that is bound to come back to bite us. This kind of mindset in the past caused tremendous damages to our current ecosystem. Are we really ready to play god with the solar system?
I’m on the fence about astrobiology, but I’ll go out on a limb and say the solar system is not a connected ecosystem “like Earth”.
Any actions we take that ruin parts of the quite likely ecosystem that lives on Mars will have zero effect on Earth’s.
I think a more likely threat is that we may bring something nasty back with a human mission to Mars, as unlike a sample return, you can’t keep the crew and every part of the returning spacecraft in a NASA biocontainment lab indefinitely.
Any actions we take that ruin parts of the quite likely ecosystem that lives on Mars will have zero effect on Earth’s.
I think a more likely threat is that we may bring something nasty back with a human mission to Mars, as unlike a sample return, you can’t keep the crew and every part of the returning spacecraft in a NASA biocontainment lab indefinitely.
Makes you wonder if some of those UFOs are aliens who are afraid that they will contaminate our planet if they make physical contact with us.
My head canon is that South Park episode [0] were they find out our planet is actually an alien reality show:
> A few billion years ago we realized, "what if we took species from all different planets in the universe, and put them together, on the same planet?" Great TV, right? Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer, and Hispanics, all trying to live side by side on one planet! It's great!
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancelled_(South_Park)
> A few billion years ago we realized, "what if we took species from all different planets in the universe, and put them together, on the same planet?" Great TV, right? Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer, and Hispanics, all trying to live side by side on one planet! It's great!
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancelled_(South_Park)
> To most people, we wouldn't be ruining anything ecologically important or otherwise sacred by colonising it and bending it to our needs.
I would 100% disagree with that. If you explained to people that Mars was a habitat untouched by humanity, possibly filled with life, most people would absolutely be against anything that would ruin it. People value preserving nature because they find it beautiful, not because they find it useful.
I would 100% disagree with that. If you explained to people that Mars was a habitat untouched by humanity, possibly filled with life, most people would absolutely be against anything that would ruin it. People value preserving nature because they find it beautiful, not because they find it useful.
> most people would absolutely be against anything that would ruin it
Until there's a dollar to be made exploiting it.
Until there's a dollar to be made exploiting it.
What's the point if no one is allowed to visit?
To preserve environments as they exist without (further) human interventions. There are plenty of examples of that right here on Earth, let alone outer space.
Personally, part of me hopes humanity never figures out how to get away from Earth and spread to other planets. An untouched rest of the universe seems far more valuable than one tainted with humans, at least to this particular jaded homo sapien.
Personally, part of me hopes humanity never figures out how to get away from Earth and spread to other planets. An untouched rest of the universe seems far more valuable than one tainted with humans, at least to this particular jaded homo sapien.
> An untouched rest of the universe seems far more valuable than one tainted with humans
This seems like a silly worry given the rate of expansion of the universe. We couldn't "taint" the universe even if we wanted to. At least nothing outside of our galaxy (but more likely outside of just our solar system).
The universe is essentially infinite. With essentially infinite planets, moons, stars, solar systems, and galaxies. Humans are unique (until proven otherwise). I say let the humans have their fun in their 0.000000000000000001% of the universe. In both best and worst case scenarios, there is still plenty of "untainted" universe left.
This seems like a silly worry given the rate of expansion of the universe. We couldn't "taint" the universe even if we wanted to. At least nothing outside of our galaxy (but more likely outside of just our solar system).
The universe is essentially infinite. With essentially infinite planets, moons, stars, solar systems, and galaxies. Humans are unique (until proven otherwise). I say let the humans have their fun in their 0.000000000000000001% of the universe. In both best and worst case scenarios, there is still plenty of "untainted" universe left.
There are an estimated 10^22 to 10^24 stars, or in the many sextillions range. So really, don't worry, we wouldn't have the capability to taint any significant amount of the universe even if that was our sole purpose.
The point of what? You think there's no point to life if you can't visit it?
We can conserve it, study it, and make replicas for misbehaving tourists. See Lascaux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux
The point is to not kill everything there. So that, one, it gets to live to become whatever it's going to be, and two, it's still there for us to visit if we can ever figure out how to do so without killing it.
You learn first how to responsibly visit.
Not only that but there's nobody there bc who tf actually wants to LIVE there? That's why.
But research stations in the poles are exactly why it's useful to have research stations on other planets. It solves the "if only we could..." problem.
As for his other points, microbial contamination can still happen with robots. I definitely agree that we should be sending more robots/rovers out to Mars before we send people as well as experiments like sending something to produce and store oxygen there just so we know it can be done. Hell, the rovers weren't even able to clean their own solar panels - at one point they had the fortune of a dust devil blowing the dust off the panels.
But research stations in the poles are exactly why it's useful to have research stations on other planets. It solves the "if only we could..." problem.
As for his other points, microbial contamination can still happen with robots. I definitely agree that we should be sending more robots/rovers out to Mars before we send people as well as experiments like sending something to produce and store oxygen there just so we know it can be done. Hell, the rovers weren't even able to clean their own solar panels - at one point they had the fortune of a dust devil blowing the dust off the panels.
I mean, that's pretty easy, it's gotta be Buzz Aldrin.
That is a strange psychological state. Being unaware of why something is impossible but desperately waiting for someone to tell you why it is.
History is full of millions of examples of things that were asserted as impossible by smart people in eloquent speeches and essays that we do today regularly without a thought.
History is full of millions of examples of things that were asserted as impossible by smart people in eloquent speeches and essays that we do today regularly without a thought.
We have places on Earth, which are probably 10x if not 100x or 1000x more habitable than Mars, which we still do not and cannot inhabit long term with more than a handful of people. I'm not sure how we expect to establish any kind of working colony on Mars, where there is no atmosphere or accessible oxygen, food or accessible water, magnetic field to keep radiation away, reliable supply chain for delivering anything else we need.
Let's figure out how to house and sustain, say, 20K people in Antarctica for 100 years before we even dream about doing the same on Mars.
Let's figure out how to house and sustain, say, 20K people in Antarctica for 100 years before we even dream about doing the same on Mars.
> We have places on Earth, which are probably 10x if not 100x or 1000x more habitable than Mars, which we still do not and cannot inhabit long term with more than a handful of people.
That’s because there are places on Earth that similarly better than e.g. Antarctica or some desert.
The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth. Make „not on Earth“ a requirement that cannot be dropped and suddenly Mars makes a lot of sense.
That’s because there are places on Earth that similarly better than e.g. Antarctica or some desert.
The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth. Make „not on Earth“ a requirement that cannot be dropped and suddenly Mars makes a lot of sense.
The Moon or even something in LEO make several orders of magnitudes more sense than Mars given our current technological and geopolitical capabilities.
I get it, colonizing other planets is romantic and awesome. I love science fiction too. But we are in the realm of reality, not fiction, and we have to learn how to crawl before we can walk, let alone run.
Let's figure out how to get permanent LEO human habitation going first, then figure out how to do that on the Moon. Then we can talk about colonizing other planets.
So far we've gotten short-term LEO habitation figured out, albeit with issues concerning expenses and trying to justify it all to the taxpayers.
I get it, colonizing other planets is romantic and awesome. I love science fiction too. But we are in the realm of reality, not fiction, and we have to learn how to crawl before we can walk, let alone run.
Let's figure out how to get permanent LEO human habitation going first, then figure out how to do that on the Moon. Then we can talk about colonizing other planets.
So far we've gotten short-term LEO habitation figured out, albeit with issues concerning expenses and trying to justify it all to the taxpayers.
Permanent (self-sufficient) LEO human habitation doesn't make sense because there's no source of material there. Mars has the major benefit that we know that there are raw materials and enough sunlight to turn those materials into various required inputs like methane. LEO definitely doesn't have that, and it's less clear whether anyplace on the Moon has that than it is Mars. Mars is further away in travel time, but not much further in fuel costs, and it's far better than the Moon for living off the land.
> Mars is further away in travel time, but not much further in fuel costs, and it's far better than the Moon for living off the land.
The prospect of an inhabited Martian colony living off the land is dismal, for anything except extremely far-future timeframes (thousands of years or more). Any extraplanetary colony is going to be invariably tethered to Earth and highly dependent on imports for survival. The moon has the advantage of not just being closer, but having a launch window of "whenever you feel like it", in contrast to Martian launch windows that occur 26 months apart.
The prospect of an inhabited Martian colony living off the land is dismal, for anything except extremely far-future timeframes (thousands of years or more). Any extraplanetary colony is going to be invariably tethered to Earth and highly dependent on imports for survival. The moon has the advantage of not just being closer, but having a launch window of "whenever you feel like it", in contrast to Martian launch windows that occur 26 months apart.
On the other hand, I'm curious how the delta-V numbers hold up for landing on the Moon, where aero-braking is impossible. Launch and landing require by far the most delta-V between either of the two bodies, much more than the difference between lunar transfer orbit and Martian transfer.
It's about 1.7km/s delta-v to land on the moon from LLO. If you are assuming an orbital station in the lunar gateway, that's another ~0.7km/s. From LEO that's another ~3.6km/s (3.2 to TLI and 0.4 to gateway). That gives you around 6km/s delta-v flat. Of course you can optimize this a bit by using a more direct route but it's probably cheaper if you leverage existing infra like the gateway.
Compare this to anything on mars. It'll be 3.6-4.0km/s to mars injection. Then 2.0km/s to low orbit (can be optimized with clever aerobreaking down to 1.0km/s). To the surface will be a minimum of another 0.4km/s (no engine, parachute only) and closer to 1km/s if you want a soft landing. So you can expect 5km/s at the bare minimum and ~7km/s along established "routes" leveraging to-be-existing infra.
So then the question becomes whether lower delta-v returns, regular launch opportunities, and shorter comms delay are more or less important than 1km/s delta-v savings.
I'd argue the delta-v savings aren't worth it on their own. Mars will eventually be worth exploring and it's a valuable opportunity but by every measure other than raw "throw it at the orbital body with no support or return plan" delta-v savings, the moon is a better site for initial extraterrestrial habitation studies.
Compare this to anything on mars. It'll be 3.6-4.0km/s to mars injection. Then 2.0km/s to low orbit (can be optimized with clever aerobreaking down to 1.0km/s). To the surface will be a minimum of another 0.4km/s (no engine, parachute only) and closer to 1km/s if you want a soft landing. So you can expect 5km/s at the bare minimum and ~7km/s along established "routes" leveraging to-be-existing infra.
So then the question becomes whether lower delta-v returns, regular launch opportunities, and shorter comms delay are more or less important than 1km/s delta-v savings.
I'd argue the delta-v savings aren't worth it on their own. Mars will eventually be worth exploring and it's a valuable opportunity but by every measure other than raw "throw it at the orbital body with no support or return plan" delta-v savings, the moon is a better site for initial extraterrestrial habitation studies.
>> It'll be 3.6-4.0km/s to mars injection. Then 2.0km/s to low orbit (can be optimized with clever aerobreaking down to 1.0km/s).
Except that all that delta at mars is done with aerobraking/aerocapture. Inbound probes can crash strait into the mars atmosphere without slowing down for orbital insertion. That's why it takes far less fuel to get to surface of mars than the moon, at least with objects car-sized or smaller. Only with larger/heavier objects is mar's atmosphere so thin that fuel must be used for capture prior to descent.
In the following deltaV map, much of the trip to mars is a free ride so long as you follow the red arrows. There are no free rides on the way to the moon.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2046/delta-v-chart...
Except that all that delta at mars is done with aerobraking/aerocapture. Inbound probes can crash strait into the mars atmosphere without slowing down for orbital insertion. That's why it takes far less fuel to get to surface of mars than the moon, at least with objects car-sized or smaller. Only with larger/heavier objects is mar's atmosphere so thin that fuel must be used for capture prior to descent.
In the following deltaV map, much of the trip to mars is a free ride so long as you follow the red arrows. There are no free rides on the way to the moon.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2046/delta-v-chart...
For the record we have not done aero capture at Mars just yet - but aerobraking has been used a lot, after first capturing into a high eccentric orbit with an engine burn.
In any case, bodies with atmosphere do enable you to effectively shave up to half of the delta-v for a transfer when you know what you are doing. :)
In any case, bodies with atmosphere do enable you to effectively shave up to half of the delta-v for a transfer when you know what you are doing. :)
> It's about 1.7km/s delta-v to land on the moon from LLO.
Looking at it from LLO isn't the number you should be using. It's the number from Lunar intercept orbits to landing.
Looking at it from LLO isn't the number you should be using. It's the number from Lunar intercept orbits to landing.
I was just illustrating the path along the lunar gateway (LEO -> TLI -> Gateway -> LLO -> surface). Even if you do a direct (LEO -> TLI -> LLO -> surface) route, you still have to go through LLO as you'll need to be able to pick your landing spot and potentially even delay a landing (which is not possible if LLO is not budgeted in).
Actually now that I think about it, if you want to save delta-v, you can get an extra 25% off the TLI leg of the direct route with a low energy transfer using weak stability boundary trajectories. These savings however come at the cost of a significantly longer flight time and far slimmer margins for failure.
Actually now that I think about it, if you want to save delta-v, you can get an extra 25% off the TLI leg of the direct route with a low energy transfer using weak stability boundary trajectories. These savings however come at the cost of a significantly longer flight time and far slimmer margins for failure.
I'm not an expert, but I would explore the possibility of a space elevator going from an spaceship orbiting the Moon to the Moon surface, and back.
OTOH, we can build a lunar space elevator with existing materials because of the lower gravity (even despite the longer distance to L1). Not sure, can we manage that with Mars?
Mars' moons make a stationary space elevator extremely challenging, even though known material processes are sufficient.
Good point. They're so small I forgot about them.
The physics works for Earth too. In all cases, you make the top of the cable bigger than the bottom to support all of the weight hanging from it. From what I've read, in the case of Earth and with current materials technology, we end up with the top of the cable having a diameter comparable to that of the Earth. Clearly, that's not feasible.
For Luna or Mars, gravity is reduced and the required diameter is less. Maybe it would even be feasible to build such an elevator if it were above the Earth. But now you're building above an alien plant, so you trade one set of potentially insurmountable obstacles for another.
For Luna or Mars, gravity is reduced and the required diameter is less. Maybe it would even be feasible to build such an elevator if it were above the Earth. But now you're building above an alien plant, so you trade one set of potentially insurmountable obstacles for another.
If one end of the cable is the size of the Earth, the physics can't get away with neglecting the gravity created by the cable itself.
I mean, that's a fair point. The total volume of the elevator cable would be greater than that of the Earth. The mass might still be less since we're not building it out of iron here, but effectively we'd have a binary planet with the centre of mass well outside the Earth's surface.
I'm not sure that that system would be unstable in human timeframes since the two would be tidally locked, although it would certainly alter the engineering stresses in ways that I'm grossly unqualified to calculate. I think a portion of the cable might be under compression rather than tension? I guess it depends on the rotational speed of the whole system.
Speaking of which, substantial amounts of energy would need to be spent accelerating the spin of the Earth/space elevator system to maintain a 24-hour day/night cycle.
However, Luna's presence would perturb the whole system, either tearing it apart with tidal stresses or being ejected from the system before that could happen.
I'm not sure that that system would be unstable in human timeframes since the two would be tidally locked, although it would certainly alter the engineering stresses in ways that I'm grossly unqualified to calculate. I think a portion of the cable might be under compression rather than tension? I guess it depends on the rotational speed of the whole system.
Speaking of which, substantial amounts of energy would need to be spent accelerating the spin of the Earth/space elevator system to maintain a 24-hour day/night cycle.
However, Luna's presence would perturb the whole system, either tearing it apart with tidal stresses or being ejected from the system before that could happen.
Carbon Nanotubes would end up with the top being ~26% larger than the bottom:
See Isaac Arthur's video about it here: https://youtu.be/dc8_AuzeYKE?t=470
See Isaac Arthur's video about it here: https://youtu.be/dc8_AuzeYKE?t=470
I appreciate the correction. I'm not sure where I heard that particular piece of information, nor in that case what material was being examined. Perhaps that one was steel.
By lunar space elevator I assume you mean an elevator from the lunar surface to the point where lunar gravity is practically 0?
Only by coincidence in this case.
On planets, a space elevator goes to (geo)stationary[0] so that the cable doesn't wind up around the planet, but you can't do that on the Moon, because luna-stationary is occupied by the Earth, which inconveniently is too massive and spinning too fast to anchor the other side of the cable. However, the L1 point is also stationery relative to the lunar surface, and is the place where the gravity of the Earth and the Moon balance out.
[0] IIRC, geostationary specifically means Earth, but there's going to be some more general term for the same idea over generic parent objects and not just Earth
On planets, a space elevator goes to (geo)stationary[0] so that the cable doesn't wind up around the planet, but you can't do that on the Moon, because luna-stationary is occupied by the Earth, which inconveniently is too massive and spinning too fast to anchor the other side of the cable. However, the L1 point is also stationery relative to the lunar surface, and is the place where the gravity of the Earth and the Moon balance out.
[0] IIRC, geostationary specifically means Earth, but there's going to be some more general term for the same idea over generic parent objects and not just Earth
Lunar stationary orbit is around 88,400 km, which would be unstable for a satellite due to the Earth's gravity, but might allow for a space elevator pointed right at Earth to efficiently launch crates of helium-3 or hydroponic grain back to the planet.
Indeed. I've not even played with this in one of the many simulators, but I believe the suggestion is to put the counterweight a tiny bit closer to Earth than the L1 to stabilise it.
Although (and I wish I could find this again), I've read that lunar He3 is so diffuse that getting it out would incidentally give us so much purified aluminium, silicon, and oxygen, that sending all that back to Earth and magnetically decelerating it on arrival would give us more energy than the He3, as would burning those ingots with that oxygen.
Although (and I wish I could find this again), I've read that lunar He3 is so diffuse that getting it out would incidentally give us so much purified aluminium, silicon, and oxygen, that sending all that back to Earth and magnetically decelerating it on arrival would give us more energy than the He3, as would burning those ingots with that oxygen.
Lunar stationary orbit is not 88,400 km, it's 384,000 km, i.e. the distance from the Moon to the Earth. The moon is tidally locked to the Earth.
Though you could equivalently try and go for Earth-Moon L1 with a counterweight on the other side of L1. It would be significantly more unstable though.
Though you could equivalently try and go for Earth-Moon L1 with a counterweight on the other side of L1. It would be significantly more unstable though.
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LiftPort Group's plan [0] involves actively maintaining their counterweight at Lagrange point 1.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZteJmg1TfM (10 minute video, relevant around 4:00)
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZteJmg1TfM (10 minute video, relevant around 4:00)
Even if I expected to be able to collect, I wouldn't give good odds on a bet that the moon or mars will physically still exist 1000 years from now.
Von Neumann machines have an existence proof in ourselves, and make it fairly fast to disassemble planets into a Dyson swarm. (I think Dyson swarms are a bad idea, and will grind to dust that blows away to interstellar space in the solar wind in geologically short timescales, but that's a different problem).
Von Neumann machines have an existence proof in ourselves, and make it fairly fast to disassemble planets into a Dyson swarm. (I think Dyson swarms are a bad idea, and will grind to dust that blows away to interstellar space in the solar wind in geologically short timescales, but that's a different problem).
There is absolutely no reason to beleive that any kind of machine will ever exist that can "make it fairly fast" to disassemble an entire planet. You're probably entirely ignoring any kind of wear and tear on the machine itself, which could easily be outpaced by the rate of creating new machines for anything approaching the billions of years this would actually take using any imaginable fuel.
Assume humans are the VN machine. We can make space suits and greenhouses etc., so it's not crazy.
Assume reproduction such that population doubles every 25 years. Fast, but not insane.
(1000/25) = 40 doubling periods
8e9 * 2^40 * 100kg = 2.7 Mercury masses, or 12 lunar masses, or 1.3 Mars masses
That's a worst-case bound using a biological anchor. Dedicated VN machines can plausibly be faster: even if it's something weird like staying with biology and uplifting dogs, that's now 75 years, a plausible but currently hypothetical self-replicating 3D printer could make the timescales even shorter.
The sun provides enough power to do it in a week or two, though anything less than decades may have thermodynamics issues.
Assume reproduction such that population doubles every 25 years. Fast, but not insane.
(1000/25) = 40 doubling periods
8e9 * 2^40 * 100kg = 2.7 Mercury masses, or 12 lunar masses, or 1.3 Mars masses
That's a worst-case bound using a biological anchor. Dedicated VN machines can plausibly be faster: even if it's something weird like staying with biology and uplifting dogs, that's now 75 years, a plausible but currently hypothetical self-replicating 3D printer could make the timescales even shorter.
The sun provides enough power to do it in a week or two, though anything less than decades may have thermodynamics issues.
I'm not sure where your 8e9 number is coming from. Population doubling every year but the parents leaving the planet after mating?
In your calculation, after 1000 years, there would be 2^40 humans, each weighing 100kg - many orders of magnitude less than Mercury's mass.
Still, if we give it a few thousand more years of exponential growth, you will eventually reach such masses.
However, these numbers are meaningless - you are assuming that doubling the size of a population that's 2^39 individuals will take roughly the same time as a population that's 64 individuals individuals, which is not even close to plausible - especially when we reach ideas like a population weighing as much as half a planet.
You're also assuming that it's even possible for a mahcine to convert a significant proportion of a planet's crust to copies of itself - which is obviously false, as the crust is mostly rock, and machines require plenty of liquids and water to be produced (whether biological or mechanical or electronic). And that doing so will not affect the growth rate at all, even as the planet starts being formed of molten magma once all of the crust has been used up. And not to mention the gigantic earthquakes and supervolcaones they would have to deal with as a significant portion of continental mass gets shifted around.
Overall, you are only extrapolating some numbers to a completely absurd conclusion, and calling it plausible. There is nothing even close to realistic in your scenario, and indeed we have no idea if it's even close to possible to strip a planet down to create a Dyson swarm. I very much doubt your energy calculation as well, but that's already beside the point.
In your calculation, after 1000 years, there would be 2^40 humans, each weighing 100kg - many orders of magnitude less than Mercury's mass.
Still, if we give it a few thousand more years of exponential growth, you will eventually reach such masses.
However, these numbers are meaningless - you are assuming that doubling the size of a population that's 2^39 individuals will take roughly the same time as a population that's 64 individuals individuals, which is not even close to plausible - especially when we reach ideas like a population weighing as much as half a planet.
You're also assuming that it's even possible for a mahcine to convert a significant proportion of a planet's crust to copies of itself - which is obviously false, as the crust is mostly rock, and machines require plenty of liquids and water to be produced (whether biological or mechanical or electronic). And that doing so will not affect the growth rate at all, even as the planet starts being formed of molten magma once all of the crust has been used up. And not to mention the gigantic earthquakes and supervolcaones they would have to deal with as a significant portion of continental mass gets shifted around.
Overall, you are only extrapolating some numbers to a completely absurd conclusion, and calling it plausible. There is nothing even close to realistic in your scenario, and indeed we have no idea if it's even close to possible to strip a planet down to create a Dyson swarm. I very much doubt your energy calculation as well, but that's already beside the point.
What?
> I'm not sure where your 8e9 number is coming from. Population doubling every year but the parents leaving the planet after mating?
That's the current human population.
> In your calculation, after 1000 years, there would be 2^40 humans, each weighing 100kg - many orders of magnitude less than Mercury's mass.
You start with one human, I didn't. What are you even imagining that I'm describing, Adam-only parthenogenesis?
> Still, if we give it a few thousand more years of exponential growth, you will eventually reach such masses.
Even with Adam-only parthenogenesis, log2(8e9)*25 years is 822 years, less than one, definitely not plural, millennia.
Material science isn't my field, though it doesn't need to be given how many other places there are for whichever chemicals we want. Water? Oxides in the local rock, and four massive hydrogen gas giants (don't need much proportionally as H2O is 89% oxygen by mass).
> I very much doubt your energy calculation as well, but that's already beside the point.
Gravitational binding energy of Earth: 2.2e32 J; Mercury: 1.8e30 J; Mars: 4.9e30 J; Luna: 1.2e29 J
Luminosity Sol: 3.8e26 W
Time required to explosively disassemble (i.e. each part reaching escape velocity) each object: Earth: 6.6 days; Mercury: 1.3 hours; Mars: 3.6 hours; Luna: 313 seconds.
To preempt the obvious, yes I know that's the number for total luminosity and not the power available at any given moment given how many space habs have been built part way through the process, but that makes very little difference: Given the way the functions behave, you don't need most of the power of the sun until you can harness a significant percentage of it anyway.
I mean, this toy model also assumes that the only thing these humans do with their lives is reproduction, with the average individual adding only a little more than their own body mass to the VN swarm each generation, and not, e.g., building themselves a nice little space hab that's unlikely to mass less than 10,000 kg/person even if I make the grossly simplifying assumption of just adding life support to a tiny house or a camper van. It makes very little difference to exponential growth.
> I'm not sure where your 8e9 number is coming from. Population doubling every year but the parents leaving the planet after mating?
That's the current human population.
> In your calculation, after 1000 years, there would be 2^40 humans, each weighing 100kg - many orders of magnitude less than Mercury's mass.
You start with one human, I didn't. What are you even imagining that I'm describing, Adam-only parthenogenesis?
> Still, if we give it a few thousand more years of exponential growth, you will eventually reach such masses.
Even with Adam-only parthenogenesis, log2(8e9)*25 years is 822 years, less than one, definitely not plural, millennia.
Material science isn't my field, though it doesn't need to be given how many other places there are for whichever chemicals we want. Water? Oxides in the local rock, and four massive hydrogen gas giants (don't need much proportionally as H2O is 89% oxygen by mass).
> I very much doubt your energy calculation as well, but that's already beside the point.
Gravitational binding energy of Earth: 2.2e32 J; Mercury: 1.8e30 J; Mars: 4.9e30 J; Luna: 1.2e29 J
Luminosity Sol: 3.8e26 W
Time required to explosively disassemble (i.e. each part reaching escape velocity) each object: Earth: 6.6 days; Mercury: 1.3 hours; Mars: 3.6 hours; Luna: 313 seconds.
To preempt the obvious, yes I know that's the number for total luminosity and not the power available at any given moment given how many space habs have been built part way through the process, but that makes very little difference: Given the way the functions behave, you don't need most of the power of the sun until you can harness a significant percentage of it anyway.
I mean, this toy model also assumes that the only thing these humans do with their lives is reproduction, with the average individual adding only a little more than their own body mass to the VN swarm each generation, and not, e.g., building themselves a nice little space hab that's unlikely to mass less than 10,000 kg/person even if I make the grossly simplifying assumption of just adding life support to a tiny house or a camper van. It makes very little difference to exponential growth.
You haven't addressed the most important points at all, and keep coming up with toy models based on exponential growth. All of the models ignore the realities of how mechanical things work and how they can break and how they actually operate (just for a basic example, there is no mechanical system we have any idea how to build that could move any amount of the Earth's mantle in any way, since the mechanisms would simply melt) and rely on the ridiculous idea that this exponential growth can actually be maintained indefinitely to paper over various other omissions.
You also don't need to be a materials scientist to know that you can't get water or oxygen out of rock with sheer mechanical force.
Your estimate for the energy of the sun takes into account all of the energy sent in all directions in all spectra. The amount reaching the earth is significantly less - 1.73e15 W, or about 10^9 times less - and the amount that can realistically be captured is far less than that.
Overall, don't worry: there is exactly 0 chance that any human advancement will disassemble even a dwarf planet in the next millennium in the real world. Just because Freeman Dyson could write some back of the napkin computations it doesn't mean this is actually possible in any meaningful way.
You also don't need to be a materials scientist to know that you can't get water or oxygen out of rock with sheer mechanical force.
Your estimate for the energy of the sun takes into account all of the energy sent in all directions in all spectra. The amount reaching the earth is significantly less - 1.73e15 W, or about 10^9 times less - and the amount that can realistically be captured is far less than that.
Overall, don't worry: there is exactly 0 chance that any human advancement will disassemble even a dwarf planet in the next millennium in the real world. Just because Freeman Dyson could write some back of the napkin computations it doesn't mean this is actually possible in any meaningful way.
> just for a basic example, there is no mechanical system we have any idea how to build that could move any amount of the Earth's mantle in any way, since the mechanisms would simply melt
You know stuff cools down, right? Power loss to radiation is proportional to T^4.
> You also don't need to be a materials scientist to know that you can't get water or oxygen out of rock with sheer mechanical force.
Good thing you're putting words into my mouth, then. Hint 1: How do we do this for aluminium? Hint 2: I didn't say "mechanical" for this.
> Your estimate for the energy of the sun takes into account all of the energy sent in all directions in all spectra
I know, and I said as much with different words.
Do you perchance know what a mirror is? Or how light they are? How little of (insert-planet-here)'s mass you need to turn into PV and/or mirrors to get to covering the planet, how little time it takes to use those to gather the energy needed to run a launch loop to get a second planet-tiling-quantity to orbit?
That's why I preemptively made the point that you're ignoring here.
You know stuff cools down, right? Power loss to radiation is proportional to T^4.
> You also don't need to be a materials scientist to know that you can't get water or oxygen out of rock with sheer mechanical force.
Good thing you're putting words into my mouth, then. Hint 1: How do we do this for aluminium? Hint 2: I didn't say "mechanical" for this.
> Your estimate for the energy of the sun takes into account all of the energy sent in all directions in all spectra
I know, and I said as much with different words.
Do you perchance know what a mirror is? Or how light they are? How little of (insert-planet-here)'s mass you need to turn into PV and/or mirrors to get to covering the planet, how little time it takes to use those to gather the energy needed to run a launch loop to get a second planet-tiling-quantity to orbit?
That's why I preemptively made the point that you're ignoring here.
> Assume reproduction such that population doubles every 25 years. Fast, but not insane.
This is already completely implausible given everything we know about human behavior, but it reaches impossibility very quickly when you consider the possibility of humans becoming more than a negligible fraction of the mass of their single host planet. We aren't machines that can trivially reproduce ourselves from commonly available materials and then eject into space. Feeding ourselves is hard, getting to space (alive) is harder. And once the overwhelming majority of us are in space because there's no more room down below, how are we supposed to meet up to keep up the 25 year doubling rate. How are we supposed to keep up the rate of resource extraction from Earth?
This is already completely implausible given everything we know about human behavior, but it reaches impossibility very quickly when you consider the possibility of humans becoming more than a negligible fraction of the mass of their single host planet. We aren't machines that can trivially reproduce ourselves from commonly available materials and then eject into space. Feeding ourselves is hard, getting to space (alive) is harder. And once the overwhelming majority of us are in space because there's no more room down below, how are we supposed to meet up to keep up the 25 year doubling rate. How are we supposed to keep up the rate of resource extraction from Earth?
> We aren't machines that can trivially reproduce ourselves from commonly available materials and then eject into space.
Nah, we use plants to turn raw materials into what we can consume. And in the other direction, we can only make stuff on this scale with factories that take a while to build. But in both cases, that's a distinction without a difference. A farm and a factory rather than a spacesuit, makes no difference on this scale, so long as they feed themselves while growing their families.
> Feeding ourselves is hard, getting to space (alive) is harder.
Feeding ourselves is about 1% of our current labour. Getting into space is only hard because we use rockets, but at this scale we'd use launch loops, atlas towers, orbital rings, or similar. Those are extremely cheap, like "$300 to LEO" cheap for this thought experiment's ("spherical cow in a vacuum" model of a) 100 kg human.
> And once the overwhelming majority of us are in space because there's no more room down below, how are we supposed to meet up to keep up the 25 year doubling rate. How are we supposed to keep up the rate of resource extraction from Earth?
There's lots of ways I've seen suggested. Even without the exotic options like the Dyson Motor (would take too long, at 40k years for Earth, not seen the numbers for Luna or Mars) or redirecting Kupier Belt Objects to blow off percentage points of the target planet mass at a time, even just with traditional digging, at that scale it's "how fast can you drill vertically?" and "how many launch loops can you wrap the target planet in?", followed by "how fast does the deep ground cool down when exposed?" — the latter being why I said thermodynamics probably gets in the way when the timeline gets down to decades; this is radiative-dominated cooling in a better vacuum (insulator!) than most laboratories let alone thermos-flasks.
Nah, we use plants to turn raw materials into what we can consume. And in the other direction, we can only make stuff on this scale with factories that take a while to build. But in both cases, that's a distinction without a difference. A farm and a factory rather than a spacesuit, makes no difference on this scale, so long as they feed themselves while growing their families.
> Feeding ourselves is hard, getting to space (alive) is harder.
Feeding ourselves is about 1% of our current labour. Getting into space is only hard because we use rockets, but at this scale we'd use launch loops, atlas towers, orbital rings, or similar. Those are extremely cheap, like "$300 to LEO" cheap for this thought experiment's ("spherical cow in a vacuum" model of a) 100 kg human.
> And once the overwhelming majority of us are in space because there's no more room down below, how are we supposed to meet up to keep up the 25 year doubling rate. How are we supposed to keep up the rate of resource extraction from Earth?
There's lots of ways I've seen suggested. Even without the exotic options like the Dyson Motor (would take too long, at 40k years for Earth, not seen the numbers for Luna or Mars) or redirecting Kupier Belt Objects to blow off percentage points of the target planet mass at a time, even just with traditional digging, at that scale it's "how fast can you drill vertically?" and "how many launch loops can you wrap the target planet in?", followed by "how fast does the deep ground cool down when exposed?" — the latter being why I said thermodynamics probably gets in the way when the timeline gets down to decades; this is radiative-dominated cooling in a better vacuum (insulator!) than most laboratories let alone thermos-flasks.
Interestingly, rocky planet disassembly isn't horribly complicated and is a well solved problem. Just need large scale rail and satellite manufacturing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090616110337///www.aeiveos.com...
https://web.archive.org/web/20090616110337///www.aeiveos.com...
"solved problem" I don't think this word means what you think it means
I love this exchange.
It's about what you'd call "hard SF" and one side calls their argument a "solved problem" :-)))
It's about what you'd call "hard SF" and one side calls their argument a "solved problem" :-)))
Only requires more structures and geoengineering larger than humans have bever done before.
We know how, and we know it doesn't require more than operating at higher scales of industry than ever before. Any interplanetary or kardishev 1+ venture makes those assumptions.
We know how, and we know it doesn't require more than operating at higher scales of industry than ever before. Any interplanetary or kardishev 1+ venture makes those assumptions.
If you break you neck in LEO you could be in a real hospital in a few hours. From the moon it's a couple days, comparable to like an arctic base dueing a storm.
From Mars your family will only get ashes because your body will have been deconposing for months.
There is steel, aluminium and oxygen on the moon,'it can host heavy indstry and peoduce ships, space stations, equipment. It can host a space elevator today,'made of normal kevlar. You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit.
From Mars your family will only get ashes because your body will have been deconposing for months.
There is steel, aluminium and oxygen on the moon,'it can host heavy indstry and peoduce ships, space stations, equipment. It can host a space elevator today,'made of normal kevlar. You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit.
So no different than if you broke your neck during the age of discovery on earth?
We shouldn't be judging these things by the standards of generally risk averse people on this discussion board. It won't be people like us going.
We shouldn't be judging these things by the standards of generally risk averse people on this discussion board. It won't be people like us going.
The difference today is that the astronaut with the broken neck would be front page news for every minute of the hours/days/weeks it took to get them home, and far longer if they die. Bad press is bad for funding, especially in a democratic country.
A brave explorer dying the martyr death to advance humanity. Give him a hero's funeral and give generous pensions to his relatives. Suddenly it sounds like a sales pitch. Well, to some.
> the astronaut with the broken neck would be front page news for every minute of the hours/days/weeks
Only while the thing is rare.
Only while the thing is rare.
> It won't be people like us going.
Is it gonna be disposable lower-class people?
In age of doscovery shipowners and governments assumed a 50% death rate from scurvy for their sailors on a major voyage.
TThe past is fireign land, executions were a public holiday and children came to watch. We used to gove cocaine to children to stop them crying.
Is it gonna be disposable lower-class people?
In age of doscovery shipowners and governments assumed a 50% death rate from scurvy for their sailors on a major voyage.
TThe past is fireign land, executions were a public holiday and children came to watch. We used to gove cocaine to children to stop them crying.
> Is it gonna be disposable lower-class people?
This meme comes from people who've watched too many bad sci-fi shows and don't have a good grasp of history. The people going to space will be the intersection of those who can afford it and those who want and are capable of going. The first people who traveled the oceans were not the lower class. They were the upper class who could afford to fund or pay for the journey by pooling money or independently pay for it.
The poor you refer to didn't come until much later in the age of discovery.
This meme comes from people who've watched too many bad sci-fi shows and don't have a good grasp of history. The people going to space will be the intersection of those who can afford it and those who want and are capable of going. The first people who traveled the oceans were not the lower class. They were the upper class who could afford to fund or pay for the journey by pooling money or independently pay for it.
The poor you refer to didn't come until much later in the age of discovery.
Who worked on those ships? Honest question. I suspect it was lower class people who didn't have many life options...?
Many inland Antarctic bases are effectively unreachable for months in Winter. Flying a plane to the station in total darkness many thousand of kilometres in -80 C is a good way to end up with more people killed than you are trying to save.
I know somebody who broke his neck in Antarctica and was airlifted out. He's fine now.
how does one manage to break their neck in Antarctica?
All it took was not watching where he was walking. There are hazards outside. Concrete, railings, and painted lines are scarce.
> You could build an aircraft carrier and lift it into orbit
No you can’t. You still need to spend the same amount of energy per ton to escape earth’s gravity. An elevator does not magically violate laws of physics
Edit: As pointed out below I probably misunderstood the comment I was replying too. My bad
No you can’t. You still need to spend the same amount of energy per ton to escape earth’s gravity. An elevator does not magically violate laws of physics
Edit: As pointed out below I probably misunderstood the comment I was replying too. My bad
The comment you're responding to is suggesting a space elevator on the moon, so you only need enough energy to escape the moon's gravity.
> Permanent (self-sufficient) LEO human habitation doesn't make sense because there's no source of material there
Whole books have been written on the raw materials available in space, both from the moon and from Near Earth Objects.[]
Mars is a bad idea that needs to go away before we lose the opportunity to perform the actual next step, which O'Neill and others mapped out decades ago.
[] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_the_Sky
Whole books have been written on the raw materials available in space, both from the moon and from Near Earth Objects.[]
Mars is a bad idea that needs to go away before we lose the opportunity to perform the actual next step, which O'Neill and others mapped out decades ago.
[] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_the_Sky
LEO does have export potentials: mainly tourism, r&d, and manufacturing of specific goods.
Many countries import the majority of food / material inputs, but output high quality manufacturing, technical, and entertainment goods.
Many countries import the majority of food / material inputs, but output high quality manufacturing, technical, and entertainment goods.
15 days of continuous darkness followed by 15 days of continuous sunlight is rather difficult to deal with operationally, biologically and mechanically. This causes lots of mechanical stresses. Also there's micrometeorites that you need to protect against in LEO or on the Moon. The temperature extremes on Mars are nowhere near what they are on the Moon or in LEO.
In LEO further you have no gravity and no materials so the only going there is bringing whatever you want to do there with you. There's no resources that can be used. With no gravity also many things simply can't work. For example you can't run any pumps that pump liquids built in a normal manner. You can't rely on gravity to separate or settle liquids.
In LEO further you have no gravity and no materials so the only going there is bringing whatever you want to do there with you. There's no resources that can be used. With no gravity also many things simply can't work. For example you can't run any pumps that pump liquids built in a normal manner. You can't rely on gravity to separate or settle liquids.
It's not about current capabilities, but future capabilities.
> But we are in the realm of reality, not fiction, and we have to learn how to crawl before we can walk, let alone run.
In either case, the main challenge, is rapid rockets reusability.
Nothing comes even close to the second place.
The costs of delivering one kg of materials to space must go down by 10 to 100 times.
> But we are in the realm of reality, not fiction, and we have to learn how to crawl before we can walk, let alone run.
In either case, the main challenge, is rapid rockets reusability.
Nothing comes even close to the second place.
The costs of delivering one kg of materials to space must go down by 10 to 100 times.
As the article points out, that's not even in the top 100 things.
Having a self-sustaining living space is by far the biggest problem (one where all of the waste we produce can be reused to create new drinkable water, air and food, and to reliably continue to do so between Mars launch windows).
The second biggest is probably avoiding contamination of Mars, if we actually care about exploring one of the biggest mysteries of life - has it arisen only on Earth? Are there other modes of life possible, and what do they look like?
The third biggest challenge is human psychology and physiology - could we actually get a group of ~100 people or however many we need initially to live and be productive for the years-long space mission (including travel time to and from)? What do we do when at least one of them inevitably gets sick on Mars?
Each of these problems is fractally more complex than I make it out to be, and none of them would be fixable if rockets were very cheap. And these are just problems for a limited time Martian outpost, similar to a trip to the ISS. Thinking about an actual colony with some prospect of perpetual habitation being in orders of magnitude more issues, some of which may not even be solvable without biologically altering humans to make a new Mars-adapted species of hominid.
Having a self-sustaining living space is by far the biggest problem (one where all of the waste we produce can be reused to create new drinkable water, air and food, and to reliably continue to do so between Mars launch windows).
The second biggest is probably avoiding contamination of Mars, if we actually care about exploring one of the biggest mysteries of life - has it arisen only on Earth? Are there other modes of life possible, and what do they look like?
The third biggest challenge is human psychology and physiology - could we actually get a group of ~100 people or however many we need initially to live and be productive for the years-long space mission (including travel time to and from)? What do we do when at least one of them inevitably gets sick on Mars?
Each of these problems is fractally more complex than I make it out to be, and none of them would be fixable if rockets were very cheap. And these are just problems for a limited time Martian outpost, similar to a trip to the ISS. Thinking about an actual colony with some prospect of perpetual habitation being in orders of magnitude more issues, some of which may not even be solvable without biologically altering humans to make a new Mars-adapted species of hominid.
None of issues you listed matter at all if launching stuff to space is cost prohibitive.
Without cheap space access they are not even worth properly researching.
> One where all of the waste we produce can be reused to create new drinkable water, air and food, and to reliably continue to do so between Mars launch windows.
None of that is as big of an issue if you can launch often and a lot of stuff. In the limit you don't need to recycle anything and everything has multiple spares. You can also launch outside direct constraints of Hohmann transfer orbit. Again, payload limitations and time are the main reasons we use Hohmann transfer orbits.
> The second biggest is probably avoiding contamination of Mars, if we actually care about exploring one of the biggest mysteries of life - has it arisen only on Earth? Are there other modes of life possible, and what do they look like?
We will not avoid contamination. It's impossible to do. Where humans go our microbiome will follow.
I personally think we should intentionally seed all celestial bodies with life as soon as possible anyway.
If we find life in our solar system (especially life independent from Earth) we should become a lot more aggressive with space settlement, because it would make "great filter" ahead of us hypothesis a lot more likely. Settlement outside solar system should become one of humanity priorities as a matter of survival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
> The third biggest challenge is human psychology and physiology
Going to Mars can be a suicide mission and you will still find people who will be willing to go.
Not a showstopper for the willing.
> Thinking about an actual colony with some prospect of perpetual habitation being in orders of magnitude more issues
First things first.
Without cheap space access they are not even worth properly researching.
> One where all of the waste we produce can be reused to create new drinkable water, air and food, and to reliably continue to do so between Mars launch windows.
None of that is as big of an issue if you can launch often and a lot of stuff. In the limit you don't need to recycle anything and everything has multiple spares. You can also launch outside direct constraints of Hohmann transfer orbit. Again, payload limitations and time are the main reasons we use Hohmann transfer orbits.
> The second biggest is probably avoiding contamination of Mars, if we actually care about exploring one of the biggest mysteries of life - has it arisen only on Earth? Are there other modes of life possible, and what do they look like?
We will not avoid contamination. It's impossible to do. Where humans go our microbiome will follow.
I personally think we should intentionally seed all celestial bodies with life as soon as possible anyway.
If we find life in our solar system (especially life independent from Earth) we should become a lot more aggressive with space settlement, because it would make "great filter" ahead of us hypothesis a lot more likely. Settlement outside solar system should become one of humanity priorities as a matter of survival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
> The third biggest challenge is human psychology and physiology
Going to Mars can be a suicide mission and you will still find people who will be willing to go.
Not a showstopper for the willing.
> Thinking about an actual colony with some prospect of perpetual habitation being in orders of magnitude more issues
First things first.
> Without cheap space access they are not even worth properly researching.
On the contrary - these are all useful technologies to the goal of preserving human life. If we had the ability to create self-sustaining colonies in the most extremely harsh conditions on Earth (a necessary step to being able to colonize any other place), we would have a much greater guarantee that humanity would survive a disaster like a huge asteroid/super volcano/deadly plague/etc. We could probably also use the technologies developed for other uses - better homes, more sustainable agriculture etc.
We could also work on miniaturizing the things and then start thinking about sending them in space, perhaps even with currently existing rockets.
> None of that is as big of an issue if you can launch often and a lot of stuff. In the limit you don't need to recycle anything and everything has multiple spares. You can also launch outside direct constraints of Hohmann transfer orbit. Again, payload limitations and time are the main reasons we use Hohmann transfer orbits.
It's far less likely that it's possible to reach the level of cheapness you talk about at all, given the hard physical constraints on rocket masses and available fuels.
> We will not avoid contamination. It's impossible to do. Where humans go our microbiome will follow.
Exactly - hence why humans shouldn't be going to Mars until we have studied the hell out of any possible local life and become convinced we have learned all we can on the subject.
> Going to Mars can be a suicide mission and you will still find people who will be willing to go.
What would be the goals of the mission? Why do you think people desperate enough to accept certain death will be able to achieve said goals or even care about them once they reach the surface?
> First things first.
Exactly my (and the article's) point. First you send robots to Mars while developing colony technologies on Earth, then you start thinking about sending humans to Mars.
On the contrary - these are all useful technologies to the goal of preserving human life. If we had the ability to create self-sustaining colonies in the most extremely harsh conditions on Earth (a necessary step to being able to colonize any other place), we would have a much greater guarantee that humanity would survive a disaster like a huge asteroid/super volcano/deadly plague/etc. We could probably also use the technologies developed for other uses - better homes, more sustainable agriculture etc.
We could also work on miniaturizing the things and then start thinking about sending them in space, perhaps even with currently existing rockets.
> None of that is as big of an issue if you can launch often and a lot of stuff. In the limit you don't need to recycle anything and everything has multiple spares. You can also launch outside direct constraints of Hohmann transfer orbit. Again, payload limitations and time are the main reasons we use Hohmann transfer orbits.
It's far less likely that it's possible to reach the level of cheapness you talk about at all, given the hard physical constraints on rocket masses and available fuels.
> We will not avoid contamination. It's impossible to do. Where humans go our microbiome will follow.
Exactly - hence why humans shouldn't be going to Mars until we have studied the hell out of any possible local life and become convinced we have learned all we can on the subject.
> Going to Mars can be a suicide mission and you will still find people who will be willing to go.
What would be the goals of the mission? Why do you think people desperate enough to accept certain death will be able to achieve said goals or even care about them once they reach the surface?
> First things first.
Exactly my (and the article's) point. First you send robots to Mars while developing colony technologies on Earth, then you start thinking about sending humans to Mars.
> What would be the goals of the mission?
Showing that's it's possible right now within reasonable budget.
That's the fundamental difference in logic here.
The goal is to get people to Mars as soon as possible. Not to delay it for as long as possible.
> Exactly - hence why humans shouldn't be going to Mars until we have studied the hell out of any possible local life and become convinced we have learned all we can on the subject.
This is never going to happen. Even on Earth people are not 100% convinced that "shadow biosphere" doesn't exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_biosphere
> It's far less likely that it's possible to reach the level of cheapness you talk about at all
Starship HLS right now is being build with aim at 100 metric tonnes to the Moon vs. NASA requirement of 2 metric tonnes.
Starship HLS allows to take 50x spares of everything NASA thought would be required for the Moon landing.
And it's costing NASA as much as gross earning of the Avatar movie - $2.9B.
Showing that's it's possible right now within reasonable budget.
That's the fundamental difference in logic here.
The goal is to get people to Mars as soon as possible. Not to delay it for as long as possible.
> Exactly - hence why humans shouldn't be going to Mars until we have studied the hell out of any possible local life and become convinced we have learned all we can on the subject.
This is never going to happen. Even on Earth people are not 100% convinced that "shadow biosphere" doesn't exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_biosphere
> It's far less likely that it's possible to reach the level of cheapness you talk about at all
Starship HLS right now is being build with aim at 100 metric tonnes to the Moon vs. NASA requirement of 2 metric tonnes.
Starship HLS allows to take 50x spares of everything NASA thought would be required for the Moon landing.
And it's costing NASA as much as gross earning of the Avatar movie - $2.9B.
> The goal is to get people to Mars as soon as possible. Not to delay it for as long as possible.
To what end? We could send a few suicidal people to Mars today for little more than the cost of a satellite launch if we don't care about their survival - hell, they don't even have to be suicidal, get some people who recently died, strap them in a rocket, and send them to Mars.
Instead, you have to set an actual short term and longer term mission goal - say, you want a mission that can prove that X people can survive for Y months on Mars without external help, with a longer term goal of hauling them back to Earth at the next launch window or something.
But for this type of mission, you actually need extremely sane people who greatly value their lives and those of their colleagues, otherwise you'll just have a few corpses sitting on Mars like in my initial example.
And more importantly, again, given current technologies, the actual result of the experiment is already known: those people will simply die if sent to Mars with currently known life preservation methods.
> This is never going to happen. Even on Earth people are not 100% convinced that "shadow biosphere" doesn't exists.
Then never send people to Mars - at least not until we have a very clear path to actually establishing a self-sufficient colon on Mars, for which there is plenty of research that can be done on Earth (and in LEO).
> Starship HLS right now is being build with aim at 100 metric tonnes to the Moon vs. NASA requirement of 2 metric tonnes.
Let's see it fly and let's see the total budget before such hopeful conclusions. Let's also see it actually successfully do orbital refueling, which would be a prerequisite for even getting to the moon with the proposed design, not to mention Mars.
And even if Starship achieves all of its goals, it will be nowhere near the ability to send resources to Mars outside the existing launch windows in anything approaching economic efficiency.
To what end? We could send a few suicidal people to Mars today for little more than the cost of a satellite launch if we don't care about their survival - hell, they don't even have to be suicidal, get some people who recently died, strap them in a rocket, and send them to Mars.
Instead, you have to set an actual short term and longer term mission goal - say, you want a mission that can prove that X people can survive for Y months on Mars without external help, with a longer term goal of hauling them back to Earth at the next launch window or something.
But for this type of mission, you actually need extremely sane people who greatly value their lives and those of their colleagues, otherwise you'll just have a few corpses sitting on Mars like in my initial example.
And more importantly, again, given current technologies, the actual result of the experiment is already known: those people will simply die if sent to Mars with currently known life preservation methods.
> This is never going to happen. Even on Earth people are not 100% convinced that "shadow biosphere" doesn't exists.
Then never send people to Mars - at least not until we have a very clear path to actually establishing a self-sufficient colon on Mars, for which there is plenty of research that can be done on Earth (and in LEO).
> Starship HLS right now is being build with aim at 100 metric tonnes to the Moon vs. NASA requirement of 2 metric tonnes.
Let's see it fly and let's see the total budget before such hopeful conclusions. Let's also see it actually successfully do orbital refueling, which would be a prerequisite for even getting to the moon with the proposed design, not to mention Mars.
And even if Starship achieves all of its goals, it will be nowhere near the ability to send resources to Mars outside the existing launch windows in anything approaching economic efficiency.
You are arguing against strawman. I'm telling you that there is willingness to accept as high risk as it is necessary. Not that we should be aiming at sending suicide squads to Mars.
> for which there is plenty of research that can be done on Earth (and in LEO).
Everybody is welcomed to do the research on Earth. And Starship will make LEO based research some 100x cheaper.
$100B for ISS vs. ~$1B for Starship in a pessimistic scenario. ISS and Starship have similar usable internal volume.
> Let's also see it actually successfully do orbital refueling, which would be a prerequisite for even getting to the moon with the proposed design, not to mention Mars.
Exactly. Working hardware silences detractors better than anything.
SpaceX won that contract including all the legal challenges a bit over a year ago. Give them some time.
> Let's see it fly and let's see the total budget before such hopeful conclusions.
It's a fixed cost contract, not cost+ like SLS which BTW costs NASA 4 billions per launch all things considered according to their own estimates.
> for which there is plenty of research that can be done on Earth (and in LEO).
Everybody is welcomed to do the research on Earth. And Starship will make LEO based research some 100x cheaper.
$100B for ISS vs. ~$1B for Starship in a pessimistic scenario. ISS and Starship have similar usable internal volume.
> Let's also see it actually successfully do orbital refueling, which would be a prerequisite for even getting to the moon with the proposed design, not to mention Mars.
Exactly. Working hardware silences detractors better than anything.
SpaceX won that contract including all the legal challenges a bit over a year ago. Give them some time.
> Let's see it fly and let's see the total budget before such hopeful conclusions.
It's a fixed cost contract, not cost+ like SLS which BTW costs NASA 4 billions per launch all things considered according to their own estimates.
> Exactly - hence why humans shouldn't be going to Mars until we have studied the hell out of any possible local life and become convinced we have learned all we can on the subject.
That's not how people work. People will go to Mars for curiosity, greed, fame, or some higher level desire (possibly religious) not necessarily in that order.
Odds of Mars being explored à la Star Trek are infinitesimal, I'd give that hope up.
We can explore how life appeared on planets in other solar systems.
That's not how people work. People will go to Mars for curiosity, greed, fame, or some higher level desire (possibly religious) not necessarily in that order.
Odds of Mars being explored à la Star Trek are infinitesimal, I'd give that hope up.
We can explore how life appeared on planets in other solar systems.
It has worked so far for Antarctica, and saying "it's never going to work" while advocating for it not working is not a convincing argument.
It has worked due to the treaty being worked out in early cold war, when both East and West were already planning military operations and bases in Antarctica - that way, neither side could have it and they were fine with it, sparing a considerable expense.
It has held in place since then by both inertia & similar "if I can't have the resources, no one can" and other resource sources still being usually cheaper to mine.
It has held in place since then by both inertia & similar "if I can't have the resources, no one can" and other resource sources still being usually cheaper to mine.
> Settlement outside solar system should become one of humanity priorities as a matter of survival.
> Going to Mars can be a suicide mission
These goals seem contradictory.
> Going to Mars can be a suicide mission
These goals seem contradictory.
> Having a self-sustaining living space is by far the biggest problem (one where all of the waste we produce can be reused to create new drinkable water, air and food, and to reliably continue to do so between Mars launch windows).
That problem gets a lot easier and cheaper when you don't have to design for margins of 1.2 to or so to save on weight. When you can throw extra weight at a problem to overbuild it for reliability you can solve these problems cheaper and more reliably.
> The second biggest is probably avoiding contamination of Mars, if we actually care about exploring one of the biggest mysteries of life - has it arisen only on Earth? Are there other modes of life possible, and what do they look like?
Planetary Protection is the new version of treating Earth as "gaia". It's a form of regressive environmentalism. This is not an important goal. Mars is not a very good candidate for supporting life now that we know how many geothermally active ice moons with undersea oceans exist in our solar system.
If hypothetical life on Mars is similar to life on Earth then it's not that valuable of a thing to learn and anything found would vary drastically from life on Earth from billions of years of separate evolution. If it's very different from life on Earth then it will still be easy to find even with plentiful human contamination.
Finally, with additional mass you can bring substantially heavier and more complex analysis and remote robotic equipment with you. (Or on a completely separate mission before humans arrive.)
> The third biggest challenge is human psychology and physiology - could we actually get a group of ~100 people or however many we need initially to live and be productive for the years-long space mission (including travel time to and from)? What do we do when at least one of them inevitably gets sick on Mars?
This is overrated given that there's plentiful human experience throughout the history of humanity where humans suffered significantly worse isolation and hardship. Some projects will fail from human psychological issues, and the risk from them should be minimized (bring plants along, allow spaces for people to self-isolate, etc) but a single failure should not be taken as a reason that the entire concept is doomed. For sickness, you try to minimize possible issues by bringing significant medication and medical equipment, but sometimes there will be inevitable deaths. As mentioned, having additional mass that you can bring for human comforts and medical equipment saves a lot of potential deaths and issues
That problem gets a lot easier and cheaper when you don't have to design for margins of 1.2 to or so to save on weight. When you can throw extra weight at a problem to overbuild it for reliability you can solve these problems cheaper and more reliably.
> The second biggest is probably avoiding contamination of Mars, if we actually care about exploring one of the biggest mysteries of life - has it arisen only on Earth? Are there other modes of life possible, and what do they look like?
Planetary Protection is the new version of treating Earth as "gaia". It's a form of regressive environmentalism. This is not an important goal. Mars is not a very good candidate for supporting life now that we know how many geothermally active ice moons with undersea oceans exist in our solar system.
If hypothetical life on Mars is similar to life on Earth then it's not that valuable of a thing to learn and anything found would vary drastically from life on Earth from billions of years of separate evolution. If it's very different from life on Earth then it will still be easy to find even with plentiful human contamination.
Finally, with additional mass you can bring substantially heavier and more complex analysis and remote robotic equipment with you. (Or on a completely separate mission before humans arrive.)
> The third biggest challenge is human psychology and physiology - could we actually get a group of ~100 people or however many we need initially to live and be productive for the years-long space mission (including travel time to and from)? What do we do when at least one of them inevitably gets sick on Mars?
This is overrated given that there's plentiful human experience throughout the history of humanity where humans suffered significantly worse isolation and hardship. Some projects will fail from human psychological issues, and the risk from them should be minimized (bring plants along, allow spaces for people to self-isolate, etc) but a single failure should not be taken as a reason that the entire concept is doomed. For sickness, you try to minimize possible issues by bringing significant medication and medical equipment, but sometimes there will be inevitable deaths. As mentioned, having additional mass that you can bring for human comforts and medical equipment saves a lot of potential deaths and issues
I think of starship works well permanent LEO habitation is next. Once space access is cheap enough…space hotels are an obvious first move to commercialization.
[deleted]
I'm not following the reasoning here: we should explore Mars because, unlike the Mars-like places on Earth, we stand no chance of rescuing explorers on another planet?
The GP's point, as I understood it, is that we haven't even figured out how to make missions 1/1000th as complex as a Mars mission on our own planet viable.
The GP's point, as I understood it, is that we haven't even figured out how to make missions 1/1000th as complex as a Mars mission on our own planet viable.
The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Populating Antarctica doesn't solve that problem.
From what I can tell people are talking about two different things here. Group 1 is talking about how we prevent humans from going extinct in the long term by setting up a Mars colony. Group 2 is talking about doing something easier before we jump to something harder (Antarctica -> LEO -> Moon -> Mars). I don't know why these two groups always feel so at odds with each other online, as it seems like both philosophies end up in the same place.
Group 3 are the people who think we should save Earth INSTEAD of going to Mars, and I think they miss the point entirely.
From what I can tell people are talking about two different things here. Group 1 is talking about how we prevent humans from going extinct in the long term by setting up a Mars colony. Group 2 is talking about doing something easier before we jump to something harder (Antarctica -> LEO -> Moon -> Mars). I don't know why these two groups always feel so at odds with each other online, as it seems like both philosophies end up in the same place.
Group 3 are the people who think we should save Earth INSTEAD of going to Mars, and I think they miss the point entirely.
It's difficult to think of extinction events that satisfy both of the following criteria:
1. An event that affects the Earth without affecting Mars.
2. An event that leaves the Earth more uninhabitable than Mars, even temporarily.
A gamma ray burst or rogue star that destroys the Earth would just as easily destroy Mars. Meanwhile, even a colossal meteor strike such as the one that killed the dinosaurs, despite leaving the Earth a shattered ruin for millenia, would still result in a planet that is more habitable than Mars.
The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life.
1. An event that affects the Earth without affecting Mars.
2. An event that leaves the Earth more uninhabitable than Mars, even temporarily.
A gamma ray burst or rogue star that destroys the Earth would just as easily destroy Mars. Meanwhile, even a colossal meteor strike such as the one that killed the dinosaurs, despite leaving the Earth a shattered ruin for millenia, would still result in a planet that is more habitable than Mars.
The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life.
> The bottom line is that Mars is an awful backup for life.
In the near term, absolutely. But the long term goal is to colonize multiple planets/moons. Eventually, Mars will be one of many worlds on which life finds a foothold, which is perhaps the best backup for life that humanity can currently deliver. But we still need to take that first step.
In the near term, absolutely. But the long term goal is to colonize multiple planets/moons. Eventually, Mars will be one of many worlds on which life finds a foothold, which is perhaps the best backup for life that humanity can currently deliver. But we still need to take that first step.
My impression is that underground human settlements on another planet would better handle a GRB than the status quo on Earth.
But we have ~8 billion people on Earth.
So even if a very low percentage survive within underground settlements here it would be far better situation than being on Mars.
So even if a very low percentage survive within underground settlements here it would be far better situation than being on Mars.
Definitely, assuming we build underground settlements here.
The difference is that on Mars, we're for the most part forced to build underground.
On Earth we have to choose to do so, and we haven't done enough of that so far.
The difference is that on Mars, we're for the most part forced to build underground.
On Earth we have to choose to do so, and we haven't done enough of that so far.
> and we haven't done enough of that so far.
Yet we still have infinitely more underground settlements on earth than we can conceivably have on Mars in any imaginable future...
Yet we still have infinitely more underground settlements on earth than we can conceivably have on Mars in any imaginable future...
We had infinitely more non-reusable rockets than we had reusable rockets several years ago.
That doesn't mean not trying to do something is a great idea.
That doesn't mean not trying to do something is a great idea.
I think it's easy to imagine how something like a meteor or nuclear war could end our civilization without killing all humans on earth. A new civilization would almost certainly arise, and it could be better or worse, but it would probably be very alien to us. At least as alien as Ancient Rome. A settlement on Mars could conceivably preserve our cultures and current civilization in the face of such an event.
> A settlement on Mars could conceivably preserve our cultures and current civilization in the face of such an event.
huh. most honest answer I've seen so far. "We're going to mars so we can later to go war with Earth, ideally when they are weak"
BTW Do you guys think building big chemical rockets just automatically advances your matsci/chem/bio timeline? It doesn't. That's the effect of massive government cheese.
Fun fact about the age of discovery: shit was already discovered. Domesticated food, fresh water, and abundant friends were already there.
The universe is bored of generating new challenges for your particular kind of aggressive. It has lots of fun new problems for people who are willing to work together though. Sorry.
huh. most honest answer I've seen so far. "We're going to mars so we can later to go war with Earth, ideally when they are weak"
BTW Do you guys think building big chemical rockets just automatically advances your matsci/chem/bio timeline? It doesn't. That's the effect of massive government cheese.
Fun fact about the age of discovery: shit was already discovered. Domesticated food, fresh water, and abundant friends were already there.
The universe is bored of generating new challenges for your particular kind of aggressive. It has lots of fun new problems for people who are willing to work together though. Sorry.
I'm not suggesting Mars should go to war with or colonize Earth after such an event, just that there may be value in our cultures and civilization continuing to exist somewhere. I could imagine how Mars may choose to do that, but I would consider that to be a bad thing.
Perhaps it would be better if our civilization ends in the event it destroys itself on Earth, but why should we assume what comes next will be better? How would being born out of an apocalypse affect a civilization?
Perhaps it would be better if our civilization ends in the event it destroys itself on Earth, but why should we assume what comes next will be better? How would being born out of an apocalypse affect a civilization?
Abundant friends were not always a given or would often not be friends anymore after repeated visits for some reason.
Would you want to preserve the culture that destroyed itself on Earth?
Seeding libraries for the culture that rose from the ashes would achieve whatever you are trying to.
Seeding libraries for the culture that rose from the ashes would achieve whatever you are trying to.
ngl some kind of long term space or underground storage solution sounds like something worth attempting.
Why would a nuclear war or a similar cataclysm produce an "alien civilization"? Even if it wiped out 90% of humanity, that leaves 800 million people, all of whom carry their respective cultures.
Chance of an asteroid hitting Mars is tens or even hundreds times greater than it hitting Earth. Not to mention that Mars has barely any atmosphere, so even a relatively small meteor (5-15 meters across) will be able to penetrate it and cause chaos.
If we have to terraform anything, why not first learn to do it here on Earth? Plenty of inhospitable space that we can turn green, no need to go to Mars.
Doing that will almost double the amount of living space for the human population. Earth is a big planet. There is also ample space deeper underground. Why not make entire high-tech undergound cities?
Doing it will allow us to plan similar projects on Mars, or even some day, on Titan. Conditions underground on very cold planets should be much more "habitable", than those on freezing surface.
While we are at it, even the Moon has cave systems where various research can be made and where people can get shelter from radiation.
If we have to terraform anything, why not first learn to do it here on Earth? Plenty of inhospitable space that we can turn green, no need to go to Mars.
Doing that will almost double the amount of living space for the human population. Earth is a big planet. There is also ample space deeper underground. Why not make entire high-tech undergound cities?
Doing it will allow us to plan similar projects on Mars, or even some day, on Titan. Conditions underground on very cold planets should be much more "habitable", than those on freezing surface.
While we are at it, even the Moon has cave systems where various research can be made and where people can get shelter from radiation.
>Chance of an asteroid hitting Mars is tens or even hundreds times greater than it hitting Earth. Not to mention that Mars has barely any atmosphere, so even a relatively small meteor (5-15 meters across) will be able to penetrate it and cause chaos
With no ocean and barely any atmosphere the damage would also be much more localized.
Most of the damage from the Chelyabinsk meteor was caused by the shock wave as it exploded high in the atmosphere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
With no ocean and barely any atmosphere the damage would also be much more localized.
Most of the damage from the Chelyabinsk meteor was caused by the shock wave as it exploded high in the atmosphere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
I never bought that argument. It's like some secularized version of America as a City Upon a Hill. The isolationism works for like 50 years or something, but afterwards the entire system is just going to be integrated, just like any new settlement on Earth was that served as a temporary refuge. Distance that seemed to provide safety is going to go from large to small to non-existent very quickly as technology develops, and probably much faster than in the past.
Any global extinction event is then just going to be a solar-system extinction event, Expanse style. To save enough humans from extinction in case of catastrophy probably some vaults are enough.
Any global extinction event is then just going to be a solar-system extinction event, Expanse style. To save enough humans from extinction in case of catastrophy probably some vaults are enough.
> The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining).
Life on Earth survived the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be here now. The dinosaurs were wiped out, but the dinosaurs had nowhere to hide and were completely unprepared for the asteroid impact. It's important to keep in mind that the Earth after the asteroid hit was still vastly more livable and conducive to life than Mars is now. Mars is more hostile to life than a big asteroid impact, because Mars has no habitat to start with. Mars has no benefit whatsoever to humans as far as Earth disaster survival is concerned, except for the fact that Mars is not Earth.
A much better plan to avoid extinction is multifold: (1) Stop destroying our own environment, duh. (2) Get rid of nuclear weapons. (3) Stop killing each other in general. (4) Invest in asteroid detection and deflection. (5) Build shelters on Earth capable of surviving disaster, such as underground. It also wouldn't hurt to (6) Stop being afraid of vaccination.
We've got everything we need here already: normal gravity, breathable atmosphere, food, water, raw materials, people. It would be sooooooo much easier to build disaster shelters on Earth than to permanently populate Mars. The difference in difficulty level makes Mars a total joke in comparison.
As a species, if we can't even get our shit together on Earth enough to stop polluting, stop killing, stop the threat of nuclear war, and vaccinate against contagious diseases, then we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity. You can forget living on Mars, a massively hostile environment, if we can't do it right here on Earth, which was practically made for us.
Life on Earth survived the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be here now. The dinosaurs were wiped out, but the dinosaurs had nowhere to hide and were completely unprepared for the asteroid impact. It's important to keep in mind that the Earth after the asteroid hit was still vastly more livable and conducive to life than Mars is now. Mars is more hostile to life than a big asteroid impact, because Mars has no habitat to start with. Mars has no benefit whatsoever to humans as far as Earth disaster survival is concerned, except for the fact that Mars is not Earth.
A much better plan to avoid extinction is multifold: (1) Stop destroying our own environment, duh. (2) Get rid of nuclear weapons. (3) Stop killing each other in general. (4) Invest in asteroid detection and deflection. (5) Build shelters on Earth capable of surviving disaster, such as underground. It also wouldn't hurt to (6) Stop being afraid of vaccination.
We've got everything we need here already: normal gravity, breathable atmosphere, food, water, raw materials, people. It would be sooooooo much easier to build disaster shelters on Earth than to permanently populate Mars. The difference in difficulty level makes Mars a total joke in comparison.
As a species, if we can't even get our shit together on Earth enough to stop polluting, stop killing, stop the threat of nuclear war, and vaccinate against contagious diseases, then we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity. You can forget living on Mars, a massively hostile environment, if we can't do it right here on Earth, which was practically made for us.
> (2) Get rid of nuclear weapons.
This is tricky. Both because for better or for worse, they do provide a certain military equilibrium, and also because you know, it's probably a good idea to have them around, at least to a certain degree, if the Xel'naga decide that creating us was a bad idea. Not that nuke might not be sort of like throwing rocks at an advanced civilization, but it's not like we'd have anything better...
This is tricky. Both because for better or for worse, they do provide a certain military equilibrium, and also because you know, it's probably a good idea to have them around, at least to a certain degree, if the Xel'naga decide that creating us was a bad idea. Not that nuke might not be sort of like throwing rocks at an advanced civilization, but it's not like we'd have anything better...
Nukes can also serve as propellant!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...
Which could also help with the second issue - say an alien elephant invasion. ;-)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footfall)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...
Which could also help with the second issue - say an alien elephant invasion. ;-)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footfall)
> Nukes can also serve as propellant
Not as of now. The outer space treaty[1] forbids nuclear explosions in space. I don’t think this treaty will be revised until it is made obsolete by a total elimination of these weapons of horror (e.g. by another treaty[2]). So if you want to see nuclear explosions used as propellant in space (which honestly isn’t such a bad use for them) then I recommend you petition your government to sign and implement the UN ban on these world ending weapons, if they haven’t already.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_N...
Not as of now. The outer space treaty[1] forbids nuclear explosions in space. I don’t think this treaty will be revised until it is made obsolete by a total elimination of these weapons of horror (e.g. by another treaty[2]). So if you want to see nuclear explosions used as propellant in space (which honestly isn’t such a bad use for them) then I recommend you petition your government to sign and implement the UN ban on these world ending weapons, if they haven’t already.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_N...
I kinda feel this would be worked out one way or another when someone is in possession of a fully fueled Orion space ship with couple thousand nuclear charges on board.
I'm unimpressed with the concept of Orion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb
is more inspiring to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb
is more inspiring to me.
To this day I'm terrified by this concept - so much that I would frankly rather have nukes detonated behind a ship for propulsion. :P But yeah, if it could be made to work, it has some serious benefits!
On a related note, lets also look at the nuclear salt-water rocket - arguably the king of crazy (yet theoretically viable) on the nuclear rocket field right now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_salt-water_rocket
On a related note, lets also look at the nuclear salt-water rocket - arguably the king of crazy (yet theoretically viable) on the nuclear rocket field right now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_salt-water_rocket
What is so terrifying about that? It could be the middle way between fission as we know it, and fusion as we can't do reliably/practically(as of now). Just need some superconducting magnets to tame and stop the fusing uranium hexaflouride from touching the fused silica walls :-)
Similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-inertial_fusion
The exhaust is clean, because the system is closed.
Also it reminds me of some descriptions of so called 'Vimanas' which occur in old Indian scriptures, and nerdy people from today tried to reconstruct/reverse engineer/remimagine what's described in there.
And this fits, perfectly so.
Edit: I think of this as even more terrifying thant that saltwater thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission-fragment_rocket
Would you trust in this evil trickster dust? ;->
Similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-inertial_fusion
The exhaust is clean, because the system is closed.
Also it reminds me of some descriptions of so called 'Vimanas' which occur in old Indian scriptures, and nerdy people from today tried to reconstruct/reverse engineer/remimagine what's described in there.
And this fits, perfectly so.
Edit: I think of this as even more terrifying thant that saltwater thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission-fragment_rocket
Would you trust in this evil trickster dust? ;->
Indeed, this is also very clever and actually sounds quite doable (still I wonder about how much radiation it will give off when running - probably quite a bit! :D) when compared to some of the other concepts.
Actually, I kinda think it demonstrates we really are not done with nuclear engines & even better, more crazy and higher performance propulsion methods will show up. And also, we really need to finally start building some of them them! :)
Like, even some simple NERVA or NEP would be at least a start. :)
Actually, I kinda think it demonstrates we really are not done with nuclear engines & even better, more crazy and higher performance propulsion methods will show up. And also, we really need to finally start building some of them them! :)
Like, even some simple NERVA or NEP would be at least a start. :)
Orion impresses me because:
1) it is achievable with 1960s technology
2) the payloads, my god, MILLIONS of tons is the ideal cargo size
3) one month to get to jupiter's moons!
I think if we had good funding I would do:
1) Get starship mature
2) capture some asteroids to make an orbital base
3) moon base + a lunar launch loop or launch rail or lunar space elevator
4) build an orion ship on the moon and launch from the moon
5) mine the major asteroids. Profit!
1) it is achievable with 1960s technology
2) the payloads, my god, MILLIONS of tons is the ideal cargo size
3) one month to get to jupiter's moons!
I think if we had good funding I would do:
1) Get starship mature
2) capture some asteroids to make an orbital base
3) moon base + a lunar launch loop or launch rail or lunar space elevator
4) build an orion ship on the moon and launch from the moon
5) mine the major asteroids. Profit!
Colonizing Mars is going to be easier than solving tragedy of the commons.
It seems easier because Mars proponents often focus on the technological challenges (which are indeed great, if not insurmountable), while ignoring the human challenges. The challenges from human nature are going to exist on Mars just as much as they do on Earth; things like warfare don't suddenly stop existing just by shifting people to Mars. People act like Mars would be a place to keep people safe from nuclear war, but destroying a Mars colony from Earth is trivial compared to creating one.
If one looks at the history of colonies (attempts to colonize the new world, for instance), we see that they often fall apart socially even in situations where they're in a place with much more resources than they had back home. Humans aren't dwarf fortress type automatons that can simply be handed whatever necessary job is needed and mindlessly go about their day for the rest of their lives.
No one has been able to manufacture a functioning mini-society, and every attempt has ended in spectacular failure. It seems crazy to think things will suddenly work if we drop the people in a place devoid of almost all resources and entirely hostile to life from Earth.
If one looks at the history of colonies (attempts to colonize the new world, for instance), we see that they often fall apart socially even in situations where they're in a place with much more resources than they had back home. Humans aren't dwarf fortress type automatons that can simply be handed whatever necessary job is needed and mindlessly go about their day for the rest of their lives.
No one has been able to manufacture a functioning mini-society, and every attempt has ended in spectacular failure. It seems crazy to think things will suddenly work if we drop the people in a place devoid of almost all resources and entirely hostile to life from Earth.
Maybe the group will actually work together if the other option is certain death? :-)
How can you bring humans to Mars without also bringing human nature, i.e., human flaws? We'll wreck Mars quicker than Earth, because Mars is already a wreck.
Wouldn't it be more practical to do the "spreading to other worlds" thing at the same time as "fixing human nature"?
We don't know if human nature can be "fixed" (in a positive way), so stopping other things until that's been done sounds a bit silly to me.
We don't know if human nature can be "fixed" (in a positive way), so stopping other things until that's been done sounds a bit silly to me.
It's not a question of starting or stopping; whether we start or stop seems irrelevant to me. The point is that humanity has been "coddled" by the Earth, because we were born and evolved here, but we won't be coddled by Mars, and thus the Mars project is doomed to failure, since we're already failing on Earth, in a vastly more favorable environment.
What's the point of a "backup plan" when the primary plan isn't even working?
What's the point of a "backup plan" when the primary plan isn't even working?
> What's the point of a "backup plan" when the primary plan isn't even working?
The whole point of a having a backup plan is for when the primary plan isn't working :S
The whole point of a having a backup plan is for when the primary plan isn't working :S
> The whole point of a having a backup plan is for when the primary plan isn't working
c/when/if
When your primary plan isn't working, you fix that first. Ideally, the backup plan is never needed.
If your house is on fire, you don't start building a second house, you put out the damn fire.
Also, it would be pretty dumb to put a backup in place more dangerous than the original. It would be like building your second home inside a volcano.
c/when/if
When your primary plan isn't working, you fix that first. Ideally, the backup plan is never needed.
If your house is on fire, you don't start building a second house, you put out the damn fire.
Also, it would be pretty dumb to put a backup in place more dangerous than the original. It would be like building your second home inside a volcano.
Humans will still be the ones colonizing Mars, the same humans who would theoretically make Earth uninhabitable. If we humans can't stop destroying Earth, we have no chance in making a Mars colony successful.
You forgot the /s
> A much better plan to avoid extinction is multifold: (1) Stop destroying our own environment, duh. (2) Get rid of nuclear weapons. (3) Stop killing each other in general. (4) Invest in asteroid detection and deflection. (5) Build shelters on Earth capable of surviving disaster, such as underground. It also wouldn't hurt to (6) Stop being afraid of vaccination.
That all sure sounds simple enough if you handwave over all the inherent complexity, but by that standard so does colonizing Mars, and yet colonizing Mars also sounds like a fun adventure.
In particular, (2) and (3) are working at cross purposes here—nuclear deterrent is the primary thing that has prevented a great power war from happening since 1945. Also, (4)—asteroid deflection—could provide a safeguard for earth, but could just as easily be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
(1) is a slogan and not a concrete plan. How do you plan to provide food, energy, housing, and health care to eight billion people? Environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits. Windmills are a hazard to birds, hydroelectric dams are a hazard to fish, solar and batteries require mining rare earth metals, and so forth.
That all sure sounds simple enough if you handwave over all the inherent complexity, but by that standard so does colonizing Mars, and yet colonizing Mars also sounds like a fun adventure.
In particular, (2) and (3) are working at cross purposes here—nuclear deterrent is the primary thing that has prevented a great power war from happening since 1945. Also, (4)—asteroid deflection—could provide a safeguard for earth, but could just as easily be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
(1) is a slogan and not a concrete plan. How do you plan to provide food, energy, housing, and health care to eight billion people? Environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits. Windmills are a hazard to birds, hydroelectric dams are a hazard to fish, solar and batteries require mining rare earth metals, and so forth.
> That all sure sounds simple enough if you handwave over all the inherent complexity
I didn't say it was simple. I believe what I said: "we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity."
> nuclear deterrent is the primary thing that has prevented a great power war from happening since 1945.
A sad statement about humanity. Which is why I said we need to get our shit together.
Do we bring nationalism and nuclear weapons to Mars? How soon after settlement until the first Martian war starts? Could a Martian colony even survive a war, if the life-sustaining infrastructure is attacked? Or do they do it in the style of Star Trek "A Taste of Armageddon", with simulations and disintegration chambers?
> How do you plan to provide food, energy, housing, and health care to eight billion people?
How do you plan it? Hunger, power outages, homelessness, and lack of access to health care already exist.
> Windmills are a hazard to birds, hydroelectric dams are a hazard to fish
We're already killing birds and fish in many other ways more deadly.
I didn't say it was simple. I believe what I said: "we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity."
> nuclear deterrent is the primary thing that has prevented a great power war from happening since 1945.
A sad statement about humanity. Which is why I said we need to get our shit together.
Do we bring nationalism and nuclear weapons to Mars? How soon after settlement until the first Martian war starts? Could a Martian colony even survive a war, if the life-sustaining infrastructure is attacked? Or do they do it in the style of Star Trek "A Taste of Armageddon", with simulations and disintegration chambers?
> How do you plan to provide food, energy, housing, and health care to eight billion people?
How do you plan it? Hunger, power outages, homelessness, and lack of access to health care already exist.
> Windmills are a hazard to birds, hydroelectric dams are a hazard to fish
We're already killing birds and fish in many other ways more deadly.
> I didn't say it was simple. I believe what I said: "we have no hope of long-term survival anywhere, because of our own stupidity."
Then give up and cede the floor to the people who are actually trying to do something about the future of humanity. If you're really this defeatist about the whole thing, you aren't contributing anything to the conversation.
Also, you aren't contributing anything to the conversation in general. You've managed to quote almost everything I wrote in my post except for one of the central points, which was: "Environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits." You ignore that while quoting just about everything else to provide snippy and dismissive comments that aren't really engaging with anything. Of course, why would you contribute anything of value if you're philosophically committed to dismissive doomsaying.
Then give up and cede the floor to the people who are actually trying to do something about the future of humanity. If you're really this defeatist about the whole thing, you aren't contributing anything to the conversation.
Also, you aren't contributing anything to the conversation in general. You've managed to quote almost everything I wrote in my post except for one of the central points, which was: "Environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits." You ignore that while quoting just about everything else to provide snippy and dismissive comments that aren't really engaging with anything. Of course, why would you contribute anything of value if you're philosophically committed to dismissive doomsaying.
> If you're really this defeatist about the whole thing, you aren't contributing anything to the conversation.
The truth? Are you concerned with truth, or just wishful thinking?
Let's say you have a terminal illness, for example, ALS. Would you lie to everyone, including yourself, and say you're fine, that everything is going to be ok? Or would you admit the truth, and try to come to grips with it?
Of course we would love to have a cure. Nobody welcomes a terminal illness. But the reality and gravity of the situation cannot be honestly denied.
> Environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits
In the large sense, they're really not, because there's a single planet that supports human life, namely Earth, and if we wreck it, making it inhospitable, then every other tradeoff becomes irrelevant. The livability of the Earth's environment is a precondition for every other human endeavor. You can't have economic activity without ecological activity. And if you aim to convince me to be quiet about that, then the last thing you want to do is claim that we can "trade" the environment for something else. This kind of attitude only reaffirms my pessimism about whether we can, as I put it, get our shit together.
I am dismissive of concern trolling about windmills harming birds and dams harming fish when we're currently facing a period of mass animal species extinction due to human effects on the environment, such as global warming, chemical and physical pollution, deforestation, overfishing, etc.
> if you're philosophically committed to dismissive doomsaying.
I'm not philosophically committed to it, just empirically convinced of it.
I don't know how it's going to go down in the end. What I do know is that humans are essentially less hairy, more talkative apes, and as a group we can't responsibly handle the technology that the cleverest (but not necessarily wisest) among us were able to create. We're like the sorcerer's apprentice, except there's no sorcerer to show up at the last minute to save ourselves from the disaster we created.
We've known about global warming for many decades, yet we've done practically nothing about it, and now hardly anyone can deny that the consequences of it are starting to show. We're already past the point of no return. We allow amoral madmen to control world-threatening nuclear arsenals. We put anything and everything into the water, into the air, into the ground, without any apparent concern for the future. Millions of people are in near total denial of science, believing among other things that the world was literally created a few thousand years ago, and evolution did not occur. And by the way, these people dominate at least one of the two major political parties of the most powerful nation on Earth. I don't know why exactly I should be hopeful about all this. To whom am I supposed to cede the floor? The "pedo guy" guy?
The truth? Are you concerned with truth, or just wishful thinking?
Let's say you have a terminal illness, for example, ALS. Would you lie to everyone, including yourself, and say you're fine, that everything is going to be ok? Or would you admit the truth, and try to come to grips with it?
Of course we would love to have a cure. Nobody welcomes a terminal illness. But the reality and gravity of the situation cannot be honestly denied.
> Environmental issues are a question of tradeoffs and cost-benefits
In the large sense, they're really not, because there's a single planet that supports human life, namely Earth, and if we wreck it, making it inhospitable, then every other tradeoff becomes irrelevant. The livability of the Earth's environment is a precondition for every other human endeavor. You can't have economic activity without ecological activity. And if you aim to convince me to be quiet about that, then the last thing you want to do is claim that we can "trade" the environment for something else. This kind of attitude only reaffirms my pessimism about whether we can, as I put it, get our shit together.
I am dismissive of concern trolling about windmills harming birds and dams harming fish when we're currently facing a period of mass animal species extinction due to human effects on the environment, such as global warming, chemical and physical pollution, deforestation, overfishing, etc.
> if you're philosophically committed to dismissive doomsaying.
I'm not philosophically committed to it, just empirically convinced of it.
I don't know how it's going to go down in the end. What I do know is that humans are essentially less hairy, more talkative apes, and as a group we can't responsibly handle the technology that the cleverest (but not necessarily wisest) among us were able to create. We're like the sorcerer's apprentice, except there's no sorcerer to show up at the last minute to save ourselves from the disaster we created.
We've known about global warming for many decades, yet we've done practically nothing about it, and now hardly anyone can deny that the consequences of it are starting to show. We're already past the point of no return. We allow amoral madmen to control world-threatening nuclear arsenals. We put anything and everything into the water, into the air, into the ground, without any apparent concern for the future. Millions of people are in near total denial of science, believing among other things that the world was literally created a few thousand years ago, and evolution did not occur. And by the way, these people dominate at least one of the two major political parties of the most powerful nation on Earth. I don't know why exactly I should be hopeful about all this. To whom am I supposed to cede the floor? The "pedo guy" guy?
> Let's say you have a terminal illness, for example, ALS. Would you lie to everyone, including yourself, and say you're fine, that everything is going to be ok? Or would you admit the truth, and try to come to grips with it?
In 1963, a graduate student was diagnosed with ALS. Instead of deciding that his life was pointless and meaningless, he completed his doctorate and spent the rest of his life contributing to scientific research and to educating the public. His name was Stephen Hawking and he passed away at age 76, in 2018.
> In the large sense, they're really not, because there's a single planet that supports human life, namely Earth, and if we wreck it, making it inhospitable, then every other tradeoff becomes irrelevant.
Thankfully, nobody is suggesting making the earth uninhabitable. This kind of all-or-nothing thinking about the issue is counterproductive and useless.
> I am dismissive of concern trolling about windmills harming birds and dams harming fish
I'm not saying not to build the windmills and dams. I'm saying that the benefits of doing so outweighs the ecological costs. I'm not concern trolling here; I'm giving an example of a cost/benefit tradeoff that you presumably agree with. You're just so worked up that you missed the point.
In 1963, a graduate student was diagnosed with ALS. Instead of deciding that his life was pointless and meaningless, he completed his doctorate and spent the rest of his life contributing to scientific research and to educating the public. His name was Stephen Hawking and he passed away at age 76, in 2018.
> In the large sense, they're really not, because there's a single planet that supports human life, namely Earth, and if we wreck it, making it inhospitable, then every other tradeoff becomes irrelevant.
Thankfully, nobody is suggesting making the earth uninhabitable. This kind of all-or-nothing thinking about the issue is counterproductive and useless.
> I am dismissive of concern trolling about windmills harming birds and dams harming fish
I'm not saying not to build the windmills and dams. I'm saying that the benefits of doing so outweighs the ecological costs. I'm not concern trolling here; I'm giving an example of a cost/benefit tradeoff that you presumably agree with. You're just so worked up that you missed the point.
> In 1963, a graduate student was diagnosed with ALS. Instead of deciding that his life was pointless and meaningless
1) I didn't say my life is pointless and meaningless. Moreover, I obviously care, otherwise I wouldn't bother to argue about all of this.
2) You're seriously going to pull unusual anecdotal data about a condition that has well known scientific statistics?
3) I think it's fair to say that Hawking's physics talent resulted in greater caretaking effort put into his life than the average case.
> Thankfully, nobody is suggesting making the earth uninhabitable.
Of course nobody suggests it. They're not going to do it on purpose, they're going to do it by accident, due to carelessness and neglect.
> I'm giving an example of a cost/benefit tradeoff that you presumably agree with.
Why? If there's supposed to be a moral to the point about tradeoffs, then why not directly talk about what it's supposed to be, rather than mentioning little tangents that are largely irrelevant?
You asked about my plan to provide the essentials, such as food and housing, but that's a bit of misdirection, because we do vastly more than just provide the essentials. We have rampant, insatiable consumerism, not to mention planned obsolescence, driven by zombie non-human entities called "corporations" that lack ethics and exist for nothing except unfettered growth. We have the military-industrial complex whose appetite for war and weaponry is never ending. And now people want to massively ramp up the space program again and constantly launch (polluting) rockets into space, even littering our orbit with satellites that block our own view of it that we so admire from a distance. I don't think the problem is the essentials. Rather, I want to know what the plan is for cutting back on the non-essentials.
> You're just so worked up
Please refrain from personal comments, which are unnecessary and uninformed. You don't know me, and you're certainly not in the room with me, so you don't have the slightest clue about my present mental or emotional state. At this point, I could probably rattle off my spiel in my sleep.
1) I didn't say my life is pointless and meaningless. Moreover, I obviously care, otherwise I wouldn't bother to argue about all of this.
2) You're seriously going to pull unusual anecdotal data about a condition that has well known scientific statistics?
3) I think it's fair to say that Hawking's physics talent resulted in greater caretaking effort put into his life than the average case.
> Thankfully, nobody is suggesting making the earth uninhabitable.
Of course nobody suggests it. They're not going to do it on purpose, they're going to do it by accident, due to carelessness and neglect.
> I'm giving an example of a cost/benefit tradeoff that you presumably agree with.
Why? If there's supposed to be a moral to the point about tradeoffs, then why not directly talk about what it's supposed to be, rather than mentioning little tangents that are largely irrelevant?
You asked about my plan to provide the essentials, such as food and housing, but that's a bit of misdirection, because we do vastly more than just provide the essentials. We have rampant, insatiable consumerism, not to mention planned obsolescence, driven by zombie non-human entities called "corporations" that lack ethics and exist for nothing except unfettered growth. We have the military-industrial complex whose appetite for war and weaponry is never ending. And now people want to massively ramp up the space program again and constantly launch (polluting) rockets into space, even littering our orbit with satellites that block our own view of it that we so admire from a distance. I don't think the problem is the essentials. Rather, I want to know what the plan is for cutting back on the non-essentials.
> You're just so worked up
Please refrain from personal comments, which are unnecessary and uninformed. You don't know me, and you're certainly not in the room with me, so you don't have the slightest clue about my present mental or emotional state. At this point, I could probably rattle off my spiel in my sleep.
> I didn't say my life is pointless and meaningless.
No, you said human civilization is doomed, and then you mentioned an ALS diagnosis as an analogy between an individual life and the fate of human civilization.
> If there's supposed to be a moral to the point about tradeoffs, then why not directly talk about what it's supposed to be, rather than mentioning little tangents that are largely irrelevant?
The point is that tradeoffs exist. It's not "tangential" to provide examples of tradeoffs when making the point that tradeoffs exist.
> At this point, I could probably rattle off my spiel in my sleep.
As far as I can tell, you are rattling this off in your sleep, because you aren't constructively responding to my points in any way. It was a charitable assumption on my part that you're just worked up, as opposed to having poor reading comprehension or some sort of apocalyptic monomania. At this point I'm content just dismissing you as a fanatical doomsayer with no interest in what anyone else has to say, because that's how you've conducted yourself thus far.
No, you said human civilization is doomed, and then you mentioned an ALS diagnosis as an analogy between an individual life and the fate of human civilization.
> If there's supposed to be a moral to the point about tradeoffs, then why not directly talk about what it's supposed to be, rather than mentioning little tangents that are largely irrelevant?
The point is that tradeoffs exist. It's not "tangential" to provide examples of tradeoffs when making the point that tradeoffs exist.
> At this point, I could probably rattle off my spiel in my sleep.
As far as I can tell, you are rattling this off in your sleep, because you aren't constructively responding to my points in any way. It was a charitable assumption on my part that you're just worked up, as opposed to having poor reading comprehension or some sort of apocalyptic monomania. At this point I'm content just dismissing you as a fanatical doomsayer with no interest in what anyone else has to say, because that's how you've conducted yourself thus far.
>Do we bring nationalism and nuclear weapons to Mars? How soon after settlement until the first Martian war starts? Could a Martian colony even survive a war, if the life-sustaining infrastructure is attacked?
Would a small Mars colony survive a single jilted lover aiming for the ultimate murder-suicide?
Would a small Mars colony survive a single jilted lover aiming for the ultimate murder-suicide?
> A much better plan to avoid extinction is multifold
I don't think going extinct from the effects of any human capability is much of a concern. Humans have lived in stone age for tens of thousands of years. It's more that we wouldn't have nice things like houses, cars, and computers.
I don't think going extinct from the effects of any human capability is much of a concern. Humans have lived in stone age for tens of thousands of years. It's more that we wouldn't have nice things like houses, cars, and computers.
> (1) Stop destroying our own environment, duh.
I agree except this doesn’t seem possible neither politically nor economically… launching people to Mars really sound easier
I agree except this doesn’t seem possible neither politically nor economically… launching people to Mars really sound easier
Launching is the easy part. Living is the hard part. Might as well launch them into the sun.
Human progress is the act of changing the environment to suit our needs.
Flippantly using "stop destroying our environment" brings to mind a pastoralism that was triumphant in the 90s but is basically unworkable.
Your suggestion requires degrowth, and degrowth would entail a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions
Flippantly using "stop destroying our environment" brings to mind a pastoralism that was triumphant in the 90s but is basically unworkable.
Your suggestion requires degrowth, and degrowth would entail a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions
> Flippantly using "stop destroying our environment"
It wasn't flippant. Global warming is one of the greatest dangers facing humanity.
> degrowth would entail a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions
We have no choice, because growth already entails a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
It wasn't flippant. Global warming is one of the greatest dangers facing humanity.
> degrowth would entail a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions
We have no choice, because growth already entails a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
It is flippant. "Net zero" has already been an ally to the Russian government in their war on Ukraine.
Energiewende was the renewable transition that primarily offshored responsibility to Russian natural gas and coal when plants weren't running, assuming that the renewables would grow and balance out.
That didn't work so well, and now a European heat wave is saving European lives.
People need heat, and light, and to compute.
The developing world cannot wait for net zero carbon energy, and the developed world cannot just stop all useful human activity to pursue climate goals.
The rhetoric around this is if we "just" had better politics, if the oil and gas lobby weren't such villains, if conservatives weren't sticking their heads in the sand we would be able to make it to net zero while "only" sacrificing things we don't care about, like big gas guzzling pickup trucks.
We are finding out that no, we can't.
Continuing down this line of rhetoric is flippant, or perhaps glib.
There's hope though, even if you believe that climate change will end humanity (it won't) - the status symbol cars are electric, more consumer cars are electric, renewable deployment is proceeding apace and we even have developments in fusion and SMRs.
That's how we win - not with the Extinction Rebellion, but with new people doing diligent work to produce higher and higher standards of living at less and less cost.
Fuel costs money, and nobody wants to use it if they don't have to - economics will eventually win, because the best low or no carbon energy sources require almost no operational cost due to lack of constant fuel input.
Energiewende was the renewable transition that primarily offshored responsibility to Russian natural gas and coal when plants weren't running, assuming that the renewables would grow and balance out.
That didn't work so well, and now a European heat wave is saving European lives.
People need heat, and light, and to compute.
The developing world cannot wait for net zero carbon energy, and the developed world cannot just stop all useful human activity to pursue climate goals.
The rhetoric around this is if we "just" had better politics, if the oil and gas lobby weren't such villains, if conservatives weren't sticking their heads in the sand we would be able to make it to net zero while "only" sacrificing things we don't care about, like big gas guzzling pickup trucks.
We are finding out that no, we can't.
Continuing down this line of rhetoric is flippant, or perhaps glib.
There's hope though, even if you believe that climate change will end humanity (it won't) - the status symbol cars are electric, more consumer cars are electric, renewable deployment is proceeding apace and we even have developments in fusion and SMRs.
That's how we win - not with the Extinction Rebellion, but with new people doing diligent work to produce higher and higher standards of living at less and less cost.
Fuel costs money, and nobody wants to use it if they don't have to - economics will eventually win, because the best low or no carbon energy sources require almost no operational cost due to lack of constant fuel input.
"The reason people want to colonize Mars is because it solves the problem of an extinction event on earth wiping out all of humanity (assuming the Mars colony eventually becomes self sustaining). Populating Antarctica doesn't solve that problem."
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
> The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth
The main reason cited is usually one of species resilience. “Not Earth” is an arbitrary requirement bolted on.
The main risk is that of an extinction-level event, such as large meteor impacts, substantial tectonic activity, or a worldwide nuclear disaster.
All of those would likely have minimal impact on an autonomous underground city with a complete, mostly hermetic air filtering system, with three redundant power sources (say, nuclear, solar, and geothermal). That would also be substantially easier to build than a >1K self-sustaining Martian base.
The main reason cited is usually one of species resilience. “Not Earth” is an arbitrary requirement bolted on.
The main risk is that of an extinction-level event, such as large meteor impacts, substantial tectonic activity, or a worldwide nuclear disaster.
All of those would likely have minimal impact on an autonomous underground city with a complete, mostly hermetic air filtering system, with three redundant power sources (say, nuclear, solar, and geothermal). That would also be substantially easier to build than a >1K self-sustaining Martian base.
Yeah. We should build one of those too. I think enough people would pay good money to live there.
Not to mention the most important reason for colonizing a planet: Because it's there.
Why did the mountaineer climb the mountain? Because it was there.
Being possible for us to make a habitat is also a requirement. You can't just drop that requirement because being somewhere other than Earth sounds nice. A successful Mars colony attempt is centuries away.
> The main reason for Mars is that it is not on Earth. Make „not on Earth“ a requirement that cannot be dropped and suddenly Mars makes a lot of sense.
Reading the article I think the author tries to figure why this requirement cannot be dropped and gets no rational answer.
Reading the article I think the author tries to figure why this requirement cannot be dropped and gets no rational answer.
The author gives a rational answer at length, it's just the cultists are refusing to accept it.
The Moon is 100X closer. And orbit is 100X closer than that.
Declaring "not on Earth" to be a requirement is certainly an effective way to avoid considering all the arguments against it being a good goal at this time. It is known as begging the question.
But it is the primary requirement of Mars colony advocates, so it cannot be dropped. It is perfectly legit to argue that their goals are useless and terrible and wasteful, if you want, but arguing "there are more habitable spots on Earth" isn't on point. Their goal is not to colonize "some difficult, hostile environment" - their goal is to colonize another planet.
The argument here is, at least in part, that achieving it on Earth would likely increase the chances of succeeding on Mars. To rule that out on the basis that one's goal is to colonize another planet (as opposed to, for example, showing that achieving it on Earth would not help with the ultimate goal) is a way to avoid considering that argument, not a refutation of it.
1) many Mars advocates want to colonize Mars to provide more resources and land to alleviate overpopulation. In that regard, it being of Earth does not matter.
2) even if it does, the point of GP's counterargument is not "if you want to colonize a hostile environment we have those here on earth" it's "your goal is extremely far outside of our current technological capabilities. We can't even colonize hostile environments in our own backyard."
2) even if it does, the point of GP's counterargument is not "if you want to colonize a hostile environment we have those here on earth" it's "your goal is extremely far outside of our current technological capabilities. We can't even colonize hostile environments in our own backyard."
[deleted]
You need to learn how to crawl, and few other steps before you go win marathon at the Olympic Games.
Lunar dust caused Apollo astronauts problems that they thought weren't chemical. They were wrong. [https://www.livescience.com/62590-moon-dust-bad-lungs-brain....]
But that Martian dust that gets all over the solar panels is also loaded with toxic perchlorates. Every time they wear a suit out, they have to absolutely insure that none of it gets into the living space. Good luck.
"Anybody who is saying they want to go live on the surface of Mars better think about the interaction of perchlorate with the human body. At one-half percent, that's a huge amount. Very small amounts are considered toxic ...."
[https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals...]
But that Martian dust that gets all over the solar panels is also loaded with toxic perchlorates. Every time they wear a suit out, they have to absolutely insure that none of it gets into the living space. Good luck.
"Anybody who is saying they want to go live on the surface of Mars better think about the interaction of perchlorate with the human body. At one-half percent, that's a huge amount. Very small amounts are considered toxic ...."
[https://www.space.com/21554-mars-toxic-perchlorate-chemicals...]
Right there. That's the issue we're facing with any extraplanetary excursion. It's not the stuff we know. It's not even the stuff we're aware we don't know.
It's the infamous "unknown unknowns". Stuff we're not even aware we should be aware of. Stuff that will fuck us up in new and interesting ways.
If we ever do make it to colonizing any other planet, the road will be paved with the bones of the dead we sacrificed to find out what we shouldn't have fucked around with.
It's the infamous "unknown unknowns". Stuff we're not even aware we should be aware of. Stuff that will fuck us up in new and interesting ways.
If we ever do make it to colonizing any other planet, the road will be paved with the bones of the dead we sacrificed to find out what we shouldn't have fucked around with.
It also goes the other way. Antibiotics, which have likely saved more lives than any discovery - ever, were developed less than 100 years ago, by accident. A guy accidentally left his bacterial cultures exposed on a holiday. He came back and noticed one had grown a type of fungus that was repulsing the bacteria. That fungus was penicillium.
In another fun example, the idea of using microwaves to heat things up was also discovered completely accidentally. A [self taught] engineer working on an active-radar system noticed the system he was working on was melting a Hershey's Mr. Goodbar in his pocket. He then used it on a few other foods to confirm, and the microwave oven was born.
I think one of the biggest benefits of colonizing Mars will be things we can't even imagine. We'll find all sorts of great new ways to kill and maim ourselves, but we'll also discover plenty of new amazing tools we can use to do awesome things with. Over time the former will be mitigated and the latter exploited. Colonizing, as always, will be a game for those who are willing to accept a few decades being lopped off their average life expectancy in exchange for making way for a greater life for those to come.
In another fun example, the idea of using microwaves to heat things up was also discovered completely accidentally. A [self taught] engineer working on an active-radar system noticed the system he was working on was melting a Hershey's Mr. Goodbar in his pocket. He then used it on a few other foods to confirm, and the microwave oven was born.
I think one of the biggest benefits of colonizing Mars will be things we can't even imagine. We'll find all sorts of great new ways to kill and maim ourselves, but we'll also discover plenty of new amazing tools we can use to do awesome things with. Over time the former will be mitigated and the latter exploited. Colonizing, as always, will be a game for those who are willing to accept a few decades being lopped off their average life expectancy in exchange for making way for a greater life for those to come.
> Over time the former will be mitigated and the latter exploited.
Have we mitigated ways to kill and maim ourselves?
> Colonizing, as always, will be a game for those who are willing to accept a few decades being lopped off their average life expectancy in exchange for making way for a greater life for those to come.
I'm not sure that's an accurate description of colonist motivations.
Have we mitigated ways to kill and maim ourselves?
> Colonizing, as always, will be a game for those who are willing to accept a few decades being lopped off their average life expectancy in exchange for making way for a greater life for those to come.
I'm not sure that's an accurate description of colonist motivations.
Well modern industry is much safer than before for one - much less exposed gears, belts and live wires than in the good old days.
Sounds like an opportunity to invest in advanced filtration and cleaning systems to solve the problem for Mars. Then bring that technology back home
This is such a good point. Whenever I read about a technology that's supposed to make Mars livable, I ask myself "why aren't people doing this already on the Balleny Islands?" (a lovely but remote as hell archipelago off of Antarctica). Usually there's no good answer; something about the exoticism of Mars makes people think problems that are hard on Earth get easier to solve there.
I think a common answer to "Why Mars" is that human beings need a last resort should earth become uninhabitable.
I'd turn that around, "We need to start thinking about how human beings are utterly dependent on Earth for the forseeable future and how we're destroying her, because there's no planet B in the time frame global warming is unfolding". Start working on protecting what we have. Don't flatter yourself into thinking there's an alternative.
I'm sure many have read William Shatner's narrative of his trip to real space but if you haven't, you should.
"I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her." (and continues...)
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/william-shatner-space-boldl...
I'd turn that around, "We need to start thinking about how human beings are utterly dependent on Earth for the forseeable future and how we're destroying her, because there's no planet B in the time frame global warming is unfolding". Start working on protecting what we have. Don't flatter yourself into thinking there's an alternative.
I'm sure many have read William Shatner's narrative of his trip to real space but if you haven't, you should.
"I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her." (and continues...)
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/william-shatner-space-boldl...
What could possibly make Earth as uninhabitable as Mars, without destroying Mars as well? And why not invest in technology that could keep people alive on Earth in Martian-style conditions (without all the extra problems of logistics and low gravity)?
Let's first create a self-sustaining vault that can house a million people for indefinite amounts of time on Earth, and then let's revisit sending humans to Mars with all the new technology we developed doing so.
In the meantime, let's actually spend space program resources on actual useful exploration, such as finding out if there is life on Mars or on other liquid-water worlds in the Solar System (such as Europa). Confirming or denying this would be a much much much bigger boon to scientific understanding than getting an ISS-style outpost to last a few years on Mars, and it would also be far cheaper.
Let's first create a self-sustaining vault that can house a million people for indefinite amounts of time on Earth, and then let's revisit sending humans to Mars with all the new technology we developed doing so.
In the meantime, let's actually spend space program resources on actual useful exploration, such as finding out if there is life on Mars or on other liquid-water worlds in the Solar System (such as Europa). Confirming or denying this would be a much much much bigger boon to scientific understanding than getting an ISS-style outpost to last a few years on Mars, and it would also be far cheaper.
What could possibly make Earth as uninhabitable as Mars, without destroying Mars as well?
Almost nothing. I agree the Mars colonialization idea is absurd in any foreseeable timeframe. My point is mostly fantasy seems serve to numb people to the damage to Earth that's now going. If someone is worried about the future of the human, they should be working on climate change. Especially if they have enough money and influence to make themselves widely heard, as do many of the people hocking the Mars-boondoggle.
Almost nothing. I agree the Mars colonialization idea is absurd in any foreseeable timeframe. My point is mostly fantasy seems serve to numb people to the damage to Earth that's now going. If someone is worried about the future of the human, they should be working on climate change. Especially if they have enough money and influence to make themselves widely heard, as do many of the people hocking the Mars-boondoggle.
Probably a storm of asteroids directed at Earth.
The odds of a storm of asteroids hitting Earth are pretty much the same as them hitting Mars. Except the atmosphere protects us against smaller asteroids, where they burn up in the air and on Mars would impact the surface.
The chances of humans surviving on Mars after such an event is extremely less than humans surviving on Earth. We know the Earth has remained hospitable to life after many instances, Mars hasn't been hospitable to complex multi-cellular life in its entire existence, or at least the last billion years or so.
The chances of humans surviving on Mars after such an event is extremely less than humans surviving on Earth. We know the Earth has remained hospitable to life after many instances, Mars hasn't been hospitable to complex multi-cellular life in its entire existence, or at least the last billion years or so.
Even if the worst case events were definitely going to happen tomorrow (killer asteroids, Yellowstone erupting, massive airborne contagion) I would still rather be on Earth than on Mars. Earth is more habitable before, during, and after these extinction-level events than Mars is on Mars’s best day.
The odds of the asteroids only hitting Earth go up if ots Martian separatists doing the course corrections for them. ;-)
> I think a common answer to "Why Mars" is that human beings need a last resort should earth become uninhabitable.
This is such a common viewpoint - that earth will become uninhabitable - but I think you've been watching too many cataclysmic films. In your experience, what makes it so bad?
In my experience, this place is pretty decent. The worst of it is the strong governance systems we have - all these nonsense laws that are really there for someone else's benefit. But, while the strong governance will make/is making our culture unpleasant, there are no worries about the physical matter.
The problem is all the unfounded, unverified stories people believe, despite the evidence of their own senses, if you ask me.
This is such a common viewpoint - that earth will become uninhabitable - but I think you've been watching too many cataclysmic films. In your experience, what makes it so bad?
In my experience, this place is pretty decent. The worst of it is the strong governance systems we have - all these nonsense laws that are really there for someone else's benefit. But, while the strong governance will make/is making our culture unpleasant, there are no worries about the physical matter.
The problem is all the unfounded, unverified stories people believe, despite the evidence of their own senses, if you ask me.
If we discovered something quite valuable on the Balleny Islands, a viable colony would be established to exploit it very quickly.
Hard problems on Earth get solved regularly, but they only get solved when there is sufficient payback to justify the costs of finding those solutions.
Hard problems on Earth get solved regularly, but they only get solved when there is sufficient payback to justify the costs of finding those solutions.
What are you going to find on mars to justify a colony? Best answer I've heard is "a portion of the raw materials you'd need to build a colony", which isn't even a circular justification - it's an incomplete circle!.
Without the added justification of "because it's another planet, and that's so cool", I don't think a mars colony makes a lick of sense.
Without the added justification of "because it's another planet, and that's so cool", I don't think a mars colony makes a lick of sense.
Mars has a weaker gravity well, so getting to space is a lot easier than it is from Earth. And while the moon might sound better, unlike the Moon, it has enough gravity where the human body might be able to adapt without crippling bone and muscle loss.
This makes Mars pretty ideal as a home base, if you assume that in the future we are planning to mine and process asteroids for rare minerals and metals.
This makes Mars pretty ideal as a home base, if you assume that in the future we are planning to mine and process asteroids for rare minerals and metals.
> it has enough gravity where the human body might be able to adapt without crippling bone and muscle loss.
I love the "might" qualifier.
Let's not forget the heart and circulatory problems too.
I love the "might" qualifier.
Let's not forget the heart and circulatory problems too.
why do we even care about all this. establishing a space station on mars to make it easier to travel the rest of the galaxy.. is already circular logic but we're 100s of years away from achieving that now. 20 to get a human there. 30 more to build anything habitable and then we don't even know if its self sustainable but if it is.. 20 or 30 more to build a viable space center anddddd... we haven't actually improved life at all, just explored a sliver more of the galaxy and none of us will even get to witness it .
Don't forget that "self sustainable" would be a pipe dream - there's no conceivable possibility of producing advanced machinery such as electronics on Mars given current or near-future technology.
Also, there's a very good chance that this type of exploration of Mars will forever contaminate it preventing us from using Mars to explore the origins of biological life, a much more important and achievable goal than space colonization, and one that doesn't shut out the other one in a farther future.
Also, there's a very good chance that this type of exploration of Mars will forever contaminate it preventing us from using Mars to explore the origins of biological life, a much more important and achievable goal than space colonization, and one that doesn't shut out the other one in a farther future.
It's a lovely dream though. Lots of people have grown up with that dream - it's going to be hard to give up. Surely we can spend a few bucks on it to show willing and satisfy the dreamers?
Lots of people have grown up dreaming their Hogwarts letter would arrive - I don't think that justifies spending any money to try to build a school of magic.
> establishing a space station on mars to make it easier to travel the rest of the galaxy..
Considering that the "rest of the galaxy", aka the Milky Way is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km give or take across, the 250,000,000 km to Mars aren't going to provide much of a head start.
Considering that the "rest of the galaxy", aka the Milky Way is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km give or take across, the 250,000,000 km to Mars aren't going to provide much of a head start.
Its the gate to the asteroid belt. Also only survivable body with some atmosphere reasonably close to Earth.
So as already mentioned, good local base for other activities in much more hostile surroundings.
So as already mentioned, good local base for other activities in much more hostile surroundings.
Buried ruins of a long gone civilization, maybe?
With instructions for their 'gone enabler' engraved in dura-marble?
SPACEDRIVE! :-)
With instructions for their 'gone enabler' engraved in dura-marble?
SPACEDRIVE! :-)
If the goal here is to suggest that Mars contains any natural resources of significant economic value, it doesn't.
"Broadcast videos of basketball games there" is the best proposed export I have seen. But the moon is better for that.
Not easier. More awesome.
> why aren't people doing this already on the Balleny Islands?
How would you make these islands habitable, including having a good atmosphere, without affecting the rest of Earth's ecosystem in undesirable ways?
That's one major difference. A goal of terraforming mars might actually be easier than terraforming remote islands on earth because:
A. It's an isolated system
B. We can afford to fail
How would you make these islands habitable, including having a good atmosphere, without affecting the rest of Earth's ecosystem in undesirable ways?
That's one major difference. A goal of terraforming mars might actually be easier than terraforming remote islands on earth because:
A. It's an isolated system
B. We can afford to fail
We have 8.x billion people on Terra, an environment with circa 4.x billion years of evolution for eukaryotes to thrive, and still we have about 1.x billion people undernourished with around 20,000 people dying of hunger each day [1], not to mention the other eukaryotes.
Our species has proven again and again it's inability to care for the extended tree of life, heck, we still believe there are sharp and crisp delimitations inside our own species (the blacks, the Jews, etc.). Why then this gaslighting about "we must save civilization"? Just because some of the billionaires, those who our system lets to own the world, are afraid of dying? Hey, rich guy [2], got news for you: we don't have a civilization, we are barely a bunch of pseudo-evolved tribes, infighting for trivial resources and perceived boundaries.
Let's figure out how to have a civilization, then, maybe, we can try to save it.
However, as it stands, "we must save civilization" is doublespeak for "you, hoi polloi, go and build an Elysium for me and my friends", just as the Qataris said to the slaves to build them stadiums [3]. And if you own less than $30 million [4], don't kid yourself, you are still hoi polloi.
[1] https://reliefweb.int/report/world/humanitarian-organisation...
[2] There are no rich gals https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012715/5-ric...
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/qatar-wo...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high-net-worth_individua...
Our species has proven again and again it's inability to care for the extended tree of life, heck, we still believe there are sharp and crisp delimitations inside our own species (the blacks, the Jews, etc.). Why then this gaslighting about "we must save civilization"? Just because some of the billionaires, those who our system lets to own the world, are afraid of dying? Hey, rich guy [2], got news for you: we don't have a civilization, we are barely a bunch of pseudo-evolved tribes, infighting for trivial resources and perceived boundaries.
Let's figure out how to have a civilization, then, maybe, we can try to save it.
However, as it stands, "we must save civilization" is doublespeak for "you, hoi polloi, go and build an Elysium for me and my friends", just as the Qataris said to the slaves to build them stadiums [3]. And if you own less than $30 million [4], don't kid yourself, you are still hoi polloi.
[1] https://reliefweb.int/report/world/humanitarian-organisation...
[2] There are no rich gals https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012715/5-ric...
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/03/qatar-wo...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high-net-worth_individua...
> However, as it stands, "we must save civilization" is doublespeak for "you, hoi polloi, go and build an Elysium for me and my friends", just as the Qataris said to the slaves to build them stadiums [3]. And if you own less than $30 million [4], don't kid yourself, you are still hoi polloi.
This is farcical on the face of it. There is no situation where the "hoi polloi" are going to be building colonies. This is a creation of science fiction with no basis on reality. You need fundamentally significant amounts of money to leave the planet. We're talking hundreds of thousands per person. Some rich person is not going to ship off people who are unwilling or don't want to go..
This is farcical on the face of it. There is no situation where the "hoi polloi" are going to be building colonies. This is a creation of science fiction with no basis on reality. You need fundamentally significant amounts of money to leave the planet. We're talking hundreds of thousands per person. Some rich person is not going to ship off people who are unwilling or don't want to go..
Id quod plerumque accidit [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States
Where are you going to find the legal system under which these "slaves" will exist? This is silly. No one anywhere is advocating for "slavery on Mars". You're just arguing in bad faith to create straw men for you to burn down.
How about in the US? "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States" [1].
However, if you are willing to regress the definition of slave to a 19th century understanding: are you being paid a wage to sell your time to build an Elysium for someone else?, do you have to wake up at a certain hour to go to work?, do you have to eat/urinate/defecate at certain hours provided by your work environment?, do you have to sleep at a certain hour to prepare for work?, do you have to work or suffer hunger -> homelessness -> death? You, me, we are the slaves already, only the whip is different. But if you own over $30 million, it's fine, you are on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog here.
[1] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment
However, if you are willing to regress the definition of slave to a 19th century understanding: are you being paid a wage to sell your time to build an Elysium for someone else?, do you have to wake up at a certain hour to go to work?, do you have to eat/urinate/defecate at certain hours provided by your work environment?, do you have to sleep at a certain hour to prepare for work?, do you have to work or suffer hunger -> homelessness -> death? You, me, we are the slaves already, only the whip is different. But if you own over $30 million, it's fine, you are on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog here.
[1] https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment
The problem with running a colony of 20k in Antarctica is a human/political one, not a technological one. We have been running one of over 2k on Spitsbergen, which is not terribly different in terms of climate and accessibility, for a long time. Assuming you even get your hypothetical Antarctic colony past whatever international treaties that apply, good luck resisting the inevitable backlash from environmentalists who will find the potential disturbance to a dozen penguins in a 100-kilometer radius of your proposed site an unacceptable risk.
One of the advantages of a Mars colony is that the argument for it infringing upon any existing interests is much weaker than for anywhere on Earth. Of course, to some people, the idea that someone could just go somewhere and do a thing without anyone (who those people of course claim to speak on behalf of) being in a position to claim injury is disturbing in itself.
One of the advantages of a Mars colony is that the argument for it infringing upon any existing interests is much weaker than for anywhere on Earth. Of course, to some people, the idea that someone could just go somewhere and do a thing without anyone (who those people of course claim to speak on behalf of) being in a position to claim injury is disturbing in itself.
There are regularly scheduled flight from e.g. London and Oslo for ~$100 to Spitsbergen. Plants grow there and it's inhabited by native mammals, not just "a dozen penguins". Apart from the adjectives "snowy" and "cold" being used to describe it, it has little in common with Antarctica.
This is what strikes me as notable: there are no Frontiers anymore (arguably there never were without massacring the existing inhabitants).
Space actually is one. And there are no (sentient) existing inhabitants.
IMO our current civilization has no way to account for, nor price, that reality - yet.
Space actually is one. And there are no (sentient) existing inhabitants.
IMO our current civilization has no way to account for, nor price, that reality - yet.
The oceans are our frontiers.
We know more about deep space than we do about deep water.
We know more about deep space than we do about deep water.
Additionally, an underwater civilization would make Humanity more resilient to some kinds of extinction events, if you care about that.
Indeed! If we can survive the wrath of The Deep Ones, we can survive anything!
An underwater civilization would be much less resilient to a nuclear attack originating from Earth, than an extra-terrestial civilization would be.
Submarines and nuclear tipped torpedoes can strike any point on the sea floor with almost no warning.
Submarines and nuclear tipped torpedoes can strike any point on the sea floor with almost no warning.
The oceans are all owned by various parties. They're use is governed by treaties and governments aggressively militarize development there (see how fishing boats are tracked and monitored).
They're very much not a frontier.
They're very much not a frontier.
That covers the surface.
There are places on Earth that we have never been to. The deep ocean is incredibly hard to get to.
There are places on Earth that we have never been to. The deep ocean is incredibly hard to get to.
An extinction level asteroid hitting the Earth'll hose an underwater settlement just as sure as an aboveground one.
>Let's figure out how to house and sustain, say, 20K people in Antarctica for 100 years before we even dream about doing the same on Mars.
you argue that it isn't economically viable to do this, and this is the reason it hasn't been done.
Currently the people in Antarctica are there on research projects, increasing it to 20K people would imply what? Something other than research? What do you think will be required to make Antarctica housing of 20K people for 100 years economically viable.
Finally, what do you think will be the effect on climate change of at minimum quadrupling the people in Antarctica and providing them some sort of economically viable reason for being there?
What do you think the effect of putting an output on Mars will be on Climate Change? I'm thinking negligible in comparison. Aside from all the other arguments that we CAN put people in Antarctica the complexity and side effects for our environment are more dangerous than putting them on Mars.
you argue that it isn't economically viable to do this, and this is the reason it hasn't been done.
Currently the people in Antarctica are there on research projects, increasing it to 20K people would imply what? Something other than research? What do you think will be required to make Antarctica housing of 20K people for 100 years economically viable.
Finally, what do you think will be the effect on climate change of at minimum quadrupling the people in Antarctica and providing them some sort of economically viable reason for being there?
What do you think the effect of putting an output on Mars will be on Climate Change? I'm thinking negligible in comparison. Aside from all the other arguments that we CAN put people in Antarctica the complexity and side effects for our environment are more dangerous than putting them on Mars.
> What do you think the effect of putting an output on Mars will be on Climate Change? I'm thinking negligible in comparison.
If you are seriously saying that getting 20k people to Mars is impacting Earths climate less than getting them to Mars then you need a reality check.
Hint: You can't not just not walk there, but anything apart from sunlight to support life isn't there which even Antarctica has in abundance (oxygen and water).
If you are seriously saying that getting 20k people to Mars is impacting Earths climate less than getting them to Mars then you need a reality check.
Hint: You can't not just not walk there, but anything apart from sunlight to support life isn't there which even Antarctica has in abundance (oxygen and water).
----
CO2 emissions per a Falcon 9 : 425.
Emissions per human on a Falcon 9 (assuming 4) : 106
Emissions for a Starship launch: 2700
Emissions per human on a Starship launch (assuming 100) : 27
Emissions per year for America: 5,000,000,000
Emissions per year for a single American: 15
Emissions per for for a single American over an 80 year lifespan: 1200
----
I don't know if people don't really appreciate how many people there are, overestimates rocket pollution, or just like some person reads something on the internet, somebody else repeats it, and nobody at any point bothers to see if what anybody is saying makes any sense. Rocket launches are such a nothing-burger in terms of emissions that yes sending people to Mars (assuming they stay for a while) would definitely be a net reduction in emissions.
For some fun tangential data, to match the current emissions of the US, alone, you'd need to launch about 12 million Falcon 9s. Last year was the biggest year, for space, by far with a whopping global total of 178 orbital launches. So the entire global pollution impact, for that record breaking year, was equivalent to ~5,000 Americans.
https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
CO2 emissions per a Falcon 9 : 425.
Emissions per human on a Falcon 9 (assuming 4) : 106
Emissions for a Starship launch: 2700
Emissions per human on a Starship launch (assuming 100) : 27
Emissions per year for America: 5,000,000,000
Emissions per year for a single American: 15
Emissions per for for a single American over an 80 year lifespan: 1200
----
I don't know if people don't really appreciate how many people there are, overestimates rocket pollution, or just like some person reads something on the internet, somebody else repeats it, and nobody at any point bothers to see if what anybody is saying makes any sense. Rocket launches are such a nothing-burger in terms of emissions that yes sending people to Mars (assuming they stay for a while) would definitely be a net reduction in emissions.
For some fun tangential data, to match the current emissions of the US, alone, you'd need to launch about 12 million Falcon 9s. Last year was the biggest year, for space, by far with a whopping global total of 178 orbital launches. So the entire global pollution impact, for that record breaking year, was equivalent to ~5,000 Americans.
https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...
thank you for the going and doing the work that I just couldn't get the energy up for.
> seriously saying that getting 20k people to Mars is impacting Earths climate less than getting them to Mars
It impacts the pristine nature of Antarctica less. You’re also ignoring motivation. There are smart people motivated to see Mars. (Maybe not to settle. But to visit. The same way one may be curious to visit Antarctica without wanting to live there.)
It impacts the pristine nature of Antarctica less. You’re also ignoring motivation. There are smart people motivated to see Mars. (Maybe not to settle. But to visit. The same way one may be curious to visit Antarctica without wanting to live there.)
>If you are seriously saying that getting 20k people to Mars is impacting Earths climate less than getting them to Mars then you need a reality check.
no I'm saying their excess heat generated in a polar region will be more detrimental than the excess heat generated on Mars will be. Among other things.
Basically that the day to day living in the area being damaged is going to be more damaging than the one off transportation. That said I haven't done the calculation, but since I was the first one to even bring it up I doubt anyone has done it either.
no I'm saying their excess heat generated in a polar region will be more detrimental than the excess heat generated on Mars will be. Among other things.
Basically that the day to day living in the area being damaged is going to be more damaging than the one off transportation. That said I haven't done the calculation, but since I was the first one to even bring it up I doubt anyone has done it either.
> no I'm saying their excess heat generated in a polar region will be more detrimental than the excess heat generated on Mars will be
This is not how climate works, not at all. The issue isn't “the amount of excess heat”, it's about how many shit-tons of greenhouse gases we would put in our atmosphere by sending those people to those two places.
And given you need to send more stuff on Mars to make it livable than on Antarctica + the fact that you'd send them with freaking rockets instead of boats, it's going to be several orders of magnitude more damaging.
This is not how climate works, not at all. The issue isn't “the amount of excess heat”, it's about how many shit-tons of greenhouse gases we would put in our atmosphere by sending those people to those two places.
And given you need to send more stuff on Mars to make it livable than on Antarctica + the fact that you'd send them with freaking rockets instead of boats, it's going to be several orders of magnitude more damaging.
That's the problem tho: we are operating on definitions of economic viability, not socio-ecological viability. Humanity on Earth is currently unsustainable because we're crashing face-first into a climate catastrophe and pulling any stops is not an option because it's not "economically viable".
I don't think there's any point in making life in Antarctica sustainable for now. But there's even less of a point in making life on Mars sustainable until we have made life on Earth sustainable first. Burning through resources on Earth to chase a pipedream of maybe having a self-sustaining colony on Mars a few hundred years from now is a luxury we can't afford at the moment -- and because we can't afford it it's doomed to fail even if we try.
I don't think there's any point in making life in Antarctica sustainable for now. But there's even less of a point in making life on Mars sustainable until we have made life on Earth sustainable first. Burning through resources on Earth to chase a pipedream of maybe having a self-sustaining colony on Mars a few hundred years from now is a luxury we can't afford at the moment -- and because we can't afford it it's doomed to fail even if we try.
There's a theory that these kinds of hard problem solving creates new technical solutions to similar, albeit easier problems, so sustainability of life on Mars may provide solutions for sustainability of life on Earth. As it happens I believe in this theory so I think developing for making a self-sustaining colony on Mars may be worth the extra effort.
Great point, we should colonize Mars because it might have benefits
that's often the retort to that theory, true, to which the comeback is generally something along the lines about every enemy of progress having said the same thing about every major discovery ever.
I mean I suppose you are familiar with these things, it's not like the history of this debate should be new and strange to readers of HN.
I mean I suppose you are familiar with these things, it's not like the history of this debate should be new and strange to readers of HN.
"every enemy of progress having said the same thing about every major discovery ever."
Oh, I'm sure that's absolutely true and not at all an exaggeration.
Oh, I'm sure that's absolutely true and not at all an exaggeration.
We’re not solving climate change because the solutions endanger the wealth of powerful interests and because getting large groups of people to agree to do things is hard. But the overall cost of solving the problem is quite modest: a few percent of world GDP for a few decades should do it. Not small, but a much smaller effort than war mobilizations.
Meanwhile NASA costs 0.15% of US GDP. I might want to bump that up to 0.3% or so, so that we can do Mars. Much more than that and I agree that we have other priorities (like climate change).
Meanwhile NASA costs 0.15% of US GDP. I might want to bump that up to 0.3% or so, so that we can do Mars. Much more than that and I agree that we have other priorities (like climate change).
>you argue that it isn't economically viable to do this, and this is the reason it hasn't been done.
Whereas the 100x more costing and 100x logistically harder case for Mars is?
>Currently the people in Antarctica are there on research projects, increasing it to 20K people would imply what?
That at least this level is realistic, and we're not jumping to conquer Everest when we aren't even fit to climb our 2% incline hill next to our house.
And that we can coordinate, invest, invent, build, and deploy, the infrastructure to make living there more livable and have an actual community there - even at "baby steps" level.
If anything that would make the idea of setting up anything more permanent and not a repeat of the moon-visits on Mars more viable: Lots of much simpler problems would have to be solved in a place like Antarctica first before one can even pretend to be able to solve the 100x bigger issues on Mars.
>What do you think the effect of putting an output on Mars will be on Climate Change?
Hugely detrimental, if not for anything else, for the false hope that climate change doesn't matter, we can always go to Mars if push comes to shove.
Whereas the 100x more costing and 100x logistically harder case for Mars is?
>Currently the people in Antarctica are there on research projects, increasing it to 20K people would imply what?
That at least this level is realistic, and we're not jumping to conquer Everest when we aren't even fit to climb our 2% incline hill next to our house.
And that we can coordinate, invest, invent, build, and deploy, the infrastructure to make living there more livable and have an actual community there - even at "baby steps" level.
If anything that would make the idea of setting up anything more permanent and not a repeat of the moon-visits on Mars more viable: Lots of much simpler problems would have to be solved in a place like Antarctica first before one can even pretend to be able to solve the 100x bigger issues on Mars.
>What do you think the effect of putting an output on Mars will be on Climate Change?
Hugely detrimental, if not for anything else, for the false hope that climate change doesn't matter, we can always go to Mars if push comes to shove.
> Currently the people in Antarctica are there on research projects, increasing it to 20K people would imply what? Something other than research? What do you think will be required to make Antarctica housing of 20K people for 100 years economically viable.
This is besides the fact that we've mandated by international law that Antarctica is forbidden from being "economically viable" because of the restriction on any economic activity. Plentiful (more than 20K) people live and work in the far northern arctic on the European and the North American continent with conditions roughly equivalent to those seen in the less extreme portions of Antarctica.
This is besides the fact that we've mandated by international law that Antarctica is forbidden from being "economically viable" because of the restriction on any economic activity. Plentiful (more than 20K) people live and work in the far northern arctic on the European and the North American continent with conditions roughly equivalent to those seen in the less extreme portions of Antarctica.
That is because there is something to exploit. Be it gas, oil, diamonds, some ore, or having a military presence with sensor platform (radar, whatever). What they all have in common is constant resupply, or at least the possibility there of, if need be. Or bailing out.
This comes off as extremely disingenuous. We aren't unable to inhabit Antarctica for the long term, we just aren't interested in doing so. We don't have much left to learn about living in space from living in Antarctica that we haven't already learned from the people who live in the various other parts of the world which do have permanent settlements and experience extreme cold for large parts of the year. Thus there is no real point to doing much else there in terms of human spaceflight.
Just like how America hasn't outright been unable to develop the means to go to the Moon again for the past 60 years, it just has had other priorities.
In fact, following your logic, Artemis also should be cancelled until we've spent the arbitrary duration of 100 years sitting around in Antarctica just to prove that we can do it.
An additional point being missed is that when we started talking about going to the Moon the first time around, we didn't really know how to do it, we sent out several impactors just to learn enough about the surface to decide where to go. By setting that goal we gathered data for the purpose and eventually managed to do it. Similarly, there will never be a time where we are 'ready' to go to Mars or any other distant celestial body if we just keep waiting for arbitrary requirements to be met. Right now it's living in Antarctica for 100 years, then it'll be something more ridiculous and arbitrary like maintaining an artificial atmosphere for 1000 years.
Right now we're in a similar phase for Mars as we were for the Moon in the early days of Apollo. We've been studying the surface for decades now, have got rovers storing away reference samples and testing oxygen production, we've even been testing how much mileage we can get with less conservative choices in hardware (eg Ingenuity's processor being much more modern than Perseverance's and Perseverance's landing footage being mostly off-the-shelf industrial cameras made possible by the more modern coprocessors being used to compress the video onboard before transmission).
A stated goal of Artemis is to use the Moon as a step to Mars, which it's turning out to be given that the only vehicle remotely capable of making the trip survivable is on the critical path of establishing a long-term presence on the Lunar surface. Everything that has to be developed for missions to Mars will end up tracing back to something tested or learned from Artemis, just as many aspects of Artemis are based on things tested on, developed for or learned from the ISS.
Just like how America hasn't outright been unable to develop the means to go to the Moon again for the past 60 years, it just has had other priorities.
In fact, following your logic, Artemis also should be cancelled until we've spent the arbitrary duration of 100 years sitting around in Antarctica just to prove that we can do it.
An additional point being missed is that when we started talking about going to the Moon the first time around, we didn't really know how to do it, we sent out several impactors just to learn enough about the surface to decide where to go. By setting that goal we gathered data for the purpose and eventually managed to do it. Similarly, there will never be a time where we are 'ready' to go to Mars or any other distant celestial body if we just keep waiting for arbitrary requirements to be met. Right now it's living in Antarctica for 100 years, then it'll be something more ridiculous and arbitrary like maintaining an artificial atmosphere for 1000 years.
Right now we're in a similar phase for Mars as we were for the Moon in the early days of Apollo. We've been studying the surface for decades now, have got rovers storing away reference samples and testing oxygen production, we've even been testing how much mileage we can get with less conservative choices in hardware (eg Ingenuity's processor being much more modern than Perseverance's and Perseverance's landing footage being mostly off-the-shelf industrial cameras made possible by the more modern coprocessors being used to compress the video onboard before transmission).
A stated goal of Artemis is to use the Moon as a step to Mars, which it's turning out to be given that the only vehicle remotely capable of making the trip survivable is on the critical path of establishing a long-term presence on the Lunar surface. Everything that has to be developed for missions to Mars will end up tracing back to something tested or learned from Artemis, just as many aspects of Artemis are based on things tested on, developed for or learned from the ISS.
> Right now we're in a similar phase for Mars as we were for the Moon in the early days of Apollo.
We're not. The longest Moon landing was 12 days. The goal of the Apollo mission was not to colonize the Moon. There's no Moon colony or any current plans for one.
If the goal was simply to visit Mars, that might be viable. But the goal of "let's make life interplanetary" is currently a pipe dream at best, a religious cult at worst.
We're not. The longest Moon landing was 12 days. The goal of the Apollo mission was not to colonize the Moon. There's no Moon colony or any current plans for one.
If the goal was simply to visit Mars, that might be viable. But the goal of "let's make life interplanetary" is currently a pipe dream at best, a religious cult at worst.
> no Moon colony or any current plans for one
Because nobody wants one. That’s not an understatement. We have the resources to begin colonising the Moon. But nobody wants to. People want to colonise Mars.
Because nobody wants one. That’s not an understatement. We have the resources to begin colonising the Moon. But nobody wants to. People want to colonise Mars.
> Because nobody wants one. That’s not an understatement.
That is an understatement. "People" have talked about a Moon colony for a long time. Even before there were Moon landings.
The primary difference is that a Moon colony doesn't have a billionaire propagandist.
That is an understatement. "People" have talked about a Moon colony for a long time. Even before there were Moon landings.
The primary difference is that a Moon colony doesn't have a billionaire propagandist.
> "People" have talked about a Moon colony for a long time
Talk is cheap. People are working on Mars.
Talk is cheap. People are working on Mars.
No, there are people working on rockets and talking about Mars. Not the same thing.
When is the Mars launch? What's the schedule? It's 100% vaporware.
When is the Mars launch? What's the schedule? It's 100% vaporware.
Come on, didn't you hear? Musk said in 2016 a meaningful number of people would be on Mars in 4 years. He has since extended that.... 2 years.
> there are people working on rockets and talking about Mars…it’s 100% vaporware
Methane engines and atmosphere-agnostic propulsive recovery are far from vapourware. It’s not a launch schedule. But that’s a straw man requirement for “working on” something.
Methane engines and atmosphere-agnostic propulsive recovery are far from vapourware. It’s not a launch schedule. But that’s a straw man requirement for “working on” something.
> It’s not a launch schedule. But that’s a straw man requirement for “working on” something.
It's not a straw man when you don't trust the word and good faith of a modern day "Music Man".
It's not a straw man when you don't trust the word and good faith of a modern day "Music Man".
> not a straw man when you don't trust the word and good faith
Then don’t.
Do you dispute that those technologies exist, and were developed by people dreaming of colonising Mars? The “when is the Mars launch” standard for “working on” something is a straw man because, by that definition, nobody is working on fusion energy or Alzheimer’s disease.
Then don’t.
Do you dispute that those technologies exist, and were developed by people dreaming of colonising Mars? The “when is the Mars launch” standard for “working on” something is a straw man because, by that definition, nobody is working on fusion energy or Alzheimer’s disease.
> Do you dispute that those technologies exist
You're talking about rocket technology. I already said, "If the goal was simply to visit Mars, that might be viable." The question is a permanent, self-sustaining Mars colony, where the biggest problem is not "Methane engines" but rather breathing oxygen, drinking water, eating food, not getting irradiated, not getting poisoned, not having circulatory problems, reproducing, and surviving in general.
> people dreaming of colonising Mars
Interesting that you use the word "dreaming".
You're talking about rocket technology. I already said, "If the goal was simply to visit Mars, that might be viable." The question is a permanent, self-sustaining Mars colony, where the biggest problem is not "Methane engines" but rather breathing oxygen, drinking water, eating food, not getting irradiated, not getting poisoned, not having circulatory problems, reproducing, and surviving in general.
> people dreaming of colonising Mars
Interesting that you use the word "dreaming".
I've been dreaming about getting dirty with young Cleopatra. Expect a working time machine any day now. All I'm currently missing are a flux capacitor and working out some details.
> Interesting that you use the word "dreaming"
Intentionally. Hackers dream. I have a background in aerospace engineering. That doesn’t mean I know how to solve the problems of permanent habitation. But it gives me a sense of where the edges are, and while some problems are super difficult (toxicity) others are wildly exaggerated (radiation) and none are blocking. Moreover, many of the processes we’ll need to develop have obvious counterparts on Earth, most interestingly, energy and fuel generation.
The author of the article wants an annual JWST or Cassini. I’d love that. But we aren’t getting it. De-funding Mars means going back to a post-Apollo NASA budget.
Intentionally. Hackers dream. I have a background in aerospace engineering. That doesn’t mean I know how to solve the problems of permanent habitation. But it gives me a sense of where the edges are, and while some problems are super difficult (toxicity) others are wildly exaggerated (radiation) and none are blocking. Moreover, many of the processes we’ll need to develop have obvious counterparts on Earth, most interestingly, energy and fuel generation.
The author of the article wants an annual JWST or Cassini. I’d love that. But we aren’t getting it. De-funding Mars means going back to a post-Apollo NASA budget.
SpaceX doesn't seem to have done any work on actually living day to day on Mars. Not even colonizing, just living. Where's the airlock that will reliably blow the perchlorate filled dust off spacesuits? A toilet that will work reliably and not fill a ship with aerosolized feces? Shit how about an actual static demonstrator for a Martian lander version of Starship? A working model methane processor demonstrating that fuel could be generated from Mars' atmosphere and stored for the duration of a launch window.
I'm sure they've got some engineering schematics for some of those things or re-warmed NASA papers about those topics floating around. But talking about Martian colonies without talking about the things that would just keep a couple of people alive is just bullshitting.
You're serious about an endeavor when you want to talk about the boring aspects of it. Talking up the exciting aspects is just bullshitting.
I'm sure they've got some engineering schematics for some of those things or re-warmed NASA papers about those topics floating around. But talking about Martian colonies without talking about the things that would just keep a couple of people alive is just bullshitting.
You're serious about an endeavor when you want to talk about the boring aspects of it. Talking up the exciting aspects is just bullshitting.
> SpaceX doesn't seem to have done any work on actually living day to day on Mars
Agreed. Most of the serious work on establishing visits is at NASA. But getting there and back sustainably is a big part of the problem. To borrow another comment’s analogy, we’re not going to establish a permanent presence (whether with a rotating cast of astronauts or permanent population) with the astrophysical equivalent of triremes.
Agreed. Most of the serious work on establishing visits is at NASA. But getting there and back sustainably is a big part of the problem. To borrow another comment’s analogy, we’re not going to establish a permanent presence (whether with a rotating cast of astronauts or permanent population) with the astrophysical equivalent of triremes.
This is yet another SpaceX, or rather a Musk, problem when it comes to Mars. Even the mission profile of Starship is talking about as-yet unproven claims about sustainability. The current profile for Starship is to launch an unmanned refueler and a trans-Mars ship. They rendezvous in Earth orbit, refuel, and the trans-Mars ship flies off for a Mars injection orbit.
Not only is Starship not currently flying but there's been no demonstrations of their in-orbit refueling, not even between two Dragon capsules. There's also been no demonstration of in-orbit engine reignition. No demonstration of multiple engine reignitions. These are all necessary components of any Starship mission. Starship must always have fuel for landing as there's no capability for it to do an unpowered landing.
This means without an in-orbit refueling its payload lift is massively compromised. It also doesn't have the fuel to get out of LEO without refueling.
Starship is currently making tiny baby steps towards launching while people talk it up like it's doing regularly scheduled launches. There are a lot of major unknowns in the Starship mission profile and there's no guarantee it can or will work as advertised. Even if it technically works the idea there's going to be daily launches is currently a pipe dream.
Not only is Starship not currently flying but there's been no demonstrations of their in-orbit refueling, not even between two Dragon capsules. There's also been no demonstration of in-orbit engine reignition. No demonstration of multiple engine reignitions. These are all necessary components of any Starship mission. Starship must always have fuel for landing as there's no capability for it to do an unpowered landing.
This means without an in-orbit refueling its payload lift is massively compromised. It also doesn't have the fuel to get out of LEO without refueling.
Starship is currently making tiny baby steps towards launching while people talk it up like it's doing regularly scheduled launches. There are a lot of major unknowns in the Starship mission profile and there's no guarantee it can or will work as advertised. Even if it technically works the idea there's going to be daily launches is currently a pipe dream.
They're still working on the means to get there - which will set the limits on everything else - so it's pretty ridiculous to be arguing that they aren't serious because they haven't gotten to the rest of the work.
> so it's pretty ridiculous to be arguing that they aren't serious because they haven't gotten to the rest of the work
Not in the slightest. SpaceX's proposed Starship design has known mass and envelope limits. All of the required support systems can be designed with those limits (or subset thereof) as part of the constraints. In fact now is the best time to start designing those because it can inform design criteria or mission profiles for Starship. Having those as handwave-y unknowns while talking about colonies is just absurd.
A manned landing on Mars requires they have months worth of reliable support infrastructure available. None of that is just going to appear. It all needs to be built and landed with or before humans. It needs to be repairable with tools on hand. It must power on an be functional on Day 1. You're not serious about landing people on Mars let alone building a colony without talking about the "boring" infrastructure that will keep everyone alive.
Not in the slightest. SpaceX's proposed Starship design has known mass and envelope limits. All of the required support systems can be designed with those limits (or subset thereof) as part of the constraints. In fact now is the best time to start designing those because it can inform design criteria or mission profiles for Starship. Having those as handwave-y unknowns while talking about colonies is just absurd.
A manned landing on Mars requires they have months worth of reliable support infrastructure available. None of that is just going to appear. It all needs to be built and landed with or before humans. It needs to be repairable with tools on hand. It must power on an be functional on Day 1. You're not serious about landing people on Mars let alone building a colony without talking about the "boring" infrastructure that will keep everyone alive.
Even Starship's exact payload capability isn't set in stone just yet (the stated numbers are targets requiring optimization of the design beyond what the current prototypes have), nor is the amount of refueling needed. Even the fuel transfer system hasn't been concretely settled on yet. While they are working on catching, there isn't enough certainty on its reliability (particularly for the ships).
Hell, as it stands it isn't even clear if initial vehicles will need auxiliary thrusters to avoid digging up a hole upon landing. Even NASA seems to be uncertain about that one.
So yes, it is ridiculous to argue that they aren't serious about setting up a colony based on what they're doing right now.
Beyond that though, they're working on the spacesuits (granted, they're so early into that they're nowhere near ones usable on Mars) and they have demonstrated the ability to perform some amount of important maintenance on the Starship vehicles without needing machinery that isn't easy to bring along.
Hell, as it stands it isn't even clear if initial vehicles will need auxiliary thrusters to avoid digging up a hole upon landing. Even NASA seems to be uncertain about that one.
So yes, it is ridiculous to argue that they aren't serious about setting up a colony based on what they're doing right now.
Beyond that though, they're working on the spacesuits (granted, they're so early into that they're nowhere near ones usable on Mars) and they have demonstrated the ability to perform some amount of important maintenance on the Starship vehicles without needing machinery that isn't easy to bring along.
> They're still working on the means to get there - which will set the limits on everything else
It doesn't. The Martian environment sets the limits on everything else. You could drag the entire Earth over next to Mars, and people still couldn't live there.
The irony is that the hypothetical "What if the Earth became uninhabitable?" is effectively the same as "What if the Earth became just like Mars?"
It doesn't. The Martian environment sets the limits on everything else. You could drag the entire Earth over next to Mars, and people still couldn't live there.
The irony is that the hypothetical "What if the Earth became uninhabitable?" is effectively the same as "What if the Earth became just like Mars?"
People want to colonize mars because they don’t grasp how much it would utterly suck to go to mars. Mars missions make the Apollo program look like a luxury cruise.
The majority of the population on Earth doesn't need to want to go to Mars, only a small minority does. That small minority has to overlap with those who can actually fund it.
Much of the small minority would change their mind when faced with the reality of it. Assuming you actually make it there alive, it will be physically and mentally grueling to continue to exist there. Colonization is a significantly different scenario than manned mission to plant a flag in the ground.
If you asked the early Europeans coming over from Europe to North America if they regretted leaving I'm sure many would say that they did, and in fact many did return. That doesn't change the fact that a substantial number of those early arrivers did stay for the long run.
There may even be failed attempts where everyone dies in an accident as there were failed colonies.
There may even be failed attempts where everyone dies in an accident as there were failed colonies.
So imagine you're a European in the new world... but also you can't breathe the air, go outside your tiny room, and are constantly being bombarded with radiation.
China and Russia are currently planning to go to the Moon and build a base there.
> > People want to colonise Mars
Until they are asked to go AND stay for say 5 years, then all of a sudden it's a completely different answer they'll give you.
Until they are asked to go AND stay for say 5 years, then all of a sudden it's a completely different answer they'll give you.
More like stay and die there. How are you going to refuel on mars? You aren't going to build an entire pipeline of industries in just a couple years to get off Mars, and shipping that much fuel to Mars would be ridiculous. They better start sending fuel now if they expect to have enough to make it back.
The only reasonable method of shipping rocket fuel to Mars or anywhere else in the solar system is to mine and refine it off the moon or an asteroid, which means a moon base or mostly self-sustained asteroid colony would need to exist first.
The only reasonable method of shipping rocket fuel to Mars or anywhere else in the solar system is to mine and refine it off the moon or an asteroid, which means a moon base or mostly self-sustained asteroid colony would need to exist first.
> How are you going to refuel on mars?
Why do you think we’re refining methane-burning engines?
Why do you think we’re refining methane-burning engines?
And where is that raw methane going to come from? Its not like there is a lake of methane you can just suck up on Mars. What about the oxygen needed to burn that methane?
You are going to need to produce 10,000x more energy than your fuel contains to make the fuel, and that energy has to come from somewhere.
You are going to need to produce 10,000x more energy than your fuel contains to make the fuel, and that energy has to come from somewhere.
> And where is that raw methane going to come from? Its not like there is a lake of methane you can just suck up on Mars. What about the oxygen needed to burn that methane?
Are you even attempting to Google these questions before posting them here with such an aggressive tone? Manufacturing oxygen on Mars is demonstrated engineering [1]. Manufacturing methane, theoretically sound and demonstrated in the lab [2].
This is what I meant by the aggressive strain of ignorance having overtaken the science with popular astronautics [3]. Some folks read a hot take on Musk and what Hawthorne hasn't done, ignore the thousands of scientists demonstrating actual technology a hundred million miles away, and then assume they're vindicated when the rest of us get tired of arguing with willful denseness.
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abp8636
[2] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20170001421/downloads/20...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34223253
Are you even attempting to Google these questions before posting them here with such an aggressive tone? Manufacturing oxygen on Mars is demonstrated engineering [1]. Manufacturing methane, theoretically sound and demonstrated in the lab [2].
This is what I meant by the aggressive strain of ignorance having overtaken the science with popular astronautics [3]. Some folks read a hot take on Musk and what Hawthorne hasn't done, ignore the thousands of scientists demonstrating actual technology a hundred million miles away, and then assume they're vindicated when the rest of us get tired of arguing with willful denseness.
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abp8636
[2] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20170001421/downloads/20...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34223253
Even your sources are giving multiple years of 24/7 operation under ideal conditions to produce what is necessary for a single launch, that doesn't seem very reasonable to me. How much energy are we able to actually generate on Mars? From what I understand solar panels are not that great in the Mars environment. And any sort of material processing is going to take a whole lot of energy.
I just don't see a Mars colony as a reasonable goal without sending potentially thousands of rockets full of tools and materials, which is too expensive to do without an already existent space mining and processing industry.
I just don't see a Mars colony as a reasonable goal without sending potentially thousands of rockets full of tools and materials, which is too expensive to do without an already existent space mining and processing industry.
Anyone who seriously wants to go to Mars that I've ever talked to is well aware of how long they'd be going.
> Until they are asked to go AND stay for say 5 years, then all of a sudden is a completely different answer they'll give you
That’s fine. Wanting to colonise Mars, and being willing to work on it, and not on say crypto or ad serving or military pursuits, is still a net win.
That’s fine. Wanting to colonise Mars, and being willing to work on it, and not on say crypto or ad serving or military pursuits, is still a net win.
> > and not on say crypto or ad serving or military pursuits, is still a net win
We are not in the 1960s anymore, the US should do better than just an Apollo program 2.0, going into crazy Mars expenditures without a plan would guarantee you just that.
The inspiration should be the Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan.
In both instances the super-geniuses with type-A personality got you to the Promised Land, but then what happens? They move on the next shiny thing. Nonetheless The Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan were able to continue because once the super-geniuses got the US to the Promised Land there were operators who got to keep the project going.
Generals, admirals, ambassadors were more than willing to dedicate their lives as operators to make sure that the U.S. Govt and its citizens would actually get a ROI on the 2 endeavours. You can say it's patriotism, status-seeking, the thrill to have authority over powerful weapons, borders and huge economic resources. Whatever the reason there were operators at the helm once the super-geniuses got out of the picutre.
The Apollo Program had the same amount of super-geniuses but no operators to take the helm to secure ROI, that's the reason why the U.S. Govt. had to pull the plug on the whole program.
Operators are not interested in writing their name in history books, they need enemies and competition to beat and take resources away from them. Said resources would then be paraded around and shown to citizens in order to both show the competence of said operators and improve the quality of life of American citizens.
What resources can be extracted from Mars and given to citizens in order to propel their quality of life?
If you think the infamous "We are there for the oil!" was bad then I guarantee you that "We don't know why we are there at all!" is much worse.
The former people will understand the rationale and even accept it, while being openly critic about it in public they'd be at peace with it while in the privacy of their homes with the curtain closed. The latter, not so much.
We are not in the 1960s anymore, the US should do better than just an Apollo program 2.0, going into crazy Mars expenditures without a plan would guarantee you just that.
The inspiration should be the Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan.
In both instances the super-geniuses with type-A personality got you to the Promised Land, but then what happens? They move on the next shiny thing. Nonetheless The Manhattan Project and the Marshall Plan were able to continue because once the super-geniuses got the US to the Promised Land there were operators who got to keep the project going.
Generals, admirals, ambassadors were more than willing to dedicate their lives as operators to make sure that the U.S. Govt and its citizens would actually get a ROI on the 2 endeavours. You can say it's patriotism, status-seeking, the thrill to have authority over powerful weapons, borders and huge economic resources. Whatever the reason there were operators at the helm once the super-geniuses got out of the picutre.
The Apollo Program had the same amount of super-geniuses but no operators to take the helm to secure ROI, that's the reason why the U.S. Govt. had to pull the plug on the whole program.
Operators are not interested in writing their name in history books, they need enemies and competition to beat and take resources away from them. Said resources would then be paraded around and shown to citizens in order to both show the competence of said operators and improve the quality of life of American citizens.
What resources can be extracted from Mars and given to citizens in order to propel their quality of life?
If you think the infamous "We are there for the oil!" was bad then I guarantee you that "We don't know why we are there at all!" is much worse.
The former people will understand the rationale and even accept it, while being openly critic about it in public they'd be at peace with it while in the privacy of their homes with the curtain closed. The latter, not so much.
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This 1960:moon :: 2022:Mars idea is a convenient assumption, but gets less plausible the closer you look. Mars is just way, way harder, and we have not improved our capability by anything like the difference.
"Just like how America hasn't outright been unable to develop the means to go to the Moon again for the past 60 years, it just has had other priorities."
What would those priorities be?
Other than arming itself and expanding NATO to the borders of Russian Federation? Bombing Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia and other nations to the Stone Age?
Honestly, I want to know which priorities made the trip back to the Moon impossible?
What would those priorities be?
Other than arming itself and expanding NATO to the borders of Russian Federation? Bombing Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia and other nations to the Stone Age?
Honestly, I want to know which priorities made the trip back to the Moon impossible?
> Let's figure out how to house and sustain, say, 20K people in Antarctica for 100 years before we even dream about doing the same on Mars.
Why? We established a colony there in the 50s and by now the population of Antarctica ranges from 1K to 5K people depending on the season. We could build nuclear reactors and mining facilities and indoor vertical farms and a whole bunch of other industry to make the continent self sufficient and import more people but... why? We really won't learn much more there than we can from the ISS agriculture experiments, McMurdo's existing research, how Saudi Arabia and the other rich states grow and survive in extreme environments, and so on. And you want to delay everything while we twiddle our thumbs for another century?
We need to aim higher to create the kind of cross disciplinary projects and environments that lead to real "innovation." We need to go into space - not Mars yet because there really is nothing to do there until we get our non-robotic space-footing closer to home - but we need to move on to a less pedestrian approach that pushes the boundaries.
We need near Earth asteroid mining to understand the complexities of resource extraction in space, we need lunar colonies to study the day to day realities/psychology/etc of space colonization, we need orbital manufacturing so we can start adapting the lessons and tools of the industrial revolution to zero-G and convection-less environments, we need to continue nuclear rocketry research to improve our ISP and get real SSTO to solve the recovery problem once and for all, and so on. We're not going to make any progress on those problems in Antarctica and Mars will always be two decades away just like fusion.
Why? We established a colony there in the 50s and by now the population of Antarctica ranges from 1K to 5K people depending on the season. We could build nuclear reactors and mining facilities and indoor vertical farms and a whole bunch of other industry to make the continent self sufficient and import more people but... why? We really won't learn much more there than we can from the ISS agriculture experiments, McMurdo's existing research, how Saudi Arabia and the other rich states grow and survive in extreme environments, and so on. And you want to delay everything while we twiddle our thumbs for another century?
We need to aim higher to create the kind of cross disciplinary projects and environments that lead to real "innovation." We need to go into space - not Mars yet because there really is nothing to do there until we get our non-robotic space-footing closer to home - but we need to move on to a less pedestrian approach that pushes the boundaries.
We need near Earth asteroid mining to understand the complexities of resource extraction in space, we need lunar colonies to study the day to day realities/psychology/etc of space colonization, we need orbital manufacturing so we can start adapting the lessons and tools of the industrial revolution to zero-G and convection-less environments, we need to continue nuclear rocketry research to improve our ISP and get real SSTO to solve the recovery problem once and for all, and so on. We're not going to make any progress on those problems in Antarctica and Mars will always be two decades away just like fusion.
What we have on Antarctica is an outpost, not a colony. It's made up of habitats, not homes. It has virtually no local industry, and cannot support itself. The only way it could endure for longer than its food reserves is by fishing, which is obviously not an option on Mars.
We haven't even solved the easy case where water and oxygen are available in unlimited quantities, let alone the much harder scenario of space or another planet.
We haven't even solved the easy case where water and oxygen are available in unlimited quantities, let alone the much harder scenario of space or another planet.
That is because of a treaty, not because of inability.
No. It's because it's not economically worthwhile yet to do anything significant in Antarctica given the costs of doing something. Treaties will get renegotiated if there is enough economic value and in any case, treaties need to have millitary might ultimately to get enforced. The Budapest treaties never got enforced as an example and that's why we are where we are in Ukraine
I'm fairly certain there would be major mining, commercial fishing, and oil drilling operations in Antarctica today it weren't for the Antarctic Treaty. (Also, wars.) It's a geopolitical accident that everything worked out so well with the treaty. I doubt it will hold forever.
Perhaps you're forgetting that the initial detailed resource assessment (exploratory drilling etc.) is also prohibited, which stops investment from getting a foothold.
(I spent a lot of time down there)
Edit: thinking a bit more... Why do you say the treaty isn't enforced? I've been under federal investigation for what some people thought was a violation of the Antarctic Conservation Act (US law enforcing the treaty). I don't think anyone has ever been charged under that law so you could be right, but I was scared and I assure you people take the ACA seriously.
Perhaps you're forgetting that the initial detailed resource assessment (exploratory drilling etc.) is also prohibited, which stops investment from getting a foothold.
(I spent a lot of time down there)
Edit: thinking a bit more... Why do you say the treaty isn't enforced? I've been under federal investigation for what some people thought was a violation of the Antarctic Conservation Act (US law enforcing the treaty). I don't think anyone has ever been charged under that law so you could be right, but I was scared and I assure you people take the ACA seriously.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Yes indeed the treaties prevent "privateer" operations. They don't prevent major nation state level economic operations backed by millitary force it one decides it needs the resources. You can see some of this playing out in Ukraine, South China Sea etc. This is even true for large scale private organisations Vs smaller countries though setting aside Antarctic treaty will require more millitary might - see squid fishing off Chile or drug cartel control of central America as examples.
Your argument seems to be "treaties between nations are violated whenever it becomes expedient." This might be true in some cases, but I think a the Antarctic Treaty is a great counterexample.
Do you know about the overlapping territorial wedge claims in Antarctica and how they were suspended by the treaty? If not I think you would find it quite interesting.
Do you know about the overlapping territorial wedge claims in Antarctica and how they were suspended by the treaty? If not I think you would find it quite interesting.
While it looks like there are resources (oil, gas and coal being mentioned) it does not seem they have been mined before the current treaty cam into effect, most likely due to the 19/early 20 century technology.
But there certainly were substantial whaling stations in Antarctica for a while, with quite a lot of people & much more primitive technology compared to what we have now.
But there certainly were substantial whaling stations in Antarctica for a while, with quite a lot of people & much more primitive technology compared to what we have now.
The Budapest Memorandum was specifically not a treaty. The US and UK did enforce the terms as written by raising Russia's invasion as an issue in the UN Security Council. The memorandum didn't require them to do anything more.
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000...
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000...
> It's because it's not economically worthwhile
Given that there's laws and international treaties forbidding mining, resource extraction or resource exploration, of course it's not economically worthwhile.
Given that there's laws and international treaties forbidding mining, resource extraction or resource exploration, of course it's not economically worthwhile.
The northernmost part of Canada is Ellesmere Island. Which is almost as large as Great Britain. There is no "you may not settle here" international treaty.
Wikipedia gives the entire island's population as 144 - all of them at a military base. [Edit: Vs. a population of ~61 million for Great Britain.]
Actual daily life in the high arctic/antarctic is nowhere near so desirable as many people want to believe.
Wikipedia gives the entire island's population as 144 - all of them at a military base. [Edit: Vs. a population of ~61 million for Great Britain.]
Actual daily life in the high arctic/antarctic is nowhere near so desirable as many people want to believe.
It’s not desirable, but that isn’t the question. The question is, is it possible?
There's a similar treaty preventing Mars settlement.
I don't think that's true. What is the alleged treaty called? The Antarctic Treaty binds the contracting states to prohibit individuals from doing various things in Antarctica, the Outer Space Treaty doesn't really do that, and arguably does the opposite by prohibiting territorial claims. Regardless, I don't think any treaty should be taken very seriously. They will both be violated whenever it's expedient to violate them.
Quoting the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, "States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies."
The 1960's definition of "harmful contamination" sure leaves a lot of wiggle room.
That's true, but it's defined (and kept up to date) in practice by COSPAR, who have a pretty elaborate set of definitions in place for Mars in particular.
COSPAR is (officially speaking) a private body, and as such their Planetary Protection Policy is not legally binding. They propose their policy as an interpretation of Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, but as a private body they lack the legal authority to make binding interpretations of an international treaty. The standard approach in international law would be to look at the intentions and understanding of the States Parties at the time the Treaty was originally concluded in order to interpret it - which would likely support a far weaker understanding of “harmful contamination” than what COSPAR proposes.
The rules for Mars aren't based in the treaty but instead on "planetary protection" an abstract policy coming from no law other than forms of regressive environmentalism that tries to limit contamination so that it's easier to find potential microbes. It's already actively harming site selection for Mars exploration by preventing sending of rovers that might discover life to actual areas that might have life.
To save the possibility of finding life we are preventing ourselves from finding life.
To save the possibility of finding life we are preventing ourselves from finding life.
As it should, though? At that point in time it was more of "we'll know it when we'll see it".
With that kind of wiggle room, it usually ends up being "We'll disagree when it becomes relevant".
The treaty doesn't prevent Mars settlement. It just prevents claiming of territory. Antarctic treaty is actually significantly stricter than the outer space treaty in many ways.
We will learn much more on how to build Mars colony from Mars outpost than from Antarctica colony.
By this argument, Leonardo would have learned a lot more about flight from trying to build a rocket to the Moon than from trying to build a glider or studying bird flight.
That is, attempting something that is impossible given your current level of engineering is not likely to produce any useful results.
That is, attempting something that is impossible given your current level of engineering is not likely to produce any useful results.
> Leonardo would have learned a lot more about flight from trying to build a rocket to the Moon than from trying to build a glider or studying bird flight.
Ridiculous, given that flight is entirely about swimming through the air, while space rocketry is mostly about how to get through and out of the atmosphere ASAP.
(Not to mention, rocketry as a field was already making better progress than flight back then.)
> That is, attempting something that is impossible given your current level of engineering is not likely to produce any useful results.
This is how we've always been learning, though. Even Leonardo and other early pioneers of flight constantly attempted things impossible at their level. It's those attempts that led to progress - the theory and methods to solve such problems on paper came about only in the century.
Incidentally, it also turned out that studying bird flight was a waste of time - bird flight is too complicated for us to replicate even these days, and we mostly don't bother, because simpler systems yield better results for the kind of needs we have now.
Ridiculous, given that flight is entirely about swimming through the air, while space rocketry is mostly about how to get through and out of the atmosphere ASAP.
(Not to mention, rocketry as a field was already making better progress than flight back then.)
> That is, attempting something that is impossible given your current level of engineering is not likely to produce any useful results.
This is how we've always been learning, though. Even Leonardo and other early pioneers of flight constantly attempted things impossible at their level. It's those attempts that led to progress - the theory and methods to solve such problems on paper came about only in the century.
Incidentally, it also turned out that studying bird flight was a waste of time - bird flight is too complicated for us to replicate even these days, and we mostly don't bother, because simpler systems yield better results for the kind of needs we have now.
We already know all the basics about agriculture for example. Hardly any of the problems we need to solve to do agriculture in Antarctica are the same as the problems we need to solve to do it in Mars. The soil medium is different, the processing needed to make it useful for agriculture is different, the light levels are different, the atmospheric environment is different.
Ultimately Antarctica is so similar to, say, a mountaintop in the USA, or even a lab in a US city compared to Mars that I dont really see the added value. The unknown problems we will face on Mars are there on Mars, not here.
Will a city on Mars ever be viable, let alone self sufficient? I have my doubts, but there’s only one way to find out.
Ultimately Antarctica is so similar to, say, a mountaintop in the USA, or even a lab in a US city compared to Mars that I dont really see the added value. The unknown problems we will face on Mars are there on Mars, not here.
Will a city on Mars ever be viable, let alone self sufficient? I have my doubts, but there’s only one way to find out.
Now try growing grain indoor with lights instead of just lettuce with no caloric value for multiple years with no outside input. And also balancing crop carbon needs against human breathing needs in a closed capsule without having something like mold or algae or other bacteria from throwing everything off balance because you lack 99.99% of the ecological diversity of anywhere on Earth. Or having access to fossil-fueled derived fertilizers which takes massive amounts of energy to produce without natural gas.
It sure as hell doesn't make sense to ship fertilizer from the surface of the Earth to Mars, or water, or really anything other than handfuls of extremely specialized equipment like computer chips or extremely difficult to obtain or rare chemicals or elements. You are going to need sustainability of all your basic resources for years, if not decades, before you ever have a chance of assaying and mining and processing such materials for yourself.
How much enriched nuclear material can we really send up in a rocket at a time in order to fuel the massive energy requirements of such a colony? We sure as hell don't want to send up multiple tons of enriched material at a time in a rocket to potentially fail during launch, and we would need that much energy to build any sort of functioning industry on Mars so it is anything more than a glorified emergency bunker where we send people to die.
How much enriched nuclear material can we really send up in a rocket at a time in order to fuel the massive energy requirements of such a colony? We sure as hell don't want to send up multiple tons of enriched material at a time in a rocket to potentially fail during launch, and we would need that much energy to build any sort of functioning industry on Mars so it is anything more than a glorified emergency bunker where we send people to die.
Knowing the basics is still far removed from demonstrating self-sufficient capability at civilizational time scales. How many successful, isolated biodome projects are there? My understanding is that every one so far has failed. Theory ain't practice.
Of course, my point is that Antarctica is insufficiently different from e.g. Boston to make any difference to any research we might perform on earth. Meanwhile there will be conditions on Mars we can’t anticipate or fully simulate anywhere on earth. We need to do both.
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> That is, attempting something that is impossible given your current level of engineering is not likely to produce any useful results.
Engineering advances fundamentally by trying to do things you haven't done before. If you already know how to do it, you higher a technician and hand him the instructions. (Many software developers for example are closer to trades people/technicians than actual engineers.)
Engineering advances fundamentally by trying to do things you haven't done before. If you already know how to do it, you higher a technician and hand him the instructions. (Many software developers for example are closer to trades people/technicians than actual engineers.)
>By this argument, Leonardo would have learned a lot more about flight from trying to build a rocket to the Moon than from trying to build a glider or studying bird flight.
By this argument, Leonardo would have learned a lot more about cultivating apples by cultivating oranges.
By this argument, Leonardo would have learned a lot more about cultivating apples by cultivating oranges.
I think this whole argument boils down to "people need to be inspired to do something great". Settling Antarctica isn't as inspiring as colonizing Mars.
But in my estimation, colonizing Mars would run out of steam really quickly. Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring. There isn't that much geological diversity, and there's no life. You wouldn't want to take a vacation there. I know there's going to be a lot of people here who are going to say "No! Mars is really cool!" The people here aren't normal. Living in a cave underground without being able to go outside and see the sun or take a walk is a nightmare for most people.
Landing on Mars could inspire lots of people. But once it's done, its mystique is just going to wear off. People will lose interest and it'll be about as interesting as Antarctica. And then what?
But in my estimation, colonizing Mars would run out of steam really quickly. Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring. There isn't that much geological diversity, and there's no life. You wouldn't want to take a vacation there. I know there's going to be a lot of people here who are going to say "No! Mars is really cool!" The people here aren't normal. Living in a cave underground without being able to go outside and see the sun or take a walk is a nightmare for most people.
Landing on Mars could inspire lots of people. But once it's done, its mystique is just going to wear off. People will lose interest and it'll be about as interesting as Antarctica. And then what?
The "Terra Ignota" series really gets into this question in a way that finally broke me out of what I agree to be a sort of "faith" in the Idea of Mars. For me, Mars has always been an obvious target for the reasons discussed here re: inspiration, but also because I feel terror at the idea of all of our species on one planet with no backup.
In Terra Ignota, there's a "nation" (the novel has a radically different concept of sovereign states an nationhood than our world today) composed of people who many here I think would identify with: they take a vow both of productivity and leisure so as to maximize their potential ability to contribute to the betterment of the human race, and their national obsession is the eventual (500 year timeline) colonization of Mars.
(spoilers)
A critical ideological revelation in the novel is that despite the fact that basically the entire nation is obsessed with the eventual colonization of Mars (they send their bodily remains there so as to increase the organic biomass), when push came to shove for the idea of actually putting people on the planet, it was realized by many in the nation that they don't actually want to abandon all of humanity on Earth for a life sentence of scrabbling out a hard life on Mars. Not because they don't want to put in the work, they are arguably the hardest working society in the series, but more like, it would just separate them for the remainder of their lives from all of humanity, and they have to acknowledge to themselves that they don't want that.
As cool as you can make Mars with improving colonization technologies,I think that for a ticket to Mars to be economical from a labor, safety, equipment, and resources standpoint, it has to be one way. It has to be you telling yourself that you will die on Mars, away from all of humanity but the smallest slice. I think that's a pill too bitter to swallow.
In Terra Ignota, there's a "nation" (the novel has a radically different concept of sovereign states an nationhood than our world today) composed of people who many here I think would identify with: they take a vow both of productivity and leisure so as to maximize their potential ability to contribute to the betterment of the human race, and their national obsession is the eventual (500 year timeline) colonization of Mars.
(spoilers)
A critical ideological revelation in the novel is that despite the fact that basically the entire nation is obsessed with the eventual colonization of Mars (they send their bodily remains there so as to increase the organic biomass), when push came to shove for the idea of actually putting people on the planet, it was realized by many in the nation that they don't actually want to abandon all of humanity on Earth for a life sentence of scrabbling out a hard life on Mars. Not because they don't want to put in the work, they are arguably the hardest working society in the series, but more like, it would just separate them for the remainder of their lives from all of humanity, and they have to acknowledge to themselves that they don't want that.
As cool as you can make Mars with improving colonization technologies,I think that for a ticket to Mars to be economical from a labor, safety, equipment, and resources standpoint, it has to be one way. It has to be you telling yourself that you will die on Mars, away from all of humanity but the smallest slice. I think that's a pill too bitter to swallow.
> I think that's a pill too bitter to swallow.
And what a fate to impose on your children. You personally may choose the hardest road, but your unborn children would have no choice in the matter, and those future children would be essential to a permanent colony.
Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Mars (if that's even medically viable) decide that Mars totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Earth?
Do we build a wall around Earth and stop them as "illegal aliens"?
Seriously, life on Earth is likely to be much better, much easier than life on Mars, so there's going to be a desire among a significant number of Martians to leave, just as there's a desire among Earthlings to move for a better life. Then what? In order to keep the Mars colony sufficiently "staffed", do you turn it into a totalitarian regime, where nobody can leave? No personal freedom?
How many of us want to sacrifice our lives and our happiness just to be a "backup plan"?
I rarely if ever hear space enthusiasts talk about the morality of a Mars colony. They act like it's just a technological problem, and it's somehow a given that we can put large numbers of humans wherever we want, whether or not the humans themselves would want that.
And what a fate to impose on your children. You personally may choose the hardest road, but your unborn children would have no choice in the matter, and those future children would be essential to a permanent colony.
Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Mars (if that's even medically viable) decide that Mars totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Earth?
Do we build a wall around Earth and stop them as "illegal aliens"?
Seriously, life on Earth is likely to be much better, much easier than life on Mars, so there's going to be a desire among a significant number of Martians to leave, just as there's a desire among Earthlings to move for a better life. Then what? In order to keep the Mars colony sufficiently "staffed", do you turn it into a totalitarian regime, where nobody can leave? No personal freedom?
How many of us want to sacrifice our lives and our happiness just to be a "backup plan"?
I rarely if ever hear space enthusiasts talk about the morality of a Mars colony. They act like it's just a technological problem, and it's somehow a given that we can put large numbers of humans wherever we want, whether or not the humans themselves would want that.
It may not be biologically possible for those who grew up on a low-gravity planet like Mars to emigrate to a higher-gravity one like Earth.
tl;dw: Anybody born there, provided that is possible at all, could not walk on Earth: their skeleton would not support them.
Slight correction: An average Martian could not walk on Earth. An extreme weightlifter trained on Mars would barely be able to walk on Earth.
> Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Mars (if that's even medically viable) decide that Mars totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Earth?
This is essentially the plot of Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (albeit on a generation ship heading mission to another solar system(
This is essentially the plot of Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (albeit on a generation ship heading mission to another solar system(
Moral dilemma: What if children conceived and born on Earth decide that Earth totally sucks, and they want to migrate to Mars?
Do we build a wall around Mars and tell them their shitty life on earth is all they get, and they should be happy with antarctica?
I think your moral argument can easily be flipped, why do you get to decide that we shouldnt do something because there exist people who dont want to do it? What of the the people who do?
If you dont want to go, then dont go...
Do we build a wall around Mars and tell them their shitty life on earth is all they get, and they should be happy with antarctica?
I think your moral argument can easily be flipped, why do you get to decide that we shouldnt do something because there exist people who dont want to do it? What of the the people who do?
If you dont want to go, then dont go...
> Do we build a wall around Mars and tell them their shitty life on earth is all they get, and they should be happy with antarctica?
I'm not personally in favor of the "colonize Antarctica" approach. It's true that if we can't figure out how to colonize someplace like Antarctica first, then it's unlikely we'd be successful on Mars, but I'm not advocating the colonization of Mars anyway.
> If you dont want to go, then dont go...
This completely ignores what I said, which was "You personally may choose the hardest road, but your unborn children would have no choice in the matter".
I'm not personally in favor of the "colonize Antarctica" approach. It's true that if we can't figure out how to colonize someplace like Antarctica first, then it's unlikely we'd be successful on Mars, but I'm not advocating the colonization of Mars anyway.
> If you dont want to go, then dont go...
This completely ignores what I said, which was "You personally may choose the hardest road, but your unborn children would have no choice in the matter".
I guess i see children having to deal with choices their parents made a part of life.
Would the offer of a trip back to earth for any child born on mars go any way to overcoming your concerns?
Would the offer of a trip back to earth for any child born on mars go any way to overcoming your concerns?
> I guess i see children having to deal with choices their parents made a part of life.
Most responsible parents strive to make the lives of their children better rather than worse. Not always successfully of course, but it's the goal, and going to Mars is predictably worse.
> Would the offer of a trip back to earth for any child born on mars go any way to overcoming your concerns?
It might allay the moral dilemma, but it would increase the concerns about the long-term viability of the colony.
Most responsible parents strive to make the lives of their children better rather than worse. Not always successfully of course, but it's the goal, and going to Mars is predictably worse.
> Would the offer of a trip back to earth for any child born on mars go any way to overcoming your concerns?
It might allay the moral dilemma, but it would increase the concerns about the long-term viability of the colony.
Would you also say "shame on you" to anyone who procreates in a country with a lower standard of living than the wealthier countries on this planet? After all, aren't those parents subjecting their children to a life with more hazards / less opportunities?
Only very few places on Earth are truly that shitty that I would doubt people's sanity for raising children there. Active war zones and areas affected by climate change for example, and to no one's surprise people risk their lives to escape from those. Even in a refugee camp, their children would still lead a life that is magnitudes easier and more pleasurable than on a Mars colony.
> Would you also say "shame on you" to anyone who procreates in a country with a lower standard of living than the wealthier countries on this planet?
I would not hesitate to do so to any parents that leave a perfectly functional society to raise children as subsistence farmers in an smog-choked, irradiated, arid clime. Opting to raise your children under worse conditions than those one grew up under, and has access to is despicable and selfish.
I would not hesitate to do so to any parents that leave a perfectly functional society to raise children as subsistence farmers in an smog-choked, irradiated, arid clime. Opting to raise your children under worse conditions than those one grew up under, and has access to is despicable and selfish.
I'm talking about freedom of choice:
>Do we build a wall around Earth and stop them as "illegal aliens"?
This was of course an analogy to the United States, where we put up barriers to prevent emigrants from seeking a better life here.
There's no shame in procreation, but there's shame in trapping people forever in a place where they no longer want to live.
>Do we build a wall around Earth and stop them as "illegal aliens"?
This was of course an analogy to the United States, where we put up barriers to prevent emigrants from seeking a better life here.
There's no shame in procreation, but there's shame in trapping people forever in a place where they no longer want to live.
You wouldn't even need an Iron Curtain: moving to Earth, however much they want to, would kill them.
> I feel terror at the idea of all of our species on one planet with no backup.
While I would like to live out the rest of my life as best as I could, and I hope everyone alive and not yet alive gets that chance too, I don't think it would be that great a tragedy if humankind no longer existed. Imagine a world where everyone is hooked up to a simulation that feels as real as real life and everyone gets to live out the best possible life (or even lives) for them. They can have as many (AI) children they want in the simulation and never even know they weren't real. In that world, where no one ever had real children again and humanity naturally died out, would that be a bad thing? Humanity is not providing any benefit except to itself.
While I would like to live out the rest of my life as best as I could, and I hope everyone alive and not yet alive gets that chance too, I don't think it would be that great a tragedy if humankind no longer existed. Imagine a world where everyone is hooked up to a simulation that feels as real as real life and everyone gets to live out the best possible life (or even lives) for them. They can have as many (AI) children they want in the simulation and never even know they weren't real. In that world, where no one ever had real children again and humanity naturally died out, would that be a bad thing? Humanity is not providing any benefit except to itself.
That seems pretty bad, yeah.
I care about humanity. I care about myself! You're welcome to sterilize yourself, but i don't think I'll follow.
The scenario you describe doesn't involve pain, but that doesn't mean it isn't bad. An empty, dead universe seems worse to me than one teeming with thought.
The scenario you describe doesn't involve pain, but that doesn't mean it isn't bad. An empty, dead universe seems worse to me than one teeming with thought.
The thought experiment wasn't to end sentient life in a glorious generation of virtual hedonism, just humanity. Let the octopi build their ~own VR escapism pods.
I think people really underestimate resources needed to run these VR paradises - it needs mass and energy!
I can fully imagine a totally disconnected VR dwelling civilization that still has hordes or self replicating bots of doom that dismantle planets and stars only to make more memory and compute.
Might very well be more dangerous than a "normal" space faring civilization.
I can fully imagine a totally disconnected VR dwelling civilization that still has hordes or self replicating bots of doom that dismantle planets and stars only to make more memory and compute.
Might very well be more dangerous than a "normal" space faring civilization.
Yes, that's the good future, except the overwhelming majority of people are virtual (keeping meat alive is expensive!)
I would rather not live than live in a world where the only living species is mankind.
Think about a world without trees, birds, plants... well actually just imagine living on Mars.
Think about a world without trees, birds, plants... well actually just imagine living on Mars.
This example of yours reminds me of Plato's allegory of the cave BTW.
It's really not required to be one-way. Starship is explicitly designed to refuel and return. It's way harder (in rocketry terms) to go from Earth to Mars than the other way around.
> I think that's a pill too bitter to swallow.
No-one that wants to go to Mars has any expectations to go back. It's not even a factor.
No-one that wants to go to Mars has any expectations to go back. It's not even a factor.
a one way trip to Mars is the least of the problems. many have volunteered already.
Anybody who volunteers for a one-way trip is not sane enough to want to have along.
They might not object to going with equally insane incels, but do I want to spend to send and maintain them? The best that could be said is they wouldn't be here anymore.
They might not object to going with equally insane incels, but do I want to spend to send and maintain them? The best that could be said is they wouldn't be here anymore.
Unnecessary comment. 200 000 people applied to Mars One and the ones I read about of the 700 that were accepted were definitely not "insane incels".
So what is the legality? AFAIK, euthanasia and assisted suicide are not legal in a lot of jurisdictions. An actual Mars mission may set a precedent, for, uhm, voluntary short-term underwater scientific missions for geriatrics and hospice patience with challenging pain management situations.
For the law, intent usually matters. If you help someone who has the intention to die, then that's assisted suicide. But people can accept any level of danger they please, as long as they intent to survive the ordeal. The actions might be the same, but the intent is different.
In certain jurisdictions, assisted suicide is an intentless offence.
I doubt that out of the 700 people not even one would show up in the platform ready to take off.
It came out that the 700 "accepted" were those prepared to pay. Not for the trip, notably, but for more PR.
Volunteering to be taken in by a transparent con job is a poor criterion.
Volunteering to be taken in by a transparent con job is a poor criterion.
they applied for a training program that will give them a ton of exposure.
I doubt they will leave Earth to go dying on a desert planet with no oxygen, water and Instagram after they eventually gained the "Mars space program" status at home.
I doubt they will leave Earth to go dying on a desert planet with no oxygen, water and Instagram after they eventually gained the "Mars space program" status at home.
> Settling Antarctica isn't as inspiring as colonizing Mars.
> Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring
Yep, exactly.
Mars is fundamentally retro futurism promoted by a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news.
edit: for reference. this is how Musk really ignited the public interest around SpaceX, whose goal is primarily reusable rockets, not missions to Mars.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/5/15/8613099/spacex-made-...
> Mars is horribly inhospitable, yes, but it's also pretty boring
Yep, exactly.
Mars is fundamentally retro futurism promoted by a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news.
edit: for reference. this is how Musk really ignited the public interest around SpaceX, whose goal is primarily reusable rockets, not missions to Mars.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2015/5/15/8613099/spacex-made-...
> a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news.
Uh no, this has been one of his passions for a very long time. It’s the reason SpaceX exists:
“Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, first presented his goal of enabling Mars colonization in 2001 as a member of the Mars Society's board of directors.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program
Uh no, this has been one of his passions for a very long time. It’s the reason SpaceX exists:
“Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, first presented his goal of enabling Mars colonization in 2001 as a member of the Mars Society's board of directors.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program
> Uh no, this has been one of his passions for a very long time. It’s the reason SpaceX exists:
How does that contradicts the premise?
SpaceX is primarily (emphasis on is) in the business of reusable rockets.
Musk launched the Mars colonization idea as a self promotional venture.
There are many things Musk said about Mars which are borderline retarded
Starting from the fact that he wants to colonize Mars, I am much more interested in the exploration and I believe it defines human nature much more than simply being a billionaire with a colonialist mindset.
For example
- Humans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess he believes that his life (and other billionaires like him) must be preserved. I'm not sure about regular folks like most of us...
- “I feel fairly confident that we can complete the ship and be ready for a launch in about five years. Five years seems like a long time to me” this is from 2018, it hasn't aged very well
- I think fundamentally the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we’re a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species than if we’re or not. Why???
- Musk said there's 70 percent chance he’ll get to Mars within his lifetime, with plans to permanently resettle on the Red Planet. No, he won't. We all know he wouldn't do it. He's never gonna be an astronaut, at best he can be a Bezos.
- in 2021 he said he would send humans to Mars by 2026, now it's become 2029 (it's always five years away). He also said that by 2050, there will be 30,000 to 50,000 people who choose a one-way trip to Mars to begin a new life. Everyone's free to form an opinion on this, I simply call them BS.
How does that contradicts the premise?
SpaceX is primarily (emphasis on is) in the business of reusable rockets.
Musk launched the Mars colonization idea as a self promotional venture.
There are many things Musk said about Mars which are borderline retarded
Starting from the fact that he wants to colonize Mars, I am much more interested in the exploration and I believe it defines human nature much more than simply being a billionaire with a colonialist mindset.
For example
- Humans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess he believes that his life (and other billionaires like him) must be preserved. I'm not sure about regular folks like most of us...
- “I feel fairly confident that we can complete the ship and be ready for a launch in about five years. Five years seems like a long time to me” this is from 2018, it hasn't aged very well
- I think fundamentally the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we’re a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species than if we’re or not. Why???
- Musk said there's 70 percent chance he’ll get to Mars within his lifetime, with plans to permanently resettle on the Red Planet. No, he won't. We all know he wouldn't do it. He's never gonna be an astronaut, at best he can be a Bezos.
- in 2021 he said he would send humans to Mars by 2026, now it's become 2029 (it's always five years away). He also said that by 2050, there will be 30,000 to 50,000 people who choose a one-way trip to Mars to begin a new life. Everyone's free to form an opinion on this, I simply call them BS.
I’m refuting that he’s “a bored billionaire who ran out of ideas to impress the news”.
He wasn’t a billionaire when he started working on it, and he’s been working on it for 20+ years, so I don’t think he’s bored.
The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes, and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.
He wasn’t a billionaire when he started working on it, and he’s been working on it for 20+ years, so I don’t think he’s bored.
The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes, and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.
> The rest of your complaints boil down to his overly optimistic timeframes
it boils down to the fact that he's lying. And he probably already knows it.
> and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.
Please refrain from interpreting what I say and write.
I do not necessarily disagree with Musk on that, I simply can differentiate from day dreaming and reality.
Mars is a worthy goal as much it is going to live on the top of Mauna Loa.
Or deep down the Marianas Trench.
Musk said it: he would like to go because it's a challenge, like climbing mount Everest.
That's all he cares about.
But lets also be absolutely real: he means send someone to die, he will never be fit to be an astronaut, let alone a space colonist. He's also not stupid enough to go towards certain death after having accumulated an enormous amount of money here on Earth. That he could actually use for the good, but, who cares, buying Twitter is more fun.
It's also honestly quite depressing to listen someone with so much money say that humans are worth only if they waste their enormous wealth on macho challenges.
He literally said that humanity will be much less interesting if we don't become a multiplanetary society, which, assuming it will be possible (I seriously doubt it) will take millenia, if not more. And once it happens, Martians won't be able to come back to Earth, because our gravity would crush their body.
How splendid.
p.s. I'm a fan of retro futurism. I grew up watching movies like Forbidden Planet and reading Asimov.
Musk completely ruined it for me.
it boils down to the fact that he's lying. And he probably already knows it.
> and disagreement that making humans spacefaring / multiplanetary is a worthy goal.
Please refrain from interpreting what I say and write.
I do not necessarily disagree with Musk on that, I simply can differentiate from day dreaming and reality.
Mars is a worthy goal as much it is going to live on the top of Mauna Loa.
Or deep down the Marianas Trench.
Musk said it: he would like to go because it's a challenge, like climbing mount Everest.
That's all he cares about.
But lets also be absolutely real: he means send someone to die, he will never be fit to be an astronaut, let alone a space colonist. He's also not stupid enough to go towards certain death after having accumulated an enormous amount of money here on Earth. That he could actually use for the good, but, who cares, buying Twitter is more fun.
It's also honestly quite depressing to listen someone with so much money say that humans are worth only if they waste their enormous wealth on macho challenges.
He literally said that humanity will be much less interesting if we don't become a multiplanetary society, which, assuming it will be possible (I seriously doubt it) will take millenia, if not more. And once it happens, Martians won't be able to come back to Earth, because our gravity would crush their body.
How splendid.
p.s. I'm a fan of retro futurism. I grew up watching movies like Forbidden Planet and reading Asimov.
Musk completely ruined it for me.
> People will lose interest and it'll be about as interesting as Antarctica. And then what?
Sports! Imagine playing basketball (or football, etc.) on a dome on Mars with less than half the gravity of Earth. People back on Earth would love to watch it. People on Mars would love to play it.
Sports! Imagine playing basketball (or football, etc.) on a dome on Mars with less than half the gravity of Earth. People back on Earth would love to watch it. People on Mars would love to play it.
I actually think this would be a great idea...for the Moon. Pro-athletes making millions of dollars per year won't want to spend their whole lives in a desolate, extremely remote desert. The Moon has a much more reasonable commute.
And I think some new sport would need to be invented.
And I think some new sport would need to be invented.
Maybe the sport is sending them there? It was tried with Australia, so maybe Mars is the new frontier?
Said as a joke or sarcasm or something.
Said as a joke or sarcasm or something.
We could already try for sports in Earth Orbit. 0-G sport, 3D terrain: the inflatable habitat projects could be a way to get some big enclosure.
Why would you assume it'd be a dome on the surface of mars, given there's no radiation protection? You'd need to play it in underground rooms or wearing bulky radioactive protection suits.
The case where Mars becomes very interesting is if Earth becomes uninhabitable for some reason, maybe nuclear war or a runaway climate problem or big enough asteroid impact. (I'm not pushing any of that alarmism, but on a long term time scale of 10^6 to 10^10 years, almost anything could happen eventually.)
I really don't buy this argument though. It you want a colony that can survive almost any planetary-scale catastrophe, build a colony at the bottom of the ocean. Kilometres of water will shield you from literally any amount of radiation, the surface of the earth could be a scorched wasteland and you'd be fine. And you'd have access to ocean floor resources as well as limitless resources still on the surface, even if you need to use robots to get them.
And yes I mean sure - colonizing another planet is the ultimate backup plan. But like this article(and many others) have said, it feels like jumping the shark - we can barely keep people alive for a prelonged period of time on a space station, and we are jumping straight to mars outpost from there? Why not make a self-sufficient base on the moon first, where literally everyone on earth would be able to see it almost with a naked eye and it would inspire countless generations of people to pursue science?
And yes I mean sure - colonizing another planet is the ultimate backup plan. But like this article(and many others) have said, it feels like jumping the shark - we can barely keep people alive for a prelonged period of time on a space station, and we are jumping straight to mars outpost from there? Why not make a self-sufficient base on the moon first, where literally everyone on earth would be able to see it almost with a naked eye and it would inspire countless generations of people to pursue science?
> Why not make a self-sufficient base on the moon first, where literally everyone on earth would be able to see it almost with a naked eye and it would inspire countless generations of people to pursue science?
Yes. This.
I hope that we piggyback on Mars exploration for building infrastructure on the Moon.
The Moon is a much better target for a first self sustainable colony and also could become economically interesting.
There is nothing on Mars that is economical interesting AFAIK.
Yes. This.
I hope that we piggyback on Mars exploration for building infrastructure on the Moon.
The Moon is a much better target for a first self sustainable colony and also could become economically interesting.
There is nothing on Mars that is economical interesting AFAIK.
Well, its the gate to the Asteroid belt & even has two asteroids full of resources in low orbit! Not to mention having and a (thin) atmosphere and usable gravity, that also opens a lot of opportunities (aerocapture, no micrometeoroids, easier thermal control, etc.).
Why do you need to be on Mars to do that? It's simpler to do everything in orbit, which is the real gate to the asteroid belt. Or directly establish bases in the belt, if we knew how.
Yes, that's also certainly an option. Still, it seems to me that a lot of people still can't really think in terms of space only infra and "a hight tech city, but on Mars/Moon" gets them to a more familiar context.
So I think it makes sense to talk also about surface bases, to get more people on board, even if those are potentially quite inefficient.
So I think it makes sense to talk also about surface bases, to get more people on board, even if those are potentially quite inefficient.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think it's actually more difficult to keep an airbubble under the ocean from flooding than it is to keep an air bubble around yourself in thin atmosphere.
Under the ocean the bubble is held in place but the water pressure. This is already a solved problem - see diving bell: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_bell#:~:text=A%20divi...
In the atmosphere, how do you meaningfully keep that bubble around you?
In the atmosphere, how do you meaningfully keep that bubble around you?
> almost any planetary-scale catastrophe
> build a colony at the bottom of the ocean
Sun enters red giant phase. Oceans boil away. You boil with them, before being engulfed by the sun.
Mars is a stepping stone.
> build a colony at the bottom of the ocean
Sun enters red giant phase. Oceans boil away. You boil with them, before being engulfed by the sun.
Mars is a stepping stone.
Human civilization is only 5000 years old; Homo Sapiens is 300,000 years old. We have 5,000,000,000 years to plan for this eventuality.
Not really - we now have the technological and resource window and we should use it. Wasting this opportunity could otherwise doom us forever if we can't get back to this level of capability again.
This would make a lot of sense... if you were talking about addressing global warming of Earth, rather than talking about going to Mars.
We have literally millions of years to prepare for that. Mars isn't a stepping stone, Mars is a stretch goal. A few hundred or even thousand years sooner or later is a rounding error in the kind of timeframe you're talking about.
At the current rate we don't have to wait for the sun to kill us, climate change will do that first. Sure, it might not be an extinction level event but societal collapse requires much less than that. Disruption of the supply chains needed to maintain a Mars colonization program requires even less than that.
At the current rate we don't have to wait for the sun to kill us, climate change will do that first. Sure, it might not be an extinction level event but societal collapse requires much less than that. Disruption of the supply chains needed to maintain a Mars colonization program requires even less than that.
> We have literally millions of years to prepare for that.
So do sea anemones. What are their chances of inhabiting Mars? ~0%.
You can have billions of years of spare time. If you only concern yourself with Earth and never move beyond it, you'll end up just like anemones
> Mars is a stretch goal.
If Mars is a stretch goal, we're fucked. By time of red giant sun Mars will also be toasted.
> climate change will do that first
It probably won't. Devastate and depopulate anything outside arctic circle? Yes.
Nuclear winter has a good chance but even that's not a certainty..
> societal collapse requires much less than that
I don't care about societies I care about totality of humans. All societies exist while their energy/work production can ballance the expanding complexity, or are knocked out of balance by another society.
Societies aren't immortal.
So do sea anemones. What are their chances of inhabiting Mars? ~0%.
You can have billions of years of spare time. If you only concern yourself with Earth and never move beyond it, you'll end up just like anemones
> Mars is a stretch goal.
If Mars is a stretch goal, we're fucked. By time of red giant sun Mars will also be toasted.
> climate change will do that first
It probably won't. Devastate and depopulate anything outside arctic circle? Yes.
Nuclear winter has a good chance but even that's not a certainty..
> societal collapse requires much less than that
I don't care about societies I care about totality of humans. All societies exist while their energy/work production can ballance the expanding complexity, or are knocked out of balance by another society.
Societies aren't immortal.
> I don't care about societies
What do you think where your Mars rockets come from? Who mines the raw materials? Who refines them? Who builds the tech? Who does the assembly? Who does the research to actually make Mars colonization possible?
"Societal collapse" is another way of saying you will not go to space today (or ever). I'm not talking about a society. I'm talking about our entire global economical and political system. Unchecked climate change will wipe out food production and make vast swathes of land uninhabitable.
For someone who seems to focused on human survival and creating self-sustaining life on Mars, you don't seem to have a very good understanding of supply chains (and in case you're unaware: everything has a supply chain, even modern agriculture can't function without entire industries producing its resources and equipment). You'll have a hard time establishing let alone maintaining that on Mars in the next million years if we can't maintain it on Earth in the next hundred.
If you want to ensure human survival, fix climate change first, then we can worry about Mars colonization.
What do you think where your Mars rockets come from? Who mines the raw materials? Who refines them? Who builds the tech? Who does the assembly? Who does the research to actually make Mars colonization possible?
"Societal collapse" is another way of saying you will not go to space today (or ever). I'm not talking about a society. I'm talking about our entire global economical and political system. Unchecked climate change will wipe out food production and make vast swathes of land uninhabitable.
For someone who seems to focused on human survival and creating self-sustaining life on Mars, you don't seem to have a very good understanding of supply chains (and in case you're unaware: everything has a supply chain, even modern agriculture can't function without entire industries producing its resources and equipment). You'll have a hard time establishing let alone maintaining that on Mars in the next million years if we can't maintain it on Earth in the next hundred.
If you want to ensure human survival, fix climate change first, then we can worry about Mars colonization.
>>So do sea anemones. What are their chances of inhabiting Mars? ~0%.
We were nothing more than sea anemones once too. In a billion years you could have literally any lifeform currently on earth evolve into intelligent beings capable of spaceflight. The timeframe is just so unfathomably long thah it's impossible to predict what could happen.
We were nothing more than sea anemones once too. In a billion years you could have literally any lifeform currently on earth evolve into intelligent beings capable of spaceflight. The timeframe is just so unfathomably long thah it's impossible to predict what could happen.
We had common ancestors with sea anemones. We weren't necessary anemones no more than anemones being humans. Parallel evolution led us here and anemones where they are.
> In a billion years you could have literally any lifeform currently on earth evolve into intelligent beings capable of spaceflight.
That depends on how likely is human-level intelligence to arise, so far only one species arrived there and no other. Then you add expectations of being able to build a spaceship capable of escaping Earth's gravity well.
Hoping some future intelligence can do job we can do now is ultimate form of procrastination.
> In a billion years you could have literally any lifeform currently on earth evolve into intelligent beings capable of spaceflight.
That depends on how likely is human-level intelligence to arise, so far only one species arrived there and no other. Then you add expectations of being able to build a spaceship capable of escaping Earth's gravity well.
Hoping some future intelligence can do job we can do now is ultimate form of procrastination.
With literally billions of years until that happens, I think we can put that scenario on the back burner.
For the average American, a crazy MAGA freak with a gun is a much higher risk to life than the sun turning into a red giant.
Other countries have similar scenarios.
Other countries have similar scenarios.
There are probably at least 20 stereotypes/organizations objectively more dangerous than "crazy MAGA freak with a gun", but congratulations, you've contributed to political divisiveness on a tech-oriented forum!
By the time Earth becomes this uninhabitable, we don't have the resources anymore for a Mars shot, much less a full-scale evacuation or, dare I say, colonization. And Earth would have to turn into a Venus-like hellscape to truly become uninhabitable. Even an iceball Earth is ten times as hospitable to life than Mars.
The idea is to establish a self-sustaining colony on Mars during a time of prosperity on Earth, not evacuate anyone when things fall apart. The humans already at the colony would continue the existence of our kind.
I really wonder why "continued existence of our kind" is a worthwhile life goal. Serious question.
Because humanity is the only known intelligent species in the observable universe.
Ah, anthropocentrism is your motivator.
Please step outside and be amazed when realizing what the other species on this planet are capable of.
Please step outside and be amazed when realizing what the other species on this planet are capable of.
Please name one other sentient, human-equivalent intelligent species.
Animals are awesome and I am indeed amazed by how smart some of the species are. Not a single one is near human level, though, and won't be for millions of years, if ever - which is not at all guaranteed, it's very much possible that human-level intelligence is evolutionary mistake/accident.
Let me know when you find an animal that can do e.g. lambda calculus and relational algebra like a human can. Since this has nothing to do with anthropocentrism, the same argument will be made - we have to preserve this species on another planet to ensure that intelligence doesn't disappear from the observable universe in case something happens to Earth/its biosphere.
Animals are awesome and I am indeed amazed by how smart some of the species are. Not a single one is near human level, though, and won't be for millions of years, if ever - which is not at all guaranteed, it's very much possible that human-level intelligence is evolutionary mistake/accident.
Let me know when you find an animal that can do e.g. lambda calculus and relational algebra like a human can. Since this has nothing to do with anthropocentrism, the same argument will be made - we have to preserve this species on another planet to ensure that intelligence doesn't disappear from the observable universe in case something happens to Earth/its biosphere.
> we have to preserve this species on another planet to ensure that intelligence doesn't disappear from the observable universe in case something happens to Earth/its biosphere
And why would such disappearence be bad? Really, honest question. Is there some inherent greater good to adher to by preserving intelligence, no matter how narrow it's being defined in this thread?
It could just cease existing. I don't see the problem.
And why would such disappearence be bad? Really, honest question. Is there some inherent greater good to adher to by preserving intelligence, no matter how narrow it's being defined in this thread?
It could just cease existing. I don't see the problem.
What's the point of the universe if there is nobody to enjoy it?
I like this Douglas Adams quote:
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much --- the wheel, New York, wars, and so on --- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man --- for precisely the same reasons."
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much --- the wheel, New York, wars, and so on --- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man --- for precisely the same reasons."
Yeah sure. If they had the ability to learn math but chose not to, it might be true. They don't, though - and I bet there is more than a few dolphins that'd like to do more if they could.
Legitimate question.
It has something to do with genetics. Maybe you understand, once you have children?
> It has something to do with genetics
All living creatures have genes, why humans in particular?
Don't dogs and dolphins have offspring?
Aren't they intelligent?
And why not plants, which are the real reason why Earth life forms can exist on the surface of the planet?
But most of all, if you have children, would you really want for them an horrible life on a Mars colony where they would grow up in a labor camp like life and develop such weak bones that they could never live the red planet to visit Earth?
All living creatures have genes, why humans in particular?
Don't dogs and dolphins have offspring?
Aren't they intelligent?
And why not plants, which are the real reason why Earth life forms can exist on the surface of the planet?
But most of all, if you have children, would you really want for them an horrible life on a Mars colony where they would grow up in a labor camp like life and develop such weak bones that they could never live the red planet to visit Earth?
Well, no one says we won't take other species with us once necessary infrastructure is in place.
I seriously doubt it will be possible to force my cats to wear space suits and and oxygen masks.
But, who knows, maybe such an animal will exist in the future.
But, who knows, maybe such an animal will exist in the future.
Well, a cat should live just fine on say an O,Oeill cylinder[0] or a surface level Lunar or Martian hab (possibly a large dome or huge cavern). They might have to adapt to the low gravity or the side effect of spin gravity, but the environment should eventually be pretty similar otherwise.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
I do. And their well-being has to me little to do with the continued existence of our species a few generations down the line.
Ok, but you do care about their well-being. And their well-being will depend on their offspring, etc.
I would not be comfortable knowing, that the children I helped bring into this life are doomed in the long run. That would be pointless to me, there needs to be a way forward, whether it is mars or something else.
I would not be comfortable knowing, that the children I helped bring into this life are doomed in the long run. That would be pointless to me, there needs to be a way forward, whether it is mars or something else.
1000 generations into the future? People to whose genome you contributed 2^-1000, i.e. almost nothing? Who know neither your name nor care about it? Like you don't really care about your ancestors 1000 generations ago? Or 100,000 generations?
I don't get it.
Basically: Let's face it, when we're dead then we're dead. That's it. You have your life. Trying to achieve some sort of immortality or higher purpose by creating offspring is just as futile as praying or paying some quack to help you with afterlife matters.
I don't get it.
Basically: Let's face it, when we're dead then we're dead. That's it. You have your life. Trying to achieve some sort of immortality or higher purpose by creating offspring is just as futile as praying or paying some quack to help you with afterlife matters.
"Basically: Let's face it, when we're dead then we're dead. That's it."
If you feel that unconnected, than yes, that was it to you.
And sure, I will be dead one day, too and my name forgotten. That doesn't mean, my life was without purpose nor significance, because I do feel part of something bigger. Progress of humankind and the spreading of life and consciousness in general.
I don't know the names of my ancestors, but they are of significance, as without them, I wouldn't exist and without me, neither would the 1000. generation after me.
If you feel that unconnected, than yes, that was it to you.
And sure, I will be dead one day, too and my name forgotten. That doesn't mean, my life was without purpose nor significance, because I do feel part of something bigger. Progress of humankind and the spreading of life and consciousness in general.
I don't know the names of my ancestors, but they are of significance, as without them, I wouldn't exist and without me, neither would the 1000. generation after me.
For the colony to be truly self-sustaining it would have to replicate the entire industrial supply chain for its technological and material needs. Without it, the colony and its infrastructure would slowly crumble apart. In such a situation, we could always go back to basic agriculture and hunter-gatherer lifestyles on Earth. Most humans would perish, but the species would survive. That option does not exist on Mars before self-sustaining terraforming.
Putting boots on Mars doesn't help solving the above problem. As TA explains, the first humans would be mostly busy surviving and would be dependent on permanent resupply from Earth. It's a pure prestige project.
The effort would be better spent on engineering a streamlined and automated version of our technological base that can be deployed with minimal effort and supervision to set up a colony or a mining base. Once we have achieved that, we are on the way to become a post-scarcity civilization and can easily push much farther than Mars.
Putting boots on Mars doesn't help solving the above problem. As TA explains, the first humans would be mostly busy surviving and would be dependent on permanent resupply from Earth. It's a pure prestige project.
The effort would be better spent on engineering a streamlined and automated version of our technological base that can be deployed with minimal effort and supervision to set up a colony or a mining base. Once we have achieved that, we are on the way to become a post-scarcity civilization and can easily push much farther than Mars.
Best to get started then.
Any of those leaves Earth thousands of times more habitable than Mars. They even leave Antarctica and the sea floor thousands of times more habitable than Mars.
You can't farm in either of those two places. But on Mars you can farm year round with sunlight.
What plants would resist the massive amounts of radiation, or perchlorate soil?
Note that we don't even know if any plants today would actually be able to fruit in the low gravity environment (nevermind if any animal would be able to successfully procreate).
Note that we don't even know if any plants today would actually be able to fruit in the low gravity environment (nevermind if any animal would be able to successfully procreate).
You would generate a magnetic field at the center of the colony to deflect solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays. The colony would produce compost with biowaste and use that for soil. There are various ways to remove perchlorates from soil. One avenue of research is to find an optimal mix of martian soil and compost to allow plants to thrive.
The points you are making are excellent but I believe solvable. Also we do know if plants can fruit in space. We've already grown tomatoes in space and they are fruits of the tomato plant. And that was zero G.
The points you are making are excellent but I believe solvable. Also we do know if plants can fruit in space. We've already grown tomatoes in space and they are fruits of the tomato plant. And that was zero G.
You are going to run into energy generations REALLY fast trying to generate such a massive magnetic shield, Not to mention all the other massive energy needs for mining and processing material.
Also nobody has yet produced a self-sustained biodome.
Also nobody has yet produced a self-sustained biodome.
No one has grown tomatoes in space, as far as I have been able to find.
They managed a pepper.
They managed a pepper.
Its actually ongoing right now on the ISS:
https://gpnmag.com/news/nasa-will-grow-tomatoes-in-space-abo...
https://gpnmag.com/news/nasa-will-grow-tomatoes-in-space-abo...
They hope it will work. If not, you won't hear much about it.
I'm sure there will be relevant scientific papers for this experiment either way.
I'm not really sure farming will work on Mars with sunlight alone given the distance from the Sun. Still, you have gravity and reasonable day length and even some atmospheres, not to mention a lot of mass available - that already makes a lot of things easier.
And why would anybody care? Will you or anybody who will know about you be alive at that point?
There are millions if not billions alive today who are suffering from war, famine, dictatorships. And climate change is just making that worse. It would be more reasonable to help those souls instead.
There are millions if not billions alive today who are suffering from war, famine, dictatorships. And climate change is just making that worse. It would be more reasonable to help those souls instead.
> The case where Mars becomes very interesting is if Earth becomes uninhabitable for some reason
Yemen is quite inhospitable, but people still prefer Yemen to living in the Sahara desert or the Antarctica.
Yemen is quite inhospitable, but people still prefer Yemen to living in the Sahara desert or the Antarctica.
mankind is heading for space ~ this is unstoppable. colonising mars makes a lot of sense as its the only other semi habitable planet in the solar system. short term ~ there might be some interesting mineable ores on mars. medium term ~ lower gravity makes it easier to launch ships into space / build a space elevator. long term terraformation of mars is a possibility.
It's not unstoppable at all. It's 54 years since we landed on the Moon and we're only just getting around to considering another visit. The ISS, amazing as it is, is a glorified shed in orbit. We're still getting into orbit by throwing giant fireworks at the sky. (Is there a better way? Possibly. We really haven't spent a lot of time looking for it.)
But none of that is the problem. The real problem is that we haven't learned how to do reality-based politics and economics, and possibly never will. We're so bad at this we haven't even solved the kindergarten-level problem of creating a stable living environment on a planet with abundant water, oxygen, natural resources, free energy, and a ready-made (mostly) supportive ecosystem.
The idea that we might somehow get better at planning rationally by moving to a planet that has none of the above is really quite strange.
But none of that is the problem. The real problem is that we haven't learned how to do reality-based politics and economics, and possibly never will. We're so bad at this we haven't even solved the kindergarten-level problem of creating a stable living environment on a planet with abundant water, oxygen, natural resources, free energy, and a ready-made (mostly) supportive ecosystem.
The idea that we might somehow get better at planning rationally by moving to a planet that has none of the above is really quite strange.
> we haven't even solved the kindergarten-level problem of creating a stable living environment on a planet with abundant water, oxygen, natural resources, free energy, and a ready-made (mostly) supportive ecosystem.
Haven’t we? I guess it could always be more stable. Where is the line for you? Is there any point where you’d consider this problem solved?
Besides, if things feel unstable to you, why would that be an argument against attempting to set up a secondary living environment on another planet?
If we had stability issues in our primary datacenter, would this be a reason not to create an offsite backup?
Haven’t we? I guess it could always be more stable. Where is the line for you? Is there any point where you’d consider this problem solved?
Besides, if things feel unstable to you, why would that be an argument against attempting to set up a secondary living environment on another planet?
If we had stability issues in our primary datacenter, would this be a reason not to create an offsite backup?
> Is there any point where you’d consider this problem solved?
The problem was solved before the Industrial Revolution.
We have yet to come to terms with how the Industrial Revolution has changed and is changing the Earth's environment.
> If we had stability issues in our primary datacenter, would this be a reason not to create an offsite backup?
Does it make any sense to put an offsite backup in a place that is vastly less stable than your primary datacenter?
And what if your primary datacenter issues are caused by mismanagement and carelessness?
The problem was solved before the Industrial Revolution.
We have yet to come to terms with how the Industrial Revolution has changed and is changing the Earth's environment.
> If we had stability issues in our primary datacenter, would this be a reason not to create an offsite backup?
Does it make any sense to put an offsite backup in a place that is vastly less stable than your primary datacenter?
And what if your primary datacenter issues are caused by mismanagement and carelessness?
I think that what happened since the industrial revolution is pretty much a definition of unstable. We are living a mass extinction right now (not even caused by global warming, which will just make it worse).
Since the industrial revolution, we have become excellent as destroying life. Not the opposite.
Since the industrial revolution, we have become excellent as destroying life. Not the opposite.
> this is unstoppable
Citation needed, because real-world experience shows otherwise.
Mankind is heading for a larger capacity for information processing, this is the unstoppable arc of history. Mars or space doesn't figure into this equation at all.
Citation needed, because real-world experience shows otherwise.
Mankind is heading for a larger capacity for information processing, this is the unstoppable arc of history. Mars or space doesn't figure into this equation at all.
The only unstoppable thing is human imagination. Unfortunately physically and economically it's not worth it to pursue this dream unless we generate unlimited power.
> > mankind is heading for space ~ this is unstoppable. colonising mars makes a lot of sense
Yes, it makes a lot of sense for mankind, no doubt about it. Does it make sense for men and women though?
It's easy to say mankind. Flight makes a lot of sense for mankind too, but less than a third of the global population has ever been on a plane because for the remaining 2/3 it doesn't make sense to do so given their economic constraints.
Yes, it makes a lot of sense for mankind, no doubt about it. Does it make sense for men and women though?
It's easy to say mankind. Flight makes a lot of sense for mankind too, but less than a third of the global population has ever been on a plane because for the remaining 2/3 it doesn't make sense to do so given their economic constraints.
it's pretty much not happening. Real life isn't scifi
> We could build nuclear reactors and mining facilities and indoor vertical farms and a whole bunch of other industry to make the continent self sufficient and import more people but... why? We really won't learn much more there than we can from the ISS agriculture experiments, McMurdo's existing research, how Saudi Arabia and the other rich states grow and survive in extreme environments, and so on.
The reason why is because you will learn a lot more by doing that stuff. The things that are going to doom a first Mars colony attempt isn't necessarily something like "we don't know how to grow plants on Mars" but "we don't know how to build a proper door for the Martian environment" (inspiration for this is taken from https://brr.fyi/posts/doors-of-mcmurdo, which has appeared on HN recently). If your ultimate goal is to build a self-sustaining interplanetary colony, then it is not unreasonable to suggest that maybe we should start by trying to figure out how to build a self-sustaining colony anywhere inhospitable first because it's never been done before, and all previous attempts have failed.
The reason why is because you will learn a lot more by doing that stuff. The things that are going to doom a first Mars colony attempt isn't necessarily something like "we don't know how to grow plants on Mars" but "we don't know how to build a proper door for the Martian environment" (inspiration for this is taken from https://brr.fyi/posts/doors-of-mcmurdo, which has appeared on HN recently). If your ultimate goal is to build a self-sustaining interplanetary colony, then it is not unreasonable to suggest that maybe we should start by trying to figure out how to build a self-sustaining colony anywhere inhospitable first because it's never been done before, and all previous attempts have failed.
I love that blog! I think that door post is a perfect example of why we won't learn anything useful on Antarctica:
> Most (but not all!) doors open inward. There is a huge amount of snowdrift during the winter, and if the doors opened outward, they would be impossible to open without a lot of digging. This could be a life safety issue if the building is occupied.
On a Mars there is no "inward" like there is in McMurdo because swinging doors only work between sections with equalized pressure. Going outside requires an airlock that slowly normalizes the pressure to avoid shooting the colonist out the door with a blast of air. Going between sections requires doors that can slam shut in either direction to seal away damaged sections in case of emergency, like the sliding doors in almost every scifi movie/series/book - which we still haven't tested in the real world because there's nowhere to test that kind of pressure differential on Earth and our space station technology is still based on Cold War submarine hatches.
> Most (but not all!) doors open inward. There is a huge amount of snowdrift during the winter, and if the doors opened outward, they would be impossible to open without a lot of digging. This could be a life safety issue if the building is occupied.
On a Mars there is no "inward" like there is in McMurdo because swinging doors only work between sections with equalized pressure. Going outside requires an airlock that slowly normalizes the pressure to avoid shooting the colonist out the door with a blast of air. Going between sections requires doors that can slam shut in either direction to seal away damaged sections in case of emergency, like the sliding doors in almost every scifi movie/series/book - which we still haven't tested in the real world because there's nowhere to test that kind of pressure differential on Earth and our space station technology is still based on Cold War submarine hatches.
> there's nowhere to test that kind of pressure differential on Earth
This is patently false. NASA has a 100 x 120 foot cross section vacuum chamber at Plum Brook.
This is patently false. NASA has a 100 x 120 foot cross section vacuum chamber at Plum Brook.
I'd expect such vacuum chambers to be relatively easy to build. The hull only has to hold one atmosphere of pressure difference, and it's pushing inward, so existing pressure tanks should be more than adequate with at most slight modifications. Generating the vacuum is mostly handling the sheer volume of air to evacuate because the quality of vacuum is irrelevant -- leaving 1% of air is as good as 0.001% of air when you are pushing doors against that pressure.
I mean in the context of actual use by humans in the day to day operation of a colony or other off-world facility.
There's obviously plenty of large vacuum chambers than can fit a door mechanism or even a small test room (the ones JPL uses to test spacecraft thermals was the first to come to mind for me, didn't know about the Plum Brook facility).
There's obviously plenty of large vacuum chambers than can fit a door mechanism or even a small test room (the ones JPL uses to test spacecraft thermals was the first to come to mind for me, didn't know about the Plum Brook facility).
> The reason why is because you will learn a lot more by doing that stuff
But wouldn't 95% of that "stuff" be the same as doing it on the moon.
Which is closer, cheaper etc.
But wouldn't 95% of that "stuff" be the same as doing it on the moon.
Which is closer, cheaper etc.
There are a couple (…um yeah…) of things different between Moon and Mars: lunar day is about 2 weeks long, which basically rules out solar-only colonies and lack of any sort of atmosphere makes radiation a significantly worse problem (not that it isn’t one on Mars…)
The Martian atmosphere provides almost no protection against the heavy ion component of galactic cosmic radiation, which is the dangerous stuff. The Moon more than makes up for its lack of atmosphere by being deeper inside the Sun's magnetic field than Mars.
The lack of atmosphere also means a risk of micrometeoroid strike on the surface & makes thermal control harder.
But for some industries this could be a benefit & even if the lunar dust is abrasive, at least it won't move itself that much without wind (though there could apparently be some electrostatic effects in play sometimes).
Also can't do aerobraking/aerocapture, but there is Earth next door for that.
But for some industries this could be a benefit & even if the lunar dust is abrasive, at least it won't move itself that much without wind (though there could apparently be some electrostatic effects in play sometimes).
Also can't do aerobraking/aerocapture, but there is Earth next door for that.
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> […] how to build a self-sustaining colony anywhere inhospitable first because it's never been done before, and all previous attempts have failed.
Hmm? It’s been done lots of times: it’s just that once people start living somewhere, we stop calling it “inhospitable.” But c.f. the Inuit, who’ve been living above the Arctic Circle for more than a thousand years.
Hmm? It’s been done lots of times: it’s just that once people start living somewhere, we stop calling it “inhospitable.” But c.f. the Inuit, who’ve been living above the Arctic Circle for more than a thousand years.
But we... have already mostly done that in Antarctica already. There's not a lot more to learn by moving a few thousand more people to a particularly unpleasant place to live.
That's not even remotely true. For one, we have barely scratched the surface of the psychology of living in an Antarctic outpost, and already what we've seen doesn't suggest long-term viability (decades instead of months). Perhaps with more people, the problems could go away, perhaps not - there's no reason to find out on Mars.
Is Antarctica self-sustaining?
No, but there's also little we gain from trying to make it so. We know how to operate all sorts of things in Antarctica, and anything else we bring there just... needs to be operated pretty much the same way.
Finding out we can't, yet, would be pretty important.
That's the wrong approach, though. "We can't" is the default state. The thing we need to find out is how to make it so. The goal is to be able to say, after all the finding out, that yes, we can now.
Not dying just because we can't, yet, would be pretty important.
But scale does add difference as does all the complexity required to make that scale self-sustaining.
> We need near Earth asteroid mining to understand the complexities of resource extraction in space, we need lunar colonies to study the day to day realities/psychology/etc of space colonization
We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible. People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate. Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!!
People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts, but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space.
We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible. People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate. Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!!
People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts, but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space.
People said just over 100 years ago that we'd never be able to fly, yet here we are. We're welll aware of the issues but there are solutions. I mean, we happen to exist in space, so it's not impossible, is it.
People said just over 100 years ago that magic wands are not real and wizards don't exist, yet here we are. (Magic still doesn't exist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I'm not so sure - I have this slab of crystal I can use to talk talk to people on the other side of the Earth, see things from above and make things do my bidding without touching them. And apparently it can transfer ideas in text form to your head.
Also looks like I can fly if I book the right tickets.
Also looks like I can fly if I book the right tickets.
> magic wands are not real
They could be though, at current tech level. It's the infrastructure that doesn't support it. Smartphones are as close as we got, but they reveal couple unfortunate things about the real world, such as:
- In a competitive market economy, everything ends up sucking as much as it can get away with;
- Magic wands would offer individuals more autonomy than the market, and possibly civilization, can sustain without self-destructing.
> wizards don't exist
Within constraints of the above, sure they do.
> Magic still doesn't exist.
_joel already provided the obligatory quote, but to expand on it, most of the magic in fantasy literature could be made possible with current technology, but would require supporting infrastructure to avoid breaking rules of thermodynamics. If you want to go less conspicuous, we'll have to wait for molecular nanotech ;).
They could be though, at current tech level. It's the infrastructure that doesn't support it. Smartphones are as close as we got, but they reveal couple unfortunate things about the real world, such as:
- In a competitive market economy, everything ends up sucking as much as it can get away with;
- Magic wands would offer individuals more autonomy than the market, and possibly civilization, can sustain without self-destructing.
> wizards don't exist
Within constraints of the above, sure they do.
> Magic still doesn't exist.
_joel already provided the obligatory quote, but to expand on it, most of the magic in fantasy literature could be made possible with current technology, but would require supporting infrastructure to avoid breaking rules of thermodynamics. If you want to go less conspicuous, we'll have to wait for molecular nanotech ;).
> We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible.
Not with that attitude. ISS would like to differ, anyway.
> People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate.
Yes. But that's not because space is evil or haunted or a domain gods reserve themselves. It's because of weightlessness. We know how to solve this problem - it's precisely the kind of things GP is talking about: an engineering challenge we know how to solve on paper, but need to actually do it, to a) learn all the little peculiarities that always come with something new, b) actually have this working on some piece of space infrastructure.
> Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!!
There's lots of stuff in space. Within the distances past manned missions already covered, there's way more of everything than on Earth itself - except life. That one is on us to get there, you can view this as a natural process of life evolving to settle other niches :). And while space itself by volume is mostly empty, the reason you're talking about is just gravity.
> People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts
On the contrary, people treat these as equivalent and considering them just fantasy entertainment, instead of realizing that most aspects of sci-fi are somewhere between artist's concept (soft end of sci-fi) to engineering blueprints (hard end of sci-fi, which often literally describes real engineering blueprints in prose!).
People used to take inspiration from softish sci-fi; for all my love of Star Trek, it's as soft a sci-fi as it gets, and it managed to drive a couple generations of people to STEM, and predict, inspire and/or pre-market plenty of new technologies. Would iPhone and iPad become so popular so quickly if not for a large part of US population, and Western culture itself, having been familiar with those concepts for two decades already, thanks to Star Trek: TNG? You got a whole generation there, growing to await stationary and portable touchscreens.
Point being, people used to look up to sci-fi ideas, and stuff happened. Now they don't, stuff doesn't happen, and even sci-fi gets sadder and more boring year by year. It's like the whole culture advanced from energetic young adult stage into a depressed, bored middle-aged suburbanite stage.
(Also, a lot of Middle Earth / Harry Potter stuff is doable too, you just need a sprinkle of molecular nanotechnology and a post-scarcity economy where people can afford spending an order of magnitude more effort on showing off than on utility aspects.)
> but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space.
There's an abundance of evidence that human body is not capable of existing for years anywhere but on specific terrain in a small latitude band on the planet. Everywhere else, we exist thanks to technology. That's literally the story of humanity: inhabiting the previously inhospitable areas by building tools we need to survive. Space is no different.
Not with that attitude. ISS would like to differ, anyway.
> People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate.
Yes. But that's not because space is evil or haunted or a domain gods reserve themselves. It's because of weightlessness. We know how to solve this problem - it's precisely the kind of things GP is talking about: an engineering challenge we know how to solve on paper, but need to actually do it, to a) learn all the little peculiarities that always come with something new, b) actually have this working on some piece of space infrastructure.
> Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!!
There's lots of stuff in space. Within the distances past manned missions already covered, there's way more of everything than on Earth itself - except life. That one is on us to get there, you can view this as a natural process of life evolving to settle other niches :). And while space itself by volume is mostly empty, the reason you're talking about is just gravity.
> People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts
On the contrary, people treat these as equivalent and considering them just fantasy entertainment, instead of realizing that most aspects of sci-fi are somewhere between artist's concept (soft end of sci-fi) to engineering blueprints (hard end of sci-fi, which often literally describes real engineering blueprints in prose!).
People used to take inspiration from softish sci-fi; for all my love of Star Trek, it's as soft a sci-fi as it gets, and it managed to drive a couple generations of people to STEM, and predict, inspire and/or pre-market plenty of new technologies. Would iPhone and iPad become so popular so quickly if not for a large part of US population, and Western culture itself, having been familiar with those concepts for two decades already, thanks to Star Trek: TNG? You got a whole generation there, growing to await stationary and portable touchscreens.
Point being, people used to look up to sci-fi ideas, and stuff happened. Now they don't, stuff doesn't happen, and even sci-fi gets sadder and more boring year by year. It's like the whole culture advanced from energetic young adult stage into a depressed, bored middle-aged suburbanite stage.
(Also, a lot of Middle Earth / Harry Potter stuff is doable too, you just need a sprinkle of molecular nanotechnology and a post-scarcity economy where people can afford spending an order of magnitude more effort on showing off than on utility aspects.)
> but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space.
There's an abundance of evidence that human body is not capable of existing for years anywhere but on specific terrain in a small latitude band on the planet. Everywhere else, we exist thanks to technology. That's literally the story of humanity: inhabiting the previously inhospitable areas by building tools we need to survive. Space is no different.
Hate to break it to you, but ISS is not technically in space. There is still some athmosphere, a ton of gravity (comparing to "actual space"), and plenty of protection from the earth's magnetic shield.
Its actually quite the equivalent of "lets try this in antartica first".
> Hate to break it to you, but ISS is not technically in space. There is still some athmosphere
There's still some atmosphere quite high away from Earth, the transition from "not space" to "space" is asymptotic.
> a ton of gravity (comparing to "actual space")
It doesn't matter because ISS is in orbit. Weightlessness is weightlessness, whether you're free-falling in circles, straight at something, or so far away from anything it's hard to calculate who's pulling on you the most.
> plenty of protection from the earth's magnetic shield
Fair enough.
But I reserve my right to hold ISS as being in space, to counterbalance the parent's claim: "We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible.".
There's still some atmosphere quite high away from Earth, the transition from "not space" to "space" is asymptotic.
> a ton of gravity (comparing to "actual space")
It doesn't matter because ISS is in orbit. Weightlessness is weightlessness, whether you're free-falling in circles, straight at something, or so far away from anything it's hard to calculate who's pulling on you the most.
> plenty of protection from the earth's magnetic shield
Fair enough.
But I reserve my right to hold ISS as being in space, to counterbalance the parent's claim: "We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible.".
>There's still some atmosphere quite high away from Earth, the transition from "not space" to "space" is asymptotic.
Not saying otherwise; however, 400km above surface and eg. Stationary orbit are quite different things.
>It doesn't matter because ISS is in orbit. Weightlessness is weightlessness, whether you're free-falling in circles, straight at something, or so far away from anything it's hard to calculate who's pulling on you the most.
Actually, we don't know that. From a perception perspective, you are right;From a biological perspective, we actually don't know if there is any biological process that may be affected by the free-falling effect, specifically.
>"We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible."
The op's assertion seems to be right - most of what we know to date seems to confirm it. Maybe "not possible" is a strong statement, but certainly not feasible, and that is not going to change anytime soon.
Not saying otherwise; however, 400km above surface and eg. Stationary orbit are quite different things.
>It doesn't matter because ISS is in orbit. Weightlessness is weightlessness, whether you're free-falling in circles, straight at something, or so far away from anything it's hard to calculate who's pulling on you the most.
Actually, we don't know that. From a perception perspective, you are right;From a biological perspective, we actually don't know if there is any biological process that may be affected by the free-falling effect, specifically.
>"We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible."
The op's assertion seems to be right - most of what we know to date seems to confirm it. Maybe "not possible" is a strong statement, but certainly not feasible, and that is not going to change anytime soon.
> there is nothing in space for a reason!!
literally everything is in space
literally everything is in space
Near-Earth asteroid mining? Is there anything close and worth mining? AFAIK most asteroids, including those containing valuable heavy metals like platinum, are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter orbits. Which is significantly farther than Mars.
I more easily believe in mining rocks on Moon as cool souvenirs. (And as a first step in developing the technology.)
I more easily believe in mining rocks on Moon as cool souvenirs. (And as a first step in developing the technology.)
Just as with scientific research, asteroid mining will be the domain of robots. There's no economic case for sending humans for that job, and AI is improving year on year. So sadly no Belters, whatever the value of mining space rocks.
Even a completely useless piece of rock is already a piece of rock in space. It can be used for shielding, counterweight for a spinning habitat, melted into simple shapes to support your habitats, etc.. You can even use it for propulsion - fling it away with a mass driver or vaporize with an arc-jet through a thruster nozzle!
Near Earth asteroids are rich in experience.
The obvious answer to "why" is that you can use Antarctica as a low(er) cost, low risk, practice run. Similar to space tech of the 60s, the tech developed this way could have a big impact on many areas of life. And yes, it won't solve everything, nor give us a second planet.
Why should anyone do anything, really?
Why should anyone do anything, really?
Antarctica has the same gravity and radiation levels (magnetosphere) as everywhere on Earth.
In HN speak - “to learn to build a filesystem, build a web server first!”
In HN speak - “to learn to build a filesystem, build a web server first!”
Raising radiation levels is not a problem here on earth at all. Not sure about gravity and health effects, maybe it can be simulated with some amphetamine + sedative cocktails.
Hard thing in living on Mars is not the cold, it is the lack of oxygen or easily accessible water. All of these are abundant on Antarctica so it is not really a practice run.
I see little point in exploring this on Antarctica which is why I believe no one really is entertaining idea of this type of test run on Antarctica.
I see little point in exploring this on Antarctica which is why I believe no one really is entertaining idea of this type of test run on Antarctica.
Sealing yourself off from the abundant water and oxygen in Antarctica seems pretty easy though.
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Your “why” questions apply just as much to sending humans into space.
Sending machines makes sense. Sending humans, not so much.
Sending machines makes sense. Sending humans, not so much.
Becoming a multi planetary species is the end. Machines are merely a means to that end.
Becoming a multi-planetary species is a fantasy which only seems plausible when you’ve watched too much science fiction, and don’t have a good understanding of the physical, biological, technological, economic, and political challenges that prevent it from happening.
we haven't solved vertical farming yet. it's not energy efficient. i imagine its even harder/more expensive in Antarctica to keep the plants warm enough.
cheap and clean energy production is where we should spend our money.
I'm not a farmer so I may be way off, but I thought the one thing we had done with vertical farming was beat natural energy efficiency?
Photosynthesis doesn't use sunlight all that well, PV + wavelength tuned LED can turn the same amount of sunlight into more biology.
But! Farmland is dirt cheap, so that's more of a solution in search of a problem than anything else.
Photosynthesis doesn't use sunlight all that well, PV + wavelength tuned LED can turn the same amount of sunlight into more biology.
But! Farmland is dirt cheap, so that's more of a solution in search of a problem than anything else.
You mean efficiency in terms of the plants absorbing the energy? Probably. But in most parts of the world it's still cheaper to just use more land.
Yes to the question.
Also, agreed to the final point.
Plus, the comparison shouldn't be "open farmland vs. PV+LED", it should be "for the resources cost of PV+LED, what can you build in the way of polytunnel or greenhouse?"
Which in turn reminds me of this YouTube Mars botany simulator, whose validity I can't help but doubt, but which is nevertheless moderately interesting: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o6-Hfsnhn_HFxjJ0...
Also, agreed to the final point.
Plus, the comparison shouldn't be "open farmland vs. PV+LED", it should be "for the resources cost of PV+LED, what can you build in the way of polytunnel or greenhouse?"
Which in turn reminds me of this YouTube Mars botany simulator, whose validity I can't help but doubt, but which is nevertheless moderately interesting: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o6-Hfsnhn_HFxjJ0...
Energy efficiency vs outdoor farming with Sun is not applicable to any Mars colony.
You can be very inefficient if it is your only method of producing food.
You can be very inefficient if it is your only method of producing food.
It would provide proof of concept and troubleshooting for many technologies which Mars colony proponents seem to think already exist and they can just buy or slap together on short notice. If nobody can manage a self-sufficient biodome on Earth, there is basically no chance of it working in a much harsher and demanding environment.
Mars is a harsher environment than actual empty space, you can't just toss a space capsule onto the surface and expect to live in it for the next 2 years even if you had the food and power and extra parts.
Mars is a harsher environment than actual empty space, you can't just toss a space capsule onto the surface and expect to live in it for the next 2 years even if you had the food and power and extra parts.
Trying to escape the confines of Earth in our fragile meat-bag bodies is probably 100x less practical than escaping the confines of our fragile meat-bag bodies.
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We have places on Earth, which are probably 10x if not 100x or 1000x more habitable than Mars, which we still do not and cannot inhabit long term with more than a handful of people.
Exactly this. It has been tried many times and every time the project ultimately fails. There have been many greenhouse / biodome projects that tried to simulate living on mars or the moon and they always go sideways. These projects also assume everyone involved has passed a physical and mental health screening. Society as a whole does not align with such tests. One bad neighbor will cause an atmospheric loss and take everyone out.
If we are going to spend a lot of money in space ventures I would rather see that effort put into something that could save life on Earth from real risks such as getting really good at mining asteroids and controlling the trajectory of asteroids and even that should be 99%+ robots. Humans should be hanging out in near-by spacecraft to have a low latency control and monitoring of the robots and have smaller rescue ships that could be used to extract people from the control spacecraft when things ultimately go wrong. Rescue and maintenance drones should also be robots.
Mars should be a distant stretch goal when our technology advances to the point where we can transform the land and the atmosphere in one or two human lifetimes. We are obviously not there yet as we can not even clean up our own atmosphere here on Earth.
Exactly this. It has been tried many times and every time the project ultimately fails. There have been many greenhouse / biodome projects that tried to simulate living on mars or the moon and they always go sideways. These projects also assume everyone involved has passed a physical and mental health screening. Society as a whole does not align with such tests. One bad neighbor will cause an atmospheric loss and take everyone out.
If we are going to spend a lot of money in space ventures I would rather see that effort put into something that could save life on Earth from real risks such as getting really good at mining asteroids and controlling the trajectory of asteroids and even that should be 99%+ robots. Humans should be hanging out in near-by spacecraft to have a low latency control and monitoring of the robots and have smaller rescue ships that could be used to extract people from the control spacecraft when things ultimately go wrong. Rescue and maintenance drones should also be robots.
Mars should be a distant stretch goal when our technology advances to the point where we can transform the land and the atmosphere in one or two human lifetimes. We are obviously not there yet as we can not even clean up our own atmosphere here on Earth.
Has anyone come out and said "we should deliberately avoid sticking a colony in Antarctica or the Sahara or on the moon, and going to Mars with no trial runs is a great idea"?
Hazarding a guess at what other people think, colonising Mars is a decades- to centuries-long guiding star that will necessarily involve putting self-contained colonies in a lot of different places. In fact, Maciej points out that reaching Mars will require a moon base, which for some reason he thinks is a negative.
The argument from the article about the relative cost-efficiency of putting people on Mars versus doing pretty much anything else is a good one, but the argument that a Mars base is in itself bad is nothing but a couple of paragraphs of ad hominem attacks about "subsistence-farming incels". I'm not convinced that there's a good reason to abandon our dreams of space colonisation, just because NASA is doing some unrealistic and wasteful things.
Hazarding a guess at what other people think, colonising Mars is a decades- to centuries-long guiding star that will necessarily involve putting self-contained colonies in a lot of different places. In fact, Maciej points out that reaching Mars will require a moon base, which for some reason he thinks is a negative.
The argument from the article about the relative cost-efficiency of putting people on Mars versus doing pretty much anything else is a good one, but the argument that a Mars base is in itself bad is nothing but a couple of paragraphs of ad hominem attacks about "subsistence-farming incels". I'm not convinced that there's a good reason to abandon our dreams of space colonisation, just because NASA is doing some unrealistic and wasteful things.
> Has anyone come out and said "we should deliberately avoid sticking a colony in Antarctica or the Sahara or on the moon, and going to Mars with no trial runs is a great idea"?
Yes, at least with their wallets (and quite possibly worth words too, though I can't be bothered to trawl through interviews to see if anyone asked).
Yes, at least with their wallets (and quite possibly worth words too, though I can't be bothered to trawl through interviews to see if anyone asked).
As the article mentions, NASA talks about landing on Mars in the next 2 decades. Elon Musk has suggested even shorter timelines. Who else is working on Mars missions? It's not unreasonable for Maciej to limit his criticism to the foolish Mars missions that people are actually spending money on, not the wise ones we wish existed.
Just to be pedantic, Mars is absolutely covered in oxygen. It's the most abundant element in the atmosphere and second most abundant in the crust. It's part of the reason they planet is red.
To some extent that is true, but it's important to note that it's a sliver of Oxygen in absolute terms. Thee is more CO2 in Earth's atmosphere (by weight) than all of the gases in the Martian atmosphere combined, if I remember correctly.
how about let's figure out who to house and sustain 20K homeless people in established cities.
What about the very remote villages in the colder/harsher parts of the world? Ie the disputed islands north of Japan, the easternmost parts of Russia, the vast northern parts of Canada, etc? Figuring a way to make those worthy/capable of growth to cities seems still lower lying fruit than Antarctica.
Basically, an Earth that’s capable of colonizing the moon or mars is probably already capable of further settling those conditions on Earth. That stage of humanity probably needs to have a stronger sense of community than current, too.
Basically, an Earth that’s capable of colonizing the moon or mars is probably already capable of further settling those conditions on Earth. That stage of humanity probably needs to have a stronger sense of community than current, too.
"Can we do it" is only part of the question, the other is "what's to gain compared to other options?". I'm not sure I know the answer for Mars, but am pretty sure properly colonizing Antarctica compared to more densly settling Siberia or Alaska has no advantages. Settling Mars might though. Besides research, there might be good mining or advantages from let gravity. These might be better though on the moon or astroids.
It’s illegal to settle Antarctica. If that were not the case someone would try.
There are really no frontiers left on Earth that are not locked up by existing states.
That point is missed by the whole “space makes no sense because nobody lives in Antarctica” argument.
That and settling another planet is much more interesting than trying to settle a less friendly area of Earth where people already can live.
There are really no frontiers left on Earth that are not locked up by existing states.
That point is missed by the whole “space makes no sense because nobody lives in Antarctica” argument.
That and settling another planet is much more interesting than trying to settle a less friendly area of Earth where people already can live.
Or even figuring out simpler things like how to avoid destroying rain forest to grow palm oil.
You know where palm trees don't grow? On mars.
You know where palm trees don't grow? On mars.
Agreed 100%. The worst places on Earth are still better than the best places on Mars because you have free gravity and oxygen here. Even for a self-sustaining colony, it would be nice for a dome-crack to not be immediately fatal.
Once we have thriving biodomes in the Outback, then talk to me about trying to do it on Mars.
Once we have thriving biodomes in the Outback, then talk to me about trying to do it on Mars.
I think Elon is betting on AGI, and is merely bootstrapping the initial delivery systems.
he's betting on adjusted gross income?
No no no. He is betting on Association For Geographic Information
Let’s figure out a solution to plastic. Oceans and rivers clean up. Sustainable agri. These are not cool tho.
I’m a fan of Mars and beyond also eventually. Expanse TV series does great at near future sci-fi and solar system scale humanity.
I’m a fan of Mars and beyond also eventually. Expanse TV series does great at near future sci-fi and solar system scale humanity.
Because learning how to do it in the inhospitable environment of Mars will teach us lots about how to do it better on Earth.
> We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.
> We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.
> Because learning how to do it in the inhospitable environment of Mars will teach us lots about how to do it better on Earth.
That seems backwards. I would switch Mars and Earth in this sentence. Doesn't it make more sense to take the easier steps first, which will prepare us for eventually taking bigger steps?
I'm not against Mars exploration. There's no reason we couldn't do both: keep sending probes to Mars, maybe even humans in a decade or two, but make a Lunar base the priority. Then apply the lessons we learn on the Moon to establishing a colony on Mars. And literally use the Moon as a springboard for Mars missions.
I think this is pretty much universally agreed to be the sequence of events. A lot of discussion about this seems to imply we'll just proceed with some Mars colonization mission before we understand the challenges it poses, and before we're certain we can tackle them.
BTW, that JFK quote seems out of place in this context, considering it was made at the height of the space race. The speech was politically motivated, and was meant to inspire a nation to not "lose" the race, while instilling fear in the enemy.
That seems backwards. I would switch Mars and Earth in this sentence. Doesn't it make more sense to take the easier steps first, which will prepare us for eventually taking bigger steps?
I'm not against Mars exploration. There's no reason we couldn't do both: keep sending probes to Mars, maybe even humans in a decade or two, but make a Lunar base the priority. Then apply the lessons we learn on the Moon to establishing a colony on Mars. And literally use the Moon as a springboard for Mars missions.
I think this is pretty much universally agreed to be the sequence of events. A lot of discussion about this seems to imply we'll just proceed with some Mars colonization mission before we understand the challenges it poses, and before we're certain we can tackle them.
BTW, that JFK quote seems out of place in this context, considering it was made at the height of the space race. The speech was politically motivated, and was meant to inspire a nation to not "lose" the race, while instilling fear in the enemy.
We will inevitably learn more about adapting our environment to our needs, as well as what our needs are when we are challenged by life on Mars, similarly to when we were challenged by life in LEO, on the ISS.
I do not know a space equivalent, but in medicine, treating severe diseases teaches us a lot more about treating their mild cases than the mild cases alone could.
As for space races and political motivations, if you look at China's advancements in space recently, both in terms of launches per year and the pace of their construction capability in LEO, it is clear that we are in a race. On both counts (launch count and construction in LEO, demonstrated by Tiangong SS missions), the US is losing it. There indeed does not seem to be political motivation to do much about it.
I do not know a space equivalent, but in medicine, treating severe diseases teaches us a lot more about treating their mild cases than the mild cases alone could.
As for space races and political motivations, if you look at China's advancements in space recently, both in terms of launches per year and the pace of their construction capability in LEO, it is clear that we are in a race. On both counts (launch count and construction in LEO, demonstrated by Tiangong SS missions), the US is losing it. There indeed does not seem to be political motivation to do much about it.
We will not inevitably learn such things, there is in fact a much bigger chance that we will fail and stop trying for at least a while.
To clarify, I meant that we would inevitably do so when we live on Mars. But good observation - it is certainly not inevitable overall at this point in time.
Sure, but "given that we succeed, we will inevitably know more than today" is pretty tautological. I could say the same for winning a chess match against Magnus Carlsen.
If success is a premise, and learning is the conclusion, then it is not tautological. But yes, while not the only possible, it is a very likely result.
And tautologically or not, it is important to recognize the value of how much we could learn from a Mars colony that can't be learned on Earth, in LEO, or on the Moon.
And tautologically or not, it is important to recognize the value of how much we could learn from a Mars colony that can't be learned on Earth, in LEO, or on the Moon.
I don't really think there is one true best sequence of events. For example:
1) Luna first, send stuff to space with mass drivers.
2) Gravity well is lava, mine asteroids (near Earth, then Belt) and build massive space colonies to your liking (O'Neill Cylinders, etc.).
3) Lets build balloon cities in the atmosphere of Venus!
4) Settle (likely after doing nr. 2) the ocean worlds of the kerbal-scale Solar System analog around Jupiter.
But most likely, some mix of those will likely happen, with different organizations having different needs and aims (eq. massive free flying factories and scientific instruments vs self sustained city building).
1) Luna first, send stuff to space with mass drivers.
2) Gravity well is lava, mine asteroids (near Earth, then Belt) and build massive space colonies to your liking (O'Neill Cylinders, etc.).
3) Lets build balloon cities in the atmosphere of Venus!
4) Settle (likely after doing nr. 2) the ocean worlds of the kerbal-scale Solar System analog around Jupiter.
But most likely, some mix of those will likely happen, with different organizations having different needs and aims (eq. massive free flying factories and scientific instruments vs self sustained city building).
Can you cite any historical examples of this phenomenon? It sounds intuitively correct, but my understanding of the history of technology is that the vast majority of progress was made by finding increasingly effective solutions for increasingly difficult problems, not by "jumping in the deep end".
The question remains, why not just do those things on the moon instead? It makes almost infinitely more sense when compared to mars.
I can relate to this argument in principle. Building base here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_Inaccessibility_resear... for example would be a great exercise for building base on Mars.
We could learn great things, and maybe reuse technology for going on Mars.
We could learn great things, and maybe reuse technology for going on Mars.
The Russian Vostok base base or the european Concordia base are already in quite similar environment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Station
And IIRC Concordia already tested some water recycling technology from ESA for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordia_Station
And IIRC Concordia already tested some water recycling technology from ESA for example.
I don't think the first people who visit Mars need to be there more than few hours. Just repeat what was already done on Moon.
We need to do some basic expreriments, take the soil samples and drill few meters down in order to check for water ice deposits.
But before all that, we need to send more rovers.
We need to do some basic expreriments, take the soil samples and drill few meters down in order to check for water ice deposits.
But before all that, we need to send more rovers.
Based on their Earth->MArs trajectory, they might have to stay for possibly a terrestrial year or more, waiting for the next launch window to Earth.
Provided you want to get the crew back to Earth of course, if not then "don't need to be there more than few hours" takes a whole another meaning & makes mass optimization of the mission much easier! ;-)
Provided you want to get the crew back to Earth of course, if not then "don't need to be there more than few hours" takes a whole another meaning & makes mass optimization of the mission much easier! ;-)
What about preserving what we have left and trying to not expand humanity footprint on the planet? Barren landscape of Mars is unremarkable compared to Earth's ecosystem which we still mostly don't understand but keep ravaging nonetheless
But there are no taxes on Mars!
https://taxfoundation.org/tax-court-antarctica-not-foreign-c...
https://taxfoundation.org/tax-court-antarctica-not-foreign-c...
That doesn't solve the scenario where everyone on earth gets wiped out.
Mars is on (or above) a wiped out Earth level of difficulty already
the "eggs in one basket" argument only makes sense if Martian colonization is itself just step 1 on a list of dozens of similarly-difficult leaps to get us to terraforming and interstellar colonization.
It's a very exciting, multi-generational project to think about. Though frankly I think we're going to get AGI + brain/computer interfaces + cloud mind uploads before we get martian terraforming; and dropping the bag-of-meat related requirements would make extraterrestrial colonization much easier.
It's a very exciting, multi-generational project to think about. Though frankly I think we're going to get AGI + brain/computer interfaces + cloud mind uploads before we get martian terraforming; and dropping the bag-of-meat related requirements would make extraterrestrial colonization much easier.
I think we will do both - and everything in between! Even just because you can never get all people top agree on something. :)
That's also the best option, not betting on a single idea or technology.
That's also the best option, not betting on a single idea or technology.
Without humans. Redundancy is important.
True, but irrelevant to the point that it's a different basket.
It's not irrelevant. Virtually the only conceivable thing that could make Earth even temporarily as inhospitable to humans as Mars is today is an impact close to the one that created the Moon. For any other scenario, some places on Earth will continue to be more inhabitable to humans even during the event itself than Mars is today.
So, having humans on Earth + Mars at best only marginally improved the chances of humanity surviving long term than only having humans on Earth, by a tiny amount.
So, having humans on Earth + Mars at best only marginally improved the chances of humanity surviving long term than only having humans on Earth, by a tiny amount.
Mars is more habitable than Earth would be during an extinction event. After the event the wiped out Earth would certainly be more habitable, but if there aren't any humans available to repopulate...
There is a broad range of possible human extinction events, e.g. asteroid impact, large-scale volcanism, viral epidemic, nuclear annihilation, biological warfare, ecological collapse, and autonomous robots [1].
Humans actively monitor and defend against each threat. In the U.S., NASA is committed to detecting asteroids, and recently successfully altered the course of one [2].
I believe we are most powerful to overcome extinction events as a united species on the planet we’ve evolved to live on over billions of years.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_extinction
[2] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2022/9/22/the-science-behi...
Humans actively monitor and defend against each threat. In the U.S., NASA is committed to detecting asteroids, and recently successfully altered the course of one [2].
I believe we are most powerful to overcome extinction events as a united species on the planet we’ve evolved to live on over billions of years.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_extinction
[2] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2022/9/22/the-science-behi...
What extinction event could possibly make Earth less habitable than Mars?
Depends on what would kill everyone on earth. More importantly, if everyone on earth dies having a 100,000 people living on Mars isn’t enough they also all die.
I think 100,000 people on Mars also kinda implies a substantial space infrastructure to support them & possibly a sizeable population elsewhere.
All the space infra could also possibly help detecting and averting space born threats, such as asteroids on a collision course.
All the space infra could also possibly help detecting and averting space born threats, such as asteroids on a collision course.
If they're self-sufficient, they could survive. Human population on Earth has bottlenecked to less than 100,000 in the past and we recovered.
Are we sure that getting to 100,000 self-sufficient humans on Mars will take less time than getting to 100,000 self-sufficient humans on the Moon? The conditions on the Moon are harsher, but our ability to move people and supplies there seems much greater. And what exactly is the extinction event that would threaten both Earth and a self-sufficient Moon colony?
Self-sufficient seems like quite the bar though. I guess they wouldn't need fancy electronics etc, but I imagine they'd still need non-trivial metallurgy, chemistry and similar in order to survive.
That is, they can bring a lot of fancy stuff with them, but to be self-sufficient they'd have to be able to maintain, repair and ideally rebuild what they need indefinitely without resupplies from Earth.
That is, they can bring a lot of fancy stuff with them, but to be self-sufficient they'd have to be able to maintain, repair and ideally rebuild what they need indefinitely without resupplies from Earth.
I’d say 100k self-sufficient humans isn’t enough to support postindustrial civilization even on Earth without a hazardous scenario. Imagine aliens extracting all cities and all signs of technology except one town and dropping off some automated libraries, datacenters, labs, factories and other important equipment in a working condition around there. These 100k people wouldn’t be able to maintain it and pass it down the next generation. On anything non-Earth they would go extinct in one lifetime.
this is a pretty fascinating question. Yes, they definitely wouldn't be able to create say Intel fabs, since the "market" cannot sustain it. But, being a very adaptable species, could they gracefully scale down the tech to keep making what's needed for survival? It's similar to time travel, if you got dropped into the middle ages, would your knowledge be useful to them? here it's like the reverse: having seen everything in an advanced civilization, can a resource-constrained team pick out and keep the most important core?
Not for long I guess. Maintaining advanced hardware is hard because it sits on top of a technological pyramid, and the next layer is also advanced hardware, which sits on top of a… you get the idea.
I think that it could be possible for them to focus on few important/key paths, in theory. But, unless they research and prepare for exactly that scenario and chances that it works would be strictly in their favor and they all would work hard, learn hard and motivate themselves through their entire life, I don’t see how it could work. Not to mention political, social, religious risks with the next generation.
I’m not 100% sure ofc, that would be no doubt an interesting “experiment”.
I think that it could be possible for them to focus on few important/key paths, in theory. But, unless they research and prepare for exactly that scenario and chances that it works would be strictly in their favor and they all would work hard, learn hard and motivate themselves through their entire life, I don’t see how it could work. Not to mention political, social, religious risks with the next generation.
I’m not 100% sure ofc, that would be no doubt an interesting “experiment”.
If we ever get to the point where thousands of people are moving to Mars, thousands will also be moving to the Moon, and vice versa. I don't see it as being just one or the other because the problems that need to be solved are approximately the same, and the cost of shuttling people and supplies is far from the hardest.
Getting to the moon or mars is trivial compared to stable self sufficiency.
It is because no one would invest same as much money to do a pointless habitat challenge. Given same funding as used in Mars plan, of course we can manage to habitat in Antarctica.
The primary reason Antarctica is uninhabited is because it’s effectively against international law. Unfortunately there are similar laws affecting outer space.
There’s no great point to having 20k in Antarctica. Becoming a multiplanet species does have a great long term point, but it’s more of a thousand year vision than a five year vision. Many of Mars’ shortcomings can be improved upon but they’re slow and take a lot of scale. Open bodies of water and a breathable atmosphere are entirely possible and more of an challenge of developing the scale than solving a scientific obstacle.
If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it, but don’t stand in the way of people who want to try.
If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it, but don’t stand in the way of people who want to try.
People who don't want to do it would be expected to pay for it. The people who want to try don't have enough money.
We haven't done so because it does not benefit us.
Establishing a self-sufficient city on Mars does benefit us, even if it is more difficult.
Establishing a self-sufficient city on Mars does benefit us, even if it is more difficult.
Who, exactly, is this "us" who benefits?
In particular, does it include any of the people asked to pay for it?
In particular, does it include any of the people asked to pay for it?
As far as I can tell, the majority of the cost of the development of the technology to take millions of tons to Mars is being funded by a private company.
That company's revenues, insofar as they result from what were once public funds, are primarily a result of projects related solely to the Earth (and perhaps one planned mission to the moon).
NASA is not paying for SpaceX to go to Mars. NASA is paying SpaceX to take stuff to Earth orbit.
That company's revenues, insofar as they result from what were once public funds, are primarily a result of projects related solely to the Earth (and perhaps one planned mission to the moon).
NASA is not paying for SpaceX to go to Mars. NASA is paying SpaceX to take stuff to Earth orbit.
Who will actually pay to ship "millions of tons to Mars"? SpaceX certainly will not.
Almost all of SpaceX's income, absent Starlink subscription fees, traces to tax dollars.
Almost all of SpaceX's income, absent Starlink subscription fees, traces to tax dollars.
> SpaceX certainly will not.
That's always been a stated goal of SpaceX to do exactly that. That's why they funded on their own dime the development of a massive reusable vehicle that has literally no reason to be that large unless your explicit plan is to design it for interplanetary cargo.
> Almost all of SpaceX's income, absent Starlink subscription fees, traces to tax dollars.
Not true. As stated explicitly by SpaceX in several years ago, the revenue split of SpaceX was 1/3 NASA, 1/3 other government and 1/3 commercial. But in recent years the commercial fraction has dramatically increased (simply as evidenced by the tremendous numbers of missions happening from non-government customers).
That's always been a stated goal of SpaceX to do exactly that. That's why they funded on their own dime the development of a massive reusable vehicle that has literally no reason to be that large unless your explicit plan is to design it for interplanetary cargo.
> Almost all of SpaceX's income, absent Starlink subscription fees, traces to tax dollars.
Not true. As stated explicitly by SpaceX in several years ago, the revenue split of SpaceX was 1/3 NASA, 1/3 other government and 1/3 commercial. But in recent years the commercial fraction has dramatically increased (simply as evidenced by the tremendous numbers of missions happening from non-government customers).
> That's always been a stated goal of SpaceX to do exactly that.
Yes, but his lips were moving.
Yes, but his lips were moving.
Uhm, they do a lot of purely commercial space launches (comsats, LEO missions, commercial dragon flights) even including for some of their direct competitors to Starlink (OneWeb)!
You have this back to front.
The concentration of resources involved in getting people to and on Mars, will as a side effect also open up these areas on Earth for habitation.
The same effect occured with the space race. Instead of standing around saying it's impossible, our species rose to the challenge and as a side effect the technologies developed ended up altering our lives on earth in fundamental ways.
We are doing it because it is hard. Because we know the payoff for achieving difficult things.
The concentration of resources involved in getting people to and on Mars, will as a side effect also open up these areas on Earth for habitation.
The same effect occured with the space race. Instead of standing around saying it's impossible, our species rose to the challenge and as a side effect the technologies developed ended up altering our lives on earth in fundamental ways.
We are doing it because it is hard. Because we know the payoff for achieving difficult things.
The point of building a colony in Mars is, to my mind, first and foremost in that it would not be under direct control of any Earth 's government. At least, eventually.
I think this will drive the proper colonization of Mars.
Science, of course, but it won't require a large self-sustained colony, much like Antarctica, or oil / gas fields of Siberia, or oil rigs in the ocean.
I think this will drive the proper colonization of Mars.
Science, of course, but it won't require a large self-sustained colony, much like Antarctica, or oil / gas fields of Siberia, or oil rigs in the ocean.
Why do you think so, even in some far future? It's far more likely that Earth governments, having spent hundreds of years propping up such space colonies, would expect to rule them in perpetuity, and have easy means to do so (such as threatening to send nuclear bombardment or even troops - both far easier than actually establishing the colony in the first place). Especially since it seems very likely that colonists would not be allowed in any way to have access to weapons while they are still under Earth governments' control.
Not to mention, the Martian colony would forever be far far more frail to attack than any Earth society, since it has to spend so much of its nature wm resources just to keeping humans alive.
Not to mention, the Martian colony would forever be far far more frail to attack than any Earth society, since it has to spend so much of its nature wm resources just to keeping humans alive.
There's no other point to build a self-sufficient colony on inhospitable and remote Mars. Any scientific missions require much less effort, and afford much higher dependence on supplies from Earth. They don't require a colony, they can make do with an outpost, or 100% robotic presence as now.
Of course the "other" cause may be to make a backup of the Earth civilization and humankind for a case of collapse on Earth, due to global warming, an asteroid impact that hasn't been averted, etc. But this is only possible with true material independence, such that can withstand any blockage or embargo from the Earth's side, else it won't stand the collapse on Earth. The colony may declare allegiance to a particular Earth's government, and inherit the civil norms from the culture(s) which built it, but cannot and must not be ruled from Earth.
Independence != animosity and bitter confrontation. It's more like Canada is independent from the UK, despite some formal allegiance, and the UK is not going to send troops if the Canadian parliament votes in a way that bothers the English monarch.
This is a colossal task, likely not achievable even in this century with the technology we currently have. Stuff like high-temperature atomic engines and other near-sci-fi stuff could alter the equation somehow.
Of course the "other" cause may be to make a backup of the Earth civilization and humankind for a case of collapse on Earth, due to global warming, an asteroid impact that hasn't been averted, etc. But this is only possible with true material independence, such that can withstand any blockage or embargo from the Earth's side, else it won't stand the collapse on Earth. The colony may declare allegiance to a particular Earth's government, and inherit the civil norms from the culture(s) which built it, but cannot and must not be ruled from Earth.
Independence != animosity and bitter confrontation. It's more like Canada is independent from the UK, despite some formal allegiance, and the UK is not going to send troops if the Canadian parliament votes in a way that bothers the English monarch.
This is a colossal task, likely not achievable even in this century with the technology we currently have. Stuff like high-temperature atomic engines and other near-sci-fi stuff could alter the equation somehow.
Throughout history, empires have absolutely sent troops when their colonies started clamoring for independence. Now, if Canada wanted to get rid of Charles as head of state and leave the Commonwealth, would the UK send troops? Unlikely, as the cost of the war is very very unlikely to outweigh the benefit of maintaining largely formal control.
But, if Puerto Rico wanted to become an independent nation, do you imagine the USA would let it without trying to quash the "rebellion" with both economic and military might?
But, if Puerto Rico wanted to become an independent nation, do you imagine the USA would let it without trying to quash the "rebellion" with both economic and military might?
> But, if Puerto Rico wanted to become an independent nation, do you imagine the USA would let it without trying to quash the "rebellion" with both economic and military might?
The US did it for the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands in recent-ish years, why wouldn't they do it for Puerto Rico if they wanted to?
The US did it for the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands in recent-ish years, why wouldn't they do it for Puerto Rico if they wanted to?
I can't easily find any mentions of the US using military force to compel Palau to submit. It's independent since 1946 or so, and has a comprehensive treaty with the US. Can you please give some keywords or dates of the enforcement actions you allege to?
GP gave Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands as examples of territories the US allowed to become independent without trying to crush them economically or militarily, so your question seems... misplaced.
Sorry; I misunderstood the example.
My point is that letting a dependent territory go on good terms is a known practice, so thanks for the examples.
My point is that letting a dependent territory go on good terms is a known practice, so thanks for the examples.
All they would need to do is threaten to stop sending any of a thousand essential commodities that make life tolerable (never mind what makes it possible), and any resistance collapses instantly. Mars colonists would be more directly under the thumb of Earth government than anybody outside of prison, an antarctic base, or navy ship.
I imagine the GP included "in the long run" to refer to a hypothetical future where the colony were truly self-sufficient (so able to produce any good that they want or need).
Not any good they want, maybe, but any good needed for their indefinitely long survival.
Anything they just want badly suffices to enforce control.
Exactly! This is why it eventually would need to become produced locally.
It's not entirely unlike an overseas colony in an inhospitable but not empty place. Start small and dependent, develop the land around you and become autonomous.
It's not entirely unlike an overseas colony in an inhospitable but not empty place. Start small and dependent, develop the land around you and become autonomous.
Lacking control, how do you bring about diversion of resources to local production?
Arguably, a Martian colony might be actually more resistant to some forms of attack due to the normally hostile environment & presumably lower population density.
Not to mention any attack coming from Earth and not from some nearby (in ship travel time terms) will be known for months if not years in advance.
Not to mention any attack coming from Earth and not from some nearby (in ship travel time terms) will be known for months if not years in advance.
How does establishing a colony on Antartica help the survival of humans upon reset-level astroid impact/super vulcano/other?
The technology for that colony would also be applicable to underground vaults, or we could first build those.
Either way, events such as these that would have wiped out humanity as it exists today have not yet happened in the ~1.6 billion years of eukaryotes existing on Earth, so there are good reasons not to worry too too much about it.
Note that the asteroid that "wiped out the dinosaurs" would still have left humanity as it exists today in a much better shape than a Mars colony is likely to ever be in.
Also, note that much smaller meteors/asteroids pose a huge risk to a Martian colony than they do to Earth, as they burn less in the almost non-existent Martian atmosphere, and since a Martian colony will be much less geographically spread out than the Earth. An asteroid wiping put all of the people in North America would still not destroy life on Earth, while a similar impact would easily destroy any human life on Mars for any kind of foreseeable future, if it happens to hit the colony itself.
Either way, events such as these that would have wiped out humanity as it exists today have not yet happened in the ~1.6 billion years of eukaryotes existing on Earth, so there are good reasons not to worry too too much about it.
Note that the asteroid that "wiped out the dinosaurs" would still have left humanity as it exists today in a much better shape than a Mars colony is likely to ever be in.
Also, note that much smaller meteors/asteroids pose a huge risk to a Martian colony than they do to Earth, as they burn less in the almost non-existent Martian atmosphere, and since a Martian colony will be much less geographically spread out than the Earth. An asteroid wiping put all of the people in North America would still not destroy life on Earth, while a similar impact would easily destroy any human life on Mars for any kind of foreseeable future, if it happens to hit the colony itself.
On the other hand, due to basically no hydrosphere and very thin atmosphere, there would be much less shock waves, no trees to burn, no post-impact winter and a lot of the ejecta might end up in space due lo lower gravity. instead of falling back to bombard the planet.
So certainly a bad news for the one spot, but another outpost a couple hundred km distant could be fine.
So certainly a bad news for the one spot, but another outpost a couple hundred km distant could be fine.
Our destiny is total domination in the universe. Mars is most certainly part of those first steps.
Sustaining 20k people in Antarctica isn’t a problem people can’t solve, it just isn’t at all useful. Sustaining a colony on mars would be useful to mitigate planetary scale natural disasters. The problem is humans as we exist bow are not likely to either spend the resources necessary or take the risks necessary to colonize mars for a long term and uncertain risk mitigation.
We can’t even get a large % of humans to stop buying SUVs with vastly excess horsepower to avoid ruining our planet in a relatively short time frame.
The societal/political problems seem larger to me than the engineering ones, which are just a matter of effort.
We can’t even get a large % of humans to stop buying SUVs with vastly excess horsepower to avoid ruining our planet in a relatively short time frame.
The societal/political problems seem larger to me than the engineering ones, which are just a matter of effort.
You are saying because we can't solve problems of magnitude x, we should count on solving hundreds of problems of difficulty 1000x, and also those x.
[deleted]
Only because we don’t care to. What does a colony of 20k in Antarctica achieve? It still has all of the same shared fate issues by being on Earth.
> If NASA is Amtrak in space, then SpaceX is the Fyre Festival with rockets
> the hypertunnel that is just a regular tunnel, the door panels that fall off the self-driving car, the robot that’s only a guy in a suit
This was an otherwise well-articulated post, but wow, Musk Derangement Syndrome is real.
I’m not saying SpaceX and Musk have a complete viable plan for getting to Mars, but it was striking how the quality of his arguments when it came to Musk just dropped off a cliff.
SpaceX is making more rapid progress towards Mars than anyone. Even if Mars is not viable in the timeframe Musk has said, or you don’t think we should send humans to Mars at all, it would still be highly beneficial for Starship to succeed.
> the hypertunnel that is just a regular tunnel, the door panels that fall off the self-driving car, the robot that’s only a guy in a suit
This was an otherwise well-articulated post, but wow, Musk Derangement Syndrome is real.
I’m not saying SpaceX and Musk have a complete viable plan for getting to Mars, but it was striking how the quality of his arguments when it came to Musk just dropped off a cliff.
SpaceX is making more rapid progress towards Mars than anyone. Even if Mars is not viable in the timeframe Musk has said, or you don’t think we should send humans to Mars at all, it would still be highly beneficial for Starship to succeed.
> wow, Musk Derangement Syndrome is real.
The underlying serious point of these light-hearted jokes is that Musk's demonstrated approach to technological questions will not solve the challenges of keeping people alive without access to the resources of our biosphere for years at a time. This challenge is arguably more difficult even than building rockets.
You inadvertently proved a point of the article: now we are arguing about Musk and not about the technological challenges of getting to Mars.
The underlying serious point of these light-hearted jokes is that Musk's demonstrated approach to technological questions will not solve the challenges of keeping people alive without access to the resources of our biosphere for years at a time. This challenge is arguably more difficult even than building rockets.
You inadvertently proved a point of the article: now we are arguing about Musk and not about the technological challenges of getting to Mars.
It’s certainly not an easy problem but neither are many of the other problems SpaceX has thrived solving. “Arguably harder” sounds like pretty good odds to me.
The author essentially dismissed SpaceX with ad hominem attacks on Musk, who in his critics minds is simultaneously incompetent and the embodiment of his demonstrably successful companies.
The author essentially dismissed SpaceX with ad hominem attacks on Musk, who in his critics minds is simultaneously incompetent and the embodiment of his demonstrably successful companies.
Again, we're arguing about Musk more than about the technological challenges. The article makes that very point - that Musk's approach to technological questions is to distract and make people argue about his character. Which we are doing.
> The author essentially dismissed SpaceX...
The article also makes the point that keeping people alive in space for years is a very different and unsolved and underestimated challenge than is building rockets. SpaceX builds rockets. It does not do the other thing.
> The author essentially dismissed SpaceX...
The article also makes the point that keeping people alive in space for years is a very different and unsolved and underestimated challenge than is building rockets. SpaceX builds rockets. It does not do the other thing.
We’re talking past each other.
I’m arguing we shouldn’t be arguing about Musk. I don’t know how much he is personally involved in the engineering decisions, but it doesn’t really matter because SpaceX has proved it can solve the vast array of problems that need to be solved to:
- Launch a rocket into to orbit
- Land and recover the first stage of that rocket (which had never been done before)
- Build a spacecraft that can be launched into orbit, dock with the ISS, deorbit, and be recovered
- Make that spacecraft support human life, and launch humans on it to the ISS, and bring them back alive (which also had never been done by a commercial entity)
I wouldn’t bet against SpaceX being able to do the engineering required to keep humans alive on spacecraft for years once it becomes a priority for them. At this point it’s premature.
I’m arguing we shouldn’t be arguing about Musk. I don’t know how much he is personally involved in the engineering decisions, but it doesn’t really matter because SpaceX has proved it can solve the vast array of problems that need to be solved to:
- Launch a rocket into to orbit
- Land and recover the first stage of that rocket (which had never been done before)
- Build a spacecraft that can be launched into orbit, dock with the ISS, deorbit, and be recovered
- Make that spacecraft support human life, and launch humans on it to the ISS, and bring them back alive (which also had never been done by a commercial entity)
I wouldn’t bet against SpaceX being able to do the engineering required to keep humans alive on spacecraft for years once it becomes a priority for them. At this point it’s premature.
I am a pretty big SpaceX fan, but so far, they've been tackling challenges that lend themselves to a rapid iteration if given sufficient capital.
Rapidly iterating on the incredible engineering difficulties inherent in building a reusable rocket does not mean you can do the same thing with an interplanetary mission that involves at least ~5 months of travel one way.
They need a whole other class of scientists and engineers to solve the "keeping a human alive for years in spacecraft/colony" problem. It just seems like a fundamentally different class of problem to me, and that SpaceX's strength of rapid iteration may be hardly applicable to this problem.
Rapidly iterating on the incredible engineering difficulties inherent in building a reusable rocket does not mean you can do the same thing with an interplanetary mission that involves at least ~5 months of travel one way.
They need a whole other class of scientists and engineers to solve the "keeping a human alive for years in spacecraft/colony" problem. It just seems like a fundamentally different class of problem to me, and that SpaceX's strength of rapid iteration may be hardly applicable to this problem.
I still thing a lot of it transfers over, especially if Starship works as intended - send Starships to Mars often with proof of concept tech and any customer payloads & have part of it pressurized with prototype life support system. If it works fine after the trips on multiple occasions, you can be reasonably sure it will work with a crew as well.
Possibly more sure than the "classic" testing (and paperwork) heavy model that usually does very few actuall test flights due to costs.
Possibly more sure than the "classic" testing (and paperwork) heavy model that usually does very few actuall test flights due to costs.
No, it will just make it - marginally - cheaper. But the basic challenges remain just as strong.
Ok, fair point. I do agree with the article that the challenges involved are probably greatly underestimated. Although we imagine that they are familiar, akin to known problems like deep-sea diving or mountain climbing or airplane travel or arctic exploration or even space station inhabitation, the challenges are actually wildly outside of current human knowledge. Worse, it's a boring problem. Not nearly as dramatic and exciting as making a rocket ship.
Well, SpaceX does build manned space capsules and runs a global satellite internet constellation. It also heards cows: https://www.vice.com/en/article/78xe5e/the-real-reason-space...
nonono, it's the TFA that lays down the weird unnecessary jokes like the "useless billion dollar shit dehydrator", and then brings up the name and launches into full blown ad hominem.
There are people out there doing real things, perhaps blundering along the way. If the articles author disagrees with their approach, they can just say "some well-publicized people think that cheap reusable rockets are a step 1 to any successful space endeavor, but I personally emphatically disagree with that, because a better way than cheap rockets is..." - instead that author launches a mud fight at that point.
There are people out there doing real things, perhaps blundering along the way. If the articles author disagrees with their approach, they can just say "some well-publicized people think that cheap reusable rockets are a step 1 to any successful space endeavor, but I personally emphatically disagree with that, because a better way than cheap rockets is..." - instead that author launches a mud fight at that point.
Only national space agencies have had a reason to invest in keeping humans alive for long periods of time so they are the only organizations that have demonstrated that capability. It doesn't follow that SpaceX couldn't do it - they just didn't have a reason for it so far.
This idea that "life support" is the most difficult aspect is unfounded. The most difficult problem is transportation and reducing the cost of transportation means that you can attempt to solve every other problem by simply throwing more mass at it.
NASA does much of its work through contractors anyway and there are several companies working on independent space stations. I'm confident that the "life support is too hard" argument will be proven false in a few years.
A similar argument is made that "cryogenic fuel transfer has never been demonstrated at scale therefore Starship can't work". But nobody has even seriously attempted this! And the reason is that without reusable rockets every refueling mission is unbelievably expensive and the business case never closed.
This idea that "life support" is the most difficult aspect is unfounded. The most difficult problem is transportation and reducing the cost of transportation means that you can attempt to solve every other problem by simply throwing more mass at it.
NASA does much of its work through contractors anyway and there are several companies working on independent space stations. I'm confident that the "life support is too hard" argument will be proven false in a few years.
A similar argument is made that "cryogenic fuel transfer has never been demonstrated at scale therefore Starship can't work". But nobody has even seriously attempted this! And the reason is that without reusable rockets every refueling mission is unbelievably expensive and the business case never closed.
> This idea that "life support" is the most difficult aspect is unfounded.
It's an unknown. While we have manned rockets, we have never entirely isolated a group of humans from the biosphere for even a year, never mind indefinitely. The times it was tried, it failed. As the article points out, it is not an experiment that can be done piecemeal. All elements must be in place and interacting before the effects are known: lack of gravity, radiation shielding, recyclers, scrubbers, years of time, etc
It's an unknown. While we have manned rockets, we have never entirely isolated a group of humans from the biosphere for even a year, never mind indefinitely. The times it was tried, it failed. As the article points out, it is not an experiment that can be done piecemeal. All elements must be in place and interacting before the effects are known: lack of gravity, radiation shielding, recyclers, scrubbers, years of time, etc
> we have never entirely isolated a group of humans from the biosphere for even a year
Lunar Palace 1 made it to 370 days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuegong-1
Lunar Palace 1 made it to 370 days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuegong-1
A lot of stuff is known about it. Both the US and USSR first operated long-duration space stations nearly half a century ago.
Gravity and radiation are well understood and we can definitely build machinery that can tolerate them well for many years.
> we have never entirely isolated a group of humans from the biosphere for even a year, never mind indefinitely. The times it was tried, it failed.
Why doesn't the ISS count? It gets resupplied every few months but a Mars base would be resupplied every two years so systems only have to scale to last 10x as long.
Gravity and radiation are well understood and we can definitely build machinery that can tolerate them well for many years.
> we have never entirely isolated a group of humans from the biosphere for even a year, never mind indefinitely. The times it was tried, it failed.
Why doesn't the ISS count? It gets resupplied every few months but a Mars base would be resupplied every two years so systems only have to scale to last 10x as long.
So the door panels are questionable. But the other two are huge red flags, no? These are two supposedly moonshot-type projects that have turned out to be outright lies:
- Hyperloop was a sort of snake-oil to squash High-Speed Rail
- The robot as a guy in a suit dancing on a stage ... I've no idea where he was trying to with that. I see there's been some movement on their robot since it was "launched", but why on earth did they start off with the weird dancing suit guy?
- Hyperloop was a sort of snake-oil to squash High-Speed Rail
- The robot as a guy in a suit dancing on a stage ... I've no idea where he was trying to with that. I see there's been some movement on their robot since it was "launched", but why on earth did they start off with the weird dancing suit guy?
Seriously? The robot dancing was an obvious joke. He was not trying to pass it off as a real robot and literally no one thought he was. Tesla is actually working on the real thing and they’ve demoed admirable progress 1 year after the initial announcement.
The hypertunnel reference seems to be conflating two (related) things: the Hyperloop concept and the Boring Company.
The Hyperloop thing is definitely questionable, but to steelman it: he truly believes the High Speed Rail is a waste of money and we should be more forward thinking with something like the Hyperloop, even if he didn’t personally intend to build it.
After all, if it was entirely fraud and then what did he have to gain from killing the High Speed Rail? I guess a small fraction of the taxes he pays not going to something he didn’t like?
Also, the origin story suggests it was not concocted as a means to kill the High Speed Rail:
“The recent plans for a version of vacuum train called Hyperloop emerged from a conversation between Elon Musk and Iranian-American Silicon Valley investor Shervin Pishevar when they were flying together to Cuba on a humanitarian mission in January 2012. Pishevar asked Musk to elaborate on his hyperloop idea, which the industrialist had been mulling over for some time. Pishevar suggested using it for cargo, an idea Musk hadn't considered, but he did say he was considering open-sourcing the concept because he was too busy running SpaceX and Tesla. Pishevar pushed Musk to publish his ideas about the hyperloop, so that Pishevar could study them.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop_One
The hypertunnel reference seems to be conflating two (related) things: the Hyperloop concept and the Boring Company.
The Hyperloop thing is definitely questionable, but to steelman it: he truly believes the High Speed Rail is a waste of money and we should be more forward thinking with something like the Hyperloop, even if he didn’t personally intend to build it.
After all, if it was entirely fraud and then what did he have to gain from killing the High Speed Rail? I guess a small fraction of the taxes he pays not going to something he didn’t like?
Also, the origin story suggests it was not concocted as a means to kill the High Speed Rail:
“The recent plans for a version of vacuum train called Hyperloop emerged from a conversation between Elon Musk and Iranian-American Silicon Valley investor Shervin Pishevar when they were flying together to Cuba on a humanitarian mission in January 2012. Pishevar asked Musk to elaborate on his hyperloop idea, which the industrialist had been mulling over for some time. Pishevar suggested using it for cargo, an idea Musk hadn't considered, but he did say he was considering open-sourcing the concept because he was too busy running SpaceX and Tesla. Pishevar pushed Musk to publish his ideas about the hyperloop, so that Pishevar could study them.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop_One
> After all, if it was entirely fraud and then what did he have to gain from killing the High Speed Rail? I guess a small fraction of the taxes he pays not going to something he didn’t like?
He’s a car salesman. He wants you to commute in a Tesla and opposes remote work.
He’s a car salesman. He wants you to commute in a Tesla and opposes remote work.
One-off projects like the High Speed Rail won’t make a noticeable dent in global sales.
And he opposed remote work at his own companies because he believes (rightly or wrongly) it leads to decreased productivity.
And he opposed remote work at his own companies because he believes (rightly or wrongly) it leads to decreased productivity.
I find it a bit hard to believe you’re really that naive, but I’ll go ahead and respond.
> One-off projects like the High Speed Rail won’t make a noticeable dent in global sales.
You’re comparing now with several years ago when California was by far Tesla’s biggest market.
> And he opposed remote work at his own companies because he believes (rightly or wrongly) it leads to decreased productivity.
It’s called a hidden agenda.
The man is a sociopath and chronic liar, one would be a fool to take anything he says at face value. Instead we must judge Musk by his actions and past behavior, not his words.
> One-off projects like the High Speed Rail won’t make a noticeable dent in global sales.
You’re comparing now with several years ago when California was by far Tesla’s biggest market.
> And he opposed remote work at his own companies because he believes (rightly or wrongly) it leads to decreased productivity.
It’s called a hidden agenda.
The man is a sociopath and chronic liar, one would be a fool to take anything he says at face value. Instead we must judge Musk by his actions and past behavior, not his words.
I agree entirely. Some of the stuff SpaceX has done is nothing short of incredible (regardless of the involvement of Musk). Imagine if just 20 years ago you said something like "You know, we should make a rocket reusable!" You would have been laughed out of the room, even at a place like NASA.
Humans have an extremely bad habit of discounting future tech.
Humans have an extremely bad habit of discounting future tech.
I mean honestly, how can anyone still doubt SpaceX after seeing FH land two boosters at once, Starship doing retrofuturistic manoeuvres and Dragon being NASA's go to for all things ISS for years.
It is unfortunate that they're tied with Musk given his recent self implosion, but they will surely survive him.
It is unfortunate that they're tied with Musk given his recent self implosion, but they will surely survive him.
Explain how being able to land boosters is relevant to setting up a manned self sufficient base on a planet so far away from Earth that any mishap spells the immediate end of the endeavor?
Well aside from the obvious cost savings when launching on Earth, you need to do the same on Mars to return. in fact Starship's landing and launch profile is conceptually the same on both planets, except that on Earth it needs the booster to reach orbit with any kind of practical payload and the ISRU refueler on Mars.
Making rockets reusable and the cost limited to refurbishment and propellant means you can spend the same amount of funding on greater redundancy. Need to build a landing pad on Mars with robots? How about 4 missions in parallel for the same price you'd be quoted by Boeing for just one? Even if three of them don't work out you're still set to continue.
A manned self sufficient base is probably far fetched, but a small short-term Earth-supplied research station is not something outside the realm of practicality. Remember that we haven't actually landed on the planet AT ALL yet. Baby steps.
Making rockets reusable and the cost limited to refurbishment and propellant means you can spend the same amount of funding on greater redundancy. Need to build a landing pad on Mars with robots? How about 4 missions in parallel for the same price you'd be quoted by Boeing for just one? Even if three of them don't work out you're still set to continue.
A manned self sufficient base is probably far fetched, but a small short-term Earth-supplied research station is not something outside the realm of practicality. Remember that we haven't actually landed on the planet AT ALL yet. Baby steps.
But we have had that tech since the 60's.
And you won't be doing four missions in parallel before you've done one that succeeds and as far as I can see with the known technical limitations an economical improvement isn't going to result in a technical success, just in a cheaper failure.
And you won't be doing four missions in parallel before you've done one that succeeds and as far as I can see with the known technical limitations an economical improvement isn't going to result in a technical success, just in a cheaper failure.
The tech being there isn't helpful if it's too expensive to use at scale. And the computers then were... passable at best. It would be exceedingly hard to adequately control a rocket for an accurate powered landing at the time.
> you won't be doing four missions in parallel
Well you do have the problem of only having an ideal launch window every 2 years, so you do have to do them at the same time with minimal spacing or wait forever to try again. I think the plan was to only do two ships at a time initially though.
Some things you can compensate and plan for, some failures are just natural or random. Like a micrometeorite hitting two of the main computers or something.
> you won't be doing four missions in parallel
Well you do have the problem of only having an ideal launch window every 2 years, so you do have to do them at the same time with minimal spacing or wait forever to try again. I think the plan was to only do two ships at a time initially though.
Some things you can compensate and plan for, some failures are just natural or random. Like a micrometeorite hitting two of the main computers or something.
Setting up space based resource extraction needed for that could be too expensive or even effectively impossible without reusable rockets.
Which part of a Mars mission requires space based resource extraction?
If you don't want it to be expensive as hell - any part.
Also with space resources you can make the whole thing quite comfortable - big ship, lots of fuel->deltav->short travel time and lots of shielding for when the Sun decides to reach out and touch you.
Also with space resources you can make the whole thing quite comfortable - big ship, lots of fuel->deltav->short travel time and lots of shielding for when the Sun decides to reach out and touch you.
The part where you need to get back. It's just atmospheric CO2 to complete the sabatier process though.
You could send all the fuel there of course, but that's Apollo levels of throwing money on the bonfire.
You could send all the fuel there of course, but that's Apollo levels of throwing money on the bonfire.
Compared to the total cost of the mission I highly doubt that that is going to be the thing it hinges on, besides, all you need to be able to do is get back to orbit from Mars, you don't need to lift the fuel to get back to Earth from the Mars surface, you just leave that parked in orbit.
Anyway, I don't see it happening at all so debating the execution details of things that are in the realm of the solvable already or at best an optimization isn't going to move the needle, the things that need to be solved that we have no clue about are life support, mental health, exposure to radiation for a prolonged period, waste management. Keep in mind that there is no way to re-supply a mission like that en-route and a crew of say four (which would seem to be a minimum for such a mission, and probably is too low from a redundancy perspective) will eat and drink their way through a small mountain over the course of 4 years+ total mission duration.
Anyway, I don't see it happening at all so debating the execution details of things that are in the realm of the solvable already or at best an optimization isn't going to move the needle, the things that need to be solved that we have no clue about are life support, mental health, exposure to radiation for a prolonged period, waste management. Keep in mind that there is no way to re-supply a mission like that en-route and a crew of say four (which would seem to be a minimum for such a mission, and probably is too low from a redundancy perspective) will eat and drink their way through a small mountain over the course of 4 years+ total mission duration.
Believe it or not it's around a 60% reduction in launch mass, so it should cut costs significantly. Tsiolkovsky equation do be like that. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20140009943
As for all the human related needs, the ISS has been a decades long study on practically all of those. That's kind of why we have it.
Supplying the mission isn't really a fundamental problem since you can send multiple times redundant amounts of all the supplies there on the previous cycle. But yes if something goes wrong they're on their own to solve it for (2 years - time spent there), much like any other mission not in close proximity to Earth. That's why you don't send idiots.
And you're right that there's no point in debating it further, because no amount of arguing will stop humans landing on Mars sooner or later.
As for all the human related needs, the ISS has been a decades long study on practically all of those. That's kind of why we have it.
Supplying the mission isn't really a fundamental problem since you can send multiple times redundant amounts of all the supplies there on the previous cycle. But yes if something goes wrong they're on their own to solve it for (2 years - time spent there), much like any other mission not in close proximity to Earth. That's why you don't send idiots.
And you're right that there's no point in debating it further, because no amount of arguing will stop humans landing on Mars sooner or later.
> because no amount of arguing will stop humans landing on Mars sooner or later.
One of the points of tfa is that this is unlikely to happen for a variety of other reasons.
One of the points of tfa is that this is unlikely to happen for a variety of other reasons.
Reusable rockets were seriously discussed many decades before SpaceX, they were just considered too expensive. NASA was among the organizations that evaluated them before it ultimately settled on the space shuttle which was quite a bit cheaper.
It was not a far-fetched idea even back then.
It was not a far-fetched idea even back then.
That's not a sign of Musk Derangement Syndrome but the sign of a working set of brains.
Group think does not make your syndrome go away, sorry.
Now if you would like to defend the statement "SpaceX is the Fyre Festival with rockets", that'd be a start.
But simply saying "Musk = bad" just proves GPs point and makes you look... silly.
Personally SpaceX has blown me away (pun intended) with their advances in rockets. Now what's your take?
Now if you would like to defend the statement "SpaceX is the Fyre Festival with rockets", that'd be a start.
But simply saying "Musk = bad" just proves GPs point and makes you look... silly.
Personally SpaceX has blown me away (pun intended) with their advances in rockets. Now what's your take?
To me this article misses the main point for not going to mars, which is it is stupid vs the next best option of investing in building up our space infrastructure near Earth, ideally finding profitable niches (moon/asteroid mining, solar electricity? zero gravity manufacturing? I don't know what, but I am pretty sure something can be profitable up there) that support that effort so that the spend on point 1 and 2 of the article's argument is motivated by positive cash flow driving us towards whatever the feasible version of an O'Neil cylinder ends up being. Why would we ever want to go back down an expensive to escape gravity well to a barren wasteland that we would have to terraform when the opportunity to terraform more manageable chunks of space will probably exist at the same technology investment level and will almost certainly be much faster/easier/cheaper than doing a whole planet at once?
While I don't agree with the anti-mars thesis of the article, I do think the article is hitting on something important: Robotic exploration is underrated.
Curiosity cost something like 2 billion to build and launch, but there's no reason building a car-sized rover has to be that expensive. With economies of scale + better design-for-manufacturing + reusable rockets the total cost would easily drop by several orders of magnitude. Why isn't NASA building factories upon factories that produce robotic probes?
Curiosity cost something like 2 billion to build and launch, but there's no reason building a car-sized rover has to be that expensive. With economies of scale + better design-for-manufacturing + reusable rockets the total cost would easily drop by several orders of magnitude. Why isn't NASA building factories upon factories that produce robotic probes?
Who would design and build experiments for those probes to run when they land on Mars? Are we sure economy of scale would apply to those?
I'm no expert but I don't think there's a shortage of experiments that people want to run on mars and the other solar system bodies, especially with sample return capabilities.
We've been launching things into low earth orbit for ~60 years and orbital launch demand still seems to outnumber supply. If we could get our martian surface payload capacity to even 1% of our LEO payload capacity I'm sure there would be many organizations that would want to send something.
We've been launching things into low earth orbit for ~60 years and orbital launch demand still seems to outnumber supply. If we could get our martian surface payload capacity to even 1% of our LEO payload capacity I'm sure there would be many organizations that would want to send something.
Definitely! Just look at all the Cubesat payloads people fly these days - all of that only really possible by the cost of individual satellite mission coming down.
Before that one had to build and launch one big expensive satellite or beg another project to have their technology or experiment included on their mission, with a very limited number of available "slots".
Before that one had to build and launch one big expensive satellite or beg another project to have their technology or experiment included on their mission, with a very limited number of available "slots".
Partially, you can have lots of cheap instruments driving/flying/floating around to find something interesting to look at with the fewer expensive shots.
"Some of the reasons for exploring space, when there are numerous social problems on earth, were described recently by Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, Associate Director of Science at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville. His beliefs were expressed in his reply to a letter from Sister Mary Jucunda, O.P., a nun who works among starving natives of Zambia, Africa."
Source: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730015241/downloads/19...
HTML: https://lettersofnote.com/2012/08/06/why-explore-space/
"Space flight, without any doubt, is playing exactly this role. The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry. However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spinoffs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation."
Source: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730015241/downloads/19...
HTML: https://lettersofnote.com/2012/08/06/why-explore-space/
"Space flight, without any doubt, is playing exactly this role. The voyage to Mars will certainly not be a direct source of food for the hungry. However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spinoffs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation."
This is an excellent defense of space exploration. But the point I make in the article is that we should stop identifying the project of sending people to Mars with space exploration. There are other ways to do it that lead to cooler spinoff technologies and better science.
The problem with your argument isn't lack of rationality, it's that it signals a lack of faith (destructive narrative). As others have mentioned, you can't "kill Mars" because who is going to be the hero then? You have to replace the idea of Mars with a better one, which allows for a constructive narrative in people's minds. BTW, that's essential in any constructive criticism of anything really. Simply saying "it's bad" isn't sufficient if you actually want people to think about alternatives - you have to present a better constructive narrative that could be accepted as "even cooler" by believers. I fully agree with almost everything you write in the article btw - IMO Pheobe, Titan, or Ceres could be a viable long-term goal for colonization after the moon. I'm sure there are many others, but we need to actively talk about and analyze these to identify the best option.
> you have to present a better constructive narrative that could be accepted as "even cooler" by believers
The article mentions some alternatives.
>> One path forward would be to build on the technological revolution of the past fifty years and go explore the hell out of space with robots. This future is available to us right now. Simply redirecting the $11.6 billion budget for human space flight would be enough to staff up the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and go from launching one major project per decade to multiple planetary probes and telescopes a year. It would be the start of the greatest era of discovery in history.
Personally, I find that idea inspiring!
The article mentions some alternatives.
>> One path forward would be to build on the technological revolution of the past fifty years and go explore the hell out of space with robots. This future is available to us right now. Simply redirecting the $11.6 billion budget for human space flight would be enough to staff up the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and go from launching one major project per decade to multiple planetary probes and telescopes a year. It would be the start of the greatest era of discovery in history.
Personally, I find that idea inspiring!
If your space software project is late, just throw more people at it - it will be done that much faster!
Like really, even if you indeed made the JPL budget 100x bigger, at least short term you would indeed have the issue if not enough people being available to build and run all those robotic missions.
Like really, even if you indeed made the JPL budget 100x bigger, at least short term you would indeed have the issue if not enough people being available to build and run all those robotic missions.
Exactly!
I'd think that "send modern probes to every one of the interesting moons of saturn and Jupiter" would be pretty amazing. For all we know one of them could be crawling with life!
I'd think that "send modern probes to every one of the interesting moons of saturn and Jupiter" would be pretty amazing. For all we know one of them could be crawling with life!
Humanity has no back-up.
Compelling reasons to venture beyond this single, solitary rock include: Catastrophic volcanic eruptions. Devastating climate change. Extinction-level asteroid impact. Gravitational shifts from a rogue celestial body. Directed supernova blast. Coronal mass ejection. Unknown cosmic cataclysms. Loss of magnetosphere. All-out thermonuclear war. Unyielding plagues.
Back up your data, back up your species.
Compelling reasons to venture beyond this single, solitary rock include: Catastrophic volcanic eruptions. Devastating climate change. Extinction-level asteroid impact. Gravitational shifts from a rogue celestial body. Directed supernova blast. Coronal mass ejection. Unknown cosmic cataclysms. Loss of magnetosphere. All-out thermonuclear war. Unyielding plagues.
Back up your data, back up your species.
Putting your backups in a garbage can doesn't do much for you.
Most of the issues are already a problem on Mars, and the rest would affect earth and Mars at the same time. No less, the earthlings would be more likely to survive each of those situations because earth is way better in a general case.
Most of the issues are already a problem on Mars, and the rest would affect earth and Mars at the same time. No less, the earthlings would be more likely to survive each of those situations because earth is way better in a general case.
Living on Mars is like living on Earth after a very, very, very protracted global thermonuclear war.
You can argue the other way: If we figure out how to live on Mars, global thermonuclear war on Earth is not a big deal anymore, it becomes an option.
You can argue the other way: If we figure out how to live on Mars, global thermonuclear war on Earth is not a big deal anymore, it becomes an option.
And Mars can even cause it! ;-)
(at least in the Earth-Mars cold war of The Expanse universe)
(at least in the Earth-Mars cold war of The Expanse universe)
And a lot of the survivors from Earth would head over to Mars to overwrite your backup.
Will there be a chapter on this element?
It’s always been unclear to me how much a Martian civilization would improve humanity’s odds of surviving Seveneves, what with humans being involved and all. I think it’s the article of faith I’ve seen the least substantive critique of— maybe because it’s so depressing to think critically about.
It’s always been unclear to me how much a Martian civilization would improve humanity’s odds of surviving Seveneves, what with humans being involved and all. I think it’s the article of faith I’ve seen the least substantive critique of— maybe because it’s so depressing to think critically about.
I would say quite a bit, as it implies substantial space infra being in place. Still not pretty, but at least you would avoid things like cramming 20 kamikaze welders in space suits inside a Proton fairing per lunch to turn ISS to a space arch.
BTW, on this note I can recommend The Ring of Charon[0] and its follow-up books. In this case, its Earth suddenly vanishing due to some ancient alien technology being activated by mistake. The book then follows the consequences for the advanced but still partially Earth dependent space habitats in the Solar system as well as people on Earth figuring out WTH their planet has ended up and why.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_of_Charon
BTW, on this note I can recommend The Ring of Charon[0] and its follow-up books. In this case, its Earth suddenly vanishing due to some ancient alien technology being activated by mistake. The book then follows the consequences for the advanced but still partially Earth dependent space habitats in the Solar system as well as people on Earth figuring out WTH their planet has ended up and why.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ring_of_Charon
This is a great point, but I think it goes towards the cost-benefit analysis. The relevant comparison isn’t a sophonically-suppressed humanity which is never inspired again, but rather Maciej’s new age of exploration— a humanity very much conquering local space and reaching to the stars, just not with their own fleshy pestilent mitts.
The open question I have is does a planetary colony help per se, once the technical problems have been solved on an emergency basis, and what’s left are social problems which are far too late to cure?
The open question I have is does a planetary colony help per se, once the technical problems have been solved on an emergency basis, and what’s left are social problems which are far too late to cure?
> However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spinoffs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation."
I would be curious who believes that today we don't have the technological capability to feed, to well beyond basic sustenance, every human on earth today. I include both growth, storage, distribution, and preparation.
I would be curious who thinks insufficient technology is the reason people starve today, and why they think that, despite philosophers arguing since the mid 1800s (with numbers to back it up) that we have the means to ensure none should go hungry.
I would be curious who believes that today we don't have the technological capability to feed, to well beyond basic sustenance, every human on earth today. I include both growth, storage, distribution, and preparation.
I would be curious who thinks insufficient technology is the reason people starve today, and why they think that, despite philosophers arguing since the mid 1800s (with numbers to back it up) that we have the means to ensure none should go hungry.
> However, it will lead to so many new technologies and capabilities that the spinoffs from this project alone will be worth many times the cost of its implementation
How people are still fooled into believing this is beyond me
How people are still fooled into believing this is beyond me
Things worth doing in space that are more promising than Mars:
- A robotic Venus lander that can survive for a few days. The last lander to take pictures on Venus landed over 40 years ago, and it only operated for half an hour.[1] Venus Surface temperatures are around 475°C. The electronics overheated. Now we have silicon carbide semiconductors and laser welding, so continued operation at those temperatures might be possible. Here are most of the existing pictures of the surface of Venus.[2] It looks more interesting than Mars.
- A Europa lander. The recent Europa flyby shows much more interesting surface features than Mars. What are those long, thin features? Not rivers; rivers don't have right-angled intersections.
Mars is nearly airless and boring.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_14
[2] https://www.popsci.com/yes-weve-seen-surface-venus/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s98cHbM1cRM
- A robotic Venus lander that can survive for a few days. The last lander to take pictures on Venus landed over 40 years ago, and it only operated for half an hour.[1] Venus Surface temperatures are around 475°C. The electronics overheated. Now we have silicon carbide semiconductors and laser welding, so continued operation at those temperatures might be possible. Here are most of the existing pictures of the surface of Venus.[2] It looks more interesting than Mars.
- A Europa lander. The recent Europa flyby shows much more interesting surface features than Mars. What are those long, thin features? Not rivers; rivers don't have right-angled intersections.
Mars is nearly airless and boring.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_14
[2] https://www.popsci.com/yes-weve-seen-surface-venus/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s98cHbM1cRM
Is it possible to operate a heat pump at 450C?
Compress a gas until it heats up to 880C; send it outside to “cool down” to 450C; bring it in and decompress it where it drops to 20C; and bathe on deliciously cool room temperature air?
Compress a gas until it heats up to 880C; send it outside to “cool down” to 450C; bring it in and decompress it where it drops to 20C; and bathe on deliciously cool room temperature air?
(For clarity, this question is more about seeking clarity on my own hazy understanding of how fridges work, rather than some random internet person suggesting “have you thought of this <obvious solution>?”.)
Physics-wise, if there's a useful working fluid in the temperature and pressure range you want, it can be done.
The problem then is power. Refrigerators are power hungry. Space exploration tends to be desperately short on power-- there's not a lot of sources of electricity that are happy to spend ten years at -100C and then spring forth to produce volts at quantity and with minimal mass. A heat engine is right out. (Where would the cold sink come from?) Batteries are tough. RTGs have terrible engineering challenges-- plus they'll use up a lot of half-life during the coast phase to Venus.
Given that design space, a Venus lander (that isn't built to operate at Venus temps) would probably have a battery and a store of internal coolant that undergoes phase change and is dumped overboard. A big block of water ice, or depending on the constraints, something more exotic.
>drops to 20C
Don't have to get that cold, fortunately. There is a considerable domestic demand for ultrahot electronics for wellhead sensors in oil exploration. (The head of a drill string needs to have some smarts for remote sensing-- figuring out if the rock you're drilling through has any oil in it. If you've got the money, you can buy a microcontroller than can run all day and night at 220 Celsius! https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments...
Fun fact: one of the handful of commercial applications for nuclear fusion reactors, today, is as a source for downbore neutron excitation gamma spectroscopy https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/drilling/brochure/neoscope... )
The problem then is power. Refrigerators are power hungry. Space exploration tends to be desperately short on power-- there's not a lot of sources of electricity that are happy to spend ten years at -100C and then spring forth to produce volts at quantity and with minimal mass. A heat engine is right out. (Where would the cold sink come from?) Batteries are tough. RTGs have terrible engineering challenges-- plus they'll use up a lot of half-life during the coast phase to Venus.
Given that design space, a Venus lander (that isn't built to operate at Venus temps) would probably have a battery and a store of internal coolant that undergoes phase change and is dumped overboard. A big block of water ice, or depending on the constraints, something more exotic.
>drops to 20C
Don't have to get that cold, fortunately. There is a considerable domestic demand for ultrahot electronics for wellhead sensors in oil exploration. (The head of a drill string needs to have some smarts for remote sensing-- figuring out if the rock you're drilling through has any oil in it. If you've got the money, you can buy a microcontroller than can run all day and night at 220 Celsius! https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments...
Fun fact: one of the handful of commercial applications for nuclear fusion reactors, today, is as a source for downbore neutron excitation gamma spectroscopy https://www.slb.com/-/media/files/drilling/brochure/neoscope... )
Arguments against human colonization of the solar system (moon/Mars/etc) sound just like trying ot argue against the westward expansion from the 13 colonies.
We will have a Donner Party-like memorial on Mars. And there will be a McDonald’s next to it.
You’re not going to win this argument because it is an argument against the basic nature of humanity, the basic urge of a species to expand over all available domain.
We will have a Donner Party-like memorial on Mars. And there will be a McDonald’s next to it.
You’re not going to win this argument because it is an argument against the basic nature of humanity, the basic urge of a species to expand over all available domain.
The article does not argue against human colonization of the solar system.
The article argues that with current technology and capabilities, a manned mission to Mars would actually do more harm than good to space exploration itself.
Also, this is reasoning by analogy. Mars is not West America.
If you want to argue for a manned mission to Mars, the article makes some excellent points that, by refuting them directly, would strengthen your argument.
The article argues that with current technology and capabilities, a manned mission to Mars would actually do more harm than good to space exploration itself.
Also, this is reasoning by analogy. Mars is not West America.
If you want to argue for a manned mission to Mars, the article makes some excellent points that, by refuting them directly, would strengthen your argument.
> Arguments against human colonization of the solar system (moon/Mars/etc) sound just like trying ot argue against the westward expansion from the 13 colonies.
Did they claim that the American west had no atmosphere, water, food, topsoil, or life of any kind, and only 38% normal gravity?
Did they claim that the American west had no atmosphere, water, food, topsoil, or life of any kind, and only 38% normal gravity?
And could only be reached after a months long journey with 0 ability to resupply of ANY kind. No trees and fruit, no fish and desalination, no colonies along the way. Just months of nothing (and yes i'm aware that because of this the plan is to try and orbit resupply "drops" and I personally think that's insane).
If you want to see extra planetary colonization, the moon is the most obvious first step by a HUGE margin, and even if it was made of gold or some other precious material, it wouldn't be financially sane, but the advantages mars offers pale in comparison to the EXTREME disadvantages its immense distance offers.
IF we can get something going on the moon, it makes literally everything else magnitudes easier. Doing anything else is, at best, a pointless exploration mission, and at worst, suicide by government spending. None of the mars plans are remotely realistic or grounded in reality, and all have so many points of failure it's going to be more worrying if we actually think we can get someone there.
If you want to see extra planetary colonization, the moon is the most obvious first step by a HUGE margin, and even if it was made of gold or some other precious material, it wouldn't be financially sane, but the advantages mars offers pale in comparison to the EXTREME disadvantages its immense distance offers.
IF we can get something going on the moon, it makes literally everything else magnitudes easier. Doing anything else is, at best, a pointless exploration mission, and at worst, suicide by government spending. None of the mars plans are remotely realistic or grounded in reality, and all have so many points of failure it's going to be more worrying if we actually think we can get someone there.
Maybe the moon could be a launch pad for asteroid mining, which could more directly bring mineral wealth to the people of Earth.
Why drop into the Lunar gravity well at all then? LEO <-> Demos is less delta-V than LEO <-> Luna, and doesn't require low-ISP chemical rockets except for the initial boost.
> LEO <-> Demos
It does not have to be an either/or mutually exclusive thing.
Do not ignore the importance of psychology and symbolism in long-term, cooperative human effort. A moon base that people can visit and inhabit will make concrete what would otherwise be an abstract concept. It will be much easier to get funding, buy-in and cooperation from an Earthling who has been to the Moon than from someone who at best sees anything happening in space through screens.
It does not have to be an either/or mutually exclusive thing.
Do not ignore the importance of psychology and symbolism in long-term, cooperative human effort. A moon base that people can visit and inhabit will make concrete what would otherwise be an abstract concept. It will be much easier to get funding, buy-in and cooperation from an Earthling who has been to the Moon than from someone who at best sees anything happening in space through screens.
Right. There isn't a stream of Donner parties headed into the middle of the Sahara, or north into Greenland, or for that matter onto the seafloor. Many of the heroes of the Age of Exploration were economically motivated, and certainly almost all historical colonists have been. If there's a Gold Rush waiting for us on Mars we haven't seen any indication of it yet.
Unfortunately, "the basic urge of a species to expand over all available domain" does not lift a thousand ton of people and equipment to an interplanetary orbit. Money does. Well... money might do, we don't know for sure, because it's not tried before at the required scale.
Few will have an issue with a modern "Donner Party," who would buy interplanetary rockets out of their money, hop on them, never to be heard again. (Well, to be fair, if the party contains kids, people would object - consider that a sign of the society's progress since Donner's days.)
What people argue against is those quasi-Donners who demand that Washington DC fund their rockets.
Few will have an issue with a modern "Donner Party," who would buy interplanetary rockets out of their money, hop on them, never to be heard again. (Well, to be fair, if the party contains kids, people would object - consider that a sign of the society's progress since Donner's days.)
What people argue against is those quasi-Donners who demand that Washington DC fund their rockets.
the basic urge of a species to expand over all available domain
Is that a basic urge? The actual glory of exploration? Or is it the need for resources? You reference the Donner Party, which was on its way to California, which had actual useable and useful resources. So of course people wanted to go there—there’s an ocean and sunshine. Mars has…uh…corrosive dust?
Is that a basic urge? The actual glory of exploration? Or is it the need for resources? You reference the Donner Party, which was on its way to California, which had actual useable and useful resources. So of course people wanted to go there—there’s an ocean and sunshine. Mars has…uh…corrosive dust?
It's doubly amusing since the conditions the Donner Party died in were like Hawaii compared to Mars.
Why do you think Alex Honnold free climbed El Cap? Why do people pay money to go skiing, sky diving, or scuba diving?
To carry a single raisin to the top, then he climbed it a million more times to bring more raisins, then he made a jet engine from the raisins. Then he started bringing more raisins so that he could make a raisin plane for the amazing raisin engine.
In the intervening thousand years, other climbers learned to cybernetically modify their bodies to be able to climb every rock face on the planet. The resulting boom in cybernetic technology granted immortality and immunity to all diseases to humanity. Humans never did master the raisin jet though (because they learned to transfer their conciseness over the internet so honestly jet engines seem kinda silly).
/S
In the intervening thousand years, other climbers learned to cybernetically modify their bodies to be able to climb every rock face on the planet. The resulting boom in cybernetic technology granted immortality and immunity to all diseases to humanity. Humans never did master the raisin jet though (because they learned to transfer their conciseness over the internet so honestly jet engines seem kinda silly).
/S
> Why do you think Alex Honnold free climbed El Cap?
Not to live on it!
Not to live on it!
Well the taxpayers did not have to invest trillions for that to happen, if I remember correctly :)
Yes, this. There’s a reason that Picard was the captain of Enterprise, rather than Data. Bio-nietzcheans will lead the way, not robo-nerds.
>Arguments against human colonization of the solar system (moon/Mars/etc) sound just like trying ot argue against the westward expansion from the 13 colonies
if you're going from an moral perspective, European colonists had no right to colonize any part of the Americas. established civilizations already existed that were only driven out by mass death from foreign plagues and a desire for "we can so we will" mentality
if you're going from an moral perspective, European colonists had no right to colonize any part of the Americas. established civilizations already existed that were only driven out by mass death from foreign plagues and a desire for "we can so we will" mentality
You know that conquering territory on earth was profitable for the winners, right? There’s no profit on Mars.
I think this post and many of comments here fail to grasp that a true full scale colonization mission of Mars would likely neccistate some sort of terraforming effort in the far future. Along really long timescales, you can even imagine the opposite effort to alter human biology. The major first step is simply getting there.
Another factor is that the civilization that is able to reach Mars is going to be the one that has achieved the capability to dominate Earth. The original purpose of the space race was war, and though people no longer think about it, mass produced planetary scale rocketry beats all other weapons.
Another factor is that the civilization that is able to reach Mars is going to be the one that has achieved the capability to dominate Earth. The original purpose of the space race was war, and though people no longer think about it, mass produced planetary scale rocketry beats all other weapons.
>mass produced planetary scale rocketry beats all other weapons
if your goal is only destruction sure, the likes of ICBMs are great. for conventional warfare when you want to do things like topple regimes, annex resources, subjugate peoples, etc. not so much. it's exactly why Russia hasn't used nukes in the Ukrainian conflicts.
if your goal is only destruction sure, the likes of ICBMs are great. for conventional warfare when you want to do things like topple regimes, annex resources, subjugate peoples, etc. not so much. it's exactly why Russia hasn't used nukes in the Ukrainian conflicts.
Right now we are looking at the effects of HIMARS rocket artillery in Ukraine. Each rocket costs over $50,000. Cruise missiles cost over $1 million. Many nations can produce rockets, but cannot produce them cheaply. Despite the US and Russia having global strike capabilities, this stuff doesn't come cheap. If they were cheap (say via continued investment in space exploration), you basically have a win button for any global conflict. There's literally no reason rocket artillery has to cost over 50 grand in the grand scheme of things. In a total war, we could probably get it down to less than $2000.
Still, optical and Radar satellites and possibly space based signal intelligence definitely play a huge role.
Not to mention artillery crews directing strikes via drone footage streamed over Google Meet running of their Starlink connection.
Not to mention artillery crews directing strikes via drone footage streamed over Google Meet running of their Starlink connection.
Expanding human life to Mars (and the entire solar system) is a fantastic goal for humanity. Better than just about everything else we could do. To accomplish it, we will solve many problems along the way. I would much rather we advance our technology in the pursuit of Mars than in the pursuit of weapons of war.
> Expanding human life to Mars (and the entire solar system) is a fantastic goal for humanity.
I think you're underestimating how great Earth is, how awful other planets are, and how big the solar system is.
> I would much rather we advance our technology in the pursuit of Mars than in the pursuit of weapons of war.
Colonization generally does not rhyme with peace. It's very likely there will be conflicts over territories. Space exploration and military production always have been tightly coupled. Where I live the space industry is dominated by "Airbus Defence and Space".
I think you're underestimating how great Earth is, how awful other planets are, and how big the solar system is.
> I would much rather we advance our technology in the pursuit of Mars than in the pursuit of weapons of war.
Colonization generally does not rhyme with peace. It's very likely there will be conflicts over territories. Space exploration and military production always have been tightly coupled. Where I live the space industry is dominated by "Airbus Defence and Space".
I am definitely not underestimating how great Earth is. But we will learn how to make other places comfortable too. The trick is to remember that technology will improve. Living in a tin can on Mars would suck. Living on Mars with fusion power, biological enhancement, nanobot construction, etc, etc, etc is an entirely different story. Personally, I'd love to live on a ship. I'm aware I was probably born 100 years too soon.
Well, even here in Europe humans would freeze do death in winter without rudimentary technology - its the same problem, just more difficult.
We will continue to kill each other at a similar rate regardless of the outcome of colonization. At least, unlike “Manifest Destiny”, there are no innocent sentient beings we will be attacking.
I can think of many, many things that are (1) better for humanity than going to Mars, and (2) somewhere between "exploring Mars" and "building weapons."
The pithy phrase I've seen before is "let's fix this planet up before we go and screw another one up."
The pithy phrase I've seen before is "let's fix this planet up before we go and screw another one up."
There's nothing we can do to "fix" the risk of an unknown/unidentified space object hitting Earth at high speed and ending human civilization other than establishing self sufficient human cities on other objects.
The article's point is not a choice between humanity's going to Mars or not going to Mars. The article makes the case for suspending the mission until we have more information and better answers as to why. These arguments in favor of going to Mars are addressed in the article.
I'm more interested in known quantities than unknown ones. Besides, I'm not the one going to Mars, nor are any of the people who I think deserve to have their lives improved.
It is a known that eventually a planet killing asteroid will hit the Earth (again). We just don't know when.
But, more importantly, it is a misconception to think that the people GOING to Mars will have their lives improved. Life on Mars will take a very long time to become as good as life on Earth. But the tech developed to make living on Mars possible will help people on Earth.
But, more importantly, it is a misconception to think that the people GOING to Mars will have their lives improved. Life on Mars will take a very long time to become as good as life on Earth. But the tech developed to make living on Mars possible will help people on Earth.
Mars may hold evidence of a greater extinction than any on Earth. Once we've been able to identify what life existed on Mars and how it ended - then it's free real estate.
Until then, it's the best source of evidence on the Great Filter Theory.
Until then, it's the best source of evidence on the Great Filter Theory.
Agreed. But Venus might be better. We'll see.
The reason you were born on Earth and not on Mars is because Earth is hospitable to life and Mars is anything but. Put complex Earth lifeforms on Mars without a plan on how to terraform a good chunk of it in a way that it stays terraformed and with a large enough cycle that losses can be made up timely and you're merely sentencing them to a complicated form of death. The only earth creatures that can make it on Mars today are unicellar, maybe some exotic lichen or stuff like that. But humans? No, not for a long long time.
> I would much rather we advance our technology in the pursuit of Mars than in the pursuit of weapons of war.
Pfft these will just end up one and the same.
Pfft these will just end up one and the same.
I do not know what weapons world war three will be fought with, but the one after it will be fought with water purifiers and air filters.
Just wait until we discover lost Martian technology.
Even it is a fantastic goal—eventually—sending a human crew right now may not be the optimal approach.
Wait, so you mean that not destroying Earth is a worse goal than going to Mars? I would love it if we managed to solve our current mass extinction problem. Probably more than the idea of going to Mars while happily destroying life on Earth, to be honest.
Not destroying the Earth seems pretty critical to everything. Getting the technology to travel to and live on Mars would help that goal. Think of the benefits things like generating power in space and moving heavy industry off of Earth would create.
That's highly debatable. We talk a lot about global warming, which is due to CO2, which in turn is due to fossil fuels. So of course it sounds like it is an energy problem (and generating power in space, if that was actually better in terms of CO2 emissions, could help).
But what we always forget is that the mass extinction we are living right now (i.e. "we are destroying life on Earth") is not a consequence of global warming. Remove all the CO2 from the atmosphere right now, and we are still in a mass extinction. CO2 will just add global warming to the problem, but that's only a bonus.
But what we always forget is that the mass extinction we are living right now (i.e. "we are destroying life on Earth") is not a consequence of global warming. Remove all the CO2 from the atmosphere right now, and we are still in a mass extinction. CO2 will just add global warming to the problem, but that's only a bonus.
Agreed. But there are many examples. Take food production, which is one of the largest environment killers. Keeping people alive in space will involve novel food producing technology that might help stop people on Earth from destroying forests for grazing land, etc.
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I've spent long periods of time underwater with about 120 others. I've seen how people slowly go mad under those conditions so I always come around to how they are going to keep people mentally fit during those long months in deep space. It's probably much lonelier out there between Earth and Mars vs the space station with it's constant view of Earth and of possibility of rescue.
My recipe for success would be something like:
1. Send a lot of people (15?) and give people some flexibility in who they spend time with. 2. Give people a lot of space. I mean a _lot_ more than you think you need. Inflatable habs could be one approach, but if Starship gets going we might not even need that. 3. Let people escape. Loads of video games, books, creative projects, etc. 4. Help people anticipate the destination. Include remote control (obviously not real time) of robots at the landing site as one of the ongoing training exercises. Regularly simulate missions you'll be undertaking on the surface. 5. Give people lots of space at the destination. Cut and cover enormous living areas, and let people customise them. Give the crew something to look forward to.
People survive worse, and some people are better suited to it than others. We'll start by sending the people who are expected to fare best.
I suppose I am just some random on the internet, but I think a lot of people unjustifiably think "human factors" are insurmountable. Yes, it'll be hard, but the kind of people who plan these missions are used to solving hard problems.
1. Send a lot of people (15?) and give people some flexibility in who they spend time with. 2. Give people a lot of space. I mean a _lot_ more than you think you need. Inflatable habs could be one approach, but if Starship gets going we might not even need that. 3. Let people escape. Loads of video games, books, creative projects, etc. 4. Help people anticipate the destination. Include remote control (obviously not real time) of robots at the landing site as one of the ongoing training exercises. Regularly simulate missions you'll be undertaking on the surface. 5. Give people lots of space at the destination. Cut and cover enormous living areas, and let people customise them. Give the crew something to look forward to.
People survive worse, and some people are better suited to it than others. We'll start by sending the people who are expected to fare best.
I suppose I am just some random on the internet, but I think a lot of people unjustifiably think "human factors" are insurmountable. Yes, it'll be hard, but the kind of people who plan these missions are used to solving hard problems.
When I saw the "let people escape" part, I was thinking more escape pods :)
If anyone gets the chance I’d challenge you to visit Biosphere II in Arizona. It has some mixed success and controversy associated with it back in the day, but anyone can visit and take a tour if you want to feel what it would actually be like to live in a domed space colony.
The reason I suggest doing it, is because it might inspire you. When you open the door to the main dome you walk into an overgrown tropical rainforest, complete with waterfalls, insects, exotic plants, and so on. It left me with a feeling that yeah, actually, we could live on other planets and it wouldn’t be half bad.
The reason I suggest doing it, is because it might inspire you. When you open the door to the main dome you walk into an overgrown tropical rainforest, complete with waterfalls, insects, exotic plants, and so on. It left me with a feeling that yeah, actually, we could live on other planets and it wouldn’t be half bad.
We are not even a teeny tiny bit close to being able to replicate an environment like that in space. Waterfalls? With what gravity? Insects and exotic plants? You mean the invasive species that came to dominate Biosphere 2?
And even if we could replicate that level of Biosphere 2…well guess what? Everyone still went nuts anyways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2#Group_dynamics:_ps...
They went bonkers in a sealed bubble on Earth, with Earth gravity and Earth diurnal cycles. How would that possibly be easier on a planet where you’d have the innate factionalism in human interactions combined with the grinding stress of living on a world that wants to kill you?
And even if we could replicate that level of Biosphere 2…well guess what? Everyone still went nuts anyways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2#Group_dynamics:_ps...
They went bonkers in a sealed bubble on Earth, with Earth gravity and Earth diurnal cycles. How would that possibly be easier on a planet where you’d have the innate factionalism in human interactions combined with the grinding stress of living on a world that wants to kill you?
I don't think anyone would expect that - but the goal in space is not to replicate as much of the Earth biospheres variety in a closed system, but to feed a couple people for as long as possible (but not necessarily indefinitely) with the materials at hand.
I think a vat-grown culture of highly nutritious fungi (or algae or whatever, I'm no expert and I don't pretend to have even an SF writer's level of understanding of the subject) would be a much more viable solution.
I think a vat-grown culture of highly nutritious fungi (or algae or whatever, I'm no expert and I don't pretend to have even an SF writer's level of understanding of the subject) would be a much more viable solution.
It's only one part of your argument, but:
> Waterfalls? With what gravity?
Mars has gravity, and any serious space habitat would have a rotating section to simulate gravity.
> Waterfalls? With what gravity?
Mars has gravity, and any serious space habitat would have a rotating section to simulate gravity.
Yes, on that one I should have said “within a ship or station”.
But within that domain, my point still stands. We have no plausible way to construct such a ship or station that produces significant pseudo-gravity by rotating. Building such a thing is basically impossible with anything we can manufacture—building a “wheel” that can rotate fast enough and be large enough to not cause wild motion sickness and have the structural integrity to hold enough mass to sustain an ecosystem is beyond our materials science, and would be impossible to lift into space.
But within that domain, my point still stands. We have no plausible way to construct such a ship or station that produces significant pseudo-gravity by rotating. Building such a thing is basically impossible with anything we can manufacture—building a “wheel” that can rotate fast enough and be large enough to not cause wild motion sickness and have the structural integrity to hold enough mass to sustain an ecosystem is beyond our materials science, and would be impossible to lift into space.
> would be impossible to lift into space
Why on earth would you try that?
Why on earth would you try that?
Exactly, while an interesting exercise, that would be insane!
But built from Lunar/asteroid material ? Sure, you can build 8 by 32 km cylinder from steel with dirt for shielding with that has a standard earth gravity just fine. No exotic materials required:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
But built from Lunar/asteroid material ? Sure, you can build 8 by 32 km cylinder from steel with dirt for shielding with that has a standard earth gravity just fine. No exotic materials required:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder
> rotating section to simulate gravity.
thats an interesting one. Humans can only just about tolerate rotation rates of about 1 rev/min or slower or get dizzy. That means the radius of such a rotating habitat has to be quite large to achieve any meaningful acceleration, which leads to its own challenges.
For example, to achieve 0.5g at rotation rate of 1/60 per second requires an arm length of 0.5 x 9.81 x 60^2 or about 10 miles. If you tentuple the rotation speed, ie 10 revs / min, you still need a radius of 180m
thats an interesting one. Humans can only just about tolerate rotation rates of about 1 rev/min or slower or get dizzy. That means the radius of such a rotating habitat has to be quite large to achieve any meaningful acceleration, which leads to its own challenges.
For example, to achieve 0.5g at rotation rate of 1/60 per second requires an arm length of 0.5 x 9.81 x 60^2 or about 10 miles. If you tentuple the rotation speed, ie 10 revs / min, you still need a radius of 180m
I believe you're missing a factor of 1/(4 pi ** 2), which gives a 446m radius for 0.5g @ 1RPM.
A have been thinking about all the things you could do in an aqua-park on a sizeable habitat in the zero-g section. Circular rotating pools - hello up there! And think about all the slides - possibilities are endless! :D
Yeah, other than the fact that Biosphere II completely failed to be self sustaining, then sure, it resembles what a space colony might look like.
And you are assuming there are no resource constraints on the sizes of those domes; Biosphere II was made by shipping machinery and raw materials across modest distances by truck, as opposed to shipping supplies from Earth by rocket.
I remember reading about Biosphere II in Omni magazine, in the late '70s. We still cannot create a self-sufficient sealed ecosystem here on Earth, 45 years later.
And you are assuming there are no resource constraints on the sizes of those domes; Biosphere II was made by shipping machinery and raw materials across modest distances by truck, as opposed to shipping supplies from Earth by rocket.
I remember reading about Biosphere II in Omni magazine, in the late '70s. We still cannot create a self-sufficient sealed ecosystem here on Earth, 45 years later.
That's just cause it was too small. Only 3.14 acres. Need at least a few square miles. Dome a canyon. Pump up the air. Introduce water. Would be an amazing experiment.
Where Biosphere II failed, Lunar Palace 1 claims to have succeeded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuegong-1
We just spent years in quarantine. Some people “went mad,” others thrived. Surely we can use that giant experiment to pick who fits best on a trip to mars.
The article quips that only incels will live on mars as a derision towards those that do better in solitude. I think what they meant was many people on the spectrum would be well placed in a place where solitude is the default situation and they can socialize in a well controlled environment via streaming video and audio with a delay. What I felt sad about was the derision, an almost musk like “pedo” comment, by a neurotypical about our neurodiverse.
The article quips that only incels will live on mars as a derision towards those that do better in solitude. I think what they meant was many people on the spectrum would be well placed in a place where solitude is the default situation and they can socialize in a well controlled environment via streaming video and audio with a delay. What I felt sad about was the derision, an almost musk like “pedo” comment, by a neurotypical about our neurodiverse.
Your comment reminded me of the podcast The Habitat (https://gimletmedia.com/shows/the-habitat) about a (real-life) Mars mission simulation.
Your last point, about the possibility of rescue, is really interesting and I wonder if there's any clever ethical way to control for that in a study like the one in the podcast.
Your last point, about the possibility of rescue, is really interesting and I wonder if there's any clever ethical way to control for that in a study like the one in the podcast.
Do you have any recommended reading (maybe even something you wrote yourself) about what it's like to live like that?
I have written anything because it's hard to describe. I'm sort of working on it. As for books, I didn't think I had any but just realized I went through a phase where I read nothing but Arctic and Antarctic exploration books. I related to the extremes we find ourselves in and the fear we feel when we realize there is no hope of rescue should something go wrong and it seems highly likely something will go wrong.
This one is my favorite:
The Worst Journey in the World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_World
But I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention Shackleton's amazing expeditions
This one is my favorite:
The Worst Journey in the World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_World
But I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention Shackleton's amazing expeditions
NASA did a program/simulation of a Mars base on the Maura Loa volcano in Hawaii where they had a crew live for an extended period of time. There has been a lot of great writing about it as well as a good podcast (The Habitat)
How long?
Consecutive stay in the ISS has been completed for 355 days (almost year) with less than 10 people onboard at that time.
Consecutive stay in the ISS has been completed for 355 days (almost year) with less than 10 people onboard at that time.
Cumulative perperson record is currently 878 days, longest single flight personal record is 437 days. For more see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Mo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight_records#Mo...
With as submarine, you can usually surface in a short order (pending failure or enemy action) or land from a space station in an orbit or two.
With a deep space mission, you simply don't have the option. I wonder how that would change the situation - if for better or worse.
With a deep space mission, you simply don't have the option. I wonder how that would change the situation - if for better or worse.
I believe you are describing working on a submarine. If so, is it possible that there are other factors? I have heard that it is hard to get enough sleep, air quality is poor, and the work schedule is relentless. All the information I have is second/third hand, but it seems like at least some of those stressors might contribute, and could probably be avoided in a mars mission. I would be very curious to hear your thoughts.
What were you doing underwater for long periods of time?
He's alluding to nuclear submarines.
Which, to me, seems like the closest real-world-on-Earth-world training simulation you could develop.
You’d be totally reliant on one power source, sealed inside a pressurized tube, with totally disrupted circadian rhythms. But at least on a nuclear sub, you have the chance to escape to the the surface world, and a chance to restock there. On Mars? Step outside, you’re dead, and if you can’t replicate a resource on a world with less gravity & less solar power & not a shred of a biosphere, you’re dead.
Sounds like a fun, low-stress environment to me. Humans do great with living with unrelenting psychological stress in sealed metal tubes.
You’d be totally reliant on one power source, sealed inside a pressurized tube, with totally disrupted circadian rhythms. But at least on a nuclear sub, you have the chance to escape to the the surface world, and a chance to restock there. On Mars? Step outside, you’re dead, and if you can’t replicate a resource on a world with less gravity & less solar power & not a shred of a biosphere, you’re dead.
Sounds like a fun, low-stress environment to me. Humans do great with living with unrelenting psychological stress in sealed metal tubes.
The first realistic colonies should be at the bottom of canyons with glass ceilings. If they are big enough you won't even feel like you're stuck in a sealed metal tube.
This was a really good, well-researched article that actually changed my (admittedly not very strong) opinion on going to Mars, but there are 740 comments in this thread so far and I doubt more than 5% of people posting comments actually read the entire thing.
We need a highly condensed version of the main bullet points, preferably in TikTok format, to reach more people.
We need a highly condensed version of the main bullet points, preferably in TikTok format, to reach more people.
> well-researched
In places.
There is a classic banger of a paper, "Dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency" [1], which assembles evidence that human space exploration, while expensive, is more cost-effective than robotic. So when i saw Maciej write:
> Today’s automated spacecraft are not only strictly more capable[7] than human astronauts, but cost about a hundred times less [8]
I jumped straight to reference 7, and found:
> [7] I know, no robot can reflect on the nature of the Sublime while looking at sunbeams dancing on the limb of Deimos or whatever. But when it comes to tasks like “look under this rock on Mars” or “fly through this plume and sample it”, robots are awesome.
This is not exactly what i would call a well-researched statement.
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.6250
In places.
There is a classic banger of a paper, "Dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency" [1], which assembles evidence that human space exploration, while expensive, is more cost-effective than robotic. So when i saw Maciej write:
> Today’s automated spacecraft are not only strictly more capable[7] than human astronauts, but cost about a hundred times less [8]
I jumped straight to reference 7, and found:
> [7] I know, no robot can reflect on the nature of the Sublime while looking at sunbeams dancing on the limb of Deimos or whatever. But when it comes to tasks like “look under this rock on Mars” or “fly through this plume and sample it”, robots are awesome.
This is not exactly what i would call a well-researched statement.
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.6250
I did read the entire thing, and as usually Maciej is on-point, but: since it isn't going to happen anyway as per his first couple of paragraphs it makes me wonder what the point is to having the many words following it.
Anybody that believes that we have the technology capable of setting up a self sufficient Mars base should be invited to demonstrate such on the Moon, where in case things inevitably go pear shaped at least there is a small chance of rescue, which in the case of Mars is impossible. Anybody that signs up for a Mars mission may well end up bringing life to Mars, but not in the way that they intend to. Either way it wouldn't be intelligent life.
Anybody that believes that we have the technology capable of setting up a self sufficient Mars base should be invited to demonstrate such on the Moon, where in case things inevitably go pear shaped at least there is a small chance of rescue, which in the case of Mars is impossible. Anybody that signs up for a Mars mission may well end up bringing life to Mars, but not in the way that they intend to. Either way it wouldn't be intelligent life.
> Anybody that believes that we have the technology capable of setting up a self sufficient Mars base should be invited to demonstrate such on the Moon
Is this not exactly what we're doing with the Artemis Program? From its wiki page:
> The program's long-term goal is to establish a permanent base camp on the Moon and facilitate human missions to Mars.
Is this not exactly what we're doing with the Artemis Program? From its wiki page:
> The program's long-term goal is to establish a permanent base camp on the Moon and facilitate human missions to Mars.
I read the whole thing, but don't pretend we're all not guilty of that crime; you, me and everyone else.
> The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars, at least not anytime soon.
The thing that troubles me about these takes is the "we." There is no singular "we" in the world. Using the singular "we" deceives people into thinking that it is binary choice. In actuality, there are potentially many nations, many companies, and many people who can pursue resources and make a choice without impacting others.
It has no more impact on you than your neighbor deciding whether to buy an insurance policy or not.
Humanity is not a single mass of protoplasm, thank goodness.
The thing that troubles me about these takes is the "we." There is no singular "we" in the world. Using the singular "we" deceives people into thinking that it is binary choice. In actuality, there are potentially many nations, many companies, and many people who can pursue resources and make a choice without impacting others.
It has no more impact on you than your neighbor deciding whether to buy an insurance policy or not.
Humanity is not a single mass of protoplasm, thank goodness.
And yet every single discussion about space exploration (including this one) is full of people espousing the hypothetical “we, humanity” as though it were a singular entity capable of making decisions. This kind of fanciful thinking is a reliable tell that a person belongs to the “religion” mentioned in TFA.
It is pretty clear to me that “we” in the article refers to NASA/the US Government rather than humanity.
That still doesn't make sense - as the author writes, such a project would require several miracles to survive the multiple election cycles it would go through. Why do people consider themselves a "we" with their government when said government regularly goes against the polled preferences of its citizens. Clear examples in the USA include the fact that weed is criminalized in its country and a huge swath of its citizens are imprisoned for marijuana crimes despite the nation's citizenry as a whole not wanting this. Another example includes the citizens preference for a guaranteed right to women's healthcare, and the government's failure to enshrine this right, or in some local cases, to actively outlaw women's healthcare.
So when people use "we" and include their government despite not living in democracies, I get confused.
So when people use "we" and include their government despite not living in democracies, I get confused.
You don't go to Mars because it's easy. The biggest producer of technological advancements is pressure to solve hard problems. Not knowing is the whole point if you know how it's a worthless learning experience. It's always going to be hard to get a (the first?) human to Mars. It's 60 million of miles away. But one of the direct ways to solving this is to start working on them.
Plus Neil Degrassi Tyson has a great point on this in that robots can make discoveries and are low risk but they are way less inspiring. You know the Mars rovers names but the average person doesn't however the average person has a much higher chance of know Neil Armstrong because people inspire that.
Plus Neil Degrassi Tyson has a great point on this in that robots can make discoveries and are low risk but they are way less inspiring. You know the Mars rovers names but the average person doesn't however the average person has a much higher chance of know Neil Armstrong because people inspire that.
If we want hard problems to solve, surviving climate change is a good one that's definitely going to matter soon. It's a lot more important than putting boots on Mars.
One must ask the question: why bother exploring space at all? Don't tell me it's for the spinoff technologies, those are a fringe benefit at best, and have dubious return on investment compared to more direct funding. No, it's just because we're curious. We just want to.
Eventually logical arguments about how to acheive goals bottom out at raw, built-in desire. And no matter how many silly-sounding phrasings of the goal that you come up with, the fact remains that we want to go there. We just want to.
(This is no defense of any particular extant plan. OTOH I suspect OP underestimates the value of life support tech here on earth. But these are side questions.)
Eventually logical arguments about how to acheive goals bottom out at raw, built-in desire. And no matter how many silly-sounding phrasings of the goal that you come up with, the fact remains that we want to go there. We just want to.
(This is no defense of any particular extant plan. OTOH I suspect OP underestimates the value of life support tech here on earth. But these are side questions.)
Maybe the fantasy is better than the reality, as it often is.
Dreaming of going to space makes some people happy and they won't let it go. Doesn't mean it's a good idea!
But sometimes it's productive to have an unreachable goal: it gives us the motivation to improve towards it and reap the benefits, even if we never hit it.
Dreaming of going to space makes some people happy and they won't let it go. Doesn't mean it's a good idea!
But sometimes it's productive to have an unreachable goal: it gives us the motivation to improve towards it and reap the benefits, even if we never hit it.
$500B over 25 years is $20B per year. This represents 0.05% of the G7 economy - basically noise. Let's get on with it.
>The difficult and unglamorous problems of a Mars mission—how do you wash your socks? What is there to eat?
How do you breathe? Elon was talking about Starship having a crew capacity of 100 yet there doesn't seem to be any mention of how they would scrub the air of all that CO2. I've heard estimates that with existing solutions Starship might only be able to support 10 colonists per trip.
How do you breathe? Elon was talking about Starship having a crew capacity of 100 yet there doesn't seem to be any mention of how they would scrub the air of all that CO2. I've heard estimates that with existing solutions Starship might only be able to support 10 colonists per trip.
There is no possibility of a "Starship" can carrying 100 people to Mars.
NASA has figured the can has room for a maximum of 17 astronauts on such a trip. And, that is without spacesuits or anything else they would need once there. So figure another, cargo, can for the stuff they would need on the ground.
Maybe bring along a couple of spacesuits in the crew can, to wear while they fetch the rest. And, maybe just 9 crew so none kill each other on the way out.
NASA has figured the can has room for a maximum of 17 astronauts on such a trip. And, that is without spacesuits or anything else they would need once there. So figure another, cargo, can for the stuff they would need on the ground.
Maybe bring along a couple of spacesuits in the crew can, to wear while they fetch the rest. And, maybe just 9 crew so none kill each other on the way out.
Life support is not particularly difficult if you can just throw mass at it.
It's probably true that Starship would only be capable to support 10 colonists all the way to Mars and that's still pretty damn good. This number will grow if you have a separate life support system on the surface and don't have to rely on the ship but the first missions will indeed have a very small crew.
It's probably true that Starship would only be capable to support 10 colonists all the way to Mars and that's still pretty damn good. This number will grow if you have a separate life support system on the surface and don't have to rely on the ship but the first missions will indeed have a very small crew.
Talk of Starship carrying 100 people is in reference to the "Earth to Earth" transportation idea, i.e. carrying passengers on a short hop between continents.
When was that ruled out for Mars? According to this SpaceX source (first Google result) it's still 100.
https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf
https://www.spacex.com/media/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf
It probably isn't. Most mission critical problems and bottlenecks are resource depletion problems, and those can be easily solved by just sending a shitload of resources to Mars before sending people.
Need to scrub CO2 from the air? Nope, I'll just send over 10 extra cargo starships filled with Oxygen. Food for 100? Coming right up!
The whole plan hinges on making enough money with starship that sending up 100 rockets with triple-redundant resources becomes economically viable. At that point, you can slowly start building a somewhat self-sustaining infrastructure. But until you get there, the plan will just look foolish.
Need to scrub CO2 from the air? Nope, I'll just send over 10 extra cargo starships filled with Oxygen. Food for 100? Coming right up!
The whole plan hinges on making enough money with starship that sending up 100 rockets with triple-redundant resources becomes economically viable. At that point, you can slowly start building a somewhat self-sustaining infrastructure. But until you get there, the plan will just look foolish.
Good read. Perhaps we need a competing Venus religion? Consider building a floating airship community in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Perhaps we could also control contamination easier being close to edge of space where we could put waste into an orbit for collection and disposal at a later time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa...
Doesn't this seem like a much more exciting and compelling option compared to landing on Mars?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Altitude_Venus_Operationa...
Doesn't this seem like a much more exciting and compelling option compared to landing on Mars?
Thankfully this essay does discuss Venus, briefly, in a footnote. I'm a big proponent of exploring that planet, partly as contrarianism against the Martian cultists, mostly because of this discussion on HN alerted me to the idea - even Mercury colonization is worth considering!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734333
I agree with you; I also wish Bezos would go all-in on Venus and make things fun.
It may be more exciting and visually attractive but it misses all the things that make Mars colony interesting.
Venus airship will be unable to get raw materials - you are effectively making a space station in atmosphere of Venus. You can only capture gases and get energy from sunlight. You can't mine.
Venus airship will be unable to get raw materials - you are effectively making a space station in atmosphere of Venus. You can only capture gases and get energy from sunlight. You can't mine.
The atmosphere is IIRC quite turbulent in places, so you might be able to get some energy from that as well, by exploiting wind speed in different places and heights. Or maybe if you can achieve a stable anchor in the hell down there, won't that turn your floating station into a forever running wind turbine ?
Or maybe exploit the huge temperature differences between the surface and much colder cloud layers ? Some sort of pipe or thermocouple or even winching materials with high thermal capacity up and down ? Now thinking about it I could imagine a "Venus forge" where you winch up and down batches of materials in heat resistant containers!
As for gas mining - most of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which is a good start - carbon for construction and food, oxygen for internal atmosphere and combustion engines and rockets. Then there is apparently a lot of nitrogen, so you could have a "real" atmosphere and not a pure oxygen flame fest. Looks like there is also water vapor, that gives you even more input for life support and hydrogen for combustion and rockets. Possibly for fusion tech in future as well.
Look like there is also a bunch of noble gases, chloride, fluoride - could be useful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
As for surface mining - that's actually an intriguing idea!
Two options come to mind:
1) Essentially strip mining using suspended grappling claws. Grab stuff, winch it up or dump it elsewhere.
Is the rock down below too solid ? Drop a well isolated liquid nitrogen dewar on it, the thermal stress from that should be enough to tear it apart. Or go the other way around and make the stuff melt & scoop it.
2) Underground mining - the biggest issue would be to get a mine running, but once underground, the main extremes of the Venus environment could be overcome provided rock temperature underground it sane (is it ? not sure :P). The main issue would likely be atmospheric intrusion from the surface - at 93 bars it like about 1 km under the ocean, so likely solvable.
Or maybe exploit the huge temperature differences between the surface and much colder cloud layers ? Some sort of pipe or thermocouple or even winching materials with high thermal capacity up and down ? Now thinking about it I could imagine a "Venus forge" where you winch up and down batches of materials in heat resistant containers!
As for gas mining - most of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which is a good start - carbon for construction and food, oxygen for internal atmosphere and combustion engines and rockets. Then there is apparently a lot of nitrogen, so you could have a "real" atmosphere and not a pure oxygen flame fest. Looks like there is also water vapor, that gives you even more input for life support and hydrogen for combustion and rockets. Possibly for fusion tech in future as well.
Look like there is also a bunch of noble gases, chloride, fluoride - could be useful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
As for surface mining - that's actually an intriguing idea!
Two options come to mind:
1) Essentially strip mining using suspended grappling claws. Grab stuff, winch it up or dump it elsewhere.
Is the rock down below too solid ? Drop a well isolated liquid nitrogen dewar on it, the thermal stress from that should be enough to tear it apart. Or go the other way around and make the stuff melt & scoop it.
2) Underground mining - the biggest issue would be to get a mine running, but once underground, the main extremes of the Venus environment could be overcome provided rock temperature underground it sane (is it ? not sure :P). The main issue would likely be atmospheric intrusion from the surface - at 93 bars it like about 1 km under the ocean, so likely solvable.
What would people do there in their airships? It seems kind of anti-climatic to settle a planet without ever actually being able to descend to the surface.
Perhaps fly around in personal size drone ships. Hop between different air ship settlements. I would find that more climatic than the barren Martian surface.
I think that Venus makes more sense as a next step than Mars does.
Authors like this one previously also wrote poorly aged hit pieces like "Why not across the oceans", "Why not to the skies" and "Why not to space".
This is exactly the kind of dismissal that the guidelines explicitly ask you not to make.
The entire article is a snarky dismissal of humanity's possibly grandest venture so far. Let us at least allow ourselves room for some "bilateralism".
Different rules for articles, which happen on the person's website vs the comments here. Obviously the guidelines do not apply to other sites than this one.
And one man's snark is another man's sense of humor, humanity's grandest venture so far would be to learn to live in peace and to evenly spread our wealth, not to manage to hop to another planet and die there. And as dismissals come this one is anything but shallow, in fact, it's deeper than it needed to be.
And one man's snark is another man's sense of humor, humanity's grandest venture so far would be to learn to live in peace and to evenly spread our wealth, not to manage to hop to another planet and die there. And as dismissals come this one is anything but shallow, in fact, it's deeper than it needed to be.
why? he has a point. humanity is going to be around for a very long time and I don't think we will accept being limited to earth forever
As soon as you shift the context to 'forever' any discussion is really meaningless, you will want to limit forever to something shorter than the heat death of the universe anyway. Forever is just a cop-out. The question is: is this relevant in the present or not and in the present + a good couple of hundred years at a minimum this planet is all we've got no matter what SpaceX is up to.
Exactly, if we were to listen to such tales (or similar ones by penny pinchers), we would still be hitting rocks to make fire in our little caves. Venturing beyond is an amazing way to enrich our knowledge graph.
Exactly, if we were to listen to such tales we may even still be living in a sustainable world! Luckily, we're steadily destroying life because we can. /s
space exploration is not responsible for the poor state of the current environment, nor will forgoing on space exploration fix our planet...
Not directly, like most things. What is responsible is essentially the use of fossil fuels, and space exploration would not be possible without them. Now, not only fossil fuels are limited (we have passed peak oil), but we don't remotely have an alternative.
So I believe that there is an argument to make that insanely expensive, hard, and pretty much useless engineering projects (w.r.t. solving the biodiversity problem, which is actually about survival on Earth) could possibly be questioned.
Some will say that "if you don't spend all that money into inhabited space exploration, you won't necessarily spend it wisely. But I would disagree there: we should really start spending money (and fossil fuels) wisely because we are running out of time.
So I believe that there is an argument to make that insanely expensive, hard, and pretty much useless engineering projects (w.r.t. solving the biodiversity problem, which is actually about survival on Earth) could possibly be questioned.
Some will say that "if you don't spend all that money into inhabited space exploration, you won't necessarily spend it wisely. But I would disagree there: we should really start spending money (and fossil fuels) wisely because we are running out of time.
That's very dismissive. I don't agree that doing more of the same is good because it worked out before, even if the current goal is harder by many orders of magnitude.
Criticism is good! Let the best ideas prevail.
Criticism is good! Let the best ideas prevail.
I think this boils down to three concerns. One, that if you can't accept any risk for the crew then you have to do an insane amount of basically non-transferable R&D before going to Mars. Two, you can get more research per dollar from robotic probes instead. And three, you'll contaminate Mars.
One, yes, there will be a lot of risk involved and it is infeasible to mitigate it all in our lifetimes. If we want to go to Mars in our lifetimes, we will need to accept more risk than possibly any manned space mission before. But would it be more risk than faced by, for example, sea explorers hundreds of years ago? Exploration has always been risky. I think it will be sad if we wait hundreds of years to mitigate every possible risk before trying to set foot on Mars. I think there are people out there willing to take on a relatively high level of risk; why deny them the opportunity?
Two, sure, you might have better "ROI" on research using robotic space probes, but be careful with that argument, because if you think about it any further you'll realize that you'll get even better ROI not exploring the solar system at all. If your goal is research for practical purposes then there's plenty of that to do here on and around Earth. If your goal is research for research's sake, then I submit that that's not inherently more virtuous than a goal of human space exploration. I personally prefer the latter and I think the public agrees. And if your goal is research to enable eventually sending humans out there, then we'll learn a whole lot more and faster by actually sending humans as soon as it is remotely feasible.
Three, contamination is inevitable unless you plan to make Mars off limits forever. And if by some chance there is actually life on Mars to contaminate, then I bet there's life elsewhere in the solar system to discover too. I doubt very much that Mars would be our singular chance in the solar system to investigate uncontaminated extraterrestrial life. Also, natural processes have likely already landed bits of Earth on Mars as meteorites, just as bits of Mars have fallen to Earth. If your thesis is that extremophile bacteria that we don't even know about are omnipresent on Earth and could survive on Mars, then they could certainly have contaminated Mars already. And if they did, millions of years of evolution would certainly enable them to outcompete anything we would accidentally introduce from Earth.
One, yes, there will be a lot of risk involved and it is infeasible to mitigate it all in our lifetimes. If we want to go to Mars in our lifetimes, we will need to accept more risk than possibly any manned space mission before. But would it be more risk than faced by, for example, sea explorers hundreds of years ago? Exploration has always been risky. I think it will be sad if we wait hundreds of years to mitigate every possible risk before trying to set foot on Mars. I think there are people out there willing to take on a relatively high level of risk; why deny them the opportunity?
Two, sure, you might have better "ROI" on research using robotic space probes, but be careful with that argument, because if you think about it any further you'll realize that you'll get even better ROI not exploring the solar system at all. If your goal is research for practical purposes then there's plenty of that to do here on and around Earth. If your goal is research for research's sake, then I submit that that's not inherently more virtuous than a goal of human space exploration. I personally prefer the latter and I think the public agrees. And if your goal is research to enable eventually sending humans out there, then we'll learn a whole lot more and faster by actually sending humans as soon as it is remotely feasible.
Three, contamination is inevitable unless you plan to make Mars off limits forever. And if by some chance there is actually life on Mars to contaminate, then I bet there's life elsewhere in the solar system to discover too. I doubt very much that Mars would be our singular chance in the solar system to investigate uncontaminated extraterrestrial life. Also, natural processes have likely already landed bits of Earth on Mars as meteorites, just as bits of Mars have fallen to Earth. If your thesis is that extremophile bacteria that we don't even know about are omnipresent on Earth and could survive on Mars, then they could certainly have contaminated Mars already. And if they did, millions of years of evolution would certainly enable them to outcompete anything we would accidentally introduce from Earth.
> “At this point, it is hard to not find life on Earth. Microbes have been discovered living in cloud tops, inside nuclear reactor cores, and in aerosols high in the stratosphere.”
To me this is the most exciting point. Why aren’t we already building half a dozen probes simultaneously to look for life in the clouds of Venus, icy caverns of Europa, and every other interesting place in the solar system?
A steady stream of beautiful pictures and — hopefully — revolutionary biological discoveries from these unique worlds would seem like a much better investment than human selfies on Mars whose dusty mountains the public has already seen many times.
To me this is the most exciting point. Why aren’t we already building half a dozen probes simultaneously to look for life in the clouds of Venus, icy caverns of Europa, and every other interesting place in the solar system?
A steady stream of beautiful pictures and — hopefully — revolutionary biological discoveries from these unique worlds would seem like a much better investment than human selfies on Mars whose dusty mountains the public has already seen many times.
The cost to orbit is, err, astronomical.
I'm sure that when Starship craters the cost per kilogram to Earth orbit (following it making some literal craters in development) we will be doing just that.
I'm sure that when Starship craters the cost per kilogram to Earth orbit (following it making some literal craters in development) we will be doing just that.
Yeah - it should not just be more probes, but faster probes & quicker pictures as a result, if you can put 1000 tons of fuel under every probe you send.
I'm pretty sick of all these "it's hard, so let's not even try to do it".
I can't put myself in the head of someone who doesn't understand inspiration, passion, or dreaming. It seems so short-sighted.
"Let's only do it once it becomes easy".
Would they say the same about climbing the highest mountain? About abolishing slavery? About sailing the high seas?
In my opinion I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that this sounds like the kind of argument people would use to be pro-slavery because of the economy. Practical? Maybe (though in retrospect not). Doing the right thing? Absolutely not.
To me shutting down these things is like dismissing the persuit of the meaning of life.
Aside from the Apollo program being maybe the most return on investment monetarily in the history of humanity, I wonder what the ROI is on worker and entrepreneur motivation in addition to that.
If we can put a man on the moon, then nothing is impossible. Every obstacle is conquerable. We need to know that science fiction is within our grasp, and we won't get there without taking any steps.
If humans can put a man on the moon, then surely we can get this factory 10% more effective while improving workers lives?
I bet at least one of the big tech companies would not exist without this motivation. "Humanity can't put a man on the moon, so maybe we should sell this 'google' company to yahoo". Google monopoly aside, without Google we may not have Hadoop, free email, or many other things. What's the ROI just in terms of having free email with more than 1MB of quota?
Nobody gets out of life alive. Why would you aim low just to attempt to? Not saying we should take needless chances, but as people and as a society we do need to actually… you know… live.
I can't put myself in the head of someone who doesn't understand inspiration, passion, or dreaming. It seems so short-sighted.
"Let's only do it once it becomes easy".
Would they say the same about climbing the highest mountain? About abolishing slavery? About sailing the high seas?
In my opinion I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that this sounds like the kind of argument people would use to be pro-slavery because of the economy. Practical? Maybe (though in retrospect not). Doing the right thing? Absolutely not.
To me shutting down these things is like dismissing the persuit of the meaning of life.
Aside from the Apollo program being maybe the most return on investment monetarily in the history of humanity, I wonder what the ROI is on worker and entrepreneur motivation in addition to that.
If we can put a man on the moon, then nothing is impossible. Every obstacle is conquerable. We need to know that science fiction is within our grasp, and we won't get there without taking any steps.
If humans can put a man on the moon, then surely we can get this factory 10% more effective while improving workers lives?
I bet at least one of the big tech companies would not exist without this motivation. "Humanity can't put a man on the moon, so maybe we should sell this 'google' company to yahoo". Google monopoly aside, without Google we may not have Hadoop, free email, or many other things. What's the ROI just in terms of having free email with more than 1MB of quota?
Nobody gets out of life alive. Why would you aim low just to attempt to? Not saying we should take needless chances, but as people and as a society we do need to actually… you know… live.
>If humans can put a man on the moon, then surely we can get this factory 10% more effective while improving workers lives?
This is one of the most depressing soul crushing sentences I have ever read. It fills me with dispair. Its basically the justification for every kind of oppression and atrocity ever committed. Yet it is said with true starry eyed belief by you.
This is one of the most depressing soul crushing sentences I have ever read. It fills me with dispair. Its basically the justification for every kind of oppression and atrocity ever committed. Yet it is said with true starry eyed belief by you.
Improving workers lives is depressing? I'm truly not following.
I'm saying literally "surely we can make this world better for everyone", and you see it as a negative?
I'm saying literally "surely we can make this world better for everyone", and you see it as a negative?
What you are saying is we should compare a herculean effort to the doldrums of everyday life. Therefore making everyday life miserable and harder than it needs to be. Usually good enough is good enough. The reason that there is only one silicon valley is not because there are not resources to be another. Its just that the human race doesn't collectively need that much pressure in their lives.
> You are saying [...] Therefore making everyday life miserable and harder than it needs to be.
We are not having even remotely the same conversation. This is going nowhere.
Wish you all the best.
We are not having even remotely the same conversation. This is going nowhere.
Wish you all the best.
> Contamination risk is a real showstopper for Mars, one of those problems that gets worse the more carefully you look at it.
Not just Mars but anywhere humans choose to go to. Since
a) discovery of extremophiles; b) humans themselves are a living (and flourishing) bioweapon (from an extraterristrial world's perspective)
– we have to accept a simple fact that full decontamination or sanitation is not possible, at least not at the current level of the technological progress of our civilisation.
There will be microorganisms that will survive UV, α-, β-, γ- and X-rays albeit in reduced numbers. A single toilet flush in certain cirumstances can be a biological catastrophe even here on Earth today, and a single bowel movement might yield a unmitigated disaster in extraterrestrial worlds that could wipe alien biomes or civilisations out. And select extremophiles will absolutely take advantage of a new environment, adapt and evolve. What the extremophiles will evolve into and that might entail for an extreterrial world as well as ramifications for humans are the biggest unknowns.
Then, at the extreme end we have prions here on Earth that we do not understand, can't neutralise, can't decontaminate prion infected surfaces and tools, and – more generally – can't contain the prions in any way other than hurling them into a nearby star (not practically possible today). What the prions will be able to do in a unknown environment is a very uneasy thought at the very least.
So the actual question is: what is the solution? Should we stop the space exploration out of fears of infecting other worlds with terrestrial microbiomes, sit around and do nothing? We won't even be able to visit asteroids in our own solar system if we do not find a way to allay our own fears.
Or, should we keep the humans on Earth, send out robotic missions instead and deprive the humans of fun of exploring new worlds and satisfying our own curiosity? We are curious creatures.
We need a solution.
Not just Mars but anywhere humans choose to go to. Since
a) discovery of extremophiles; b) humans themselves are a living (and flourishing) bioweapon (from an extraterristrial world's perspective)
– we have to accept a simple fact that full decontamination or sanitation is not possible, at least not at the current level of the technological progress of our civilisation.
There will be microorganisms that will survive UV, α-, β-, γ- and X-rays albeit in reduced numbers. A single toilet flush in certain cirumstances can be a biological catastrophe even here on Earth today, and a single bowel movement might yield a unmitigated disaster in extraterrestrial worlds that could wipe alien biomes or civilisations out. And select extremophiles will absolutely take advantage of a new environment, adapt and evolve. What the extremophiles will evolve into and that might entail for an extreterrial world as well as ramifications for humans are the biggest unknowns.
Then, at the extreme end we have prions here on Earth that we do not understand, can't neutralise, can't decontaminate prion infected surfaces and tools, and – more generally – can't contain the prions in any way other than hurling them into a nearby star (not practically possible today). What the prions will be able to do in a unknown environment is a very uneasy thought at the very least.
So the actual question is: what is the solution? Should we stop the space exploration out of fears of infecting other worlds with terrestrial microbiomes, sit around and do nothing? We won't even be able to visit asteroids in our own solar system if we do not find a way to allay our own fears.
Or, should we keep the humans on Earth, send out robotic missions instead and deprive the humans of fun of exploring new worlds and satisfying our own curiosity? We are curious creatures.
We need a solution.
I don't understand why that is a concern. Whether some microorganisms live or die because of us ultimately is of no importance. What we should concern ourselves however, is any risks posed by them to us.
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There is also the issue that the average temperature on Mars is -60 celsius.
Keeping humans alive on Mars would require nuclear power sources much larger then any that have been flung into space so far.
If you are thinking of solar power then consider than the watts per square meter is about 40% of that on earth, that a big pile of batteries would be needed as well and how much work it would be to maintain a huge solar farm.
Keeping humans alive on Mars would require nuclear power sources much larger then any that have been flung into space so far.
If you are thinking of solar power then consider than the watts per square meter is about 40% of that on earth, that a big pile of batteries would be needed as well and how much work it would be to maintain a huge solar farm.
One of the arguments in favor of Mars versus the moon is that at least it has a normal Earth-like day/night cycle. Solar power on the moon means having to have batteries that last through the 14 day nights.
Mars is cold, but I don't think that's a huge problem. You just need an appropriate amount of insulation.
I imagine a typical Mars habitat to be either sealed section of an existing lava tube or some kind of dome structure built at the bottom of a hole and then covered with sand, except for a stairwell. Either way, you'd line the inside with something. Aerogel, polystyrene, whatever works in that environment and whose ingredients can be transported to Mars in a compact form.
Mars is cold, but I don't think that's a huge problem. You just need an appropriate amount of insulation.
I imagine a typical Mars habitat to be either sealed section of an existing lava tube or some kind of dome structure built at the bottom of a hole and then covered with sand, except for a stairwell. Either way, you'd line the inside with something. Aerogel, polystyrene, whatever works in that environment and whose ingredients can be transported to Mars in a compact form.
Heating stuff up is easier than cooling it down - it could be actually quite an issue on the moon during the 14 days of uninterrupted sunlight. Apollo was actually running of open cycle evaporative water coolers to dump all that heat & cooling was one of the main factors dictating surface mission duration. You are also in vacuum, so you either need that open cycle system or pretty massive radiative cooling.
And then of course you need to also survive 14 days of no sunlight at all. At least here vacuum helps to reduce heat loss. :)
And then of course you need to also survive 14 days of no sunlight at all. At least here vacuum helps to reduce heat loss. :)
I was thinking you could dome a large canyon with plain old glass and steel. Pump up the atmosphere inside and you'd be able to farm with day light and have a huge "outdoor" public space for people to enjoy. Buildings could be built into the canyon walls.
I'm not sure if structures like that can be made that would also provide adequate protection from radiation. My default assumption is that any early Mars colony would be doing almost everything underground, because that's the safest place to be.
> At this point, it is hard to not find life on Earth. Microbes have been discovered living in cloud tops, inside nuclear reactor cores, and in aerosols high in the stratosphere... Even microbes trapped for millions of years in salt crystals or Antarctic ice have shown they can wake up and get back to metabolizing without so much as a cup of coffee.
> The fact that we failed to notice 99.999% of life on Earth until a few years ago is unsettling and has implications for Mars.
This is the most shocking takeaway for me from the article. Is it true?
There are lots of citations attached but they're all to individual papers, and the "99.999%" figure appears to be hyperbole, not any kind of actual calculation. (Nor is it remotely clear whether it's attempting to refer to percentage of life by mass, by organism, or by species.)
If this is true, shouldn't there be some mainstream news articles? At least a mention on Wikipedia? Wikipedia describes the existence of extremophiles [1,2], but nothing about any recent discoveries that they make up nearly all of the life on earth.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism#Extremophiles
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile
> The fact that we failed to notice 99.999% of life on Earth until a few years ago is unsettling and has implications for Mars.
This is the most shocking takeaway for me from the article. Is it true?
There are lots of citations attached but they're all to individual papers, and the "99.999%" figure appears to be hyperbole, not any kind of actual calculation. (Nor is it remotely clear whether it's attempting to refer to percentage of life by mass, by organism, or by species.)
If this is true, shouldn't there be some mainstream news articles? At least a mention on Wikipedia? Wikipedia describes the existence of extremophiles [1,2], but nothing about any recent discoveries that they make up nearly all of the life on earth.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism#Extremophiles
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile
It's probably true by species. Life in mile-deep rock is gonna be quite isolated - you're not wafting miles a day in the breeze - and that's gonna lead to quite a bit of speciation.
Pretty interesting article.
I have always been a Mars-skeptic so this article reinforced much of that. That said, in reading this article I came to wonder why the author is even proposing we spend the money on more probes. Sooner or later, the probes only make sense if we intend to follow-up with human space travel. I suppose you could make the argument we are a century away from where we ought to consider that, but the author does not broach the subject of what the long term goals ought to be for space exploration and why.
From a science perspective, I am in favor of more things like JWST. More probes probably make sense for similar reasons. From a commercial and human standpoint, we should probably be focusing more on Low Earth applications with maybe some possibility that some of this ought to also focus on establishing a permanent base on the moon. But doing this on the moon assumes some really good reasons materialize for doing so. Whether it is the discovery of ice or minerals, or (maybe also) that there is an area we could setup beneath the surface the is shielded from radiation.
It would be great if we could find a practical reason for establishing a presence on the moon that then also laid the groundwork as an environment where some of these longer term problems could be tested and refined while we were also extracting some value from being there.
I have always been a Mars-skeptic so this article reinforced much of that. That said, in reading this article I came to wonder why the author is even proposing we spend the money on more probes. Sooner or later, the probes only make sense if we intend to follow-up with human space travel. I suppose you could make the argument we are a century away from where we ought to consider that, but the author does not broach the subject of what the long term goals ought to be for space exploration and why.
From a science perspective, I am in favor of more things like JWST. More probes probably make sense for similar reasons. From a commercial and human standpoint, we should probably be focusing more on Low Earth applications with maybe some possibility that some of this ought to also focus on establishing a permanent base on the moon. But doing this on the moon assumes some really good reasons materialize for doing so. Whether it is the discovery of ice or minerals, or (maybe also) that there is an area we could setup beneath the surface the is shielded from radiation.
It would be great if we could find a practical reason for establishing a presence on the moon that then also laid the groundwork as an environment where some of these longer term problems could be tested and refined while we were also extracting some value from being there.
I had to chuckle at this analogy: "If NASA is Amtrak in space, then SpaceX is the Fyre Festival with rockets."
The article makes some interesting points. It seems to me that a manned moon base fits the bill:
- little to no risk of contamination on moon
- inspirational goal
- achievable with current tech
- stepping stone to future projects (e.g. we can launch robotic missions from a lunar base)
- little to no risk of contamination on moon
- inspirational goal
- achievable with current tech
- stepping stone to future projects (e.g. we can launch robotic missions from a lunar base)
The Moon is not a useful launch site for projects elsewhere unless a lot of the mass comes from there (ie, lots of fuel or the mission itself).
You lose a lot of dv by stopping mid-trip; this isn’t like pulling off at a rest-stop.
You lose a lot of dv by stopping mid-trip; this isn’t like pulling off at a rest-stop.
Whenever someone makes an interesting case about returning to the Moon, there is always someone else arguing why that would be boring or ininteresting or "we already did that".
I find that quite odd, since there is still so much we don't know about the Moon. If we have the technology, why wouldn't we send someone there to explore and make way for making of a lunar base?
I find that quite odd, since there is still so much we don't know about the Moon. If we have the technology, why wouldn't we send someone there to explore and make way for making of a lunar base?
Well, mass drivers should be relatively easy to construct on the moon & can be used to launch fuel and resources for ship construction. Also at least some terrestrial mining and refining techniques could likely be used on the Moon in modified form while we are still very early in zero-g mining and refining necessary for Asteroid resource extraction.
Doesn’t the reduced gravity make a huge difference compared to launching from Earth? Is this not the biggest factor? (Zero expertise here, genuinely curious)
A mission from the surface of the Moon would cost ~3 km/s of delta-v to get an intercept with Mars (and more from there, but that depends on how much aerobraking you can manage).
A mission from the surface of Earth would cost ~13 km/s to get that same intercept - so, yes, it’s considerably more expensive. The majority of that is just making earth orbit in the first place (~9 km/s).
The big problem is that the mission on the moon has to come from somewhere. If you can fabricate your mission entirely at your moon base then the numbers above are accurate. However, if you have to ship stuff in from Earth - well, the Earth -> Moon -> Mars trajectory is more like 17-18 km/s. You’ve lost horrendously.
There are certainly perks to things like off-Earth fueling and assembly, but unless you’re getting a lot of the mass from somewhere other than Earth you’d be much better of doing that in low earth orbit (just from a fuel efficiency perspective, and there would of course be lots of other benefits to being so close to home).
A mission from the surface of Earth would cost ~13 km/s to get that same intercept - so, yes, it’s considerably more expensive. The majority of that is just making earth orbit in the first place (~9 km/s).
The big problem is that the mission on the moon has to come from somewhere. If you can fabricate your mission entirely at your moon base then the numbers above are accurate. However, if you have to ship stuff in from Earth - well, the Earth -> Moon -> Mars trajectory is more like 17-18 km/s. You’ve lost horrendously.
There are certainly perks to things like off-Earth fueling and assembly, but unless you’re getting a lot of the mass from somewhere other than Earth you’d be much better of doing that in low earth orbit (just from a fuel efficiency perspective, and there would of course be lots of other benefits to being so close to home).
Yes it reduces the gain you get from accelerating in a deep gravity well, so you lose efficiency in your transfer, plus you need to actually get there first. It's a lose-lose situation.
If there is anything to pick up from the moon it makes more sense to deliver it to LEO first and continue from there.
If there is anything to pick up from the moon it makes more sense to deliver it to LEO first and continue from there.
I think there's value in doing 'cool' things. Besides the science and technology that would come out of something like this, humans are still intrinsically pushed by doing cool stuff. And there's nothing wrong with pursuing cool stuff. Not everything has to have a 'real world value' to it. Humans value cool stuff and sending humans to mars is extremely cool.
> Not everything has to have a 'real world value' to it.
I agree with you but this is definitely one of the things that should have a real world value.
Many of the brightest minds in the world when it comes to space would be working on a project like sending humans to mars for decades. Not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars it will cost.
Plus it's not like the alternative of sending robots to every planet and large moon in the solar system is not cool.
I agree with you but this is definitely one of the things that should have a real world value.
Many of the brightest minds in the world when it comes to space would be working on a project like sending humans to mars for decades. Not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars it will cost.
Plus it's not like the alternative of sending robots to every planet and large moon in the solar system is not cool.
I think you're right except that in this case it would not only be cool, there would definitely be some real world value too, overall I feel it is worth it.
And sending robots is definitely super cool :)
And sending robots is definitely super cool :)
Well, doing cool stuff is a matter of preference. NASA is paid by the public, not from donations, right?
It'd be cool if we stopped building weapons that could kill 3 billion people within a couple hours.
I feel like this should be titled “why NASA should not go to Mars.” I would be astounded if SpaceX makes it there within 5 years of their original timeline, but even more astounded if they don’t have a crew within 10 years. I don’t see procrastinating with bone density studies etc. either - they treat it as a commercial venture, not an exercise in basic research.
You need to go do the bone density (and radiation) studies to know if your passengers are going to die on Mars. This stuff isn't optional.
There are already a lot of those studies, and they all say that radiation is very bad for you and that you need gravity to maintain a healthy bone density.
This is true. But there are no studies about the effect of partial gravity, and how much is enough to maintain bone and eye health.
Maybe the people going there aren't overly concerned with bone and eye health. Perhaps the goal in life isn't to do everything in one's power to stave off death.
The government's $80 billion dollar extreme sports program.
I accept that human space flight to Mars is not optimal from a scientific perspective due to possibilities for contamination and cost. But I also think there is a better argument to be made for boots on Mars than what appears in this article.
For one, the new technology needed for manned space flight is more likely to have medical and defense applications. But mkre importantly, boots on Mars would be a huge political victory.
Think about it like this: corporations sponsor Formula 1 cars because the prestige and visibility they get has all sorts of benefits. A manned mission to Mars would be like the holy grail of marketing. It would be like putting a permanent ad in the history books that every literate human on Earth will see for the next thousands and thousands of years. It's not unreasonable to say that the good publicity from this will prolong the lifespan of the nation, and that's something that I'd expect Congress to pursue.
For one, the new technology needed for manned space flight is more likely to have medical and defense applications. But mkre importantly, boots on Mars would be a huge political victory.
Think about it like this: corporations sponsor Formula 1 cars because the prestige and visibility they get has all sorts of benefits. A manned mission to Mars would be like the holy grail of marketing. It would be like putting a permanent ad in the history books that every literate human on Earth will see for the next thousands and thousands of years. It's not unreasonable to say that the good publicity from this will prolong the lifespan of the nation, and that's something that I'd expect Congress to pursue.
If a single mission to mars cost $100b, then I would agree with the article that it would probably not be worth it.
SpaceX is focused on reducing the cost, and no matter what you think of Elon, you have to agree that spacex focus on reusability in the falcon 9 has reduced their cost of access to space
The problem is that reducing spacex’s cost doesn’t reduce the customer’s cost… until there are competitors that can push the price down.
The focus on starship ultimately will reduce costs an order of magnitude again, and will permit vast payloads to mars.
Why does this matter? Because much of the cost of engineering of space missions is in custom making things to be light, power efficient and reliable.
If you can take more mass into space for less cost, you can add more solar panels into your design, make things more rugged, use off-the-shelf materials and you can double or triple the quantity for redundancy. Not only the launch costs go down, but all the associated engineering.
SpaceX is focused on reducing the cost, and no matter what you think of Elon, you have to agree that spacex focus on reusability in the falcon 9 has reduced their cost of access to space
The problem is that reducing spacex’s cost doesn’t reduce the customer’s cost… until there are competitors that can push the price down.
The focus on starship ultimately will reduce costs an order of magnitude again, and will permit vast payloads to mars.
Why does this matter? Because much of the cost of engineering of space missions is in custom making things to be light, power efficient and reliable.
If you can take more mass into space for less cost, you can add more solar panels into your design, make things more rugged, use off-the-shelf materials and you can double or triple the quantity for redundancy. Not only the launch costs go down, but all the associated engineering.
> The problem is that reducing spacex’s cost doesn’t reduce the customer’s cost…
SpaceX launches are way cheaper than competitors already. More competition would drive costs further down but it very much already exists.
A SpaceX launch costs 5% per kg of what a space shuttle launch cost. A 95% discount is pretty far away from “doesn’t reduce customers cost”.
SpaceX launches are way cheaper than competitors already. More competition would drive costs further down but it very much already exists.
A SpaceX launch costs 5% per kg of what a space shuttle launch cost. A 95% discount is pretty far away from “doesn’t reduce customers cost”.
How does it compare to the cost of a comparable rocket launch, ie, one without the known-to-be-wasteful [1] shuttle attachment?
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shutt...
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shutt...
SpaceX got contracts to launch a couple of GPS satellites for ~$80 and ~$90 million, compatible ULA launches were in the military budget for ~$420 million.
It’s not like buying a bus ticket so pricing is complex and difficult to compare but spacex is all around dramatically cheaper than the competition.
It’s not like buying a bus ticket so pricing is complex and difficult to compare but spacex is all around dramatically cheaper than the competition.
All I will say that the dismissal of SpaceX is extremely ignorant. Just that, ignorant, of what really goes inside.
I know for a fact that a lot of smart people there have been working on the Mars problem almost since SpaceX was created. I would not compare them with Hyperloop or the Boring Company with such a dismissive handwave.
I know for a fact that a lot of smart people there have been working on the Mars problem almost since SpaceX was created. I would not compare them with Hyperloop or the Boring Company with such a dismissive handwave.
I understand that the article is trying to promote robotic space explorations over human one. But we are humans, and even if a robot could do things better than us, people doing those things inspire more people.
Having said I do agree that going to Mars has lot of risks and would require decades of cooperation between different governments. Which is why I think it's better and feasible to build a moon base/city first.
The moon is only 3 days far which would make space tourism really feasible. The close proximity would be helpful in engineering, healthcare, entertainment etc. Lastly a proper city on moon can be a source of a lot of technological advancements and also a source of immense inspiration for all of humanity.
Having said I do agree that going to Mars has lot of risks and would require decades of cooperation between different governments. Which is why I think it's better and feasible to build a moon base/city first.
The moon is only 3 days far which would make space tourism really feasible. The close proximity would be helpful in engineering, healthcare, entertainment etc. Lastly a proper city on moon can be a source of a lot of technological advancements and also a source of immense inspiration for all of humanity.
I would put it in orbit around the Moon. There’s not much on the Moon, other than regolith at the bottom of a relatively shallow gravity well I guess. If you expect the Moon to be a stopover in space tourism, don’t make the people go down the gravity well, that’s a waste of energy for everyone who wants to visit it.
We could treat the Moon as a particularly large asteroid-mining process, don’t live on it, just extract resources.
I don’t think there’s much point in learning to live on all these different rocks. Most of space is space, we should focus on learning to live in space.
We could treat the Moon as a particularly large asteroid-mining process, don’t live on it, just extract resources.
I don’t think there’s much point in learning to live on all these different rocks. Most of space is space, we should focus on learning to live in space.
At least the low lunar orbit is usually unstable due to Moon being chunky:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_(astronomy)...
But there are exception & Lagrange points should be generally safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_concentration_(astronomy)...
But there are exception & Lagrange points should be generally safe.
I think this actually undersells the economic disparity between human and robotic exploration, particularly when extrapolated out to the next couple of decades. Yes, robots today are cheaper, more resilient, and more capable than us, but they are about to become vastly more so on the timeline of a manned Mars mission. AI is happening right now. Roboticists have not been ignoring the wild successes of large language and vision models. The already thin arguments for human presence will sound even weaker in a decade or two when the robots already there are vastly more capable in every way than they already are.
Venusian cloud cities actually seem pretty doable lately. Mars soil is essentially bleach, and the rems are a show stopper without a lot of lead. Venus has neither of those problems - if you stay in the nearly-habitable layer 50km up.
Build and operate a cloud city right above your head for a couple of years without incident before you try and sell the idea of doing it a few tens of millions of miles a year on a planet that if you don't do it perfect, you get to drift down and get incinerated.
Doesn't Venus's thick atmosphere make it different from trying to do it over Earth?
The "Vesuvian Bespin" proposal here is that scientists have found high enough in the Vesuvian atmosphere, atmospheric pressure and temperature are potentially comfortable for humans to go without (or at least much less) extensive life support (ignoring chemistry problems mentioned below). So, Earth would be kind of the ideal place test such a construction before committing to going to Venus. If you want easier 'floating' (making certain assumptions about the technology one might use to do that, e.g. we haven't invented anti-gravity machines), you go down to denser atmosphere and trade off against ease of human habitability. Which would seem to defeat the purpose.
Yeah, it's harder because you'd be floating on acid rain
Isn't the acidity normal in the upper atmosphere? Though I suppose up there the advantage of greater buoyancy might be lost.
At about 55 kilometers (where it's close to 25 degrees C and maybe 2/3 of standard air pressure) there are clouds of sulfuric acid. I believe you can avoid them by going higher, but then you lose the appeal of having earthlike temperature and pressure.
Well, H2S04 provides you with many useful elements if you can process it. :)
The current generation of mega rockets being built by SpaceX and Boeing will hopefully make the next generation of unmanned research far more compelling. They'll enable feats like drilling meters down under the topsoil.
If Mars does indeed happen to be a completely sterile wasteland (which it very likely is given that evidence of life contaminates every crevice of the earth), then human inadvertently depositing microbial hitchhikers on the surface of that world may be the most consequential legacy of humanity 10 million years from now
If Mars does indeed happen to be a completely sterile wasteland (which it very likely is given that evidence of life contaminates every crevice of the earth), then human inadvertently depositing microbial hitchhikers on the surface of that world may be the most consequential legacy of humanity 10 million years from now
I got to ask Scott Kelly why we should send humans to Mars instead of sending up more robots. His response (paraphrased) was:
1. Humans are explorers by nature
2. Humans can do science 100x faster than robots.
3. People will be inspired by Mars missions to go into STEM and even if they don't end up working for NASA, they will likely do other great things.
4. It gives people jobs
The romantic explorers angle seems practically indefensible for the reasons listed in this article. I like the faster science angle the most in theory, but I didn't realize that contamination would be such a big deal.
1. Humans are explorers by nature
2. Humans can do science 100x faster than robots.
3. People will be inspired by Mars missions to go into STEM and even if they don't end up working for NASA, they will likely do other great things.
4. It gives people jobs
The romantic explorers angle seems practically indefensible for the reasons listed in this article. I like the faster science angle the most in theory, but I didn't realize that contamination would be such a big deal.
The article seems to argue that point 2 is strictly false, or a red herring: humans can do the science on earth, while robots collect data in space.
Point 4 seems more a political/economic failure than a valid reason to pour resources into a Mars project.
Point 4 seems more a political/economic failure than a valid reason to pour resources into a Mars project.
Yes, and Point 3 is a fancy version of the broken window fallacy, while Point 1 is a BS "appeal to nature" that can be used to justify anything, including some of the worst things.
It's not fair to lump in the _entire_ ISS budget in with exploration. They do plenty of materials science, pharmaceutical development, earth observation, and subatomic physics as well.
No, they do not. The entire station has about 40 hours/week free for research, and the priority now (according to NASA) is testing next-generation life support systems. The only useful experiments on there are the ones that are automated.
Even the builders of the Great Pyramid at Giza could at least explain what it was for.
The purpose of setting foot on Mars is to ignite the human spirit, you soulless pedestrian.
The purpose of setting foot on Mars is to ignite the human spirit, you soulless pedestrian.
Get a jetski. Some people on Earth still need to eat.
>If any fugitives from the spacecraft make their way to a survivable niche on Mars, we may never be able to tell whether biotic signatures later found the planet are traces of native life, or were left by escapees from our first Martian outhouse.
Even if life on Mars miraculously stumbled upon the same four (five) nucleobases, the same twenty (-two) amino acids, glucose, glycerol esters, and (deoxy)ribose, it would still seem pretty unlikely that it chooses the same three-base sequences corresponding to the same amino acids in RNA translation. But maybe we're still holding out hope for panspermia? And adaptable though our microbes are on megayear time-scales, we're also talking about the same cells that mostly can't survive intentional cultivation, as the author himself notes, so outcompeting the life native to Mars would be a real feat — merely surviving cold and dryness through dormancy is a well-known microbial swindle. I suppose it isn't impossible, but I have yet to hear a good argument that it's feasible.
But overall I agree, Mars has nothing. It's not even very big: the surface of Mars is roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean, well below doubling what we started with. Meanwhile, the asteroids are full of palladium.
Even if life on Mars miraculously stumbled upon the same four (five) nucleobases, the same twenty (-two) amino acids, glucose, glycerol esters, and (deoxy)ribose, it would still seem pretty unlikely that it chooses the same three-base sequences corresponding to the same amino acids in RNA translation. But maybe we're still holding out hope for panspermia? And adaptable though our microbes are on megayear time-scales, we're also talking about the same cells that mostly can't survive intentional cultivation, as the author himself notes, so outcompeting the life native to Mars would be a real feat — merely surviving cold and dryness through dormancy is a well-known microbial swindle. I suppose it isn't impossible, but I have yet to hear a good argument that it's feasible.
But overall I agree, Mars has nothing. It's not even very big: the surface of Mars is roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean, well below doubling what we started with. Meanwhile, the asteroids are full of palladium.
That sounds pretty big to me.
Earth's land surface is the same size as Mars':149 vs 144 million km².
I think that enough of us humans want to go to mars that it’ll happen regardless of what congress or bloggers have to say about it. Some of those who want to go there create arguments to justify it (exploration! science! profit! new technology! extinction if life on earth!), but I view these as post hoc rationalizations.
So yeah the best “why mars” argument is maybe just that someone will do it for the lulz.
Even if congress or musk don’t get around to it, someone eventually will.
So yeah the best “why mars” argument is maybe just that someone will do it for the lulz.
Even if congress or musk don’t get around to it, someone eventually will.
> The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars, at least not anytime soon.
How soon does anyone think we're going to send people to Mars? In the next 10 years? 20 years? Personally - and I wouldn't mind seeing it happen - I'd be shocked if it was in the next 30 years.
Everyone has a different time frame but I don't think of that as soon.
How soon does anyone think we're going to send people to Mars? In the next 10 years? 20 years? Personally - and I wouldn't mind seeing it happen - I'd be shocked if it was in the next 30 years.
Everyone has a different time frame but I don't think of that as soon.
It depends a lot on our ability to handle loss of life in the process of exploration.
We can most definitely get people on Mars by 2030. But we need to accept that some or all of them may die in the process. Are we as a civilisation ready for that?
The technology of actually getting someone BACK from Mars is a whole different thing.
In the worst situation we would have the world's most expensive reality survival show, watching when astronauts slowly die of starvation on Mars because hydroponics failed and they didn't bring enough dry rations.
We can most definitely get people on Mars by 2030. But we need to accept that some or all of them may die in the process. Are we as a civilisation ready for that?
The technology of actually getting someone BACK from Mars is a whole different thing.
In the worst situation we would have the world's most expensive reality survival show, watching when astronauts slowly die of starvation on Mars because hydroponics failed and they didn't bring enough dry rations.
Well, why waste money on probes? Why do basic research science that hasn't produced notable products? W
That's the slippery slope.
I do agree:
1) government funding won't produce the end result.
2) real space stationd or lunar stations make more sense
I think we should let the economics of the starship rocket play out before planning anything. The starship rocket, if it achieves it's goals, changes the equation of staging equipment in low orbit.
That will eventually filter through the industry.
That's the slippery slope.
I do agree:
1) government funding won't produce the end result.
2) real space stationd or lunar stations make more sense
I think we should let the economics of the starship rocket play out before planning anything. The starship rocket, if it achieves it's goals, changes the equation of staging equipment in low orbit.
That will eventually filter through the industry.
"NASA has spent decades learning how to survive in the harsh environment of Congress, and that knowledge is bearing fruit today."
This is a great line.
This is a great line.
Nearly 20 years ago Bruce Sterling wrote:
> I’ll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people setting the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes “Gobi Desert Opera” because, well, it’s just kind of plonkingly obvious that there’s no good reason to go there and live. It’s ugly, it’s inhospitable and there’s no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it’s so hard to reach.”
> On the other hand, there might really be some way to make living in the Gobi Desert pay. And if that were the case, and you really had communities making a nice cheerful go of daily life on arid, freezing, barren rock and sand, then a cultural transfer to Mars might make a certain sense.
https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/204/The-2004...
> I’ll believe in people settling Mars at about the same time I see people setting the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach. Nobody ever writes “Gobi Desert Opera” because, well, it’s just kind of plonkingly obvious that there’s no good reason to go there and live. It’s ugly, it’s inhospitable and there’s no way to make it pay. Mars is just the same, really. We just romanticize it because it’s so hard to reach.”
> On the other hand, there might really be some way to make living in the Gobi Desert pay. And if that were the case, and you really had communities making a nice cheerful go of daily life on arid, freezing, barren rock and sand, then a cultural transfer to Mars might make a certain sense.
https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/204/The-2004...
Bruce better start believing then, since the Gobi Desert is inhabited and the Oyu Tolgoi copper & gold smack dab in the middle of it powers over one third of Mongolia's GDP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyu_Tolgoi_mine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyu_Tolgoi_mine
While it's true the Gobi desert has been sparsely populated for ages, saying that a mine is a colony is like saying an offshore oil platform is a colony.
A self-sustaining Mars colony needs enough people that there is spare capacity to raise children and educate them to the point that they can maintain the systems themselves. That's going to be, what, 100K+ people? 1M+ people? 10M+?
The entire Ömnögovi Province has 66K people.
That Wikipedia article links to https://web.archive.org/web/20140724131423/http://www.circle... from a decade ago which points out how the mine is taking water that was supplying the animals local herders used.
If that's still the case, and usable surface water is disappearing, that sounds like the opposite of a self-sustaining colony.
A self-sustaining Mars colony needs enough people that there is spare capacity to raise children and educate them to the point that they can maintain the systems themselves. That's going to be, what, 100K+ people? 1M+ people? 10M+?
The entire Ömnögovi Province has 66K people.
That Wikipedia article links to https://web.archive.org/web/20140724131423/http://www.circle... from a decade ago which points out how the mine is taking water that was supplying the animals local herders used.
If that's still the case, and usable surface water is disappearing, that sounds like the opposite of a self-sustaining colony.
"It would no more open a new era of spaceflight than a Phoenician sailor crossing the Atlantic in 500 B.C."
That would have been AWESOME if it happened tho!
That would have been AWESOME if it happened tho!
Yeah, the same nonsense like Vikings landing in North America or people living behind the Arctic circle without modern technology. Completely impossible!
I disagree quite strongly with the idea that robots are a substitute for human migration. The rationale is totally different.
That being said I think the Moon makes far more sense as a first off planet settlement. The transit time is short enough for a tourism industry among other things. It’s also short enough to permit relief flights and for people to quickly return if necessary. It would be a great place to basically prototype the technology and the social aspects.
Also the fact that it is more hostile in some ways is good from a prototyping point of view. If we can live with no atmosphere and 1/6 gravity we can surely make it with some atmosphere and 1/3 gravity.
Edit: and mining may be viable. Gravity is low enough to permit possible gun or mass driver launch from the moon back to Earth for raw materials. Probably wouldn’t make enough to make the whole venture profitable but could maybe offset it a bit along with tourism. Materials like gold, platinum, rare earths, etc might be found near the surface in concentrated deposits due to no weathering.
That being said I think the Moon makes far more sense as a first off planet settlement. The transit time is short enough for a tourism industry among other things. It’s also short enough to permit relief flights and for people to quickly return if necessary. It would be a great place to basically prototype the technology and the social aspects.
Also the fact that it is more hostile in some ways is good from a prototyping point of view. If we can live with no atmosphere and 1/6 gravity we can surely make it with some atmosphere and 1/3 gravity.
Edit: and mining may be viable. Gravity is low enough to permit possible gun or mass driver launch from the moon back to Earth for raw materials. Probably wouldn’t make enough to make the whole venture profitable but could maybe offset it a bit along with tourism. Materials like gold, platinum, rare earths, etc might be found near the surface in concentrated deposits due to no weathering.
I love all the efforts humans put towards trying to understand and tame the wilds of space, but it makes me immensely sad that we choose not to put the same efforts towards vastly easier & simpler problems that would have a much more immediate positive impact. Food insecurity, medical access, climate change, etc. are all problems we know how to solve - but we don't.
While I think the idea of colonizing Mars is a fantasy, I also disagree that your problems are “easy”.
Because all those problems are human problems. Humans are short-sighted and selfish. Climate change stands out here. Sure, we know to fix that. Now make it happen. Get politicians to tell the fossil fuel extractors and refiners in their districts are out of a job. Now get people to give up their cars. Now tell people they can’t eat meat.
Oh, those are extreme examples, you might say. There are economic incentives and taxation that could ease the transition and provide incentives. We can develop better photovoltaics and a host of other green energy tech. Sure, we absolutely can! Now create those taxes so they don’t create perverse incentives, and we can have reduced tax spec…ah, and now it is way way way beyond easy.
Because all those problems are human problems. Humans are short-sighted and selfish. Climate change stands out here. Sure, we know to fix that. Now make it happen. Get politicians to tell the fossil fuel extractors and refiners in their districts are out of a job. Now get people to give up their cars. Now tell people they can’t eat meat.
Oh, those are extreme examples, you might say. There are economic incentives and taxation that could ease the transition and provide incentives. We can develop better photovoltaics and a host of other green energy tech. Sure, we absolutely can! Now create those taxes so they don’t create perverse incentives, and we can have reduced tax spec…ah, and now it is way way way beyond easy.
It would be simpler, cheaper, and easier to build a self-sufficient habitat orbiting Mars than to live on it. Even if you could build an atmosphere the lack of a magnetosphere would just see it blown away in the solar wind, if you even still cared after your cancer had cancer from the radiation.
If you want to figure out how to live and grow crops so far underground that solar radiation doesn’t bother you, Earth is a far easier place to do that, and equally resistant to asteroid impact and equally helpless to gamma ray burst.
When big houses became to common men built mansions, when mansions became too pedestrian men built castles on the sea in the form of yachts.
There are plenty of worthwhile reasons to explore and exploit the universe beyond our atmosphere, and in time I believe we will master not only the solar system but many others like it.
The ego of men is no longer a productive driving force for that. That works when the enemy is less powerful men. When the enemy is physics only a rational, long-term, consensual commitment can prevail.
If you want to figure out how to live and grow crops so far underground that solar radiation doesn’t bother you, Earth is a far easier place to do that, and equally resistant to asteroid impact and equally helpless to gamma ray burst.
When big houses became to common men built mansions, when mansions became too pedestrian men built castles on the sea in the form of yachts.
There are plenty of worthwhile reasons to explore and exploit the universe beyond our atmosphere, and in time I believe we will master not only the solar system but many others like it.
The ego of men is no longer a productive driving force for that. That works when the enemy is less powerful men. When the enemy is physics only a rational, long-term, consensual commitment can prevail.
Regarding atmosphere loss: currently Mars is losing about 95 kt of atmosphere per year [1]. Actively offsetting that amount of loss is not that big of an effort. Also I guess if you would generate an ozone layer, part of this atmosphere loss due to UV radiation would be attenuated.
Obviously, generating an atmosphere on Mars would be immensely energy intensive and likely possible only after we level up on the Kardashev scale.
1. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4988
Obviously, generating an atmosphere on Mars would be immensely energy intensive and likely possible only after we level up on the Kardashev scale.
1. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4988
Ego and hubris matter as much in physics as anything else.
The contention here I think is missing the possibility of a breakthrough or two.
We are making 'step functions' now and again in a lot of things, it's not entirely infeasible that a couple of step functions makes space just a lot easier. Maybe in superconducting or power generation or wireless energy transfer. Maybe if energy is super cheap and light, we really can haul a couple of orders of magnitudes more mass up into space, the 'close system' of keeping humans alive equation shifts enough to where it becomes much more feasible.
The contention here I think is missing the possibility of a breakthrough or two.
We are making 'step functions' now and again in a lot of things, it's not entirely infeasible that a couple of step functions makes space just a lot easier. Maybe in superconducting or power generation or wireless energy transfer. Maybe if energy is super cheap and light, we really can haul a couple of orders of magnitudes more mass up into space, the 'close system' of keeping humans alive equation shifts enough to where it becomes much more feasible.
Most of these issues can be avoided by incrementally constructing a Low World House:
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/51f7d32f54b72
Also unlike planet scale terraforming, you get useful living space from the start & it expands as you go.
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/51f7d32f54b72
Also unlike planet scale terraforming, you get useful living space from the start & it expands as you go.
There are many problems with this article, and this sort of thinking explains why mankind has been trapped in a counter-productive rut for the last half century when it comes to space exploration.
> Contamination
Concerns around Mars contamination are hogwash. We want to contaminate the f out of Mars. We want microbes to infiltrate every nook and cranny of every crevice on the planet, just like it is on Earth. If there are indigenous species, they will compete, and the best will win out. If we discover something harmful to humans, we will develop vaccines or pesticides.
The author must keep in mind that this is real life, not Star Trek with high-minded Prime Directives and some deep philosophical mission. Our mission is to colonise a new planet and make it liveable for the next billion humans. There is no Prime Directive.
> Research and engineering for life support
Yes, a lot of research is required to develop self-contained life support systems. It won't happen unless we do it. It won't happen if we focus only of robotics and automation. Human space exploration is the end goal. Dithering about with drones and robots is fun, but the real dream is a man (or 100) on Mars.
> human physiology, physiological effects of partial gravity, risk the safety of the crew
You cannot embark on a planet terraforming mission and not take on risk. The whole endeavour is risky. Not doing is also risky, we might not have a pleasant Earth in 200 years. Choose people who are of strong, sound minds (as best we can evaluate) and who are willing to risk their lives for a chance of going to Mars. We definitely should not wait around until we are technologically capable of sending a foolproof 200% safe-for-humans capsule.
> “Mere failure to realize a long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud”
Amen.
> Contamination
Concerns around Mars contamination are hogwash. We want to contaminate the f out of Mars. We want microbes to infiltrate every nook and cranny of every crevice on the planet, just like it is on Earth. If there are indigenous species, they will compete, and the best will win out. If we discover something harmful to humans, we will develop vaccines or pesticides.
The author must keep in mind that this is real life, not Star Trek with high-minded Prime Directives and some deep philosophical mission. Our mission is to colonise a new planet and make it liveable for the next billion humans. There is no Prime Directive.
> Research and engineering for life support
Yes, a lot of research is required to develop self-contained life support systems. It won't happen unless we do it. It won't happen if we focus only of robotics and automation. Human space exploration is the end goal. Dithering about with drones and robots is fun, but the real dream is a man (or 100) on Mars.
> human physiology, physiological effects of partial gravity, risk the safety of the crew
You cannot embark on a planet terraforming mission and not take on risk. The whole endeavour is risky. Not doing is also risky, we might not have a pleasant Earth in 200 years. Choose people who are of strong, sound minds (as best we can evaluate) and who are willing to risk their lives for a chance of going to Mars. We definitely should not wait around until we are technologically capable of sending a foolproof 200% safe-for-humans capsule.
> “Mere failure to realize a long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud”
Amen.
We want to avoid contaminating Mars before we explore it so we can learn more about the origin of life on Earth, and the distribution of life in the universe. It's not like terraforming technology is ready to go and the researchers are holding it back with unreasonable demands. A Mars landing brings your dream of colonization no closer while potentially ruining a scientific dream that is just as valid, and far more achievable.
> The author must keep in mind that this is real life, not Star Trek with high-minded Prime Directives and some deep philosophical mission.
Speak for yourself. I want the continuation of the human species, I don't want to unnecessarily genocide another untold number of species to make that happen. I similarly don't like when we cause species here on earth to go extinct. I think space agencies should adopt a Prime Directive.
Do you believe the continuation of the human race requires genocide, here and on mars? That seems very zero-sum, I believe I can argue against this being necessary.
Speak for yourself. I want the continuation of the human species, I don't want to unnecessarily genocide another untold number of species to make that happen. I similarly don't like when we cause species here on earth to go extinct. I think space agencies should adopt a Prime Directive.
Do you believe the continuation of the human race requires genocide, here and on mars? That seems very zero-sum, I believe I can argue against this being necessary.
Speaking for myself, the Prime Directive is the survival of humanity.
Any other altruistic Prime Directive (ala Star Trek) is a luxury affordable only by a species that has figured out a way past the eventual explosion of their system’s star.
Any other altruistic Prime Directive (ala Star Trek) is a luxury affordable only by a species that has figured out a way past the eventual explosion of their system’s star.
> Do you believe the continuation of the human race requires genocide, here and on mars?
No I don't think so. That's why I don't want to worry about "contaminating" Mars with our microbes. It's going to be ok. We should just do whatever it takes to fulfil our objective of settling on Mars. If our spaceship happens to land on a Martian anthill then too bad.
No I don't think so. That's why I don't want to worry about "contaminating" Mars with our microbes. It's going to be ok. We should just do whatever it takes to fulfil our objective of settling on Mars. If our spaceship happens to land on a Martian anthill then too bad.
I think this is a very utilitarian view. He is probably right, but we are in a late stage post material society where a huge part of the global population just wants to be entertained.
This will be great content and entertainment for billions. The endless travel time will actually be a key feature of it.
I can't decide if I am ironic, sarcastic or realistic.
This will be great content and entertainment for billions. The endless travel time will actually be a key feature of it.
I can't decide if I am ironic, sarcastic or realistic.
Anybody who thinks they have the grit for Mars life, for your own good - try it here first. Take 3, or better 6 months of your life to spend in one of the remote Inupiat villages in Alaska. In a few weeks, you will be climbing up walls. Here on Earth frontier living sucks, but it’s Club Med compared to Mars.
Most of this is written from a US perspective, which ignores an important fact: it looks like it is going to be the Chinese that get boots back on the moon first and they might also move their eyes towards Mars soon. And they are not going to ask US congress for permission either. There's a new space race on with China. Mars is a prestigious target to nail that will vastly expand what's possible technically for whomever gets there first. It's going to be China unless the US stops navel gazing and gets its act together.
And love him or hate him but Elon Musk has built a pretty nice Starship that might help getting that mission done. The traditional route of slinging trillions at the likes of Boeing is indeed going to take decades. We know that because that's the past 50 years. It doesn't work. But Starship is nearly ready for operations and might cut that time frame short. And its a bar gain in comparison.
There was no point in going to the moon either in the late nineteen sixties. But it was preferable for the US to get there before the Russians. The moon program was really expensive and yielded a lot of indirect return on investment. Lots of fat government checks that went straight into the US economy. In the end, all it took was Kennedy telling people that we were going. Only took eight years or so from there. The Saturn 5 was way bigger than it needed to be because the people behind it were already looking at Mars. The Mars capable successor was already being developed until it was cancelled by Nixon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_C-5N
Anyway, Starship was designed for Mars, is going to the moon first, and might be flying there soonish. A bit over eight years from merely being a crazy idea. Sounds familiar? Only this time it won't be a one off. This thing is reusable and there might be quite few "flight-proven" ones flying towards the end of the decade. It will be very tempting to use one for what it was designed for.
And love him or hate him but Elon Musk has built a pretty nice Starship that might help getting that mission done. The traditional route of slinging trillions at the likes of Boeing is indeed going to take decades. We know that because that's the past 50 years. It doesn't work. But Starship is nearly ready for operations and might cut that time frame short. And its a bar gain in comparison.
There was no point in going to the moon either in the late nineteen sixties. But it was preferable for the US to get there before the Russians. The moon program was really expensive and yielded a lot of indirect return on investment. Lots of fat government checks that went straight into the US economy. In the end, all it took was Kennedy telling people that we were going. Only took eight years or so from there. The Saturn 5 was way bigger than it needed to be because the people behind it were already looking at Mars. The Mars capable successor was already being developed until it was cancelled by Nixon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_C-5N
Anyway, Starship was designed for Mars, is going to the moon first, and might be flying there soonish. A bit over eight years from merely being a crazy idea. Sounds familiar? Only this time it won't be a one off. This thing is reusable and there might be quite few "flight-proven" ones flying towards the end of the decade. It will be very tempting to use one for what it was designed for.
This begs the question of the whole essay, doesn't it? So what if China gets "boots on Mars" first? They'll waste hundreds of billions of dollars (and likely many lives) doing it, and be no better off. If we're really worried, we can just counter them by sending killer robots to Mars.
I hope China doesn't land on Mars because of the fragility of the Martian environment, but I see no geopolitical threat in them wasting a lot of money trying.
(Obligatory: Elon Musk did not build a Starship. SpaceX is building it.)
(Obligatory: Elon Musk did not build a Starship. SpaceX is building it.)
Who would the hardest person at SpaceX to replace be if they left?
Saying it's Shotwell or Musk isn't indefensible. No one is irreplaceable anymore then any one person (as opposed to SpaceX as a whole) is building Starship but it isn't sycophancy to say that some people are more integral to the process.
Saying it's Shotwell or Musk isn't indefensible. No one is irreplaceable anymore then any one person (as opposed to SpaceX as a whole) is building Starship but it isn't sycophancy to say that some people are more integral to the process.
I think it would be great to send humans to mars but it is kind of hard to justify. I don't think there will be a colony there - there's no real reason unless you want to make the argument that we need people on another planet in case we destroy earth. But it would still be cool.
There's no feasible way to destroy the Earth that wouldn't also destroy the survivability of Martian colony for the foreseeable future
We should think about colonizing Mars but not right away. It's like skipping 10 steps and trying to land on the 11th one without progressing naturally through all required evolutionary steps in the space tech development. It's like putting all your eggs in one basket in hopes that everything goes right from the first attempt. Iterations this way are way too expensive.
Instead, Mars colonization should be though as an option at the point when humanity already could sustain life in space close to Earth — like in a space habitat city of 1000s of people with an option for fast logistics to Earth.
But first, it should be a Moon colony (the mission Artemis) that could be made sustainable via many safe iterations close to Earth. Then we need to build a space habitat on Earth orbit and use the Moon base for the construction support. Not to mention learning how to build factories in Space to process asteroid mined ore.
And only at this point it's worth start thinking about Mars colonization. That's like in a couple of hundreds of years at best. Before that all conversation about Mars are just pure science fiction.
Only then when the habitat of 1000s of people could sustain life and travel in space independent from Earth it could be sent to Mars to ignite terraforming process and building a small base. The good thing is by this time we already could solve sustaining life without Earth in Space with no regards to Mars in general. In reality, by the time we start colonizing Mars there already could exist many Space habitats and human colonies beyond Earth.
The thing is Mars is a really hostile and hard place to be. There is no reason for people to be there unless it has at least some livable condition. It's very cold (43% of Sun light), it has radiation, its dust kills all equipment. There shouldn't be humans based on Mars without an option for a fast escape or access to supplies should anything happen — that's what Mars orbiting space habitat would be there for.
So, there is no reason to even talk about Mars colonization without achieving more reasonable progress closer to our home planet.
Instead, Mars colonization should be though as an option at the point when humanity already could sustain life in space close to Earth — like in a space habitat city of 1000s of people with an option for fast logistics to Earth.
But first, it should be a Moon colony (the mission Artemis) that could be made sustainable via many safe iterations close to Earth. Then we need to build a space habitat on Earth orbit and use the Moon base for the construction support. Not to mention learning how to build factories in Space to process asteroid mined ore.
And only at this point it's worth start thinking about Mars colonization. That's like in a couple of hundreds of years at best. Before that all conversation about Mars are just pure science fiction.
Only then when the habitat of 1000s of people could sustain life and travel in space independent from Earth it could be sent to Mars to ignite terraforming process and building a small base. The good thing is by this time we already could solve sustaining life without Earth in Space with no regards to Mars in general. In reality, by the time we start colonizing Mars there already could exist many Space habitats and human colonies beyond Earth.
The thing is Mars is a really hostile and hard place to be. There is no reason for people to be there unless it has at least some livable condition. It's very cold (43% of Sun light), it has radiation, its dust kills all equipment. There shouldn't be humans based on Mars without an option for a fast escape or access to supplies should anything happen — that's what Mars orbiting space habitat would be there for.
So, there is no reason to even talk about Mars colonization without achieving more reasonable progress closer to our home planet.
>It's like skipping 10 steps and trying to land on the 11th one without progressing naturally through all required evolutionary steps in the space tech development. It's like putting all your eggs in one basket in hopes that everything goes right from the first attempt.
So like Apollo, right ? :)
So like Apollo, right ? :)
however soundly damning this appears, our species depends on exploration for survival
at some point in time, the costs/risks/futility will be close enough to zero to warrant such exploration
we left the sea, we left the trees, we left the caves, we will inevitably leave the planet
at some point in time, the costs/risks/futility will be close enough to zero to warrant such exploration
we left the sea, we left the trees, we left the caves, we will inevitably leave the planet
The main challenge is rapid rockets reusability.
The costs of delivering one kg of materials to space must go down by 10 to 100 times.
Whether we go with manned exploration or robot exploration. Whether we choose the Moon or Mars.
Nothing comes even close to the importance of rapid rockets reusability.
The costs of delivering one kg of materials to space must go down by 10 to 100 times.
Whether we go with manned exploration or robot exploration. Whether we choose the Moon or Mars.
Nothing comes even close to the importance of rapid rockets reusability.
Definitely! But long term we need to start extracting resources in space, without that we still wont get far.
Are there good records of opinions on 1400s Europeans thoughts on sea exploration or colonial Americans thoughts on exploring the West? Curious to see if these sorts of risk averse, "practical" arguments are mirrored in those times.
Yeah there is: Spices which were not available in Europe because Ottoman Empire decided to cut off Christian Europe from silk road.
So Europeans weren't going on what if journey, but they were trying to find a way to India, bypassing Ottomans. Spanish found America and it's resources (sugar cane, tobacco, potato, corn) and Portuguese found a way around Africa to India to get back to the spice trade.
The thing is that European motivation was clearly defined, while motivation to go to Mars is not clear at all, because there is nothing valuable there at this point.
But imagine finding on the Mars an alien shipwreck from 200 milion years ago, there would be several outposts build within this decade, because technology is the spice trade of today.
So Europeans weren't going on what if journey, but they were trying to find a way to India, bypassing Ottomans. Spanish found America and it's resources (sugar cane, tobacco, potato, corn) and Portuguese found a way around Africa to India to get back to the spice trade.
The thing is that European motivation was clearly defined, while motivation to go to Mars is not clear at all, because there is nothing valuable there at this point.
But imagine finding on the Mars an alien shipwreck from 200 milion years ago, there would be several outposts build within this decade, because technology is the spice trade of today.
The recently released Terra Invicta grand strategy game captures this quite nicely - a credible alien invasion threat makes humans do some crazy things, like multiple Mars bases in 2028 & all the good spots on Ceres already occupied by outpost.
And there is even some alien technology salvage when Alien warships happen to have a human induced accident (read 240 converted naval anti-ship cruise missiles slam into them).
And there is even some alien technology salvage when Alien warships happen to have a human induced accident (read 240 converted naval anti-ship cruise missiles slam into them).
I’m not sure, but traveling to mars would be a little different if there were already human beings living there.
Or we had the certainty that we could just plop stuff we took with us and it would provide us food. And that water rains from sky and we can keep breathing all the way...
Minor things really...
Minor things really...
It depends - I think some of the early explorers would welcome just gathering the resources and going back instead of fighting hostile wildlife and local residents.
Given that there have been multiple mass extinction events in Earth’s history, it seems reasonable to spend a small fraction of GDP on colonizing another planet. How about something roughly equivalent to the amount we spend on chapstick?
This always seemed an odd motivation to me. I am not really attached to the idea of the species continuing in the abstract, my concern about a mass extinction event would be all of the individual living humans that would die. It would be little solace to me that a handful of humans remain clinging to life on a distant rock. Investing in something like asteroid defense makes total sense to me but creating a colony as a sort of backup doesn't really.
Moving to Mars is analogous to a full app re-write.
Instead of dealing with the "technical debt" that we've built on earth over the past couple thousand years, the proposal is that we start off with a clean slate.
I'm not saying it can't work, but if software engineering has thought us anything at all it's that full app re-writes are generally a terrible idea. The sheer complexity and vast amount of unknown unknowns is what generally kills these projects and what would also kill any attempt at re-building civilisation in a foreign planet.
Don't re-write, refactor and fix the bugs on earth.
Instead of dealing with the "technical debt" that we've built on earth over the past couple thousand years, the proposal is that we start off with a clean slate.
I'm not saying it can't work, but if software engineering has thought us anything at all it's that full app re-writes are generally a terrible idea. The sheer complexity and vast amount of unknown unknowns is what generally kills these projects and what would also kill any attempt at re-building civilisation in a foreign planet.
Don't re-write, refactor and fix the bugs on earth.
Except there’s no intention to deprecate Earth and replace it with Mars. Not a rewrite, just new parallel development. Should we never start new software projects at all? All the code ever written should be in one repo (probably in FORTRAN)?
We'll we are accumulating bugs at such a pace that the app may become unusable in the near future...
There is a rather toxic political tone running through the article which really puts me off. Just one of the examples is they refer to Elon Musk as wanting to populate Mars with "subsistence farming incels", which is just a down-right stupid thing to say and spoils what could have been a very insightful read.
On a similar theme, calling those who support humans going to mars as being part of some Elon Musk-led culty "mars religion" is totally preposterous. There's a reek of "Everyone who disagrees with me doesn't have the truth'n'facts and have actually just tricked themselves into believing a religion".
Musk Derangement Syndrome is strong.
I actually support a lot of their statements though, e.g. about the rather silly lunar gateway that seems to have very little actual financial logic to it. It's just a shame.
On a similar theme, calling those who support humans going to mars as being part of some Elon Musk-led culty "mars religion" is totally preposterous. There's a reek of "Everyone who disagrees with me doesn't have the truth'n'facts and have actually just tricked themselves into believing a religion".
Musk Derangement Syndrome is strong.
I actually support a lot of their statements though, e.g. about the rather silly lunar gateway that seems to have very little actual financial logic to it. It's just a shame.
Colonizing is Mars unrealistic. Mars is too hostile for our type of life. Maybe machines can "live" there. Developing the science and technology to make Mars even slightly more viable is going to take a long time and we're going to need a healthy Earth while we work on the solutions anyway. So why not make sure we have a healthy Earth in the first place? We can keep an eye on Mars as a stretch goal but it's always going to be pretty far down the priority list. I know that's not the romantic view.
No mention in TFA of O'Neil cylinders or other near-earth space settlements. To me, these options must be mentioned in the same breath as "Not Mars", because we do need to escape the cradle.
I cannot help but think that solving the problems of laundry and sanitation on a Mars trip could do wonders for the development of places that do not have adequate sanitation today.
How about we just continue to have robots colonize Mars? Just get increasingly sophisticated machines down there to build up the infrastructure. Maybe in 200 years they might have built some nice domes and have earth like gravity/atmosphere inside that animals and plants can be brought to Mars. And maybe then some humans might see it as an attractive destination.
In the mean time, we can colonize difficult places like under the ocean, the Sahara desert, Antarctica, maybe even the moon.
In the mean time, we can colonize difficult places like under the ocean, the Sahara desert, Antarctica, maybe even the moon.
> The fact that we failed to notice 99.999% of life on Earth until a few years ago is unsettling and has implications for Mars. The existence of a deep biosphere in particular narrows the habitability gap between our planets to the point where it probably doesn’t exist—there is likely at least one corner of Mars that an Earth organism could call home.
Maybe the next fancy device we send to Mars should be a high-throughput sequencer to look for metagenomic Martian DNA.
Maybe the next fancy device we send to Mars should be a high-throughput sequencer to look for metagenomic Martian DNA.
Its obviously hard to accept but we must come to terms that computers , and more specifically drones, should be doing the jobs that are too hazardous or too expensive for regular human labor to do.
We are slowly accepting it with cars, trains, and planes.
It doesnt make such sense that we still pushing for crewed missions when all other modes of transport and mobilization are going to automation / or remotely driven.
We are slowly accepting it with cars, trains, and planes.
It doesnt make such sense that we still pushing for crewed missions when all other modes of transport and mobilization are going to automation / or remotely driven.
Base on moon is simply put much more rational choice. It would be just antarctica on steroids with possible resupply and relative proximity. Colony on mars needs to be entirely self-sustaining and we don't have any working equivalent here on earth. Putting material on the surface is one thing, but to actually have the infrastructure there to survive is much harder beast.
in my opinion as a blue collar fly on the wall at this site, we dont "mars" because it. is. hard.
i dont mean math hard or physics or biology i mean human species, everything hard. its interdisciplinary hard on a level that requires transcending class boundaries and race boundaries and if we cant even invite chinese taikonauts to our spacestation then we arent solving the real blockers.
mars is an every human effort.
i dont mean math hard or physics or biology i mean human species, everything hard. its interdisciplinary hard on a level that requires transcending class boundaries and race boundaries and if we cant even invite chinese taikonauts to our spacestation then we arent solving the real blockers.
mars is an every human effort.
Make the funding for it a multi-country project, with whoever the main funder is getting ideological/representative credit for it over time. This will skirt both the "can this even survive multiple administrations" problem while also incentivizing continued participation via competition for international prestige.
The service module for the Orion deep space capsule is made in Europe - coincidence ? ;-)
My take on why mars: there is no countries and no established laws maintained by existing societal structures. There is just no any other power other than the nature itself. Any colony on earth is doomed to be captured by a larger power sooner or later. I think in the eyes on ppl who are dreaming about Mars, nature is a weaker foe than other man.
I think as soon as people are moving to Mars, you'd at a minimum at least need some kind of commonly agreed-to standard around land ownership. I.e. maybe each new settlement implicitly owns all the land in a twenty mile radius. If you want to settle closer than that to an existing settlement, that's fine as long you can work out an agreement with the original colony.
That is true, but for several generations the first (if not the only) law will be survival of the colony, hence extreme meritocracy. That is very appealing for very many ppl.
There’s not a strong utilitarian reason to send humans to Mars, just like there is not a strong utilitarian reason to send people to the summits of high mountains.
But people still are enamored of the high mountains. I think that is basically because, at their core, most people’s deepest feelings about human life are also not utilitarian.
But people still are enamored of the high mountains. I think that is basically because, at their core, most people’s deepest feelings about human life are also not utilitarian.
Isn't Mars' gravity just 0.39 of ours, that alone makes me think it's a fool's errand. Yes getting of this rock is a necessary step to taking over the galaxy but that doesn't sound good for humans. Now sending ever better robots might work. They can harvest materials etc and send them back.
It's more up to Elon as the man in the arena, rather than Maciej Cegłowski who would be the timid soul in this case.
In the longer timeframe of frequent large-scale Mars travel we will have humans and transhumans and human successor robots with different body plans that are more adaptable to the Mars environment. Any article on this topic that is not built around this eventuality will be missing what is going on, as this article does.
As many are talking about inspiration and inspirational goals, it may be worth risking a view on this from a more cultural perspective. Mars is really the "what's next?" to the Apollo program and how it shaped our cultural perspective on space activities. It's the same thing, scaled up in distance, size, journey time, complexity, number of fundamental problems – and a fundamental lack of ideas what to do there, as it's all about going there. However, there had been other visions of space. We do not have to go further than the mid-century kids room: tin toy flying saucers zipping around asteroids (possibly making a fortune from mining), tin can shaped rovers stomping over the Lunar surface on their telescopic legs – and where there's a Lunar rover with perspex windows and some business to go about, there's probably also a vision of Moon bases and space ports now long forgotten, as these have dropped out of the popular imaginary. In a sense, Mars may not be that high hanging motivational fruit, it may be even the end of space inspiration, just the thing we clung to as we ran out of visions for space.
A human colony on Mars should be a point well along the way to a goal of having a complete self sustaining Martian supply chain.
We should approach this in stages, starting with the basics. A government funded, fully documented, publicly disclosed second supply chain for everything. Starting with dirt in the ground to finished materials. Materials, crops, electronics, the whole network of supplies and suppliers. Every single bit if this network should be documented and stored in the archives of that network.
We could then start a 3rd network with the goal of miniaturizing it, reducing complexity, and especially the physical volume of the entire system. Ideally, in the distant future, it could be reduced to a Von Neuman probe.
I think if we do that homework here a few times, we can then see if it could be implemented in other places on earth, in Antarctica, Above the "death line" in the Himalayas, etc.
It's my strong belief that having a true backup to human life on Mars requires this homework first. Then again on the Moon, then finally on Mars and other destinations.
We should approach this in stages, starting with the basics. A government funded, fully documented, publicly disclosed second supply chain for everything. Starting with dirt in the ground to finished materials. Materials, crops, electronics, the whole network of supplies and suppliers. Every single bit if this network should be documented and stored in the archives of that network.
We could then start a 3rd network with the goal of miniaturizing it, reducing complexity, and especially the physical volume of the entire system. Ideally, in the distant future, it could be reduced to a Von Neuman probe.
I think if we do that homework here a few times, we can then see if it could be implemented in other places on earth, in Antarctica, Above the "death line" in the Himalayas, etc.
It's my strong belief that having a true backup to human life on Mars requires this homework first. Then again on the Moon, then finally on Mars and other destinations.
Just thought of this a bit.
Take something fundamental, food? Now you need water, fertilizers and light. Okay, so either you have greenhouses or vertical farming. Either case you need some fertilizers, production of these could probably be done, just need to find inputs. Water is simple enough if you don't loose too much of it.
Light is big question. Go with leds or grow lamps, how do you make those and power for them? And by make I mean all components needed. And all components used to make stuff that makes them and so on. Not to forget generating the electricity.
Take something fundamental, food? Now you need water, fertilizers and light. Okay, so either you have greenhouses or vertical farming. Either case you need some fertilizers, production of these could probably be done, just need to find inputs. Water is simple enough if you don't loose too much of it.
Light is big question. Go with leds or grow lamps, how do you make those and power for them? And by make I mean all components needed. And all components used to make stuff that makes them and so on. Not to forget generating the electricity.
Great article. I wish it would answer this question though. If we don't someone else will. How do we prevent that. Getting to Mars seems to be a political goal not a scientific one (for most). If the USA doesn't then China will.
Having China divert hundreds of billions of dollars over several decades to a Mars mission would be a real win for the US and Taiwan.
Betting against other countries' investments in exploration hasn't historically worked out well.
Betting against China going exploring, though, has been a sure thing through most of history.
There's a difference between betting China doesn't go exploring, and betting China isn't successful at exploring.
Historically, they tend to either not make the attempt or go big.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages
Historically, they tend to either not make the attempt or go big.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages
Betting upon other countries' excessive interest in tulips has, however!
I'm not sure about that. America similarly diverted billions of dollars to land men on the Moon. It barely made a dent in the balance of the Cold War.
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>If we don't someone else will. How do we prevent that.
This thought process alone shows me that we probably aren't even mature enough as a species to go to Mars. A mission like that will likely need global cooperation, effectively dooming it.
If China somehow went to Mars on their own they deserve whatever benefit they were to get from and we shouldn't aim to prevent space exploration because of who does it.
This thought process alone shows me that we probably aren't even mature enough as a species to go to Mars. A mission like that will likely need global cooperation, effectively dooming it.
If China somehow went to Mars on their own they deserve whatever benefit they were to get from and we shouldn't aim to prevent space exploration because of who does it.
We must not allow a Martian gap!
> How do we prevent that.
why does that need to be prevented?
why does that need to be prevented?
China doesn't seem to go for the big ticket science projects, although anything can change in the future.
China is doing fine with big science projects.
https://www.science.org/content/article/chinese-spacraft-suc...
https://www.space.com/china-expanding-optical-telescope-desi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Sp...
https://www.science.org/content/article/chinese-spacraft-suc...
https://www.space.com/china-expanding-optical-telescope-desi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Sp...
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Nobody is going to Mars. Not now, not in 100 years. Unless we invent some kind of teleportation or other sci-fi way of traveling there, it's just never going to take place.
Mars has essentially no energy sources. Everything people need to survive, and return, will have to be pre-stationed there.
If the Chinese all want to move to Mars, fine by me. I don't think it's a solid plan, but they're welcome to try.
Mars has essentially no energy sources. Everything people need to survive, and return, will have to be pre-stationed there.
If the Chinese all want to move to Mars, fine by me. I don't think it's a solid plan, but they're welcome to try.
"life may have started as an interplanetary infection, a literal Venereal disease disease that spread across the early solar system" - wow what a way with words!
"Stunt" is the right word.
If humans are sent to Mars, the most vivid lesson will be not to send humans to Mars. The most valuable lesson is that life without the ecosystem it evolved to inhabit is unsustainable in some pretty horrifying ways, and humans need to take better care of their ecosystem.
There is already an indictment written in the Earth itself: That time we exploded nuclear bombs in the atmosphere. That time we put lead in gasoline. Those deadly mistakes left permanent evidence of stupidity and arrogance.
That said, if Elon can take a thousand libertarian techbros to a different planet, it will likely end up as an unintended monument to What Not to Do that will last for millennia. I'd give him the Nobel for that.
If humans are sent to Mars, the most vivid lesson will be not to send humans to Mars. The most valuable lesson is that life without the ecosystem it evolved to inhabit is unsustainable in some pretty horrifying ways, and humans need to take better care of their ecosystem.
There is already an indictment written in the Earth itself: That time we exploded nuclear bombs in the atmosphere. That time we put lead in gasoline. Those deadly mistakes left permanent evidence of stupidity and arrogance.
That said, if Elon can take a thousand libertarian techbros to a different planet, it will likely end up as an unintended monument to What Not to Do that will last for millennia. I'd give him the Nobel for that.
I know this isn't the point of the article.. but let's fix our climate problems at home first, before worrying about terraforming Mars.
Reminds me of some of the ideas from the book Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. I can recommend it if you're interested.
Seems to me that NASA needs to send probes to Mars pronto so they can do a thorough check for life before SpaceX gets there.
Some of the comments here are from true believers. It strikes me though how close this all is to religion. Reaching for Mars is equivalent to reaching for heaven.
Now, I know this is based in science etc. But looking at the effect on the emotions, from a cultural perspective, it's interesting.
There is religious fervour there, faith, heaven (Mars), hell (uninhabitable earth), lots of details, priests (NASA and other space agencies), but not much personally verifiable knowledge or experience.
Now, I know this is based in science etc. But looking at the effect on the emotions, from a cultural perspective, it's interesting.
There is religious fervour there, faith, heaven (Mars), hell (uninhabitable earth), lots of details, priests (NASA and other space agencies), but not much personally verifiable knowledge or experience.
Currently and in near future sending colonist to Mars is either quick or slow death sentence. Something fails and they die fast, they get there and stay there. Slow starvation or systematic failure unless we keep shipping stuff in infinitely. And anything there will have myriad of fun and fantastic failure modes. Not to forget that even things like electronics here slowly fail...
First step really is to solve these issues here before we even attempt to kill people there...
First step really is to solve these issues here before we even attempt to kill people there...
very excellent points from the author. I would like just to correct him on one point: treaty are only valid as long as the main powers are agreeing. The minute it's inconveniencing the US the mars treaty will be thrown in the trashbin. And it's even worse for people like Musk.
Technology is inversely proportional to resources. If we can't get to Mars yet, that just means our technology isn't there. We need to work on that.
Just like working a few days at a job can afford may people a magical global communications device. That's technology so advanced it requires little resources to obtain. Mars can be the same, our tech just isn't there yet.
Just like working a few days at a job can afford may people a magical global communications device. That's technology so advanced it requires little resources to obtain. Mars can be the same, our tech just isn't there yet.
The article spends quite a bit of space discussing why building the tech we do need to get to mars is a waste of time and resources.
Summed up by this line quite nicely:
“ Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit dehydrator that can work for three years in zero gravity, but a Mars mission can’t leave Earth without it”
Summed up by this line quite nicely:
“ Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit dehydrator that can work for three years in zero gravity, but a Mars mission can’t leave Earth without it”
> Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit dehydrator
and yet, humanity also does not "need" laser stablized, automatic orbital docking (, except it was built just for the ISS so that docking modules can be done).
However, the fact that you can now have safe, cheap and effective laser eye surgery is a result of such technology being explored for one purpose, repurposed for new applications.
We did not need to spend the research dollars to figure out safety grooving to prevent hydroplaning, except that it was needed for the space shuttle landing (it went too fast otherwise). Now this research is applied to a lot of roads, as well as airports, and prevents skidding that would've otherwise happened: https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/40-years-of-nasa-spinoff/sa...
So the idea that "humans does not need blah" is not correct, because you don't know what humans need.
and yet, humanity also does not "need" laser stablized, automatic orbital docking (, except it was built just for the ISS so that docking modules can be done).
However, the fact that you can now have safe, cheap and effective laser eye surgery is a result of such technology being explored for one purpose, repurposed for new applications.
We did not need to spend the research dollars to figure out safety grooving to prevent hydroplaning, except that it was needed for the space shuttle landing (it went too fast otherwise). Now this research is applied to a lot of roads, as well as airports, and prevents skidding that would've otherwise happened: https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/40-years-of-nasa-spinoff/sa...
So the idea that "humans does not need blah" is not correct, because you don't know what humans need.
> So the idea that "humans does not need blah" is not correct, because you don't know what humans need.
Thing is, we do know what humans need. We need better battery technology, improved drugs and mental health, better power generation (such as nuclear fusion), and much more. Why spend so much time developing technology that may be useful but probably not, instead of developing something that is desperately needed right now?
Thing is, we do know what humans need. We need better battery technology, improved drugs and mental health, better power generation (such as nuclear fusion), and much more. Why spend so much time developing technology that may be useful but probably not, instead of developing something that is desperately needed right now?
> We need better battery technology, improved drugs and mental health, better power generation (such as nuclear fusion), and much more
how do you know that work on going to mars doesn't improve any of those?
And from another perspective, people like researching exciting things, and would prefer it over an unexciting field. Could you imagine someone being told to work on anti-hydroplaning for the onramp of a highway? Imagine talking about it to family/friends at a party.
But space exploration is fancy - people would want to listen to it, and you gain appreciation from them. But the outcome of the research is _still_ applicable to other fields.
So funding space exploration gets people excited, which would allow them to put more effort and soul into said research. You can't imagine how boring it is doing fundamental research otherwise.
how do you know that work on going to mars doesn't improve any of those?
And from another perspective, people like researching exciting things, and would prefer it over an unexciting field. Could you imagine someone being told to work on anti-hydroplaning for the onramp of a highway? Imagine talking about it to family/friends at a party.
But space exploration is fancy - people would want to listen to it, and you gain appreciation from them. But the outcome of the research is _still_ applicable to other fields.
So funding space exploration gets people excited, which would allow them to put more effort and soul into said research. You can't imagine how boring it is doing fundamental research otherwise.
It's not a zero sum game. Working on space tech does not preclude working on earth tech. I mean how many smart engineers in tech right now are working on improving advertising? And you're upset about a relative handful of engineers working on space tech?
If that funding were used on other technology, the people otherwise completely occupied with space tech would be working on... other technology. We don't have infinite resources, time, money, or brains.
Government spending dollars are zero sum, actually.
Thats not true according to modern monetary theory.
Taxes are actually superflous. You only limits on spending are industrial capacity and inflation
Taxes are actually superflous. You only limits on spending are industrial capacity and inflation
> Thing is, we do know what humans need. We need better battery technology, improved drugs
You just demonstrated that you don't know - we dont need batteries spesifically, we need zero carbon power for vehicles, which can be done by fuel cells or plutonium or maybe something we haven't considered.
Same way before you would have asked for a faster oven, because you didn't even know a microwave is a possible concept
Research is not a restraurant menu, you dont get to choose what you will discover and how much it will cost
You just demonstrated that you don't know - we dont need batteries spesifically, we need zero carbon power for vehicles, which can be done by fuel cells or plutonium or maybe something we haven't considered.
Same way before you would have asked for a faster oven, because you didn't even know a microwave is a possible concept
Research is not a restraurant menu, you dont get to choose what you will discover and how much it will cost
This argument comes up in these discussions quite frequently.
Yes, some of the research done for purpose A ends up being able to be re-used for purpose B.
It is not a compelling argument because:
1. We have no way of predicting how much or what technologies will be the useful ones or what they will be useful for
2. Any other scientific or engineering endeavor we do instead of sending humans into space, including a massive increase in building/sending robots into space, will have the same potential side effects
Yes, some of the research done for purpose A ends up being able to be re-used for purpose B.
It is not a compelling argument because:
1. We have no way of predicting how much or what technologies will be the useful ones or what they will be useful for
2. Any other scientific or engineering endeavor we do instead of sending humans into space, including a massive increase in building/sending robots into space, will have the same potential side effects
Maybe AI will result in technology that will allow us to make that shit dehydrator for $100,000 instead of a billion.
That's what I mean when I say as technology increases, resources required decreases.
That's what I mean when I say as technology increases, resources required decreases.
These comments about AI delivering miracle technology are sounding more like prayers than rational thought by the day
> So I’ve come to believe the best way to look at our Mars program is as a faith-based initiative
All start to make sense when you look at it through geopolitics. Satellites have become one of the most critical components in the modern warfare. A lunar base helps you destroy enemy's satellites and you want humans in the loop.
All start to make sense when you look at it through geopolitics. Satellites have become one of the most critical components in the modern warfare. A lunar base helps you destroy enemy's satellites and you want humans in the loop.
There is no goal our species can undertake that is more important than getting some of our eggs the heck out of this way too fragile basket of a planet. Learning to survive on Mars is one of the most practical ways to approach that goal. Mars is just a little less horrible than the other reachable potential incubators.
> getting some of our eggs the heck out of this way to fragile basket of a planet
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. If we cannot survive on earth it's impossible for us to survive anywhere else.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. If we cannot survive on earth it's impossible for us to survive anywhere else.
> If we cannot survive on earth it's impossible for us to survive anywhere else.
sure, this is the case right now, but by increasing technology (through research and development), making space (or mars, or moon) habitable is an achievable goal.
May be not in the short to medium term (as all of these habitats would require materials from earth to sustain), but in the long term, it should be possible to produce all required materials for survival and be independent from supplies send from earth.
sure, this is the case right now, but by increasing technology (through research and development), making space (or mars, or moon) habitable is an achievable goal.
May be not in the short to medium term (as all of these habitats would require materials from earth to sustain), but in the long term, it should be possible to produce all required materials for survival and be independent from supplies send from earth.
I don't disagree that it could be possible in the long term future, I just disagree with the framing that its a worthwhile consideration with respect to the survival of the human race in any practical sense.
Why is it important that our species survive longer than Earth? Honest question.
Apologies if I'm reading this wrong, but between this question, and casually comparing a possible origin of life on Earth to a venereal disease, it just all strikes me as very misanthropic.
My answer would be -- it's important if we deem it important, whether that's rational or not. If we start from the premise that life is good, that humans in particular are the most interesting thing out there as far as we can see, then it isn't totally bizarre that we should wish for the show to continue, extend it as far as we can. In that view, being bound to the fate of our home planet seems like an arbitrary restriction.
My answer would be -- it's important if we deem it important, whether that's rational or not. If we start from the premise that life is good, that humans in particular are the most interesting thing out there as far as we can see, then it isn't totally bizarre that we should wish for the show to continue, extend it as far as we can. In that view, being bound to the fate of our home planet seems like an arbitrary restriction.
The value of our survival is entirely subjective. But if you value it up to the point of Earth's destruction, why would you stop valuing it afterwards?
What's a situation where Earth is destroyed and Mars is habitable? It isn't climate change, since we could just use whatever Terraforming Magic Technology we used on Mars to fix Earth. It isn't an alien attack, since they'd notice us on Mars too. It isn't war, since landing people on Mars also means we could send weapons. What exactly are we solving for here?
Chicxulub.
Earth remains more habitable than Mars even following staggeringly large asteroid impacts. As evidence, note that 25% of species on earth survived Chicxulub; those species would not have survived transportation to Mars.
And humans are well situated to be one of the survivors of a future large impact, by virtue of our tendency to burrow in the ground and to cache food. Indeed, one silver lining of the cold war is that major powers spent tremendous sums of money building fortifications with independent power and life support, as well as substantial food stockpiles, as well as numerous nuclear submarines which would weather the impact.
Another Chicxulub might kill 8 billion people, and would be an immense humanitarian tragedy -- putting people on Mars won't save us from that. But we have the technology for survivors to ride it out today.
And humans are well situated to be one of the survivors of a future large impact, by virtue of our tendency to burrow in the ground and to cache food. Indeed, one silver lining of the cold war is that major powers spent tremendous sums of money building fortifications with independent power and life support, as well as substantial food stockpiles, as well as numerous nuclear submarines which would weather the impact.
Another Chicxulub might kill 8 billion people, and would be an immense humanitarian tragedy -- putting people on Mars won't save us from that. But we have the technology for survivors to ride it out today.
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We found the nihilist. Thus, short of rehashing those debates, which is what you seem to desire, there is nothing here for you.
What's nihilistic about liking Earth? All my stuff is here, all my friends are here; the food is good.
Why is it important that our species survive longer than Earth? Honest question.
What's nihilistic about liking Earth? All my stuff is here, all my friends are here; the food is good.
Whether intentional or not, the first question implies that the extinction of the human species would not be a bad thing. The second question is a non sequitur. The accusation of nihilism has nothing to do with liking Earth, it has to do with the apparent indifference to human survival.
What's nihilistic about liking Earth? All my stuff is here, all my friends are here; the food is good.
Whether intentional or not, the first question implies that the extinction of the human species would not be a bad thing. The second question is a non sequitur. The accusation of nihilism has nothing to do with liking Earth, it has to do with the apparent indifference to human survival.
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There are no foreseeable risks to Earth unless we fuck it up ourselves. Going to Mars right now would cost an insane amount of money we would better spend on Earth. And Mars is way more hostile to life than even a messed up Earth would be.
What do you mean? There are several such risks, including the ongoing mass extinction event.
Why would you exchange a planet that is halfway to becoming uninhabitable to one that is all way there.
Name one risk that would make survival on Earth even remotely as hostile to life as Mars already is.
Hardly disagree with author, IMHO we should aim to colonise moon and mars asap.
What a Red Martian take, ugh.
I agree with many of the points in this article, even if it is painful.
However, in the chapter "The Mars religion" the author fails to explain why he disagrees with the transhumanists who think mankind must either spread to the stars or die. Also Musk often states that the window of opportunity is open now and we don't know for how long.
However, in the chapter "The Mars religion" the author fails to explain why he disagrees with the transhumanists who think mankind must either spread to the stars or die. Also Musk often states that the window of opportunity is open now and we don't know for how long.
I guess you can take the boy out of the defeatist, fatalistic dystopia, but you can't ever take the defeatist, fatalistic dystopia out of the boy.
This whole article boils down to "I don't think we should go to Mars because I don't think we should, it would cost too much (limit not specified) money, it doesn't seem to benefit me immediately, and we should use robots instead, and it's all-or-nothing on the robot thing."
There are so many unstated assumptions, baked-in arbitrary limitations, and downright bizarre arguments that I'm struggling to understand what the point of the article is, if there is one beyond "stop it." I suppose if you really dislike the armchair-engineering hype factory of Elon Musk and you were looking for an armchair-engineering Space Eeyore, here's your boy?
This whole article boils down to "I don't think we should go to Mars because I don't think we should, it would cost too much (limit not specified) money, it doesn't seem to benefit me immediately, and we should use robots instead, and it's all-or-nothing on the robot thing."
There are so many unstated assumptions, baked-in arbitrary limitations, and downright bizarre arguments that I'm struggling to understand what the point of the article is, if there is one beyond "stop it." I suppose if you really dislike the armchair-engineering hype factory of Elon Musk and you were looking for an armchair-engineering Space Eeyore, here's your boy?
It's fine, as long as they call the ship the B Ark.
if we can't make it to mars (and,imho,we probably can't) then maybe we have the answer to the fermi paradox - it's to effing difficult.
What's the standard for "make it"?
A marginal mission that didn't do much other than get someone there could probably be done on a pretty short timeline.
A marginal mission that didn't do much other than get someone there could probably be done on a pretty short timeline.
You do realize that unlike Kerbals, humans need to eat and breath during a space mission ? ;-)
On a more serious note, I'm really sure you could mount a very suicidal one way mission to Mars with current (and possibly 60s) technology.
Could be an interesting narrative in a SF book - Project Hail Mary from Andy Weir actually comes very close, but takes it even further.
On a more serious note, I'm really sure you could mount a very suicidal one way mission to Mars with current (and possibly 60s) technology.
Could be an interesting narrative in a SF book - Project Hail Mary from Andy Weir actually comes very close, but takes it even further.
> A marginal mission that didn't do much other than get someone there could probably be done on a pretty short timeline.
Did you read the article? There’s no such thing as a marginal Mars mission.
Short summary: we don’t have a way to keep a crew alive in space for the 21 months that would be required to get to Mars and back.
And there’s nothing in the foreseeable future (the next 10–15 years) that changes that. How do you feed a crew for that long when getting food sent from Earth (like the space station) is not an option.
That’s one of thousands of major issues that need to be solved before even attempting a test of a Mars flight.
It took 10 Apollo test missions before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, a total of about 6 days total for the trip to the moon and back. (Of course every Mercury and Gemini flight was also a test for the moon but I’m trying to keep it simple).
A trip to Mars and back is nearly 1000 days.
It’s not gonna happen anytime soon.
Did you read the article? There’s no such thing as a marginal Mars mission.
Short summary: we don’t have a way to keep a crew alive in space for the 21 months that would be required to get to Mars and back.
And there’s nothing in the foreseeable future (the next 10–15 years) that changes that. How do you feed a crew for that long when getting food sent from Earth (like the space station) is not an option.
That’s one of thousands of major issues that need to be solved before even attempting a test of a Mars flight.
It took 10 Apollo test missions before Apollo 11 landed on the moon, a total of about 6 days total for the trip to the moon and back. (Of course every Mercury and Gemini flight was also a test for the moon but I’m trying to keep it simple).
A trip to Mars and back is nearly 1000 days.
It’s not gonna happen anytime soon.
From an economic capacity and technological perspective, we absolutely could build a vessel that had enough radiation shielding and thrust to get some people there (and probably even back). No need for a 1,000 day time frame. That's not enough to ensure the health and safety of the crew of course, but "marginal" is different than "ensure".
Of course that isn't politically possible, but the other poster seemed to be talking about our capacity as a civilization in their comment, and really, the NASA outline presented in the article doesn't do much more to demonstrate it than my silly mission above. The "interesting" level for a civilization would be to build an actual self sustaining colony on Mars, and we probably don't currently have the capacity to do that (the challenges go from having the equipment needed to being able to manufacture it).
Of course that isn't politically possible, but the other poster seemed to be talking about our capacity as a civilization in their comment, and really, the NASA outline presented in the article doesn't do much more to demonstrate it than my silly mission above. The "interesting" level for a civilization would be to build an actual self sustaining colony on Mars, and we probably don't currently have the capacity to do that (the challenges go from having the equipment needed to being able to manufacture it).
> And there’s nothing in the foreseeable future (the next 10–15 years) that changes that.
If we cannot, at a nation-state level, apply ourselves to 30-50 year goals, we might as well just give up on the survival of humanity.
If we cannot, at a nation-state level, apply ourselves to 30-50 year goals, we might as well just give up on the survival of humanity.
We can make it to Mars if we put enough effort into it. The question is whether now is a good time or if we should wait for progress in robotics and other areas. I think for now a permanent moon base makes way more sense.
I don't really understand the concept of jumping straight to Mars. With every complexity involved. First we should do sensible test runs on Earth, next Moon where we have chance to get anyone out in a few days. And only then when we have proven most aspect workable aim for Mars.
The costs probably aren't that much higher anyway.
The costs probably aren't that much higher anyway.
Not just test runs - infrastructure and ideally resource extraction. The faster we don't have to launch every gram from earth the quicker the really interesting space efforts can get going!
I think the super rich like Musk is working on it.
> Landing on Mars with existing technology would be a destructive, wasteful stunt whose only legacy would be to ruin the greatest natural history experiment in the Solar System. It would no more open a new era of spaceflight than a Phoenician sailor crossing the Atlantic in 500 B.C. would have opened up the New World. And it wouldn’t even be that much fun.
Without going full "We choose to go to the Moon", I disagree with these points. It would be fun. It would open a new era of spaceflight. It is no more destructive or wasteful than most anything else humanity decides to put resources into.
Mars is a whetstone against which humanity sharpens itself against.
Without going full "We choose to go to the Moon", I disagree with these points. It would be fun. It would open a new era of spaceflight. It is no more destructive or wasteful than most anything else humanity decides to put resources into.
Mars is a whetstone against which humanity sharpens itself against.
Humanity has not demonstrated the ability to effectively sanitize spacecraft. The risk of intentionally bringing life to Mars is that we tromp all over evidence of extraterrestrial love.
The absolute most valuable science to be done on Mars is to determine how unique Earth is.
The absolute most valuable science to be done on Mars is to determine how unique Earth is.
It would be a bummer if the sterilization techniques used on the unmanned landers hadn't worked, but if they didn't, then life is already multi-planetary.
No way in hell was everything we dropped on Mars 100% sterilized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_on_...
Also I really don't get this fixation to "not contaminating Mars" - like, why ? Its one of the few usable planets in the Solar System! Of course we will contaminate it all over with life, possibly turn it terrestrial one way or another.
Anyone advocating against using one of the most important next stepping stones for Humanity must really live in a weird bubble.
Sure, pick some Kuiper belt object or some extrasolar planet and declare it a reserve and we will make sure we won't touch it when we get there. But doing the same with Mars is insane and almost seems like some weird irrational religion.
Also I really don't get this fixation to "not contaminating Mars" - like, why ? Its one of the few usable planets in the Solar System! Of course we will contaminate it all over with life, possibly turn it terrestrial one way or another.
Anyone advocating against using one of the most important next stepping stones for Humanity must really live in a weird bubble.
Sure, pick some Kuiper belt object or some extrasolar planet and declare it a reserve and we will make sure we won't touch it when we get there. But doing the same with Mars is insane and almost seems like some weird irrational religion.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/we-may-nev...
I just want an autopsy before before we cremate the body.
I just want an autopsy before before we cremate the body.
Something I’ve wondered…why not colonize the moon first? Why straight to Mars?
Seems like a moon base would make some sense, right?
Seems like a moon base would make some sense, right?
This essay argues that a moon base is required to study the long term effects of low gravity and greater radiation exposure or test such systems to ameliorate those problems in situ before designing the systems for deploying on Mars, the space station is not enough for this and close to the end of life.
Well, there are quite a few commercial space stations currently in the pipeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_space_stati...
Not to mention the Chinese one already in orbit.
Not to mention the Chinese one already in orbit.
The Artemis program, which launched its first test flight recently, indeed intends to start with a moon base.
https://youtu.be/_T8cn2J13-4
https://youtu.be/_T8cn2J13-4
> The Artemis program, which launched its first test flight recently, indeed intends to start with a moon base.
In November SLS finally launched [0], despite an incredibly over schedule, extremely over budget for it's first Artimus-1 launch; ULA has taken far too many resources to be proud of this, but it has launched successfully.
Startship has been set to have a orbital test flight for the last couple of months, one wonders how much the delay is attributed to the FAA being upset with Elon's absurd antics as of late, and will have way more thrust power than SLS [1].
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWR5tFgJKIQ
1: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/sls-vs-starship
In November SLS finally launched [0], despite an incredibly over schedule, extremely over budget for it's first Artimus-1 launch; ULA has taken far too many resources to be proud of this, but it has launched successfully.
Startship has been set to have a orbital test flight for the last couple of months, one wonders how much the delay is attributed to the FAA being upset with Elon's absurd antics as of late, and will have way more thrust power than SLS [1].
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWR5tFgJKIQ
1: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/sls-vs-starship
The moon has no atmosphere and is much less dense. Mars has some advantages which can potentially make it self sustaining in the long future.
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> "a glamorous effort led by a hype man"
> "This has the effect of turning technical discussions into debates over the character and achievements of Elon Musk— just the way he likes it."
> "But their founder is who he is, and what he has publicly shared is not so much a blueprint as an inspirational poster."
While I valued many of the thoughts in this post, it made me think of the meme "I choked on a carrot this afternoon and all I could think was 'I bet a donut wouldn't have done this to me.'" Putting aside the argument of whether or not scientific research, especially in space, is a proper role of government/politics, it is disappointing to see what I believe is an intellectual defect to undermine inspiration for human achievement with ad hominems in the context of a collapsing culture lacking meaningful debate on significant government war funding power delusions and destruction. Conquering technical achievements in any form (e.g., "port-a-potty chemistry," getting "to watch someone remotely operate a soil scoop from Mars instead of Pasadena") vs. conquering people is, IMO, a more appropriate intellectual debate. I'll turn my computer speakers up to 100% for inspiration by Elon any day to drown out the human destructive philosophies of the politicians this author appears to support. [1]
I think Ayn Rand said it well [2]: "The most inspiring aspect of Apollo 11's flight was that it made such abstractions as rationality, knowledge, science perceivable in direct, immediate experience. That it involved a landing on another celestial body was like a dramatist's emphasis on the dimensions of reason's power: it is not of enormous importance to most people that man lands on the moon, but that man can do it, is."
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211003211306/https://techsolid...
[2] https://newideal.aynrand.org/ayn-rand-on-apollo-11/
> "This has the effect of turning technical discussions into debates over the character and achievements of Elon Musk— just the way he likes it."
> "But their founder is who he is, and what he has publicly shared is not so much a blueprint as an inspirational poster."
While I valued many of the thoughts in this post, it made me think of the meme "I choked on a carrot this afternoon and all I could think was 'I bet a donut wouldn't have done this to me.'" Putting aside the argument of whether or not scientific research, especially in space, is a proper role of government/politics, it is disappointing to see what I believe is an intellectual defect to undermine inspiration for human achievement with ad hominems in the context of a collapsing culture lacking meaningful debate on significant government war funding power delusions and destruction. Conquering technical achievements in any form (e.g., "port-a-potty chemistry," getting "to watch someone remotely operate a soil scoop from Mars instead of Pasadena") vs. conquering people is, IMO, a more appropriate intellectual debate. I'll turn my computer speakers up to 100% for inspiration by Elon any day to drown out the human destructive philosophies of the politicians this author appears to support. [1]
I think Ayn Rand said it well [2]: "The most inspiring aspect of Apollo 11's flight was that it made such abstractions as rationality, knowledge, science perceivable in direct, immediate experience. That it involved a landing on another celestial body was like a dramatist's emphasis on the dimensions of reason's power: it is not of enormous importance to most people that man lands on the moon, but that man can do it, is."
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20211003211306/https://techsolid...
[2] https://newideal.aynrand.org/ayn-rand-on-apollo-11/
Cause mars comes to us, not we to mars. Please redirect your scientific enthusiasm to the catastrophes at hand.
Go get it, inspire everyone!
For deciding how to invest towards the future of humanity and science/technology, have we already given up on keeping the Earth habitable?
If Elon Musk wants to be jettisoned to Mars, I'll be the first to cheer him on.
But back on our current human planet, how do we avert apocalyptic scale of misery and deaths in a few decades?
If Elon Musk wants to be jettisoned to Mars, I'll be the first to cheer him on.
But back on our current human planet, how do we avert apocalyptic scale of misery and deaths in a few decades?
Why not Zoidberg?
Why anything?
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(Hey so I apologize if this has been touched on in the main thread, but I didn't spot anything related so starting a new one).
We should consider even further: what about consequences of successfully colonizing Mars? I feel it would mean almost certain doom for both planets. I'll explain:
Imagine all of the hurdles mentioned in the linked blog are overcome. Improbable for the U.S. or EU, sure, but consider China. If everything goes well, they end up with a sustainable outpost with several hundred to several thousand inhabitants and a reliable supply line back to Earth. Everything is great, yeah?
But looking a bit further down the timeline, we will end up with generations of humans native to this outpost. All living deep underground, rarely seeing the surface. Sure there would be domes you could visit to check it out, but they'd probably see as much traffic as a planetarium or scenic vista - more apt for school trips than any part of daily life.
We know very little of the role of epigenetics in these conditions, but you might imagine that tunnel dwelling folk in weak gravity are probably going to express genes differently during development, than we see here on Earth. Different diets, different light exposure, different gravity and even different focal lengths will all have an impact. The forces of evolution will bear an increased impact here also - children that blossom into more Earth appropriate bodies will have increased pressure against their thriving in these conditions. Social forces will likely begin to exclude them from the gene pool, accelerating the occurrences of whatever Martian traits emerge.
These generations of inhabitants would eventually put pressure on the supply lines from Earth via the growing population. Or some enterprising politician will manipulate the supply lines in order to exercise despotic authority over them. Eventually the Martians will see pressure to become self sufficient. This will plainly lead to a revolution and independence - an intolerable insult the the patron government. Back on Earth, the strange look of the native Martians will stir racist hatreds and clamoring for subjugation with extreme prejudice. Recall that in the past few years we've seen extreme hatred rear up over the pettiest of differences, to the point where neo-nazis are flourishing and attempting coups in the most powerful nations. Hating weird gray/green skinned, 8 foot tall spider people from Outer Space would be reaaaal easy for these people.
The Earth will send their troops and bombers. The Martians will burrow deeper and humiliate those invading troops with relative ease. The Earth will maybe nuke the place? But that will have very little effect, even the aftermath of fallout and irradiated rock will be negligible to the Martians. But they will be angry. And it would take little effort to rig something up and launch Phobos at the Earth at 1% c.
But the Martians would soon learn that they were dependent on Earth for more than manufactured goods. Their delayed access to the internet would disappear, along with scientific advancements, intellectual culture, entertainment and archives going offline and leaving them with whatever had been cached/stored in their local cloud hardware. Would Mars have developed a chip fab (and the equally important thousands of suppliers for a chip fab) by this time? Medical knowledge? Would they have needed expertise in Computer Science? Imagine if some disaster left Earth with little more than a single hospital and a computer retailer, how would we recover?
Mars Colony may just soldier on for a while, but more than likely would ultimately succumb to genetic degradation, scientific stagnation, room to grow the civilization, lack of elements or molecules that are difficult to procure on Mars, etc.
Colonizing Mars is the worst idea. Just the worst.
We should consider even further: what about consequences of successfully colonizing Mars? I feel it would mean almost certain doom for both planets. I'll explain:
Imagine all of the hurdles mentioned in the linked blog are overcome. Improbable for the U.S. or EU, sure, but consider China. If everything goes well, they end up with a sustainable outpost with several hundred to several thousand inhabitants and a reliable supply line back to Earth. Everything is great, yeah?
But looking a bit further down the timeline, we will end up with generations of humans native to this outpost. All living deep underground, rarely seeing the surface. Sure there would be domes you could visit to check it out, but they'd probably see as much traffic as a planetarium or scenic vista - more apt for school trips than any part of daily life.
We know very little of the role of epigenetics in these conditions, but you might imagine that tunnel dwelling folk in weak gravity are probably going to express genes differently during development, than we see here on Earth. Different diets, different light exposure, different gravity and even different focal lengths will all have an impact. The forces of evolution will bear an increased impact here also - children that blossom into more Earth appropriate bodies will have increased pressure against their thriving in these conditions. Social forces will likely begin to exclude them from the gene pool, accelerating the occurrences of whatever Martian traits emerge.
These generations of inhabitants would eventually put pressure on the supply lines from Earth via the growing population. Or some enterprising politician will manipulate the supply lines in order to exercise despotic authority over them. Eventually the Martians will see pressure to become self sufficient. This will plainly lead to a revolution and independence - an intolerable insult the the patron government. Back on Earth, the strange look of the native Martians will stir racist hatreds and clamoring for subjugation with extreme prejudice. Recall that in the past few years we've seen extreme hatred rear up over the pettiest of differences, to the point where neo-nazis are flourishing and attempting coups in the most powerful nations. Hating weird gray/green skinned, 8 foot tall spider people from Outer Space would be reaaaal easy for these people.
The Earth will send their troops and bombers. The Martians will burrow deeper and humiliate those invading troops with relative ease. The Earth will maybe nuke the place? But that will have very little effect, even the aftermath of fallout and irradiated rock will be negligible to the Martians. But they will be angry. And it would take little effort to rig something up and launch Phobos at the Earth at 1% c.
But the Martians would soon learn that they were dependent on Earth for more than manufactured goods. Their delayed access to the internet would disappear, along with scientific advancements, intellectual culture, entertainment and archives going offline and leaving them with whatever had been cached/stored in their local cloud hardware. Would Mars have developed a chip fab (and the equally important thousands of suppliers for a chip fab) by this time? Medical knowledge? Would they have needed expertise in Computer Science? Imagine if some disaster left Earth with little more than a single hospital and a computer retailer, how would we recover?
Mars Colony may just soldier on for a while, but more than likely would ultimately succumb to genetic degradation, scientific stagnation, room to grow the civilization, lack of elements or molecules that are difficult to procure on Mars, etc.
Colonizing Mars is the worst idea. Just the worst.
Entirely unconvincing to someone who thinks it would be cool to go to Mars. Honestly not even worth having the argument. Humans do things to explore or try to push ourselves to do something new all the time. That's the whole fun of being alive.
There's basically no real reason not to, despite this cynical laundry list of FUD. It's not trading off against any major Earth-based priorities. It's not that expensive. The only mildly compelling argument is the contamination one - but the only real alternative is simply never going anywhere but Earth in case there are microbes. No fun!
There's basically no real reason not to, despite this cynical laundry list of FUD. It's not trading off against any major Earth-based priorities. It's not that expensive. The only mildly compelling argument is the contamination one - but the only real alternative is simply never going anywhere but Earth in case there are microbes. No fun!
> There's basically no real reason not to, despite this cynical laundry list of FUD
You seem to be ignoring one of the main points of the article, which is that sending robots to explore the solar system rather than humans is cheaper, easier, and more effective. That alone is a very good reason to not focus on putting more humans in space.
You seem to be ignoring one of the main points of the article, which is that sending robots to explore the solar system rather than humans is cheaper, easier, and more effective. That alone is a very good reason to not focus on putting more humans in space.
There's also the chance that those robots find something so compelling it reinvigorates human space flight.
That's not a reason not to. That's a reason to also send out robots.
I can see how cheaper and easier can be viewed as 'not a reason not to' but the crux of the issue is that robots will do a better job than humans anyways.
Why spend more money and effort to do something less effective?
Why spend more money and effort to do something less effective?
Because it is cool and inspiring. This doesn't have to be about min-maxing.
My thought exactly, well said.
Why not do both?
Because there is no benefit of sending a human rather than a robot. The article disuses this at length.
This quote is a reasonable summary, I think.
"The crew will not live in a Martian pueblo, but something resembling a level 4 biocontainment facility. And even there, they’ll have to do their lab work remotely, the same way it’s done today, raising the question of what exactly the hundreds of billions of dollars we’re spending to get to Mars are buying us."
This quote is a reasonable summary, I think.
"The crew will not live in a Martian pueblo, but something resembling a level 4 biocontainment facility. And even there, they’ll have to do their lab work remotely, the same way it’s done today, raising the question of what exactly the hundreds of billions of dollars we’re spending to get to Mars are buying us."
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My issue with it is that it distracts us from real problems. Obsession with Musk, NASA, and Mars keeps people's imaginations fixated on space instead of stuff that would really improve people's lives.
Instead of encouraging people to imagine how good life could be HERE, we are focusing people's imaginations on space where corporate profits aren't threatened.
In the article, the author quotes NASA on why we should go to mars and clearly it's an answer designed to tickle people's imaginations. Why aren't we hearing similar speeches about automating food production for example? Why can't we spend a trillion dollars on a mission to do THAT?
Instead of encouraging people to imagine how good life could be HERE, we are focusing people's imaginations on space where corporate profits aren't threatened.
In the article, the author quotes NASA on why we should go to mars and clearly it's an answer designed to tickle people's imaginations. Why aren't we hearing similar speeches about automating food production for example? Why can't we spend a trillion dollars on a mission to do THAT?
> Why can't we spend a trillion dollars on a mission to do THAT?
because it's mostly a solved problem. It isn't really engineering, but economics that stops this from being a reality.
And to the contrary, i do think food production automation is being researched (by private entities, rather than gov't organizations) and slowly will become more common. You just don't hear about it, because it doesn't sound as exciting as space exploration.
because it's mostly a solved problem. It isn't really engineering, but economics that stops this from being a reality.
And to the contrary, i do think food production automation is being researched (by private entities, rather than gov't organizations) and slowly will become more common. You just don't hear about it, because it doesn't sound as exciting as space exploration.
In what way is automated food production a solved problem? Last I checked we still need plenty of humans to grow food.
In absolute numbers maybe - in relative numbers we have improved immensely from all people spending most of their time gathering food to survive to a couple percent of the population herding machines that make food for the rest.
Great then we should be able to provide food for everyone who needs it right?
In that case, we can pick another large engineering project to tackle. How about 3D printers for houses so that we can shelter people too?
In that case, we can pick another large engineering project to tackle. How about 3D printers for houses so that we can shelter people too?
> Great then we should be able to provide food for everyone who needs it right?
as long as those people provide 'stuff' for other people in exchange. That has been the economic model that works.
as long as those people provide 'stuff' for other people in exchange. That has been the economic model that works.
That doesn’t sound automated then, which was my point. I’m talking about bringing the cost of basic food items to near zero so people don’t have to exchange for it.
Wouldn’t that be a great “mission” for a large-scale NASA-like project?
Wouldn’t that be a great “mission” for a large-scale NASA-like project?
We have been since at least the 19th century. Why we don't is apparently a sociological problem that we have not been able to tackle since...
Advancing technology for space exploration purposes has shown to overlap significantly with "practical" applications.
Then we can invest in practical applications instead of spaceflight, which is ancillary.
I think that’s going to be true of any large-scale engineering problem that pushes boundaries.
We can and should spend money on other exciting and useful problems!
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> ...a literal Venereal disease...
No, that would still be figurative.
The entire mars thing is discredited with NASA budgets and criticism of US government programs, then the criticism is taken as a given, the idea called a cult, and then and only then is private endeavor, the thing thats actually going to go to mars, even brought up. If anything the arguments are good ones, against bureaucracy.
When private endeavor is addressed, of course Musk is mentioned. Then all his marketing hype is mentioned, he's chocked up as a charlatan, the one thing conveniently, conspicuously left out being the fact that SpaceX has delivered on everything it has set out to do so far. Talk about hand wavy.
The entire article is interspersed with unfunny jokes designed to make sure you don't think too much about what you just read. It's a weak "this is a dumb idea" argument after another that does a very good job of hiding the fact that it has almost no arguments of substance. It basically amounts to "we don't know how to recycle shit in a closed loop, the money could be used to send robots, we don't want to contaminate mars with coronavurus" (I can play the lame joke at the end of every important sentence game too).
You don't think people should go to mars? Too bad. People are going to go.
No, that would still be figurative.
The entire mars thing is discredited with NASA budgets and criticism of US government programs, then the criticism is taken as a given, the idea called a cult, and then and only then is private endeavor, the thing thats actually going to go to mars, even brought up. If anything the arguments are good ones, against bureaucracy.
When private endeavor is addressed, of course Musk is mentioned. Then all his marketing hype is mentioned, he's chocked up as a charlatan, the one thing conveniently, conspicuously left out being the fact that SpaceX has delivered on everything it has set out to do so far. Talk about hand wavy.
The entire article is interspersed with unfunny jokes designed to make sure you don't think too much about what you just read. It's a weak "this is a dumb idea" argument after another that does a very good job of hiding the fact that it has almost no arguments of substance. It basically amounts to "we don't know how to recycle shit in a closed loop, the money could be used to send robots, we don't want to contaminate mars with coronavurus" (I can play the lame joke at the end of every important sentence game too).
You don't think people should go to mars? Too bad. People are going to go.
> Musk... [is chalked] up as a charlatan... [leaving out] the fact that SpaceX has delivered on everything it has set out to do so far
There's no contradiction here. Musk has regularly made ludicrous claims about what SpaceX is going to achieve, while SpaceX is much more conservative in its official statements. The entire operating model of SpaceX makes it difficult to claim that they've ever failed -- the fact that they're now on their fourth brand of "interplanetary starship" (MCT, ITS, BFR, Starship) can be chalked up to "iterative development", as can the fact they abandoned their first planned moon flyby, etc. I think this is a reasonable way for SpaceX to operate, but Musk uses it as a kind of "credibility battery".
There's no contradiction here. Musk has regularly made ludicrous claims about what SpaceX is going to achieve, while SpaceX is much more conservative in its official statements. The entire operating model of SpaceX makes it difficult to claim that they've ever failed -- the fact that they're now on their fourth brand of "interplanetary starship" (MCT, ITS, BFR, Starship) can be chalked up to "iterative development", as can the fact they abandoned their first planned moon flyby, etc. I think this is a reasonable way for SpaceX to operate, but Musk uses it as a kind of "credibility battery".
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Shows picture of "Entrance to underground cavern on Pavonis Mons" then states "The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars ..". Your failing pretty hard so far.
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A "colony" on Mars is going to be about as extensive as the ISS for at least 100 years.
Or have you bought into Elon's nonsense?
Or have you bought into Elon's nonsense?
dcj4(1)
This guy seems to live an alternate reality where SpaceX and Elon Musk don’t exist. Yes, a NASA abomination would cost a fortune and be a disaster. NASA isn’t going to establish a Mars outpost, SpaceX is. It’s literally what every one of Musk’s businesses support and why Starship is being developed.
This guy literally devotes an entire section of the linked article to dismissing Mr. Elon’s Wild Martian Ride as the vaporware that it is.
While he brings up valid and interesting points to consider, I thought the article was sabotaged by his obvious disdain for Musk. He tried to camouflage it with some initial flattery but then devolved into hyperbole about hyper tunnel and Tesla bot, both of which are real projects with real engineers and people working on them.
Mars exploration has a wide presence in literature and movies which in turn backs Elon's (and Mars One etc.) grift. It is pointless and dangerous to send humans so far away on a dead planet without magnetosphere. Let's establish a base on the Moon first. This seems way more practical as a goal.
Yes lets establish a base on the moon with no resources, the same moon that was created from an asteroid impact like the one we're trying to avoid by being a multi-planet species.
We can create fuel on Mars. Mars is far enough away from Earth that it's a safe redundancy for humans.
Sure we can use the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, but we can also train for Mars like conditions in Nevada...
Either way, Mars is the only viable goal if you want to remove the single point of failure of an asteroid impact.
We can create fuel on Mars. Mars is far enough away from Earth that it's a safe redundancy for humans.
Sure we can use the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, but we can also train for Mars like conditions in Nevada...
Either way, Mars is the only viable goal if you want to remove the single point of failure of an asteroid impact.
It takes about 3 days for a spacecraft to reach the Moon. Mars takes months and not easy to reach. There is no magnetosphere and refueling idea is unrealistic. We need to find a new way to move in space. CSS[1] guys did a good rebuttal to all this nonsense:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYt-phUAxY&list=PL-eVf9RWeo...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYt-phUAxY&list=PL-eVf9RWeo...
> It takes about 3 days for a spacecraft to reach the Moon. Mars takes months and not easy to reach.
That's a bonus. The farther from the Earth, the farther from the explosion from a world ending event. The moon is not far enough.
> There is no magnetosphere and refueling idea is unrealistic.
Please explain how it's unrealistic. There's water and c02. You don't need anything else. Oh and you get oxygen as a byproduct.
> CSS[1] guys did a good rebuttal to all this nonsense:
Pointing to a Youtube video is not really a debate. Put it in your own words if you understand it.
I wouldn't dismiss SpaceX with a Youtube video.
The great thing is, who cares about the people negging, it'll get done anyway, and just like landing rockets upside down, people will find another thing to neg and say "impossible!"
That's a bonus. The farther from the Earth, the farther from the explosion from a world ending event. The moon is not far enough.
> There is no magnetosphere and refueling idea is unrealistic.
Please explain how it's unrealistic. There's water and c02. You don't need anything else. Oh and you get oxygen as a byproduct.
> CSS[1] guys did a good rebuttal to all this nonsense:
Pointing to a Youtube video is not really a debate. Put it in your own words if you understand it.
I wouldn't dismiss SpaceX with a Youtube video.
The great thing is, who cares about the people negging, it'll get done anyway, and just like landing rockets upside down, people will find another thing to neg and say "impossible!"
>The farther from the Earth, the farther from the explosion from a world ending event.
Don't end the world then. Hypothetical Mars colony is doomed anyway without support from Earth.
>There's water and c02. You don't need anything else.
You need huge amounts of energy, storage and processing facilities. And water is not that easy to find and use on Mars. You should check the videos, really enlightening.
>I wouldn't dismiss SpaceX with a Youtube video.
Nobody is dismissing SpaceX with a Youtube video. The Starship and Mars mission are being thoroughly dissected which is relevant to the topic.
>The great thing is, who cares about the people negging, it'll get done anyway,
“Going to Mars reads like that ad for Shackleton going to the Antarctic. You know, it’s dangerous, it’s uncomfortable, it’s a long journey, you might not come back alive. But it’s a glorious adventure, and it will be an amazing experience. You probably won’t have good food. If an arduous and dangerous journey where you may not come back alive—but it’s a glorious adventure—sounds appealing, Mars is the place. That’s the ad. That’s the ad for Mars. Honestly, a bunch of people probably will die in the beginning. It’s tough sledding over there. We’re not going to make anyone go. It’s volunteers only.” - Musk
I don't think they should die. But maybe it's just me.
Don't end the world then. Hypothetical Mars colony is doomed anyway without support from Earth.
>There's water and c02. You don't need anything else.
You need huge amounts of energy, storage and processing facilities. And water is not that easy to find and use on Mars. You should check the videos, really enlightening.
>I wouldn't dismiss SpaceX with a Youtube video.
Nobody is dismissing SpaceX with a Youtube video. The Starship and Mars mission are being thoroughly dissected which is relevant to the topic.
>The great thing is, who cares about the people negging, it'll get done anyway,
“Going to Mars reads like that ad for Shackleton going to the Antarctic. You know, it’s dangerous, it’s uncomfortable, it’s a long journey, you might not come back alive. But it’s a glorious adventure, and it will be an amazing experience. You probably won’t have good food. If an arduous and dangerous journey where you may not come back alive—but it’s a glorious adventure—sounds appealing, Mars is the place. That’s the ad. That’s the ad for Mars. Honestly, a bunch of people probably will die in the beginning. It’s tough sledding over there. We’re not going to make anyone go. It’s volunteers only.” - Musk
I don't think they should die. But maybe it's just me.
> Don't end the world then. Hypothetical Mars colony is doomed anyway without support from Earth.
Becoming a multi-world species means insuring yourself against asteroids and other planet killers out of our control (super volcanoes, etc.)
Food can be grown purely on Mars. Unless you don't believe in vertical farming? We have the sun and water on Mars...
> Nobody is dismissing SpaceX with a Youtube video. The Starship and Mars mission are being thoroughly dissected which is relevant to the topic.
Yeah I simply meant instead of linking the video, to expand on what you think the strongest points were.
> I don't think they should die. But maybe it's just me.
People climb Mt. Everest just for fun knowing it is a risk to their life. Others put their lives on the line everyday to make the world run, from cleaning skyscraper windows to windmill maintenance.
It's up to that individual, not you.
Becoming a multi-world species means insuring yourself against asteroids and other planet killers out of our control (super volcanoes, etc.)
Food can be grown purely on Mars. Unless you don't believe in vertical farming? We have the sun and water on Mars...
> Nobody is dismissing SpaceX with a Youtube video. The Starship and Mars mission are being thoroughly dissected which is relevant to the topic.
Yeah I simply meant instead of linking the video, to expand on what you think the strongest points were.
> I don't think they should die. But maybe it's just me.
People climb Mt. Everest just for fun knowing it is a risk to their life. Others put their lives on the line everyday to make the world run, from cleaning skyscraper windows to windmill maintenance.
It's up to that individual, not you.
Thank you for explaining clearly and thoroughly what I have been trying to get across in many HN comments here. Putting a Man on Mars promises to be the biggest non-military waste of tax money.
The problem is that it is a very well marketed waste of tax money. It came with its own hollywood movie and a very effective guerilla marketing campaign. When I see those "cool" people wearing NASA shirts in bars, it makes me sick ... it is as if they want to steal money from me.
And I actually thought NASA was pretty cool back when they were doing mostly robotic missions that had a lot of bang for the buck. But back then of course there wasn't a marketing campaign to make NASA cool, nobody was wearing a NASA shirt in a bar, and NASA got constantly criticized even for doing its cost effective robotic missions.
Now that they are on the verge of a really massive boondogle, all of a sudden everyone is a NASA fan.
The problem is that it is a very well marketed waste of tax money. It came with its own hollywood movie and a very effective guerilla marketing campaign. When I see those "cool" people wearing NASA shirts in bars, it makes me sick ... it is as if they want to steal money from me.
And I actually thought NASA was pretty cool back when they were doing mostly robotic missions that had a lot of bang for the buck. But back then of course there wasn't a marketing campaign to make NASA cool, nobody was wearing a NASA shirt in a bar, and NASA got constantly criticized even for doing its cost effective robotic missions.
Now that they are on the verge of a really massive boondogle, all of a sudden everyone is a NASA fan.