iannis
Musty Nester
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The Astronomy Thread
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Mudcrush Durtfeet
Hungry Ogre
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It has gravity. You can mine or extract chemicals from the atmosphere for domed farming and such and to build things. You _could_ live there permanently. If you got industry going, access to space is a lot easier than from the surface of the Earth. Much less fuel needed in a rocket to escape Mars.
You might be able to put a station on Deimos or Phobos for easier access to space, I dunno. Perhaps you could mine those moons for at least some material.
Though the atmosphere is thin, it is still enough to reduce micro meteor impacts, I think, which helps.
Essentially, if you could get a self sustaining colony with an industrial base going on Mars, doing other things in the Solar system would at that point be a lot easier.
iannis
Musty Nester
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There is also the practical concern of what long term 0 gravity environments do to the human body.
Astronauts on the ISS already saw some deterioration of bone and muscle mass, which you would expect and which can be alleviated with exercise regimens. But there might be some real concerns with prolonged 0g living. Like after a few years your heart just stops working or your kidneys just go completely mental. We're evolved to live in gravity, after all.
That's one practical argument for barren world > space station pioneering. I think it's a good one. But we might also be resilient enough that long term 0g doesn't impact us all that much and can be compensated for. Our longest term trial is what, 1 man and a year?
No, I just checked. it's 14 months.
Astronauts on the ISS already saw some deterioration of bone and muscle mass, which you would expect and which can be alleviated with exercise regimens. But there might be some real concerns with prolonged 0g living. Like after a few years your heart just stops working or your kidneys just go completely mental. We're evolved to live in gravity, after all.
That's one practical argument for barren world > space station pioneering. I think it's a good one. But we might also be resilient enough that long term 0g doesn't impact us all that much and can be compensated for. Our longest term trial is what, 1 man and a year?
No, I just checked. it's 14 months.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Could we? With our current tech? I feel like discussions about colonization is currently a fantasy.
Mudcrush Durtfeet
Hungry Ogre
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Most of this we could do with current tech. It would be fantastically expensive. (SpaceX getting reusable rocket technology going would help with the expense perhaps).
I don't know too much about farming, I _think_ we could manage something, but I could be wrong. In any case, farming would be easier on Mars then on a space station I would think.
Dandain
Trakanon Raider
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The first people going to Mars are going to be much more like Lewis and Clark or Edmund Hillary. We should expect people to die, in gruesomely new was as no humans have died before. A colony - much like the ISS is a test bed for technologies that allow scaling up of operations for our whole species. There is knowledge we can only gain by having a research colony first. I'd expect every rock we ever go to in our solar system that humans will inhabit will start with a colony it has to for one simple reason. Like the worst sci-fi, only the most stable people can be put into situations so fragile. Stupid/emotional people can live on Earth dysfunctionally. Any near term space human has to be a stable ISS caliber person. That can handle isolated living and deal with emergencies and all the tasks that must be done to ensure future survival.
On the topic of growing food. This was published just yesterday.
NASA Really Is Trying to Grow Potatoes on Mars - WSJ
TLDR: 65 of the most robust potato species are being grown in Mars like soil from the Atacama Desert. The survivors graduate to round two where they get put in mars like temperature/pressure conditions.
On the topic of growing food. This was published just yesterday.
NASA Really Is Trying to Grow Potatoes on Mars - WSJ
TLDR: 65 of the most robust potato species are being grown in Mars like soil from the Atacama Desert. The survivors graduate to round two where they get put in mars like temperature/pressure conditions.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Even have the power problem solved;
Small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Would it really be like that? Rugged pioneers subsisting on whatever they can scrounge up deep in the bountiful American forest? Being helped by local natives?
Because I think it'll be closer to William Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. Three dudes sitting in a cold bunker. Breathing air shipped to them. Eating food shipped to them. Drinking water shipped to them. Using power from resources shipped to them. Until the project runs its course, they're evac'd out of Mars and we leave the colony to rot like a Lunar Rover. But shit, it's so inhospitable that it can't even rot.
I know I'm belabouring this point, I just think the focus on 'colonizing' mars is short-sighted. You can't just drop ship a Mayflower's worth of tough dudes on Mars and life uhh... finds a way. At best you can conduct some experiments, see what surprises happen and get some cool tech from the project itself.
But why am I so against Mars colonization? Because asteroid mining has actual upside and a path to colonization off Earth. Yes, we're working on both, but the human conciousness is so tied to the idea of colonizing another planet that we'd rather spend billions on a massive Mars landing / colonization project for little gain and relegate asteroid mining to B-String status. That is, until the private industry finally does what NASA should be doing.
ZyyzYzzy
RIP USA
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Lol at people saying we have technology to teraform Mars now, in reference to using fossil fuels as an eneegy source. What if we get there, find there was not carbin based life there for hundreds of millions of years to produce complex hydrocarbon fuel. Ship all oil to Mars to burn it?
It will be useful to have expeditions (maybe not colonize) Mars to test technologies and possible have a way station for asteroid mining operations.
It will be useful to have expeditions (maybe not colonize) Mars to test technologies and possible have a way station for asteroid mining operations.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Cannae's superconducting lab is up and running:
Cannae's superconducting test lab is up and running | Cannae
(Note the Cannae and EM drive are considered crack pot ideas by the physics community)
Cannae's superconducting test lab is up and running | Cannae
(Note the Cannae and EM drive are considered crack pot ideas by the physics community)
Strap ion engines and solar panels/RTGs onto ammonia/methane rich comets, crash them into Mars. Not cheap or quick, but definitely achievable.
Erronius
Macho Ma'am
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I honestly think that reusable rockets are, in the long-term, something of a stopgap measure. I'm not saying that we don't need to develop them (we do), I'm saying that even with the resulting cost reductions that will bring, pushing shit into orbit will still be expensive. I'm willing to bet that once we start entering an actual "colonization" phase that the amount of needed raw materials will skyrocket. If we don't start developing ways to harvest and store extraterrestrial materials and construct some sort of industrial capacity to go along with it, any 'colonization' is going to be akin to launching a dozen or so people at a target every 10-20 years and hoping for the best. And to me I can't really embrace that as actual colonization, to be honest.
Big Phoenix
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Hence why Mars is a great place to colonize. Access to raw materials and water/air on a world with low gravity.
ZyyzYzzy
RIP USA
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I'm sorry, you said it was possible with today's technology. Comet/asteroid exploration is in its infancy (at best). Also lol at just strapping some ion engines big enough onto an asteroid traveling at 20,00kph
Siddar
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Moon mining for the reason of replacing the need to launch basic material will be the first real space colony. Once you do that you can build huge retaliative to todays ships in orbit and then head towards Mars. Well send manned missions well before that, but actual colonization will start on the moon then spread to mars. Unless their is a revolution in launch technology.
Burnem Wizfyre
Log Wizard
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I dont like the idea of just crashing shit into planets, unless we're talking at speeds we can be sure won't fuck up orbits and fuck the Earth in the process.
Big Phoenix
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Dandain
Trakanon Raider
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I don't understand your resistance to a research base on Mars Tuco, regardless of how self sufficient it is at the start or not. We didn't chose the solar system we inhabit. We only really have one in system candidate to chose from as a practical first step to engage in this. If its worth doing at all, its clearly worth doing on Mars. The "first" human settlement on another planet certainly isn't going to be 1 star system over. And we most certainly do need individuals to live substantial amounts of their lives on Mars in clear view of all the risks. We need to see human development in deep space. We need to see the necessity of things like artificial gravity, shielding, etc. The first people on Mars are there for a 2 year stay, we need to find out what kind of health consequence that has. The ISS cannot simulate Mars. I merely view every piece of data we can gather as valuable to the big picture, the data is a gateway to taking future steps.
I'd also suggest that we are much much much further away from an economic hub style space station, than a research colony on Mars.
I'd also suggest that we are much much much further away from an economic hub style space station, than a research colony on Mars.
Burnem Wizfyre
Log Wizard
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I like both ideas, asteroid mining and the Mars research base. Hell the asteroid mining could provide so much useful tech/information for the Mars base but it seems practical to do a moon base for asteroid mining and using what we learn from that to then do Mars.