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Personally I think we'll see humans on Mars in our lifetime. It's the billionaires race between Musk and Bezos if nothing else. Assuming that succeeds and colonization is started anew, would that be a consideration? What would have to be in place?
Personally I think we'll see humans on Mars in our lifetime. It's the billionaires race between Musk and Bezos if nothing else. Assuming that succeeds and colonization is started anew, would that be a consideration? What would have to be in place?
Absolutely not.
All life forms natural to planet earth are made up of the same chemical elements as occur naturally in the earth's crust, water, and atmosphere. Did you know that human blood is the same percentage of salinity as the oceans? We are a natural product of the planet where we originate.
Life forms (none known as indigenous to other planets in our solar system) can only be naturally supported on their native planets. Placing a human on Mars is only possible if the human is enclosed in a space suit that regulates heat, humidity, and atmospheric pressures consistent with planet earth. Anyone who supposes otherwise will meet with quick and certain death.
Would you want to live that way? In an enclosure that must mimic conditions on earth? To never be able to venture outdoors without a special, expensive suit? What happens in a power outage (other planets also have storms), when earth-like conditions cannot be maintained? What happens when shipments of food, purified water, oxygen tanks do not arrive from earth in a timely fashion, or because some earthly politician decides to curtail shipments due to cost?
Some wealthy people should not be saved from their follies.
There's no reason why Mars wouldn't work. All the basics are there for self-sufficiency. Breathing units would be necessary until some leap of technology allows oxygenation of the atmosphere, but that's no big deal.
It could be a free country or group of countries. That's what's important to me.
I'm a dreamer and even a musk fan. But I have serious doubts about colonizing mars anytime soon.
We can't even get a decent sized seasteading floating country going in the ocean which seems millions of times logistically easier than Mars. We haven't ever had a colony on the moon or anyone there for any serious length of time. We haven't had any sort of orbiting colonies ( Think the ISS on steroids). So those things make me think that no colonization of Mars is happening anytime soon. We may send some humans there someday, but I think failure and death is all but assured for the first ones.
It would also be horrible from a self sufficiency standpoint as it would be 100% reliant on resupplies from earth. If the resupplies ships don't come, everyone dies, and they'll take a long time to get there.
I'm all for it, and like that people are actually planning it out. However my little earthling brain just can't fathom the logistics of it actually working.
Why not just start with orbiting colonies musk? Or the moon? That seems very doable and a heck of a lot closer. We should start with a human mission to Mars then we will see about the whole colonization thing.
It took us 65 yrs to advance from Kitty Hawk to Tranquility Base. We haven't been back to Tranquility Base in over 45 yrs.
Talk about "Preparedness?" To colonize Mars, you'd have to pack two of everything, and if the second one breaks too, you'd have to wait almost two years for your Amazon drone delivery of it's replacement to arrive.
Why colonize? Commercial exploitation of the planet? Shipping costs of that 1 oz of gold (value a-grand-and-a-half $) would be hundreds of millions of $.
Musk is getting rich living off govt subsidies for his boondoggle projects. Value of his stock ~$4.5B. Govt subsidies to him ~$4.5B.
Manifest Destiny was a concept that applied to the extension of the USA all the way across N.Am. It's a paradigm that just won't work in space exploration.
I understand there's significant complications to bugging out there, but if I'm Bezos, already feared enough that he can tear down valuations of Home Depot merely by saying he's working with Sears and Kenmore, or send shares of Target and Wal-Mart on a tear down simply by buying Whole Foods, then he's got the ability to get some great engineers on this. While he's located in Seattle....which knows a thing or two about putting together aerospace craft, though their likely still upset Boeing opted for Chicago as HQ.
Anyway, the goal would be for self-sufficiency, not for trade back to the US. Basically, design your own city....and pick who you want to be able to go with.
In Musk's corner, he has reusable rockets that could supply near earth space fabrication. Once in Space, there's no cost to towing the items to Mars....just in stopping once it's there. It could be a bug out location for scientists. Once established and self sufficient....other than sentimental communications, the whole world could go nuke itself and the colony wouldn't be affected. No tax. No murderous criminals (unless they were brought). If everyone was checked prior to launch....you'd lose many diseases. The average IQ of the planet would be ridiculously high. There's no great outdoors....but then look at how kids entertain themselves today.
The difficulty in colonizing Mars is what makes it a super attractive Bug Out place. The prospect of additional growth and possibilities makes it a bad investment, but still an investment.
Colonizing any other planets is a ways off. First we need reliable space vehicles capable of making round trips a d of sufficient size to haul lots of equipment and supplies. Liquid fuel rockets won't cut it. We also need ships that can attain much higher speeds to make space travel practical. Nuclear power is our most advanced ced but I know of no engine design that has been adapted to produce thrust for space travel.
Setting on another pplanet is a cool concept. It's fun to dream about. But nobody has done enough dreaming to even get us truly ready for it. It seems a gimme that sooner or later we're going to have to branch out to other planets but we're not there yet. Space travel itself is not developed enough. It won't happen in my lifetime.
Funny, science fiction saw us being a LOT more advanced by 2017. Lol, not quite. We haven't built ships around HAL computers just yet. We sure haven't built hyperspace ships or even put a base on the Moon. And even if we did it would probably be dedicated for offensive military purposes. When I was a kid reading Heinlen and such I always dreamed of being a space colonist. Packing an energy weapon on my hip and wearing my environmental suit, living in a do.e on some remote and inhospitable planet with dangerous alien predators running around outside. Like Heinlens Water Seekers in Red Planet. Getting around on ice skates and vehicles using frozen canals.
Gonna have to wait a bit longer methinks.
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