We'll never go to Mars (generation, ethical, compared, thesis)
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Has anyone even considered how huge a difference in distance there is between us and the moon, and us and Mars?
People are avoiding all the most important factors and challenges, and acting like physics and natural laws do not exist. What's next, landing a group of people on the sun? Just speak the words, and it's a possibility?
Yea, it's amazing what we could accomplish if we could ignore The Laws of Physics...like the space elevator--each segment of the structure would have to be accelerated to the particular orbital speed for it to remain in stationary position (with the top of a section going a little bit faster than the bottom)...I guess the designers never heard of s = 1/2at^2, and the elevator car would have to do that too on the way up...???
In regards landing on The Sun, I figured that one out ages ago--- We land at night!
A "space station" aroound Mars was suggested a few posts ago---What's the dif between a space station in orbit around Mars vs a contained habitiat ON the surface of Mars?...Nothing.
Yea, it's amazing what we could accomplish if we could ignore The Laws of Physics...like the space elevator--each segment of the structure would have to be accelerated to the particular orbital speed for it to remain in stationary position (with the top of a section going a little bit faster than the bottom)...I guess the designers never heard of s = 1/2at^2, and the elevator car would have to do that too on the way up...???
In regards landing on The Sun, I figured that one out ages ago--- We land at night!
A "space station" aroound Mars was suggested a few posts ago---What's the dif between a space station in orbit around Mars vs a contained habitiat ON the surface of Mars?...Nothing.
I'd prefer a habitat under the surface, buried in regolith (?), for radiation & micrometeoroid shielding. & to get habitat out of the way of any dangerously close rocket landings, for instance. Temps should be more moderate? constant? @ depth, too.
If there are any naturally occurring caves, lava tubes, etc. - that would be very helpful. It would simplify the tunneling & excavation tasks. With any luck, there might be water ice or other useful materials down there.
I'd prefer a habitat under the surface, buried in regolith (?), for radiation & micrometeoroid shielding. & to get habitat out of the way of any dangerously close rocket landings, for instance. Temps should be more moderate? constant? @ depth, too.
If there are any naturally occurring caves, lava tubes, etc. - that would be very helpful. It would simplify the tunneling & excavation tasks. With any luck, there might be water ice or other useful materials down there.
I agree. The surface of Mars has a huge variation in temps. Last week, the Rover reported +10ºF high, -100ºF low. That's a lot of work for a heating system to deal with. Underground, more constant (always cold? not sure).
Radiation will definitely be a problem; Mars doesn't have enough of a magnetic field to keep out solar radiation and other particles. The habitat would need massive shielding, so underground is the way to go.
By the way, whenever the astronauts venture outside, they will be irradiated not to mention coated in fine dust. (We know there's lots of dust because it coats the rover solar panels over time and renders them useless.)
So the astronauts will require very well shielded space suits as well as vehicles that can operate in dusty, frozen environments. The rovers of course are able to do this, but let's keep in mind they move really slowly, 0.1 mph (versus 3 mph average walking speed). To carry a couple of humans around, plus of course their suits and tools, spare oxygen etc. etc., a wheeled vehicle would be several times larger and more powerful and would need some superb battery storage and recharging capabilities far beyond the turtle-like Rovers of today.
Overall, I don't really see humans living on Mars for an appreciable time. It will be a vanity trip, just get there and spend a couple of weeks, then back to Earth. A couple of years of travel time for a few days on the planet. Cost: a couple trillion dollars.
It might make more sense to build out some permanent rotating orbital habitats closer to the Earth, where people could live and work for extended time without developing bone and muscle problems. They could experiment with robotic assembly and develop techniques for space construction.
Ultimately, using moon mining and maybe asteroid mining, we can build ships and equipment in space that can be pushed to Mars for some exploratory stays on the Red Planet, but the real utility of being in space is to remain closer to Earth, for economic and medical reasons, not to mention communication -- let's keep in mind that radio signals take about 5 minutes to reach Mars at its closest, 20 minutes at worst. That's going to be a very slow telephone call.
A "space station" aroound Mars was suggested a few posts ago---What's the dif between a space station in orbit around Mars vs a contained habitiat ON the surface of Mars?...Nothing.
I think that would enable us to build a habitat sufficient for length of stay necessary to begin building out infrastructure without the "what-ifs" - basically space station 2.0, we have one already. I am admittedly ignorant when it comes to physics but have seen our challenges in escape and re-entry. We can barely land a machine without cringing and that would need to be resolved with your approach. You could have escape craft without the need for atmospheric shielding in a emergency and craft designed to/from without having to handle that at all. Much easier to dock vs. dropping stuff down in balloons, reusable rockets are great except for entry on another planet and lets face it, we will not need nearly as much chemical propellant. It is a lot more costly to build something on the planet from a distance and so I think establishing a habitable orbit makes the most sense. Sci-fi predicts a mothership often and I think our pursuit to 'Occupy Mars' will follow that scheme.
OK, let's go along with the argument that landing a habitable capsule on the surfacee is more complex and requires more fuel than just establishng an orbiter...but an orbiter means we're still doiing remote sensing to gather data, and we can do that from here, or at least with an unmanned vehicle.....so why go at all?...which is the first question that really needs to be answered....
That question reminds me of the first Sherlock Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet-- Watson was trying to figure Holmes out, and was impressed that Sherlock was not aware that The Earth orbited the Sun-- Would my life be any different if the earth oribited the sun or if the sun orbited the earth? asked Sherlock....Good point.
That question reminds me of the first Sherlock Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet-- Watson was trying to figure Holmes out, and was impressed that Sherlock was not aware that The Earth orbited the Sun-- Would my life be any different if the earth oribited the sun or if the sun orbited the earth? asked Sherlock....Good point.
Offhand? The Earth doesn't mass enough to hold the sun in orbit. Therefore, the sun's gravity would simply pull the Earth into oblivion. Which would be a substantial change in status, even for Mr. Holmes.
In order for an Earth-centric solar system model to work, the Earth would have to be super dense, like a Black hole, or maybe a Neutron star. The math is doable, but doesn't seem necessary.
^^^ Well, you completely missed the point of the comment...
...and to correct your misuderstanding of gravity, the earth does not orbit around the sun, not the sun around the earth....They both orbit around the center of gravity of the system, and the system acts as if all the mass is centered at a pin point at that center.
^^^ Well, you completely missed the point of the comment...
...and to correct your misuderstanding of gravity, the earth does not orbit around the sun, not the sun around the earth....They both orbit around the center of gravity of the system, and the system acts as if all the mass is centered at a pin point at that center.
Yah. My memory aligns with Wiki's take:
"Solar System
"The Solar System[c] is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority (99.86%) of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in the planet Jupiter."
OK, let's go along with the argument that landing a habitable capsule on the surfacee is more complex and requires more fuel than just establishng an orbiter...but an orbiter means we're still doiing remote sensing to gather data, and we can do that from here, or at least with an unmanned vehicle.....so why go at all?...which is the first question that really needs to be answered....
That question reminds me of the first Sherlock Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet-- Watson was trying to figure Holmes out, and was impressed that Sherlock was not aware that The Earth orbited the Sun-- Would my life be any different if the earth oribited the sun or if the sun orbited the earth? asked Sherlock....Good point.
I am leaning toward the robotic option, too. Sending humans to the surface of Mars is ridiculously dangerous and expensive, particularly considering that we will likely never live there.
As has been discussed here and elsewhere, Mars is a barren rock, devoid of the characteristics necessary to support life. We might as well just live in the Sahara Desert or in an undersea colony, isolated from humanity yet much less costly and easier to leave.
Now on the other hand, if it's all about forcing ourselves to push the envelope, on the assumption that the technologies we develop will have all kinds of lucrative spin-off applications back on Earth, then maybe it's worth it.
Politically, it's certainly worthwhile. Such an achievement will be one for the history books, even more significant than the Moon landings.
This is why I and others advocate deep space habitats that can be made arbitrarily large, have Earth-like gravity, be safely shielded, and can support a complete ecosystem including growing food. Such a habitat simply isn't practical on Mars.
That said, once we have an infrastructure of orbital stations and habitats, building Mars-compatible ships and prefab habitats to drop on the Red Planet becomes more economical. Costs of launching these kinds of things out of Earth's gravity are exorbitant, whereas if you can robotically mine and manufacture them in outer space, where they belong, then you can skip probably 50% of the cost if not more.
I regret however that most of us in this forum will not live to see this. Humanity needs a century or two of further technological development, perhaps A.I.-assisted, in order to make this great leap into the Beyond. But once we have done it, the expansion will truly begin.
Space colony is more realistic option than trying to colonize Mars. It would be much easier to send material and man power to space near earth orbit to build a space colony ship and allow for generations of humans to populate space colony and eventually develop enough technology and resources in order to migrate to Mars or other planets.
What we need is enough investment to build space station nearby for housing settlers and then eventually work towards building the space colony. People that are born in space would help populate these colonies. Unfortunately for majority of the earth people will never get a chance to live in space.
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