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All problems, it seems, are overcome in 25 words or less.
Faster Than Light, gene selection and editing, and even "people will" are offered as solutions to very real problems. Problems such as vast distances, mars having a lethal atmosphere, and the "expense vs necessity" or risk/reward equation will always remain roadblocks.
Mars makes a close approach of some 35 million miles only every 26 months. The rest of the time the distance is either decreasing from the 250 million mile maximum or increasing. That means the window for transitioning the distance is open for a few months and then closed. It makes little sense to chase a planet that is running away from you.
I know there is funding for the trip and lots of talk about "when we colonize mars", but talk is done by scientists (and a few hustlers) who know darn good and well it will never happen.
It would be easier to colonize the deepest part of the ocean.
On Dec 8th, 2022, mars made its close approach. I watched with my telescope, and I am noticing now, as it recedes. The next will be Jan 16th, 2025. Thereafter, every 26 months.
The rover, Perseverance, has been on mars since Feb, 2021. It is doing a marvelous job of exploring and sending data. We may, someday, even send a device that can return with samples. You can click on the link and explore mars for yourself, through pictures. You can even hear the wind blow, which I might point out, you will not be able to do if you were to don a suit and walk around on mars.
The 1st order to achieve this would be to bring people to space colony and eliminate the need for money. In Star Trek, by the 24th century they got rid of money because it rooted people with personal greed than the betterment of humanity as a society.
When you say lack of resource, we don’t we just don’t have people who would choose to work roles that suits them and cooperate with others without using money.
There’s plenty of resources in space like asteroids mining that we could use to gather minerals and water.
That’s why we need to get people into space colony so there can be a society without being indoctrinated by personal greed. We need to teach newer children how to advance beyond transactional behavior which our society is brought up under capitalism.
An unavoidable problem with "colonies"-- It takes at least 500 members in a breeding polulation to avoid inbreeding, and more importantly, thanks to the cyclic nature of population dynamics, extinction....You'd have to build a pretty big space ship.
Or you could take along a wide variety of genetic samples - frozen? Otherwise preserved? But you'd need considerable equipment & tech @ the other end, to decant & quickly educate newborns. That risks radiation damage, loss of the necessary tech. So yah, brute force natural breeding is more robust - but still prone to radiation damage & unknown disasters.
Either way, it's a gamble. But I'm not sure that colonizing Mars is in the works. I would think more of a research colony there, with specialists cycling in & out. & we have to work on the long-range effects of children born in weightlessness or lower gravity than Earth normal.
So I believe the people of 200 years from now will have far less than we do today. Our current trend of having non-repairable technology where we can no longer maintain our own cars or appliances, will guarantee it. For the most part we have even lost the ability to grow and harvest and store our own food. In America a 30 day shut-down of the electrical grid would result in mass starvation and panic.
The future is not guaranteed. And it is not in outer space.
I would posit that the only way to guarantee the future of humanity is to get a self-sufficient colony into space. As GuidoLaMoto says, around 500 people, though probably ten times that number would be more realistic, to better guarantee that a few hundred of the population will actually breed with each other
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Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto
We depend on bacteria and fungi a whole lot more than most people realize. We may be able to extract N from the air with the Haber-Bosch process, we still need bacteria to put it into a biologically accessible form, for instance....Same with sulphur....We still need green plants to produce hydrocarbons in order to make "artificial food." etc etc.
A space habitat would necessarily need to recreate as natural an environment as possible. We don't even know every single microbe and chemical that is necessary to life. Hence, bring lots of dirt, lots of water, and lots of seeds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
I know there is funding for the trip and lots of talk about "when we colonize mars", but talk is done by scientists (and a few hustlers) who know darn good and well it will never happen.
It would be easier to colonize the deepest part of the ocean.
Agreed, a Mars colony makes no sense. A Mars base for research makes a lot of sense. One might also point out that a greenhouse on Mars would likely grow quite a lot of food; COâ‚‚ is plentiful, obviously. Unfortunately, it would have to be pressurized; plants are not adapted to thrive in low pressure environments like that of Mars which is 610 pascals, 1% of Earth's air pressure. According to Nasa, plants in low pressure tend to go into a hibernation state. One solution, other than a pressurized dome, would be to genetically modify the plants to thrive in hypobaric conditions. However this is theoretical. I would probably just pressurize the dome and put up with oxygen loss from leaks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
You can even hear the wind blow, which I might point out, you will not be able to do if you were to don a suit and walk around on mars.
I would imagine you'd hear something through your suit, or else you could easily install a microphone and in fact you'd probably want a mic to hear what's going on around you
Here's a wonderful video - 12 minutes - detailing the difficulty in going to mars. There is lots of information and comparisons, many of which are not obvious.
The video talks about distance and compares mars to the moon. And mars to low earth orbit.
A trip to mars means more weight; 3000 tons, in fact. So far, no rocket has generated enough power to lift the weight off the earth, so it's a far stretch to develop a rocket that will (1) lift the weight off the earth, (2) slow it down for a mars landing, (3) lift off what is left after 539 days on mars, and (4) slow it down when it approaches earth.
Remember, rockets in space do not have brakes. If it takes 80 gazillion HP to get up to speed, it will take just as much to slow down. And accelerate it again. And slow it down again.
539 days, we are told, would be the minimum length of stay. To save fuel, the trip would last over two years. Two years worth of food and supplies and spare parts for a crew of six, is an enormous amount.
Weightlessness, confinement, lack of real-time communication with anyone on earth for over 2 years? Probably can't ever be done.
That's assuming we don't perish on Earth first from wars and famine and climate catastrophes. If we maintain and fund the space program and don't screw everything up, we'll get there someday. That is the history of mankind and exploration. Slow and steady scientific progress.
Here's a wonderful video - 12 minutes - detailing the difficulty in going to mars. There is lots of information and comparisons, many of which are not obvious.
The video talks about distance and compares mars to the moon. And mars to low earth orbit. A trip to mars means more weight; 3000 tons, in fact. So far, no rocket has generated enough power to lift the weight off the earth, so it's a far stretch to develop a rocket that will (1) lift the weight off the earth, (2) slow it down for a mars landing, (3) lift off what is left after 539 days on mars, and (4) slow it down when it approaches earth.
I think it's a fool's dream but the part about weight makes little sense. For one, it says at 4:45 that Saturn V lifted off at 3000 tons. But more importantly, everything they need doesn't have to be lifted off or transported at the same time. We certainly didn't build out ISS and lift it all up at once. Ship them off with 100 days supplies, soon after ship a supply module with 100 days, a few months later another module with 100 days, etc.
I think it's a fool's dream but the part about weight makes little sense. For one, it says at 4:45 that Saturn V lifted off at 3000 tons. But more importantly, everything they need doesn't have to be lifted off or transported at the same time. We certainly didn't build out ISS and lift it all up at once. Ship them off with 100 days supplies, soon after ship a supply module with 100 days, a few months later another module with 100 days, etc.
The SpaceX Starship can carry 150 metric tons (165 English tons) to Earth orbit. It's taller and more powerful than the Saturn V; in fact it's the most powerful rocket ever built.
You're right that we wouldn't just fly to Mars all in one go; most likely, we'd send specialized missions there, establish an orbital docking station, set up a base on the Martian surface, and assemble a specialized Mars vehicle from orbit. Likely most of that work will be done robotically.
The humans will come last, when all the pieces are in place. This makes sense in several ways, because we need to continually improve propulsion systems until we can get to Mars in 4-5 weeks rather than have humans endure a 1-2 year trip. A year in space, moving at high velocity, would expose people to dangerous cosmic particles and solar radiation, not to mention the risks of mechanical failure over time.
I would favor nuclear pulse propulsion based on Project Orion, in which a series of small nuclear blasts push the ship forward at tremendous speed. We could reach Mars in 3-4 weeks with such a system. I've even read estimates of 2 weeks. The risks obviously are that we are launching nuclear explosives into orbit. Not something to goof around with.
The Martian orbital station would be a human habitat, with plenty of supplies. Docked to it would be a specialized craft designed to coast down to the surface, and launch again to orbit. There would be a backup lander as well, for redundancy.
The project would cost a couple trillion dollars, maybe more. Is it worth it? That is for humanity to decide.
I agree with the comments, if we attempt to go to Mars, we'll most likely be sending 90%+ of the stuff needed for the trip way before humans even get there.
Hi all - minute 47 Elon Musk describes his view of Mars and human expansion - thought you might enjoy - only lasts a few minutes. Entropy, Entropy no escaping that for me.
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