Will the human body be able to survive on other planets?

[southwest88]

Originally Posted by Domitian

I dont understand the desire to 'colonize' mars or any other uninhabitable resource-void planet. It just doesnt make sense. if you have to transport ever single needed item in order to be a successful colony, you are DOOMED.

An investment in near-earth space stations would be better. They both have the same requirements - food, oxygen, water, shelter - but Mars has the increased risk of getting onto - and off of - a planet surface.

Yah. But to learn how to cope with long-term spaceflight, long-term weightlessness or low gravity, living on a moon or another planet, constructing bases, habs, greenhouses, mining, working with regolith, in vacuum or near-vacuum, you have to go & do those things. You collect all the data you can, & then you have a baseline to work from on extrapolations - but reality typically surprises modeled constructs, @ some point, & to some degree. We will probably want to colonize the moon (for long-term experiments & factories, & mining & exploration).

We'll want @ least temporary colonies on Mars & anywhere else we can plant them - for the data, to plant sensors, remotes, explore, map resources. & with power & regolith, plus any other resources we discover, we can manufacture a lot of the goods we need on the spot. We might have to search for or manufacture volatiles - but with power, that's doable.

Habs in orbit are more designed than building in situ with found materials, granted. But we can't haul everything along with us - we need a seed & cultivation kind of effort. We send expertise & crew, with plans to site & begin by cannibalizing unneeded lander components, & then manufacturing further materials from available materials & as needed. Space stations in LEO are a start - but that's only a first step.

[southwest88]

Originally Posted by Domitian

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if the goal is simple exploration, then sure, go to mars. but if the goal is to find a suitable "disaster recovery site" then mars is not the answer. Perhaps we should invest in terraforming technology and start here on earth (or the moon - it's closer). Rather than racing to mars, let's simply make the existence outside the earth's atmosphere a reality (i.e. comfortable space station; not tubes and airlocks)

With the materials we have, any space station will feature precisely tubes & airlocks - as a matter of planning for blowouts, accidents, bad dockings, acts of war, material failure, poor welds - the usual 1,001 causes of mishaps. But yes, in vacuum - any exposure to vacuum is quickly lethal. & you don't want to lose the entire air supply - the atmosphere, plus any unprotected plants, people - to a single point of failure. You have to be able to isolate compartments that can't hold atmosphere - that way people can survive the immediate disaster, & communicate & plan to try to rescue everyone possible.

I don't know that we have the tech to make a space station comfortable - not yet, anyway. It'll be a long time before we can relax in an artificial environment in space.

[Clintone]

Originally Posted by zortation

I don't get this whole push to get people to Mars, it just seems like a cruel, slow death sentence to me. I read one article on living there that said astronauts would have to build their habitat under the surface in order to avoid deadly solar radiation that pours onto the Martian surface unimpeded.

Then there are the issues of the human body dealing with reduced gravity for extended periods. Anyone wanna take a stab at what the point of this all is?

Mars has 1/3 of the gravity of Earth. I've heard some people wonder how much of a problem that will be. Maybe that'll be life-threatening, maybe not.

It's all about adventure though. The human spirit hungers for excitement and glamour and Mars provides that. Mars is another mountain to climb. I don't see that excitement as a bad thing. On the contrary, I see such motivation as generally a positive thing...but I think the thing to remember is that most of the benefits of going to Mars are in our heads. Settling Mars will not save any individual from the catastrophe of comets or nuclear war, most likely, because I don't see how any disaster that makes Earth less habitable than Mars would leave any survivors to flee to Mars. Mars, probably at most, would save the species...but even the benefits of the survival of the species are all in our heads. What truly matters is existing people having good lives, and we get that right here on Earth. The primary benefit of settling Mars is it is a new mountain to climb that provides people with dreams of greatness, and I think those dreams of greatness are generally a positive thing.

Now...from a more practical perspective there could be mining options in space, and eventually we might be able to build comfortable places to flee if the earth is in danger, or harvest resources from asteroids but we'll have to make space exploration much cheaper for that to be feasible.

I'd just assume wait a century to develop better and better technology before exploring space again...but we have plenty of people who want to go to Mars now, and enthusiasm is a big part of societal progress. If we don't go to Mars, we could lose the enthusiasm and never be motivated to research those technologies.

The benefits of space exploration are mostly in mind game form.

Really, I wouldn't see it as that bad of a thing for the whole Earth to be blown up...but more likely what will happen is there will be some disaster that will make Earth quite unpleasant, but will leave survivors and they'll want to go some place else. Space, maybe not Mars but rotating space stations that could allow for better gravity and safer environments than Mars, could be their refuge, I'd guess.

[Domitian]

Originally Posted by Clintone

Really, I wouldn't see it as that bad of a thing for the whole Earth to be blown up...but more likely what will happen is there will be some disaster that will make Earth quite unpleasant, but will leave survivors and they'll want to go some place else. Space, maybe not Mars but rotating space stations that could allow for better gravity and safer environments than Mars, could be their refuge, I'd guess.

wow. that's too bad that. I sure wouldnt want to see the Earth be blown up. Survivors of a major disaster would NOT have the ability to leave earth. I'm a pretty handy guy but there's no way in heck I could launch a craft into space.

Rather than Mars which is a rather fruitless effort, technology and treasure should be spent on development of space stations and alternate means of leaving our planet's atmosphere. Rocketry is incredibly expensive, inefficient, and dangerous. Even SpaceX - one of the most innovative in the race - still depends on rocketry to put a vessel into space. We need space elevators and space stations before we need Mars...

[Unsettomati]

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

yeah, like spain coming over to america. was a slow death at first. But we do need to spread out, well, not need, but its a good thing.

No, it was not even remotely like that. The Americas were only marginally different than the Old World as far as climate/habitat, and then only at the level of fine detail. Indeed, Homo sapiens had been living here for many thousands of years. Mars is radically different and, I hate to break it to you, there are no Homo marsiensis dwelling on the red planet.

Now, this is not to say that the idea of living on Mars is hopeless. But it is absolutely nothing like a Spaniard setting foot in Cuba in the last decade of the 15th century. Not. At. All.