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"Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars." Which I continue to misunderstand ... You can go to Mars ... you can have

by rsync 10y ago

"Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars." Which I continue to misunderstand ... You can go to Mars ... you can have an outpost on Mars ... you can have scientists and tourists and so on go back and forth to Mars - all very positive and exciting. But you can't live on Mars for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 of earths. Your teeth will decay. Your bones will weaken (even with hours per day of resistance work, which will be mandatory). Your heart will weaken. Your organs will malfunction. You will get cancer from a weakened immune system. Red blood production goes down. Your body is built for and tightly coupled to Earths gravity. I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan.

vkou 10y ago
We know the problems of long-term exposure to zero-G, but will long-term exposure to .3G have them? I'm genuinely curious.
donkeyd 10y ago
> I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan. Maybe they just cant can't, but don't care. Some people could be willing to decrease their lifespan in order to colonize a different planet, making the human race interplanetary. Also, theoretically, people will evolve over time to be able to handle those conditions. We're used to making plans a couple years ahead. When thinking of interplanetary colonization, we should think many generations ahead.
- vkou 10y ago
  Evolution happens over many generations, if people who are less fit for survival die before, or are prevented from reproducing. You don't want to go down that road.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    The alternative is to stay on a planet where 20-40% of people don't even "believe in" evolution or taking care of the planet which their eventual descendants would need to inhabit, many times in favor of short-term capital gains. I fail to see how we're not already, as of about a hundred years ago, pretty screwed either way.
    - vkou 10y ago
      What makes you think that all the worst aspects of our myopic culture won't follow us into space?
  - ericb 10y ago
    Reproductive fitness is less scary--it doesn't always mean "prevented from reproducing" * Imagine 20% of the population has adaptations that make them better suited to mars--they keep their teeth, their bones are stronger, they do well in sports, they have more energy to take care of kids, so they have 1 extra kid on average. In one generation, that percentage is 30% and in one more it is 45%, one after that and it is the majority and heads toward 100%. What we'll be looking at is speciation. Also, evolution is at-work on our population as we speak--it doesn't take breaks.
avmich 10y ago
> But you can't live on Mars for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 of earths. Can't you rather cheaply create a centrifuge where you'll sleep - and may be even work indoors - which will maintain 1G? Centrifuge big enough so no significant side forces would occur?
- ASalazarMX 10y ago
  This is my question as well. We do that at fairs for fun, a spinning habitat seems very feasible.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Feasible for a few billion people, eventually? This concept has been explored in many sci-fi shows, with the usual solution being to make a big ring and spin it in space.
    - avmich 10y ago
      We can solve problems incrementally - we often do, and space access history is a good example for that.
  - perilunar 10y ago
    It wouldn't even need to _spin_. You could mount the habitat on a large, banked, circular track and just drive around it at a constant speed. Or if you wanted to go underground, bore a large circular tunnel and put the habitat inside.
noselasd 10y ago
We only know how the human body reacts in 0g - and it's as bad as you say. But we don't know if 0.3g is bad. Humans might live perfectly fine in 0.3g, or it might be as bad as 0g. However, there's no data either way to make the claims you are making.

by rsync 10y ago

vkou 10y ago

We know the problems of long-term exposure to zero-G, but will long-term exposure to .3G have them? I'm genuinely curious.

donkeyd 10y ago

> I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan. Maybe they just cant can't, but don't care. Some people could be willing to decrease their lifespan in order to colonize a different planet, making the human race interplanetary. Also, theoretically, people will evolve over time to be able to handle those conditions. We're used to making plans a couple years ahead. When thinking of interplanetary colonization, we should think many generations ahead.

vkou 10y ago
Evolution happens over many generations, if people who are less fit for survival die before, or are prevented from reproducing. You don't want to go down that road.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  The alternative is to stay on a planet where 20-40% of people don't even "believe in" evolution or taking care of the planet which their eventual descendants would need to inhabit, many times in favor of short-term capital gains. I fail to see how we're not already, as of about a hundred years ago, pretty screwed either way.
  - vkou 10y ago
    What makes you think that all the worst aspects of our myopic culture won't follow us into space?
- ericb 10y ago
  Reproductive fitness is less scary--it doesn't always mean "prevented from reproducing" * Imagine 20% of the population has adaptations that make them better suited to mars--they keep their teeth, their bones are stronger, they do well in sports, they have more energy to take care of kids, so they have 1 extra kid on average. In one generation, that percentage is 30% and in one more it is 45%, one after that and it is the majority and heads toward 100%. What we'll be looking at is speciation. Also, evolution is at-work on our population as we speak--it doesn't take breaks.

avmich 10y ago

> But you can't live on Mars for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 of earths. Can't you rather cheaply create a centrifuge where you'll sleep - and may be even work indoors - which will maintain 1G? Centrifuge big enough so no significant side forces would occur?

ASalazarMX 10y ago
This is my question as well. We do that at fairs for fun, a spinning habitat seems very feasible.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Feasible for a few billion people, eventually? This concept has been explored in many sci-fi shows, with the usual solution being to make a big ring and spin it in space.
  - avmich 10y ago
    We can solve problems incrementally - we often do, and space access history is a good example for that.
- perilunar 10y ago
  It wouldn't even need to _spin_. You could mount the habitat on a large, banked, circular track and just drive around it at a constant speed. Or if you wanted to go underground, bore a large circular tunnel and put the habitat inside.

noselasd 10y ago

We only know how the human body reacts in 0g - and it's as bad as you say. But we don't know if 0.3g is bad. Humans might live perfectly fine in 0.3g, or it might be as bad as 0g. However, there's no data either way to make the claims you are making.