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> Humanity has always looked to colonize places seemingly on the margin of livability. I think you're missing my point. It's just dreaming to call Mars "on th

by adekok 9y ago

> Humanity has always looked to colonize places seemingly on the margin of livability. I think you're missing my point. It's just dreaming to call Mars "on the margin of livability". There's insufficient air to breath. No plants will grow there. There's no industry, etc. Every single thing outside of rocks and solar power will have to be brought from Earth. > Northern Europe, the arctic, the Eurasian steppes, etc. Comparing those places to Mars is again dreaming. People have been living in those places for thousands of years, and subsisting on what they can grow / gather / kill locally. No such local lifestyle is possible on Mars. > By living on Mars we'll unlock our ability to live not just there but in space and on other planets. How does that work? Maybe some technology helps, but you can't get past the sheer volume of air / water required to terraform Mars. And once you've done that, it's all on Mars. You can't use it to do anything else. I like science fiction as much as the next person, but your response is a fantastical vision of hope. It requires a hard-nosed engineering approach to turn that hope into reality.

yellowapple 9y ago
"There's insufficient air to breath." Only if we don't make the air ourselves, which is totally doable because... "No plants will grow there." They'll grow in greenhouses, and they'll even grow with Martian soil, probably even with the carbon dioxide that makes up the majority of the Martian atmosphere. Some clever genetic engineering might allow plants to grow outside of greenhouses. Mars is cold, but not that cold compared to other worlds in our solar system. "There's no industry" We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. "water required" Mars has actual ice caps. It might even have liquid water. The water's not nearly as abundant as, say, Ceres (which is a giant sphere of water ice and rock), but it's not scarce, either. Just gotta land in the right spot.
- adekok 9y ago
  Hand-waving is nice, but... Plants don't make air. Plants turn CO2 into O2. If there's no CO2, plants can't make O2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars There's 0.6% of the air of Earth. For all intents and purposes (i.e. human / plants), it's a vacuum. And the surface temperature isn't much better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars -55C is common. An extreme heatwave at the equator is 20C. With lows of -153C. So no, plants don't grow in a vacuum, and they don't grow in -55C. Any greenhouse will have to be pressurized and sealed. This means that the main purpose of plants will be food, not O2 regeneration. Algae do O2 generation better and more efficiently than plants. There is likely enough water for a small colony, if you can get to it, melt it, and it's in the right place. > We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. I suspect you severely underestimate the complexity of our industrial system. It's very hard to create life-support on Mars for a million people. And a million people are nowhere near enough to create a modern industrial base, even with support from Earth.
  - rmah 9y ago
    I vaguely recall reading that a population of apx 200mil is required to maintain a modern industrial society with all bells and whistles (e.g. semiconductor fabs, rockets, etc).
  - InclinedPlane 9y ago
    Mars has abundant CO2, Water (ice), Nitrogen, and even phosphorous. Those are the big things you need to grow food. What is this silliness of "for all intents and purposes it's a vacuum" and "plants don't grow in a vacuum"? Humans can build structures that hold pressure, we can build greenhouses on Mars. That's where we'll grow crops and feed the population of Mars. Please don't pollute the comments here if you're not even going to bother with the bare minimum of intellectual seriousness. Yes we can concentrate the atmosphere of Mars to higher pressures, this isn't even hard. Yes we can build structures to grow crops in. Yes we can keep structures insulated and heated to maintain higher temperatures than ambient outside conditions, as is done routinely across the globe every second of the day on Earth. Is that the limit of your straw-man argument here or do you have anything of substance to say?
    - adekok 9y ago
      > Please don't pollute the comments here if you're not even going to bother with the bare minimum of intellectual seriousness. Ah, yes. The new HN. Everyone else is stupid and lazy. > Yes we can keep structures insulated and heated to maintain higher temperatures than ambient outside conditions, as is done routinely across the globe every second of the day on Earth. Please show me on-Earth greenhouses which are pressurized to 14PSI over external. Constructing a greenhouse isn't hard. Constructing a pressurized greenhouse on Mars is rather a lot harder. > Is that the limit of your straw-man argument here or do you have anything of substance to say? Yes... everyone else is stupid and lazy. And has bad intentions. And isn't honest. Welcome to the new HN. You could take my words at face value. But it's easier (and more intellectually dishonest) to assume the stupidest possible interpretation, and then attack them for your own inadequacies.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
It's too cold to survive in the winter: Winnipeg, Anchorage, Oslo, even Chicago (solution: clothes, weatherproof shelters, heating during winter) Nothing grows there, it's too dry: Saudi Arabia, San Joaquin valley, etc. (solution: irrigation or importation of food) There's no industry: anywhere on Earth before humans lived there (solution: build industry there) In comparison to the leaps that humans have historically achieved, the leap of 21st century man to colonize Mars is practically easy. Polynesians ranged across the Pacific Ocean, not even knowing what they would find until they got there. Yes it will be hard. Uniquely difficult in the history of mankind? No. Impossibly hard? Also no. Worthwhile? Almost certainly. You don't need to terraform Mars to make it habitable anymore than you need to terraform Oslo or Anchorage. You build your own habitats, you make your own air just as today we make our own food and sometimes make our own potable water (using desalination). The difference is merely one of degree. As the 21st century advances our technology will advance as well. People will come to rely on technology producing air and water and food just as today we rely on technology to provide electricity, shelter, heating, and water, and food. The key fallacy here is taking our present state of living as somehow "natural" or non-technological. Humans in the developed world live at the apex of a pyramid of innovation and technological invention that in some cases is only a few years old, and built on a web of industry that spans the globe. It's easy to take such things for granted and imagine that we could live simply without being so dependent on modern technology and industry but that's only a pleasing falsehood, we're quite dependent on modern technology and industry. Without it millions would die, and many settlements would not be feasible. Indeed, the current population levels of California are not sustainable without substantial modern technology. The same will be true for people living on Mars, the only difference is that they won't have the illusory fantasy of believing otherwise available to them.
- adekok 9y ago
  > The key fallacy here is taking our present state of living as somehow "natural" or non-technological. The key fallacy in your argument is taking each solution in isolation. Winnipeg, etc. have summers. They're not always winter. And they have breathable air. And cheap resupply from Mexico via tractor-trailer. Saudia Arabia, etc. has breathable air. And it's just laughable to suggest that because parts of Earth didn't have industry before people, it should be simple to do the same on Mars. Earth has air, water, resources, readily available local food, and cheap re-supply. Mars has none of that. Mars is Winnipeg in the winter (i.e. all the time), with the water of Saudi Arabia (i.e. none), with the resources of a polynesian volcanic island (i.e. rock), and the breathable air worse than the top of Everest, the food availability of Saudia Arabia, and is at the end of a 1-2 year resupply line. All at the same time. I like dreaming as much as the next person. But colonizing Mars won't be done on dreams. It will require hard-nosed engineering.

by adekok 9y ago

yellowapple 9y ago

"There's insufficient air to breath." Only if we don't make the air ourselves, which is totally doable because... "No plants will grow there." They'll grow in greenhouses, and they'll even grow with Martian soil, probably even with the carbon dioxide that makes up the majority of the Martian atmosphere. Some clever genetic engineering might allow plants to grow outside of greenhouses. Mars is cold, but not that cold compared to other worlds in our solar system. "There's no industry" We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. "water required" Mars has actual ice caps. It might even have liquid water. The water's not nearly as abundant as, say, Ceres (which is a giant sphere of water ice and rock), but it's not scarce, either. Just gotta land in the right spot.

adekok 9y ago
Hand-waving is nice, but... Plants don't make air. Plants turn CO2 into O2. If there's no CO2, plants can't make O2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars There's 0.6% of the air of Earth. For all intents and purposes (i.e. human / plants), it's a vacuum. And the surface temperature isn't much better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Mars -55C is common. An extreme heatwave at the equator is 20C. With lows of -153C. So no, plants don't grow in a vacuum, and they don't grow in -55C. Any greenhouse will have to be pressurized and sealed. This means that the main purpose of plants will be food, not O2 regeneration. Algae do O2 generation better and more efficiently than plants. There is likely enough water for a small colony, if you can get to it, melt it, and it's in the right place. > We're talking about a colony of a million people or more. With that kind of workforce available, bootstrapping an industrial complex is not insurmountable. I suspect you severely underestimate the complexity of our industrial system. It's very hard to create life-support on Mars for a million people. And a million people are nowhere near enough to create a modern industrial base, even with support from Earth.
- rmah 9y ago
  I vaguely recall reading that a population of apx 200mil is required to maintain a modern industrial society with all bells and whistles (e.g. semiconductor fabs, rockets, etc).
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  Mars has abundant CO2, Water (ice), Nitrogen, and even phosphorous. Those are the big things you need to grow food. What is this silliness of "for all intents and purposes it's a vacuum" and "plants don't grow in a vacuum"? Humans can build structures that hold pressure, we can build greenhouses on Mars. That's where we'll grow crops and feed the population of Mars. Please don't pollute the comments here if you're not even going to bother with the bare minimum of intellectual seriousness. Yes we can concentrate the atmosphere of Mars to higher pressures, this isn't even hard. Yes we can build structures to grow crops in. Yes we can keep structures insulated and heated to maintain higher temperatures than ambient outside conditions, as is done routinely across the globe every second of the day on Earth. Is that the limit of your straw-man argument here or do you have anything of substance to say?
  - adekok 9y ago
    > Please don't pollute the comments here if you're not even going to bother with the bare minimum of intellectual seriousness. Ah, yes. The new HN. Everyone else is stupid and lazy. > Yes we can keep structures insulated and heated to maintain higher temperatures than ambient outside conditions, as is done routinely across the globe every second of the day on Earth. Please show me on-Earth greenhouses which are pressurized to 14PSI over external. Constructing a greenhouse isn't hard. Constructing a pressurized greenhouse on Mars is rather a lot harder. > Is that the limit of your straw-man argument here or do you have anything of substance to say? Yes... everyone else is stupid and lazy. And has bad intentions. And isn't honest. Welcome to the new HN. You could take my words at face value. But it's easier (and more intellectually dishonest) to assume the stupidest possible interpretation, and then attack them for your own inadequacies.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

It's too cold to survive in the winter: Winnipeg, Anchorage, Oslo, even Chicago (solution: clothes, weatherproof shelters, heating during winter) Nothing grows there, it's too dry: Saudi Arabia, San Joaquin valley, etc. (solution: irrigation or importation of food) There's no industry: anywhere on Earth before humans lived there (solution: build industry there) In comparison to the leaps that humans have historically achieved, the leap of 21st century man to colonize Mars is practically easy. Polynesians ranged across the Pacific Ocean, not even knowing what they would find until they got there. Yes it will be hard. Uniquely difficult in the history of mankind? No. Impossibly hard? Also no. Worthwhile? Almost certainly. You don't need to terraform Mars to make it habitable anymore than you need to terraform Oslo or Anchorage. You build your own habitats, you make your own air just as today we make our own food and sometimes make our own potable water (using desalination). The difference is merely one of degree. As the 21st century advances our technology will advance as well. People will come to rely on technology producing air and water and food just as today we rely on technology to provide electricity, shelter, heating, and water, and food. The key fallacy here is taking our present state of living as somehow "natural" or non-technological. Humans in the developed world live at the apex of a pyramid of innovation and technological invention that in some cases is only a few years old, and built on a web of industry that spans the globe. It's easy to take such things for granted and imagine that we could live simply without being so dependent on modern technology and industry but that's only a pleasing falsehood, we're quite dependent on modern technology and industry. Without it millions would die, and many settlements would not be feasible. Indeed, the current population levels of California are not sustainable without substantial modern technology. The same will be true for people living on Mars, the only difference is that they won't have the illusory fantasy of believing otherwise available to them.

adekok 9y ago
> The key fallacy here is taking our present state of living as somehow "natural" or non-technological. The key fallacy in your argument is taking each solution in isolation. Winnipeg, etc. have summers. They're not always winter. And they have breathable air. And cheap resupply from Mexico via tractor-trailer. Saudia Arabia, etc. has breathable air. And it's just laughable to suggest that because parts of Earth didn't have industry before people, it should be simple to do the same on Mars. Earth has air, water, resources, readily available local food, and cheap re-supply. Mars has none of that. Mars is Winnipeg in the winter (i.e. all the time), with the water of Saudi Arabia (i.e. none), with the resources of a polynesian volcanic island (i.e. rock), and the breathable air worse than the top of Everest, the food availability of Saudia Arabia, and is at the end of a 1-2 year resupply line. All at the same time. I like dreaming as much as the next person. But colonizing Mars won't be done on dreams. It will require hard-nosed engineering.