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...And this is why Mars for colonists is still very much a turgid fantasy. We need to dream less, and commit more to the hard and expensive org of solving these

...And this is why Mars for colonists is still very much a turgid fantasy. We need to dream less, and commit more to the hard and expensive org of solving these problems. Step 1: stop stripping NASA down to bare metal. Here’s some possible insight into the impact of radiation on their brains: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-damage-astronauts-brains http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-d... this is in addition to bones, muscles, eyes, etc. Edit: the prevalence of downvotes and the lack of a coherent argument is painfully telling. Remember that you have to get to Mars as well. Edit re product50: Can’t do this one very specific thing, for good reasons, and only for now. Hint! If your magic trick requires that all of the skeptics leave the room, it’s not magic, it’s a con.

jack9 9y ago
There's a strong sentiment that anything anti-mars-enthusiasm hurts humanity more than helps. There's absolutely nothing to support this idea, other than some misplaced notion of hope in the face of nihilism of our terrestrial problems. In proper pragmatic context, if we can't colonize the moon, sending people to Mars is a massive waste and overly dangerous. Nobody wants to admit to that, because movie fantasy has somehow reinforced this mystical goal in some form of misplaced nationalist sentiment about America-fuck-yeah (as far as I can tell).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
product50 9y ago
Yeah - so instead let us not do anything and spend our time commenting on random threads how bad the idea is. You realize that at every cusp of a major technological breakthrough, there were 100s of people like you saying how terrible the idea was? You are getting downvoted for your pessimistic and can't do attitude than anything else.
- danso 9y ago
  Well of course we don't track very well all the major ambitions that failed because of undue optimism.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
valuearb 9y ago
Stripping NASA down to bare metal? The same NASA that’s spending over $2B a launch to build the SLS, when they could buy the same capacity from private launch companies at less than 1/10th the cost? And radiation is not a significant threat, we will have hundreds if not thousands of qualified astronauts fighting over being one of the first to take the relatively minor radiation risks to be the first to go.
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  The same NASA who subsidized private contractors, so they could reach this price with equipment, science and funds?
  - valuearb 9y ago
    NASA didn’t subsidize SpaceX, like commercial customers it signed contracts for specific services, and specifically because SpaceX was cheap. ULA got $1B a year for “readiness” and its launches cost at least double the cost of SpaceX. If you want to give credit to NASA for cheap private launch systems, then why isn’t it using them, and has it blown $20B in pork trying to replace them?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  we will have hundreds if not thousands of qualified astronauts fighting over being one of the first to take the relatively minor radiation risks to be the first to go Same with the age of sail, which claimed many lives, often for the dubious benefit of a few wealthy assholes who never touched a ship. Are you volunteering to be first to Mars?
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Nope, i’m not qualified. Anyone who dies will do it with their eyes open. Let’s put it this way. If we can land explorers on Mars for $100B at a 5% risk of death, or spent $1 trillion to reduce that risk to 1%, should we wait decades to find funding for the safer plan?
pvaldes 9y ago
Well, if we know positively than human body can't stand such travel, then the only answer to colonize mars is sending humans that doesn't have a body. This could solve the problem.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Or just a more ambitious plan, including funding for advanced radiation shielding, a rotating section for gravity etc. we can do it, but it’s going to take a lot of work, money, and time. All people seem to want is a magical billionaire.
  - pvaldes 9y ago
    Or building a robotic uterus and robotic teachparents, sending a box full of frozen sperm and frozen ovules to mars at full 'delivering pizza velocity' and re-assembling humans directly when reaching destiny Some interesting moral questions would arise, like how can you volunteer and agree to go to mars if nobody asked you before to send you to the space?
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      Moral quandaries aside, I like how you think.
crush-n-spread 9y ago
We need to dream big while we commit to solving the problems spaceflight poses to human health. Whether or not NASA has the right amount of funding is not going to make or break this; instead, we need to lower the cost of spaceflight and start sending more stuff and more people up there. With the cost of going to space lowered one hundred times, suddenly NASA's current budget becomes quite sufficient. This article is one man's emotional retelling of his first days on Earth after a year in LEO (he's trying to sell his book). In contrast, a trip to Mars is only three months, and it will be on a ship with a water layer (radiation shielding) between the outer hull and the cabin - a much better environment for humans. Thus this article is not the determining factor for whether or not Mars is a pipe dream. The other big danger of spaceflight is the body's response to microgravity, which can be solved with a massive centrifuge. Hard, but possible. Telling humans to not dream and have hope for colonizing Mars is an egregious offence. The window of technology is open, but it will not be open forever. We will lose our technology in the future, either soon or in many millenia. In addition, there is rising tension in our low-growth society. A few more natural disasters or bad geo-political alliances and tensions might explode, hastening the closing of our technology window. Should that window close, and we fail to reach Mars, then humans will be a grand failure: We had all the resources to colonize another planet and begin colonizing the Universe, but instead we killed ourselves as we gave in to our aggressive tendencies. Thus we _must_ be more ambitious. We _must_ dream big and strive every day to do the impossible, for the cost of not striving may be another 14-billion-year waiting period to get the opportunity to do this again, on another planet, at another time, waiting for another species to awaken with consciousness and begin it's own effort to overcome the Great Filter[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I’m into science, not quasi religious hope in the face of the terror of our own extinction. If we leave Earth, we’ll be solving nothing, we are the problem. At best we’d be delaying something, not solving the underlying issues of what led us to flee Earth. If you think of Mars as a backup for Earth then think again, it needs to be independent of Earth, and that’s a dream for now. Less hope, more rational thought might save us; hope lets you ignore reality and live for a dream. Just live.

jack9 9y ago

There's a strong sentiment that anything anti-mars-enthusiasm hurts humanity more than helps. There's absolutely nothing to support this idea, other than some misplaced notion of hope in the face of nihilism of our terrestrial problems. In proper pragmatic context, if we can't colonize the moon, sending people to Mars is a massive waste and overly dangerous. Nobody wants to admit to that, because movie fantasy has somehow reinforced this mystical goal in some form of misplaced nationalist sentiment about America-fuck-yeah (as far as I can tell).

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

product50 9y ago

Yeah - so instead let us not do anything and spend our time commenting on random threads how bad the idea is. You realize that at every cusp of a major technological breakthrough, there were 100s of people like you saying how terrible the idea was? You are getting downvoted for your pessimistic and can't do attitude than anything else.

danso 9y ago
Well of course we don't track very well all the major ambitions that failed because of undue optimism.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

valuearb 9y ago

Stripping NASA down to bare metal? The same NASA that’s spending over $2B a launch to build the SLS, when they could buy the same capacity from private launch companies at less than 1/10th the cost? And radiation is not a significant threat, we will have hundreds if not thousands of qualified astronauts fighting over being one of the first to take the relatively minor radiation risks to be the first to go.

WillReplyfFood 9y ago
The same NASA who subsidized private contractors, so they could reach this price with equipment, science and funds?
- valuearb 9y ago
  NASA didn’t subsidize SpaceX, like commercial customers it signed contracts for specific services, and specifically because SpaceX was cheap. ULA got $1B a year for “readiness” and its launches cost at least double the cost of SpaceX. If you want to give credit to NASA for cheap private launch systems, then why isn’t it using them, and has it blown $20B in pork trying to replace them?
QAPereo 9y ago
we will have hundreds if not thousands of qualified astronauts fighting over being one of the first to take the relatively minor radiation risks to be the first to go Same with the age of sail, which claimed many lives, often for the dubious benefit of a few wealthy assholes who never touched a ship. Are you volunteering to be first to Mars?
- valuearb 9y ago
  Nope, i’m not qualified. Anyone who dies will do it with their eyes open. Let’s put it this way. If we can land explorers on Mars for $100B at a 5% risk of death, or spent $1 trillion to reduce that risk to 1%, should we wait decades to find funding for the safer plan?

pvaldes 9y ago

Well, if we know positively than human body can't stand such travel, then the only answer to colonize mars is sending humans that doesn't have a body. This could solve the problem.

QAPereo 9y ago
Or just a more ambitious plan, including funding for advanced radiation shielding, a rotating section for gravity etc. we can do it, but it’s going to take a lot of work, money, and time. All people seem to want is a magical billionaire.
- pvaldes 9y ago
  Or building a robotic uterus and robotic teachparents, sending a box full of frozen sperm and frozen ovules to mars at full 'delivering pizza velocity' and re-assembling humans directly when reaching destiny Some interesting moral questions would arise, like how can you volunteer and agree to go to mars if nobody asked you before to send you to the space?
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Moral quandaries aside, I like how you think.

crush-n-spread 9y ago

We need to dream big while we commit to solving the problems spaceflight poses to human health. Whether or not NASA has the right amount of funding is not going to make or break this; instead, we need to lower the cost of spaceflight and start sending more stuff and more people up there. With the cost of going to space lowered one hundred times, suddenly NASA's current budget becomes quite sufficient. This article is one man's emotional retelling of his first days on Earth after a year in LEO (he's trying to sell his book). In contrast, a trip to Mars is only three months, and it will be on a ship with a water layer (radiation shielding) between the outer hull and the cabin - a much better environment for humans. Thus this article is not the determining factor for whether or not Mars is a pipe dream. The other big danger of spaceflight is the body's response to microgravity, which can be solved with a massive centrifuge. Hard, but possible. Telling humans to not dream and have hope for colonizing Mars is an egregious offence. The window of technology is open, but it will not be open forever. We will lose our technology in the future, either soon or in many millenia. In addition, there is rising tension in our low-growth society. A few more natural disasters or bad geo-political alliances and tensions might explode, hastening the closing of our technology window. Should that window close, and we fail to reach Mars, then humans will be a grand failure: We had all the resources to colonize another planet and begin colonizing the Universe, but instead we killed ourselves as we gave in to our aggressive tendencies. Thus we _must_ be more ambitious. We _must_ dream big and strive every day to do the impossible, for the cost of not striving may be another 14-billion-year waiting period to get the opportunity to do this again, on another planet, at another time, waiting for another species to awaken with consciousness and begin it's own effort to overcome the Great Filter[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

QAPereo 9y ago
I’m into science, not quasi religious hope in the face of the terror of our own extinction. If we leave Earth, we’ll be solving nothing, we are the problem. At best we’d be delaying something, not solving the underlying issues of what led us to flee Earth. If you think of Mars as a backup for Earth then think again, it needs to be independent of Earth, and that’s a dream for now. Less hope, more rational thought might save us; hope lets you ignore reality and live for a dream. Just live.