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Colonizing Mars is a stupid, fundamentally impossible idea. > I seldom hear "Maybe we should stop making movies until we get our shit together" even though Hol

Colonizing Mars is a stupid, fundamentally impossible idea. > I seldom hear "Maybe we should stop making movies until we get our shit together" even though Hollywood has a budget about the same size as NASA's or slightly larger. People are somewhat free to spend their money on what they choose. Taxes, not so much.

Symmetry 8y ago
Wait, fundamentally impossible? If you were to say it were technologically impossible or economically impossible I think I might be inclined to agree with you, we're a long way from a self-sustaining Mars colony being feasible. But what fundamental limits are there that couldn't be fixed with a proper application of technology? We know how to build centrifuges to simulate gravity and radiation shielding. We know all the elements necessary for life are present on Mars and I'm not seeing any fundamental problems with keeping people alive, though there are certainly a lot of things that need to be figured out. I don't think colonizing other planets in the solar system is a good strategy for giving the human race a second chance because its only a very narrow range of disasters that could wipe out all humans on Earth but spare a colony on Mars. But there's an incredible amount of science to be gained through more exploration of the solar system. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth to that of Mars and Venus has helped a lot in understanding the details of global warming and ozone depletion. We don't know exactly how fundamental science research is going to pay off but it has before and I'd argue that there is actually something of fundamental value in understanding the universe better.
- linuxftw 8y ago
  > Comparing the atmosphere of Earth to that of Mars and Venus has helped a lot in understanding the details of global warming and ozone depletion. Research for the purposes of improving life on Earth may be a good use of tax payer dollars. Establishing a colony is a whole other thing, which implies sustained human existence in a location for the purposes of either species propagation/continuation or resource extraction. Mining things in space and sending them home to Earth is science fiction nonsense. The energy required means it's fundamentally impossible to have a profitable operation resource extraction from a colony.
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    Nobody is proposing that tax dollars be used to fund a colony. Elon is says he's planning on doing that using profits from SpaceX's other business. I'm not aware of anyone every proposing that people mine minerals on Mars for shipment back to Earth. I have heard people talk about using propellant made on Mars to fuel voyages further out, Zubrin is big on that idea, but that's another kettle of fish - energy and mass can cost different amounts in different places. People sometimes talk about mining asteroids and bringing the resulting minerals to Earth. I'm not sure that that is economically feasible, at least right now, but it avoids the big problem of having to launch stuff out of Mars's gravity well. Technically speaking the energy involved in getting an asteroid from the main belt to Earth is steeply negative so I don't think you could say that it's impossible on a strictly energy accounting basis, especially since there's no fixed rule establishing the relative value of energy and matter across different technological regimes. But right now we spend huge amount of energy lofting satellites into orbit around the Earth. If we could use material that was already in space to build satellites in orbit that would be much cheaper from a strictly energy accounting standpoint. That would, of course, require some technological advances but makes a lot of sense if you just look at it in terms of energy.
  - w8vY7ER 8y ago
    >Mining things in space and sending them home to Earth is science fiction nonsense. hold tight to this while it is still true, might not be for much longer :)

Symmetry 8y ago

Wait, fundamentally impossible? If you were to say it were technologically impossible or economically impossible I think I might be inclined to agree with you, we're a long way from a self-sustaining Mars colony being feasible. But what fundamental limits are there that couldn't be fixed with a proper application of technology? We know how to build centrifuges to simulate gravity and radiation shielding. We know all the elements necessary for life are present on Mars and I'm not seeing any fundamental problems with keeping people alive, though there are certainly a lot of things that need to be figured out. I don't think colonizing other planets in the solar system is a good strategy for giving the human race a second chance because its only a very narrow range of disasters that could wipe out all humans on Earth but spare a colony on Mars. But there's an incredible amount of science to be gained through more exploration of the solar system. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth to that of Mars and Venus has helped a lot in understanding the details of global warming and ozone depletion. We don't know exactly how fundamental science research is going to pay off but it has before and I'd argue that there is actually something of fundamental value in understanding the universe better.

linuxftw 8y ago
> Comparing the atmosphere of Earth to that of Mars and Venus has helped a lot in understanding the details of global warming and ozone depletion. Research for the purposes of improving life on Earth may be a good use of tax payer dollars. Establishing a colony is a whole other thing, which implies sustained human existence in a location for the purposes of either species propagation/continuation or resource extraction. Mining things in space and sending them home to Earth is science fiction nonsense. The energy required means it's fundamentally impossible to have a profitable operation resource extraction from a colony.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  Nobody is proposing that tax dollars be used to fund a colony. Elon is says he's planning on doing that using profits from SpaceX's other business. I'm not aware of anyone every proposing that people mine minerals on Mars for shipment back to Earth. I have heard people talk about using propellant made on Mars to fuel voyages further out, Zubrin is big on that idea, but that's another kettle of fish - energy and mass can cost different amounts in different places. People sometimes talk about mining asteroids and bringing the resulting minerals to Earth. I'm not sure that that is economically feasible, at least right now, but it avoids the big problem of having to launch stuff out of Mars's gravity well. Technically speaking the energy involved in getting an asteroid from the main belt to Earth is steeply negative so I don't think you could say that it's impossible on a strictly energy accounting basis, especially since there's no fixed rule establishing the relative value of energy and matter across different technological regimes. But right now we spend huge amount of energy lofting satellites into orbit around the Earth. If we could use material that was already in space to build satellites in orbit that would be much cheaper from a strictly energy accounting standpoint. That would, of course, require some technological advances but makes a lot of sense if you just look at it in terms of energy.
- w8vY7ER 8y ago
  >Mining things in space and sending them home to Earth is science fiction nonsense. hold tight to this while it is still true, might not be for much longer :)