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Buzz Aldrin: It's time to focus on the great migration of humankind to Mars

7 points by spking 8y ago

skilled 8y ago
Couldn't he have sent a text to his Elite friends instead? Why announce it to the world when 99.9% of people are not affected by this? Oh wait... They need your money to do it.
sadris 8y ago
How about instead of colonizing mars, we colonize Greenland first? Or Antarctica?
- bigiain 8y ago
  There's no reason both of those can't be done at the same time. The people/technology/equipment required to colonise Greenland or Antarctica have very small crossover with the people/tech/equipment required to colonise Mars. (And while the money required is "the same money" - the costs of colonising Greenland disappear into the noise of the costs required to colonise Mars.)
  - flukus 8y ago
    Most of the tech is the same, only the transport differs. Getting people to live in a lava tube in Antartica permanently would at least tell us if the idea is feasible for the human psyche, it's basically the same as mars but warmer and with easier access to water.
clouddrover 8y ago
Without a global magnetosphere, or an atmosphere to breathe, I think life on Mars will be pretty miserable. I see less of a great migration and more of a tiny outpost.
- anfilt 8y ago
  You really only need a magnetosphere on the side facing the sun. It's probably possible to make satellite do that job. Calculations show you need about 2 Teslas or 20,000 Gauss. We can already produce such fields here on earth. I would say the thin atmosphere is a bigger problem. It means your stuck in a box or a suit to provide oxygen and pressure. While giving mars an atmosphere is possible in theory. A fair amount of the rock on mars are oxides. The energy required to extract enough to have any sizeable effect on the planet are insane. Like we are lucky enough we had plants do this over those course of millions of years to produce such an oxygen rich atmosphere. It might be easier to just build bigger boxes though. Really if we are serious about this we need to building infrastructure that allows boot strapping further and further. If there is going to be any meaningful migration or settlement. Living in small boxes like the ISS or in caves does not really help on that regard. Honestly, the first people to go and build this infrastructure are going to have some toughest jobs ahead of them.
ddingus 8y ago
Getting our environment into a less volitile state, and in the US, Health Care into a more sane, civilized state are much higher priorities. I will be ultra frank: So long as I see my nation continuing resource and politically motivated aggression, while basically shitting on the majority of it's people, fuck Mars. That is from a policy perspective. Private entities seeking that goal are just fine, provided they are, in fact, paying their fair share of taxes. Have at it! No worries. As a nation, and I am speaking from and as a citizen of the USA, no way. Our national priorities are way out of order. Dangerously so.
coder4life 8y ago
Mars has 40% of Earth's gravity, which will have very bad consequences: https://www.wired.com/2014/02/happens-body-mars/ https://www.wired.com/2014/02/happens-body-mars/

7 points by spking 8y ago

Couldn't he have sent a text to his Elite friends instead? Why announce it to the world when 99.9% of people are not affected by this? Oh wait... They need your money to do it.

sadris 8y ago

How about instead of colonizing mars, we colonize Greenland first? Or Antarctica?

bigiain 8y ago
There's no reason both of those can't be done at the same time. The people/technology/equipment required to colonise Greenland or Antarctica have very small crossover with the people/tech/equipment required to colonise Mars. (And while the money required is "the same money" - the costs of colonising Greenland disappear into the noise of the costs required to colonise Mars.)
- flukus 8y ago
  Most of the tech is the same, only the transport differs. Getting people to live in a lava tube in Antartica permanently would at least tell us if the idea is feasible for the human psyche, it's basically the same as mars but warmer and with easier access to water.

clouddrover 8y ago

Without a global magnetosphere, or an atmosphere to breathe, I think life on Mars will be pretty miserable. I see less of a great migration and more of a tiny outpost.

anfilt 8y ago
You really only need a magnetosphere on the side facing the sun. It's probably possible to make satellite do that job. Calculations show you need about 2 Teslas or 20,000 Gauss. We can already produce such fields here on earth. I would say the thin atmosphere is a bigger problem. It means your stuck in a box or a suit to provide oxygen and pressure. While giving mars an atmosphere is possible in theory. A fair amount of the rock on mars are oxides. The energy required to extract enough to have any sizeable effect on the planet are insane. Like we are lucky enough we had plants do this over those course of millions of years to produce such an oxygen rich atmosphere. It might be easier to just build bigger boxes though. Really if we are serious about this we need to building infrastructure that allows boot strapping further and further. If there is going to be any meaningful migration or settlement. Living in small boxes like the ISS or in caves does not really help on that regard. Honestly, the first people to go and build this infrastructure are going to have some toughest jobs ahead of them.

ddingus 8y ago

Getting our environment into a less volitile state, and in the US, Health Care into a more sane, civilized state are much higher priorities. I will be ultra frank: So long as I see my nation continuing resource and politically motivated aggression, while basically shitting on the majority of it's people, fuck Mars. That is from a policy perspective. Private entities seeking that goal are just fine, provided they are, in fact, paying their fair share of taxes. Have at it! No worries. As a nation, and I am speaking from and as a citizen of the USA, no way. Our national priorities are way out of order. Dangerously so.

coder4life 8y ago

Mars has 40% of Earth's gravity, which will have very bad consequences: https://www.wired.com/2014/02/happens-body-mars/ https://www.wired.com/2014/02/happens-body-mars/