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> I think an actual Mars colony is centuries out just due to the amount of things left to invent to make it viable. More importantly, there just isn’t enough r

> I think an actual Mars colony is centuries out just due to the amount of things left to invent to make it viable. More importantly, there just isn’t enough reason to bother doing it aside from satisfying the Edmund Hillary “because it’s there” urge. If you want more space to live, you’d be better off investing in women’s health and education so long run population trends can go down here in Earth. If you want natural resources, you’d be better off figuring out how to mine asteroids so you don’t need to contend with overcoming a planetary gravity well to get them home. If you want to push the envelope with terraforming, you’d be better off focusing on ambitious plans for carbon sequestration on Earth. If you want to engineer us out of the “all our eggs in one planetary basket” problem, you probably want to first build permanent stations in outer space that are as self-sustaining as possible since those technologies will be foundational for both a Mars colony AND for building generation ships. Basically, there are much more useful and generalizable technologies you can throw money at than a pointless Mars colony. I don’t get the obsession with that over everything else.

rtkwe 7y ago
Mars does have some benefits as the main living space over a space station at least. Gravity is gratis for one which really helps with long term health and we don't have to completely redesign our current technology to work if there's gravity where we will in space. And yes the resources for Earth are better found in the asteroid belt but it would probably be easier to mine and extract on Mars again because of gravity and locality. [-1] The atmosphere, thin as it is, is still a convenient source for carbon and oxygen to support the life support cycle and could maybe be a source of nitrogen for growing plants. In those ways it's maybe an easier first long term settlement than space or the moon ignoring the cost of bringing everything there and resupply missions. [0] I think it may be more likely to happen somewhere with gravity just given how much development still needs to be done to extract materials out of asteroids. There's a lot to work through in being able to refine stuff like metals in micro gravity that hasn't even started yet. If history is any judge though we'll go to Mars long before it's really viable simply because it's there. Hopefully not too many people get caught up in it. [0] Unless it's turns out to be viable to bake similar resources out of lunar regolith. I haven't read deeply enough to see if that's just SciFi or a viable source of the basic elementals needed to support a settlement. [-1] edit: To clarify here I mean on Mars for consumption on Mars of course. Though Mar's much thinner atmosphere would also make some more exotic launch technologies potentially viable. eg: a rail/coil gun launch to a skyhook maybe given the much lower atmospheric drag it would experience.
- naravara 7y ago
  >Gravity is gratis for one which really helps with long term health and we don't have to completely redesign our current technology to work if there's gravity where we will in space. And yes the resources for Earth are better found in the asteroid belt but it would probably be easier to mine and extract on Mars again because of gravity and locality. The atmosphere, thin as it is, is still a convenient source for carbon and oxygen to support the life support cycle and could maybe be a source of nitrogen for growing plants. In those ways it's maybe an easier first long term settlement than space or the moon ignoring the cost of bringing everything there and resupply missions. [0] Well, sort of. Most of these aren't as convenient as they sound. Gravity is only about 40% of Earth's IIRC, so if you had humans there you'd still be contending with loss of muscle and bone density. If we're talking about ambitious future technology I think a spinning wheel station is probably a more stable way to keep people healthy. Plus you have to contend with seasons and weather. Wind, dust, wild temperature swings and all the extra wear on materials you will get as a result. . . It would also take forever to actually thicken up the atmosphere, so you would probably want to be careful how much you go pulling CO2 out of the air to grow plants if long-term viability is your priority. As for mining, locality is a big help, especially if you're going to be remote-controlling drones, but contending with landing/taking-off on a planet is a huge logistical expense. Particularly if you're dealing with lots of heavy machinery for mining.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Yeah I'm not saying it's easy just convenient. Ring stations are a bit tricky because they have to be quite big before you stop experiencing appreciable differences in the 'gravity' between your head and feet which would probably cause some novel medical issues. I was mostly thinking about the long term once we have people living their whole lives in either location having some gravity even at a fraction would make Mars more hospitable for long term living. In either location the initial construction will be very intensive/expensive in space you need to launch or refine and assemble vast amounts of material where on Mars there's the option of a small starter base while you dig tunnels out for the main living quarters. [0] Either path is definitely difficult I'm just trying to highlight the ways Mars is less of a leap because it's another planet and we don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to things like extracting and refining metals or every single industrial process that makes the modern world tick. > It would also take forever to actually thicken up the atmosphere, so you would probably want to be careful how much you go pulling CO2 out of the air to grow plants if long-term viability is your priority. I don't think this is actually a huge concern making the atmosphere livable without a suit will take an incredible amount of engineering and like on Earth while we're talking about raw elemental materials the amount humans can possibly use pales in comparison to the amount available. [1] Any project like that will dwarf anything we've done to date. [0] With several intermediate steps like building habitats out of processed rocks from the surface for example. [1] There are rare exceptions I know of like Helium where the main issue is still cheap supply not actually running out.

rtkwe 7y ago

Mars does have some benefits as the main living space over a space station at least. Gravity is gratis for one which really helps with long term health and we don't have to completely redesign our current technology to work if there's gravity where we will in space. And yes the resources for Earth are better found in the asteroid belt but it would probably be easier to mine and extract on Mars again because of gravity and locality. [-1] The atmosphere, thin as it is, is still a convenient source for carbon and oxygen to support the life support cycle and could maybe be a source of nitrogen for growing plants. In those ways it's maybe an easier first long term settlement than space or the moon ignoring the cost of bringing everything there and resupply missions. [0] I think it may be more likely to happen somewhere with gravity just given how much development still needs to be done to extract materials out of asteroids. There's a lot to work through in being able to refine stuff like metals in micro gravity that hasn't even started yet. If history is any judge though we'll go to Mars long before it's really viable simply because it's there. Hopefully not too many people get caught up in it. [0] Unless it's turns out to be viable to bake similar resources out of lunar regolith. I haven't read deeply enough to see if that's just SciFi or a viable source of the basic elementals needed to support a settlement. [-1] edit: To clarify here I mean on Mars for consumption on Mars of course. Though Mar's much thinner atmosphere would also make some more exotic launch technologies potentially viable. eg: a rail/coil gun launch to a skyhook maybe given the much lower atmospheric drag it would experience.

naravara 7y ago
>Gravity is gratis for one which really helps with long term health and we don't have to completely redesign our current technology to work if there's gravity where we will in space. And yes the resources for Earth are better found in the asteroid belt but it would probably be easier to mine and extract on Mars again because of gravity and locality. The atmosphere, thin as it is, is still a convenient source for carbon and oxygen to support the life support cycle and could maybe be a source of nitrogen for growing plants. In those ways it's maybe an easier first long term settlement than space or the moon ignoring the cost of bringing everything there and resupply missions. [0] Well, sort of. Most of these aren't as convenient as they sound. Gravity is only about 40% of Earth's IIRC, so if you had humans there you'd still be contending with loss of muscle and bone density. If we're talking about ambitious future technology I think a spinning wheel station is probably a more stable way to keep people healthy. Plus you have to contend with seasons and weather. Wind, dust, wild temperature swings and all the extra wear on materials you will get as a result. . . It would also take forever to actually thicken up the atmosphere, so you would probably want to be careful how much you go pulling CO2 out of the air to grow plants if long-term viability is your priority. As for mining, locality is a big help, especially if you're going to be remote-controlling drones, but contending with landing/taking-off on a planet is a huge logistical expense. Particularly if you're dealing with lots of heavy machinery for mining.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Yeah I'm not saying it's easy just convenient. Ring stations are a bit tricky because they have to be quite big before you stop experiencing appreciable differences in the 'gravity' between your head and feet which would probably cause some novel medical issues. I was mostly thinking about the long term once we have people living their whole lives in either location having some gravity even at a fraction would make Mars more hospitable for long term living. In either location the initial construction will be very intensive/expensive in space you need to launch or refine and assemble vast amounts of material where on Mars there's the option of a small starter base while you dig tunnels out for the main living quarters. [0] Either path is definitely difficult I'm just trying to highlight the ways Mars is less of a leap because it's another planet and we don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to things like extracting and refining metals or every single industrial process that makes the modern world tick. > It would also take forever to actually thicken up the atmosphere, so you would probably want to be careful how much you go pulling CO2 out of the air to grow plants if long-term viability is your priority. I don't think this is actually a huge concern making the atmosphere livable without a suit will take an incredible amount of engineering and like on Earth while we're talking about raw elemental materials the amount humans can possibly use pales in comparison to the amount available. [1] Any project like that will dwarf anything we've done to date. [0] With several intermediate steps like building habitats out of processed rocks from the surface for example. [1] There are rare exceptions I know of like Helium where the main issue is still cheap supply not actually running out.