4 ms·

As always, landing is the easy part. Escaping the gravity well is not. (Looks like they plan to make it a one way trip, setup a colony, then mfg fuel before t

by mey 16y ago

As always, landing is the easy part. Escaping the gravity well is not. (Looks like they plan to make it a one way trip, setup a colony, then mfg fuel before the return trip.)

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- mey 16y ago
  A multi-phased trip seems reasonable, where you land the production units, and some robotics to deal with the unknowns. Then before the manned trip even happens you know that there is viable base already operating. If something happens between the manned launch, and their landing, their spaceship could be setup to handle a shot around mars for a return trip as an emergency measure. Still making a ship capable of holding 6 years of supplies isn't very attractive.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I agree, you're going to want a base on Mars before you land there. No point going all the way there just to spend three days there (like the Moon) so significant living quarters are a great idea. To my way of thinking the best way to build is using the local materials -- either digging underground or building out of rocks. If you were clever, and if you could find a decent source of water, you could probably build a pretty good structure by using dirt and ice. This, of course, requires a lot of fancy robots. As far as the ship goes, you're definitely going to need a "mothership" capable of entering and leaving Mars orbit (so, a crapload of fuel onboard or else a new engine technology) as well as a lander, so abort capability shouldn't be that big an issue. The more I think about it, the more difficult a Mars mission seems, and the more sensible it seems to keep on sending robots until we're really ready for a permanent Mars colony (i.e. the point at which it actually makes economic sense).
  - smhinsey 16y ago
    This is pretty close to Mars Direct - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
- api 16y ago
  Nanotechnology is hype. It already exists... it's called biology. It is possible to get a fair idea of its limitations from studying biology, since nature has been exploring it for about five billion years. What is not hype is this: http://reprap.org/ http://reprap.org/ It's not "nano," but it is workable and working. The goal is to build a set of reprap variants that collectively can self-manufacture. Once that is done you have a human-scale, workable, practical universal assembler. It is not as sexy as a nano-universal-assembler, but unlike nano-hype it is actually happening. Of course, I'm sure we will make extensive use of nanotech in colonizing Mars as well: algae, soybeans, etc.
  - wladimir 16y ago
    I agree that biology is nanotechnology. But I disagree that nanotech is limited by what nature has done already on Earth. Nature cannot possibly have explored the entire search space and found the global optimum, even in these five billion years.
    - api 16y ago
      Theoretically true... maybe I'm being too harsh. I just really dislike fantasy hype being sold as just-around-the-corner tech by the likes of Drexler and Kurzweil, so I enjoy bashing it upside the head every now and then. As far as I can see, there is absolutely nothing on the tech horizon that looks like Drexler-esque nanotech. Everything I am aware of is either biology, bio-derived, or is simply an advance in materials science rebadged as nanotech for hype purposes. (e.g. nanomaterials, which are just better materials with "nano" stuck on them because they incorporate microscopic structural motifs... which is of course something materials research was doing before the nano-hype craze came along.)
      - wladimir 16y ago
        That's true. Kurzweil and friends overestimate the speed in which science advances. We don't even nearly understand our own biology yet, as we're still learning a lot from nature. Kurzweil's "We can upload ourselves in 30 years" is basic hubris. Our brains turn out to be more complicated than we thought every time scanning tech advances. But once we fully grasp how our own bio-"machinery" works, we may be able to develop something that can survive on Mars. That is probably a long haul from now (>200 years).
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Nice strawman. We don't need nanotech to build substantial infrastructure on Mars. We have the technology to do that today, we had it decades ago. This is not a far future problem, it's merely a problem of getting the funding to get it going.
  - api 16y ago
    Not quite. The missing tech is, I think, in the area of manufacturing. The settlers would have to unpack and boot up a complete industrial infrastructure since the nearest Radio Shack or Home Depot is 300,000,000 miles away. But we're moving in that direction with 3d printing and rapid fabrication technology...
    - phlux 16y ago
      It would be interesting to pre-ship a bunch of supplies to mars. Start the process like this: Figure out a plan to build a base and sustain life. Build the systems and devices to executre that plan Start sending this equipment to mars. Train your team. Cycle through plan. Eventually you send your team(s) and they start using equipment. Bonus if the equipment you send is autonomous and can start building before your team arrives.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      A martian colony need not have an Earth-equivalent industrial base immediately. Imagining that it should is merely self-limiting. At one level a martian colony needs only enough of an industrial base to survive given continued trade with Earth. Longer term it likely needs enough of an industrial base to be self-sufficient indefinitely. However, this level of technology and industry could be considerably far behind the state of the art on Earth or very much lacking in a great many categories. It's not necessary to replicate a 21st century Earth on Mars in order for a colony to be feasible.

by mey 16y ago

As always, landing is the easy part. Escaping the gravity well is not. (Looks like they plan to make it a one way trip, setup a colony, then mfg fuel before the return trip.)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mey 16y ago
A multi-phased trip seems reasonable, where you land the production units, and some robotics to deal with the unknowns. Then before the manned trip even happens you know that there is viable base already operating. If something happens between the manned launch, and their landing, their spaceship could be setup to handle a shot around mars for a return trip as an emergency measure. Still making a ship capable of holding 6 years of supplies isn't very attractive.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I agree, you're going to want a base on Mars before you land there. No point going all the way there just to spend three days there (like the Moon) so significant living quarters are a great idea. To my way of thinking the best way to build is using the local materials -- either digging underground or building out of rocks. If you were clever, and if you could find a decent source of water, you could probably build a pretty good structure by using dirt and ice. This, of course, requires a lot of fancy robots. As far as the ship goes, you're definitely going to need a "mothership" capable of entering and leaving Mars orbit (so, a crapload of fuel onboard or else a new engine technology) as well as a lander, so abort capability shouldn't be that big an issue. The more I think about it, the more difficult a Mars mission seems, and the more sensible it seems to keep on sending robots until we're really ready for a permanent Mars colony (i.e. the point at which it actually makes economic sense).
- smhinsey 16y ago
  This is pretty close to Mars Direct - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
api 16y ago
Nanotechnology is hype. It already exists... it's called biology. It is possible to get a fair idea of its limitations from studying biology, since nature has been exploring it for about five billion years. What is not hype is this: http://reprap.org/ http://reprap.org/ It's not "nano," but it is workable and working. The goal is to build a set of reprap variants that collectively can self-manufacture. Once that is done you have a human-scale, workable, practical universal assembler. It is not as sexy as a nano-universal-assembler, but unlike nano-hype it is actually happening. Of course, I'm sure we will make extensive use of nanotech in colonizing Mars as well: algae, soybeans, etc.
- wladimir 16y ago
  I agree that biology is nanotechnology. But I disagree that nanotech is limited by what nature has done already on Earth. Nature cannot possibly have explored the entire search space and found the global optimum, even in these five billion years.
  - api 16y ago
    Theoretically true... maybe I'm being too harsh. I just really dislike fantasy hype being sold as just-around-the-corner tech by the likes of Drexler and Kurzweil, so I enjoy bashing it upside the head every now and then. As far as I can see, there is absolutely nothing on the tech horizon that looks like Drexler-esque nanotech. Everything I am aware of is either biology, bio-derived, or is simply an advance in materials science rebadged as nanotech for hype purposes. (e.g. nanomaterials, which are just better materials with "nano" stuck on them because they incorporate microscopic structural motifs... which is of course something materials research was doing before the nano-hype craze came along.)
    - wladimir 16y ago
      That's true. Kurzweil and friends overestimate the speed in which science advances. We don't even nearly understand our own biology yet, as we're still learning a lot from nature. Kurzweil's "We can upload ourselves in 30 years" is basic hubris. Our brains turn out to be more complicated than we thought every time scanning tech advances. But once we fully grasp how our own bio-"machinery" works, we may be able to develop something that can survive on Mars. That is probably a long haul from now (>200 years).
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Nice strawman. We don't need nanotech to build substantial infrastructure on Mars. We have the technology to do that today, we had it decades ago. This is not a far future problem, it's merely a problem of getting the funding to get it going.
- api 16y ago
  Not quite. The missing tech is, I think, in the area of manufacturing. The settlers would have to unpack and boot up a complete industrial infrastructure since the nearest Radio Shack or Home Depot is 300,000,000 miles away. But we're moving in that direction with 3d printing and rapid fabrication technology...
  - phlux 16y ago
    It would be interesting to pre-ship a bunch of supplies to mars. Start the process like this: Figure out a plan to build a base and sustain life. Build the systems and devices to executre that plan Start sending this equipment to mars. Train your team. Cycle through plan. Eventually you send your team(s) and they start using equipment. Bonus if the equipment you send is autonomous and can start building before your team arrives.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    A martian colony need not have an Earth-equivalent industrial base immediately. Imagining that it should is merely self-limiting. At one level a martian colony needs only enough of an industrial base to survive given continued trade with Earth. Longer term it likely needs enough of an industrial base to be self-sufficient indefinitely. However, this level of technology and industry could be considerably far behind the state of the art on Earth or very much lacking in a great many categories. It's not necessary to replicate a 21st century Earth on Mars in order for a colony to be feasible.