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People generally underestimate how hard is to settle mars comparing to moon. Getting there is the easiest part. Entirely sustainable colony on its own have neve

People generally underestimate how hard is to settle mars comparing to moon. Getting there is the easiest part. Entirely sustainable colony on its own have never been achiewed before. Projects like biosphere2 failed miserably. On current nasa budget even 2030's are even out of reach for a self sustaining colony. Hundreds of bilions are needed. It eon't happen without big push.

avmich 5y ago
> Entirely sustainable colony on its own have never been achiewed before. First, we don't need to have entirely sustainable colony initially. We can send serious amounts of supplies and rotate crews for a long time - ISS, while being vastly simpler, works for two decades. Second, colonization of islands and whole continents was exactly that - entirely sustainable colonies, at least eventually.
- genocidicbunny 5y ago
  Settlement of islands and continents on Earth had the benefit of an adequate life support system that had far fewer catastrophic failure modes than anything we've come up with right now. > If the oxygenator breaks down, I'll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I'll die of thirst. If the Hab beaches, I'll just kind of implode. If none of those things happen. I'll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I'm fucked. It has to be sustainable enough to survive without relatively immediate access to Earth's resources. The moon is only a few days away in an emergency. Mars is months away. The ISS works because it gets fairly constant supplies from Earth. It is vastly from self-sustaining.
  - avmich 5y ago
    > The ISS works because it gets fairly constant supplies from Earth. It is vastly from self-sustaining. Right. Analogies only go so far. > Settlement of islands and continents on Earth had the benefit of an adequate life support system that had far fewer catastrophic failure modes than anything we've come up with right now. Looks like we agree that "it was never done before" is exaggeration. > If the oxygenator breaks down, I'll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I'll die of thirst. If the Hab beaches, I'll just kind of implode. If none of those things happen. I'll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I'm fucked. True, but. If asteroid meets the Earth, if supervolcanoes will misbehave, if particularly nasty virus will get to humans etc. we're toast. The thing is, all those things don't happen often - even ISS works for decades, with relatively minor glitches. So - if oxygenator breaks down, as Neil Armstrong would say, we'll fix it. If water reclaimer breaks down, we'll invent a dehumidifier. If the external wall will develop a break, the inner one will serve until the outer one is fixed. We may die - but we also may prosper.

avmich 5y ago

> Entirely sustainable colony on its own have never been achiewed before. First, we don't need to have entirely sustainable colony initially. We can send serious amounts of supplies and rotate crews for a long time - ISS, while being vastly simpler, works for two decades. Second, colonization of islands and whole continents was exactly that - entirely sustainable colonies, at least eventually.

genocidicbunny 5y ago
Settlement of islands and continents on Earth had the benefit of an adequate life support system that had far fewer catastrophic failure modes than anything we've come up with right now. > If the oxygenator breaks down, I'll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I'll die of thirst. If the Hab beaches, I'll just kind of implode. If none of those things happen. I'll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I'm fucked. It has to be sustainable enough to survive without relatively immediate access to Earth's resources. The moon is only a few days away in an emergency. Mars is months away. The ISS works because it gets fairly constant supplies from Earth. It is vastly from self-sustaining.
- avmich 5y ago
  > The ISS works because it gets fairly constant supplies from Earth. It is vastly from self-sustaining. Right. Analogies only go so far. > Settlement of islands and continents on Earth had the benefit of an adequate life support system that had far fewer catastrophic failure modes than anything we've come up with right now. Looks like we agree that "it was never done before" is exaggeration. > If the oxygenator breaks down, I'll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I'll die of thirst. If the Hab beaches, I'll just kind of implode. If none of those things happen. I'll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I'm fucked. True, but. If asteroid meets the Earth, if supervolcanoes will misbehave, if particularly nasty virus will get to humans etc. we're toast. The thing is, all those things don't happen often - even ISS works for decades, with relatively minor glitches. So - if oxygenator breaks down, as Neil Armstrong would say, we'll fix it. If water reclaimer breaks down, we'll invent a dehumidifier. If the external wall will develop a break, the inner one will serve until the outer one is fixed. We may die - but we also may prosper.