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This is absolutely, objectively, incorrect. You might as well argue that you can build a self-sustaining base on Antarctica. Of course you can't, because Anta

This is absolutely, objectively, incorrect. You might as well argue that you can build a self-sustaining base on Antarctica. Of course you can't, because Antarctica can't support life. No amount of shouting into a bullhorn about adventure will change that. It might be possible with an absolutely epic effort to airlift soil, nuclear reactors, nuclear and other fuels, machinery for every eventually (including chip fabs), raw materials that aren't locally available (which means almost all of them), and habitable structures. At the end of that epic effort you'll have something that will barely have a toe-hold on long-term survivability. Possibly. If you're lucky. Not only is Mars far colder, it also doesn't have air. Or surface water. So all the challenges are at least an order of magnitude harder. And it's much much further away. Rhetoric and wishful thinking are not going to give you a better life if you can't deal with the reality of the challenges.

Tepix 5y ago
If we really wanted to, i don't see why we couldn't establish a self-sustaining base in Antarctica. Of course, it's forbidden.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  Then create one in the Sahara or the Atacana desert at 5000m elevation. Still way easier than Mars.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    They are certainly easier, but how useful are they? A base on Mars will bring down the fuel requirements to exploring and exploiting the belt and outer planets tremendously. Missions that are impossible or uneconomical to do from Earth could be made possible and cheap if launched from Mars.
    - Tepix 5y ago
      Also exploring Mars itself and establishing a base there (anywhere off Earth really).
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      If you are concerned about a launchpad for other missions the moon is much better. Lower gravity, easy to reach.
      - mannerheim 5y ago
        How would you produce fuel and propellant on the Moon? SpaceX plans on producing methane and lox from water and CO2 on Mars.
        Tepix 5y ago
        You could produce oxygen and hydrogen from the water ice and the carbon dioxide cold traps on the Moon. There may also be more carbon below the surface, see https://phys.org/news/2020-05-carbon-emissions-moon-theory-birth.html https://phys.org/news/2020-05-carbon-emissions-moon-theory-b...
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Anything that seems easier from Mars is overwhelmingly easier without stopping at Mars first. Even Phobos would be a better choice. The only thing Mars has going for it is hype.
      - Tepix 5y ago
        Mars offers quite a few things that make it more inviting for a manned base: - 38% of Earth's gravity - 24.5 hour days - lots of resources such as iron, carbon, oxygen, water (ice) - aerobraking in the atmosphere saves fuel - it's big (same land mass as Earth's). There's enough room for growth. - temperatures are better than elsewhere in space (-63°C to +20°C at the equator) - Lava tubes that could offer protection against radiation and meteorites for habitats - good potential of life / former life
      - mannerheim 5y ago
        You need some way to make fuel and propellant, though. Phobos would be a great choice for a launchpad, but in such a scenario you would do ISRU on Mars and lift fuel and propellant there - which will be much more efficient than on Earth, since there's less gravity and less atmosphere.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        Any fuel you could generate on Mars would be overwhelmingly easier and cheaper to ship in from Earth; and you wouldn't need to land a million tons of freight on Mars first. A million tons of fuel delivered to LEO would take you quite a long way, and you could start immediately. If you want to go somewhere beyond Mars, stopping there and then starting again just sets you back. (Same goes for the moon, or lunar orbit.) "Stepping stones" have strongly negative value in space transport.
        mannerheim 5y ago
        A million tons of fuel doesn't cut the delta v requirements down. You'd have to ship the required fuel to Mars orbit (or wherever you plan on doing refuelling) still.
shswkna 5y ago
Linear Reasoning
ethbr0 5y ago
At the end of the day, profit determines reality. And that's where futurists have always screwed up, because profit funds solutions. Nobody has colonized Antarctica not because it's impossible, but because it's difficult enough and useless enough that we all agreed on a treaty prohibiting it. In contrast, we constructed the 63 radars (some with bases) of the DEW line in the late 1950s in under 3 years, with part of the Air Force's budget. Because it was useful. Establishing a Mars colony is not impossible, it's just extremely hard. Which means expensive. Which means it needs a justification. Which is what I think the knee-jerk is really about. And is a fair opinion. You may think interplanetary colonization should not be a priority. I think it should.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Fantasies. None of us will be known or remembered. We will never colonize the universe in these bodies.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Seems to me we are nowhere near the level of maturity needed to even suggest colonization. Our basic priorities are not in order and that is true for a lot of the world. Tons of people need solutions now to problems we can solve, and we do not solve them because those priorities are not in order. And with that, there goes that justification. Higher priority items include: Not shitting where we eat, A much reduced focus on killing one another. There are many others. I agree with the other commenter. It may be very frustrating and disappointing to get married to those ideas. No one reading here is going to see them.
pharke 5y ago
> soil Both aquaponics and aeroponics provide ways to grow plants without soil. Breeding insects or algae may provide nutrition with very small amounts of mass needing to be transported. > nuclear reactors Yes, these are a necessity but we've sent one to Antarctica before and we could send a more modern one to Mars. > nuclear and other fuels The good thing about nuclear fuel is that you need a very small amount of it to produce a lot of energy for a long time. > machinery for every eventuality (including chip fabs) Colonists by necessity must make do with less and that does mean a lower standard of living and higher mortality but you know what they do it anyways because some things are worth trading comfort and a decade or two of life for. English colonists didn't bring the entire industrial infrastructure with them to the New World. They brought what would fit on the boats and had to make do with what they could create from local resources or do without. They had the benefit of subsequent voyages but I don't think anyone here is imagining colonizing Mars or Antarctica with a single expedition. > raw materials Mars (and Antarctica for the most part) do lack anything biological in origin, no oil or wood or crops as feedstock for chemical reactions but there are always alternatives. We usually don't use those alternate sources here because they are too labour or energetically or materially expensive but when they are your only option price and effort become less of a concern. > all the challenges are at least an order of magnitude harder No one who is attempting to work towards this is doing it because it is easy. I remember there being a speech about that which ended up with some pretty spectacular results.
- AitchEmArsey 5y ago
  "We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because if we don't then some commie bastards will get there first." I am all for exploration and science for the sake of science, but any talk of colonies is just wasted breath at this stage. We need to first explore how to live within our means on earth.
  - pharke 5y ago
    I'm of the opposite opinion. I think we need to spread out as soon as possible because it's not clear we can ever completely future proof our civilization here. There are simply too many things that can go wrong, many of which are not within our control. Take the pandemic for example, if it had been 10x worse it could have collapsed our current global civilization. There's no way of preventing it from spreading to every corner of the Earth without also destroying civilization as we know it. Same goes for asteroid impacts, super volcanos (consider Tonga a warning), tsunamis, solar flares, CMEs. Then there are the man-made disasters that we may or may not be able to keep under control such as war, terrorism, religious fanaticism, industrial accidents, pollution or even just apathy and hedonism. I'm not saying we should ignore all the other things in favour of escaping to space. The Earth is the largest volume of habitable space that we have right now but it is also the only one and that's the problem. We should be building other habitats in parallel with solving our current problems. We need a literal backup plan in case things go seriously wrong.

Tepix 5y ago

If we really wanted to, i don't see why we couldn't establish a self-sustaining base in Antarctica. Of course, it's forbidden.

spaetzleesser 5y ago
Then create one in the Sahara or the Atacana desert at 5000m elevation. Still way easier than Mars.
- mannerheim 5y ago
  They are certainly easier, but how useful are they? A base on Mars will bring down the fuel requirements to exploring and exploiting the belt and outer planets tremendously. Missions that are impossible or uneconomical to do from Earth could be made possible and cheap if launched from Mars.
  - Tepix 5y ago
    Also exploring Mars itself and establishing a base there (anywhere off Earth really).
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    If you are concerned about a launchpad for other missions the moon is much better. Lower gravity, easy to reach.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      How would you produce fuel and propellant on the Moon? SpaceX plans on producing methane and lox from water and CO2 on Mars.
      - Tepix 5y ago
        You could produce oxygen and hydrogen from the water ice and the carbon dioxide cold traps on the Moon. There may also be more carbon below the surface, see https://phys.org/news/2020-05-carbon-emissions-moon-theory-birth.html https://phys.org/news/2020-05-carbon-emissions-moon-theory-b...
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Anything that seems easier from Mars is overwhelmingly easier without stopping at Mars first. Even Phobos would be a better choice. The only thing Mars has going for it is hype.
    - Tepix 5y ago
      Mars offers quite a few things that make it more inviting for a manned base: - 38% of Earth's gravity - 24.5 hour days - lots of resources such as iron, carbon, oxygen, water (ice) - aerobraking in the atmosphere saves fuel - it's big (same land mass as Earth's). There's enough room for growth. - temperatures are better than elsewhere in space (-63°C to +20°C at the equator) - Lava tubes that could offer protection against radiation and meteorites for habitats - good potential of life / former life
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      You need some way to make fuel and propellant, though. Phobos would be a great choice for a launchpad, but in such a scenario you would do ISRU on Mars and lift fuel and propellant there - which will be much more efficient than on Earth, since there's less gravity and less atmosphere.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Any fuel you could generate on Mars would be overwhelmingly easier and cheaper to ship in from Earth; and you wouldn't need to land a million tons of freight on Mars first. A million tons of fuel delivered to LEO would take you quite a long way, and you could start immediately. If you want to go somewhere beyond Mars, stopping there and then starting again just sets you back. (Same goes for the moon, or lunar orbit.) "Stepping stones" have strongly negative value in space transport.
        mannerheim 5y ago
        A million tons of fuel doesn't cut the delta v requirements down. You'd have to ship the required fuel to Mars orbit (or wherever you plan on doing refuelling) still.

shswkna 5y ago

Linear Reasoning

ethbr0 5y ago

At the end of the day, profit determines reality. And that's where futurists have always screwed up, because profit funds solutions. Nobody has colonized Antarctica not because it's impossible, but because it's difficult enough and useless enough that we all agreed on a treaty prohibiting it. In contrast, we constructed the 63 radars (some with bases) of the DEW line in the late 1950s in under 3 years, with part of the Air Force's budget. Because it was useful. Establishing a Mars colony is not impossible, it's just extremely hard. Which means expensive. Which means it needs a justification. Which is what I think the knee-jerk is really about. And is a fair opinion. You may think interplanetary colonization should not be a priority. I think it should.

datavirtue 5y ago
Fantasies. None of us will be known or remembered. We will never colonize the universe in these bodies.
ddingus 5y ago
Seems to me we are nowhere near the level of maturity needed to even suggest colonization. Our basic priorities are not in order and that is true for a lot of the world. Tons of people need solutions now to problems we can solve, and we do not solve them because those priorities are not in order. And with that, there goes that justification. Higher priority items include: Not shitting where we eat, A much reduced focus on killing one another. There are many others. I agree with the other commenter. It may be very frustrating and disappointing to get married to those ideas. No one reading here is going to see them.

pharke 5y ago

> soil Both aquaponics and aeroponics provide ways to grow plants without soil. Breeding insects or algae may provide nutrition with very small amounts of mass needing to be transported. > nuclear reactors Yes, these are a necessity but we've sent one to Antarctica before and we could send a more modern one to Mars. > nuclear and other fuels The good thing about nuclear fuel is that you need a very small amount of it to produce a lot of energy for a long time. > machinery for every eventuality (including chip fabs) Colonists by necessity must make do with less and that does mean a lower standard of living and higher mortality but you know what they do it anyways because some things are worth trading comfort and a decade or two of life for. English colonists didn't bring the entire industrial infrastructure with them to the New World. They brought what would fit on the boats and had to make do with what they could create from local resources or do without. They had the benefit of subsequent voyages but I don't think anyone here is imagining colonizing Mars or Antarctica with a single expedition. > raw materials Mars (and Antarctica for the most part) do lack anything biological in origin, no oil or wood or crops as feedstock for chemical reactions but there are always alternatives. We usually don't use those alternate sources here because they are too labour or energetically or materially expensive but when they are your only option price and effort become less of a concern. > all the challenges are at least an order of magnitude harder No one who is attempting to work towards this is doing it because it is easy. I remember there being a speech about that which ended up with some pretty spectacular results.

AitchEmArsey 5y ago
"We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because if we don't then some commie bastards will get there first." I am all for exploration and science for the sake of science, but any talk of colonies is just wasted breath at this stage. We need to first explore how to live within our means on earth.
- pharke 5y ago
  I'm of the opposite opinion. I think we need to spread out as soon as possible because it's not clear we can ever completely future proof our civilization here. There are simply too many things that can go wrong, many of which are not within our control. Take the pandemic for example, if it had been 10x worse it could have collapsed our current global civilization. There's no way of preventing it from spreading to every corner of the Earth without also destroying civilization as we know it. Same goes for asteroid impacts, super volcanos (consider Tonga a warning), tsunamis, solar flares, CMEs. Then there are the man-made disasters that we may or may not be able to keep under control such as war, terrorism, religious fanaticism, industrial accidents, pollution or even just apathy and hedonism. I'm not saying we should ignore all the other things in favour of escaping to space. The Earth is the largest volume of habitable space that we have right now but it is also the only one and that's the problem. We should be building other habitats in parallel with solving our current problems. We need a literal backup plan in case things go seriously wrong.