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Surprised no one mentioned nuclear war. If we have any major use if nuclear forces. Be it limited or full scale, there’s the real potential to have radioactive

Surprised no one mentioned nuclear war. If we have any major use if nuclear forces. Be it limited or full scale, there’s the real potential to have radioactive fallout push long term radiation risks for large patches of the planet past the risks of a mars journey. I’d consider it then.

gregjor 5y ago
Because Mars is more hospitable than a post nuclear war Earth? It’s not. Mars already has high radiation risks and a toxic atmosphere. Even if the wildest dreams come true and we make Mars somewhat inhabitable, do you suppose that anyone will be sending spaceships to Mars after a nuclear war? The US and other countries imposed severe travel restrictions after 9/11, to say nothing of the restrictions imposed during WWII.
- techdragon 5y ago
  The point was “what would make me consider it?” I’m not saying it would be safer, I’m just saying that if earth was significantly more dangerous by way of fallout related lifetime cancer risks I’d seriously consider it if it was an option. I’m not naïve, it’s ludicrous to imagine large scale coordination of anything beyond basic recovery effort for years after such a conflict. But it’s not ridiculous to think the bunker millionaires/billionaires, the remaining technical capacity of mankind, and whatever governments are left seriously considering, maybe, just maybe it would be good to have a backup … just in case … because look what we just did to ourselves. So if in the unlikely event I survived and was healthy enough and so on and so on, I’d seriously consider it. This seems like a perfectly sensible attitude to me. Trading one set of hardships for another, just like many humans have done before for thousands of years.
  - gregjor 5y ago
    If Mars was habitable, sure, some people might have that option. My point is that Mars is not now habitable, will not be habitable in the lifetime of anyone alive today, and is a terrible candidate for future human habitation even if we knew how to address the huge problems with physics, logistics, and biology that make it a bad candidate today. Speculating about moving to Mars is like speculating about going back in time before the nukes, or moving to Middle Earth. It's a sci-fi fantasy and will almost certainly remain so.
    - techdragon 5y ago
      You’re right about it not being habitable, but since when has that stopped humans? Logistically speaking the only “op-ex” we couldn’t really bank on getting plenty of from Mars itself is Hydrogen. Not because it’s not on Mars but because it’s clearly unevenly distributed. So obviously it would be foolish to not have plans for that. But hydrogen is bloody everywhere in the solar system. Yes it’s not convenient but it’s cheap. If we’re talking about 10 and 20 year plans, then you just harvest icy asteroids or tow a convenient comet in place. Fundamental issue is rebuilding infrastructure on earth. Beyond that it’s all doable with current technology and a solid commitment to make it happen, I don’t see a financial case, I see a potential social one. Yea your going to be living under meters of regolith and breathing recycled air, drinking recycled water and the place might smell like Body odour more than most like due to limited water supply…. But it sounds no worse to me than the sort of hardships faced by early settlers on the American frontier. With re-established infrastructure we get to manufacturing essential equipment chains, I’m assuming starship level logistics so that’s a million tons to Mars. A million tons of equipment designed to and this is critical… oversupply the needs of the people to come, because there will be losses on all fronts, energy has resistance, plumbing has leaks, people make mistakes, all of this is realistic. I have to be clear. I’m not picturing some fancy space tourist thing, I’m picturing a technologically dependent hard scrabble life of constant vigilance against life and death failure scenarios. But we have the technology to do this right now if we can put enough mass on the surface of mars to oversupply the losses we know our systems currently have. Only water supply makes that tricky… but we continue to be surprised by how much water is spread around mars in frozen pockets and there’s always the comet option. Cut it up in orbit and ship it down with a cheap but good enough spray on heat shield and a strap on parachute if you have to in order to minimise losses, we developed prototype systems for emergency re-entry in the early space age, sure it probably wasn’t safe enough for people, but frozen chunks of water don’t care if you jostle them too hard, they have no bones to break just can’t let it get too hot. Yes the need for a comet might push the start date beyond the point where I’m young enough, but it might not because we’re not exactly surveying for likely mars water supply comets and we might not even need it at all if we keep finding frozen water and brine under the surface.
      - 5y ago

gregjor 5y ago

Because Mars is more hospitable than a post nuclear war Earth? It’s not. Mars already has high radiation risks and a toxic atmosphere. Even if the wildest dreams come true and we make Mars somewhat inhabitable, do you suppose that anyone will be sending spaceships to Mars after a nuclear war? The US and other countries imposed severe travel restrictions after 9/11, to say nothing of the restrictions imposed during WWII.

techdragon 5y ago
The point was “what would make me consider it?” I’m not saying it would be safer, I’m just saying that if earth was significantly more dangerous by way of fallout related lifetime cancer risks I’d seriously consider it if it was an option. I’m not naïve, it’s ludicrous to imagine large scale coordination of anything beyond basic recovery effort for years after such a conflict. But it’s not ridiculous to think the bunker millionaires/billionaires, the remaining technical capacity of mankind, and whatever governments are left seriously considering, maybe, just maybe it would be good to have a backup … just in case … because look what we just did to ourselves. So if in the unlikely event I survived and was healthy enough and so on and so on, I’d seriously consider it. This seems like a perfectly sensible attitude to me. Trading one set of hardships for another, just like many humans have done before for thousands of years.
- gregjor 5y ago
  If Mars was habitable, sure, some people might have that option. My point is that Mars is not now habitable, will not be habitable in the lifetime of anyone alive today, and is a terrible candidate for future human habitation even if we knew how to address the huge problems with physics, logistics, and biology that make it a bad candidate today. Speculating about moving to Mars is like speculating about going back in time before the nukes, or moving to Middle Earth. It's a sci-fi fantasy and will almost certainly remain so.
  - techdragon 5y ago
    You’re right about it not being habitable, but since when has that stopped humans? Logistically speaking the only “op-ex” we couldn’t really bank on getting plenty of from Mars itself is Hydrogen. Not because it’s not on Mars but because it’s clearly unevenly distributed. So obviously it would be foolish to not have plans for that. But hydrogen is bloody everywhere in the solar system. Yes it’s not convenient but it’s cheap. If we’re talking about 10 and 20 year plans, then you just harvest icy asteroids or tow a convenient comet in place. Fundamental issue is rebuilding infrastructure on earth. Beyond that it’s all doable with current technology and a solid commitment to make it happen, I don’t see a financial case, I see a potential social one. Yea your going to be living under meters of regolith and breathing recycled air, drinking recycled water and the place might smell like Body odour more than most like due to limited water supply…. But it sounds no worse to me than the sort of hardships faced by early settlers on the American frontier. With re-established infrastructure we get to manufacturing essential equipment chains, I’m assuming starship level logistics so that’s a million tons to Mars. A million tons of equipment designed to and this is critical… oversupply the needs of the people to come, because there will be losses on all fronts, energy has resistance, plumbing has leaks, people make mistakes, all of this is realistic. I have to be clear. I’m not picturing some fancy space tourist thing, I’m picturing a technologically dependent hard scrabble life of constant vigilance against life and death failure scenarios. But we have the technology to do this right now if we can put enough mass on the surface of mars to oversupply the losses we know our systems currently have. Only water supply makes that tricky… but we continue to be surprised by how much water is spread around mars in frozen pockets and there’s always the comet option. Cut it up in orbit and ship it down with a cheap but good enough spray on heat shield and a strap on parachute if you have to in order to minimise losses, we developed prototype systems for emergency re-entry in the early space age, sure it probably wasn’t safe enough for people, but frozen chunks of water don’t care if you jostle them too hard, they have no bones to break just can’t let it get too hot. Yes the need for a comet might push the start date beyond the point where I’m young enough, but it might not because we’re not exactly surveying for likely mars water supply comets and we might not even need it at all if we keep finding frozen water and brine under the surface.
    - 5y ago