3 ms·

Tourism? That's the only thing that even approaches realistic that I can think of.

skissane 2y ago
The problem with the Martian tourism is the huge amount of time it takes - around 3 year round trip with current conventional rockets; this proposed nuclear rocket would cut travel time to 2 months one way, but you are still looking at a 4 month minimum just in travel time. A billionaire who could afford a Martian vacation would likely struggle to take the time out of their schedule for one. This is why I think lunar tourism is much more viable: a vacation on the Moon need only take 2 weeks (a week of travel time and a week there; and nuclear propulsion could cut the travel time substantially)
- yencabulator 2y ago
  It takes 2 months in near-ideal winds to cross the Atlantic by (non-modern ultralight) sail, yet that sort of travel was done pretty regularly for business. When steam engines decreased that time to 16 days, 200-passenger ships crossing Atlantic purely for tourism were very popular.
  - skissane 2y ago
    It once was a tradition for the English upper classes to send their young sons on a "grand tour" of the Continent, which would last for many months, sometimes even a year or two. So, yes, some billionaire paying for their kid to spend 12-18 months on a Mars trip is a possibility. Or maybe even for themselves if they retire, or as a sabbatical. However, I think the much greater time and expense is going to make Martian tourism a much smaller market than lunar tourism. I think in the medium term, the Moon is a much more feasible destination for humans than Mars is. It is much easier for an ultra-wealthy person to take a few weeks out of their schedule for a trip to the Moon, than months or years for a trip to Mars. Since it is only a bit over a light-second away, they could even quite feasibly work remotely from there – the delay is small enough that real-time audio and video calls are possible. Mars is 3–22 light minutes, which forces all communication to be asynchronous.
rendall 2y ago
I guess my question wasn't so much "What is a realistic solution?" but more "Would we even recognize a realistic solution if it were presented to us?" The enterprise of starting a colony on Mars is so unprecedented that any economic solution sounds nuts. I think the only realistic answer at this point is "We need more information".

The problem with the Martian tourism is the huge amount of time it takes - around 3 year round trip with current conventional rockets; this proposed nuclear rocket would cut travel time to 2 months one way, but you are still looking at a 4 month minimum just in travel time. A billionaire who could afford a Martian vacation would likely struggle to take the time out of their schedule for one. This is why I think lunar tourism is much more viable: a vacation on the Moon need only take 2 weeks (a week of travel time and a week there; and nuclear propulsion could cut the travel time substantially)

yencabulator 2y ago
It takes 2 months in near-ideal winds to cross the Atlantic by (non-modern ultralight) sail, yet that sort of travel was done pretty regularly for business. When steam engines decreased that time to 16 days, 200-passenger ships crossing Atlantic purely for tourism were very popular.
- skissane 2y ago
  It once was a tradition for the English upper classes to send their young sons on a "grand tour" of the Continent, which would last for many months, sometimes even a year or two. So, yes, some billionaire paying for their kid to spend 12-18 months on a Mars trip is a possibility. Or maybe even for themselves if they retire, or as a sabbatical. However, I think the much greater time and expense is going to make Martian tourism a much smaller market than lunar tourism. I think in the medium term, the Moon is a much more feasible destination for humans than Mars is. It is much easier for an ultra-wealthy person to take a few weeks out of their schedule for a trip to the Moon, than months or years for a trip to Mars. Since it is only a bit over a light-second away, they could even quite feasibly work remotely from there – the delay is small enough that real-time audio and video calls are possible. Mars is 3–22 light minutes, which forces all communication to be asynchronous.

rendall 2y ago

I guess my question wasn't so much "What is a realistic solution?" but more "Would we even recognize a realistic solution if it were presented to us?" The enterprise of starting a colony on Mars is so unprecedented that any economic solution sounds nuts. I think the only realistic answer at this point is "We need more information".