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I would love someone with more knowledge to fully explore what a similar sized space station could achieve compared to the arduous task of going down martian gr

I would love someone with more knowledge to fully explore what a similar sized space station could achieve compared to the arduous task of going down martian gravity well that has half the solar energy and on top of that a night cycle which halves your solar output again. Any viable colonisation strategy would need to overcome the yet unknown downsides of lunar/martian dust and many other potential threats. What you get back is a rock like earth but without any of the useful infrastructure. I just dont see any scenario where a mars base would outperform a space station above mars/earth/moon/lagrange point with the ability to recover asteroids of a few metric tons. Even microgravity issues could be solved by making a massive rotating habitat that could serve hundreds of people easier than you could keep 10 people alive on mars.

jandrese 2y ago
The advantage of being on Mars is that as your population expands you mostly need to just dig more tunnels for them to live in. With a space station you have to build more space stations or somehow add on to your existing one, which is very difficult with artificial gravity setups. The explosive failure modes of a space station are less of a concern on an underground Mars colony as well. But this of course raises the question as to why you would do either instead of staying on Earth. Elon Musk talks a lot about a multi-planetary species, but it's extremely unclear how long it would take for a Mars colony to become self sufficient. And anything you can do underground on Mars you can do underground on Earth but with fewer catastrophic failure cases. The only threats a Mars colony protects against are a dinosaur killing asteroid strike and a completely runaway greenhouse effect turning Earth into a second Venus. Even worse, if Elon were serious about the Mars colony he should have multiple fully self-sufficient test colonies on Earth vetting out the technologies now, but if he had that it negates the need for the Mars colonies.
- Ancalagon 2y ago
  underground tunnels on earth the day after an asteroid strike would still be more hospitable than tunnels on mars mars is an insurance policy for essentially a 100% extinction event (save maybe a bio-weapon targeted against humanity). Anything much less than 100% and I imagine a pocket of humanity would survive. That would be like the entire surface of the planet getting liquefied or a gamma ray burst directly hitting Earth.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    A gamma ray burst that sterilized the Earth would also wipe out Mars.
Mistletoe 2y ago
In addition the surface of Mars has lots of radiation which would require you to live under some sort of shielding or in a cave. >The average radiation level on Mars is 24–30 rads (240–300 mSv) per year, which is 40–50 times higher than Earth's. Everything on Mars is designed to kill you. I don’t understand the appeal either except for ultra rich on earth that are looking for a new exclusive neighborhood to move into, away from the serfs funding it.
- pyrale 2y ago
  Earth is boring, Mars is exciting. Why solve the immediately available, mundane and sometimes hard issues we have on earth, rather than to entertain one's intellect in a purely theoretic grapple with the most interesting few of the distant problems we'd have on Mars?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Why solve the immediately available, mundane and sometimes hard issues we have on earth, rather than to entertain one's intellect in a purely theoretic grapple with the most interesting few of the distant problems we'd have on Mars? Because Earth is boring, Mars is exciting. More pointedly: on Earth you’re fixing problems amidst a tightly-regulated status quo. On Mars you’re pioneering. We have way more people in the computer sciences than stewardship roles because human nature prefers to explore.
  - redundantly 2y ago
    > Earth is boring, Mars is exciting. Why solve the immediately available, mundane and sometimes hard issues we have on earth Why must they be mutually exclusive? The space race that started seven decades ago brought immense benefits to humanity as a whole. Any progress made in the pursuit of colonizing Mars would undoubtedly have positive repercussions for us Earthlings.
lutusp 2y ago
> I would love someone with more knowledge to fully explore what a similar sized space station could achieve compared to the arduous task of going down martian gravity well that has half the solar energy and on top of that a night cycle which halves your solar output again. Issues: First, the solar energy at the surface is much the same as it is in orbit, because of Mars' very thin atmosphere -- unless a dust storm kicks in. This means there's no justification to use orbital solar with the attendant high capital costs and conversion losses. Second, being able to live below the surface in any of the existing lava tubes as protection against high surface radiation levels and wide temperature extremes, thus eliminating all the complexities of an orbital presence, makes the orbital option a non-starter. Third, an orbital presence would require generating artificial gravity to prevent known and serious health issues, less true for a surface colony (Mars' surface gravity is 38% that of Earth). Fourth, a carefully chosen lava tube site would have much better control over environmental temperatures than a surface or orbital colony. Remember that Mars surface temperatures regularly drop to -100F overnight. Temperature extremes would also be an issue in a lava tube, but with less severity if the site were carefully chosen. I think a Mars colonization project at scale will choose a surface colony over an orbital presence on multiple grounds. > I just dont see any scenario where a mars base would outperform a space station above mars/earth/moon/lagrange point with the ability to recover asteroids of a few metric tons. If the mission is to collect or mine asteroids, that would change everything. All the above assumes some other purpose -- for example, Mars surface mining.
- Out_of_Characte 2y ago
  >If the mission is to collect or mine asteroids, that would change everything. All the above assumes some other purpose -- for example, Mars surface mining. If we had the ability to mine mars, that would change everything. But this is precisely why I'm suggesting that a station in space might be superiour to any mars base. A station doesn't have to be near mars, lots of locations, asteroids and points of interest are closer to us than the surface of mars. Even going to mars will be easier if you have the station first. >there's no justification to use orbital solar with the attendant high capital costs and conversion losses Are you talking about orbital solar for a non-existent mars base? A space station can have 100% uptime of their solars cells without the problems dust brings. Mars is the one with conversion losses if they need to store any power for any length of time. >being able to live below the surface in any of the existing lava tubes as protection Radiation protection is just a cost figure for a station. Converting lava tubes into something we could use seems like a herculean effort without even knowing any safety aspects. You're just limiting your own space on a dead planet. >artificial gravity We could spin the habitat. It would be easier than testing lava tube methods of engineering. >Remember that Mars surface temperatures regularly drop to -100F overnight. Temperature extremes would also be an issue in a lava tube, but with less severity if the site were carefully chosen. Stations win again as we've already solved this.

jandrese 2y ago

The advantage of being on Mars is that as your population expands you mostly need to just dig more tunnels for them to live in. With a space station you have to build more space stations or somehow add on to your existing one, which is very difficult with artificial gravity setups. The explosive failure modes of a space station are less of a concern on an underground Mars colony as well. But this of course raises the question as to why you would do either instead of staying on Earth. Elon Musk talks a lot about a multi-planetary species, but it's extremely unclear how long it would take for a Mars colony to become self sufficient. And anything you can do underground on Mars you can do underground on Earth but with fewer catastrophic failure cases. The only threats a Mars colony protects against are a dinosaur killing asteroid strike and a completely runaway greenhouse effect turning Earth into a second Venus. Even worse, if Elon were serious about the Mars colony he should have multiple fully self-sufficient test colonies on Earth vetting out the technologies now, but if he had that it negates the need for the Mars colonies.

Ancalagon 2y ago
underground tunnels on earth the day after an asteroid strike would still be more hospitable than tunnels on mars mars is an insurance policy for essentially a 100% extinction event (save maybe a bio-weapon targeted against humanity). Anything much less than 100% and I imagine a pocket of humanity would survive. That would be like the entire surface of the planet getting liquefied or a gamma ray burst directly hitting Earth.
- jandrese 2y ago
  A gamma ray burst that sterilized the Earth would also wipe out Mars.

Mistletoe 2y ago

In addition the surface of Mars has lots of radiation which would require you to live under some sort of shielding or in a cave. >The average radiation level on Mars is 24–30 rads (240–300 mSv) per year, which is 40–50 times higher than Earth's. Everything on Mars is designed to kill you. I don’t understand the appeal either except for ultra rich on earth that are looking for a new exclusive neighborhood to move into, away from the serfs funding it.

pyrale 2y ago
Earth is boring, Mars is exciting. Why solve the immediately available, mundane and sometimes hard issues we have on earth, rather than to entertain one's intellect in a purely theoretic grapple with the most interesting few of the distant problems we'd have on Mars?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Why solve the immediately available, mundane and sometimes hard issues we have on earth, rather than to entertain one's intellect in a purely theoretic grapple with the most interesting few of the distant problems we'd have on Mars? Because Earth is boring, Mars is exciting. More pointedly: on Earth you’re fixing problems amidst a tightly-regulated status quo. On Mars you’re pioneering. We have way more people in the computer sciences than stewardship roles because human nature prefers to explore.
- redundantly 2y ago
  > Earth is boring, Mars is exciting. Why solve the immediately available, mundane and sometimes hard issues we have on earth Why must they be mutually exclusive? The space race that started seven decades ago brought immense benefits to humanity as a whole. Any progress made in the pursuit of colonizing Mars would undoubtedly have positive repercussions for us Earthlings.

lutusp 2y ago

> I would love someone with more knowledge to fully explore what a similar sized space station could achieve compared to the arduous task of going down martian gravity well that has half the solar energy and on top of that a night cycle which halves your solar output again. Issues: First, the solar energy at the surface is much the same as it is in orbit, because of Mars' very thin atmosphere -- unless a dust storm kicks in. This means there's no justification to use orbital solar with the attendant high capital costs and conversion losses. Second, being able to live below the surface in any of the existing lava tubes as protection against high surface radiation levels and wide temperature extremes, thus eliminating all the complexities of an orbital presence, makes the orbital option a non-starter. Third, an orbital presence would require generating artificial gravity to prevent known and serious health issues, less true for a surface colony (Mars' surface gravity is 38% that of Earth). Fourth, a carefully chosen lava tube site would have much better control over environmental temperatures than a surface or orbital colony. Remember that Mars surface temperatures regularly drop to -100F overnight. Temperature extremes would also be an issue in a lava tube, but with less severity if the site were carefully chosen. I think a Mars colonization project at scale will choose a surface colony over an orbital presence on multiple grounds. > I just dont see any scenario where a mars base would outperform a space station above mars/earth/moon/lagrange point with the ability to recover asteroids of a few metric tons. If the mission is to collect or mine asteroids, that would change everything. All the above assumes some other purpose -- for example, Mars surface mining.

Out_of_Characte 2y ago
>If the mission is to collect or mine asteroids, that would change everything. All the above assumes some other purpose -- for example, Mars surface mining. If we had the ability to mine mars, that would change everything. But this is precisely why I'm suggesting that a station in space might be superiour to any mars base. A station doesn't have to be near mars, lots of locations, asteroids and points of interest are closer to us than the surface of mars. Even going to mars will be easier if you have the station first. >there's no justification to use orbital solar with the attendant high capital costs and conversion losses Are you talking about orbital solar for a non-existent mars base? A space station can have 100% uptime of their solars cells without the problems dust brings. Mars is the one with conversion losses if they need to store any power for any length of time. >being able to live below the surface in any of the existing lava tubes as protection Radiation protection is just a cost figure for a station. Converting lava tubes into something we could use seems like a herculean effort without even knowing any safety aspects. You're just limiting your own space on a dead planet. >artificial gravity We could spin the habitat. It would be easier than testing lava tube methods of engineering. >Remember that Mars surface temperatures regularly drop to -100F overnight. Temperature extremes would also be an issue in a lava tube, but with less severity if the site were carefully chosen. Stations win again as we've already solved this.