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The Mars Dream Is Back — Here’s How to Make It Actually Happen

17 points by mpweiher 2y ago

deadlinermusic 2y ago
[dead]
dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
Instead of billionaires making more billions from taxpayers getting to Mars, they should undertake the trip themselves. That makes a lot more sense. Although worthwhile, there is no imperative to go to Mars. The idea we should colonize Mars to escape our problems on Earth will just result in two planets with the same sorts of problems.
- baranul 2y ago
  Think its inescapable that humanity will bring its problems with it, no matter where it goes. Probably what's more important, is that by being on numerous planets, it won't so easily go extinct due to war, disease, pollution, or stupidity.
  - natch 2y ago
    Or asteroid impact.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    I would say that war will result in same. Killing up colony outside earth is much simpler...
- natch 2y ago
  The likelihood of an extinction-level asteroid impact event on both planets at the same time is significantly lower than such an event that hits only one planet.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    Earth is still vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly more inhabitable after an extinction-level asteroid impact than Mars will ever be without an asteroid impact. As proof: life on Earth did survive the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. We're here, we live. Meanwhile, Mars remains a desolate, lifeless hellscape. Whatever indoor/underground habitats would be required for humans to survive on Mars could be built vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly more easily on Earth. Using Mars as a backup for life is like storing your computer backups in an active volcano, basically the stupidest idea ever. Mars is actively hostile to human life in so many ways. The so-called backup is worse than no backup. You've been sold a bill of goods. Mars was always a sideshow, a clever way of recruiting naive tech and science nerds to the cause of glorifying one sociopathic man. The head DOGE is in the process of cutting and shutting down scientific research all across the US, as well as eliminating all regulation of the environment and pollution. He's aligned himself with regressive religious nuts who want to bring back the Dark Ages. Those aren't the actions of someone dedicated to saving the Earth, much less going to Mars. But hey, perhaps science was "too woke". No, problem, we can just replace it with Christian Science, amirite.
    - natch 2y ago
      You are making absolutely huge unfounded assumptions that the human body plan cannot be altered if not completely redesigned to make it compatible with living on Mars.
      - lapcat 2y ago
        I am making absolutely huge unfounded assumptions? Show me the existing technology to alter or completely redesign the human body "plan" (whatever that means) to make it compatible with living on Mars. Otherwise, it's you who is making the absolutely huge unfounded assumptions.
        avmich 2y ago
        Why you need to see an existing tech? It's too easy to dismiss an argument on the grounds that the tech isn't there. I'm exagerrating, but we're talking about real scientific progress here, right?
turnsout 2y ago
[flagged]
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  Aren't they supposed to go on the dark side of the moon instead?
  - turnsout 2y ago
    We should be so lucky…
onemoresoop 2y ago
Yeah, this is going to drain our taxes and will probably be a disaster for the country.
- thatguy0900 2y ago
  Don't worry, the gov will just put the department of education money into it instead of raising taxes
xnx 2y ago
As sensors and robotic capabilities have advanced the argument for any human in space has never been weaker.
- palmfacehn 2y ago
  The entire exercise seems wildly impractical. I wouldn't advocate for it, but the audaciousness is what makes it stimulating to consider. Maybe other posters will give us some contrarian arguments. A popular one is to reduce the risk of human extinction.
  - nopelynopington 2y ago
    Reducing the risk of extinction is definitely something we should work towards, and there a temptation to say "we should fix earth instead of going to mars" which always annoys me because it assumes that one is at the expense of the other, which it is not. But I DO think that BEFORE we try to send people to Mars we should invest a lot more in local orbital architecture like space habitats. Building bigger space stations would be cheaper, easier, safer, and more immediately beneficial. They could be a stepping stone to the moon or Mars but would be beneficial in their own right
baranul 2y ago
The sad part is the dream of humanity on Mars can get very much derailed by SpaceX inadvertently getting caught up in political battles, just like Tesla sales and stocks took a nose dive as a result. Maybe it's good that Blue Origin is becoming a more viable competitor and hopefully its leadership has the sense to not get that deep into political drama, outside just getting contracts through normal processes.
- beefnugs 2y ago
  Not just spacenazi nightmare, but basically any capitalism makes the whole idea dumb : watch the tv show For All Mankind. They go right into space unions vs nation state space agencies, pretty interesting actually. But it would be a nightmare for anyone but musk himself, who wants to go be a space slave for no benefits? There could never be freedom or individualistic incentives, its <1% chance to be like Firefly and >99% chance to be The Expanse
  - h0l0cube 2y ago
    I’ve been listening the latest series of the Revolutions podcast by history nerd Mike Duncan, where he’s switched to sci-fi mode to do the Martian Revolution. Kind of interesting to listen to, though I wish now that instead he’d turned his attention to AI. There’s huge potential for revolution when our whole economy is upended and humanity is facing an existential terminus.
ViktorRay 2y ago
I think it’s a good thing that other nations like China and India are making rapid progress in regards to space. At this point I’m hopeful a space race happens driving competition to get to Mars. People can channel all the patriotic/nationalistic zeal productively toward the science and engineering involved in bringing humanity back to the Moon and to Mars and maybe even beyond.
tim333 2y ago
While you could send humans to Mars I'm not sure it's a good idea compared with sending better robotic explorers. The most interesting stuff scientifically if probably to search for microbial life there which is probably better done that way as they would contaminate the place like humans. Maybe down the line AI robots could build a base for humans and then we could go out and take holiday snaps and stuff.
- nopelynopington 2y ago
  Better yet maybe the robots could take the holiday snaps and save us a trip
slimebot80 2y ago
At some point in every project you may need to assess if the leadership is becoming detrimental to the goals. For a project to succeed, there must be willingness to openly review leadership.
nopelynopington 2y ago
As a lay person I've always failed to understand why so many people have confidence in spacex rockets given their extremely high public failure rate. It seems like every other test of starship leads to the entire thing exploding. Surely one of the requirements of a space delivery system should be that it doesn't explode regularly
- avmich 2y ago
  The SpaceX failures are almost non-existent comparing to airplane failures on the same level of technology development. Just like today people don't mind flying on a plane, we won't probably mind flying a rocket some day - and just as initially planes were for wealthy persons' infrequent flights, so are rockets, including SpaceX rockets. Also you shouldn't equate testing flights of Starship with regular flights of a system which completed development. You mostly see spectacular Starship explosions because they are harder to hide and are turned into a show - like fireworks, only different :) . Falcon-9 demonstrates a very high lelel of reliability, we have all reasons to assume the Starship will reach a similar level.
avmich 2y ago
The author is a well-known proponent of manned Mars missions. I would disagree with some proposals in the article - to me it looks easier just to use more Starship flights initially than to develop the Starboat early on (and in general the Starship capabilities seem to be misunderstood). I also suspect the nuclear energy points are taken too lightly. Author tries to propose scaling back missions, perhaps in attempt to reach lower economical thresholds, but it might also cost in other ways.

17 points by mpweiher 2y ago

[dead]

Instead of billionaires making more billions from taxpayers getting to Mars, they should undertake the trip themselves. That makes a lot more sense. Although worthwhile, there is no imperative to go to Mars. The idea we should colonize Mars to escape our problems on Earth will just result in two planets with the same sorts of problems.

baranul 2y ago
Think its inescapable that humanity will bring its problems with it, no matter where it goes. Probably what's more important, is that by being on numerous planets, it won't so easily go extinct due to war, disease, pollution, or stupidity.
- natch 2y ago
  Or asteroid impact.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I would say that war will result in same. Killing up colony outside earth is much simpler...
natch 2y ago
The likelihood of an extinction-level asteroid impact event on both planets at the same time is significantly lower than such an event that hits only one planet.
- lapcat 2y ago
  Earth is still vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly more inhabitable after an extinction-level asteroid impact than Mars will ever be without an asteroid impact. As proof: life on Earth did survive the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. We're here, we live. Meanwhile, Mars remains a desolate, lifeless hellscape. Whatever indoor/underground habitats would be required for humans to survive on Mars could be built vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly more easily on Earth. Using Mars as a backup for life is like storing your computer backups in an active volcano, basically the stupidest idea ever. Mars is actively hostile to human life in so many ways. The so-called backup is worse than no backup. You've been sold a bill of goods. Mars was always a sideshow, a clever way of recruiting naive tech and science nerds to the cause of glorifying one sociopathic man. The head DOGE is in the process of cutting and shutting down scientific research all across the US, as well as eliminating all regulation of the environment and pollution. He's aligned himself with regressive religious nuts who want to bring back the Dark Ages. Those aren't the actions of someone dedicated to saving the Earth, much less going to Mars. But hey, perhaps science was "too woke". No, problem, we can just replace it with Christian Science, amirite.
  - natch 2y ago
    You are making absolutely huge unfounded assumptions that the human body plan cannot be altered if not completely redesigned to make it compatible with living on Mars.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      I am making absolutely huge unfounded assumptions? Show me the existing technology to alter or completely redesign the human body "plan" (whatever that means) to make it compatible with living on Mars. Otherwise, it's you who is making the absolutely huge unfounded assumptions.
      - avmich 2y ago
        Why you need to see an existing tech? It's too easy to dismiss an argument on the grounds that the tech isn't there. I'm exagerrating, but we're talking about real scientific progress here, right?

turnsout 2y ago

[flagged]

littlestymaar 2y ago
Aren't they supposed to go on the dark side of the moon instead?
- turnsout 2y ago
  We should be so lucky…

onemoresoop 2y ago

Yeah, this is going to drain our taxes and will probably be a disaster for the country.

thatguy0900 2y ago
Don't worry, the gov will just put the department of education money into it instead of raising taxes

xnx 2y ago

As sensors and robotic capabilities have advanced the argument for any human in space has never been weaker.

palmfacehn 2y ago
The entire exercise seems wildly impractical. I wouldn't advocate for it, but the audaciousness is what makes it stimulating to consider. Maybe other posters will give us some contrarian arguments. A popular one is to reduce the risk of human extinction.
- nopelynopington 2y ago
  Reducing the risk of extinction is definitely something we should work towards, and there a temptation to say "we should fix earth instead of going to mars" which always annoys me because it assumes that one is at the expense of the other, which it is not. But I DO think that BEFORE we try to send people to Mars we should invest a lot more in local orbital architecture like space habitats. Building bigger space stations would be cheaper, easier, safer, and more immediately beneficial. They could be a stepping stone to the moon or Mars but would be beneficial in their own right

baranul 2y ago

The sad part is the dream of humanity on Mars can get very much derailed by SpaceX inadvertently getting caught up in political battles, just like Tesla sales and stocks took a nose dive as a result. Maybe it's good that Blue Origin is becoming a more viable competitor and hopefully its leadership has the sense to not get that deep into political drama, outside just getting contracts through normal processes.

beefnugs 2y ago
Not just spacenazi nightmare, but basically any capitalism makes the whole idea dumb : watch the tv show For All Mankind. They go right into space unions vs nation state space agencies, pretty interesting actually. But it would be a nightmare for anyone but musk himself, who wants to go be a space slave for no benefits? There could never be freedom or individualistic incentives, its <1% chance to be like Firefly and >99% chance to be The Expanse
- h0l0cube 2y ago
  I’ve been listening the latest series of the Revolutions podcast by history nerd Mike Duncan, where he’s switched to sci-fi mode to do the Martian Revolution. Kind of interesting to listen to, though I wish now that instead he’d turned his attention to AI. There’s huge potential for revolution when our whole economy is upended and humanity is facing an existential terminus.

ViktorRay 2y ago

I think it’s a good thing that other nations like China and India are making rapid progress in regards to space. At this point I’m hopeful a space race happens driving competition to get to Mars. People can channel all the patriotic/nationalistic zeal productively toward the science and engineering involved in bringing humanity back to the Moon and to Mars and maybe even beyond.

tim333 2y ago

While you could send humans to Mars I'm not sure it's a good idea compared with sending better robotic explorers. The most interesting stuff scientifically if probably to search for microbial life there which is probably better done that way as they would contaminate the place like humans. Maybe down the line AI robots could build a base for humans and then we could go out and take holiday snaps and stuff.

nopelynopington 2y ago
Better yet maybe the robots could take the holiday snaps and save us a trip

slimebot80 2y ago

At some point in every project you may need to assess if the leadership is becoming detrimental to the goals. For a project to succeed, there must be willingness to openly review leadership.

nopelynopington 2y ago

As a lay person I've always failed to understand why so many people have confidence in spacex rockets given their extremely high public failure rate. It seems like every other test of starship leads to the entire thing exploding. Surely one of the requirements of a space delivery system should be that it doesn't explode regularly

avmich 2y ago
The SpaceX failures are almost non-existent comparing to airplane failures on the same level of technology development. Just like today people don't mind flying on a plane, we won't probably mind flying a rocket some day - and just as initially planes were for wealthy persons' infrequent flights, so are rockets, including SpaceX rockets. Also you shouldn't equate testing flights of Starship with regular flights of a system which completed development. You mostly see spectacular Starship explosions because they are harder to hide and are turned into a show - like fireworks, only different :) . Falcon-9 demonstrates a very high lelel of reliability, we have all reasons to assume the Starship will reach a similar level.

avmich 2y ago

The author is a well-known proponent of manned Mars missions. I would disagree with some proposals in the article - to me it looks easier just to use more Starship flights initially than to develop the Starboat early on (and in general the Starship capabilities seem to be misunderstood). I also suspect the nuclear energy points are taken too lightly. Author tries to propose scaling back missions, perhaps in attempt to reach lower economical thresholds, but it might also cost in other ways.