People On Mars in 2023?

Son Of A Vidic

Pushtrak wrote: »

People On Mars in 2023?

Why not sooner? Sure isn't The Dáil overflowing with an abundance of fully qualified Space Cadets.

Mickeroo

hardCopy wrote: »

I'm a bit confused as to why people would go. People usually explore for some sort of gain, e.g. Columbus seeking new spice routes, pilgrims seeking new lands free from persecution in America, prospectors seeking gold in the American West.

Probably posted this in AH before, doesn't directly talk about colonising mars but the reasons are the same in my eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdwOlk6HIVc

Shane-KornSpace

The day we finally land a person on Mars, I will cry with joy!

Duggy747

I'll feel proud as punch to see that live feed of that first person stepping on Mars. Just gotta stay alive long enough to see it :pac:

Not proud in that I did anything but that others in our species collectively did something so magnificent. That 1st step towards living outside of our planet that will show the tangible start to a new future.

A future I won't be around for unless they perfect the "head in a jar" Futurama thingy-ma-bob.

Things like this are always needed, besides the obvious future of our survival, for the knowledge, medical research and technology that will be learned from it. Think of all the trivial stuff we have today that started it's roots from the space race.

Still, sending people off to permanently live on Mars is a massive risk but with also a potentially massive payoff for the species. No pressure at all, then, for those lucky 4.

Plus, 2023 sounds a bit ambitious, even if around 2020 has always been mentioned as the "Man on Mars" timeline for years now.

MisterEpicurus

Sarky wrote: »

Robots can only do so much. They have to be terribly well-designed to contain tools and laboratory for everything people want them to do. If they break down, you have to send another one. With humans on Mars, they have instant access to results, if something malfunctions they can fix it on the fly, and they can start a new experiment as soon as they've done the old one, no more waiting months or years to send and receive data, no hoping the robot's batteries don't blow up, no abandoning the whole thing if the robot accidentally steers into a chasm and breaks.

Also, being one of the first people to colonise another planet? That would be FREAKING AWESOME.

Of course it would...I just don't think it's going to happen.

Shane-KornSpace wrote: »

The day we finally land a person on Mars, I will cry with joy!

No you won't.

ha ha hello

How proud would you feel if we, as a species, managed to avoid the predictable route of self-annihilation and eventually colonised other planets? Surely the existence of a civilisation is extremely precarious between the time they discover nuclear weapons etc. and the time needed to colonise other planets.. like I'd guess a high percentage would never make it that far. Should be some cool sh'it happening during this millennium!

Phoenix Park

Moon's a loada bollix to be honest. Mars is where its at. I can see myself there some day. I like red chedder, red onions.... I prefer Bournville to Dairy Milk and that has a red wrapper too...it feels natural to be on the Red Planet. If they can get you there, they can get the internet and good stuff there with you too...although i reckon you won't need to "have" the internet in 2023. You just focus on it in your mind...and it appears, like magic!
Sign me up

af_thefragile

Will they set up chippers on Mars so you can gut unlimited supply of deep fried Mars bars there?

Benny_Cake

“This is going to be private enterprise, only private firms are going to contribute. No political mumbo-jumbo, no tax-payer’s money will be involved,” Dr. Hooft said in a statement.

All well and good, but it is just over half a century since the first human went into orbit and the private sector is only now beginning to reach the point where it will be capable of launching manned spacecraft. And that is largely because of contracts from taxpayer-funded space agencies. I have no problem with the idea, in fact I'd find it exciting, but I don't see how 2023 is realistic, particularly since their method of raising the necessary funding seems to be a reality TV show. The first humans on Mars are likely to arrive as part of an international effort. I just hope I'm alive to see it.

Logical Fallacy

Pushtrak wrote: »

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/mars-one-plans-human-colonization-of-mars-by-april-2023/

More @ http://mars-one.com/

So, they're planning on 4 in 2023, and to have 20 up there in 2033. I'm not going to speak on the likelihood of them making the 2023 date, but the point I will make is it seems 10 years on, maybe they ought to be hoping for more than that to be up on Mars?

Being on another planet would be quite an experience, but being one of the early adopters, so to speak, one of those astronauts.. It'd be quite something to adapt to. Going on a one way journey somewhere, well, the precise 4 that would go up would have to be chosen. They will only have each other to "entertain" each other.

A return trip to Mars is a far simpler proposition than keeping 20 people alive up there over a long time.

Both goals are ambitious and will come to nothing.

Pushtrak

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

Combining this with the length of time it would take to terraform Mars makes it seem ambitious at best. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if it's unattainable, it just appears to be at the outset.

Contact them. Let them know, so they don't spend billions on something that will never happen. Oh, maybe they know more on the issue than we?

hardCopy wrote: »

I'm a bit confused as to why people would go. People usually explore for some sort of gain, e.g. Columbus seeking new spice routes, pilgrims seeking new lands free from persecution in America, prospectors seeking gold in the American West.

This planet only has so many resources. With the population rising as it is, there will come a time when we will need to have another planet to go to. And seeing as these things take time, it would probably be good for us to be ready before we absolutely need it to be ready.

I could see the case for it if we found unobtanium there and had a way to retrieve it or if Earth was completely overcrowded.

Because working on a solution when you are already deep in the problem is a good idea? No, ideally you'd avoid the problem.

TPD

I wonder if there's any amount of training someone could begin tomorrow to be one of the four in 2023.

squod

TPD wrote: »

I wonder if there's any amount of training someone could begin tomorrow to be one of the four in 2023.

Stop masturbating

the groutch

they'd be better off going to Blisstonia

wexie

A Dutch entrepeneur is planning on sending a team of volunteers to Mars, and combining the whole effort with reality TV (mostly for funding I gather).

Would you go?

Ten years of training for the trip, but no way back (that's provided you actually get there)

http://mars-one.com/en/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18506033

JohnMarston

No. I like gravity. And not being in a tin can.

Nodin

...doesn't seem to have thought it through. Or hes just scamming a few bob.

Knex*

Can we nominate cnuts people to go instead?

JohnMarston

Arnold

bee_keeper

af_thefragile wrote: »

NASA was all geared up for Moon landings, setting a moon base and a Mars mission too with the Constellation Program.

Then Obama decided he needed more money to kill people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and that was obviously more important than any sorta pointless space travel and hence yeah, it's gonna be a long time before we'll be going back to the moon and beyond again...

investment in space is pretty small compared to what it was in the 1960,s , after the moon landing , a plan was drawn up to land on mars by 1981 , when nixon saw the multi billion dollar cost , he binned the idea , the end of the cold war really put the kibosh on serious space investment

im 34 , id be surprised if thier is a mars landing by the time im seventy

bee_keeper

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

Let's be honest - we're not ever going to colonize Mars. It's completely uninhabitable. And where else are we supposed to colonise? We're not going to get to the nearest galaxy even with the best technology. Plus, I'm ignoring all that hocus pocus of wormholes, sounds like bull to me when I read it.

maybe not mars but their will eventually be colonys on other planet , your looking at at least another thousand years

movies have given us an over inflated sense of technological advancement , movies like total recall or avatar where in a mere hundred years , settlements are possible :rolleyes:

General Relativity

JohnMarston wrote: »

No. I like gravity.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Where do I even start?

Cina

Mmmmm, Mars. *drool*

Pushtrak

Cina wrote: »

Mmmmm, Mars. *drool*

Heh heh, snickers.

ScumLord

General Relativity wrote: »

And you'll be alive to see us take our first baby steps into the Universe. Count yourself among the lucky. We only learned to fly ~110 years ago.

I feel really bad now, am I the only one that hasn't learned to fly yet?

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

I'm all for science, but only science that gains us knowledge. How exactly do we benefit from taking the risk of sending individuals to Mars?

I think it's just an ego trip.

The human race ultimately needs to get off this planet, the sooner the better, we are actually running out of certain elements on the planets, we're going to have exhausted our helium supply within a hundred years I think. If we leave it too long we could very well end up stuck here.

MisterEpicurus wrote: »

Of course I'm aware of these benefits, but my point is...would it not be better to have sophisticated robots perform these jobs?

No, as we all know from the terminator documentaries robots would only screw us over and keep mars for themselves.

The other thing about space is there's the massive amounts of material just floating around in it. Even water is just floating around in space. Once we have a good replacement for our earth space ship (which is basically what this planet is) with the major upgrade of being able to go anywhere we want it to go, we could survive quiet well in space as we'd have unlimited resources.

Earth is ultimately a doomed planet, the human race and really life on earth as a whole can only guarantee it's survival by spreading it as far and wide as possible.

nyarlothothep

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

ScumLord

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back.

They're making that sacrifice so that others in the future will be able to come and go with ease. People did this hundreds of years ago when they first went to the new world, they knew they'd more than likely never see their families again.

shizz

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

The idea is that putting resources into bringing them back takes away from setting up the colony. Eventually steps will be put in to bring people too and from.

I for one am not for this method anyway. With proper investment and development we can bring them back initially.

Helix

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

not being able to come back is just in the beginning. it's the first step to get people there and start building a colony. eventually, when that colony is big enough, and the teething problems have been sorted out, it's pretty much a given that they'll build something capable of returning people and things to earth. we won't see it on our lifetimes, but to suggest that it's never going to happen is a bit silly

you seem unable to grasp the bigger picture

Pushtrak

ScumLord wrote: »

I feel really bad now, am I the only one that hasn't learned to fly yet?

Don't feel too bad. That means you don't have to migrate at inconvenient times of the year.

The human race ultimately needs to get off this planet, the sooner the better, we are actually running out of certain elements on the planets, we're going to have exhausted our helium supply within a hundred years I think. If we leave it too long we could very well end up stuck here.

When I read that about the helium supply, my reaction was "What the..." had to look that up. http://digitaljournal.com/article/321439

Finding it hard to believe shouldn't be surprising given that

Earth by no means has an infinite supply of helium, in fact it is highly limited on this planet despite it being the second-most abundant element in the universe.

The world's second-lightest element, which is crucial to the usage of equipment such as MRI scanners and neutron beams, is disappearing so fast that experts are warning it could be gone as soon as 2025. Due to a law passed in 1996, helium has become "too cheap to recycle" and the sharply declining stock of the gas could ultimately spell doom for the medical industry says The Independent.

That certainly isn't good.[/understatement]

The other thing about space is there's the massive amounts of material just floating around in it. Even water is just floating around in space. Once we have a good replacement for our earth space ship (which is basically what this planet is) with the major upgrade of being able to go anywhere we want it to go, we could survive quiet well in space as we'd have unlimited resources.

Asteroid mining will be very important in the future, no doubt. On that, I must mention Planetary Resources... http://mashable.com/2012/04/26/planetary-resources-asteroid-mining-trillions/

ScumLord

Pushtrak wrote: »

When I read that about the helium supply, my reaction was "What the..." had to look that up. http://digitaljournal.com/article/321439

Pretty socking, you'll never look at a party balloon the same way, I get annoyed at the waist when I see them now.

Feisar

Pushtrak wrote: »

Heh heh, snickers.

Don't laugh, this will be a marathon operation to complete.

nyarlothothep

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

i see what you did there

seamus

ScumLord wrote: »

Pretty socking, you'll never look at a party balloon the same way, I get annoyed at the waist when I see them now.

Makes you wonder, if it's so scarce how come helium balloons don't cost €1000 a go?

Pushtrak

Feisar wrote: »

Don't laugh, this will be a marathon operation to complete.

There'll be a great bounty in this galaxy.

ScumLord

seamus wrote: »

Makes you wonder, if it's so scarce how come helium balloons don't cost €1000 a go?

I would guess as long as they can meet demand each year that keeps cost low, once the production rate goes down meaning they can't meet demand the price will go up. It's the same with oil, it's not the dwindling supplies that making the cost go up it's that they can't get it out of the ground fast enough to meet demand so people have to fight over what's available.

nyarlothothep

ScumLord wrote: »

They're making that sacrifice so that others in the future will be able to come and go with ease. People did this hundreds of years ago when they first went to the new world, they knew they'd more than likely never see their families again.

Uh oh, that sounds like the ends justifying the means argument again. Just because it happened in the past with measurable success doesn't justify it in principle. Also totally different context. The new world with its abundance of resources and the remote though extant possibility of coming back vs a pod on a dead world...

I'm not against space colonisation, I'm all for it but this is not the way to achieve it. This is a case of running before you can walk. Do the research, the steps necessary to get to that point, to let the technology catch up with the loftier ambitions. Otherwise it's equivalent to a guy putting up a youtube video where they try to shred having practiced the guitar for 6 months. Guess what happens?

nyarlothothep

Helix wrote: »

not being able to come back is just in the beginning. it's the first step to get people there and start building a colony. eventually, when that colony is big enough, and the teething problems have been sorted out, it's pretty much a given that they'll build something capable of returning people and things to earth. we won't see it on our lifetimes, but to suggest that it's never going to happen is a bit silly

you seem unable to grasp the bigger picture

Nice, slip in a little ad hominem. Pfft, nah you see to build a spaceship on mars capable to escaping gravitational pull with limited resources is equivalent to Flynn Taggart in the Doom novels building a rocket ship from a DIY kit on the Deimos base, not going to happen, at least not until many centuries have passed. And the initial human sacrifice doesn't justify it, it's all too easy for humans to rationalise human sacrifice for the greater good, in some cases like Chernobyl this is justfied, not in this case when better approaches are availabe. Lets start with not bailing out parasite banks and bankers and diverting all that cash into space research. And maybe ending the Iraq and Afghan wars and not starting any new ones. Think of all the money that could be saved. Of course that would require a change in human attitudes which is all too difficult to accomplish, no better we go with the human sacrifice route.

ScumLord

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Uh oh, that sounds like the ends justifying the means argument again.

But the ends do justify the means here because we're talking about survival, not just the survival of humans, not just the survival of life on earth, for all we know life on earth could be it, we're could be talking about the survival of all life. We're just assuming life has happened elsewhere but we've little proof outside of maybe a few microbes.

The new world with its abundance of resources and the remote though extant possibility of coming back vs a pod on a dead world...

resources don't require life, like I already said all the resources we could ever need are just floating around in space. Mars could have been very similar to earth at one point which means it probably has very similar resources outside of the organic and o-zone.

Do the research, the steps necessary to get to that point, to let the technology catch up with the loftier ambitions.

We've sent the robot's made the models and it really is time to start putting some practical applications in.

Pushtrak

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Pfft, nah you see to build a spaceship on mars capable to escaping gravitational pull with limited resources is equivalent to Flynn Taggart in the Doom novels building a rocket ship from a DIY kit on the Deimos base, not going to happen, at least not until many centuries have passed.

Suppose you have people who are willing to make a life long committment to try to make colonizing another planet a success. This is what we have here, it seems. You are discounting people who are willing. It isn't like some dictator is throwing people to something they don't want to do.

So, the situation is having people go over and try to make this work. With more people added over time. My issue is how are they going to keep up the money? What is this talk of a reality tv show or something? If that doesn't build up money then I don't see how in the short term the funding will be self sustaining. That is the big issue as I see it.

As for a space vessel that could break orbit from Mars, well, that would be for a ways down the road. And I imagine such a vessel would be constructed on Earth, sent to Mars, and would return.

shizz

Pushtrak wrote: »

As for a space vessel that could break orbit from Mars, well, that would be for a ways down the road. And I imagine such a vessel would be constructed on Earth, sent to Mars, and would return.

No it wouldn't. We have the technology capable of producing the propellant in the right ratio needed to fuel an earth return vehicle to launch from Mars onto a course to Earth.

That technology, however, lacks the proper demonstration. It has only been demonstrated on Earth in laboratories.

Capt'n Midnight

Pity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt failed.

It might have detected volatiles or precursors for fuel which would have simplified a future return missions.

Where it gets really interesting is that Deimos is very near the stationary orbit above mars, it's at 23,460Km and a stationary orbit is about 3,000 km lower. There is enough mass to make an elevator and if you extend the elevator outwards you get a bit of a kick.

But if Deimos or Phobos have ice then it should be possible to setup a colony/refuelling station there.

Of course you have to figure out a way to wiggle the elevator so it don't bump into Phobos.

if you put an elevator from Phobos then at the top of the atmosphere it covers ~10700Km in 11.1 hours = 960Kmph, so it should be easy to catch a lift at the top of a parabolic flight

The height would be determined by the materials used, but since Concorde can travel faster than this aluminium alloys might do instead of titanium if you wanted the tip to enter the atmosphere from Phobos.

Also if aerodynamic tip which can be lowered into the atmosphere was winged and like a water skier could rush ahead and then slow down , it might even be possible to create a hooking system that picked up stuff from the ground at low relative velocity.

or you could use electric motors to pull the tip along, power from microwaves or what not. Tu-95 can get up to 920Km using propellers, though the speed of sound is lower on mars , so maybe not such a good idea, ducted fans with a subsonic inlet might work.

shizz

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Pity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt failed.

It might have detected volatiles or precursors for fuel which would have simplified a future return missions.

Where it gets really interesting is that Deimos is very near the stationary orbit above mars, it's at 23,460Km and a stationary orbit is about 3,000 km lower. There is enough mass to make an elevator and if you extend the elevator outwards you get a bit of a kick.

But if Deimos or Phobos have ice then it should be possible to setup a colony/refuelling station there.

Of course you have to figure out a way to wiggle the elevator so it don't bump into Phobos.

if you put an elevator from Phobos then at the top of the atmosphere it covers ~10700Km in 11.1 hours = 960Kmph, so it should be easy to catch a lift at the top of a parabolic flight

The height would be determined by the materials used, but since Concorde can travel faster than this aluminium alloys might do instead of titanium if you wanted the tip to enter the atmosphere from Phobos.

Also if aerodynamic tip which can be lowered into the atmosphere was winged and like a water skier could rush ahead and then slow down , it might even be possible to create a hooking system that picked up stuff from the ground at low relative velocity.

or you could use electric motors to pull the tip along, power from microwaves or what not. Tu-95 can get up to 920Km using propellers, though the speed of sound is lower on mars , so maybe not such a good idea, ducted fans with a subsonic inlet might work.

The resources found on Mars and in its atmosphere are far easier to utilise than what you are describing here. Specially in initial missions.

Capt'n Midnight

shizz wrote: »

The resources found on Mars and in its atmosphere are far easier to utilise than what you are describing here. Specially in initial missions.

yes , if heading on a one way trip

for a return trip ice in orbit means you can just add electricity and fill your tanks for the return trip. Or you could use that fuel to land , and take off again


in orbit solar panels will give several times the power at the surface,
Not having to land the fuel factory on the surface saves a lot of weight and in space flight every trip of every Kg adds up exponentially

shizz

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

yes , if heading on a one way trip

I'm not talking about a one way trip.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

for a return trip ice in orbit means you can just add electricity and fill your tanks for the return trip. Or you could use that fuel to land , and take off again

Yeah Ice in orbit would be ideal, but the cost, risk and infrastructure you would have to place there to make it more viable than having the same on Mars is too large for initial missions or indeed many years into a colonisation there.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

in orbit solar panels will give several times the power at the surface,

Without a doubt.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not having to land the fuel factory on the surface saves a lot of weight and in space flight every trip of every Kg adds up exponentially

But the point is it is far easier and less risky to make the fuel on Mars. There is ample resources to provide the propellant needed to escape Mars and put on to a earth return trajectory.

There is no doubt that there is advantages in what you are proposing, but it is way down the line on any potential Mars mission.

bee_keeper

nyarlothothep wrote: »

This is a terrible idea, what is the point in going to mars if you can't come back. Space colonisation is quite worthless and overly cumbersome if you can't go to and leave colonies at will for the transportation of goods, technologies, people etc. This plan seems like just wanting to get there without doing the requisite research in how to leave aswell and it will exploit willing volunteers who will basically sacrifice their lives as they know it for a chance at fame, scientific endevour or a new life entirely. But it will suck because they'll be stuck in a pod. It just seems like a fundamentally flawed idea, I hope it never gets off the ground.

what do you mean cant come back , their going to mars , not the andromeda galaxy , its eight months each way , add in a year on mars and its not much longer than the average paddy is away from his mammy in australia :pac:

Doc Ruby

Fair play to them, assuming they aren't out to scam money on the back of the private space exploration boom, and how cool is it that people can say "private space exploration boom" with a straight face. However.

General Relativity wrote: »

It forces us to devolop new technology to get their in the first place. This snowballs and allows us to go further and further.

They claim they will be using off the shelf technology, so no new technology is needed. This is complete nonsense. Even here on earth attempts to create a sort of self-perpetuating ecosystem in a dome have failed. Speaking of domes, what inspired their upside down bucket design? Geodesic makes a lot more sense. That looks a random inspiration pulled out of a hat.

Pushtrak wrote: »

This planet only has so many resources. With the population rising as it is, there will come a time when we will need to have another planet to go to. And seeing as these things take time, it would probably be good for us to be ready before we absolutely need it to be ready.

Any place on earth is more hospitable than Mars. We could build cities in Antarctic with a better chance of survival. Let me introduce you to The Red Planet.

Mars is a hard place to live without major technological support. The atmosphere is as near to vacuum as makes no odds for life, its exposed to lethal bursts of solar radiation, and the extremes of cold are beyond the ability of anything we know of to thrive in. Then we have dryness, where it's warm enough for life there is no water, where there is water its -150 degrees celcius on a good day. The boiling temperature of water at Martian air pressures is -40 degrees celcius.

Whatever about the rest, gravity is something that can't be ignored no matter how much technology you throw at it. At one third earth's gravity we (and they) have exactly no idea about the long term effect on human bones and decalcification.

In english, that translates to your bones will break if you sit down too hard. We know this effect becomes chronic after about a year in zero gravity, how many years will it take to happen on Mars? Maybe none. Maybe three. This is one of those very basic research questions that needs to be answered loooong before anyone thinks about setting up a Mars colony.

The idea of sending people there in ten years with off the shelf technology is completely impossible. They mean to fund it with a media spectacle, 99.99% of the time spent in these research efforts are mind numbingly boring, trust me on this, and by any reasonable measure of cost they would need to raise millions or tens of millions per day over the next ten years in advertising revenue.

And once they are there you can't just plant crops, the colony would need constant resupply, seven months worth at a time, large amounts of infrastructure to harvest things like usable water, INSANE amounts of backups (if something breaks you're seven months at minimum away from a replacement, lets hope it wasn't essential, oops, with the cost to lift things to orbit everything is essential), its a long, long list.

I don't know, the urge to say things like "either fools or con artists" is tempered by my passionate desire to make it happen, but as it stands, its not worth supporting.

nyarlothothep

Pushtrak wrote: »

Suppose you have people who are willing to make a life long committment to try to make colonizing another planet a success. This is what we have here, it seems. You are discounting people who are willing. It isn't like some dictator is throwing people to something they don't want to do.

So, the situation is having people go over and try to make this work. With more people added over time. My issue is how are they going to keep up the money? What is this talk of a reality tv show or something? If that doesn't build up money then I don't see how in the short term the funding will be self sustaining. That is the big issue as I see it.

As for a space vessel that could break orbit from Mars, well, that would be for a ways down the road. And I imagine such a vessel would be constructed on Earth, sent to Mars, and would return.

What are the odds most of them are going to think "wow a place in the history books/scientific endevour (insert whatever reason you can come up with here)" vs the actual experience a year or two in of living in a confined space with a few other people for the rest of their lives on a world long dead? That is one of the problems.

nyarlothothep

ScumLord wrote: »

But the ends do justify the means here because we're talking about survival, not just the survival of humans, not just the survival of life on earth, for all we know life on earth could be it, we're could be talking about the survival of all life. We're just assuming life has happened elsewhere but we've little proof outside of maybe a few microbes.



resources don't require life, like I already said all the resources we could ever need are just floating around in space. Mars could have been very similar to earth at one point which means it probably has very similar resources outside of the organic and o-zone.

We've sent the robot's made the models and it really is time to start putting some practical applications in.

Except building space ships and launch pads and research facilities is harder to do with a dozen or so people in a hostile environment. I agree the ends do justify the means in terms of ensuring the survival of life on earth through space colonisation, but this scenario of just sending people to live on Mars ne'er to return is not one of them. We need better ships, better propulsion to make it easier to hop around the solar system, and at the moment the lack of initiative is as always to do with the fcked up preoccupations of politicians and corporatists .What happens if one of the colonists gets sick, to extent that sending over a payload of medical supplies isn't enough? Or one of them goes crazy? Or something happens where all their lives are in danger and they need immediate help?

Pushtrak

bee_keeper wrote: »

what do you mean cant come back , their going to mars , not the andromeda galaxy , its eight months each way , add in a year on mars and its not much longer than the average paddy is away from his mammy in australia :pac:

This is planned in the short term as a one way trip. There would be a group of 4 sent up, with another 4 being sent up periodically. There are no plans that have been revealed about any return plans for any of them. Of course, there would have to be a system in place to bring people there and back at some point, but that isn't even under discussion... At least publically that I've seen.

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Fair play to them, assuming they aren't out to scam money on the back of the private space exploration boom, and how cool is it that people can say "private space exploration boom" with a straight face. However.

Not going to copy all the post, just will say thanks, it was informative.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

What are the odds most of them are going to think "wow a place in the history books/scientific endevour (insert whatever reason you can come up with here)" vs the actual experience a year or two in of living in a confined space with a few other people for the rest of their lives on a world long dead? That is one of the problems.

The enterprise has problems, obviously. I really don't see this as one of them. The personal motivations of people isn't a problem. At least, certainly not in a situation like this. A discussion on the feasibility is worth having. The people who would be undertaking this mission would be highly trained and have likely dedicated their lives to becoming an astronaut.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Except building space ships and launch pads and research facilities is harder to do with a dozen or so people in a hostile environment. I agree the ends do justify the means in terms of ensuring the survival of life on earth through space colonisation, but this scenario of just sending people to live on Mars ne'er to return is not one of them. We need better ships, better propulsion to make it easier to hop around the solar system, and at the moment the lack of initiative is as always to do with the fcked up preoccupations of politicians and corporatists .What happens if one of the colonists gets sick, to extent that sending over a payload of medical supplies isn't enough? Or one of them goes crazy? Or something happens where all their lives are in danger and they need immediate help?

See? Worthy questions, all.