Going to Mars is dumb - 60+ billion dollars for what?

[CreamyHerman’s]

We should build nuclear-fusion powered AI cumbots for trannies tbh, the more they coom the less likely they will be tard-raging online

 

[AgendaPoster]

Going to Mars is only a huge small step that forces humanity to adapt and deal with the challenges of exploring space.
The fact that it's costly, will likely result in lost lives, and might be impractical is rather irrelevant.
We have to continue exploring and discovering, and we have to put a large part of our efforts into leaving the planet, for obvious reasons - we don't want the species to die if the planet dies, and we want the species to evolve, colonize and spread.

 

[The Last Stand]

We don't need to pollute other planets with our nonsense.

 

[Space_Dandy]

What about Uranus?


Why not build under the surface?

Colonize a gas planet? Sweet, we'll just drop boots in the clouds.

Under the martian surface? One of the only things you could possibly use on Mars is the sunlight. Perhaps going underground would alleviate some of the radiation on the surface, but I don't see it really see that as making living on Mars permanently in an enclosure that much more viable.

 

[White_N]

For the sake of a dream

 

[scallion]

 

[Beak Thing]

Colonize a gas planet? Sweet, we'll just drop boots in the clouds.

Uranus is probably the best option if you wanted to try that in terms of gravity, weather and composition.

 

[Cloacan]

I agree it's a proof of concept idea, but it's also a waste of time. Mars is not habitable, nor would it ever be without drastic changes. It's got no atmosphere, no resources that could be used to sustain life, etc... We'd have to keep sending supplies, a 9 month trip, or the astronauts will die.

If we are going to do proof of concept stuff, let's work on redirecting comets into Venus, to get it some water, then terraform that mofo. That would test comet/asteroid deflection and would set us up to colonize Venus way down the line.

Or send a probe to Europa to explore the oceans for life. Engineering the drill through 11 miles of ice (or whatever it is) would be a pretty neat challenge to overcome

You have no atmosphere, you have no resources to sustain life. You are a homosexual planet twisted by NASA and Elon Musk into a crude mockery of Earth's perfection. All the "space missions" you get are pointless and half-hearted. Behind your moons people mock you. Your solar system is disgusted and ashamed of you, your "neighbor planets" laugh at your barren landscape behind closed doors.

 

[shameful existence]

Venus balloon colony is a concept too beautiful for this world, so we have to keep ourselves grounded by touching some red rock instead.

 

[Beak Thing]

Or send a probe to Europa to explore the oceans for life. Engineering the drill through 11 miles of ice (or whatever it is) would be a pretty neat challenge to overcome

Agreed Hulk, Europa and Enceladus are 100% the missions I would focus on because the possibility of life is so high.

One fascinating aspect of Europa is there was a time in early in its history when Jupiter was still forming and was hot enough to give off radiation similar to a red dwarf star. For a short time, geologically speaking, Europa was an ocean world with surface oceans of liquid water and blue skies filled with puffy clouds but it inevitably froze. Don Davis painted my absolute favorite work of space art of all time about this.

In many ways this freezing was a blessing as the ice shell protected any potential life under the surface and averted the loss of Europa's water ti space due to its low mass. It's a bit depressing thinking about how one random day Jupiter finally cooled enough and from there it was just an endless decline into ice and cold. Same deal with Mars, really, there was one day where the planet could no longer sustain temperate conditions due to the loss of atmosphere and the rest of its history was just a descent into a cold, sterile wasteland.

I wonder if it snowed on Mars' dying day.

 

[Beak Thing]

I suppose I should post the painting I was thinking about. The Freezing of Ancient Europa by Don Davis.

 

[potato in mah painus]

The whole idea is stupid scifi wank material. Humans will never teraform a planet, we will never colonize another body, and we will never leave our solar system.

The challenges are too great, the cost is too high, and much of what we’d need to do may not even be possible. We think too highly of ourselves when it comes to this kind of thing.

Even if the very worst climate change models came true and earth became a hell scape it would still be far more habitable than anywhere else.


Extinction is the fate of humanity no matter what we do, it is completely unavoidable. The question isn’t if, it’s when.

James Webb telescope pretty much threw what we knew about the cosmos out the window, and you are here just shitting on those who would take on those challenges?

 

[Creep3r]

Aside from the funding and potential wastes of resources and energy, the gravity and atmosphere issues will always be the main problem with trying to colonize Mars or any smaller planets and moons. Like many here have said, an atmospheric base or station on Venus is the best chance for colonization and maybe even terraforming via selective pollution, although the time period would be horrendously long and arduous or maybe even unfruitful depending on circumstances but the long-term benefits would be more fruitful than a Mars colony.

That or a moon of similar or equal mass to Earth (raising the temperature of the atmospheres on cold moons would be more feasible than cooling boiling hot planets), but that's unlikely since the biggest this system might have is Ganymede but even its too small but it does have more practical long term use and research purposes for Earth than Mars what with its potential ocean which may be larger than that of Europa's, unless of course by some unlikely chance humans develop artificial gravity that does not rely on rotation since building rotating bases on Mars or anywhere would be ridiculously expensive and difficult to maintain unless they're limited only to sleeping quarters and other essential areas I guess. However even this wouldn't be able to perfectly simulate earth gravity with current human technology and would completely mess up any potential attempts to raise the first martian babies and children which absolutely require earth gravity to develop, and at the end of the day Mars is also too cold and its soil is far too different and toxic to ever be of any real use.

So all signs point to Venus for the best option in my opinion unless earth develops faster than light hyperspace travel to explore outside the reach of the sol system but even that's unlikely (at least within any current human's lifetimes and based on current social development) and there's too many unknown risks for humans that may prove just as fruitless if it ever came to be. And if no faster than light travel is ever made, ideas like colony arks or sleeper ships would be more like suicide, unless maybe we're willing to embrace the full benefits and potential of atomic energy, but again even these world fail unless we perfect artificial gravity to make sure generations would be able to keep breeding.

So, my vote is still on Venus for the time being (inb4 no one wants to go back to Venus out of fear of finding out that humans actually came from there and fucked its surface beyond all reason or that space isn't even real).

 

[Miller]

...
Even if the very worst climate change models came true and earth became a hell scape it would still be far more habitable than anywhere else.


Extinction is the fate of humanity no matter what we do, it is completely unavoidable. The question isn’t if, it’s when.

Extinction is the fate of humanity if we continue to listen to the Climate™ activists.
The desire to grow, to explore and discover what lies in the unknown, those things are part of what makes us human. Humanity will colonize the Solar system but it will take a lot of time.

...

Under the martian surface? One of the only things you could possibly use on Mars is the sunlight. Perhaps going underground would alleviate some of the radiation on the surface, but I don't see it really see that as making living on Mars permanently in an enclosure that much more viable.

I think building underground would be a better choice. Sure, people will live in zee pods but they would be less exposed to the danger on the surface (radiation, meteorites, etc.). They could still use the surface to create energy (if they don't find a way to create a tiny nuclear reactor).

 

[Ishtar]

Going to Mars is dangerous, extremely expensive, and has any number of unknown risks and hazards. Do I think we should? Sure. Do I think we will in the near future? Dude...we're more focused on giving undeserving niggers reparayshuns and demonizing Whitey, not the grand future.

For space travel in general-there are two main considerations that I consider; firstly the multitude of health effects, scientists discover the dangerous effects of zero g, background radiation, and the like all the time. Which makes the entire venture ever more questionable unless ways can be found to circumvent or prevent this.

Second consideration is time-without FTL or even near light speed travel, colonizing the solar system will take hundreds if not thousands of years. And other stars longer still, much less a galaxy. I do not believe our civilization has either the resolve, discipline or vision for this sort of multi million year long endeavor. Not to mention resource shortages, strife, and other problems on earth(I'm not discussing the "why do space travel when we have heckin povertino!" as much as problems on earth will make maintaining an interplanetary civilization-even one limited to the moon and asteroid belt very difficult, if earth collapses, these colonies will perish).

Maybe...they'll crack Alcubierre drives, or something. I have severe doubts. As the laws of physics do not broke their breaking.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

There were probably people who expressed the same resistance and debated the virtue and necessity of launching satellites and later people into space back in the 1900s but yet here we are now with several rovers on Mars and two satellites heading beyond our solar system. There's something about the human spirit that keeps driving us to explore, which isn't a bad thing.

 

[OnlinePresents]

I just looked Venus up on wikipedia, no way that shit is a real planet

 

[TheRetardKing]

It's also very dangerous.

Spoiler: Remember Challenger, guys?

 

[Sarcastic sockpuppet]

I we could terrform Mars, why don't we start with terraforming the Sahara? Would be a lot easier, atmosphere is breathable, gravity is the one we are used too.. going out may require a hat and sunscreen but not a full-body armor, shitting will not require any special equipment or sticking a vaccum pipe into your anus like it does in a space station.

No one is going to Mars. Not you, not your children, not your grandchildren. Maybe someone in several generations, but that's a big maybe, and it's so far removed from our reality so it may as well be no one. We simply don't have the technology to colonize the planet. We can't even fathom how much we don't have the technology.

Worrying about the Sun exploding in a billion years is a complete waste of time. A billion years is too far removed from our human lifespam, it may as well be never.

The Mars colonization project is a psyop, a distraction, made to waste your time and keep you from thinking about more pressing issues like pollution, inequality, global warming, wars, corruption, the energy crisis, the rising cost of living...

Only elitists One-percenter dweebs living in an Ivory Tower like Musk, Nolan & Co can entertain this dumb idea because they have dumb ambitions like being futurist Space lords or putting advertising on the Moon.

There's micro-plastics everywhere from the North pole to salmon to breastmilk, the average American's lifespam is decreasing. Maybe fix that before you pretend to send us on a brand new planet.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Reality makes space travel rather difficult...