Mars to stay?

[AnOminous]

I think the risk of somebody testing nukes on Mars is basically zero.

The dark side of the Moon makes a lot more sense and is a lot more accessible.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

The dark side of the Moon makes a lot more sense and is a lot more accessible.

Speaking of which, a moon base isn't a bad idea either. I doubt we'd ever have a full fledged colony on the moon but an ISS type base would be pretty cool and useful.

 

[QI 541]

So does Mars actually have any resources to use or would they always have to rely on supplies from Earth?

 

[Johnny Bravo]

So does Mars actually have any resources to use or would they always have to rely on supplies from Earth?

It has a fuckton of frozen water, I know that much.

 

[Watcher]

I believe people should go to Mars.

So does Mars actually have any resources to use or would they always have to rely on supplies from Earth?

Most likely it'd rely on supplies from Earth for a while.

I was watching a lecture about how due to Mars's radiation, people would need to live underground for the first few decades and only venture up during brief instances. Similar to how people live in Antarctica.

 

[The Knife's Husbando]

Here's an idea. Let's learn to take care of this planet before we start fucking up other ones.

Seriously Ya'll. Go read the Martian Chronicles. "And the Moon Be Still as Bright" is the story you're looking for.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Let's learn to take care of this planet before we start fucking up other ones.

We would have to try really hard to fuck up Mars as it is.

Seriously Ya'll. Go read the Martian Chronicles. "And the Moon Be Still as Bright" is the story you're looking for.

You do know there isn't actually anyone living on Mars, right? I mean, it's a great book, but come on.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

I was watching a lecture about how due to Mars's radiation, people would need to live underground for the first few decades and only venture up during brief instances. Similar to how people live in Antarctica.

During the Antarctic winter, maybe, but during the summer people can spend long periods outdoors with fairly minimal protective clothing. Living on Mars would be like living in Antarctica during winter full time. That'd be tough.

 

[AnOminous]

I was watching a lecture about how due to Mars's radiation, people would need to live underground for the first few decades and only venture up during brief instances. Similar to how people live in Antarctica.

That's the major problem. Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere like the one Earth has. This doesn't just mean more harmful UV at the surface, it also means there's nothing keeping the solar wind from blowing the atmosphere into space, which is basically what has happened and would happen again even if we could magically put an atmosphere there tomorrow.

If the Earth were an apple, the atmosphere would be about as thick as the apple's skin.

However, the magnetosphere's source is deep in the core of the Earth and related to convection currents in its molten core.

As much of a project as putting an atmosphere on Mars would be, a larger public works project than has ever been undertaken in human history, it is nothing compared to what would be necessary to modify the internal dynamics of an entire planet in such a way that it would ensure that atmosphere would actually stay there.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

As much of a project as putting an atmosphere on Mars would be, a larger public works project than has ever been undertaken in human history, it is nothing compared to what would be necessary to modify the internal dynamics of an entire planet in such a way that it would ensure that atmosphere would actually stay there.

What's the point of that when you can just build greenhouses and other artificial environments?

 

[Artard]

The same could be said for explorers in the New World of antiquity. It has only hastened progress though, not stalled it.

The secondary effects of a well-developed space program cannot be understated. The 1960s were a time of dramatic technological progress in America, in no small part thanks to the space race. You may believe space travel is a misappropriation of effort, but the lessons learned and technologies developed provide a tremendous boom to society.

The secondary effect was the space race itself -- the Cold War was the cause of it.

The Apollo program survived 3 administrations over 9 years at a cost of somewhere between $100 and $170 billion in our money. One could argue that Mars colonization would cost more or less (but I have difficulty believing it would cost less) but it almost certainly wouldn't survive 9 years and a shift of several administrations without something or someone driving it.

Unless ISIS starts working on making Mars halal for Allah and His Prophet, that's what's missing now.

 

[Chicken Dippers]

this planet is fucked

space colonization is of course vital to our species, but I don't think it'll happen

 

[AnOminous]

What's the point of that when you can just build greenhouses and other artificial environments?

We can already do that here. Or just build a space station and do it on that. An entire planet is a completely different project.

It's also not like we'd be messing up Mars. There's nothing to mess up there. Any change would be an improvement.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

We can already do that here. Or just build a space station and do it on that. An entire planet is a completely different project.

It's also not like we'd be messing up Mars. There's nothing to mess up there. Any change would be an improvement.

I know that, but terraforming an entire planet obviously isn't plan A as it isn't immediately necessary to maintaining a colony on Mars.

 

[Truant]

A fully self-sustaining colony on the Moon or Mars will be man's greatest achievement since civilization.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I doubt it's going to happen any time soon. The main reason a man got to the moon was because of the propaganda war between the USA and USSR - there were two superpowers who had the motivation and the resources to actually push it through. With no Cold War, there's no real motivation for the governments of the world to send people to Mars. And because we don't know what's there, there's no motivation for commercial interests to step in.

In my personal opinion, the Space Race was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it resulted in some very impressive technical advances (as already mentioned in this thread). But on the other, because the focus was on getting a human being on the moon, we took things too quickly - we sent people up into space in relatively primitive, unsafe vehicles rather than perfecting the technology with unmanned craft first.

I think we'll eventually have to think about space colonisation, but as a species we're going to need a pretty massive kick up the arse before we actually do anything about it.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

While the list of spin offs from the space program looks impressive, when you consider the amount of money thrown at it, it's a pretty expensive way to get them. And if the main benefit of the space program was to create technology with non space-race applications, surely it would be more effective to spend all that money directly on researching consumer technology, rather than on researching something completely different and hope that the desired result will be a spin off?

 

[Picklepower]

Lets imagine that we (I'm in the U.S) have the technology, and are ready to colonize, would the colony be considered part of the U.S?

 

[AnOminous]

Lets imagine that we (I'm in the U.S) have the technology, and are ready to colonize, would the colony be considered part of the U.S?

That would depend on whether we wanted to torture people there or do other shit that would be illegal to do actually in the U.S.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Lets imagine that we (I'm in the U.S) have the technology, and are ready to colonize, would the colony be considered part of the U.S?

Not under current space law. Of course laws can be changed and treaties can even be unilaterally withdrawn from, but there would be consequences.

Again, I think Antarctica is the best metaphor here. It's theoretically possible that the USA could suddenly declare that it's discarding the Antarctic treaty and proclaiming all of its bases in Antarctica to be US national territory, but there's a lot of good reasons not to.