Mars and Off Planet Colonization - Pros and Cons Discussion

[JB47394]

What do you call a place that:

Are you presenting Hawaii as an analog to a Mars colony?

 

[mongo]

Are you presenting Hawaii as an analog to a Mars colony?

I'm commenting on a resident of Hawaii poo pooing other people making a colony on Mars.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

I'm commenting on a resident of Hawaii poo pooing other people making a colony on Mars.

Hawaii existed was self-sufficient well before tourism took over.

 

[winfield100]

I'm commenting on a resident of Hawaii poo pooing other people making a colony on Mars.

plus look at the increase in renewables (solar/wind)

 

[mongo]

plus look at the increase in renewables (solar/wind)

Less than the increase in petroleum
(And all three were imported).

But this is all OT.

 

[daniel]

I'm commenting on a resident of Hawaii poo pooing other people making a colony on Mars.

So, because I live in Hawai'i, accessible without ever leaving the atmosphere of Earth, I should believe a self-sustaining Mars colony should be possible?

 

[spacerfc]

Didn't he once advocate terraforming Mars by setting off H-bombs there?

He was making a joke, his actual proposal is to make artificial suns over the poles to melt the CO2 ice:

Elon Musk elaborates on his proposal to nuke Mars

He wants to create two tiny pulsing suns over the Martian poles

www.theverge.com

There're also proposals that doesn't actually use anything nuclear to get the same effect:

How to terraform Mars for $10b in 10 years

Part of the series on common misconceptions in space journalism. A follow on from a previous post on terraforming. As far as terraforming goes, I’ve recently been much more occupied with my startup…

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

And I would suggest you read a bit more literature about the whole thing before concluding it's "impossible", a lot of clever people have thought about this in depth.

 

[daniel]

He was making a joke, his actual proposal is to make artificial suns over the poles to melt the CO2 ice:

Elon Musk elaborates on his proposal to nuke Mars

He wants to create two tiny pulsing suns over the Martian poles

www.theverge.com

There're also proposals that doesn't actually use anything nuclear to get the same effect:

How to terraform Mars for $10b in 10 years

Part of the series on common misconceptions in space journalism. A follow on from a previous post on terraforming. As far as terraforming goes, I’ve recently been much more occupied with my startup…

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com

And I would suggest you read a bit more literature about the whole thing before concluding it's "impossible", a lot of clever people have thought about this in depth.

No matter how much CO2 you melt on Mars, you cannot create an atmosphere because Mars does not have sufficient gravity to hold onto an atmosphere, and because Mars does not have a magnetosphere to deflect the solar wind, which pushes an atmosphere away.

Terraforming is pseudoscience, pure and simple. And even the people who think it's possible admit that it would take thousands of years. And the planet is still covered in highly-toxic regolith.

As for what Musk might be saying as a joke and what he might be saying seriously, I have no idea how to tell. His pronouncements are all over the map. He seems to have no filter between his brain and his mouth. It's all too easy to dismiss anything outrageous he says as "a joke."

 

[ecarfan]

International Journal for Astrobiology: Perchlorate on Mars: a chemical hazard and a resource for humans

Perchlorate on Mars: a useful resource for humans
The ClO- ion consists of a central chlorine atom surrounded
by a tetrahedral array of four oxygen atoms. Owing to its
strong oxidizing power at higher temperatures, ammonium
perchlorate (NH4ClO4) is predominantly used as an energetic
booster or oxidant in solid rocket fuel. The most beneficial use
of ClO4−on Mars would be as a source of O2
for human consumption and to fuel surface operations. For example,
humans breathe or consume 550 litres of oxygen per day.
Based on the amounts of ClO4− measured in Martian regolith, a
daily supply of oxygen for one astronaut could be obtained by
complete dissociation of ClO4− contained in 60 kg of regolith
(40 litres). More importantly, mining out oxygen from ClO4− in
Martian regolith could be done cleanly and with minor
alterations to the regolith, taking advantage of existing
microbial biochemical pathways for perchlorate metabolism.
It has been known for several decades that some micro-
organisms can reduce ClO4− under anaerobic conditions, and
more than 50 dissimilatory perchlorate-reducing bacteria have been isolated in pure culture

Read the full article for more details.

Once the oxygen was extracted, the regolith could be returned
to the surface free of ClO4−, and in the case of ground ice, the
water would be suitable for human consumption or food growth.

The point is, yes Martian perchlorate is certainly a very serious issue but there are potential ways to address the problem.

 

[daniel]

As for the cosmic ray shielding, that problem has to be solved regardless of the propulsion method. I was simply pointing out how nuclear propulsion doesn't have as many problems as initially thought.

Agreed. The problem of shielding is not a point against nuclear power. Just a point against the whole enterprise of sending people to Mars.

I too think a Mars colony is a bad idea, but I am in favor of a space colony and diversifying our habitable space. Relying on earth alone is short-sighted.

A space colony is going to be completely dependent on Earth. If we screw the pooch here, a space colony will be doomed. If Earth's economy falters, some people (fewer than now) will still manage to live. A space colony will fail and anybody unable to return to Earth will die.

We can dream of a sci-fi-fantasy world where humans spread across the galaxy, or we can do the hard work of switching to sustainable energy and industry. The Earth is all we have, and off-world colonies are a pipe dream. Earth-supported research stations are possible. Self-sustaining colonies are not. We have one planet. We don't get a second chance if we ruin this one.

 

[daniel]

Astronauts survive in space stations for months at a time. The air is 100% recycled, while the water is 98% with solar panels providing the energy to do all this. The cargo ships supply mostly food. Granted that still leaves quite a bit to solve, but I'm hopeful by nature. After all, the earth is also a closed ecosystem with nothing more than energy from the sun to drive everything.

The ISS is in low-Earth orbit, well within the Earth's magnetosphere, and therefore protected from cosmic rays. Solar panels provide all the energy, but air and water have to be replenished as needed from the Earth. Food is rather important, and it all comes up from Earth. Also any needed medicine comes up from Earth. And an astronaut who has a medical emergency is just hours away from all the best medical care Earth has to offer.

Once en route to Mars, the astronauts are no longer within the protection of Earth's magnetic field, and are two or three years away from any but the most rudimentary medical care. If you or I get sick there are hospitals with labs equipped to do every imaginable kind of test, there are MRI machines and CAT scan machines and EKG machines and EEG machines, and a thousand other machines I don't know the names of. There are pharmacies with thousands of drugs immediately available. Mars astronauts will have none of that but maybe a couple of dozen drugs, a stethoscope, and a sphygmomanometer. And maybe a pliers for pulling teeth.

The Earth may be a closed ecosystem, but it's huge, and finely balanced (though we're working our best to unbalance and ruin it.) I honestly puzzles me that people think we could create a sustainable habitat on Mars when we cannot even preserve the most perfect planet imaginable.

Mars is not the salvation of the human race. If we want the human race to continue, we need to stop dumping poisons into the air and water; we need to stop dumping CO2 into the air, we need to stop acting like selfish, self-absorbed children and start working together to preserve what we have. Mars is a distraction.

I'm not hopeful.

 

[Grendal]

The ISS is in low-Earth orbit, well within the Earth's magnetosphere, and therefore protected from cosmic rays. Solar panels provide all the energy, but air and water have to be replenished as needed from the Earth. Food is rather important, and it all comes up from Earth. Also any needed medicine comes up from Earth. And an astronaut who has a medical emergency is just hours away from all the best medical care Earth has to offer.

Once en route to Mars, the astronauts are no longer within the protection of Earth's magnetic field, and are two or three years away from any but the most rudimentary medical care. If you or I get sick there are hospitals with labs equipped to do every imaginable kind of test, there are MRI machines and CAT scan machines and EKG machines and EEG machines, and a thousand other machines I don't know the names of. There are pharmacies with thousands of drugs immediately available. Mars astronauts will have none of that but maybe a couple of dozen drugs, a stethoscope, and a sphygmomanometer. And maybe a pliers for pulling teeth.

The Earth may be a closed ecosystem, but it's huge, and finely balanced (though we're working our best to unbalance and ruin it.) I honestly puzzles me that people think we could create a sustainable habitat on Mars when we cannot even preserve the most perfect planet imaginable.

Mars is not the salvation of the human race. If we want the human race to continue, we need to stop dumping poisons into the air and water; we need to stop dumping CO2 into the air, we need to stop acting like selfish, self-absorbed children and start working together to preserve what we have. Mars is a distraction.

I'm not hopeful.

I get the point. However, you could make the Earth a perfect paradise and work very hard to adjust human behavior to clean everything up. None of the would prevent a comet, asteriod, or some other object from striking the Earth and wiping everything out. Let alone some wacko nutjob dictator from starting a nuclear war or some angry teenager from creating a worldwide virus that kills everyone. How do you prevent people from having children? We're getting close to 8 billion people on the planet. What are we going to do at 10 billion? 15 billion? You think we've got pollution now, then what are you going to have then? The world has problems. They will not go away.

Hopefully none of those disasters happens. But if you want to humanity to continue to expand and grow, then we'll need more places to go. The Earth is finite. Space is infinite. The Earth has limited resources. Space has unlimited resources. Ultimately, humanity will need to become a spacefaring species. We're in a good place where we have the opportunity to get out there. Should we try? Or do we not try? I support trying.

JMHO.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Do you have an expected timeframe for solving the pertinent problems before we have a closed ecosystem that is independent of Earth?

All the solutions I read about as a kid almost 40 years ago seemed so doable, like it would only take the drive and we'd have a space colony in L2 within 10-15 years! 40 years later, while more educated, I've also become more cynical. The tech is still doable - after all, the only difference between a Saturn 5 and the Falcon 9 is how efficient/reliable/reusable the rocket motors are - the physics are still the same. It's nothing more than moving mass around and energy intensive recycling.

But the drive is no longer there, and there's this cultural aversion to risk. People aren't willing to risk their lives for years at a time to build a space colony. So that leaves robots and money. If anyone can convince Elon to abandon Mars and redirect his efforts towards building a space colony, then I think we're 30 years away (needs a LOT of matter from the asteroid belt and the time to bring the material to the right place)! Otherwise it'll be 50 years out or never.

 

[JB47394]

None of the would prevent a comet, asteriod, or some other object from striking the Earth and wiping everything out.

This sort of thing is my primary interest in having significant spaceflight ability. The other big one is robotic exploration (so I'm a fan of robotics and AI).

Let alone some wacko nutjob dictator from starting a nuclear war or some angry teenager from creating a worldwide virus that kills everyone.

These are problems of our own making, and they deserve to be addressed before we start exporting whacko nutjob dictators and angry teenagers. It is the fact that we have been able to keep expanding that we have ignored our problems. We have always fled from our problems by just finding new real estate that is far from the people we disagree with. Now, the web has put us all in each others' laps, and that's one reason that society is getting so crazy these days - it's more difficult to hide from our problems.

How do you prevent people from having children?

Through social engineering. It happens everywhere. Some efforts in favor of higher birth rates and some in favor of lower (e.g. China's one child rule). The world population is expected to peak around 2084 at around 10.4 billion, and then slowly decline. It's a prediction, so take it with a grain of salt, but that's the current thinking. The point is that various forces in our lives make having children more or less appealing. Right now, people are apparently not having kids because of the need to work and the inability to find housing. Forces like that determine birth rates. We are more complex than bacteria, so there are a number of ways to influence whether we have children or not.

With that in mind, expanding to other planets in our solar system is a terrible idea. The forces at work off planet are not going to be conducive to having children in any way, shape or form. Even something as simple as full gravity won't be available on the Moon or Mars. Then there's the radiation, living in domes, etc. It's just not the sort of place that people go when they think about starting a family.

 

[JB47394]

But the drive is no longer there, and there's this cultural aversion to risk. People aren't willing to risk their lives for years at a time to build a space colony.

The drive was never there. The Moon push was a prestige project to show that the west was superior to the Soviets, who were cranking out one achievement after another in space. Engineers and businessmen will always be interested in grand projects, but the nation as a whole was just caught up in "moon fever". As soon as Neil set foot on the moon, people were done with the whole thing. Including Congress, who defunded the program, despite having flight hardware ready for additional missions, and ambitious plans from people like von Braun.

I don't see a reason for putting people into space. Just as we're on the cusp of being able to build habitable space stations by using tools like Starship, we're also on the cusp of having advanced robots and AI that won't need space stations. We've had robots on Mars for decades for a reason - they are designed to be there.

 

[ecarfan]

People aren't willing to risk their lives for years at a time to build a space colony.

I can guarantee you that there are thousands of highly qualified people who would gladly volunteer to do just that. If I was 30 years younger and single I certainly would.

Far more people apply to be NASA astronauts than there are spaces available. That has always been the case.

Humans are explorers. It’s how we permanently occupied 6 of the 7 continents just by walking into the unknown. Multiple nations have human space programs right now and they will continue to push the envelope of what is possible.

For those who aren’t interested, fine, stay home.

 

[daniel]

I get the point. However, you could make the Earth a perfect paradise and work very hard to adjust human behavior to clean everything up. None of the would prevent a comet, asteriod, or some other object from striking the Earth and wiping everything out.

See, I disagree that we could make the Earth a perfect paradise. It WAS a paradise, and WE are the reason it isn't anymore. We have gotten so good at reproducing that we've become a cancer: A thing that grows out of control and kills off the rest of the organism.

... if you want to humanity to continue to expand and grow, ...

Why should humanity expand and grow? A species is successful when it can live and endure within the limits of its resources. Success for humanity, IMO, would mean learning to live within our natural resource budget, while allowing the rest of the natural ecosystem to thrive as well.

Off-planet colonization is a pipe dream because no other place has the resources humans need to survive.

Humans are by nature greedy. Not every individual, but as a species. We will consume everything we can until it's all gone. And we would do the same on Mars if it were possible to survive there. But it's kind of a moot point because we're going to trash the Earth and collapse our industrial economy before we have the technology to build a settlement on Mars, much less a self-sustaining colony. A colony on Mars capable of surviving without continuous re-supply from Earth is hundreds of years away, if it's possible at all. Human civilization on Earth does not have that long before it collapses under the weight of its own garbage. China is a leader in solar energy, but it's still increasing its output of CO2 every year. India is increasing its output of CO2 every year. And in the U.S., half the population and half the leaders actively deny that CO2 is even a problem, and there's a growing war on science and education itself. (In the state most susceptible to sea-level rise, it's illegal for state employees to even mention climate change.)

Any solution would require all of humanity to act together, and there are parts of the U.S. where just suggesting that will have people sending you death threats. If it were possible to colonize Mars, within a generation the Martians would be at war against each other, in an environment where a small hole in a habitat would kill everybody in it. Mars colony advocates are like Karl Marx: He imagined a utopia that would only be possible if human nature changed completely, so he said that's what would happen. Mars colonization would require a complete change in human nature. And that's not going to happen.

 

[ecarfan]

Why should humanity expand and grow? A species is successful when it can live and endure within the limits of its resources.

With the right tools, the universe is an unlimited resource.

Earth is a finite resource. I believe that there is a chance that human civilization on Earth can learn to live in balance with the resources available. Not a strong chance, but a chance. Such a future should obviously be pursued while also exploring alternatives. Both paths can be attempted simultaneously.

You appear to believe that human civilization on Earth is doomed, while at the same time believing that there is zero chance that human civilization could be established off Earth.

You have said as much over, and over, and over again in this thread. I suggest you gracefully withdraw and let the rest of us who want to discuss the possibility of off Earth colonies continue the conversation.

Thank you.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

See, I disagree that we could make the Earth a perfect paradise. It WAS a paradise, and WE are the reason it isn't anymore. We have gotten so good at reproducing that we've become a cancer: A thing that grows out of control and kills off the rest of the organism.



Why should humanity expand and grow? A species is successful when it can live and endure within the limits of its resources. Success for humanity, IMO, would mean learning to live within our natural resource budget, while allowing the rest of the natural ecosystem to thrive as well.

Off-planet colonization is a pipe dream because no other place has the resources humans need to survive.

The drive was never there. The Moon push was a prestige project to show that the west was superior to the Soviets, who were cranking out one achievement after another in space. Engineers and businessmen will always be interested in grand projects, but the nation as a whole was just caught up in "moon fever". As soon as Neil set foot on the moon, people were done with the whole thing. Including Congress, who defunded the program, despite having flight hardware ready for additional missions, and ambitious plans from people like von Braun.

I don't see a reason for putting people into space. Just as we're on the cusp of being able to build habitable space stations by using tools like Starship, we're also on the cusp of having advanced robots and AI that won't need space stations. We've had robots on Mars for decades for a reason - they are designed to be there.

Might I remind the both of you that the dinosaurs were also quite successful at living within their resources, until the extinction event?

We don't know what our extinction event will be, but there will be one. It's just a question of when.

The question posed by taxpayers is usually, "WE can't afford to waste money into space habitats for the rich". To which the answer is, "HUMAN existance can't afford NOT to".

I can guarantee you that there are thousands of highly qualified people who would gladly volunteer to do just that. If I was 30 years younger and single I certainly would.

Far more people apply to be NASA astronauts than there are spaces available. That has always been the case.

Humans are explorers. It’s how we permanently occupied 6 of the 7 continents just by walking into the unknown. Multiple nations have human space programs right now and they will continue to push the envelope of what is possible.

For those who aren’t interested, fine, stay home.

Yes, thousands, out of 300m+. And how many of the brave thousands are like yourself, too old or with young children to care for to go risking our lives out in space to build someone else's future home? I definitely count myself as one of the thousands, because my wife would kill me before I could set foot on a rocket into space!

Keep in mind that funding is needed as well, and those who choose to stay home probably won't want their penny to go into the pot. That's why it'll take Elon's contribution, because along with his billions, will be the hundreds of billions (or even trillions) from his supporters.

 

[daniel]

You appear to believe that human civilization on Earth is doomed, while at the same time believing that there is zero chance that human civilization could be established off Earth.

Yep.

I suggest you gracefully withdraw and let the rest of us who want to discuss the possibility of off Earth colonies continue the conversation.

Suggestion noted. I'll probably continue to talk about the massive waste of resources that such a project entails.

Thank you.

You're welcome.