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Ed Regis writes in the New York Times that today we an witnessing an outburst of enthusiasm over the literally outlandish notion that in the relatively near future, some of us are going to be living, working, thriving and dying on Mars. But unfortunately Mars mania reflects an excessively optimistic view of what it actually takes to travel to and live on Mars, papering over many of the harsh realities and bitter truths that underlie the dream. "First, there is the tedious business of getting there. Using current technology and conventional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars would be a grueling, eight- to nine-month-long nightmare for the crew," writes Regis. "Tears, sweat, urine and perhaps even solid waste will be recycled, your personal space is reduced to the size of an SUV., and you and your crewmates are floating around sideways, upside down and at other nauseating angles." According to Regis every source of interpersonal conflict, and emotional and psychological stress that we experience in ordinary, day-to-day life on Earth will be magnified exponentially by restriction to a tiny, hermetically sealed, pressure-cooker capsule hurtling through deep space and to top it off, despite these constraints, the crew must operate within an exceptionally slim margin of error with continuous threats of equipment failures, computer malfunctions, power interruptions and software glitches.
But getting there is the easy part says Regis. "Mars is a dead, cold, barren planet on which no living thing is known to have evolved, and which harbors no breathable air or oxygen, no liquid water and no sources of food, nor conditions favorable for producing any. For these and other reasons it would be accurate to call Mars a veritable hell for living things, were it not for the fact that the planet's average surface temperature is minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit." These are only a few of the many serious challenges that must be overcome before anyone can put human beings on Mars and expect them to live for more than five minutes says Regis. "The notion that we can start colonizing Mars within the next 10 years or so is an overoptimistic, delusory idea that falls just short of being a joke."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedBear on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:32AM
To paraphrase a pretty good speech: "We choose to go to Maaahhs not because it will be easy, but because it will be haaahhd."
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:30PM
Yes. And TFA underestimates the durability of humans. People live in cells all the time. They survive. People live in Antarctica and survive. Maybe the should bring a small puppy tho
(Score: 2) by broggyr on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:24PM
Taking that puppy out for a walk would be interesting...
Taking things out of context since 1972.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:39PM
Lewis and Clark only had a vague idea of where they were going, or what they would find. There is something to be said for doing something just because you can. You never know what you might learn along the way.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday September 22 2015, @08:14PM
Lewis and Clark knew that Earth was a survivable planet, where you could live off the land.
Its thinking like this that is going to get a lot of people killed. But that's ok, they will be volunteers, we will raise statues to them, name Mars stations after them, and assuage our collective guilt for sending them there.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @08:47PM
Yes, it's okay, because they are volunteers. If we were cowardly like you want us to be, we would never take risks and make amazing discoveries. Fuck this perfect safety bullshit.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Wednesday September 23 2015, @12:04PM
I never said we should send people on a suicide mission, nor do I think we should launch next week. We know that with the right technology and some hard work we can make Mars survivable for months or even years at a time. There are very few things worth doing that are 100% safe. But those risks can be mitigated with some imagination and ingenuity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday September 23 2015, @06:31PM
TFA isn't about never going to Mars, its about not going NOW.
We have hardly any of the technology needed to make Mars habitable for month or years. We need to make large habitable shelters, orders of magnitude larger than the ridiculously claustrophobic proposals for International Space Station sized habitats. Any one sent to Mars with current or near future technology is on a suicide mission no matter how many bows and bells you wrap that package in.
We should be looking at building on the moon, under ground perhaps, but even that technology isn't even remotely available for anything except a strictly short term lab smaller than the ISS. But at least return from the moon is possible.
You see people jumping on this thread talking about mining asteroids tunneling into Mars and all sorts of nonsense suggestions. People watch and read so much Science Fiction that they have lost all concept of actual capabilities. We can't even bore a tunnel under down town Seattle and people propose, with a straight face, to build underground cities on mars, and write off the lives it will cost saying "nobody said it wold be easy".
If the best we can com up with to get into space is a chemical rocket, we've got no business sending people to Mars any time soon.
Maybe in 200 years at the current rate of technological development. We need one or two MAJOR technological breakthroughs in lift and propulsion and landing capabilities to make mars anything but a suicide mission.
Imagination and ingenuity my ass.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:18PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Justin Case on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:40AM
I'm all for expanding the human species beyond Earth, but Mars or even the moon are pretty hostile destinations. In either of those you're going to be spending the rest of your life in tiny sealed-up cans anyway, so wouldn't it be better to have those cans orbiting Earth -- for now? A thousand copies of the space station would be easier and cheaper, plus when something goes wrong you aren't a year away from rescue.
Mine space objects for construction materials -- but don't live on them. Just because we grew up on the surface of a large rock doesn't mean that's the only option.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:01PM
That reminded me of an outfit I haven't heard much of lately. (It's quite possible that I've just not been following the right news sources.) I think it was Bigelow or something like that? They had inflatables that one could use for storage and/or habitat, at a much larger scale than the cramped quarters described in the summary.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:51PM
That reminded me of an outfit I haven't heard much of lately. (It's quite possible that I've just not been following the right news sources.) I think it was Bigelow or something like that? They had inflatables that one could use for storage and/or habitat, at a much larger scale than the cramped quarters described in the summary.
You remember correctly, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace [wikipedia.org]
The inflatables are interesting because they are lighter than their all-metal counterparts, pack smaller, and are thus cheaper to get out of our gravity well. I'm all for it, I hope they succeed.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:15PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:30PM
The thing about the zone is its a zone. We'd be fools not to build a monster station at the Earths semi-stable orbital Lagrange points. If we're willing to tolerate more instability and some minor continuous energy draw we can put space stations anywhere in the happy zone.
A cool engineering project to piss off the paleoconservative "must never change anything" environmentalists, would be to move the moon out of earth orbit into a solar orbit opposite the earth and terraform it. Having the atmosphere evaporate away in a couple centuries isn't an issue given an infinte supply of icy and rocky asteroids. I suppose you could soft-ish land asteroids until the moon was as big as the earth. WRT orbital stability it only has to be stable for a couple billion years at which point various solar developments make instability irrelevant.
Also we're the goldilocks zone for large dumb passive planets. The solar farms on Mercury are rockin, that planet (or its space station "moons") will be an industrial powerhouse someday. Sure it might be hot as hell for humans and not permanently inhabitable, but your average robotic assembly line wouldn't really care, and even a minor effort at technological active cooling would help quite a bit over "dumb rock" passive cooling.
I wonder if we could breed / engineer crops that take advantage of Mercury level light intensity to grow a whole season of wheat in a couple days. I suppose there are some inherent cell division speed limits such that maybe the greenhouses at Mercury would have to all be algae and then process the algae into useful stuff.
If I were more motivated, I could calculate a pattern of solar panels and windows such that in a Mercury orbit you'd get a smokin amount of electricity and the little windows or gaps between the panels would pass earth normal light levels. So you could have a combined greenhouse / solar plant.
So anyway the goldilocks zone is a zone not a piece of rock, and plenty of places outside the zone could be highly useful to non-lump-of-rock artificial environments.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:47PM
You couldn't terraform the moon, it has too little mass to hold an atmosphere and has no magnetic field. And Venus, Earth, and Mars are all in the goldilocks zone.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:28PM
That's your ticket for the B Ark. Enjoy your trip.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday September 22 2015, @05:09PM
> A cool engineering project to piss off the paleoconservative "must never change anything" environmentalists, would be to move the moon out of earth orbit into a solar orbit opposite the earth and terraform it.
Yeah, I'm sure all those hippy-dippy moon-huggers would make a big unnecessary fuss when you completely destroy the lunar tidal system that stirs the oceans and influences Earth's global weather system. They'd probably also complain when the tidal halt causes the bottom to fall out of the oceanic food-chain that underpins all life on Earth. Crybabies.
> I suppose you could soft-ish land asteroids until the moon was as big as the earth.
Not really. All the asteroids in the inner solar system combined (including Ceres & Vesta) wouldn't add much more than a pimple to the moon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt [wikipedia.org]
I suppose you could start raiding the Kuiper belt, but you'd be looking at thousands, if not millions of years to transport all that shit in. It's a long way away.
Oh, and there's the minor issue ofmoving the freaking moon. Quite apart form the fact that's it's beyond impractical with any technology we currently have or could dream of having in the next thousand years, one slight miscalculation and you have a massive lump of rock big enough to turn the entire planet Earth into molten slag floating about in a very dangerous Earth-like orbit. I'd love to see the OSH risk assessment on that project summary.
Maybe you can hand-wave these objections away, but honestly what's the point? If you have the tech and disposable energy to move that much material that far with such precision, it's probably easier just to build some kind of gigantic artificial habitat [wikipedia.org] That would house more people in a more efficient way. When you think about it, in terms of the material:living space ratio, planets are hugely inefficient. How many thousands of miles of rock are beneath your feet right now, just to provide you with appropriate gravity and atmosphere?
> Sure {mercury} might be hot as hell for humans and not permanently inhabitable, but your average robotic assembly line wouldn't really care, and even a minor effort at technological active cooling would help quite a bit over "dumb rock" passive cooling.
Actually, Mercury might not be all that bad, because it's tidally locked. Sure the face that's permanently pointing at the sun would be too hot, and the side that's in permanent darkness would be too cold, but there's probably a thin strip of land along the terminator that would be at a fairly comfy and consistent temperature. Cooling can be handled relatively easily by exploiting the temperature difference between the hot side and the cold side. More of an issue would be low availability of useful life-supporting elements like hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and so on. A small colony could probably survive there, with abundant solar power for local use and a carefully managed/recycled supply of largely imported volatiles, but I'm not sure what such a colony would have to offer the rest of the solar system in terms of exports. I guess if the moon has been re-orbited off and terraformed, we wouldn't be able to get our Helium-3 from there, so maybe we'd have to mine it on Mercury.
> I wonder if we could breed / engineer crops that take advantage of Mercury level light intensity to grow a whole season of wheat in a couple days.
Heat would be your enemy. Plants on Earth run at such low efficiency (they use only a fraction of the heat that reaches them) simply to avoid overheating. By the time you've added an appropriate cooling system to your greenhouse, well you're just using extra energy. Then you have to use more energy to shift your crops up out of Mercury's gravity well and up the Sun's gravity well to wherever. That's a big overhead for the sake of growing crops a little quicker. Cheaper and easier to spend the energy to simulate Mercury conditions elsewhere in the solar system.
> If I were more motivated, I could calculate a pattern of solar panels and windows such that in a Mercury orbit you'd get a smokin amount of electricity and the little windows or gaps between the panels would pass earth normal light levels. So you could have a combined greenhouse / solar plant.
Reducing Mercury's solar capture to Earth-normal still wouldn't let you keep an atmosphere there, and there's precious little to build an atmosphere out of anyway. Bear in mind that only half of Mercury gets any sunlight at all.
If you're thinking orbital solar, you might as well just put them in Earth orbit as Mercury. The extra light intensity you gain from putting them in Mercury orbit isn't worth the effort of heading down in to the gravity well and transmitting the power back home. In fact, I suspect you'd run into engineering limits on your solar capture tech that would cause the extra light/heat to be wasted anyway, just like with the plants.
You think big though, I like that.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday September 22 2015, @05:21PM
> A cool engineering project to piss off the paleoconservative "must never change anything" environmentalists, would be to move the moon out of earth orbit into a solar orbit opposite the earth and terraform it.
Yeah, I'm sure all those hippy-dippy moon-huggers would make a big unnecessary fuss when you completely destroy the lunar tidal system that stirs the oceans and influences Earth's global weather system. They'd probably also complain when the tidal halt causes the bottom to fall out of the oceanic food-chain that underpins all life on Earth. Crybabies.
Tides do not only effect bodies of water. The gravitational force of the moon also causes the solid earth and rock under your feet to bob up and down as much as a foot twice a day. Moving the moon would likely cause severe outbreaks of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc., quite possibly in areas not currently experiencing them as well as in the usual areas, probably destroying life on earth, or at least any higher life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:41PM
the problem with staying on earth is that we know for a fact that it won't last forever. if we do not leave the earth, humanity (not to mention all other life on earth) will go extinct, period. it may not happen for 3-4 billion years (sun entering red giant phase and consuming the earth), though it could also happen tomorrow (large asteroid/comet strike), but we know for absolutely certain that remaining here is a one-way ticket to extinction for all life on earth. we have to leave earth at some point for any of earth's life to survive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:46PM
We could help some of Earth's life to make its way to other worlds by sending out spacecraft laden with bacteria, fungi, algae and so on (as we've done unintentionally). Humans needn't come along.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:04PM
no, we don't need to come along, however the entire purpose of life and its instinctual drive is to reproduce and propagate the species. its in every single one of earth's life's drive to survive, but humans are the only ones with the correct anatomy (opposable thumbs, combined with brains capable of abstract thoughts and planning tens or hundreds of steps in advance, and millennia of accumulated knowledge) to accomplish it. it would be pretty stupid, not to mention contrary to our instincts, to build some kind of ark that would only transport simple, basic lifeforms, plus all of our knowledge would be lost without us coming along, and accumulating and propagating knowledge is just as important as propagating the species.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DECbot on Tuesday September 22 2015, @05:48PM
Besides, if we only export the algae and bacteria, we'd likely inadvertently send it through some sort of worm-hole where it will establish itself in some galaxy some billions of years before humans ever descend from trees, evolve into a hateful, vengeful algae-humanoid-bacterial-swarm and return to conquer Earth.
We will never forget, never forgive.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:34PM
What arrogance is it such that you think that humans can and will be immortal?
"Oh noes, our life will come to an end if we don't" is no better reason for believing that we can build vessels that can house entire communities of humans, spiral out of Earth's gravity well, and roam the heavens than it is for believing that we can pray to a god, shuffle off our mortal coil, and go to heaven.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:56PM
What arrogance is it such that you think that humans can and will be immortal?
Well, it may or may not be arrogance. I would say that question is a matter for psychiatrists and psychologists, and if it impacts the person's life in a way they find negative, they can see such professionals and get treated.
But in terms of planning for personal survival, longer life, and longer and better life for one's offspring, I'd say it's completely immaterial. Whether the motivation is arrogance or indigestion or whatever, some people desire to go about the science of figuring out how to live longer and that scientific goal can be pursued whether or not the person pursuing it is afflicted with arrogance or any other personality disorder.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:42PM
The problem with that argument is that it assumes that leaving now is the best way of developing space travel. Since we went to the moon, we've made massive advances in materials science, computers, and so on, all of which have applications to building spacecraft. The earlier story about batteries is another case in point: we can manage far denser batteries now than the lunar lander had, for a fraction of the cost.
You have to do something that spurs demand for technology for the technology to be developed, but there's no compelling evidence that building space craft now will actually make building space craft in 100-200 years easier than if we focussed on other technologies.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday September 22 2015, @05:06PM
there is no such assumption or argument in my post. all i said was "we have to leave earth at some point", not "we have to leave now!" or "we have to leave in the next century". the sooner the better, since there could be a world-wide extinction event tomorrow, but on geological timescales "sooner" is thousands of years, not decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @10:27PM
In the next century? You didn't really fully grasp that whole Cosmic Calendar [nationalgeographic.com] thing, did you? Our entire species is like, 25 seconds into the next five months. You say we need to get out of here in the next 1000 years, 10000 years? How about a million years? Do you have any idea how big a thousand million is?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:39PM
NASA says we could visit Mars by the 2030s. [nasa.gov] One scenario has us visiting one of its two moons first. And you know what? I'll listen to NASA before I'll listen to some dumb reporter's opinion.
Why do I say "dumb"? Because of the dumb reporter's own words: "Tears, sweat, urine and perhaps even solid waste will be recycled, your personal space is reduced to the size of an SUV., and you and your crewmates are floating around sideways, upside down and at other nauseating angles."
First, has that dumbass never heard of the ISS? Second, does he not now that in microgravity there is no up, down, or sideways? As Bugs says, "What a maroon!"
There's a book I read a couple years ago, an SF title by Andy Wier The Martian. It was a great book (NASA astronauts agree) and the movie comes out Oct 2. The trailers look like it stays pretty close to the book, I'm really looking forward to seeing it. A NASA mission controller was the movie's science adviser. Wier did his homework and got all the science right except one thing that wasn't discovered until it was published - due to Mars' low atmospheric pressure, a 120 mph sandstorm wouldn't be dangerous.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:50PM
I wouldn't expect some random dumbass to understand anything about space. Sometimes, authors who really should have researched just a little bit, invent stupid, impossible situations. Like, the ship is on it's way to Io, and suddenly it runs out of fuel. Hole in a fuel tank, or some such thing, I can't remember now. So - the ship screeches to a halt, and they have to radio for help. The fool thought he was a science fiction writer? WTF? Yet another writer had a ship rocking and shuddering from near misses from guns. Had he specified that the shells were proximity fused high explosive, he might have got away with that - debris hitting the ship. But, elsewhere he had specified that the guns fired solid projectiles. Ooooops!
So many pure stupid things are found in stories, I guess I can forgive some dumb reporter for not knowing any better.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:18PM
There's a big difference between visiting and colonizing (i.e. "living, working, thriving and dying on") Mars. We've visited the moon in 1969. We've still not even close to colonizing the moon in 2015.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:35PM
Something that living on big rocks gives you that space colonies don't is an atmosphere and other resources readily at hand.
Now, they aren't the resources you need, exactly, but the idea that you couldn't turn what you have into what you need shows a lack of imagination. For example, Mars has no liquid water, but it shows every sign of having lots of water ice, and we know exactly how to turn water ice into liquid water. Mars is cold, but we know how to make a planet warmer - pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. It's red because it has a lot of iron around that we might well be able to do something with. It has all sorts of silicates, which, since many of them are common on Earth, we could develop processes to turn those into useful stuff like oxygen.
I don't think anybody thinks it would be easy, but it would be possible, and the benefits of having some portion of humanity relying on a different rock's resources are too big to just dismiss. I would fully expect at least a few utter catastrophes to be involved in the process, like there were for the Apollo and shuttle and Soyuz programs, and just like there were when Europeans first travelled to the Americas, but that doesn't mean we should give up.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @07:47PM
i would build on your idea - literally. pull a large rock into earth-orbit. burrow into it to create living/working spaces. use what materials you can from that burrowing process. grab some other, smaller rocks for additional materials. off the back of my head, i'd say put the large rock at the lagrange point between the earth and moon.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:03AM
Mankind goes into space to explore, to be part of something greater. You just want to drag the stars down and stick them underground, underneath tons of sand and dirt, and label them. You're about as far from the stars as you can get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:23PM
I have reason to believe that at the base of this magma pool are untold riches and knowledge for mankind. I advocate we dive in an swim down to check. Sure, the ignorant naysayers will advise against it because it may be dangerous to come in contact with the magma, but they are small-minded people with little imagination. We should keep sending down divers to try; they would truly be heroes for their sacrifice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:38PM
What a ridiculous false analogy. However you're right, there are untold riches in the earth's mantle - diamonds, gold, platinum, silver, uranium, you name it - however everything but the diamonds are molten, and they're all mixed in with lots of other molten rocks and metals, making finding them a giant task itself, not to mention the insane pressures and temperatures that must be tolerated to even get down to the mantle. Space is a much easier problem to tackle - all you need is an enclosed box with radiation shielding, which only needs to withstand 1 atmosphere of pressure from the inside and external temperatures of maybe only a few hundred kelvin, depending where you're going, then you only need to build the box big enough to hold everything you need. Compared to building something that can withstand a planet's internal temperatures and pressures, this is a simple task.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:46PM
Well, clearly you are one of the small-minded people with little imagination. We should choose to go into the Earth's core because its hard. Do you think the New World would ever have been discovered if we didn't send ships over the horizon? How do you expect the human race to ever get off the surface of the Earth? (I think I've got my "Soylent Mars Bingo" card filled out now, but I might be short. Probably should throw in a "those who give up liberty for security" quote just to cover my bases.).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:58PM
Thanks for that Christopher Eccleston.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by cloud.pt on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:20AM
About time someone relevant said it. And for those of you yelling "buzzkill!", let me break it down to you: he's trying to incentivize people to put their limited Benjamin supply where it counts. After all, nobody has disposable like Elon Inc. If you wanna dream, go see a movie or enroll in an MIT Physics-related course. If you wanna be a part of something useful without the later commitment, try giving to charity. But please don't give away so easily to stuff like Mars One (not just money, but attention too, for that matter).
Nobody is saying you shouldn't keep a look on it, but the amount of hope you should pour into should be much like the hope you place in an immortality being invented pill before your body reaches expiration date.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by riT-k0MA on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:41AM
I already forked out $40 for Kerbal Space Program. That's a good enough physics/training simulation for a space program, right?
Riiiight?
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:43AM
SpaceX use it for simulations
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:58PM
Nice sentiment, there. I presume you're a pious person.
Mark 14:7
Matthew 26:11
John 12:8
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:16PM
For readers who may not look these up:
Mark 14:6–9 MSG:
But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me. She did what she could when she could—she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly.”
2nd account in Matthew 26:10–13 MSG:
When Jesus realized what was going on, he intervened. “Why are you giving this woman a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives, but not me. When she poured this perfume on my body, what she really did was anoint me for burial. You can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she has just done is going to be remembered and admired.”
3rd account in John 12:7–8 MSG:
Jesus said, “Let her alone. She’s anticipating and honoring the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you. You don’t always have me.”
Context from Mark 14:1–5 MSG:
In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him. They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. “We don’t want the crowds up in arms,” they said.
Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious among themselves. “That’s criminal! A sheer waste! This perfume could have been sold for well over a year’s wages and handed out to the poor.” They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.
Context from John 12:1–6 MSG:
Six days before Passover, Jesus entered Bethany where Lazarus, so recently raised from the dead, was living. Lazarus and his sisters invited Jesus to dinner at their home. Martha served. Lazarus was one of those sitting at the table with them. Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house.
Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, even then getting ready to betray him, said, “Why wasn’t this oil sold and the money given to the poor? It would have easily brought three hundred silver pieces.” He said this not because he cared two cents about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of their common funds, but also embezzled them.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:55PM
He's got some good points, but he's still wrong. I happen to think that Mars is a mistake, and that the goal should be the asteroids, but that's a trivial difference.
OTOH, there are lots of hard problems that need to be solved before we get seriously into colonization. The first, and most important, is an "almost closed" ecosystem. Until that one's solved any talk of colonization is ... not premature, but rather overly optimistic. And this is a problem that could be tackled cheaply and without lifting a foot off the ground. BioSphere 2 was one such attempt, which revealed that the implementers had severe gaps in their knowledge. Well, any off-earth base wouldn't use cement, so it wouldn't run into those particular problems, but there are problems that it would run into. So you need to start by building a base exactly like the one you're proposing be built, and then having people try to live in it under exactly similar conditions. (Vacuum or low-pressure, matched atmospheric composition. Matched temperature cycling, etc.)
Please note that I'm not claiming this would be cheap or easy, merely cheap and easy compared to doing the same thing "out there". I expect the first few attempts to be failures. Hopefully each failure will reveal things that can be fixed before the next attempt. (I acknowledge that it's impossible to test for stresses caused by low g, but if you plan to match Mars, you can match the day and seasonal year cycle.)
Any colony has to be something that can survive the home world losing interest in it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by snufu on Wednesday September 23 2015, @03:16AM
Agreed. It's a simple question of limited research and resource capital.
Putting meat on Mars is a net drain on Earth resources, just like putting meat on the moon was a net drain on Earth resources. If the moon provided a net resource gain, it would have already been colonized by humans. And no, schemes for mining asteroids and terraforming are fantasies that have not come close to passing even the most optimistic scientific analysis of the fuel/water budget. Not to mention the 'what could possibly go wrong' factor.
Sending meat to these places are political stunts, like the moon mission. They are inspirational, worthwhile projections of the human ego--if we have the resources to spare. But do not pretend it is a stepping stone to 'humans colonizing spayce!' This is not meant as a buzzkill. I support a human Mars mission, but we should do so with our eyes open and realistic understanding of the end condition.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:31AM
The thing about science and engineering is that we keep making things better. Is the author claiming that we should *never* go to Mars? Because never is a long freakin' time.
At some point, we - humanity as a whole - will possess enough technology and knowledge to be able to do it. The real question is, at what point will we be ready? When will we be able to go - and survive? And if are able to do so, why wouldn't we?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:55AM
Judging from the summary, my answer is: No.
Here are some revealing quotes (emphasis by me):
However regarding the first quote, one has to admit that assuming you get there, dying on Mars won't be that hard to achieve. ;-)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:00PM
Dying on earth is a cakewalk. Everyone does it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:26PM
Not everyone. Three people (Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov) died in space. [space.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:43PM
No, but that's what the many dumbass dipshit lemmings here think. As you say, you go when you are technologically ready to go. In the progress to fly, you don't just cover your arms with feathers and wax and jump off of cliffs, and when one dies doing that, you don't keep trying it. You can't even survive in a self-sufficient manner in ISS. Do that first. Build a platform in LEO (or MEO or GEO) and show you can live there for a year or more without mission resupply (even better, show that you can successfully [wikipedia.org] do that on the Earth first before sucking up useful science funding building another useless orbiting platform). Then set up a base on the Moon and show you can live there, because that is relatively close by but steps up the technological challenges by an order of magnitude. Then maybe think about going to Mars, but in the intervening decades, send regular rovers to Mars.
The only reasonable approach to going to Mars will not happen in most of our lifetimes. Sure, you can do a one-off suicide mission to plant the flag of humanity, or whatever that gives you that warm-and-fuzzy feeling, hail those who died on transit or shortly after getting there, and then what? You've checked-off something on your arbitrary humanity bucket list and now you can advocate sending a suicide trip to Europa or somewhere else, but know that you've done jack shit on advancing the species towards being able to "get off this rock". You want a sustainable base on Mars? It will take 50 to 100 years of development and demonstration, but the loudest whiners here have the mindset of adolescent humanities majors come off of reading their most recent science fiction novel, without the least inkling of the challenges nor the vision to pull it off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:44PM
More than anything, getting there requires the desire to go there. We won't strive to create the technology to go there if we're not trying to go there. By making plans to go there ASAP, technology rushes to provide solutions to make it possible. Its quite possible to go there right now, with technology from the 80s; it wouldn't be a comfortable ride, but its possible. But unless we want to do it, better technology to make it easier and more sustainable will never be created.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:49PM
But if your plan depends upon Unobtainium and Magic Pixie Dust, it is hard to generate enthusiasm for much action.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:32PM
No, instead we hope to increase funding for scientific research and advances in engineering.
The problems preventing a viable manned mission to Mars, either with a return trip or intention for long-term habitation, are not insurmountable. Unobtainium and magic pixie dust are not needed.
In the case of a return trip, I would still support a manned mission for no other reason than it's one thing to know about a place and another thing entirely to have been to a place. I know all about Angkor Wat, but I would still love to go there myself one day, even if the only thing I return with are pictures and a story or two. Same thing with Mars. In fact, we already have the pictures. It's the sense of adventure. Think about the engineering accomplishments that could be had by designing a craft that could land on another planet and safely return the crew to Earth.
In the case of habitation, it's more complicated. Yet there I also don't see the obstacles as being insurmountable.
In either case, it's all about budget. Scrap the F-35 immediately and redirect the funding to efforts to send a manned mission to Mars. Scrap the drug war immediately and redirect the funding. I could go on. The point is: tell the engineers and scientists to get a crew to Mars and back safely, and throw whatever they need at them. If that happened, it might actually make sense to push kids into STEM careers.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday September 22 2015, @05:28PM
The only reasonable approach to going to Mars will not happen in most of our lifetimes. Sure, you can do a one-off suicide mission to plant the flag of humanity, or whatever that gives you that warm-and-fuzzy feeling, hail those who died on transit or shortly after getting there, and then what?
Yes, but if we plant OUR flag there first we can claim it is OURS! Those brave astronauts will be HEROES! [INSERT CHANT OF NATIONAL PRIDE]! [INSERT CHANT OF NATIONAL PRIDE]! [INSERT CHANT OF NATIONAL PRIDE]!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:04PM
And then in 40 years we'll have conspiracy nutters saying the Mars landing was a government hoax, and they can prove it because shadows, and the flag waving, and they saw the studio it was filmed in.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:27PM
And then in 40 years we'll have conspiracy nutters saying the Mars landing was a government hoax, and they can prove it because shadows, and the flag waving, and they saw the studio it was filmed in.
Been there. Done that. Read the book. Actually, I only saw the movie [wikipedia.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:35AM
In three "arks". Let's call them A, B, and C...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by TK on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:16PM
Well sure, if you want the existing population of Earth to be taken out by dirty telephones.
#AllTelephoneSanitizers
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:41AM
Why not build the base for the humans using robots, before the humans get there? That way, you can make sure everything is ready and working, that hydroponic farms are functional, etc. before you arrive. That takes at least part of the risk for humans out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:58AM
While a good idea in theory, we don't have the technology in robots that can achieve this.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:35PM
While a good idea in theory, we don't have the technology in robots that can achieve this.
Bob Zubrin [wikipedia.org] says we had the technology [wikipedia.org] fifteen years ago. His experience and knowledge in the areas of propulsion and space exploration make me think he might have a point.
That said, a "There And Back Again" (with apologies to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien) reconnoiter over two or three years isn't colonization, but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:07PM
Awww, man, why be a party pooper? Some of us LIKE risk!
Snark aside, that's not a bad plan, but there is little reason to believe that the robots can accomplish such a large mission without some immediate supervision. Fifty robots and a half dozen people sounds about right to set up a base. Other people can follow, knowing that the hard part has already been done.
Face it, people WILL DIE in the attempt to colonize. They'll have some nice plaques erected, so that later generations can remember their sacrifices. Kinda like the tourist traps all around our nation today.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 22 2015, @05:38PM
The cost to actually make it to Mars is Huge. The cost to support 6 to 12 people for the rest of their natural lives on Mars would be even larger. Would we be sending male and female astronauts? Would we want them to have the ability to procreate? How would we / they control that, if they are functioning normally? Would the "Colony" be able to support additional non-contributing members? Would the child have a decent chance of being born healthy / alive? These are just the small questions, that could be easily ironed out.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:31PM
Send human slaves implanted with computer chips they cannot remove themselves. Make them develop the infrastructure needed for the masters to live in. If they do not obey orders, send a signal to the chips which would deliver a strong electric shock. If no signal is received by the chip for a certain amount of time, the electric shock is delivered. This is to stop them from surrounding their perimeter with a faraday cage to stop communications with the masters. Make them install cameras and other sensors around the area and monitor those cameras and sensors remotely. When everything is built and the place becomes sustainable, kill the slaves by delivering a lethal shock, and then evacuate the air from the room or place they are in to stop their bodies from decomposing. Now the place is thriving with plant life and ready to be colonized.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 23 2015, @05:03AM
I have a vision of the robot(s) in question getting 95% of the way done before segfaulting with a condition that requires somebody to go and reboot them manually anyway.
The more you know about computer science, the less faith you have in it (and the more you wonder how our entire electronic infrastructure hasn't broken on any given day already).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:01PM
Yeah, but what about the 'spinoffs', is that factored in? Third link is an interesting explanation that NASA's budget is net-negative (by a whole heckuva lot)w
http://www.businessinsider.com/everyday-items-developed-by-nasa-2012-8 [businessinsider.com]
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/sep/HQ_07193_Griffin_lecture.html [nasa.gov]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:12PM
Yeah, but what about the 'spinoffs', is that factored in?
One interesting idea is if we can live in a civilized reasonably comfortable advanced lifestyle colony on the inhospitable surface of Mars, we should be able to leverage that technology to colonize Detroit, Baltimore, the -istan countries, antarctica...
I'm semi-serious about this, if you think you can build an arcology or biosphere that would work on Mars, maybe start homesteading in Detroit first and not worry so much about oxygen and water. The challenges of site security would more or less match the challenges of living in a vacuum on another planet, with some obvious variations. So you wear a bullet proof vest instead of a space suit, same difference. Or you need protective covers for the solar panels to protect against gunshots instead of dust storms, same difference.
So start building a self contained greenhouse and machine shop and solar power plant and then social structures like kids schools and religious sites and whatever else right in the hood of Detroit, and see if anyone survives.
It would make an interesting "reality TV" plot. "OK suckas, now that you tv show volunteeers are all here, I'm sad to report that the studio execs don't have enough budget for an actual rocket launch. And we don't have enough dough for real sealed space colony gear. But we can drop you on this partially abandoned block in Detroit and leave you a shitload of sci fi props and you can compete for challenges that boil down to lets pretend we're living on Mars, think of it like Big Brother with a Star Trek theme, kinda"
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:18PM
Aren't there natives in Detroit? I think it will be safer to colonize Mars.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:49PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday September 22 2015, @09:55PM
I admit the possibility that the money could be better spent on basic research, however much modern tech seems to depend on us being in space, and I, for one, would still like to have all that we have learned about physics from space telescopes, despite their insane costs.
I am no expert on what we would not have but for NASA, however the Hubble telescope seems to single handedly justify the cost. The data from it already collected may yet yield enormous fruit that would otherwise be out of reach if we confined our basic science subsidization to terrestrial experiments.
Beyond that, I am hopeful that we, as a species, will one day find and reside on another planet, even if I am in rare company in this regard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:07PM
if we can get just one monster tunnel digging machine to mars 90% of problems disappear
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:27PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_lava_tube [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @10:35PM
Yeah, we can let it sit there and take some nice pictures of it. Too bad we couldn't fire it up because the engine won't run without oxygen.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:11PM
It seems to me that the essential first step is to get a mining and manufacturing infrastructure built. Once you no longer have to haul tons of materials out of the earth's gravity well, everything else gets easier.
One option, perhaps an intermediate step, is mining/manufacturing on the moon. That gives you readily available raw materials, but you still have a (much smaller) gravity well. Long term, at least the manufacturing part needs to truly be in space.
Given a space infrastructure, everything else becomes much easier. For example, you can build much larger habitats, instead of sardine cans.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:18PM
Humans are on a trajectory to be the white trash of sector 001. Space exploration is really expensive and I'd like to that time, money, effort, and brains put to work solving some problems at home first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:40PM
Because the rich and powerful are profiting from them.
Those with power, do not have problems; those with problems, do not have power. The status quo is here to stay forever, unless something from the outside happens to disturb it. And colonization effort is one of such things - as attested many times in history.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:44PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:49PM
"We shouldn't bother going to Mars because there's bigger problems here on Earth we should worry about first" - once again the fallacy of relative privation [wikipedia.org] rears its head.
(Score: 3, Informative) by zeigerpuppy on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:03PM
I'm not really sure your argument applies.
The two problems are interrelated, so it's not really an appeal to an unrelated issue.
Going to Mars and colonizing it is possible and also desirable.
However, it is also an incredible use of resources: human, technical and material.
We have problems requiring similar types of technical investment, especially in our rollout of renewable energy and mitigation of climate change.
There's possibly also a psychological connection. If we think that it's practical to colonize and presumably terraform Mars, it may assuage some of our guilt for the wanton destruction of our own ecosystem.
The problems at home are pressing and urgent and require out attention,
yet they also seem insurmountable, leading to a type of learned helplessness which makes it more comfortable to daydream.
I want to see us go to Mars, when we've secured our foundations first,
then even the stars are not too far away.
It's a cosmic game, fellow humans, our Sun has fuel for enough time that we can and should consolidate our most important spacecraft first, Earth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:09PM
Is not an argument, "We shouldn't do/worry about X because Y and Z are more important/bigger problems" is the definition of the fallacy of relative privation; the parent's "argument" is merely pointing out that the GP's assertion is not logically valid.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @12:53PM
On second thought let's not go to Mars. 'Tis a silly place.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:09PM
Hey, Ed Regis, do you think Math is hard, too?
There's another word for being excessively optimistic - it's called dreaming. And it's been quite a long time since we've done it as a country in a way that isn't only for the benefit of advertisers, politicians, or the military empire.
So yeah, pardon me if I look at your criticism - some of which has merit - and still decide to say, "Fuck you!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @01:44PM
There's nothing wrong with dreaming. But as soon as you try to realize those dreams, you better look at how they match up with reality, or else you might find yourself in a nightmare.
Why not start by colonizing the moon, and letting Mars wait until we have more experience and better technology? After all, even a moon colony is currently an ambitious project. You have to learn to walk before you run.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:42PM
>Why not start by colonizing the moon
Because the Chinese will do it long before you get done arguing about it, obviously. ;)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @09:53PM
There's nothing wrong with dreaming. But as soon as you try to realize those dreams, you better look at how they match up with reality, or else you might find yourself in a nightmare.
Why not start by colonizing the moon, and letting Mars wait until we have more experience and better technology? After all, even a moon colony is currently an ambitious project. You have to learn to walk before you run.
Well, because colonizing the moon is hard, too.
Look at Mr. Regis' article and please outline which arguments he makes which are only applicable to Mars, and not the Moon? Then re-read it and tell me which parts of it would not have applied in the Apollo program?
I'm not saying you don't have a point, either. But what more do you expect to learn from the Moon that we won't learn from Mars, or have already learned from Apollo? Both destinations are impossibly far for a rescue mission.
The op-ed is also stupid because it mashes together Mars One and SpaceX with a frisson of NASA information.
But it gets its information wrong as well, claiming "ooh, what about all the psychological problems of people in such close quarters?" Apparently he hasn't heard of the HI-SEAS experiment, currently ongoing. Anybody who hasn't studied that, even a little, has no credibility to be heard on the topic.
Finally, I think I'll refuse to listen to someone who wrote a book called, "“Monsters: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology." But that's just me.
I don't think anybody isn't suggesting that the dreams have to be tested to and fitted to reality. (Maybe Mars One feels that way, but they don't represent the mainstream of the dream, either.) And is ten years realistic? Maybe not.
But that should not stop us from working on it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:07PM
The Moon would be a logical first step. We could learn a LOT about creating habitable, on-planet living environments by colonizing our nearest neighbor.
It's certainly a different ballgame than Mars (atmosphere, presence/absence of water, etc.) but it has the advantage of being right in our backyard. Given enough time and money, it could even be a launch/staging area for future Mars explorations.
Oh, but that's not marketable enough. Let's waste our time talking about Mars--something that sounds glorious, but no (American) politician will have the will or guts to really do what it takes to pay for it within our lifetimes.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:24PM
Humanity *needs* extraplanetary colonies.
We're computer people, right? We understand the importance of offsite backups. As long as humanity is a single-planet species, we could be wiped out by any number of mass-extinction events. Asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes, anything. Extraplanetary colonies might still be hit by the absolute worst extinction events, but they dodge enough that they are well worth it.
Given how important it is for the human species that we develop offplanet colonies, the question becomes "where" not "if". And so my question for Mr. Regis is "do you have any better ideas?"
Mars has sufficient gravity for human comfort. It has water and oxygen (not in naturally-usable form, but it's there). It is desolate and inhospitable - combining the dangers of living on the ISS, the South Pole, and the Sahara. But that merely makes it "hard", not "impossible".
Luna is worse in every way except distance from Earth. Perhaps it's worth trying, simply for the easier transit, but it's not better as a destination.
Venus is also hard. There is a habitable band in the upper atmosphere - right pressure and temperature for human life. We'd have to live in airships, but it would otherwise be better than Mars. It's about equally hard to get to, though, and the thick atmosphere makes it harder to get back.
The outer moons are out of reach of current rockets, at least with human-sized payloads. Asteroids are even worse than Luna. Lagrange stations can't be fully self-sustaining, so they're out. Can anyone else think of something I missed?
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:17PM
The point is not that we should never leave Earth, but that going to Mars any time soon (few decades) is not feasible.
We will probably get there, and beyond, but it will take quite a time (few centuries, at least).
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:26PM
Luna is worse in every way except distance from Earth
Agreed. And if (that's a big if) I understand this beautiful graph [clowder.net] correctly without reading the explanations, the delta-v requirements for Earth->Moon transfers are only marginally smaller than those for Earth->Mars. And if you consider aerobreaking a valid option, a trip to mars would even require slighty less (0.1 km/s). (All trips one-way, no refunds)
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:40PM
Here, have a far more readable dV map [imgur.com].
Earth->Luna is 15km/s, and Luna->Earth is 5.7km/s. Earth->Mars (with aerobraking) is 13-14km/s, and Mars->Earth is 6-7km/s. So they're about the same round-trip delta-v.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @10:40PM
Protip: You can sort out the technical (scientists and engineers) from the technical wannabees (if it makes sense in a SciFi story, it must be right) by whether they call it "the Moon" or "Luna" (respectively, by the way, in case you weren't sure).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:33PM
We haven't even managed to build a fully self-sustaining airtight habitat here on earth (the Biosphere II project tried, but didn't succeed). Before we have managed that, there's zero hope to do the same on other planets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @03:46PM
Apparently you've never heard of ISS?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:56PM
Apparently you don't know what "self-sustaining" means?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:16PM
> We understand the importance of offsite backups.
It's gonna take another 50 years at least before the analogy works. Until then, your mars offsite backup is merely RAM powered by a very long and extremely fragile cable from earth. You're actually more likely to lose your backup than your primary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @08:49PM
^^ Most perfect analogy in ages!
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:34PM
All the more reason we should start working on it now. We'll develop the technology a lot faster if we're already using it. What's that development maxim again? Release early, release often?
(Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:57PM
As a believer that time reversal symmetry is real; and that no-one cares because the past sucks and can't be changed; there's an easier way to get to space. Stay still and wait 3 to 5 billion years going backwards. The earth wasn't around forever. If you can just stay still without dying for 3 to 5 billion years going backwards, you should end up in interstellar space, or at least the pre-solar-system disk of dust.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:03PM
If humans do colonize Mars, it could become a huge issue for religion. People are made to believe the Earth is the only place alive, so it hurts their beliefs that humans have left Earth for other places. And that there really are other places.
Whose jurisdiction does that place the colonizers in now? Who will be the God on Mars and other planets?
So this is being made an issue because their "God" wants all humans to be born and die on Earth (and then afterlife) and it hurts their beliefs when other planets/solar systems are colonized. Religion may not be able to live with that and might collapse. So religious people are scared of this.
I say lets do it. Right now.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 22 2015, @06:17PM
http://www.livescience.com/48208-religion-extraterrestrial-life.html/ [livescience.com]
The existence of Life that isn't on Earth, doesn't negate Christianity. Christians believe in Angels and Evil Angels. The Evil Angels wouldn't have a problem deceiving the entire world by posing as beings that didn't originate from God. In fact Satan plans to do that very thing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @06:57PM
It wasn't about Christianity or anything like that. It was about the Jews. They consider themselves masters of the planet and wish to go to some heaven after they die because they are the chosen ones, etc. So anyone leaving Earth and making it on another planet is against their fundamental ideas and plans and they would fight till the end to stop it from happening. I believe that is the only reason humans are still not on another planet.
Sorry, could not say "jews" in the earlier post because it would be immediately modded as -1, Troll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:16PM
Uh, wat? How does having extraterrestrial colonies go against their fundamental ideas and "plans", whatever your tinfoiled brain thinks those are?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:19PM
How about we leave all that supernatural bullshit in the trash, where it belongs?
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday September 22 2015, @11:50PM
Who will be the God on Mars and other planets?
C. S. Lewis to the rescue [wikipedia.org]!
In all seriousness, I'm sure that in 10,000 years, there will be extremists on Mars busy twisting 12,000 year old manuscripts and inventing interpretations that allow for a vengeful, sadistic, multi-planet god.
I'm sure that in 100,000 years, there will be extremists on Barnard's World [wikia.com] busy twisting 102,000 year old manuscripts and inventing interpretations that allow for a vengeful, sadistic, multi-solar god.
(Maybe in 1,000,000 years, extremists somewhere in M-31 screaming about a vengeful, sadistic, intergalactic God and the end times are here repent now!)
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday September 22 2015, @04:24PM
I'm offtopic with this post, but I'm tangentially reminded of this entertaining short science fiction story, The Penultimate Trump [archive.org], by Robert Ettinger from 1948. Posting because somebody else might enjoy it.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @06:52PM
lol people showing enthusiasm? we can't have that can we... :-)
"your crewmates are floating around sideways, upside down and at other nauseating angles"
...but this is some kind of satire/parody thing right? :-D
I must say the business I'm currently is involved in is quite tedious.
on the other hand there are lots of people on this planet that agrees
that they every year have a "grueling, twelve-month-long nightmare"
so I guess I'm one the lucky ones.
only people from usa would compare things to a SUV
I don't know the size of your cubicle but...
> the crew must operate within an exceptionally slim margin of error with continuous threats of equipment failures,
> computer malfunctions, power interruptions and software glitches.
sounds like normal work then
> Mars is a dead, cold, barren planet
but winter is nice in other ways :-)
> to call Mars a veritable hell
no, that would be Venus :-D
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 23 2015, @12:17AM
We should go to Venus... i hear that's where women are from. We may be nerds, but when we're the only men to choose from, what choice do they have! Giggity, giggity!1!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by pixeldyne on Wednesday September 23 2015, @01:26AM
I thought that if something goes wrong during the trip to mars, they could make a u-turn and come back using fuel meant for mars ascent. I'm not an expert but it would seem they should have enough fuel for a retrograde burn (twice the deltav) in mid flight?
It would still take a lot of time (and money) but at least there's this option if a mission to mars is really deemed impossible/too hard at thos stage. Personally I think it's quite possible, except the money was spent on wars instead.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday September 23 2015, @06:43AM
That's an interesting thought isn't it?
If humanity had accumulated all the resources it has spent in the last 100 years on wars killing each another and used it on something like space exploration instead, would we be living off-planet by now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @10:16PM
No.