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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: 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