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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: 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.
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