OT - Is this how you build space colonies?
I thought this was a really neat article that might pique interest around here during the dreary dregs of the all-sports off-season.
Applications now being accepted for a one way trip to Mars.
On the face of it, it seems utterly ridiculous. But then, when I think about it, I can't help but wonder if this isn't how mann takes his first steps outside of the earth/moon system? Not with some amazing new technology for fast transport, but rather, with people who fully intend to live out their entire lives at thei destination.
Aside from horrible fatalists and the psychotic, who clearly cannot be allowed to go on such a mission, anyone who agrees to travel one way to another planet is going to require a plan for them to survive once they arrive. "I'd be happy to live out my life on Mars, but I want to live longer than the few months that the water and food supplies will last." so, meet that requirement, and now you've got people living on another world growing their own food, purifying their own water, generating their own oxygen (likely all wthin the same aquaculture facility), who are prepared for the long term.
What do people who are in one place for a long time like to do? Expand! Open up new spaces. Study new things. Build a summer home! And in little time, with a few supply missions from Earth, you've got the equivalent of Martian industry allowing the people that live there to do more than live, but to grow. To procreate, expand their facilities, terraform the soil and create a new human frontier.
It had never really occured to me before that the first steps of human expansion could be both permanent relocations AND not metaphorical one-way trips (meaning you're going there to die). I absolutely love the idea of people traveling within our star system, never to return to earth, not to die, but to LIVE.
Tell me this isn't cool.
You mean we aren't driving around space in souped-up Winnebagos? Mel Brooks was WRONG?
The discussion just went into plaid.
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:06 AM ^
is testament to the depressing truth that the prospect of man truly extending his permanent presence beyond earth is far more remote than many of us imagined in our youth. I grew up reading science fiction, and it's always been an article of faith within the genre that man would inevitably colonize the rest of the Solar System, and that as-yet-undiscovered technologies would enable us to become a truly interstellar species. Much of the stuff I read when I was a kid was premised on timelines of solar system colonization happening by the end of the 20th century, and "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a perfect movie presentation of this optimism.
Given where we're at in terms of solving the huge engineering and technological hurdles that Space Coyote and others here have mentioned, I think we're at least a century away from achieving what Kubrick and Arthur Clarke envisioned.
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:07 AM ^
There's too much radiation on Mars, especially from solar flares. I don't how long it would take a solar flare to reach Mars (10 minutes maybe?), but someone there would have exactly that much time to find protective shelter to avoid radiation poisoning.
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:38 AM ^
http://moonandback.com/2013/02/15/surviving-radiation-in-space/
I'm not remotely an expert in radiation or its effects on health so I have no clue whether the writer is accurate, but he seems to be sourcing his article on actual data and research.
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:34 PM ^
That's an interesting website.
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:23 PM ^
The mean distance of Mars to the Sun is 140 million miles, which means you'd have roughly 13 minutes to take shelter in the event of a major solar eruption, which is a moot point because by the time you observed the event from Mars, the radiation has already arrived.
That said, there are ways to protect yourself from radiation using native soil as a radiation barrier. Bottom line though is that colonial life on Mars probably means a lot of indoor living.
The more dangerous, heavy radiation travels quite a bit slower than the speed of light, so 13 minutes doesn't apply to that. But still, yeah, there's no escaping the initial electron stuff.
April 23rd, 2013 at 10:55 AM ^
It would be neat to see that actually happen. I don't understand why someone would want to take that risk though. I am 31 and don't think I will see Mars become a suitable planet for thousands (or more) of people in my life, if ever for that matter. Mars simply isn't a planet that can support life. I know the argument of terraforming, but I feel that technology is a long way away and again, if ever.
What humans need to do is develop space ships that are able to travel much faster than the ones we have. I'm not talking Star Trek ships that can go faster than the speed of light (although those would be great to have) because I don't think that technology can ever be made. Scientists recently discovered two planets (see link below) that are very Earth-like and could possibly support life.
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:00 PM ^
a trip to the Dark Side of the Moon opens up, then I will be interested.
April 23rd, 2013 at 12:04 PM ^
I find it so interesting that the whole premise of the concept in the article was that getting there really isn't that difficult, so long as you don't care about coming back, and this just went imediately to a discussion of travel and interstellar technologies.
The article makes no argument about it. The cost to launch X amount of stuff into orbit is the cost. What they're intending is to only have to launch it once, and never bring it back or launch more. It's hard to fund a perpetual space program. It's not hard to find the money to do something once.
I was hoping more to get peoples' take on the concept of a permanent, stand alone space colonies as a means of expanding humanity than on this or that technology to travel wherever you're intending to go.
That said, if you're that fascinated by travel technologies, there was a great article in a recent PopSci all about the realities of not too far in the future advanced travel.
I don't fear the radiation item. Yes, it's dangerous, but it's more dangerous on the moon and there have been plenty of proposals on how to make that safe. The most common one I see is to pile up soil on the outside, and pump a hollow in the walls full of human waste on the way out.