Yes I know there is a current plan to go there under Mars One, but really could that plan work?
It's a one way trip, with no return to Earth, that's it your home for life if you go.
http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap
But really are we ready to setup a colony on a new world?
But for I add my 2 cents of an idea, lets hear what you guys think. 2024 isn't that far off, the planned launch of the 1st group, with 2 year apart launches after that, I just don't know if this current plan is a good one.
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Being ready and trying it out are completely two different things. Regardless, simply due to technology allowing us to do it no social hangups will stop us from trying. I think this is the beauty and ugliness of human nature to do something just because we can.
Solar storms and how Mars will treat the settlers.
Mars One's plan, which they don't like to talk about anymore (the contract to get an interview actually says the interviewer can't ask about it) still requires it to become the most popular and successful media project the world has ever seen by two orders of magnitude, and to remain so for longer than any media project has remained at any level of profitability.
Still first, if you must make it a commercial venture, that venture should not involve a reality TV show designed to promote competition discord and danger in an environment that demands absolute control where surprises are fatal.
Second, and to Mars One's credit, is don't fall for the pipe dream of out-of-the-box sustainability. Far more launches, far more missions in a short amount of time, and far higher stakes if even one is lost than a supported colony. This is one of two things Mars One has done right (the other is the morbid and rarely discussed plan to sterilize the colonists because the colony won't be able to support population growth).
Third, always have an abort option, it is immensely cheaper and more likely to work to bring the mission home if it fails than to attempt to salvage it by sending more one way trips. Mars One's abort plan is to let our first feet on another planet die there because the prime time ratings dipped too low, and that's a metaphor best left for fiction to explore and reality to stay far away from.
Fourth, don't have the owner rocket company that you claim is going to take you there going around saying that under no circumstances will they ever be involved in your plan. Because that's just kind of pathetic. But hey, if they are, just put in your interview contract that interviewers can't ask you why Elon Musk asked you to stop saying his name.
"Get your TRIBBLE to Mars!"
Frankly, I'd feel a lot better about it if there was also a base built either mid-way or orbiting Mars, complete with rescue craft: anything to keep them alive until full help could arrive in an emergency.
Assuming a Mars-orbital won't cut it, though, I'd start with temporary surface habitats, prospecting for the best place to dig. Mars' atmosphere doesn't offer much protection against solar and cosmic radiation, and unless you can figure out some way to restart Olympus Mons (I'm not even clear on whether the planet still has a molten core), there's no way to add enough atmosphere to matter. Now, if you can restart the volcanoes, you need to start looking for more water - the asteroids, the Jovian moons, and Saturn's rings are all good zero-gee sources; just get your ice to Mars (thanks, Arnie!), and let it fall to the surface.
Of course, one thing that would help a lot with all this would be to develop a useable constant-thrust drive. One of our best current candidates for that is VASIMR, a coupled-charge plasma thruster currently used to keep satellites in orbit; it uses electrical charge to repel a charged plasma, giving you rocket-like thrust without the need to carry megatons of chemical fuel. If they can complete their current project of developing a thruster with an output of 200 megawatts, this would let you send ships into space with a constant thrust of about .01g. This may not sound like much - but keep in mind, the speed builds as long as the thrust is on, meaning you build up quite a velocity; approximate trip time from Earth to Mars orbit at that thrust would be about 40 days. (Interestingly, according to the table Robert Heinlein worked up for one of his between-stories commentaries in the collection Expanded Universe, at any given constant thrust the average distance to Pluto is seven times as long, so at .01g you'd need 40 weeks to catch up with New Horizons, and the entire solar system has just been opened up to exploration and exploitation.)
http://www.space.com/21588-how-moon-base-lunar-colony-works-infographic.html
1 Resource mining (oxygen, rocket fuel, construction materials)
2 Energy (solar power, helium 3 mining for nuclear fusion)
3 Astronomical observations from the moon's far side
4 Tourism
Land on it, sure, probe it, sure, research missions, sure, colonisation, nope.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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How about we fix some problems here at home, first?
You know... things like world hunger. Eradicating disease. Nuclear disarmament. Environmental sustainability. Renewable fuel resources. Accessible and advanced medical healthcare for the entire human race.
Maybe address clear and present problems first before we decide to splurge on luxuries like Lunar or Martian colonies.
And harvesting asteroids can also help with the nuclear-disarmament thing, because one of the easiest ways to make a huge rock move is by the Orion drive.
Might. But probably not. We would just be spreading our dysfunction to another planetary body. It's not just humanity we're putting on the moon or Mars. We're bringing our emotional, societal, and psychological baggage with us, too. And all the problems that come with it.
How long until this one-way trip to Mars turns out to be a Lord of the Flies scenario? What is there to stop their 20-odd civilization from breaking down? Before we had firm, established colonies in the New World, we had a lot of colossal failures.
This is demonstratably false. We have available resources to take care of every person on this planet. We have the ability to create the infrastructure to transport those resources to every person on this planet. We have the ability, the technology, and the incentive to do this for the betterment of all mankind.
What we lack is the desire to do so.
Yes, there are things such as water shortages, and environmental mismanagement. There are most definitely droughts and wildfires. But 9 times out of 10, the only reason we do not see quality-of-life improvements on a global scale is because there are individuals in positions of great power who just don't want to see that happen.
Also known as the human element. Being shot to Mars with 20 other people is not going to magically change how destructive and greedy the human race is.
No disagreement there, per se. But it does nothing to address the fact it's the year 2015 and we still have countries with the capability of wiping out this entire species with just the push of a button.
I think these fantastical hypothetical projects of moon bases and martian bases belong in the hypothetical. Not the practical. I think it's a better use of resources to have Tacofangs simply build a martian colony in STO we can go to, than to spend billions of dollars marooning 20 people on another planet and hoping for the best.
A colony there wouldn't even need to be sustainable to be profitable, there's a few industries that could make a killing on the moon. It probably wouldn't be something to call a colony, though, as it probably wouldn't have permanent residents for decades, but the equipment is the same whether it's the same ten people or a rotating crew.
It's also not that far beyond existing rocketry. The SLS and Falcon Heavy could work to get all the heavy equipment there (though something bigger would be nice), and would be fully sufficient to handle supply and personnel transfers. And transit time from Earth is only a few days with windows multiple times a day. In an emergency, a base could be abandoned and reclaimed faster than some oil platforms have been turned around.
I'd say no because... What's the point?
I mean a research station may be in the realm of possible.
But the atmosphere is still not breathable and we do not have any way to change that. So living will mean never leaving the buildings without a suit. Which means creating buildings that could work there in the first place...
The whole colony thing is extremly expensive and has no point....
The team could even repair the man-less suits as needed.
However, if some people want to go on a suicide mission to Mars, then let them go. The colonization of North America was based on suicide missions. After all, if colonizing Las Vegas or Arizona isn't a suicide mission, then I might need to change my definition of it.
To play Q's Advocate, what actions have we accomplished that merits the survival of our species at the cost of the continuing suffering of it elsewhere on the planet?
They weren't suicide missions. There was monetary gain involved. Las Vegas particularly so. The California Gold Rush wasn't a thing just to see if humans could do it. People just wanted to get rich and become the next John D. Rockefeller.
Christopher Columbus? He thought there was a faster, more cost-efficient way to get to the East Indies to establish trade, and bypass the Silk Road entirely.
Amerigo Vespucci? He was a financier and given a hell of a lot of money from King Ferdinand to become the chief navigator.
The English? Tobacco.
The French? Furs.
Iconians? Dominance of the galaxy.
Scandinavians? Grapes, timber, fishing.
Everybody involved in the colonization of the New World was in it for financial gain, and they were willing to exterminate, assimilate, or expel any of the natives who were already here in order to acquire that financial gain.
There is nothing Mars or the Moon offers in such a high quantity that it would merit the risks taken to acquire it, nor do we have the capacity to move such quantities from the moon or mars to Earth as to outweigh the costs of extracting it (which includes the continued upkeep of a colony).
It would be a lot like Phoenix, Arizona. A monument to man's arrogance.
We have this problematic thing called survival instinct. Even if the world will be better off with our demise, we will still use all our energy to continue on being a nuisance.
Still is a suicide mission. Most people require some incentive to go on a suicide mission. History only includes the successful explorers not the thousands of explorers that perished thousands of kilometers from civilization.
All probes have only looked at the surface of Mars or the Moon not hundreds of meters below the surface and even then it is only a fraction of the surface so it is premature to say that there is nothing to merit the risk of going to the Moon or Mars.
The moon is not limited to resources, but its unique environment. Astronomy and production of certain items are better on the Moon than on Earth. So even if there is nothing on the Moon, there is still a reason for people to go there.
The speed-of-light delay would mean that the guys controlling the avatars would have to be orbiting Mars instead of being on Earth, unless you like having a four to ten minute delay between when your "body" trips over a rock and falls over and when you find out about it.
We need to address hunger, disease, war, and environmental sustainability in Europe before we start sending people to the New World!
True then, true now.
Sure we can end hunger for all on this planet right now, but until you address the greed factor, and the quest for power, you will always have that as an issue.
Followed by giving the people some air.
For the infrastructure, things like water gathering plants, power and life support systems need to be put in place, furthermore, I'd build the colony underground with underground atmosphere processors for the breathable air with artificially created gardens and forests to help with oxygen generation as well as good food and power production facilities.
Only then would I consider sending colonists.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Passengers and life-support supplies are a little more delicate.