[Closed] would you live on Mars?

No, I prefer some atmosphere.

Whilst I think we need visionaries I can't see the point of having anything but a small research colony on Mars for a long long time and even then I can't see that we're going to learn a whole lot. Most of the technical development will come in the space flight itself but once you're on Mars, given they aren't look at terraforming, what are you actually going to learn that you couldn't in a sealed environment on Earth?

This just goes to show that corporate taxation rates are way too low, and that quantitative easing has gone beyond a joke.

If I was single or widowed and old then yes I would

I'm a geologist and would love to go there

[img] [/img]

Do they have chair lifts?

[quote=FuzzyWuzzy ]Whilst I think we need visionaries I can't see the point of having anything but a small research colony on Mars for a long long time and even then I can't see that we're going to learn a whole lot. Most of the technical development will come in the space flight itself but once you're on Mars, given they aren't look at terraforming, what are you actually going to learn that you couldn't in a sealed environment on Earth?

THIS

Its just billionaire with a child like dream he can indulge due to his obscene levels of wealth.

No way,it's full of protomolecule hybrids.
[img] [/img]

Yes. Well maybe not now because I have a family and responsibilities, but discounting that then yes.

Life only exists on this one fragile planet, we need to do something to fix that - this is the first step.

Musks vision has to applauded, don’t you think?

It’s not like anyone else has thought of living on Mars, so clearly the guy is a visionary and should be held in high regard amongst scientists and philosophers alike.

I see two major flaws in his thesis, he’s one and the other is Mars.

If, and that’s a massive [i] IF [/i], humans were inventive enough to leave this planet before its inevitable demise surely a planet with similar conditions to promote human habitation would be a better option?

Quite what the fascination with Mars is I’m not actually sure, if it’s a fascination grown out of reading 1950’s sci-fi books then surely it’s time to grow up and smell the roses. The Planet has been proven not to become habitable by humans, why is Musk wasting his time? Is it a distraction in the form of the Earth raw materials he’s raping to build a transportation systems conducive to human singularity, or is it he has too much money being thrown at his he feels the need to get his team to write a presentation to promote an improbable dream whilst secretly underpinning his vehicle manufacturing plant..

You can tell I’m not just sceptical, but completely dismissive of much of what this bloke says.

Could I sneak the odd Snickers every now and again, to break the monotony?

I reckon I'd be bored within about 48 hrs

Any fit birds going?

I like the idea of fathering a martian

It would have to be some kind of Saudi type deal. If they could get the transportation time down to say a month then work for two years and come back with a tax free million quid then yes.

Bikebouy has it.

So what's next? WWYD? How do we stop the 'raping'?

I'm guessing smaller self-sustaining communities, networked by a simple transit system and a move away from our obsession with cities and single-occupant commutes/supermarket runs?

Or is it mega-farms, bigger cities, taller towers and faster cars all the way-down?

The whole concept to me is intriguing so i'd be up for leaving Earth. The tech invented to get there would be a big boost to future tech on earth and vice versa.

It only suprises me that most of us aren't so bold and inventive. Do you think humans are naturally timid?

It's pretty easy to make these big lightly-considered plans. The reason most proper engineers and scientists don't is that they are looking at all the risks and down-sides. But since it's all his money, he can try it if he likes. Plans will fail, people will die, but at best we'll end up with a pretty miserable place to live.

A character almost entirely based on Musk appears in the Neal Stephenson book Seveneves. I reckon it's a pretty thoughtful and fair assessment of his kind of approach. Not entirely negative either.

The tech invented to get there would be a big boost to future tech on earth and vice versa

Really? We've had this debate before, but I'm sceptical. I can't think of a major tech challenge on Earth that would be helped by figuring out how to get to Mars.

Of course I ****ing wouldn't.

Its just billionaire with a child like dream he can indulge due to his obscene levels of wealth.

Very well put.

Only if they put in an Olympus Mons uplift service. 😀

Why? What is the attraction? We've proved we can keep people alive in space, it is hugely expensive, dangerous and unpleasant, but it can be done more or less indefinitely given a large enough budget. Now we've done that, perhaps it would be better to turn our collective attention - and investment - to addressing some of the real problems that we face.

what would be the point?

Keeping people alive on mars is a much less difficult problem than keeping them alive in space: zero g is very bad for you, on the whole, and makes many small challenges *really* hard.

Not saying it would be easy on mars, just easier-than-in-micro-gravity

Answer to Q: No
Why : red has never been my colour

thecaptain - Member
Why? What is the attraction? We've proved we can keep people alive in space, it is hugely expensive, dangerous and unpleasant, but it can be done more or less indefinitely given a large enough budget. Now we've done that, perhaps it would be better to turn our collective attention - and investment - to addressing some of the real problems that we face.

Bit of a defeatist attitude innit captain?

"We were wanderers from the beginning..."

Basketball would be awesome on Mars.

@molgrips

How about getting past the apparent radiation belt somewhere outside of Earth? If nukes start a flying we might need something to combat radiation better here. I love Fallout but don't fancy playing it in real life :p

Perhaps I believe a future where the human race has multiple planets colonized and isn't dependent on this little rock we are slowly taking apart

You've got to start somewhere.

I'll give it a miss, I think we've done a good enough job making a mess on this planet without abusing another.

It's not about being defeatist, it's about not seeing the point. Why not live on the top of everest, or at the bottom of the ocean, or up a tree, on in a hot air balloon? It could all be done, it would cost varying amounts of money and serve no useful purpose. I've certainly got better things to do with my life than just survive for the sake of it. Like posting on STW, for example 🙂

The "colonising multiple planets" stuff is just fantasy bullshit. We are here, we are stuck here, and the planet is plenty big enough even if we make our best efforts to **** it up.

You've got to start somewhere.

We know most of the planets in our solar system and most would be grim places to live. Outside our solar system the elephant in the room is the sheer distance involved. Scifi readers seem quite confident that the invention of the hyperdrive is just around the corner, if we could only start shipping people onto barren lifeless rocks today. I'm far more sceptical that it is even possible. Without that, we've got five rocky planets and a handful of moons, and that's it.

Living on Mars would be like living in an Antarctic base. And people don't seem to want to do that their whole lives.

There are many reas Me for going to mars. First and foremost to develop the technology to do it and practice. Also in many millions of years as true story n starts to warm and expand mars will move into eu Goldilocks zone so could be more habitable than it is now. It will never be earth like as lack of molten core and therefore magnetic field means it can never hold onto an atmosphere, but we could live deep within its canyons or burrow into the mountains. Also there is water ice on mars which can b used as a source of fuel to harvest for a deep space ship. We be colonising mars and the moon in a few hundred years.

Governments can no longer do this as there is not the will of the people behind he ventures bso we're left to billionair s to firstly make a business case out of space true. Once here is a business case then the big corporations will move in.

Fantasies about colonising Mars are the defeatist option, when our own lovely planet is in such a mess.

^ I want some of whatever he's having

I'd rather Musk prioritised his hyperloop so I don't have to sit in a plane for hours on end.

what would be the point?

The point I guess is to prove it can be done. I doubt there's much practical point to moving of putting humans on Mars, they simply get to hold the tools to study it rather than mount it on another Mars rover.

Visit, yes but I wouldn’t want to live on mars. It would like being in prison but with worse food, no courtyard time, horrific storms and added health issues.

but as noted we could live on mars like we could live on everest or under the sea the point is its not economical or practical to do it.

thecaptain - Member
It's not about being defeatist, it's about not seeing the point. Why not live on the top of everest, or at the bottom of the ocean, or up a tree, on in a hot air balloon? It could all be done, it would cost varying amounts of money and serve no useful purpose. I've certainly got better things to do with my life than just survive for the sake of it. Like posting on STW, for example

The "colonising multiple planets" stuff is just fantasy bullshit. We are here, we are stuck here, and the planet is plenty big enough even if we make our best efforts to **** it up.

Probably one of the most depressing posts I've ever read.

You could go back through history and say the same thing at so many points and about so many things.

Why explore Europe? Africa's big enough

When invent agriculture when you can forage?

Why invent the bicycle when you can run?

Why develop fusion power when you have coal?

And the thing about fixing the problems on Earth instead is a bizarre one too. It's like saying "why work on psoriasis treatments when people have cancer". These two things are not mutually exclusive, and who knows? Working on psoriasis may yield results which help treat cancer anyway.

retro83 - Member

You could go back through history and say the same thing at so many points and about so many things.

Why explore Europe? Africa's big enough

When our ancestors left Africa, they didn't really 'leave Africa', with bold exploratory plans, they just moved along the beach a bit to get away from their annoying parents. everyone was happy. a few hundred generations later and you'll find yourself in Finland.

When invent agriculture when you can forage?

Why invent the bicycle when you can run?

Why develop fusion power when you have coal?

because all of those things are an improvement.

living in a shipping container on mars? no thanks.

I have no idea what Musk's plan is but I bet I have a fully formed opinion on it and can usefully contribute to any discussion about it.

Starting a new colony on Mars is an appealing problem (particularly for engineers) because it doesn't come with all the messy political and historical baggage that bogs down any attempt to fix Earth-based problems. You can start from a clean sheet, so it's just a case of applying money and brains. And because it's so revolutionary it sort-of makes its own case as to why, if you don't think about it too deeply and compare it to e.g. colonising uninhabitable parts of Earth

The 'we need a lifeboat if Earth gets destroyed' argument is pretty weak in my opinion - even after a meteor strike, Earth would STILL be more habitable than Mars (correct gravity, radiation shielding, abundant oxygen and water). And what would a Mars colony do if Earth was destroyed anyway? What would be the point? Live on until enough things broke that couldn't be fixed without Earth resources and then perish?

Sure, we could work on the Mars colony problem alongside working on our Earth problems. But the more people think 'Meh, we don't need to save Earth, we can just move to Mars', the less effort will be made. An impractical but tempting Plan B is a very big danger to properly investing in Plan A (which is really all we have)

If there's a timescale of tens of thousands of years to think about, sure, but we face serious threats to human civilisation on Earth right now. We should be concentrating on them, not giving people an excuse to think there is an easy out...

(Having said all that I think we're screwed anyway)

ahwiles - Member

because all of those things are an improvement.

living in a shipping container on mars? no thanks.

No they aren't, not while they're being developed and that's the stage we're at with this.

E.g. Electric cars are not better than petrol cars. Soon they will be. Somebody has to be willing to suffer driving a Nissan Leaf in order to move things on.

Do I want to go? No chance, I'm not brave enough. But I admire any pioneer who does.

would you live on Mars?

Depends entirely if Katie Hopkins stayed on Earth.

It would be better the other way around - use Mars as a kind of intergalactic Australia.

Why explore Europe? Africa's big enough

When invent agriculture when you can forage?

Why invent the bicycle when you can run?

Why develop fusion power when you have coal?

Non-answer, really. All those things were invented to give tangible benefits, unlike living on Mars.

Why live by the beach in the sunshine when you can live at the bottom of a coal mine? Oh hang on - no-one does. There's a reason for that I think.

Reminds me of this (helps to have seen the movie)

It could be quite a handful.

[img] [/img]

TONITE: Musk's Vision + support, £6/5 con, Doors 7.30pm, The Smokey Cockchafer. 14+

The argument for "improving technology" for the trip and colonisation of Mars is a fair point, I can't think of anyone whose actually given that some thought.. nah, wait you are joshing eh.

Back to the technological aspect, fine and dandy.. lets do that.. right now, lets pile £bn's into building the technology to actually come up with a solution to STOP using fossil fuels to power industry and cars, fridges and burger vans then.. but nope.. Mars seems to be the Pie in the Sky idealism for a generation of visionaries who really need a pull back from looking up to looking down for a change.
So much of what we as humans have done technology wise is an organic revolution, claimed to improve humans lives and we all get to live longer and do more with our time.. which of course is utter tripe when you consider half of sub equator Africa is drying of poverty, disease, war mongering repression and muddy water to put into their Costa Cups full of..muddy water.
Musk would do better to bring technological developments planned for "mars" into the real world to make humans live and not just exist to die here on earth.
Humans have almost conjured a mythical vision of themselves as saviours and worthy of repatriation to other galaxy systems and planets, when in reality we scrabble around devoid of compassion and fill our heads with escapist dreams for an utopian existence that will never ever happen.
So i call on Musk and his cronies to develop technology to provide humans with tools to live here, morally and ethically without reason to feel held under the cloak of mass commercialism and corporate greed.

Daydreamings fine, wishing is fine, reaching out to greedy corporations for £bn's is ethically immoral and fraud at best.

If Musk ever gets his act together and is in a position to actually send humans to Mars (and some how I doubt he ever will be), there will be no shortage of applicants.

From the tone of this thread, I doubt many of those applicants will be middle aged Audi driving IT professionals with a slightly odd obsession with wood burners and MTBs.

Why bother? By the time this becomes a viable option there's sure to be another mass extinction event on Earth which will focus minds on something a bit closer to home I think.

As John Butler once wrote:

Over population say we gotta face
You're gonna send us all away out to outerspace
Singing yippie hurray for the human race
I don't wanna live my life in no outer space

Name that (MTB) movie?

retro83 - Member

No they aren't, not while they're being developed

here's the really important bit:

no-one had/has to go and live out the rest of their days in a shipping container to develop agriculture/the bicycle/fusion power.

Mars would be a one-way trip, a really slow, boring, dangerous, depressing, one way trip.

take off and landing would make it into your diary, but after that, it's just ticking off the days surviving on algael slime you've grown in your own piss.

i bet that Scotsman who invented the bike had a great time doing it, seriously huge amounts of fun. The tribes who invented agriculture got to brew beer, and have outrageous parties. All the brilliant scientists and engineers who are building the iter reactor, get to live in a really beautiful part of France - France!

(in an attempt to join the conversation in the capacity of a grown-up, by far the biggest hurdle our Mars-ambitions face is that of keeping the first travelers sane, or at least stop them from killing themselves long enough to get something useful done and welcome the second wave)

retro83, I'm excited enough about addressing the real problems and possibilities we have here. No need to peddle some escapist fantasy about Mars. And it's also nothing to do with being narrow-minded or depressive, rather it's a realistic assessment of the costs and benefits.

ahwiles - Member
here's the really important bit:

no-one had/has to go and live out the rest of their days in a shipping container to develop agriculture/the bicycle/fusion power.

Oh jees, do you really have to nitpick my posts? As you well know, those were merely examples of naysayers pooh-poohing ideas.

Explorers throughout history went to various places not knowing if they would be able to get there, survive, come back. Being a pioneer requires sacrifice that much is obvious.

thecaptain - Member
retro83, I'm excited enough about addressing the real problems and possibilities we have here. No need to peddle some escapist fantasy about Mars. And it's also nothing to do with being narrow-minded or depressive, rather it's a realistic assessment of the costs and benefits.

[i]I'm[/i] not peddling anything, I'm excited to see what Musk/SpaceX can achieve.

Oh and...

nothing to do with being narrow-minded or depressive

realistic assessment of the costs and benefits.

haha okay then

Fantasies about colonising Mars are the defeatist option, when our own lovely planet is in such a mess.

The planet isn't in a mess. It's thriving. It's been in a lot worse shape than this many times in its history long before we rocked up. The reasons for leaving this rock is not because we screw it up it's because it has a limited lifespan so we have to.

The overpopulation thing is nosence too. We'll top out at around 10bn as more and more countries come out of poverty and the birth rate drops which is easily enough for the earth to sustain.

When our ancestors left Africa, they didn't really 'leave Africa', with bold exploratory plans, they just moved along the beach a bit to get away from their annoying parents.

Actually they did. They left to seek out food and shelter so as not to exhaust the resources as their tribe grew or climate changed or new threats came their way. Pretty much the same reasons we'd leave this planet for.

As you well know, those were merely examples of naysayers pooh-poohing ideas.

He's got a point though - your list of examples were risk (some of them anyway) for high reward. A Mars colony would be high risk and massive expense for not much actual reward.

Christ, anyone would think it’s the government raping your bank accounts to pay for this, instead of a private individual!
Talk about short-sighted and myopic! 🙄

Mars would be a one-way trip, a really slow, boring, dangerous, depressing, one way trip.

So i call on Musk and his cronies to develop technology to provide humans with tools to live here, morally and ethically without reason to feel held under the cloak of mass commercialism and corporate greed.

Daydreamings fine, wishing is fine, reaching out to greedy corporations for £bn's is ethically immoral and fraud at best.

I disagree, with you.

You can't really say without Musk (for thats who we are talking about) computers et all would not have been invented, due in part "they have foresight"

Abraham Derby had foresight, Alexander Graham Bell too.. plenty of folks grounded here on earth with foresight to improve human existence without proposing sending some Oligarchs to Mars "f'rrrr a larf" and proposing a technological explosion to prove you can fly and return to Mars..
The technology is already here fore that, its just that its too expensive and takes too long and no one wants to go.

You know only too well how the humble computer came about, it was nothing to do with space exploration..

Still, if you support spunking £bn's on fantasy projects i think you'll find its much easier and cheaper to go off to ComiCon and buy one of these:

[img] [/img]

I think you'll find we're not defeatist, we're pragmatists and humanitarian'ists..

Christ, anyone would think it’s the government raping your bank accounts to pay for this, instead of a private individual!
Talk about short-sighted and myopic!

It's still money, and it still could be spent on other far more valuable endeavours which would be equally cutting edge and capable of driving innovation, but benefit millions of people. To be fair, some of the man's efforts do benefit us all, so credit where it's due.

none of you would be able to spout such a load of defeatist garbage.

Defeatist? We're not being defeated, we're not even entering the battle, because we think it's stupid. You are overlooking a ton of issues because of your own romanticism. Firstly, it's not really a first step to anything useful. You are probably thinking a bit Star Trek here - how cool it would be to be hopping between fantastic planets and meeting aliens. But that is nowhere near the same thing. Going to Mars is like an Iron Age person stepping outside the gates of their hilltop fort and thinking that discovering the New World is the next step. There are gigantic problems with the Star Trek vision and a Mars colony would do absolutely nothing to move us towards that.

Secondly, even a basic Mars colony would take a vast amount of resources and effort from a huge number of people. People who would otherwise be here inventing things that we really need like renewable energy or a cure for cancer.

Would you really be lying in bed dying of cancer and think 'well my family will miss me but at least we have eight people on their way to Mars'. I wouldn't.

Think how the great empires of history over-stretched themselves to reach for glory to conquer new parts of the world. The British even handed their empire back because they realised it was an expensive vanity project in the end. I'm sure many people were disappointed with that, but it was a harsh reality. The Romans kept going til it all collapsed.

Musk himself has said he's a believer in the [url= https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html ]Fermi Paradox[/url]. His view about building a habitable environment on another planet stems from this. That waitbutwhy site is pretty good - the bloke interviews him and talks about how it would work, what his plans are and how he intends to put people there within the next 5 to 10 years.

It's a pretty aggressive timeline and probably ambitious at best - but then a lot of people said Space X wouldn't be the success it has been and I'm sure people were originally highly critical of Tesla. Remember, this is one of the founders of Paypal so he's not daft.

I applaud him - I hope it works and when we finally get to the point of royally screwing up this planet, at least there will be the option to go somewhere else. I'd be up for it.

Mars is cold and dead, I think Venus could be a better prospect, if we could get a gigantic solar shield into orbit to cool it off a bit.

Remember, this is one of the founders of Paypal so he's not daft.

Daft? I dunno. Hyperloop anyone? He was single minded and effective, but the idea for Paypal was not at all unique. I worked for a company that did the same thing, but we were not single minded and most definitely not effective 🙂

I strongly urge you to read the [url= https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/spacexs-big-****g-rocket-the-full-story.html ]interview with Musk about Space X[/url]. It's pretty long winded but it's very thorough and gives you an idea as to why he's doing what he's doing.

On selling his stock in Paypal (for circa $300m) he put half into Tesla and half into Space X. Space X is now valued at $12 billion, I'd imagine Tesla is worth way more. His personal fortune is somewhere north of $12 billion so he's clearly doing something right.

The Hyperloop project was more an idea than an actual proposal. His team at Space X came up with the idea following the proposed high speed rail connection in California. It was more of a suggestion as to what could be done for theoretically less money than the rail link (10%).

lets pile £bn's into building the technology to actually come up with a solution to STOP using fossil fuels to power industry and cars

Elon Musk is already doing this via Tesla Cars, Tesla Solar Roof, Powerwall batteries.

Indeed PayPal was there just at the right time of the eBay revolution, plenty of PDS2 providers that were there first he just headed up the one that got picked.

I'm not dismissing his achievements, I applaud what he's created and how he's created a company based on a TOM that survives on Credit, who wouldn't want that.

He's not a business visionary in the mould of Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates, he is a business man thats been in the right place at the right time and used the wealth of his business to fund development in a product that is on the verge of an explosion in use.. he's not a pathfinder he's using 60's technology to provide transport for individuals. What he had was an idea for a Luxury vehicle targeted at the wealthy and dressed it in a Prom Dress.. whereas we over here developed vehicles that could provide delivery services to the many day in day out and dressed that up in a Milkfloat Pinny.

Now he's setting his sights on Mars, I think his efforts would be better charged here providing the platform for the electricity distribution and production if he's really going to "revolutionise" human transport links. Then possibly reach out to the Train and Tram network for inspiration.

Space, the final frontier.. possibly for him Yes.

Elon Musk is already doing this via Tesla Cars

It snot like he is giving away billions to solve the issue he is spunking it up the wall on Mars exploration which has far fewer obvious benefits to humanity in the next 30 years.

Suppose you volunteer for the first trip to Mars and blast off for a five year mission (or however long it takes). Then a year after you set off, they discover a much quicker way to get there, and so when you arrive someone has already set up camp and made a brew, and you're not first to plant the flag at all.

Slightly disappointing.

Have they sorted out the demon infestation yet?

[img] ?1492644702[/img]

What could possible go wrong?

I'm a geologist and would love to go there

Venus could be a better prospect, if we could get a gigantic solar shield into orbit to cool it off a bit

on the bright side, with the way that planet earth is going to ****, Mars might be a good move.

I think perhaps the best argument for targeting a Martian colony would be that if we target our best most creative scientists with solving the problems it requires overcoming, then maybe some of that technology could be used to solve some of our more immediate needs.

Well why not just set them to solving the immediate problem itself rather than hoping it drops out as a byproduct when they are focusing on something else.

But if others want to wet their knickers over a schoolboy fantasy then that's fine by me. I'm a scientist and I'd rather address interesting problems where there is a realistic chance of making progress.

Well I suppose there's less chance of your neighbour's bin wrecking your car.

I'd happily live there as long as no Brexiteers/remoaners were allowed in.

There's be Marxiters instead.