Putting a few people on Mars in a flag planting ceremony, does nothing. It's not a shot at anything.
Mars is completely inhospitable. You can't expand colonies there using local resources. Nearly everything needed for life has to be imported from Earth.
It has no radiation shielding so you need to live underground.
We have no idea what impact the low gravity would have on human life cycle, and changing the gravity of a planet is quite a challenge.
The regolith is toxic to plants (The Martian was science fiction that glossed over this, simply adding poop won't do it. It looks like Lunar regolith is more compatible with plant life than Martian toxic regolith). Ever gram of Soil would need to be heavily processed to remove toxic perchlorates, and then would need enrichement with fertilizers, appropriate minerals, bacteria.
Mars is essentially barren of nitrogen to grow plants. This is critical, you can't just create nitrogen, you have to import it, so you can't build more underground colony space without that imported nitrogen. There is no growing self sufficiency if you can't locally create the air that life needs.
You can only terraform Mars if you already have an obscenely advanced space fairing civilization, capable of building a planet from scratch, because that is the scale of effort to terraform Mars.
At the point we could Terraform Mars, we will already have millions if not billions of people living in artificial space habitats, that will be much better suited for human life, so Mars will neither be a "backup" because we have many backups in space already, nor will it be more desirable than artificial space habitats that has ideal human tuned characteristics.
I doubt humans will be able to colonize Mars due to lots of factors, low gravity, cosmic rays, psychology etc. etc. at most a research station like McMurdo in Antarctica. If Starship fulfills it's goals of full rapid reusability with a 100 ton payload maybe it's enough for resupplying what can't be provided by in situ resource utilization at a reasonable cost.
But would it be so bad if someone makes the attempt? >99% of the world's resources will still be spent on Earth and whichever way it ends, we'll learn something valuable.
This issue is who is funding it? There are literally millions of starving children on Earth, and hundreds of millions of people living with hunger.
It would cost >$100 Billion to put a small base on Mars that could house 20 people or less, and >$10 Billion/year supporting them and rotating personnel.
That much funding could literally end hunger on Earth.
Support 20 people playing on Mars, or lift hundreds of millions of people on Earth out of hunger and starvation?
It's no contest where I would prefer my tax dollars being spent.
Lets make no mistake here, the Elon Musks of the world will be expecting Tax dollars to fund this. He's not planning to go broke going to Mars, he's planning to get richer while taxpayers fund a flag planting on Mars.
Talking pure colonization efforts, SpaceX plans to use Starlink to fund it, there's no chance in hell governments would pay for that.
If they truly hope to rely on government funding for their plans then the chances of a Mars colony even being attempted are slimmer than I thought.News to me. I have seen them say it would better fund SpaceX rocket development, not that they would shoulder the financial burden of the endless and growing money pit involved in "colonizing" Mars.
This issue is who is funding it? There are literally millions of starving children on Earth, and hundreds of millions of people living with hunger.
It would cost >$100 Billion to put a small base on Mars that could house 20 people or less, and >$10 Billion/year supporting them and rotating personnel.
That much funding could literally end hunger on Earth.
Support 20 people playing on Mars, or lift hundreds of millions of people on Earth out of hunger and starvation?
It's no contest where I would prefer my tax dollars being spent.
Lets make no mistake here, the Elon Musks of the world will be expecting Tax dollars to fund this. He's not planning to go broke going to Mars, he's planning to get richer while taxpayers fund a flag planting on Mars.
Getting humans off Earth permanently has ZERO to do with Musk's Ego trip to Mars. Mars is a shit place for humans and will always be a shit place for humans.
For now we are better off researching higher end robotics, AI, and nano-tech, to send that tech out, to construct our future space habitats and escape vehicles needed to ride out solar disaster, or perhaps hop to the next viable star. Planets are very hard to move, but purpose built colony ships aren't.
So long term, we'd be better off constructing purpose built space colonies that actually meet our needs, than living underground on inhospitable Mars.
Though most likely will destroy ourselves long before the Sun expands and causes us issues. Heck we could be watching WW3 starting in Ukraine right now.
There are massive volcanic caves on Mars which would do at least as well as Earth's atmosphere for shielding and with unlimited power, the terraforming process could begin on a small scale in such places.
While the Lava Tubes have great potential for saving excavation work for a potential base site, building a base inside a cave, is NOT terraforming.
Terraforming is making life on the entire surface of Mars livable, not a sealed base, nor is a sealed base incremental to terraforming. If you look at Terraforming ideas like starting with several thousand nuke bombs to melt CO2 like Musk suggest, you probably don't want people on the planet while that is going on.
It's almost like Musk is trolling the rubes with this nonsense.
Cave base building on Mars, is no more Terraforming, than building a base in the Lava Tubes on the Moon are, and no one talks about Terraforming the Moon.
Terraforming Mars is a fantasy. You have to import most of a planets worth of atmosphere (even after nuking the C02).
By the time we have the capability to do that, we will already be living in superior space habitats.
I haven't verified the numbers but I have seen claims that the big metal based Asteroid 16 Psyche has enough material to build a Million O'Neill Cylinders. Each of these could easily house over a Million Humans(so over 1 trillion population living in space), that will have properly tuned Earth like conditions, with 1.0G, full Radiation shielding, some mix of real and artificial sunlight, etc...
Terraforming is a horribly inefficient use of resources, for an inferior outcome. If/when we ever reach the point we could even actually do it.
We will probably put a Human on Mars, and may even sustain a base there for some period of time, but that's almost certainly where it ends. A self sustaining city on Mars, or Terraforming it are Fantasies.
While the Lava Tubes have great potential for saving excavation work for a potential base site, building a base inside a cave, is NOT terraforming.
Terraforming is making life on the entire surface of Mars livable, not a sealed base, nor is a sealed base incremental to terraforming. If you look at Terraforming ideas like starting with several thousand nuke bombs to melt CO2 like Musk suggest, you probably don't want people on the planet while that is going on.
It's almost like Musk is trolling the rubes with this nonsense.
Cave base building on Mars, is no more Terraforming, than building a base in the Lava Tubes on the Moon are, and no one talks about Terraforming the Moon.
Terraforming Mars is a fantasy. You have to import most of a planets worth of atmosphere (even after nuking the C02).
By the time we have the capability to do that, we will already be living in superior space habitats.
I haven't verified the numbers but I have seen claims that the big metal based Asteroid 16 Psyche has enough material to build a Million O'Neill Cylinders. Each of these could easily house over a Million Humans(so over 1 trillion population living in space), that will have properly tuned Earth like conditions, with 1.0G, full Radiation shielding, some mix of real and artificial sunlight, etc...
Terraforming is a horribly inefficient use of resources, for an inferior outcome. If/when we ever reach the point we could even actually do it.
We will probably put a Human on Mars, and may even sustain a base there for some period of time, but that's almost certainly where it ends. A self sustaining city on Mars, or Terraforming it are Fantasies.
Ill just say that its fairly easy to google up professors and whatnot with in depth knowledge on the subjects required that is not as stead fast in that opinion.
I dont know what your field is but even if it is a phd in space habitats, dealing in absolutes like that is, I think, a losing hand.
Yea, I know terraforming is still fringe, thats why I honed in on the self sustaining colony part… be it underground domes whatnot… And I have a little faith that once we’re there “for real” human beings, specially the best and brightest of us up there, will find new ways to push the limits.Not clear what you disagree with.
But it's fairly easy to Google up some scientist who will deny that human CO2 production is causing global warming. You can Google up some supposed authority to support/deny nearly any position. It 's the consensus that counts.
I've been following this for years, and the consensus has Terraforming Mars look like a Fantasy.
I didn't just look at this today. I've followed this stuff for years. IIRC Nuking the CO2 would only double the atmospheric pressure on Mars. Congratulations, you moved atmospheric pressure from less than 1% to less than 2%.
Only about 98% of a planets worth of atmosphere to be imported.
If it wasn't for Musk you would be complaining about having to use russian rockets to get to space. Technology is moving forward. Deal with it. So there was my thought. Ill trow in a amen if you ask nicely. Beside, your articles are rather dated, the BBC one is from 2016.
Yea, I know terraforming is still fringe, thats why I honed in on the self sustaining colony part… be it underground domes whatnot… And I have a little faith that once we’re there “for real” human beings, specially the best and brightest of us up there, will find new ways to push the limits.
Do you think TSMC is going to have a silicon fab churning out CPUs on Mars, along with a complete supply chain of every electronic, mechanical, chemical, pharmaceutical, component and resource?
Do a Mars colony need 3nm lithography in order to operate?
Anyway I dont have a *need* to be right, so I am done here .