You're looking backwards from the perspective of today. At the time, none of the accomplishments of the Apollo program could have been accomplished by robots. You're still talking about cost in dollars while decrying the possible cost in human lives but, you're ignoring the pioneering astronauts' glad and willing participation in that and every program since.I very much believe in the long term value of a space program. I do not think that human exploration, at least not at present time or near future, adds any value whatsoever to the value of the space program.
" they don't adapt well to new unforeseen situations" And humans are even more vulnerable to unforeseen situations. If something bad happens and the robot cannot complete a mission - send up another robot that can address that problem. You can do this multiple times before it approaches the cost of a manned mission.
"changing situations" such as? Look at Apollo 13. That was unexpected and you're right - it shows how humans can survive. But, it was also incredibly lucky that they DID survive. Name one thing all of the Apollo missions accomplished that a robot could not do. (Besides win the space race.)
Seemed to work fine for the Mars rovers.
It shouldn't be one or the other, it should be both. Robots do some things very well as you've mentioned. However, they don't adapt well to new unforeseen situations, they can't generalize new operating parameters from those new/changing situations and, they can't 'experience' the new environment no matter how many sensors you load them down with. The indispensable part of human exploration is our ability to make conceptual leaps and apply them in real time.
There is a lot more problems than water, the real problem is that the soil is completely dead. It has no nutrients, and is so high in iron that basicly nothing earth based is likely to grow there.
Really, Antarctica would be a perfect testing ground to see how well we would (or wouldn't) work together when handing a planet which currently is ungoverned and uninhabited.
Before we can even discuss the habitability of another planet, we need to first prove we can work together here, or all we'd carry our same dysfunctions and problems with us and compile those on top of habitability/survivability issues.
Like one of my old bosses would say: "If you can't handle this job, why would I trust you to handle another job?".
Reducing the population is simple: education, birth control. Political tools can easily be used for that purpose. E.g., eliminate tax deductions for having children.
It's silly to think we can move even 1% of the population off this planet. The Space Shuttle was on fairly small rockets. They had no where near the necessary amount of energy to launch a shuttle to the moon. Effectively, the space shuttle wasn't much higher than a jet. The moon is 238,000 miles "up." The space shuttle orbited at about 190 to a bit over 200 miles up. Actually, the distance to the moon is 238,900 miles. The amount I rounded off is 4 times the altitude of the space shuttle.
Now, consider how much fuel it took to launch 8 astronauts on the space shuttle. The 135 space shuttle launches came at a cost of 209 billion dollars. A total of 833 crew members rode on the space shuttles during the entire history of the space shuttle; many of those 833 were people who rode more than once. There are 355 different individuals (including cosmonauts) who have been on shuttle flights.
Let's say you want to send 10% of Earth's population to the Mars on a shuttle sized vehicle. Remember, 5 months in space, not 5 days, might be kind of cramped. That's 700 million + people. At 7 people per flight, that's 100 million flights to Mars. Over 20 years... That's 13,700 flights per day. That's one launch every 6.3 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 20 straight years. And, I've got bad news for you. At current estimated growth rates, that means that by the time you got rid of 10% of Earth's *current* population, the population on Earth actually grew faster than you were shipping people off this planet. You would need well over 10 million flights this year alone, just to keep up with population growth. Sure, you can make bigger ships for these flights. But, the bigger the ship, the more fuel you need. But, you're still never going to send any significant number of humans off planet - not even 1%.
You are totally correct! I suspect a ring world would be more feasible.
I am sure though with your assumption only scientists would be going would be true at first but would need other people to go as well as maintenance crews and sure a small economy would grow from it being the black market in outer space to get what people need at any price.
This will breed the new era of space pirates. Then police in outer space.
So many little things like the above will make the space industry explode larger than anything on earth.
A dyson sphere? That's a long way off.
Anything would be environmentally sealed. So, water isn't really an issue. Think of it like a terrarium - except that most of the light would be artificial light, since (I think) sunlight would be inadequate. As the light drops off with the square of distance; Mars is roughly 14/9 the distance of the Earth from the Sun, therefore would receive 81/196 of the light; or roughly 40% the light intensity.
Last I heard we did not have the technology for women to make the trip. This presents a problem for a colony.We have the Know-how to already live on Mars, it's just the Cost of it holding us back and willingness to try.
They weren't driving them with a joystick in real time. The OP acted as if a guy could sit with a joystick and control a robot in real-time on Mars and that will not happen.
Can not happen today but I am sure we will find a way to make it happen soon like how they found out that TCP/IP is a very bad way to communicate in outer space and they found a better & faster way to transmit data.
Perhaps communicating with lasers might be best.
Can not happen today but I am sure we will find a way to make it happen soon like how they found out that TCP/IP is a very bad way to communicate in outer space and they found a better & faster way to transmit data.
Perhaps communicating with lasers might be best.
I think currently the machinery on how mars has an atmosphere that is mostly carbon dioxide and how it is created will need to be fundamentally changed and even the first 20 years there will be no change until we start investing in new technologies to convert those gases and even then I would not be sure that just conversion would make the planet livable.
How would you grow crops with no water? Edit: I guess there may be water under the ground. Super-irrigation needed. Robots.
Antarctica would be a good alpha test ground for planetary colonization. We really should be doing more long term with no assistance and limited contact tests of colonization in the most inhospitable places on earth. If we can't master those places we can't survive on any planet we could even theoretically reach.
First step would be the moon. There's enough water there to support a colony for at least 100 years. That's more than enough time for us to shit or get off the pot with respect to further colonization in the solar system.
Next step would realistically be mining. The resources we can gather from asteroids is tremendous and once profitable could do a lot to stop us from strip mining, clearing rain forest, etc.
Colonizing Mars is not something I would even see us doing. A small scientific station I can understand but to colonize it permanently would require some form of practical justification. Large scale colonization would be a desperate act only if the Earth is dead or we find some element on that planet that we can't find elsewhere for cheaper. Even then we should be able to do it with unmanned vehicles in short order.
We should have the technology to deflect an asteroid if needed. Even a small probe has a gravitational well sufficient enough to help avoid an extinction level event. As long as we spot it in time. I see that, mining, and pure scientific exploration to be our main motivators at this time. Eventually though we really do have to consider finding another hospitable planet to live on. Mars is probably not it.
Not with the space shuttle.
You're describing a vehicle that was designed for low earth orbit and comparing it to a vehicle whose purpose would be intersolar travel.
It's going to be Nickel and Titanium and some water.
Anything would be environmentally sealed. So, water isn't really an issue. Think of it like a terrarium - except that most of the light would be artificial light, since (I think) sunlight would be inadequate. As the light drops off with the square of distance; Mars is roughly 14/9 the distance of the Earth from the Sun, therefore would receive 81/196 of the light; or roughly 40% the light intensity.
If the entire point of building a civilization on mars is to put everything in a giant contained bio-sphere type thing, why go to mars at all? Can't you save the hassle and cost of delivering everything to mars and just build giant biodomes on Earth? At least on Earth we have the ability to extract resources. By the sounds of things you couldn't extract anything from Mars, even if you were there.