Moral & Technological Problems with Mars Colonization

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, Mikki said:

How about colonising mars just for fun? Or "fame"? Or simple boredom?

For me it's the only non-fictional reason why at all the Mars will be sometimes colonized.

When the augmented post-humans will be living on the augmented Earth with 100%-automated industry, and somebody exclaims:
"Oh. We yet haven't augmented that Mars. What the fun. Let's do this."
And will get an answer:
"You want it? You do it."

[Nibb31]

11 hours ago, Mikki said:

Living (And working) in europa has its own advantages. (Europa doesn`t end in Jekaterinburg. Europa ends in Wladiwostok.)

Actually, Europe ends at the Urals. But I don't see how living in Europe is an advantage when it comes to buying a Tesla. They are even more expensive here than in the US.

I was just pointing out that a Tesla is a pretty expensive car, and coming from someone who says that we shouldn't care about economics, was surprising.

 

Quote

I would suggest beginning with cuts to military spending (what you call "defense") . One percent of that money would fund the colonization of Mars quite nicely. If we were in a real rush we could also look at the US spending the kind of money on space that they did in, say, 1965. That would handle things nicely for a full steam ahead approach.

But again, why ? Why would the US government spend money on colonization of Mars instead of any other policies that would produce immediate benefits to the American people. And why would any government ?

It all comes down to economics and politics, whether you like it or not. There is no political, social, or economical rationale for pushing the agenda of colonization of Mars, other than your own personal entertainment.

Quote

One could argue that this rock keeps the tigers away too, doesn't make it so.

Science spending, especially the exploration of space, has always been a good investment both directly economically and through new technologies and quality of life. There's no reason to expect that to suddenly change. I think the contrast to spending the same dollars on, say, providing full military gear to small town police departments or a few billion spent in making sure that people don't smoke pot is pretty obvious.

Did I say anywhere that I was against science and exploration? I'm believe that colonization is pointless, not exploration.

[Snark]

Hi folks,

A significant "subplot" of this thread went significantly off the rails, requiring moderator action (redaction of inappropriate comments).

Lively debate is fine.  However... please confine your remarks to people's remarks, not about the people themselves.

Debate the post, not the poster.

It's never okay to try to dismiss another person's arguments by calling that person a derogatory name, accusing them of being an intolerant person, etc.  Not only are ad hominem attacks unproductive, but they also tend to rapidly derail threads, causing "lively debate" to devolve into simple bickering.

Name-calling is never okay here.

If you want to argue about Mars colonization here, fine.  If you want to argue about arguing... that's off-topic, please leave that at the door.

On a final note:  If you observe someone behaving in a fashion that you think really is personally objectionable-- for example, if you see someone that you really, genuinely think is behaving so offensively that it's inappropriate behavior for the forum-- then please, don't try to call them on it yourself.  Just report the post, which will ping the moderators, and we can take a look and decide on any action that may be necessary.  It's what we're for.

Okay, re-opening the thread for discussion.  Please try to keep it civil.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Nathair]

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

It all comes down to economics and politics, whether you like it or not.

You must have missed the part where I said "All in all, I think it would be an excellent choice, although not one likely to be made in today's political climate." Of course the decision to do this is largely a political one. Of course the arguments, especially in this political climate, will be expressed in terms of economics. All of that has very little to do with the issue of whether or not we should do this.

 

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

But again, why ? Why would the US government spend money on colonization of Mars instead of any other policies that would produce immediate benefits to the American people. And why would any government ?

You must have missed the part where I said "Science spending, especially the exploration of space, has always been a good investment both directly economically and through new technologies and quality of life. There's no reason to expect that to suddenly change." I think we should each be willing to invest a few dollars more into an endeavour that has always given us excellent ROI.

 

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

There is no political, social, or economical rationale for pushing the agenda of colonization of Mars, other than your own personal entertainment.

So much for not making it personal, eh?

 

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Did I say anywhere that I was against science and exploration? I'm believe that colonization is pointless, not exploration.

That is an absolutely false dichotomy, an artificial and disingenuous distinction. What would happen if we just stopped using the word "Colonize" and started, instead, talking about establishing a "Permanent research and exploration outpost" on Mars? Would you suddenly be on-board with that effort? Colonizing Mars will be a triumph of science and the new pinnacle of human exploration. As such spending has always done, it will inform every aspect of our science from agriculture and biology right through to zoology with the concomitant impact to everything we do in our lives. Your opposition to it is absolutely identical to the opposition we have heard all along from the opposition to moon landing efforts to the opposition to the continuation of Apollo beyond 11 and, indeed, right up to the anti-science efforts coming out of the current occupant of the White House today. I am sure that the first person to propose the change from hunter-gatherer to agricultural living heard fundamentally the same arguments.

Edited February 11, 2017 by Nathair

[Nibb31]

36 minutes ago, Nathair said:

You must have missed the part where I said "All in all, I think it would be an excellent choice, although not one likely to be made in today's political climate." Of course the decision to do this is largely a political one. Of course the arguments, especially in this political climate, will be expressed in terms of economics. All of that has very little to do with the issue of whether or not we should do this.

But it does. Given the cost, the judgement call of "whether or not we should" colonize Mars has to be motivated. You haven't provided any motivations, because there aren't any.

36 minutes ago, Nathair said:

You must have missed the part where I said "Science spending, especially the exploration of space, has always been a good investment both directly economically and through new technologies and quality of life. There's no reason to expect that to suddenly change." I think we should each be willing to invest a few dollars more into an endeavour that has always given us excellent ROI.

I totally agree with that statement, as long as you leave colonization out of it, which you did.

36 minutes ago, Nathair said:

So much for not making it personal, eh?

I didn't participate in any name calling. I address the argument, not the person, and I apologize if there was a misunderstanding.

You claimed that we should colonize Mars "for fun". Your personal idea of fun (or entertainment) is probably not the same as the general population when it comes to spending that much money.

36 minutes ago, Nathair said:

That is an absolutely false dichotomy, an artificial and disingenuous distinction. What would happen if we just stopped using the word "Colonize" and started, instead, talking about establishing a "Permanent research and exploration outpost" on Mars? Would you suddenly be on-board with that effort?

Absolutely. Those are totally different things. Scott-Amundsen Antarctic Base is a permanent research and exploration outpost. It's not a colony and there are no plans to turn it into one or to colonize the Antarctic. It's not self-sufficient and we don't send hundreds of people to settle and make babies. 

However, even the science return of a manned outpost is dubious compared to robotic exploration. The only purpose of sending humans to Mars is to learn how to keep humans alive on Mars. Anything else can be studied for much cheaper through other means. But that's another discussion. 

36 minutes ago, Nathair said:

Colonizing Mars will be a triumph of science and the new pinnacle of human exploration. As such spending has always done, it will inform every aspect of our science from agriculture and biology right through to zoology with the concomitant impact to everything we do in our lives.

Again, science and exploration provide tangible benefits, and we should pursue those goals. Colonization provides zero benefits. 

36 minutes ago, Nathair said:

Your opposition to it is absolutely identical to the opposition we have heard all along from the opposition to moon landing efforts to the opposition to the continuation of Apollo beyond 11 and, indeed, right up to the anti-science efforts coming out of the current occupant of the White House today.

Apollo was a politically-motivated soft-power demonstration.

The logical continuation would have been to move on to a semi-permanent (and later permanent) research and exploration outpost, using Saturn Vs and LM-based hardware. It was called the Apollo Applications Program. But it was too expensive. The alternative was to try to find cheaper ways to access space. The Space Shuttle, which was on the horizon, included the possibility of returning to the Moon for much cheaper (there were even studies to fit a CSM+LM in the Shuttle payload bay). Of course, we all know how that turned out, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

My point is that the context was totally different, so it's really comparing apples to oranges. Who can tell that the AAP would have been more successful than the STS program ?

[Nathair]

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You claimed that we should colonize Mars "for fun".

No, I did not say that. I did not say anything like that. I have repeatedly said that we should do this because the benefits from this type of research endeavour have always enormously outweighed the initial investment.

 

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Given the cost, the judgement call of "whether or not we should" colonize Mars has to be motivated. You haven't provided any motivations, because there aren't any.

I'll repeat it one more time: spending time and money in this arena is an investment that has always, always generated excellent returns both in direct financial terms, in scientific and engineering advancements and in all the quality of life trickle down effects that entails. What is more, public engagement and involvement with a pro-science agenda is something desperately needed in this "post truth" age of "alternate facts" and general woo. The fact that none of that motivates you does not mean "there aren't any motivations."

 

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The only purpose of sending humans to Mars is to learn how to keep humans alive on Mars.

And what exactly is wrong with that? You admit that we'll be learning but now you're worried that we'll be learning the wrong things? What exactly is wrong with learning how to keep people alive in hostile and alien environments? Saying it yet again - every time we try to do these things we come across myriad unexpected benefits from baby formula to smartphone cameras to IR thermometers to the radial tires on your car. This kind of exploration is simply worth doing.

 

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Again, science and exploration provide tangible benefits, and we should pursue those goals. Colonization provides zero benefits.

I see. So if we do exactly the same things but rotate crews every three years that would somehow provide new and different "tangible benefits"? How does that work? How exactly does rotating the crews rather than having permanent habitation change anything at all about the work done or the results or benefits? Your objection to colonization seems to be absolutely arbitrary and nothing more than a semantic quibble over nomenclature.

[kerbiloid]

After all of them realized that a lunar missile facility is too expensive, lunar hype got down.
By the same reason. any real Martian hype even didn't get up.
(Happily, in KSP we have mods for this).

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

What would happen if we just stopped using the word "Colonize" and started, instead, talking about establishing a "Permanent research and exploration outpost" on Mars?

Researchers don't self-replicate in situ. Colonists do.

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

Colonizing Mars will be a triumph of science

It would be the last triumph of science. As all scientific funds would be depleted for several centuries more.

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

it will inform every aspect of our science from agriculture and biology right through to zoology

Looks like the only difference between a Earth zoo, a Moon zoo and a Mars zoo is different gravity.
Either the Lunar and Martian ones would be under the dome, under normal human conditions, or Moon and Mars would be totally terraformed up to, again, normal human conditions.

And as there's no purpose to study, how every known plant and fuzzy can into space, the space biology would probably last for several decades on a lunar or NEO base.

10 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

You claimed that we should colonize Mars "for fun". Your personal idea of fun (or entertainment) is probably not the same as the general population when it comes to spending that much money.

General population finds fun in money.

6 hours ago, Nathair said:

spending time and money in this arena is an investment that has always, always generated excellent returns

Spending money in Sahara terraforming would return even more,
Earth deserts are ~33% of total Earth land surface or of total Martian surface area.

6 hours ago, Nathair said:

So if we do exactly the same things but rotate crews every three years that would somehow provide new and different "tangible benefits"? How does that work?

You don't need to breed the spacemen. They do it on Earth.

Edited February 12, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Nibb31]

14 hours ago, Nathair said:

I see. So if we do exactly the same things but rotate crews every three years that would somehow provide new and different "tangible benefits"? How does that work? How exactly does rotating the crews rather than having permanent habitation change anything at all about the work done or the results or benefits? Your objection to colonization seems to be absolutely arbitrary and nothing more than a semantic quibble over nomenclature.

The cost of building Scott Amundsen Antarctic Base or the ISS is significantly lower than building a self-sufficient city, in the same environment, with thousands of families and the permanent infrastructure that you would need to be self-sufficient: schools, hospitals, farms, services, entertainment, etc... If your goal is only research, then you don't need those things. 

There is a huge difference between a research outpost and a self-sufficient colony. It is not simply nomenclature.

[kunok]

14 hours ago, Nathair said:

I see. So if we do exactly the same things but rotate crews every three years that would somehow provide new and different "tangible benefits"? How does that work? How exactly does rotating the crews rather than having permanent habitation change anything at all about the work done or the results or benefits? Your objection to colonization seems to be absolutely arbitrary and nothing more than a semantic quibble over nomenclature.

A colony needs for example (in order per age) neonatals units, pediatrics, kindergarden, schools, institutes, and nursing homes. Nothing of that is need in a permanent habited research station.

For a permanent mars colony you need an underground facility, but for a research outpost the radiation maybe be low enough to survive a couple of years in a surface module with a light radiation shield.

And don't forget that we don't know if mars gravity is good enough to keep healthy a human in the long term, and we even know less if a human can be born and raised in that gravity

[Nathair]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Researchers don't self-replicate in situ. Colonists do.

Neither of those is necessarily true (nor necessarily bad.)

 

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It would be the last triumph of science. As all scientific funds would be depleted for several centuries more.

Just because you say so? You think, for some undisclosed reason, that cancer research would instantly run out of money because there was a Mars program? You think CERN would be nailing plywood over the windows just because there was also a Mars program running? Why? It's not like there's a specific stack of dollars in the world with the word "Science" stamped on them. It's certainly not like a few billion dollars spent on a Mars program would even put a dent in the global GDP. It's not like running Apollo slammed the doors on the vault and other science ground to a halt; in the same year that we first landed on the moon we also implanted the first artificial heart, determined the structure of insulin, introduced string theory and invented the laser printer. This is just an unsupported appeal to scary consequences.

 

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Looks like the only difference between a Earth zoo, a Moon zoo and a Mars zoo is different gravity.

Um, zoology is not the study of zoos.

 

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Spending money in Sahara terraforming would return even more

If that is true then let's do both. We certainly have the capacity. (Although I hasten to point out that northern Africa, being part of Terra, is already about as terraformed as it's ever going to get. Greening the Sahara, on the other hand is possible but presents significant uncertainty about consequences. Look at what happened to Lake Hamun... )

3 hours ago, kunok said:

A colony needs for example (in order per age) neonatals units, pediatrics, kindergarden, schools, institutes, and nursing homes. Nothing of that is need in a permanent habited research station.

 

Let's not be jumping right to building a nursing home. It's not like a permanent Mars base would be shipping geriatric astronauts and pregnant women in the first crew transfer.

 

3 hours ago, kunok said:

And don't forget that we don't know if mars gravity is good enough to keep healthy a human in the long term, and we even know less if a human can be born and raised in that gravity

"We don't know" is an invitation to "Let's find out!" not an excuse for "Let's not try!"

[kunok]

2 hours ago, Nathair said:

"We don't know" is an invitation to "Let's find out!" not an excuse for "Let's not try!"

The "lets find out" phase goes before the colonization phase, and will start with mice reproduction experiments, not with humans.

2 hours ago, Nathair said:

Let's not be jumping right to building a nursing home. It's not like a permanent Mars base would be shipping geriatric astronauts and pregnant women in the first crew transfer.

But then is not a colony. A permanent Mars base without kids and without old people is just a research base or even if its ever done a mining outpost. Like here the Antarctica research station or an oil rig, they are not villages.

[Nathair]

3 minutes ago, kunok said:

The "lets find out" phase goes before the colonization phase, and will start with mice reproduction experiments, not with humans.

This is merely a matter of semantics and nomenclature. If we send a crew to Mars with the intention that what they build will become a permanent habitation, is it "a colony"? Does our intention for the future magically transmute the base from a "valid" research and exploration base into throwing money away?

 

6 minutes ago, kunok said:

But then is not a colony. A permanent Mars base without kids and without old people is just a research base or even if its ever done a mining outpost. Like here the Antarctica research station or an oil rig, they are not villages.

More semantic nonsense, really. Establishing a permanent base is a process, probably a very long process in the case of Mars. This isn't Civ-BE, colonizing another planet won't be a matter of dropping a complete city down onto the surface. Colonization, in this case, will amount to establishing a base, building up the survival infrastructure to the point that it can become a permanent base, expanding the base to the point that it becomes somewhat self-sustaining and capable of supporting more than a minimal research and construction crew and then, if all goes well, beginning to shift the focus towards "colonists". This magical either/or distinction of "Colony bad" and "Exploration base good" seems almost entirely arbitrary to me. At what point does "Yay! We're learning how..." switch over to "Stop it! That's bad learning!" ?

Put another way, if they build a day care facility at Amundsen-Scott would it just ruin everything? Would it become "a colony"? Hey! Google's campus has full time day care, does that mean that Google is a colony?

[kunok]

5 minutes ago, Nathair said:

expanding the base to the point that it becomes somewhat self-sustaining and capable of supporting more than a minimal research and construction crew and then, if all goes well, beginning to shift the focus towards "colonists".

This part won't be done in a research station, a research station won't look to be self sustainable. And I think you are the one loosing view of how big is all the infrastructure to be close to self-sustaining (no offense intended, english is not my native language and I usually look more rude than I want).
Is not bad learning is just that it won't be funded, because it would require lots of money with no gain, also we don't have the tech to do a colony anyway.

Google's campus are parts of their cities not an outpost in a barren world, and they are in an habitable land. Antartica base is an outpost in a barren land, and yes if they grow to be selfsustainable it would be a village, but they are not even close to that, you are the one oversimplifying. Mars is just worse

In the long term it may be some sort of the colony, but after lots of research, lots of generations research stations. Maybe the 30th generation of research stations ends being a real colony, when is cheap and reliable to live in mars. Or it could be that Mars is not habitable in the long term, don't forget that.

[Nathair]

1 minute ago, kunok said:

This part won't be done in a research station, a research station won't look to be self sustainable.

Why not? You'll not that I actually said "somewhat self-sustaining." ISRU is a significant goal for any Mars base and it will be increasingly significant the further out these bases go. At what point does that work in establishing a degree of resource independence flip from being an excellent way to reduce hauling consumables around to A Bad Thing(tm)?

 

5 minutes ago, kunok said:

Antartica base is an outpost in a barren land, and yes if they grow to be selfsustainable it would be a village, but they are not even close to that, you are the one oversimplifying.

So if they built a day care facility at A-S and researchers families went to live their, suddenly A-S would be a failure? When does that kick in? McMurdo boasts a full time population of about 1000 people, is it a failure as a research station? There are schools and gyms and bars and about a dozen children have been born in Antarctica now, does that ruin all their work somehow? Have we colonized Antarctica? Where exactly is the line in the sand here which separates "legitimate research" from "waste of money"? How is Mars different?

[VincentS]

Prospective often fails, but let's try anyway.

I think that Mars colonization will occur only once there is some hope for any kind of ROI. This requires that either something on Mars with a very very high value, or some very cheap interplanetary transportation system. For many commodities, the Moon could actually provide a much closer supply, with a weaker gravity well and hence a better ROI. One of the most interesting thing that you have on the Moon and not on Earth is an easy access to space. If we could make use of lunar resources in order to make building space things cheaper, it may be possible to get a positive ROI.

So, in my opinion, the first step in Mars colonization would be to build and maintain some kind of tele-operated rocket and satellite plant on the Moon. It would initially use mostly ISRU and 3D printing, with critical parts being shipped from Earth. The plant would then grows in size and capabilities, while developing autonomous IA and (partial) self-replicative capabilities.

Once the lunar plant is advanced enough, it can manufacture and send satellites in Earth orbit for a fraction of the current cost (but sadly, it won't be soon…), and it may generate a positive ROI in the long run. In the end, if the plant can self-replicate, lunar production capabilities may exceed Earth satellites needs. This would also drop the cost for building and sending a similar plant on Mars, which would probably be the first step in making human settling on Mars possible.

TLDR;
We have to build space infrastructure first : a self-replicant plant on the Moon, then on Mars. Humans will come after industrial capability is up and running, and space ticket cheap.

[Nathair]

41 minutes ago, VincentS said:

Prospective often fails, but let's try anyway.

I'm not sure what that sentence means. You mean that things don't always work out the way we intend?

 

42 minutes ago, VincentS said:

I think that Mars colonization will occur only once there is some hope for any kind of ROI.

Space exploration and research has always shown an excellent ROI, why would that suddenly change on Mars?

Actually, the word "Space" isn't really necessary up there, is it?

[kunok]

1 hour ago, Nathair said:

Why not? You'll not that I actually said "somewhat self-sustaining." ISRU is a significant goal for any Mars base and it will be increasingly significant the further out these bases go. At what point does that work in establishing a degree of resource independence flip from being an excellent way to reduce hauling consumables around to A Bad Thing(tm)?

That isru is for consumables, is simple and overall makes the required total mass from earth smaller. A colony will need to be able to make new installations. The building and manufacturing installations for that will be bigger, more expensive and the results worse than just sending another research station

Seriously you are oversimplifing everything.

McMurdo is another different thing that the A-S station, but is still only a station, and it only have 250 people in winter. They are heavily dependent of supplies. And you are the only reference I can search that station had kids and schools.

You are the one saying the absurd that is a line between that things, researching is of course legitimate, we are not close to the tech needed for a colony, and is just that who will pay development of an mars siderurgy operation when we don't have idea of how surviving in mars? We could do a big base totally dependent from earth without the needed tech sending an absurd amount of materials but what we get for that? It will be done more research and would be more valuable in the long term a series of research stations. We don't need a colony to research colony related techs. And that research may eventually get us to be able to do a colony.

3 minutes ago, Nathair said:

Space exploration and research has always shown an excellent ROI, why would that suddenly change on Mars?

It won't, is just that that ROI will be bigger in another space project that a colony without purpose.
Example, for the cost of a mars colony we could have a series of research bases in mars, venus, ceres and ganimedes. Why we should invest in a Mars colony instead of everything else?

[Nathair]

11 minutes ago, kunok said:

McMurdo is another different thing that the A-S station, but is still only a station, and it only have 250 people in winter. They are heavily dependent of supplies. And you are the only reference I can search that station had kids and schools.

Check out Villa Las Estrellas and Esperanza Base.

 

11 minutes ago, kunok said:

That isru is for consumables, is simple and overall makes the required total mass from earth smaller. A colony will need to be able to make new installations. The building and manufacturing installations for that will be bigger, more expensive and the results worse than just sending another research station

So... a research base won't build any buildings? Again, let me point at McMurdo in Antarctica, they've built more than a few new installations.

You've drawn an arbitrary line. The onus is upon you to explain how and why a base suddenly flips from Great! to Horrible! when... something. Too many buildings are built? They become too independent in resources? Too many people die there? Too many people are born there? What exactly and why?

17 minutes ago, kunok said:

Why we should invest in a Mars colony instead of everything else?

Instead? Who said anything about instead?

Edited February 12, 2017 by Nathair

[kunok]

37 minutes ago, Nathair said:

Villa Las Estrellas and Esperanza Base

Both are bases because the respective governments wants to have rights in the territories. Still both are temporary outposts for the inhabitants, they allow them to be with their families with is nice, but is not a permanent living place, so they are not colonies.

31 minutes ago, Nathair said:

So... a research base won't build any buildings? Again, let me point at McMurdo in Antarctica, they've built more than a few new installations.

How many of that buildings are done from local materials? They are made from supplies from outside, all looks like prebuilt modules, all needed in that station come from outside.

35 minutes ago, Nathair said:

You've drawn an arbitrary line. The onus is upon you to explain how and why a base suddenly flips from Great! to Horrible! when... something. Too many buildings are built? They become too independent in resources? Too many people die there? Too many people are born there? What exactly and why?

A research station has nothing to do with a colony, it doesn't have any line. a research station won't have capability of manufacturing new modules. A colony will need one. In a research station we could of course investigate how to make new modules, in a scaled down versions done with little technology demonstrators, but real humans begins need the real scale version, with a real scale infrastructure. Why you keep thinking that to investigate the colony related techs we need to do a colony? We don't even need really the human to be there to investigate most of the needed tech and systems.

A colony is mostly independent, a research stations is not at all, in mars there is a huge gap between both, a lot bigger than in earth, not an arbitrary little line that you keep saying.

31 minutes ago, Nathair said:

Instead? Who said anything about instead?

In real world we have limited resources. Are we speculating in a unlimited resources for space related programs?

[Nathair]

2 hours ago, kunok said:

Both are bases because the respective governments wants to have rights in the territories. Still both are temporary outposts for the inhabitants, they allow them to be with their families with is nice, but is not a permanent living place, so they are not colonies.

Argentina (and Wikipedia, for that matter) consider Esperanza a permanent community. Not to put too fine a point on it but the official motto of Esperanza is "Permanence, an act of sacrifice ".

Villa Las Estrellas [snip] has a hospital, a kindergarten, a primary school and a cemetery. That seems to pretty much cover the range, no? Families live there year round. In what possible way is that temporary?

2 hours ago, kunok said:

How many of that buildings are done from local materials? They are made from supplies from outside, all looks like prebuilt modules, all needed in that station come from outside.

So... what? If a building uses local material it becomes a colony? Is that your new definition/objection?

 

2 hours ago, kunok said:

A research station has nothing to do with a colony, it doesn't have any line. a research station won't have capability of manufacturing new modules.

This is, again, an absolutely arbitrary line you're drawing. Just look up the wiki page on Villa Las Estrellas in which they note that "Villa Las Estrellas is a Chilean town and research station". The Either/Or distinction seems to be entirely in your mind. In actuality the two are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, are simply a natural progression.

 

2 hours ago, kunok said:

In real world we have limited resources. Are we speculating in a unlimited resources for space related programs?

Finite, perhaps but "limited" has a connotation of scarcity which simply does not apply here. We have more than enough resources for these programs.

[kunok]

2 hours ago, Nathair said:

Argentina (and Wikipedia, for that matter) consider Esperanza a permanent community. Not to put too fine a point on it but the official motto of Esperanza is "Permanence, an act of sacrifice ".

Villa Las Estrellas [snip] has a hospital, a kindergarten, a primary school and a cemetery. That seems to pretty much cover the range, no? Families live there year round. In what possible way is that temporary?

I'm Spanish myself, I have read the pages in Spanish, is a permanent inhabited outpost but the inhabitants are temporal, the wikipedia in english is a lot worse than in Spanish for both places. Read here https://translate.google.es/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBase_Esperanza&edit-text=&act=url

"Together with the Chilean Villa Las Estrellas are the only establishments in Antarctica where there are temporary staff performing military, scientific or service functions accompanied by their families " The wiki in english is wrongly translated
[snip]

 

What is a colony for you, define you what is a colony. We did and you put objections in everything without saying what is a colony for you.

[Nathair]

1 hour ago, kunok said:

a permanent inhabited outpost but the inhabitants are temporal

Assuming that you mean "temporary" rather than temporal, your contention is now that it is not a colony until all the people there were born there and will all die there? What conceivable difference does that make? People were objecting to kindergartens and schools and all the "civilian permanent community" requirements of a colony but not you, you're just worried that the people who die there weren't born there... or something?

I would put to you that having a full time community of multiple families with all the surrounding infrastructure of hospitals, cemeteries, kindergartens and schools, bars, local radio stations etc. is pretty clearly also town rather than merely a "research base". If it is only mandatory cradle to grave habitation that suddenly raises your objection then... why? What magic line-in-the-sand does that suddenly cross? And why should we worry about that at this stage? What difference does it make if people live there for five years or twenty years or fifty years as long as they do not live there for eighty years?

[snip]

Let us all recognize that Villa Las Estrellas is intended in part as a colony. It was founded to help support Chile's (under Pinochet) claims to Antarctican territory. They don't regard these communities as "temporary" in any way. Likewise Esperanza and Argentina's claims.

These places are towns. You have full time families, a scout troop, a cemetery, a church, a bar, a bank, a local radio station, a kindergarten, a public school you're a town [snip]. That doesn't mean you can't also be doing perfectly valid research but let us agree to call a spade a damn shovel, OK?

[Snark]

Okay, folks, here's the second time the moderator team has had to step in to tidy things up.

Snipped out a completely pointless off-topic exchange in which this thread, which is supposed to be about Mars colonization, got derailed into pointless bickering over the supposed meaning of a non-English word that itself has nothing whatsoever to do with space, Mars, or anything else.

Last time, I gave a gentle reminder that the topic here is Mars colonization.

It's pretty much still the same folks here, so I know you don't need another reminder (right?), but... the topic here is Mars colonization.  Do you think it's a good idea?  If so, why?  Do you think it's a bad idea?  If so, why?  That's the topic.

Please try to keep things in perspective, and let's be civil, please.

Thank you for your understanding.

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

23 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Researchers don't self-replicate in situ. Colonists do.

Neither of those is necessarily true

It takes 25+ years to level-up a researchers' egg into a mature researcher. Usually they don't work so long at the same place.

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

You think, for some undisclosed reason, that cancer research would instantly run out of money because there was a Mars program?

I think they need cancer protection way before colonizing the Mars. As well as Sahara terraforming techniques.
And when they already have all this, why they need a frosty dry airless soilless desert in several months of space flight from here? They can build a Mars on Earth.

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

You think CERN would be nailing plywood over the windows just because there was also a Mars program running?

I think CERN gets funds when somebody votes for the person who distributes them.

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

Um, zoology is not the study of zoos.

Zoology requires a zoo (usually it's called vivarium).
But I mean that you don't need to send every living species to every known planet when you already have tested mice on the Moon.
(Though, I like the whole idea of space elephants in spacesuits).

11 hours ago, Nathair said:

Greening the Sahara, on the other hand is possible but presents significant uncertainty about consequences.

Doesn't Mars?
Can you predict what will happen if pour much water onto Mars ground? Here on Earth watering a desert often makes just a useless salt lake.

6 hours ago, Nathair said:

Space exploration and research has always shown an excellent ROI, why would that suddenly change on Mars?

Because Mars co;onization is not about launching a hi-tech rocket, but about delivering or producing mountains of cement.
How much does cement cost on Martian market?

[Nathair]

10 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Zoology requires a zoo (usually it's called vivarium).

No, it really doesn't. All it really requires is something alive like bacteria, people, fruit flies, yeast, whatever...

And with some real luck zoologists would get something new and exciting to play with on Mars.

 

18 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Can you predict what will happen if pour much water onto Mars ground?

Not knowing is the reason to do research, not to a reason to avoid it.

That said, the leap from establishing a permanent base to terraforming the planet is a huge one. I think the former is inevitable and the latter quite probably impossible.

 

21 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Because Mars co;onization is not about launching a hi-tech rocket, but about delivering or producing mountains of cement.

How much does cement cost on Martian market?

That's actually an excellent example. Hauling tons of cement to Mars would be a ridiculous undertaking and so with a bit of research we find out that we won't need to. Likewise, we don't want to haul tons and tons of water to Mars so water purification and reclamation research becomes very important. Earth-side applications are obvious, right? How about for extremely efficient, high density food production in a hostile environment or new energy storage solutions or radiation shielding or...

This stuff has always shown an excellent ROI. I see no reason to expect that to suddenly change and plenty of reasons to expect it to continue. It's a good bet.