Mars Colonization Discussion Thread

[tater]

Still, it's a fun thought experiment, and heck, people with more money than me want to do it, so...

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, said:

the spacesuits are almost impossible to clean so they would probably have to dock on the outside of the base.

1. ... to keep getting covered with more and more dust, until a marsman looks like this.

Spoiler

2. ...to have the joints dusted in between, causing the suit malfunction at any time.

3. How to service the spacesuits if they are staying outside?

4. How to get the wounded persons inside through the tiny suitport?
(They will be off-road driving, drilling, mining, TNTing, and working with dangerous substances, so the wounds are inevitable daily)

That's why I insist that those suitport spacesuits are absolutely sick and unviable thing, even when they were proposed by NASA.

At least they will have to have the airlock cleaning chambers.
At least once you have gotten inside the airlock, and stand properly

Spoiler

a strong flow of filtered CO2 from outside should be first blowing at you from nozzles, blowing away the dust.

Then you get from the spacesuit (through the spaceport, yes, but inside the dome) avoiding touching its surface.
The suit stays in the airlock.

The space is toxic, they will be living in a nuke vault.
The land outside of the vault is toxic and sometimes full of radiation.
A Mars settlement is from Fallout, not from Skyrim.

55 minutes ago, tater said:

Still, it's a fun thought experiment, and heck, people with more money than me want to do it, so...

Not just a fun, but a problem whose importance is not in "to be solved", but in "to be being solved", as almost all other other space problems are first reduced to the "Martian settlement".

Edited February 9, 2019 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

4 hours ago, said:

colonizing mars should be on the top of the to - do list.

Should it? Most civilization-ender scenarios are overhyped, whereas economics of space settlement in general are disfavourable. The one inevitable scenario means the to-do list is a couple million years long.

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by DDE

[tater]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

Should it? Most civilization-ender scenarios are overhyped, whereas economics of space settlement in general are disfavourable. The one inevitable scenario means the to-do list is a couple million years long.

 

What's most interesting about the "backup for humanity" rationale for space settlement is that developing the capability to colonize other planets (or build orbital colonies) gives us the ability to mitigate most such planetary risk without actually doing any colonization.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, tater said:

What's most interesting about the "backup for humanity" rationale for space settlement is that developing the capability to colonize other planets (or build orbital colonies) gives us the ability to mitigate most such planetary risk without actually doing any colonization.

Well, the calls come from the same camp that sees space colonization as a way to export billions of excess population, and without causing an ecological disaster to boot.

Edited February 9, 2019 by DDE

[Bill Phil]

3 hours ago, tater said:

What's most interesting about the "backup for humanity" rationale for space settlement is that developing the capability to colonize other planets (or build orbital colonies) gives us the ability to mitigate most such planetary risk without actually doing any colonization.

I think Jeff Bezo's rationale (or at least what it was some time ago) made a lot more sense.

If our energy use continues to grow then eventually we may have to cover the entire planet in solar panels. If we get fusion power or use advanced fission or space power satellites, you still get the problem of our civilization's waste heat rivalling the energy the planet gets from the Sun. For now it doesn't, but if our energy consumption continues to grow it will eventually. And if our energy consumption continues to grow even further we'll have to leave the planet just to keep ourselves from being uncomfortable due to our own waste heat. Or we'll have to devise a method of radiating away that waste heat more efficiently, which will likely involve large amounts of space infrastructure to increase the radiating surface (maybe using orbital rings somehow, if that technology is ever developed). 

Essentially, if our civilization keeps growing (not necessarily population but other factors) then we may outgrow Earth. 

Of course that's centuries away at the least. There's no rush to colonize space or build that massive infrastructure.

[tater]

Yeah, I'm more of a Bezos person vs Musk on this issue, though both seem to mitigate risks as a side effect of even trying them.

Regarding power vs pop growth, most estimates show world pop increasing to ~9 billion, then falling off.

World wellbeing is at an all time high, and the trends are in the right direction, and people who are better off have fewer kids.

[StrandedonEarth]

27 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

I think Jeff Bezo's rationale (or at least what it was some time ago) made a lot more sense.

If our energy use continues to grow then eventually we may have to cover the entire planet in solar panels. If we get fusion power or use advanced fission or space power satellites, you still get the problem of our civilization's waste heat rivalling the energy the planet gets from the Sun. For now it doesn't, but if our energy consumption continues to grow it will eventually. And if our energy consumption continues to grow even further we'll have to leave the planet just to keep ourselves from being uncomfortable due to our own waste heat. Or we'll have to devise a method of radiating away that waste heat more efficiently, which will likely involve large amounts of space infrastructure to increase the radiating surface (maybe using orbital rings somehow, if that technology is ever developed). 

Essentially, if our civilization keeps growing (not necessarily population but other factors) then we may outgrow Earth. 

Of course that's centuries away at the least. There's no rush to colonize space or build that massive infrastructure.

As a corollary to this, moving industry off-planet where possible would reduce the waste heat produced groundside. Extra bonus of not polluting the planet, especially for resource extraction. For example, it's getting harder and harder to even get a mining permit in BC (and likely elsewhere) due to  resistance from environmental and aboriginal groups, and there have been two instances (BC and Brazil) in the last decade where tailing pond dams have collapsed, devastating local rivers and forests..

[tater]

What’s the waste heat associated with all our raw materials having to reenter?

(Really just “enter,” I suppose since they never left first)

Edited February 9, 2019 by tater

[Firsty Kerman]

is there a moxie mod?

[Vanamonde]

This thread has wandered fairly far afield and a number of posts have been moved to their own thread. 

Please stick to the topic of Mars colonization here. 

[Guest]

Unfortunately as long as it keeps boiling down to a Musk vs Bezos thing discussion is pointless. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by Guest

[StrandedonEarth]

https://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2019/11/20/scientists-recommend-building-a-mars-base-using-bacteria

Mining iron with bacteria.... simpler is better...