Colonizing Mars

[Occulus]

What a thought- humans living on another planet long term. Many a science fiction book has been made exploring that notion, and we now have the ready technology to do it. There's one plan I've seen, I think, on the Discovery channel; it involved sending a robot craft ahead of the human mission to create fuel from the Martian environment. Once the first explorers were there, they would find the fuel for their return trip ready and waiting for them, which would reduce the thrust required and thus the amount of fuel the human mission would have to carry in the first place.

This would need to be done first to pick the correct site for the colony and do some advance exploring. The entire project, from exploration to colonization and perhaps some limited terraforming (including advanced genetic engineering projects to create plants that can live in the soil) would be a way to unite the best and brightest of our entire species and would bring nations together, working to achieve a common goal- expansion of our species into the reaches of outer space.

Who knows- maybe, somewhere out there, is a major discovery that will forever change human existence. We can't know for sure until we look, and the exploration and the adventure alone are worth the first step, which is colonization of Mars.

Thoughts?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Priorities?

(Edited because I'm making too damn many misteakes!)

Take the Defense budget.

Spend 40% on a "Manhattan Project" type plan to develop renewable, low-impact energy sources.

Spend 30% on an omnibus Space Development program, which would include a ramped-up robot-probe program, Earth-orbit stations, Lunar development and extensive Mars exploration all as permanent missions.

In five years, we'd have 100% employment, the Dow would hit 40,000, pollution would be cut in half, we'd be phasing gasoline out and the equivalent cost of running a private car would correspond to about a dime a gallon (or a dime for 40 miles' travel), and we would still have enough money to kick any ass we took a fancy to.

Ah, but that would be Socialism, and we can't have that now, can we?

--bkl

[sexybomber]

44. That wouldn't be socialism.

That would be creative capitalism. Good luck proposing that to government officials though... helluva great idea though!

[Maple]

2. Or we could do both

"Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, with virtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim it’s the fuel of the 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth. But there is plenty of it on the moon.

Society is straining to keep pace with energy demands, expected to increase eightfold by 2050 as the world population swells toward 12 billion. The moon just may be the answer.

"Helium 3 fusion energy may be the key to future space exploration and settlement," said Gerald Kulcinski, Director of the Fusion Technology Institute (FTI) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Scientists estimate there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, according to Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt."

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html

[greyl]

3. Why? As an escape valve for destruction of the earth?

As a solution to overpopulation?

My quickly diluted response is that we'd better get it right here on earth first, before we start exporting ourselves.

But if and when we do, I think Europa would be a much better/cheaper choice than Mars. ;)

[Maple]

4. How would this hurt?

We could have cheap pollution free energy ...which would help, not harm the earth and it's people.

Not to mention the other things we'll find.

Never put all your eggs in one basket...it's time to leave.

[greyl]

21. Toooo many conditions on it's value.

"We could have cheap pollution free energy ...which would help, not harm the earth and it's people.

We can have that here.

"Not to mention the other things we'll find."

I didn't, you haven't, so what?

"Never put all your eggs in one basket...it's time to leave.

Equating that simplistic bit of advice to "Forget life on earth. It's sooo like... 3 million years ago." is damn ridiculous and irresponsible.

It's a culture issue, not a life on earth issue. The culture needs new vision, not more land to unwisely exploit and use up.

[Occulus]

6. My response to your response

Necessity is the mother of invention.

We need space. We reproduce like mad.

How many humans can our planet realistically support? People now are starving. We simply can't support our own population.

We must expand the territory of our species. We will eventually either self-destruct or find our species with no choice but to expand.

I'm advocationg the making of that choice before it is necessary to our survival.

[Maple]

7. The earth is not overpopulated

Outdated stats I'm afraid.

We are going to be under, not overpopulated.

But either way, we have to go into space.

[Occulus]

10. Can the earth

sustain the number pf people living on it now? What about ten years from now, given the overall birth rate? Twenty years?

[Maple]

11. Yes

Matter of fact, we could put the entire population of the earth in single family dwellings in Texas, and let the rest of the earth go wild.

The earth is much bigger than you think.

[Occulus]

12. But sustainably so?

We can't cut the rain forests; they provide a big part of our oxygen. We can't plant in the Sahara for obvious reasons, and there are other uninhabitable parts of our planet. What to do?

I'm arguing that, eventually, we will have no choice but to expand to first Mars and then other planets, perhaps even other star systems if we develop the tech.

[Maple]

14. Yes

and we now have more trees in NA than we ever did. The same can be done everywhere.

Years ago, no one even thot of these things. We do now, and enviromentalism is a major issue. That's been a major step in reversing damage.

The Sahara has a lake under it. We have the technology to retrieve it.

We have the tech to go to Mars now.

Just not the will.

[Occulus]

19. I'm thinking extraplanetary depopulation

would, in itself, mitigate the damage done by our species to our planet. If not, well, This would never be coerced, but what adventurous soul would resist this temptation?

[Occulus]

20. uh

"and we now have more trees in NA than we ever did."

Are those trees indigenous? Did they originate there? Is that within the bounds of their \tolerable habitat?

If not, well, the system is out of balance. Period.

[Maple]

25. Rubbish

the camel is indigenous to North America

The horse is not.

[greyl]

15. "entire population in texas" etc... is an intellectually dishonest claim.

Please stop repeating it.

Simply fitting 13 billion on earth won't be the entire scope of the problem in 20 years.

[Maple]

16. No it's not

I said in single one family dwellings.

And my province of Ontario is 2.5 times the size of Texas.

The earth is bigger than you realize.

And in 20 years the population of the earth will be less, not more.

[greyl]

18. I spit on your refutation! :) Go to this DU thread

I've been through it before.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=626#670

[Maple]

22. I don't care if you've been thru it before

it's quite true.

Do the math yourself.

And if you'd check UN reports, you'd find your info is waaaaay out of date.

[greyl]

24. You obviously didn't digest those sources

in that amount of time.

[Maple]

27. Nope....heard it all before too.

Sorry, we're going into space.

Not waiting for welfare to catch up, or outdated population figures, or some return of the Luddites.

[Interrobang]

46. If we did that...

How would we grow food and get all the necessities of life? We'd have to import them from somewhere, which would imply sending people out to farm, mine, fish, hunt, forest, and everything else. We'd also be exceedingly strapped for water, if we had 6 billion folks living on a plot of land the size of Texas.

While the crux of your argument is true, viz. that we could physically put 6 billion people in single-family dwellings in a land area the size of Texas, SPACE is not the problem for overpopulation; as I said before, it's carrying capacity (of the land on which those people happen to be dwelling), and resource use (based on the land on which that sample population is living).

And resources, dear Maple, are distributed. That means, in effect, that in some places on Earth, there are more than enough resources to supply the population which already exists on that land, at their rate of resource use (those are the areas which are not overpopulated), and there are areas where the resources are insufficient to meet the needs of the local population at their rate of usage.

Unfortunately, the NET population + resource use to resource availability ratio is slipping into the "insufficient" category because we have too many people using up too much (consumption is the other major factor, not strictly numerical amounts of people) for the available resource patterns, region by region, which are NOT static. For instance, while Canada is very water-rich, Israel is very water-poor. Ergo, Israel is rapidly running out of potable water, while Canada is not (yet). (See _Water_ by Marq de Villiers.)

In other words, LAND AREA has next to nothing to do with overpopulation.

NOW do you get it?

[Interrobang]

45. No. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!

Overpopulation depends on two things: Carrying capacity, and resource use. Based on those criteria, North America is already getting overpopulated (you orta know, Maple, that we're turning most of our best arable land into subdivisions -- they call it "905-land" now). We're seriously not short of people.

On the other hand, I don't agree that we *must* through some kind of territorial imperative, Manifest Destiny for the 21st Century, or other motives, go into space in a big way. As far as I'm concerned, looking at the pragmatics of the thing, space is over. It served its purpose as an arms race, once, but now that there's no more geopolitical impetus to do it, it won't happen. We'd be far better to concentrate on solving problems here using the resources we've already got instead of exporting them elsewhere while looking for extraterrestrial magic bullets.

[Maple]

47. Right, right, right

We are seriously underpopulated.

Half the planet is wilderness, and we have about 5X the amount of food we need. We are now paying farmers NOT to farm.

And we haven't even touched most of our arable land.

Space is not 'over'...don't be ridiculous.

However...'The meek will inherit the earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.'

[Occulus]

13. There are too many people in one place here on Earth

and too many people here that want control over other people.

Let them found colonies, too.

Planetary colonization would enable all these little Hitlers to experience the price of command. Let them pay it dearly.

[jozepo9]

5. colonizing mars

Colonizing mars? I'm all for space exploration....as in, much like how a person should get to know their own neighborhood a little. But, colonizing mars? How about getting health care together back here on earth? However, if I were to stretch my mind as to how this could be accomplished. Why not start with the poor? They can't afford health insuarance, they might go.

-Joe

[Occulus]

8. one of my points

is that we, as a species, require a common constructive goal, one not involving one nation exercising power over another. This is the only project I can think of to accomplish this.

[Maple]

9. If Columbus had waited

until all the poor of Europe were taken care of...you wouldn't be here today.

[greyl]

17. Columbus didn't colonize North America

I have no idea what value your "point" has.

Humans would be on this continenent regardless of any boat migration from others.

[Maple]

23. Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Columbus 'discovered' America.

We are not discussing any other 'discoverers', we are discussing the fact that if he had waited till all the poor in Europe had been taken care of before he left on his voyage...you wouldn't be here today.

In other words...since you can't grasp the analogy....humans explore.

And they don't wait for welfare to catch up before they do

[greyl]

26. Columbus didn't discover America, either.

Now cut it out.

And consider the difference between humanity and the culture you are within.

[Maple]

28. Focus here

This is not a debate on which explorer discovered America

Or who was living here at the time.

The point...which you are trying to ignore...is that he didn't wait for the poor of Europe to be taken care of before he set sail.

Please try to stay on topic.

[jozepo9]

49. If Columbus had waited

I'm sure the martians will be very happy that we've come to f-up one more planet.

-Joe

[Maple]

29. The topic here folks is colonizing Mars

Not population control, not who discovered America, not enviromental preaching.....colonizing Mars.

Let's stick to that shall we?

You want to discuss the rest...go start another thread.

[greyl]

31. post 21 dealt with that, you haven't dealt with post 21.

""We could have cheap pollution free energy ...which would help, not harm the earth and it's people.

We can have that here.

"Not to mention the other things we'll find."

I didn't, you haven't, so what?

"Never put all your eggs in one basket...it's time to leave.

Equating that simplistic bit of advice to "Forget life on earth. It's sooo like... 3 million years ago." is damn ridiculous and irresponsible.

It's a culture issue, not a life on earth issue. The culture needs new vision, not more land to unwisely exploit and use up.

[Maple]

33. Yeah I did

I don't intend to play games with solar vs wind power etc.

Or all the other things, beyond energy, available in space.

A meteor could wipe out all human life on earth....wouldn't be the first time it's happened to various creatures. We need to find other places.

Could you go do your eco stuff elsewhere? Lot's of threads on that.

This is about space exploration...a topic some of us would like to discuss.

[greyl]

36. Europa is a better/cheaper choice nt

[greyl]

37. Furthermore, if you refuse to acknowledge that sucessful colonization

of space needs to proceed with a sound base of knowledge and science and of natural laws, you might as well jump off a cliff and try to save yourself from doom while flapping a pair of socks to give you lift.

[greyl]

30. Ok, how bout this angle: "how the fuck are we gonna pay for it?" :)

As I said, Europa is a better choice (Mars only has cultural awareness on it's side) and there are plenty of things that need to happen before we decide to colonize another sphere in space. I'm all for exploration and the furthering of science mind you, but...but colonization is a very different prospect than exploration.

Then when some claim that expanding our lack of skill in population control to the rest of the universe is the solution to our lack of skill in population control here, it just gets way too ridiculous - almost like an unbelievable science-fiction paperback. ;)

[Maple]

32. We have the money

We just spend it on other things....like war.

And you don't pack money into nosecones...all that goes into space in metal, and computers, and wire etc. The money goes to pay the workers here on earth.

Yes, first we need to go there, then we need to explore, then we need to colonize.

We don't have a population problem...even the UN has revised it's forecasts.

But that is not the issue here...if you want room, there is plenty of it in space. If you want energy, there is plenty of it in space.

If you want knowledge, there is plenty of it in space.

First, however, you have to go there.

[greyl]

34. "If you want knowledge, there is plenty of it in space."

Seriously, cut it out.
Humans have survived for 3 million years without habi-trails on Mars.
The knowledge of how to live is right here, our culture is simply ignorant of it.
In the last 10 thousand years, our culture has been brought to the brink of extinction because of the unwillingness of one culure to acknowledge the wisdom of 3 million years and to deny the reality of the damage done in 4000.

Because of the present momentum of systems on earth now, what you are advocating can only occur if we master the ills of these systems. If we don't, there won't be the oppurtunity, resources, money, or time.

And for the third time, Europa is a better choice than Mars.

[thom1102]

41. But will it survive the next three million?

There is a lot that could be learned from other environments in space that could be applied here on earth. Knowledge is a product of the quest for a solution to a problem. Finding a solution to the practical problem of putting people on Mars could open doors to solutions to problems here on earth (much the same way that the quest for the moon produced breakthroughs in products that we use daily today.)

Europa is a lot farther from Earth than Mars. That makes things like resupply missions, and personnel replacement missions problematic.

[Supply Side Jesus]

35. Read the "Mars Trilogy"

Red, Green and Blue mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. In this work of Sci-fi he theorizes how Mars could be colonized. He put some serious scientific research into this series, absolutley amazing. The great thing is, the technology isn't all that far out of the realm of achievment.

[baldguy]

38. Humanity is destined to live in space.

We better get there before Georgie brings on the Apocolypse.

[arwalden]

39. Only If We Can LEAVE FUNDAMENTALISTS Here...

would I ever support conolizing another planet. Look at the mess it's caused here. Why in the world would we ever purposely export HUMAN belief in gods and superstition?

-- Allen

[NashVegas]

40. I Wouldn't Think the Fundies Would Be Interested

Aren't all their eggs in the Armageddon basket?

[thom1102]

42. Woo Hoo!

I did it again! I killed a thread just by posting to it! Yeah, me!

[Maple]

43. Here's a thot for all of you to ponder....

If you guys don't stop dithering, and dinking around with idiotic philosophical questions....by the time you actually do get to Mars...you will find they are all speaking Chinese.

Because if YOU don't go, others will.

[TXlib]

48. Somebody's been reading Kim Stanley Robinson

And if you haven't read:

Red Mars
Green Mars
Blue Mars

It's a trilogy spanning hundreds of years, from the first manned expedition to Mars through the first steps to the stars.

Very inspiring.

[DeathvadeR]

50. We will need to after we Fuq up this planet.

Stupid Stupid Humans......