Am I crazy?
iamnotaparakeet
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10 Feb 2012, 10:20 pm
Does anyone seriously think I'm crazy for wanting the human colonization of the planet Mars and the other technologically habitable places of our solar system? Yes, I am obsessed with the notion, but so what? If we colonize as much as we can of space before the end of time, then how would that be wrong? It's not just that I want for myself to leave the Earth, although with how murderously insane a great deal many people are here I do find that to be a motivation (especially if they get their hands on nuclear weapons!), but the more people off the planet the less able any regime on Earth will be able to harm them.
Once a self sustaining colony on Mars is made, the much less fuel cost of shipping anything to anywhere from Mars compared to Earth will allow the rest of the solar system to be made useful for sustaining a real spacefaring civilization rather than one that never does anything but stay in orbit, plants flags on the closest celestial object and leaves, and only sends robots further than that.
We shouldn't stay stuck on the ground and sea as we are, but let's make the rest of the solar system into a dwelling place to as much as it is technologically able to be made habitable rather than just letting everything remain waste places until this universe is gone. Spreading out and making use of the resources right at our fingertips is what we should do, not stay in one large city of a planet and rot therein.
This is not impossible to do and the technology to go and build a civilization on Mars and spread out from there is already present, but if we do nothing but procrastinate then it will never be done and the other planets and satellites of our solar system might as well have never been made if we don't make use of them.
Am I crazy to think like this? To want the rest of the solar system to be used as habitations rather than left to sit as they are lifeless forever? Is my obsession with space somehow evil or against the will of God? I certainly hope not. I hope God will let this happen.
10 Feb 2012, 11:23 pm
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10 Feb 2012, 11:56 pm
Um, why would you wonder if that makes you crazy? It is a very ambitious goal, certainly, and I'd debate with you over whether Mars is the best place to go (I'd favour the asteroid belt myself), but it's not crazy. Even if you're debating whether it is ethical or a justifiable expenditure of effort then that doesn't make it crazy. I think people who'd view this as crazy just don't know enough about it and the technologies being developed, like VASIMR, and about the private spaceflight industry, which will at the very least provide cheaper access to orbit.
iamnotaparakeet
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11 Feb 2012, 12:34 am
I would wonder if it makes me crazy because so many people seem to have given up caring about space and focus myopically instead upon their own minute problems to the extreme of ignoring and even sardonically mocking anyone who would suggest doing more than merely working just to live and pay bills.
Mars provides a stable base for agriculture with its 24.7 hour day, provides the elements necessary for industry, has less gravity than Earth allowing for less cost of shipping materials, is closer to the asteroid belt than Earth, and has two asteroids in orbit which can be used to practice the mining of asteroids prior to working in the asteroid belt itself. Ceres could, however, provide a good in-belt base of operations.
11 Feb 2012, 1:07 am
I'm no expert on the subject, but my understanding is that travelling to Mars would take a very long time and be very very expensive. It's not so much that we can't do it but that there are more important things on Earth we can spend money on. I wouldn't say that anything you've said is 'crazy' though.
11 Feb 2012, 8:56 am
I would wonder if it makes me crazy because so many people seem to have given up caring about space and focus myopically instead upon their own minute problems to the extreme of ignoring and even sardonically mocking anyone who would suggest doing more than merely working just to live and pay bills.
I think that the only reason most people ever cared about space was because of the Cold War. Which is too bad. But the problem of people only seeming to care about working and paying bills is hardly unique to space exploration. Environmentalists suffer the same sorts of frustrations, for instance. Unfortunately that is the case for anyone who thinks in the long term.
11 Feb 2012, 11:54 am
Once a self sustaining colony on Mars is made, the much less fuel cost of shipping anything to anywhere from Mars compared to Earth will allow the rest of the solar system to be made useful for sustaining a real spacefaring civilization rather than one that never does anything but stay in orbit, plants flags on the closest celestial object and leaves, and only sends robots further than that.
We shouldn't stay stuck on the ground and sea as we are, but let's make the rest of the solar system into a dwelling place to as much as it is technologically able to be made habitable rather than just letting everything remain waste places until this universe is gone. Spreading out and making use of the resources right at our fingertips is what we should do, not stay in one large city of a planet and rot therein.
This is not impossible to do and the technology to go and build a civilization on Mars and spread out from there is already present, but if we do nothing but procrastinate then it will never be done and the other planets and satellites of our solar system might as well have never been made if we don't make use of them.
Am I crazy to think like this? To want the rest of the solar system to be used as habitations rather than left to sit as they are lifeless forever? Is my obsession with space somehow evil or against the will of God? I certainly hope not. I hope God will let this happen.
Many humans are born adventurers and explorers. The just have to see what is around the bend or over the mountain yonder. It is human nature for some folks to want to go where no one else has been.
ruveyn
13 Feb 2012, 7:37 pm
Believing that human civilization may eventually spread to interplanetary, or even to interstellar space in some distant future is not crazy. Might be an accurate prophecy or not. But its hardly crazy.
But whats puzzling about this and all of your other posts on this subject is the urgency.
Whats the hurry?
Okay- maybe you want society to invest in space to quicken the pace of humanity spreading into space. And you want to do this because you want it to happen in your own lifetime because you want to participate yourself as an astronaut and space colonist and adventurer.
As long as you realize that thats a hard sell and that the world is not going to stop what its doing and automatically be as enthused as you are about space colonizing- then its not crazy (its like a quixotic fringe political cause-but its not actually crazy).
But there is something that you keep laying between the lines of this and other posts on the subject that puzzles me.
That being this stuff about "the world coming to an end" before we humans colonize space.
Again- "whats the hurry?".
If your worried about humanity not moving fast enough on this are because you're worried about the coming Rapture- that God will whisk us all away on judgement day any year now- before we get to have fun colonzing space then... well then( I for one) think that that IS a bit looney tunes!
MORE than a bit looney tunes to be absolutely frank- if thats where you're coming from!
And that kinda thing does seem to be what you imply in your posts though you never actually come out and SAY it in so many words.
We dont have to beat God to some finnish line.
We got all the time in the world to invade space.
And terraforming other planets would take centuries anyway even if we started whole hog on it right now.
+++++++++
To change the subject slightly: there is new hardback out in the libraries you outta read called "Packing For Mars" by Mary Roach.
All about...just what the title says. Wonder if you heard about it?
Havent read it yet myself -but plan to.
13 Feb 2012, 8:07 pm
Again- "whats the hurry?".
The main reason people would want to hurry is so that we could avoid an asteroid strike (although that wouldn't actually require us to colonize space--we could just develop the technology to steer any asteroids away from us). Also there's the risk of a plague or other such thing on Earth. Or nuclear war. Or biological war (combining the previous two entries). Or environmental collapse. Or we just run out of resources and go through a second Depression, possibly causing civilization to regress a long ways. There are lots of things that could go wrong this century or next. Unfortunately I don't think we'd be able to start a self-sustaining colony on Mars before the environmental/resource related ones start to happen, preventing us from finishing it. So in my mind it is better, for the moment, to try to get Earth sorted out (at least, that's what governments should do. We have no control over what the private companies do, so I guess there's not much I can say there).
13 Feb 2012, 10:18 pm
Again- "whats the hurry?".
The main reason people would want to hurry is so that we could avoid an asteroid strike (although that wouldn't actually require us to colonize space--we could just develop the technology to steer any asteroids away from us). Also there's the risk of a plague or other such thing on Earth. Or nuclear war. Or biological war (combining the previous two entries). Or environmental collapse. Or we just run out of resources and go through a second Depression, possibly causing civilization to regress a long ways. There are lots of things that could go wrong this century or next. Unfortunately I don't think we'd be able to start a self-sustaining colony on Mars before the environmental/resource related ones start to happen, preventing us from finishing it. So in my mind it is better, for the moment, to try to get Earth sorted out (at least, that's what governments should do. We have no control over what the private companies do, so I guess there's not much I can say there).
Thats you.
Not Keet.
Hes posted numerous times but never talks about any of that stuff like mineral resources and rarely mentions the notion of space colonies launching solar energy sattelites to bean energy back to earth ( a popular notion in the 80's). Those are the kind of selling points I would use- and would work with me as reader to persuade me that there something in this for me. But he rarely speaks of it that way. He talks about space resource for supplying space colonies themselves but not exporting wealth back to earth.
14 Feb 2012, 12:09 am
The problem is it is a nice fantasy but when you sit and do the maths things start getting very complex and very expensive.
With something like mining the asteroid belt to return material to earth, even if you ignore the cost of developing the technology the energy cost is enormous and energy costs money. The cost of shipping a mining operation to the asteroid belt and a hunk of metal back to earth is thousands of times more expensive than the value of the ore.
I'm much happier with space programs pursuing good science instead of being politicians play things who insist on sending a few people on really, really expensive sight seeing trips at the same cost of thousands of robot missions.
You are part of the first generation in history to know that there are planets outside of our solar system.
You may actually be part of the first generation in history to prove that life exists on other planets surely that is pretty damn cool?
14 Feb 2012, 4:26 am
If anything I could see a colony or station on the moon before anywhere else. It's closer to the earth obviously so bringing in much needed supplies wouldn't take long. If we went anywhere else I'd vote for the moon Titan. Yeah it's far far away, but it has a strong atmosphere and hydrocarbons and water. The atmosphere would provide protection from space rocks and with weather effects it would feel more like home, and that would be critical to surviving a HARSH (and I cannot stress that enough) alien environment.
I can't see mars as habitable. It's bloody dusty and the dust storms that rage across it's surface make the worst storms on earth look tame.
14 Feb 2012, 7:22 am
The problem with sending resources from space to Earth is that ultimately it's not sustainable. It would just allow us to create more garbage. We could use some space-based solar power, but only a little. New Scientist did an interesting article recently explaining how many "clean" power sources generate waste heat which, if we are producing enough power, could ultimately end up warming the planet even without emitting CO2. The only way to avoid this is to stick with the solar power that falls on the Earth (although that includes its derivatives like wind and hydro). So I think that keeping the resources in space is probably the best thing.
iamnotaparakeet
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iamnotaparakeet
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 25,091
Location: 0.5 Galactic radius
14 Feb 2012, 1:41 pm
Again- "whats the hurry?".
The main reason people would want to hurry is so that we could avoid an asteroid strike (although that wouldn't actually require us to colonize space--we could just develop the technology to steer any asteroids away from us). Also there's the risk of a plague or other such thing on Earth. Or nuclear war. Or biological war (combining the previous two entries). Or environmental collapse. Or we just run out of resources and go through a second Depression, possibly causing civilization to regress a long ways. There are lots of things that could go wrong this century or next. Unfortunately I don't think we'd be able to start a self-sustaining colony on Mars before the environmental/resource related ones start to happen, preventing us from finishing it. So in my mind it is better, for the moment, to try to get Earth sorted out (at least, that's what governments should do. We have no control over what the private companies do, so I guess there's not much I can say there).
Thats you.
Not Keet.
Hes posted numerous times but never talks about any of that stuff like mineral resources and rarely mentions the notion of space colonies launching solar energy sattelites to bean energy back to earth ( a popular notion in the 80's). Those are the kind of selling points I would use- and would work with me as reader to persuade me that there something in this for me. But he rarely speaks of it that way. He talks about space resource for supplying space colonies themselves but not exporting wealth back to earth.
The mineral resources would be best utilized in space, but if you have various companies buying and selling the resources that they mine and process and use for construction materials and such, then even if the headquarters of the companies are on Earth they'll still benefit financially while the colonies in space and on Mars and the other solid planets, planetoids, and moons are developing. Earth based businesses get the numerical wealth they so lustfully seek, and spacefaring civilization expands and thrives at the same time.
