Am I crazy?
14 Feb 2012, 2:05 pm
I don't think your crazy, just very premature. You think that we can and should colonise Mars in the very near future, but while we might be able to get there the cost is extremely prohibitive, it simply isn't worth it to anyone but the very few who are like you.
I wouldn't tell you to give up your dream, exactly the opposite, if you feel so strongly about it you should work towards it, but you need to be realistic.
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iamnotaparakeet
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14 Feb 2012, 2:21 pm
abacacus wrote:
I don't think your crazy, just very premature. You think that we can and should colonise Mars in the very near future, but while we might be able to get there the cost is extremely prohibitive, it simply isn't worth it to anyone but the very few who are like you.
I wouldn't tell you to give up your dream, exactly the opposite, if you feel so strongly about it you should work towards it, but you need to be realistic.
I wouldn't tell you to give up your dream, exactly the opposite, if you feel so strongly about it you should work towards it, but you need to be realistic.
It's not as expensive as you might think. Watch the Mars Underground video and the Transorbital Railroad video of the Mars Society, which goes into actual numbers of getting to Mars. The Mars Direct program is primarily research based, but if carried on it would lead to a form of colonization. Going about the Mars Direct program using SpaceX (and not just doing Mars Direct) for the cost of the Space Shuttle program there could be 60 launches per year to Mars, with various payloads of cargo, supplies, equipment, personnel, etc. Doing that, and using as many resources as there are on the planet itself, a base could grow into a city in a few decades and it could be started close to now.
Mars Underground
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WppRQQld10
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubd1Y0UKcl4
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_B1q7E3QE
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TViYyRUWIps
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9IDfqL6y0c
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APT__NKY3hs
Transorbital Railroad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwk6FmiAKCo
Prior to the Columbia disaster, this was made:
The Case For Mars, 1998
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm34Muv6Lsg
If it proves logistically possible, I'm going to go for a triple major in electrical, mechanical, and aeronautical engineering starting this Fall. I may be delayed some more though due to moving to a house and working to get all the annoying paperwork sorted out and moving and sorting and everything else otherwise, but if not this year then I'll go the next. It will be finally nice to no longer be living in a crime filled slum of a neighborhood where my car gets broken into once a month and the gas tank siphoned once a week, and the door attempted to be pried open, and the main doors of the building being sabotaged for the convenience of the lazy.... oy, where was I... I plan to work toward making myself useful as a colonist, both in terms of actual knowledge that I learn from textbooks regardless of college enrollment and from credentials to impress mindless bureaucrats.
Last edited by iamnotaparakeet on 14 Feb 2012, 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
14 Feb 2012, 2:25 pm
But, as of yet, we don't have a reason to spend that money. Earth is doing good enough for now.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
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iamnotaparakeet
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14 Feb 2012, 2:34 pm
abacacus wrote:
But, as of yet, we don't have a reason to spend that money. Earth is doing good enough for now.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
Getting as many people off planet as wackos get their hands on nuclear weapons seems rather rewarding in my opinion, but also by people leaving this planet there's more room for others here, the prospects of space tourism open up once ships with a sufficient hull to block cosmic rays are able to be built and that's not going to happen until either facilities on the moon or Mars are built and Mars has more resources and a better rotation period for agriculture. Mars by default will have a labor shortage rather than a labor surplus as is the case everywhere here, so people who are unemployed and yet would be diligent workers if ever given the opportunity would be able to find work, and they can ship their numerical wealth back to Earth if they like similar to how many immigrants to the United States do.
14 Feb 2012, 2:36 pm
All good reasons, and a strong argument, but the reward isn't great enough *yet*. Give it ten or fifteen years and I'll probably be spouting a different story.
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iamnotaparakeet
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14 Feb 2012, 4:30 pm
I am all for inhabiting the Moon and Mars. But we should go about it in a reasonable manner. First of all we should learn to live off planet on the Moon first. For a number of reasons. It is close enough for support and aid to be sent until we perfect propulsion systems reliable enough to take us to Mars. Also the lessons we learn about living in a hostile environment and be carried to Mars.
Once we have decent propulsion systems that can get us to Mars in a month instead of a half year to a year, we can send crews safely and they will not suffer the debilitation of living at zero g for extended lengths of time. Yes, yes, I know about exercise and such aboard the ships but that does not deal with cosmic ray damage and bone loss occurs anyway. We need good propulsion systems so we can accelerate the ships a substitute the acceleration for gravity (see Einstein's equivalence principle) and we will be about to shield the ships properly against cosmic and solar radiation. If we do it right we can set up habits on Mars eventually which can become the base for mining the asteroids and paying for all this space activity.
ruveyn
14 Feb 2012, 5:00 pm
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
abacacus wrote:
But, as of yet, we don't have a reason to spend that money. Earth is doing good enough for now.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
Getting as many people off planet as wackos get their hands on nuclear weapons seems rather rewarding in my opinion, but also by people leaving this planet there's more room for others here, the prospects of space tourism open up once ships with a sufficient hull to block cosmic rays are able to be built and that's not going to happen until either facilities on the moon or Mars are built and Mars has more resources and a better rotation period for agriculture. Mars by default will have a labor shortage rather than a labor surplus as is the case everywhere here, so people who are unemployed and yet would be diligent workers if ever given the opportunity would be able to find work, and they can ship their numerical wealth back to Earth if they like similar to how many immigrants to the United States do.
You will never be able to move a significant portion of people off of Earth. I'm sorry, it just won't happen. Europe's population grew through the 19th century as people came to America, and the same will happen if we colonize space. Even with a space elevator, that just moves the bottleneck to your interplanetary ships. Let's say that we have ships carrying 1000 passengers each, and one leaves Earth every day (this would be on average of course--obviously most launches would be concentrated around the launch windows). It would take 82 years to move even 10% of the population of the USA. Which would be ~2.5% of China's population or 0.42% of the world poplulation (as it stands now--it will likely be bigger by then).
I also think that your estimate of how this would help unemployment is flawed. Any work in space, or on Mars, or the Moon,requires a lot of training. It almost certainly wouldn't be to the same degree as is required today, but I imagine we'd be talking about engineering degree type levels of qualification for most tasks. Unless significant reforms are made to education systems (ie: free tuition), most those who are unemployed are not going to have those skills and are not going to be able take those jobs, nor will the vast majority be able to get those skills. The parallel with immigration to the West is flawed. A lot of people when the come to the West end up taking fairly menial jobs, that don't require much training. Some of that is because their foreign qualifications aren't recognized (it's a big problem in Canada, especially with doctors), which wouldn't be an issue on Mars, but those aren't the people who are unemployed in their native country. How many impoverished Chinese citizens come to the USA to become nuclear engineers, because that is what you are suggesting would happen in space. Mind you, I suppose if these hard economic times keep up, their might just be impoverished, unemployed nuclear engineers waiting to go to Mars, so I guess my argument may not hold true depending on how bad things get on Earth.
Someone, I think it was you, pointed out that money could flow to Earth because that's where the owners of the corporations would be. I have two points here:
1) That would probably benefit relatively few people--those who own stocks in the company, the executives of the company, and to some extent the office workers of the company (by far the most useful benefit, but I suspect it would be a relatively small amount of money to end up there).
2) More importantly, what you are describing is essentially foreign ownership of industries. That tends to be extremely unpopular. Historically the trend when that happens is that someone comes to power and nationalizes the industries (and it still happens today in South America). Now, first the colony would need to form a government, but I suspect that unless the ownership was moved out into space that that is what you would eventually see happening.
None of this is to say that colonizing space isn't worthwhile. I just think that it should be done so that we can colonize space, not because it will make things better on Earth (which it probably won't, at least not directly).
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14 Feb 2012, 5:14 pm
ruveyn wrote:
I am all for inhabiting the Moon and Mars. But we should go about it in a reasonable manner. First of all we should learn to live off planet on the Moon first. For a number of reasons. It is close enough for support and aid to be sent until we perfect propulsion systems reliable enough to take us to Mars. Also the lessons we learn about living in a hostile environment and be carried to Mars.
Once we have decent propulsion systems that can get us to Mars in a month instead of a half year to a year, we can send crews safely and they will not suffer the debilitation of living at zero g for extended lengths of time. Yes, yes, I know about exercise and such aboard the ships but that does not deal with cosmic ray damage and bone loss occurs anyway. We need good propulsion systems so we can accelerate the ships a substitute the acceleration for gravity (see Einstein's equivalence principle) and we will be about to shield the ships properly against cosmic and solar radiation. If we do it right we can set up habits on Mars eventually which can become the base for mining the asteroids and paying for all this space activity.
ruveyn
Once we have decent propulsion systems that can get us to Mars in a month instead of a half year to a year, we can send crews safely and they will not suffer the debilitation of living at zero g for extended lengths of time. Yes, yes, I know about exercise and such aboard the ships but that does not deal with cosmic ray damage and bone loss occurs anyway. We need good propulsion systems so we can accelerate the ships a substitute the acceleration for gravity (see Einstein's equivalence principle) and we will be about to shield the ships properly against cosmic and solar radiation. If we do it right we can set up habits on Mars eventually which can become the base for mining the asteroids and paying for all this space activity.
ruveyn
I'm not opposed to the colonization of the moon, I just prefer Mars for a number of reasons.
As for the traveling in zero gravity, that's not necessary as per the Mars Direct plan even. The cosmic rays will be a problem, but it's a sustained dosage problem rather than a prompt dosage problem. Solar flares provide a prompt dosage, but they can be detected ahead of time and shielded against.
This is the Mars Direct plan in video format:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd4yVwK1NkA
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtMafPtz2Ho
Notice the tether line which the hab module and the final stage use as a tension line so as to rotate about their mutual axis of rotation during the 6 month flight? That's the solution Zubrin had came up with back in the 80's when Bush Sr. had stated making Mars a good, however NASA at that time came up with a plan to build and launch Battlestar Galactica from the moon, travel for about a year in an opposition class orbital transfer, spend 90 days on the planet Mars and after walking around a little and planting a flag they'd just leave again. It would have cost $500 billion dollars in 1980's money for NASA to carry out that plan, but only $47 billion to carry out Zubrin's plan with had a half year travel time, and 500 days on the planet instead of a mere 90, sending first the return vehicle which would produce its own fuel using taking oxygen out of the CO2 atmosphere and bringing along only hydrogen. With SpaceX though the financing of such an endeavor is even more reasonable. But whether we go back to the moon and finally build there and colonize the moon first, or we go to Mars and build there first, or both are done at the same time, it would be good. It will be simply awesome once we are finally in space and not just dabbling around in low earth orbit.
iamnotaparakeet
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14 Feb 2012, 5:16 pm
AstroGeek wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
abacacus wrote:
But, as of yet, we don't have a reason to spend that money. Earth is doing good enough for now.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
Space colonisation is a must for the future, but the future isn't here yet. It's a matter of expenditure versus reward, the reward isn't big enough yet to justify the expense.
Getting as many people off planet as wackos get their hands on nuclear weapons seems rather rewarding in my opinion, but also by people leaving this planet there's more room for others here, the prospects of space tourism open up once ships with a sufficient hull to block cosmic rays are able to be built and that's not going to happen until either facilities on the moon or Mars are built and Mars has more resources and a better rotation period for agriculture. Mars by default will have a labor shortage rather than a labor surplus as is the case everywhere here, so people who are unemployed and yet would be diligent workers if ever given the opportunity would be able to find work, and they can ship their numerical wealth back to Earth if they like similar to how many immigrants to the United States do.
You will never be able to move a significant portion of people off of Earth. I'm sorry, it just won't happen. Europe's population grew through the 19th century as people came to America, and the same will happen if we colonize space. Even with a space elevator, that just moves the bottleneck to your interplanetary ships. Let's say that we have ships carrying 1000 passengers each, and one leaves Earth every day (this would be on average of course--obviously most launches would be concentrated around the launch windows). It would take 82 years to move even 10% of the population of the USA. Which would be ~2.5% of China's population or 0.42% of the world poplulation (as it stands now--it will likely be bigger by then).
I also think that your estimate of how this would help unemployment is flawed. Any work in space, or on Mars, or the Moon,requires a lot of training. It almost certainly wouldn't be to the same degree as is required today, but I imagine we'd be talking about engineering degree type levels of qualification for most tasks. Unless significant reforms are made to education systems (ie: free tuition), most those who are unemployed are not going to have those skills and are not going to be able take those jobs, nor will the vast majority be able to get those skills. The parallel with immigration to the West is flawed. A lot of people when the come to the West end up taking fairly menial jobs, that don't require much training. Some of that is because their foreign qualifications aren't recognized (it's a big problem in Canada, especially with doctors), which wouldn't be an issue on Mars, but those aren't the people who are unemployed in their native country. How many impoverished Chinese citizens come to the USA to become nuclear engineers, because that is what you are suggesting would happen in space. Mind you, I suppose if these hard economic times keep up, their might just be impoverished, unemployed nuclear engineers waiting to go to Mars, so I guess my argument may not hold true depending on how bad things get on Earth.
Someone, I think it was you, pointed out that money could flow to Earth because that's where the owners of the corporations would be. I have two points here:
1) That would probably benefit relatively few people--those who own stocks in the company, the executives of the company, and to some extent the office workers of the company (by far the most useful benefit, but I suspect it would be a relatively small amount of money to end up there).
2) More importantly, what you are describing is essentially foreign ownership of industries. That tends to be extremely unpopular. Historically the trend when that happens is that someone comes to power and nationalizes the industries (and it still happens today in South America). Now, first the colony would need to form a government, but I suspect that unless the ownership was moved out into space that that is what you would eventually see happening.
None of this is to say that colonizing space isn't worthwhile. I just think that it should be done so that we can colonize space, not because it will make things better on Earth (which it probably won't, at least not directly).
Okay, find flaws if that's what you're good at. Care to come up with solutions or only problems?
14 Feb 2012, 10:56 pm
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Quote:
None of this is to say that colonizing space isn't worthwhile. I just think that it should be done so that we can colonize space, not because it will make things better on Earth (which it probably won't, at least not directly).
Okay, find flaws if that's what you're good at. Care to come up with solutions or only problems?
Read that last line of my argument again.
Lets see... solutions... Well, on Earth we're just going to have to stop our population from growing. To be honest, just improving woman's rights and access to contraceptives should be enough to do this. Space's population would start out being founded by colonists from Earth and eventually grow mostly on it's own, I suspect.
Unemployment has to be fought on Earth, I think. There is no easy way to do that, and every ideology will propose it's own method. I personally favour making education more accessible and not relying on growth to end unemployment. We've been talking about growth for decades and it hasn't worked that well. Instead we should look at evening out the number of hours people work, ensuring the jobs that are available pay enough to live off of, and through schooling give people an upbringing that encourages people to work rather than feel a sense of entitlement that can occur in those dependent on welfare. Now, I'm not denying that space exploration will create jobs, I'm just saying that as it currently stands I don't know how much it will do to reduce unemployment. With a better educational system, capable of training more people for these jobs regardless of social class then it might. But as our economy stands now, unemployment is a natural byproduct. Unless we make changes to how the economy works then I don't think new industries will dramatically change it.
As for the foreign ownership problem, I honestly think that either the owners will eventually move into space themselves, or the colonies will nationalize the corporations. That's not to say either is necessarily a bad thing. I just don't think you can count on the money going back to Earth in the long term. But I don't think that that will prevent the colonization of space from occurring. I think that there are enough idealists like Elon Musk out there who will colonize space not just for the profit, but because they want to do it.
None of this is saying that it is crazy to colonize space. Just that you can't treat it as a panacea to all of the world's problems.
Last edited by AstroGeek on 15 Feb 2012, 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
iamnotaparakeet
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15 Feb 2012, 2:58 pm
AstroGeek wrote:
None of this is saying that it is crazy to colonize space. Just that you can't treat it as a panacea to all of the world's problems.
I've never considered it to be a solution for everything, I personally want to go and help expand the frontier of human civilization though. Starting out with forming a stable colony, then building industrial facilities to manufacture any goods necessary from the resources on Mars, then going out to Phobos and learning how to mine asteroids, then with the knowledge and resources gained from the mining and conversion of Phobos into a space station/port using such to move onto Deimos and see that we know how to mine asteroids. After that, we can start the colonization of Ceres from Mars and Ceres can be an industrial trade hub of a sort. Then we'll move onto the moons of Jupiter while the asteroids are being mined and converted into habitations, etc. Earth's moon could be developed at the same time as this even.
