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This is inspired by the thread that was posted before about the Russian space plans.

I am very interested in Mars colonization and would love to keep the discussion going. To avoid the whole moon vs Mars debate getting in the way, I'm making this thread specifically about Mars.

So, when do you think Mars can realistically be colonized? Of all the plans out there (there are a ton of them, including one that I believe is still being funded and may actually happen in the new few years) what do you think is the best solution? Does a colony on Mars need to provide a financial return on investment to whoever funds it's initial startup costs in order to be "worth doing?"

Any discussion about colonizing Mars is welcome!

With the current states of things, being it from a political perspective, or technical one, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

Not because it is technically impossible, but there is no will to do so, from a technical stand point, right now we aren't developing the necessary technology (yet it doesn't require to develop alchemy) but just to adapt what we have to accommodate for the conditions and situation for a Mars mission. Today Political system is the biggest brake for such program, some countries that have the technology prefer to invest trillions of $ on some surveillance programs or on wars to spread freedom, others want to press their geopolitical influence, and some want to control their huge population and cannot afford, to lose a double digit economy increase per year.

The sad part for me is despite the fact that it is not possible (colonizing Mars won't happen in one go but at least getting to Mars and getting things done would be a start and this what I'm talking about) we are not doing it, and we are risking extinction being it by killing our self, or being killed by some meteorite like the dinosaurs, if we have a colony on Mars that would be already a start and a backup plan for earth, and from there once we will become accommodated to space and space exploration will see a boost

I agree but I do think that with Russia and China plowing ahead with their own space programs, the US will not want to get too far behind and will likely make an effort to catch up in the near future. Look at the amount of money that has been spent on the new fighter jet... all to make sure that we maintain air superiority.

And, to your point about extinction: http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/02/15/meteor-hits-central-russia-400-hurt?videoId=241140683

Realistically?   10 years.

http://www.mars-one.com/

Thanks for the link Vod; that is the one I was talking about in the other thread where they are planning to fund it at least partially by airing a TV show (more or less) that will chronicle the colonists' experiences. I couldn't remember the name of it lol.

Mars One lol.

A group of 4-5 people that has nothing to do with space engineering, with no expertise. all of them are fresh graduates.

The whole Mars One thingy is just to provide a study, a concept and plan to proceed with and that's all.

The point is just to get people there. Watch how fast others will scramble to get their own colonies up there as soon as Mars One sets up shop successfully. I agree that what they are planning in and of itself doesn't seem huge in one sense but the point is it's a proof of concept as far as I am concerned. The show could also drum up a lot of public interest and support and get the wheels turning again. To give more funding to space programs, congress needs to feel like there is public support. Right now everyone is obsessed with cutting costs.

The thing about Mars One is that it is not a Mars mission, but just a study and R&D to design solutions to technical problems for such a mission. It's not even a proof of concept, as they aren't building a space craft or have the mean to do so (as it takes space agencies with hundreds of scientist in different fields, and tools and labratories...ect to do such a thing) I'm really skeptical about the current state of their project, maybe, they are doing this as a primary way to rise attention and get some serious sponsors, once they have some real designs and concept on hand

It's also possible that a state power will seek to "beat" Mars 1 to be the first to land a human being on Mars. So in a way this could cause a very positive new space race to Mars. I could see China, Russia, the EU, or the US doing this.

I guess then they'd have to change the name to Mars 2.

There's always Mars 360.

I just want to live long enough (and in good mental and physical health) - to see the first person put foot on mars (and preferably still be alive to see them come back!).

As to actual colonising Mars with anything more than a handful of people - I thnk that is decades away given all the supporting infrastructure that would be required.

Like I said, there is nothing to beat here, Mars one is not building a space craft, they don't have the means or the necessary means and competence right now, Unless I missed something that isn't mentioned in their website, if just more or less a study and R&D nothing more nothing less....

A Mars project would require a Space Agency if not the collaboration of different of space, agencies an significant increase in budgets and a minimum of 10 years of development and preparation if Mars becomes a serious objectif

There's nothing to beat? I don't understand the confusion. Mars one could potentially put the first human being on Mars. Which would effectively be the first human being on another planet. That's HUGE. Think about the space race that occurred over having the first human in space and then the first human being on the moon...

Ok let me put it to you frankly so you understand, does Mars One team/project, has a rocket, building a rocket, has the means to built a rocket, or a space craft to sent to space ?

Dude there is really no reason for your attitude. Maybe you should do a little reading before posting flippant remarks.




SpaceX's CEO is a billionaire in his own right as I recall. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they'll get it done and done well.

Well said

I also think marsone will fail or be delayed by 20 years. Already 4 years gone by they have nothing to show for. Governments are spending all budget on wars with imaginary enemies and instruments to control people. No money for progress or scientific and medical research

our governments aren't funding space exploration.. and private businesses won't do it either, since it doesn't really provide much for returns on investment. i think there would need to be a channel or tv show that would accompany it, so that it could be monetized somehow.

Not quite true - they have started the astronaut selection process and started the PR blitz they will need to succeed. 

The whole thing is just Bullshit PR. The kind of money and resources they are raising is not even close to what you require for a realistic mars colony

It will fail or be delayed by another decade or two

They are doing exactly that. Mars One is making a reality show out of it.

Also guys, SpaceX will want to do this because they want to get more business. If their ship succeeds for these missions they will have a line of customers a mile long. Think about it...

do you think it would be possible if we did have a settlement, and there was a reality-type TV show, that it wouldn't be epically popular? i think the world has gotten so dumb (especially the us govt) that the show wouldn't be a hit to the majority of the world.

i don't mean to bitch, but it seems like people in this country are no longer inspired by science, life, art, people, and the mysteries of the cosmos. wasn't it different in the 60's? our media wasn't so inundated with junk/noise... and people actually cared about these things. hell, even in the 80's during the height of carl sagan's popularity.. kids would actually watch this shit and be WOWED by it. today, at the age of 8, you have a bunch of kids with smartphones, tweeting and watching lady gaga wear a meat dress.. that's what "inspires them." we are getting dumber as a people.. how the fuck can that actually happen when we're so much more technologically advanced?

lol, i will stop the rant here.. sorry for derailing this topic.

What's wrong with my attitude? I've only explained to you facts you are refusing to accept, I don't recall myself being disrespectful or insulting in any of my replies. I know my fact, because not only I've done my reading but I understand the technical aspect behind it.


I mean seriously you are quoting all these, and you fail to gasp that there is nothing in here a part from Vaporware and dreams? what if they visited space agencies to discuss stuff with scientist? don't you see that in everything you quoted the words that keeps repeating them selfs are anticipate, will probably be this or that...ect (nothing certain, nothing is real, nothing is ready yet, they are doing the study)

The so called Mars Transit vehicle is an imaginary vehicle, it does not exist, it doesn't even have a proper draft design yet, and they are working on it, the whole 500K$ they have is being used for design and design studies, Once this phase done, and they have a proper concept design, with everything included, from risk management to every single problem solution design with real assets then at that time we can talk about partner and partnership.

Also what if SpaceX CEO is a billionaire, it's not his project, and he is not an investor in the project, SpaceX expressed their interest and whilling to help with technical details (it's good marketing and potential commercial opportunity for them if the project succeed)  like many other partner of the project, doesn't mean they invest billions of dollars.

This:

Anyways I'm not going to keep indulging you. You implied that they did not have the means to get to Mars so I pointed out very clearly that they have a plan and a specific spacecraft in mind. One which is being produced by a very strong company.

I'm not going to sit here and debate with you whether they will succeed or not, you obviously aren't interested in having any sort of rational discussion about this you just want to keep shitting on Mars One without any real legitimate reason.

Ten years from now we could show you a video of the first team members to land on Mars and you'll be sitting there foaming at the mouth screaming "THEY FAKED IT, THEY FAKED IT!"

And what's wrong with that? I've explained the same thing 4 times before "simplifying it" (and that's what the sentence you are quoting is all about) there is nothing wrong with what I said there.

I did not apply I affirm : They DO NOT have the means nor the expertise to do it and if you think otherwise you are invited to prove me wrong.
The way they are doing things is the following : They will do a concept study and design while at the same time doing simulations (being it training crew and simulating the Mars environment on earth) Once this phase is done and the concrete study and real concept design are made, these will be proposed to partners,  and from there the project will either progress to reality or will be scraped if it if deemed infeasible or unrealistic, if the project is deemed feasible and partners are willing to put their resources into the project, then you'll see things moving from concept to reality, building stuff will start, ect.

I'm not shitting on Mars One, I'm presenting the reality and the current state of the project with facts that you don't want to accept here and you are avoiding to discuss.

And you are really confusing what I'm saying here, I'm not saying that Mars One will not bring people to Mars please reread my comments before advancing such thing: All I'm saying is that, right now, Mars One is just a study design project right now, no more no less, and once that phase is done, and unless the study and concept designs are deemed serious by the partners that have the resources being it technical or material for such a project and willing to contribute on such basis it will not happen.

As I said I'm not going to waste any more effort indulging you.

Moving right along - they are hosting the "Humans 2 Mars" conference right now in Washington DC to discuss manned missions to Mars: http://www.space.com/25587-manned-mars-missions-conference-webcasts.html

I think you are bang on.  The moon landing was one of the most watched programs in TV history.

Vod he was actually arguing that it might NOT be popular because of the cultural changes that have happened since then (ie people are more interested in watching stupid shit than anything of scientific merit now.)

I disagree, I think it would be popular just because it has never been done before. Also, sci-fi stuff is immensely popular nowadays.

There's some kind of Mars reality show in the works apparently. Not sure how feasible or if it'll actually happen though.

I assume you are referring to Mars One? That is what we have been talking about lol.

Of course you won't be wasting any more effort indulging me, since so far you didn't present a single counter argument against the fact I presented, this is not about I can argue better or wining some arguments (it's not like they are distributing some prizes if someone does so) , trust me, I don't really care about that and when I don't know about something I just ask, it's just that happen, that I have a scientific background, and Mars missions is one of the things that fascinate me, and that when I first heard about Mars One a few years ago, I was pretty excited and tried to get the maximum of informations and what I've presented is the current states of thing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10546779/Mars-mission-selection-to-be-reality-TV-show.html

I think most of the participants haven't full realized that they are going on a one way ticket. Meaning they will stay there for the rest of their lives. For the first two years there will be only 4 people on the base as well. Someone of them is definitely going to go nuts and kill everyone up there...

Oh yeah, that's it haha.


This guy doesn't do rational arguments nor does he know the difference between fact and opinion. See this post and the following ones after it for mindblowing ignorance: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=511208.msg6285147#msg6285147

Dude, seriously. Whoever taught you grammar should be drawn and quartered...



Please troll elsewhere. Really I doubt that anyone cares about your ranting at this point.

I'm really starting to think he is just a troll but it's hard to tell the difference between them and straight-up morons.

My main concern about the Mars One mission is just that. I think they may have a real lord of the flies situation once a small handful of people get up there, and start to realize there is no practical way for anyone to restrain them from doing whatever they damn well please. I think a starter colony should be a much larger group to help mitigate this, but then it gets prohibitively expensive...

There are some groups that do "Mars" training by having people live in special facilities in desert/tundra regions and a large part of the rationale behind it is to explore the psychological effects of isolation, being trapped indoors for extended periods of time, etc.

I'm sure if they don't already realise they're not coming back they will very soon. I also think it wont work. People can go insane quite quickly in space and loose their shit.

This is Dr Zubrin plan about Mars, pretty interesting didn't know there was a documentary about it till today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URw9JoZwlQI.


The ignorance comes from those that doesn't argue against facts and start insulting others on other threads, and it's pretty clear in which category you are right now


So it's about grammar now, not about facts, so this is what your argumentation came to, well that was expected tbh. Rest assured I know my grammar is bad, and I'm working on it, just for reference English is the forth language I speak.

Trolling? I don't like these kind of posts and you don't see me doing this around here but lets put things straight here I have Bachelor degree in Fundamental physics, a Master degree in Mechanical and Design Engineering and a European Masters in Management and Business Strategy, and I dare you in front of everyone here, to bet some or at least a couple of BTCs ,Escrowed of course, if you think this is FUD, I will provided all the necessary proofs to the Escrower, how about it ?

Zero chance... wealth continues to funnel to the top...  BTC is the only chance we have of preventing the earth becoming a Rothschild slave planet... We are pretty much there.

While it not Mars, and near the safety of earth, Astronauts stay several months in the International Space Station, and the longest stay on space was done by Polyakov if I'm not mistaking and he stayed on the Mir station for over a year, I also recall the station had a fire accident (not sure if it was during his stay tho)

The one way ticket to Mars is what Mars One planning to do, check out Dr Zubrin plan I posted above

You mean get space dementia? I'm sure once homesickess kicks in they'll freak the fuck out, but like I said in another thread about this I very much doubt this will happen for various reasons.


You don't deal in facts, just opinion. And there are no insults. Just truths. You're a moron because of your moronic twisted logic and your failure to grasp or accept any facts that don't fit your arguments.  Agnostics or people who don't flat out deny god are not automatically religious or theists and cannot be put on a list of religious people, but you seem to think they are, plus you also don't know the difference between Jewish ethnicity and Judaism, which is a another fact you wont accept.

Isn't there a mission planned for '16 or something?

There is nothing twisted about my logic, as I presented facts not opinions, if you have something to say please reply in the correct thread and quote the correct reply instead of spreading insults and Fud in unrelated topics.

So back to Mars :


yes there is a mission called Insight between NASA and CNES (French space agency) and it is to study Mars seismology mainly

It's a long way to colonize Mars.

I meant about sending people up there.

Calling three non-religious agnostic scientists religious is not a fact. You thinking Sagan saying atheism is stupid does not make him religious especially when you took the quote out of context hence twisting logic. You not being able to comprehend the meaning in spinoza's god is a fact. Einstein being an ethnic Jew does not make him religious.He wasn't. That's a fact. None of your claims are facts but your opinion based on sheer ignorance and denial and they're all wrong. The only person that spreads fud is you.

Sadly no, for now the best we can do is go 300-400Km up to the ISS (for reference if you take one of those fancy gloves you find on old desks if the globe is 20cm diameter the ISS would be less than half a centimeter away from the surface....)

Edit : In the same perspective if earth is 20 cm in diameter, Mars would be approximatly at it's closest distance 10Km away and 660Km at the farthest distance


What's preventing you from replying to me on the correct topic we were discussing this on? If I recall correctly you didn't reply to me there, so how about doing it, instead of being off topic here, I'll be more than glad to reply to anything you have to say there, so stop polluting this thread with insults and fud. Facts were presented there, and I'm still waiting for your reply there, this topic is about Mars so lets keep it that, if you want to argue about anything Mars related I said feel free to do and I'll be more than glad to reply to you.

I was way mistaken in the year but here you go:
http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap
This is planned.

It's still on the study phase and very hypothetical time table for now we will know more in the future according to their road map in may 2018 the demonstration mission will be launched and communication satellites, so I assume that by next year they should already be starting the production of the hardware of that mission and that at least design for that part of the project to be presented this year.

Interesting topic ..

Not sure 'humans' are a suitable species for exo-planet settlements ..
Mars colonization may have to wait until after the 'singularity' here on earth ..
I'm assuming that we'll evolve to a mostly non-biologic species within 5 generations
from now, perhaps faster than that .. Once the transhuman evolution occurs; then
space and exoplanet expeditions will be feasible .. No adverse effects from radiation,
length of time, resource requirements etc etc .. Maybe our descendants won't bother going
at all as I suspect that they'll be addicted to 'virtual reality' for 'experiences' and will lack
the motivation to get off this rock .. Who knows ..

Triff ..

just a little correction Mars is not an exo-planet :) and anything exo planet related is not happening anytime soon

It's a long way to mars. I can't imagine they;ll ever get funding for this if they are entirely serious and it's not just a marketing ploy or publicity stunt etc.

Who wouldn't want to live on another planet?

One as barren as Mars? It'd be boring.

You obviously have no knowledge on this matter. Colonizing Mars doesn't mean just sending off a few capsules to live in.

Well, for one thing the Earth is sort of running out of new frontiers for us to explore and I think there is a sense of excitement (for some people) in colonizing a new planet. Also it won't be barren for long if we start sending people there.

There are a lot of theories about ways we could alter the atmosphere, get the temperature up significantly, etc but none of them can be tested and verified until we get up there and start trying. We would have to begin with people living in structures (either bunkers or more ideally a series of connected giant transparent dome/bubble structures) but eventually they could terraform the planet to Earth-like conditions and atmosphere.

It's not like they're going to terraform it or build massive cities. You'd probably need more money than was in the world to do this.

I don't think terraforming has to be prohibitively expensive. The bigger issue is we just need to get people up there. If you try to predict every future expense and plan it all out like 100 years in advance it will just never begin. One piece at a time, then keep growing and adding things and others will jump on the bandwagon and send up their own colonists... really we just need to get the ball rolling.

It'd be the most expensive thing ever conducted. I imagine colonizing a planet and building infrastructure would be too.

The people that are going to fly to the mars are trained by professionals and  in these  few year training they'll be just like real researchers. They are not going there without any knowledge just to be there haha  :P

I think the real "cost" of anything they do on Mars is hard to judge. Some of what they need in terms of materials may end up coming from Mars itself. Once we get people up there, are they going to be "paid" for the time they spend performing useful tasks on Mars? This is a really interesting question. Would they be paid on Earth or on Mars? Keep in mind that at least for Mars One, the current plan is for them to stay on Mars indefinitely - there isn't really a return trip planned.

If they aren't going to be paid other than having their living needs accommodated, they would be more or less working for free once they are up there, with the motivation being that the 'work' they do is improving the environment they now live in. I'd say that's a pretty powerful motivator. Although I suspect an economy would spring up and they'd begin bartering with each other, especially as more colonists are added. But in the beginning, with like 4 or 8 people? Doubtful.

I personally think Mars is already colonized but I don't have any proof just speaking my mind.  The more I've learned about the world the more something like that would surprise me.

lolwat? There was or is a rover on mars - I'm sure it would've seen this colonisation.

There was also evidence of microbial life on Mars and structures that looked man made.  So many things that should be talked about and widely known aren't and when someone brings them up they are laughed at...  True or not the topics are not a laughing matter IMO.  I mean what does that say about our society as a whole?

Edit:  And my comments aren't met directed at you personally Dogtanian.  Really just making an observation.

I haven't seen any pictures on objects looking man made but there are some intersting rock formations or whatever.

What is your avatar from btw?

It is a pic of Wilfred the dog.  A character on the tv show "Wilfred".  He's holding a cannabis plant and smelling it.

I believe there are two rovers and it seems like they keep finding more and more evidence that's leaning towards the possibility of prior life having existed on Mars (though of course nothing concrete yet.) Let's not forget it wasn't that long ago that we didn't even know they was water on Mars.

As far as man-made structures, I have not heard of this but I am totally open to the idea that there may be or may have been intelligent life on Mars and elsewhere. Any basic mathematician can tell you that the probability of there being more than 1 planet with intelligent life in the entire universe, is much greater than the probability of Earth being the only planet with intelligent life.

I think it's mainly narcissism that leads many people to be so resistant to the idea that yes, there probably are other intelligent species out there in the universe and the idea that we are "alone" is quite naive and silly at this point.

There probably is life elsewhere in the universe but not any where close to earth.

I heard something about that. I think there was already some selection of potential candidates for a flight to Mars. I am not sure, but that is one way ticket, and those people will stay there. I am not sure if those plans will be realized, but that is what I read about that. Time will tell.

I dont think they'll find any evidence of prior life on mars.

Terraforming Mars wouldn't be expensive. I can't really remember the details, but I did see a video once on how it could be done. It didn't seem like an expensive thing to do (when you're already up there).

Anything to back this up? Is true terraforming actually even possible? Just actually getting the stuff you needed there would probably the costliest thing ever.

I don't have time to do too much research but here is this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars
There are many proposed methods of doing this.

It seems to be pretty much science fiction as this point

No. Hypothetical because we haven't even been able to send a single person to Mars, not to mention trying to terraform it. Even something fast as a warp drive isn't science fiction anymore, because the proper research is being done (the main issue is the amount of energy that we need).

That's not it at all. It's hypothetical because it's just fantasy based on what's theoretically possible. None of what they suggested has been tested and unlikely ever will.

Remember that many modern devices and technologies we now take for granted were once hailed as science fiction. There are concept sketches of primitive tanks and airplanes from I believe the medieval time period. Cell phones and lasers were once thought of as wild science fiction ideas, now they are widely used. Space ships were thought of as outrageously absurd until the early to mid-1900s.

Americas were colonized thanks to furs, and gold.  But the price to get something into orbit is on the order of the price of gold itself.  Why not colonize Antarctica or the depths, instead?   

Antarctica : Very cold, but air and even some animals.
Mars        : Makes Antarctica look like Hawaii:  There is air but too thin to breathe maybe deep underground the air might be think enough

It's not like another temperate continent just farther away.  The species will not spread (i.e. people will not move) to Mars on an altruistic notion of protecting the species.  There needs to be an economic incentive for it.

Shawn Pringle

When the United States was still a new country, they faced a problem. They had acquired a massive piece of land in the west but it was wild and dangerous, and they needed to populate it in order to solidify their ownership and control of said land. So what did they do? They basically told people that if they went west, they could claim a chunk of land for free just by settling on it. And people went in fucking droves. They heard stories about other settlers not surviving the journey, being attacked by hostile native tribes, dying of disease, etc. And yet they still went.

Mars is a new frontier. People will want to go just to get a fresh start and have a chance to be in on something new from the ground floor.

I totally agree with you. That would be easier and cheaper.
But, just to warn you, kuroman will not agree, and he'll start telling you how wrong you are, and how much better his plans of colonizing Mars are. You have been warned.


Yes, but people went to America because they wanted a better life, political and religious freedom and such things. It didn't cost that much to cross the ocean either. They were aware that they would probably never return, and accepted it since they were desperate.
The problem with Mars is that it would require extremely much money, and that would require government funding or from some really rich person. But non of them are interested in wasting enormous amounts of money to let refugees from 3rd world country move to Mars (on the same terms and reasons as people moved to America).

It will be tested, and Mars will be terraformed. Who the hell wants to live on barrens?

It won't ever be terraformed or inhabited. It's not feasible or probably even possible at all.

It's a good point. It's not that easy to terraform a planet though. First of all Mars would need a thicker atmosphere, and that's not an easy thing to do. Then we'd have to make the air breathable to us as well which would also be a huge problem.
One day maybe, if we haven't destroyed ourselves before that of course, it might actually be done. :)
It is possible. It's just very hard to do that, but absolutely possible with the right funding and devotion.
Wikipedia even has a page about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

Link was already posted.

Read the link. It's all hypothetical and theoretical.

Huh? I'm talking about when the government encouraged people to move west within America. It had little if anything to do with immigration as far as I know, it was Americans moving west not foreigners desperate to leave their native country to come to America.

There are hundreds of thousands of extremely qualified people applying for the Mars One project, and believe me they are not refugees lol.

Sorry, I didn't read the first part to well I guess! :P

I don't think they realize that they're actually going on a one-way ticket to mars. With only 4 people to live with the first two years.
Someone WILL go nuts. If they wanted to make a serious attempt they would send lots more people.
It is hypothetical, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It has just never been done before!

I think a large part of the reason for them sending a small group is cost. Every person you add makes it much more expensive. The ship has to have more space which means a large ship, which in turn makes it more difficult and costly to escape from Earth's gravity. Every additional person means more supplies are needed, both on the initial ship and each subsequent delivery. I don't agree with the solution of sending just four people to start, but I understand how they reached that decision.

There may also be a psychological motive. There is a weird effect on isolated groups where people start to form rifts and divide into factions over the most trivial disagreements. So if they sent 8-12 people I think it is highly likely that they would find 2 or 3 splinter groups forming and dividing the team. With only 4 people, this is less likely and less significant.

Never ever say never...  100 years ago if I told you we were going to the moon you'd tar and feather me and I'd be the laughing stock of the city.. Guess what we landed on?

I'm certain that he will quote you again and say that it is theoretical and hypothetical and it might never be tested.  :D
You will see that I was right in 15-20 years.

The earliest we can realistically expect to send an exploration mission to Mars is probably 2030-2035, and that is just one mission, NOT a colony. Someone will probably have to come up with an economic justification for such a colony, and right now that is hard to see.

Maybe, if we want to return the astronauts to earth after they are done exploring.

By keeping them there we greatly reduce the technological and mission needs.

Mining is the biggest immediate economic justification.

Terraforming requires Nuclear Fusion energy, actually mars is perfect for nuclear fusion because there is no will by current governments to adopt fusion on earth so Mars will be a good scenario.

However the logistics involved to construct massive fusion plants and teraforming technology will require another 300-500 years+ of advancement.

For the last time Mars One is a bullshit project, that will fail or significantly delayed.

We could send asteroids into the martian surface as well. That would rise the temperature.

Terraforming Mars doesn't require Nuclear fusion per say, just energy, in fact using your average coal or oil energy station would much much more effective (as it produce, greenhouse gas) than nuclear fusion which basically a clean energy. The thing about terraforming is that it takes times, and resources, I believe that before thinking about terraforming it's more important to start by getting there and turning Mars into a permanent habitat for a group of humans to justify going trough a terra forming process

Btw in around a billion years the sun will be hot enough that Mars will be hot as hot if not hotter than our current earth, and with the CO2 and water melting in caps it might terraform the planet (atmospheric pressure will increase dramatical and liquid water will form) and and life on earth will not be possible anymore, heck even Jupiter moons will start to become more earth like (the ones with atmosphere like titan).

 

How well does coal burn on mars then? It's no/very little oxygen there, and oxygen is one important factor to CO2.

Also, I hardly doubt that humanity is still around in a billion years. I see no reason to wait that long anyway.

Of course you'll need to extract oxygen from other chemicals that are abundant.
And I agree humanity might disappear by the end of the century, if it keeps going with it stupidity and doesn't start thinking globally and for the best of the whole human race rather than just individual (being it a person a group or a country) greed. And one of the most important steps it's starting to seriously work on plans to move and spread to Mars (easiest location beside earth to live on) to have a backup plan when at least something serious happens on earth, and start easing up on earth in general, but for now it's all about greed and killing each other to each that ...

Tested in what capacity? On an actual planet? I'd be willing to bet it wont within 20 years.

Soon no - to establish a breeding population on another planet  would require genetic engineering as a full re-write and technology way beyond our current capacity.
Possible in theory yes - but I would not expect it to happen until the Sun becomes threatening

At that time we'll be long gone. It's still a few billion years left. Homo sapiens has only existed about 100000-200000 years. Seems unlikely that there still is a "Homo x" specie still here. Maybe another intelligent life form will do it?

You're underestimating the development of humans. This will come much sooner.

I think you're underestimating the cost logistics and even desire of why humans would want to even attempt this anytime soon.

Yeah, why would they want to do this or get the money from?

Why would you want to remain on this Earth?
You could mine up there. If there is something to mine.

Why would you want to go anywhere else? And what's worth mining?

We will deplete the resources on Earth very soon.

Far from being true, we have enough resources to last us for tens of thousands of years. Renewable technologies are also replacing fossil fuels overtime and other emerging techs reduce reliance on various resources.

Things like synthetic food (already developed in labs) can replace reliance on soil.

The whole earth is dying is mostly grass eater bullshit that wants us to go back to stone ages ignoring texhnology. The only real threat is pollution like dumping waste in land fills and oceans, Air pollution etc.

 I'm all for colonising Mars asap just because I am a visionary but I'm also realistic about idiotic claims of terraforming Mars within the next few decades.

What resources are those?

The world won't last that many years. If we reach 2200 we should be happy. +1 for pollution and global warming.

why don't we just work on fixing the problems we face here?  You know actually address the issue of pollution and the so called Global Warming. 

My thoughts exactly.

We will be using all possible options for the humanity to survive. By only living on Earth we are like putting our eggs in one basket.

Forget about private companies investing. When we have the technology to go to Mars, there's going to wars over who gets what.

Helium for hard drives.

Best stop wasting it on balloons then. And I very much doubt it'll be profitable to get the helium from elsewhere.

Obviously this is why you'd want to move to other planets. Why did we colonize America?  :)

A different country is not the same as a different planet.

It was a hard trip back then. So the comparison works.

Using boats to cross oceans and shuttles to cross the solar system are hardly a fair comparison in probably every way possible.

You do realize that we weren't developed at all back then? I mean our development rate has been very fast in the last 100 years.

Yeah, but it's not like they weren’t pretty proficient in sailing the seas. There's still a massive difference.

They didn't know what awaited them in America did they? We know what we can expect on Mars (mostly), barrens.

Who knows what they'll encounter.

Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars. I'm sure there's lots of problems they could encounter and might not foresee.

I'm not saying that we know everything. I'm saying that we know most of it.
Isn't Curiosity up there right now? :)

That's a next step, but we need to develop technology that will allow us to create water from other elements on a large scale. With water we can create food and sustain large population. Terra forming will take decades if not centuries, so that's something I wont see in my lifetime.

Yeah I don't expect it to be in my lifetime either though. You could freeze your body, and hope that cryogenics work. Revive in 500 years and enjoy life (if the Earth is still there).

Currently we don't even have money to send crew to Mars. Estimates by some experts have put the price tag for a Mars trip in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Even if we could get there right now we must terraform it first because Mars is a geologically dead planet. While Mars has plenty of volcanoes and geological evidence that there was tectonic activity at some point in its history, that's not the case anymore. There is no air pressure to hold in water and Mars suffers from the lack of a magnetic field that would shield it from harmful solar winds. Any effort to process Mars into a livable planet (i.e. terraform) would have to take all these factors into account. Perhaps it would be possible to jumpstart the atmosphere by turning the carbon dioxide-rich air into oxygen much the way plants on Earth clean our air. But Mars still wouldn't have a magnetic field. Without a magnetic shield for protection, extreme waves of solar radiation strip away the Martian atmosphere, thus subjecting humans to lethal doses of radiation. Evidence suggests the polar ice caps have the remnants of a magnetic shield and are safe from the extreme solar radiation.

Ultimately I would like to see humanity spread out and explore more of the universe; to me Mars is the first logical step. I am no so pessimistic about the future of our race; people saying we won't be around in a billion years kind of scare me frankly. Some day our sun is going to die and when that happens (actually long before it actually happens) we will need to move on unless we have found some way to stop it from happening.

I think there would be tons of benefits that we can't even think of right now, once we get up there and settle some humans on Mars. We have no idea what could be discovered there. They might have elements that we don't have. Solving some of the "challenges" could be beneficial to earth as well - if we managed to create a magnetic field to protect Mars from solar radiation, think about the other applications that could have.

You can't really stop a sun from dying. We will more likely finally develop something like a warp drive and be able to get out of the star system.

It doesn't cost hundreds of billions, they are realistic plans that could get a crew for a couple of billions divided on a decade or two of the program (so that's a couple of hundrends millions of budget a year), (example Dr Zubrin plan), which is nothing compared to the money spent on other useless things, example F22 Raptor, LCS ect ect, as for the in Mars problems and challenges I believe they were discussed in this or in another article, getting there and starting to do scientific research and setting bigger settlement is a start, terraforming is something for the far future, but everything should start with a step, and if we are too afraid to take that initiative it's not going to happen ever

False.  Mars is made of the same "stuff" Earth is made up of.   The planets formed the same way, from the same materials.

Colonizing Mars.. okey, but way? ???

I don't really think that can be conclusively proved until we get people up there and they take a whole shitload of samples, including those from drilling deep beneath the surface. A lot of theories like this end up being found to be not entirely true.

I am a dreamer and would love to see a Mars colony in my lifetime and would love to actually go there and visi. I was beyond excited when Mars One was announced however I am increasingly sceptical about the project.

The main reason being is the budget. MarsOne has a budget of $4Billion up to 6$ billion Max. A budget that's just not enough. $4-$6 billion get you a light rail system for a small city on earth, we're talking here about transporting humans to Mars which is an extremely challenging task that requires huge amounts of funding and r&d, simulations (virtual and real life), construction, test launch that's all just before take off and then the cost of the materials and tech that will be used to build the habitat for humans in mars.

The budget should be more like $50-$100Billion

Not really.  A lot of the cost would come from the return from Mars.  You'd have to bring enough fuel for both trips - you'd have to design and carry a vehicle that could lift off from Mars, etc.

All we are really doing is landing on the moon again - except the moon is further away, and we don't need to lift off from it.  We already have the technology for leaving the earth and living in space for a while.

Just my $.02

 ;)

Sure we have the tech I don't disagree, I just disagree with the costing. I believe it will cost a lot more if they r to do this mission properly (after proper research and testing) unless they plan to cram a few astronauts in a tuna can launch them and hope they don't die in Mars.

Well, we would know statistically if they would die on Mars.  Once they are there, we know their environment and the chances for a disaster, such as an asteroid shower destroying the habitats or a key component breaking down.

The big question is, can we get them there and land them safely?  And in my opinion, we currently have the technology to do that.  We've landed several rovers already.

Yes that is it, but I do not think that the planned mission which I've linked has a return trip home. Once you go up there, you're not getting back anytime soon.

Thread resurrection.

What do you guys think about the current policies about governments not claiming territory on celestial bodies?

That only applies to earth based governments that has signed that treaty I think? Anyway, what would they do if someone actually colonized and claimed Mars? I think that they would not do anything.

They don't need to officially claim them, but if theres anything valuable on them it'll just be who gets there first and extracts it.

I would have to research the agreements but if memory serves, I believe basically it says that no nation can claim territory on a celestial body ie make a section of the moon or mars part of their sovereign nation.

See above. They don't need to 'claim' it officially, but it'll be whoever gets there first and settles a base or operation on it or whatever.

It is an important distinction though. If you claim ground as sovereign territory, you can refuses to allow others to enter said territory, defend it, claim exclusive ownership of resources contained therein, etc. If you can't, then if country A sets up a "base" what's to stop anyone else from walking right into the middle of it and taking pictures, or digging a hole in the ground to mine some minerals?

If people have set up facilities there that essentially makes it theres, but that's probably how future wars will start.

If we get to the point where we're actually colonising other planets and setting up plants to mine them for minerals or whatnot then new laws will almost certainly be drawn up otherwise there would be disputes and possibly wars started.

Just more of a reason for people to become more politely aware and active.  Big decisions will need to be made and the right people will need to be in position so things to go all wrong.

it will be simillar to earth, which means wars might start once space exploration becomes lucrative and lobying can began

At that time earth would have already been destroyed by humans and in time same thing will happen to mars .

Sounds about right, we seem to fuck up on everything.

Mars was already destroyed.

If some day we will go to another planet, I hope that we will better to that planet than to Earth.

This is a good trilogy of sci-fi on Mars colonisation if anyone's interested:


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Mars-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0007310161/ref=sr_1_2/275-7100501-2115844?ie=UTF8&qid=1399020168&sr=8-2&keywords=mars

It can be a bit slow at times, but worth reading imo.

Mars is fine as it is right now, but when you'll either render it Venus like due to pollution or render you destroy due to some thermo nuclear or biohazard shit and make it impossible for any percpective of life then we are talking about what we human can do with our stupidity :(

if he haven't destroyed Earth yet what makes you think we would destroy Mars

it's good for human race to be stationed on more planets in case an asteroid destroys Earth :D

We won't further destroy Mars because we need it for further advancement into the Galaxy.

Mars is a stepping stone and a solution to some of our problems on Earth. Ultimately the Earth can only sustain so many human beings at a time, and most cultures don't seem to be particularly keen on enforcing any population controls (China's 1-child policy was basically globally condemned for years as repressive) so eventually we will need more space and resources.

Sadly reaching Mars is one thing (as it achievable with near future technology if the resources and political power is put in place to do such a thing) but the rest of the galaxy is not happening anytime soon, it takes 10 months to reach Mars in it closest orbit to earth, an almost 3 years to do a round trip, to reach Jupiter it is 6 years ......ect to reach the star system Proxima centauri which is the closest star system to earth, it takes 80000+ years with our current technology
It's a several centuries if not mileniea challenge :(

we didn't yet, but we are destroying it right now, being it directly or indirectly, directly but destroying whole ecosystem deforestations, destroying it resources ... and indirectly by pollution and global warming, not to mention that whole areas were destroyed by nuclear tests and accidents and more to come as nuclear power plants are getting older and older, not to mention other risks being it biological ones or technological ones....

I'm afraid that Mars will be used as an mining platform, if in years to come we will establish a base (and I mean a big one like for several thousand people). The colonization of the Mars will still be impossible (lack atmosphere), so instead we will be gathering resources and sending them back to Earth.

I don't think that is a huge risk at the moment because bringing anything back from Mars is prohibitively expensive and difficult. Eventually we may develop ways of doing it economically but at that point I think asteroid mining will be just as lucrative. Also, anything we develop that would allow mined materials to be easily transported from Mars to Earth, would seemingly also make it cost-effective to transport a ton of stuff from Earth to Mars.

While I'm not particularly in favor of it, I don't think mining a bit of minerals from Mars would destroy the planet. We have been mining the Earth for thousands of years have we not?

What's there to destroy exactly? It's just a planet of rock. It's not like we can fuck up the habitat and ozone. It looks like one big quarry and planet that was made to be mined  ;D, but it's going to be a very long time if ever before it is either cost-effective or actually even feasible.

Asteroid mining wont be as effective as planet mining because of the characteristic of asteroids .We need to know when and where exactly an asteroid will be at certain time, what king of minerals are there on the current available asteroid, etc.

Is mining asteroids actually even possible? I'm no expert but I can't fathom how landing on a asteroid whizzing though space can be achieved. Seems very risky and dangerous too. Maybe I'll have to check out the science behind the movie Armageddon  ;D.

Well on 12 February 2001 a probe landed on an asteroid (called Eros if I'm not mistaken)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAR_Shoemaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAR_Shoemaker)

In November 2005 a unmanned spacecraft called Hayabusa landed on another asteroid called Itokawa. On 13 June 2010 the Hayabusa managed to land on Earth bringing back some samples from Itokawa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa)

There are already companies getting ready to attempt asteroid mining fairly soon. I think it's going to happen way sooner than mining from Mars.

Asteroid mining seems like it would involve some amount of trial and error and guesswork. I doubt they are going to wait until they can somehow precisely calculate exactly what the makeup of an asteroid is. Think of it more like gold prospecting before the advent of modern technology.

As far as intercepting the asteroid... that is child's play at this point. And it has already be done multiple times as the above posted mentioned.

What if the Asteroid contains something that is very rare on Earth and (possibly) rare in the star system? Wouldn't you want to mine that? This might happen sooner than we all think.

Can't help but think of Armageddon lol.

Mining asteroids still sounds like pure science fiction to me. I wonder how far were actually away from doing it?


What could be found on an asteriod that cant be found on a planet? There wont be any gases I dont think.

I don't think that colonizing Mars is going to happen soon. As long as it is commercially unprofitable we won't see Mars soon, at least non-billionaires. But idea is great-it would give a chance to some people to start their own business and will create a lot of working places!

Its great, we can travel in space and all these things.

But realistically, when we do it id be dead.

lol. Depends how far you want to go into space. I'm sure there'll be proper commerical orbital space flights within our generation. They might not be affordable for everyone, bu if you start saving now you might make it lol

I think this is all coming a lot sooner than most of you think. Like in the next 10 years or so.

Hmm I read an article somewhere saying that gold came from outerspace and asteroids, but if this was true wont material get burnt up in the atomosphere before it hits the ground, you will need it to be a doomsday asteroid if you wanted to collect some good material.

If the mission will start after 10 or even 20 years, I'll probably see It and I'm really excited about that, that would be such a historical  phase. And the people that are going to fly to the mars wont be just regular people, in the mean while they are trained and at the start of the mission they'll be researchers  and they will research a lot of things on mars their self.

I don't think there is a need to bring the asteroids into the Earth's atmosphere to mine them.

But, it looks like the main company that was seriously looking into doing this has decided to go in a different direction for now:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303417104579544072639525550

isn't there a different source for this article it is asking for a log in to be able to read the whole article

Anyway http://www.planetaryresources.com/ was the project and it's still underway from what I'm seeing

That is really strange it showed the whole article the first time I looked at it but now if I go back it asks for login. Hmmm.... Basically said they have changed their plan and are not really trying to harvest rare minerals from asteroids to bring to Earth anymore (at this time.)

Colonizing Mars is quite a challenge. Maybe a first step would be to colonize the oceans and then take that technology to other planets. It might be easier this way because a lot of the challenges you face on another planet (hostile environment, atmosphere, isolation) you can find in the deep here on Earth. And when you had enough you can always come back to the surface whereas on another planet transportation might be a bit more tricky.

The biggest challenges on Mars are probably pressure (the atmosphere on Mars is very thin), magnetic field (protects from cosmic radiation), atmosphere (terraforming perhaps).

Another big issue might be indigenous life. Throughout Earth's history there have been multiple (132 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite) to be more precise) small meteors that landed here on Earth that came from Mars. It is concisely possible that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs (or another one perhaps) projected a piece of rock from Earth to Mars containing Earth microbes or bacteria (http://www.voanews.com/content/microbes-prove-hearty-enough-for-interplanetary-travel/1908225.html). These can be either dormant or active and they can pose a big hazard to humans (having their evolutionary paths so different from our).

Nthunder, I agree but my concern is that the more we find intermediary projects to focus on, the more we ultimately delay colonizing Mars. They could spend decades perfecting underwater colonies before much of the work would be perfected to the point of being applicable to planetary colonization. Underwater colonies would mitigate some of the risk of the human race being wiped out in the event of some catastrophic events, but not all. They would also seem to be highly vulnerable to certain underwater events (what happens if there is an earthquake or other seismic event in the area?)

As far as life on Mars, precautions should be taken but I think the odds of finding life there (let alone hostile life) now are very low given the environment conditions. Evidence of former life? Perhaps.

In any event, the rovers there now will likely find clues if there is anything moving around up there...

Dogechode, no worries for getting there in a timely manner. As someone else mentioned before, Mars One is already well into the selection process. Nasa is moving more and more toward SpaceShipOne while shutting down (at least for now) their shuttle launches. Virgin Galactic is teasing us with space ports and commercial space flight. Things are a lot more interesting now then they were 10 years ago. Another 10 years into the future we might even see perhaps commercial space flight as a booming industry. Great time to be alive to be honest. Star Trek, Star Wars and other movies portrayed the human race as a star faring species and this has captured our imagination. I've always wandered though what the middle step would be like, that moment when humans start to slowly raise our eyes to the sky and venture more and more into outer space. It looks like 2015-2025 might be a very interesting period. A great time to sit back, get some popcorn and enjoy the view :)

I'm a bit worried about them going all Lord of the Flies on each other though. The initial group is going to be might small and mighty isolated for a long time...

For people that grown up reading tales of science fiction, this reality is very disappointing.
I guess no author of the sixties would imagine how little we would accomplish after 1969 in space exploration. Any trip to mars currently is still just a dream.
Colonization? Probably, none of us will see it. Maybe our sons or grandsons.

Marscoin!

To the Martian Moon!

While it would be cool to colonise Mars, it seems impractical due to Mars been completely barren and would require some sort of terraforming to make it a viable option. Also did anyone see that crowd funded Mars mission proposal that offered budding astronauts a one way ticket to Mars LOL :D.  I'm very interested to see if any of this will happen within my lifetime though.

If you are ready to live on Mars then many places on Earth might be a good alternative to this.  Try southern parts of Argentina or Northern Siberia.  Maybe make man made colonies.  There is all kinds of art about this written by people at Nasa in the 1960s. They predicted that we could have these things in orbit by the late 1980s.  Ha ha ha.

sdp

IIRC - Venus is supposedly a better choice than Mars.   Venus was arguably Earth until the greenhouse effect went out of control.  Once we know how to fix the greenhouse thing on Earth, we can presumably do the same on Venus.  The downside to Venus is the weaker magnetic field and the rotation cycle but it's a better candidate than Mars.


 

There is nothing like living in Mars. Humanity living only in earth is like putting humanities eggs in one basket. It only take one asteroid to slam earth, one mega volcano, one global war for humanity to go extinct.

If all funds channeled to military, useless coldwar it is ten times more than enough to go to mars and establish human colonies in space.  

IIRC - there are $97 Trillion in investments and another $400 trillion in derivatives.

NASA budget 2014:  $18 billion.
Military Budget: $500+ billion

Dot Com bubble $7 trillion at its' peak (sure most of it was a scam but now we have the internet as we know it)
Housing bubble $10 trillion

We would be in Alpha Centuri right now if we had trillions dedicated to space exploration. . .  but greed is such that people rather dump their money on the internet, in overvalued houses, et al.  Throwing $50 million dollar missiles to blow up a $50 shack in Iraq.  Et al.

Besides greenhouse in Venus, how can you survive its atmospheric pressure. It's acid rain. Mars is more habitable than Venus. Mars need little terraforming than Venus.

Not really - there's virtually no atmosphere on Mars (unless you believe the conspiracy theories that there are forests and lakes on Mars) and I don't think there's enough frozen gases on the surface to create one.

Venus on the other hand has gravity similiar to Earth and there are many theories on how we can remove the greenhouse and restart the magnetic field.  It doesn't even need to be high tech.  Bombarding the crap out of Venus with nuclear missiles would probably freeze a lot of the greenhouse effect (or destroy it) and several centuries later we would have a life habitable planet for earth algae and basic organisms.

You mean forever. It's a one-way trip. Not enough women for hooking up, fights, insanity...bad things could happen with the human psyche when he knows he will NEVER get home.

Haven't you seen "Total Recall"? Don't you know how this ends? :P

Yeah there is Martians, pyramids, a sphinx mountain, and shit.

If people go there they fucking stay there. No coming back with Martian crabs.

I`d still stay on this earth.

Despite its dying and what not lol.

I think first of all we need to create a machine that can terraform the planet. Then, we need to create a spaceship that can go faster from here to Mars to give resources to Mars residents. And then, i think, we should colonize Mars (as long as there are no signs of life on that planet).

As for the Moon, i think we should keep it as a International scientific facility, not as a residential area.

One meteor impact = gg