Russian roadmap to Solar System colonisation. Moon is the first step.

[dogechode]

The moon is a dead rock. Mars is a PLANET with WATER. A base on the moon probably couldn't be self-sufficient for a long time, a base on mars could be the start of an entire secondary planet. They could terraform the planet, access the water supply, grow plants, turn it into a second earth more or less... the moon is mainly just strategic value.

Once a colony was established on Mars after some initial setup and supply periods it could easily become self-sustaining and even profitable. You wouldn't have to harvest materials and send them back to earth to make a return on the investment and please let's NOT DO THAT anyhow. What, we strip this planet dry and then rape another planet? That's not a good plan and then what happens when we strip mars dry? Better to learn how to make do with what we have, improve recycling and environmental cleanup technologies, etc.

A colony on Mars could do all kinds of other work that don't require delivery of a physical product in order to pay back the setup costs. They could write code, do research, etc... think a little wider than just "we take shiny metal from ground!"

[Nemo1024]

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is an interesting read in that regard.

[dogechode]

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is an interesting read in that regard.

I read the first one (Red Mars) but it was really hard to get through. It's like hundreds and hundreds of pages and about 80% of it is description... he will go on for like 3 pages about how rough and craggly the wall of a cliff is.

[Nemo1024]

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is an interesting read in that regard.

I read the first one (Red Mars) but it was really hard to get through. It's like hundreds and hundreds of pages and about 80% of it is description... he will go on for like 3 pages about how rough and craggly the wall of a cliff is.

I listened to all three as audiobooks. Works much better for this type of narrative. What I found fascinating is that in the first and the second book he covered most of what would be needed to a colonisation of Mars, and which hurdles would need to be overcome. And it all was plausible, using for the large part already-existing technology or derivatives of it.

[dogechode]

To his credit, he did also bring up some very real issues that will likely be encountered by colonists on Mars. Eventually there's bound to be some tension between people who grow up on Mars or have spent more of their life there than on Earth, and who never intend to return to Earth, and the people of Earth. Earth starts to run low on something and decides to take it from Mars; Mars says go to hell... etc.

[Nemo1024]

Which in essence happens now on a smaller scale all over the world with colonial powers and transnats (I like this term he coined).

[counter]

I think using the moon as a building block is an excellent ideal.  Don't know how these different countries will get along when they all have the same goals and can't even get along on earth..  Something tells me there will be more tension in the future over the ownership of land in the solar system mainly mars and saturn.

[Kiki112]

To his credit, he did also bring up some very real issues that will likely be encountered by colonists on Mars. Eventually there's bound to be some tension between people who grow up on Mars or have spent more of their life there than on Earth, and who never intend to return to Earth, and the people of Earth. Earth starts to run low on something and decides to take it from Mars; Mars says go to hell... etc.

that would be interesting and quite true

Mars would probably become an independent planet sooner or later but it is not impossible that dictator countries from here could keep the Mars to themselves with an iron fist

[dogechode]

If memory serves, the gravity on mars is also much greater than that on the moon. This is a major factor that shouldn't be ignored. It affects people both physically and psychologically and makes a big difference in construction, safety, etc.

[dogechode]

A colony on Mars could do all kinds of other work that don't require delivery of a physical product in order to pay back the setup costs. They could write code, do research, etc... think a little wider than just "we take shiny metal from ground!"

This is true, but tertiary activities like this would only be sustainable if substantial primary (agriculture) and secondary (manufacturing etc.) economies already exist on the colony. If they don't, then either the vast majority of a colonist's time must be spent on subsistence, making them inefficient coders/scientists, or they must live off supplies sent from Earth. For people doing Mars research, the latter is a viable option because the colonists would be in a unique position, but are you going to hire a programmer or consultant etc. if you have to pay the transport cost for their food?

Lol naturally I did mean after substantial facilities were already in place. I'm saying like once the farms and power and air supply systems are all up and running smoothly, they could start to add colonists who do other functions to generate income for the colony, that don't require a physical product to be sent back to Earth.

There has also been a lot of support for a project to create a reality TV show about the first colonists on Mars, and the profits from that would be used to fund the colony.

They could also create art, I'm sure National Geographic and similar companies would pay a fortune for photos and videos of the martian landscape/terrain, etc the possibilities are definitely there if you think hard enough.

[Spendulus]

The moon is a dead rock. Mars is a PLANET with WATER. A base on the moon probably couldn't be self-sufficient for a long time, a base on mars could be the start of an entire secondary planet. They could terraform the planet, access the water supply, grow plants, turn it into a second earth more or less... the moon is mainly just strategic value.

Once a colony was established on Mars after some initial setup and supply periods it could easily become self-sustaining and even profitable. You wouldn't have to harvest materials and send them back to earth to make a return on the investment and please let's NOT DO THAT anyhow. What, we strip this planet dry and then rape another planet? That's not a good plan and then what happens when we strip mars dry? Better to learn how to make do with what we have, improve recycling and environmental cleanup technologies, etc.

A colony on Mars could do all kinds of other work that don't require delivery of a physical product in order to pay back the setup costs. They could write code, do research, etc... think a little wider than just "we take shiny metal from ground!"

What the hell are you talking about? The moon IS a dead rock, all it is good for is taking shiny metal from the ground.  That's 1/6 G, meaning the moon is where you get materials for outward bound, including your vision of Mars colonization.

Therefore, I can show how the Moon industry is profitable, while by nature of your comments about Mars becoming self sufficient and "Not sending materials back"....

I'm not seeing at all how Mars pays for itself...

Oh, final comment, Mars cannot become "Earth like" through terraforming.  No radiation belts to deflect solar wind, so no long term O2 buildup in the air.

[bryant.coleman]

Gravity on Mars is ~1/3g, compared to ~1/6g on the moon. Thus humans do better physiologically and psychologically on Mars, but construction and manufacturing are easier on the moon.

It also means that it's much cheaper to get into space from the moon than from Mars.

Because of the dangers from Cosmic radiation, the would-be settlers to Mars and Moon would be forced to wear space-suits all the time. How they are going to do better physiologically, when they are forced to wear the suits 24*7, continuously for many years?

[TheButterZone]

After listening to http://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-science-in-movies-and-tv/ I wondered, what would be the butter zone for moon reflectivity in relation to the earth, if it could be finely adjusted? For example, how reflective at full phase would it need to be, to provide sufficient light at night for most people to not need artificial illumination outside, but also not harm all life on earth?

[Wilikon]

The moon is a dead rock. Mars is a PLANET with WATER. A base on the moon probably couldn't be self-sufficient for a long time, a base on mars could be the start of an entire secondary planet. They could terraform the planet, access the water supply, grow plants, turn it into a second earth more or less... the moon is mainly just strategic value.

Once a colony was established on Mars after some initial setup and supply periods it could easily become self-sustaining and even profitable. You wouldn't have to harvest materials and send them back to earth to make a return on the investment and please let's NOT DO THAT anyhow. What, we strip this planet dry and then rape another planet? That's not a good plan and then what happens when we strip mars dry? Better to learn how to make do with what we have, improve recycling and environmental cleanup technologies, etc.

A colony on Mars could do all kinds of other work that don't require delivery of a physical product in order to pay back the setup costs. They could write code, do research, etc... think a little wider than just "we take shiny metal from ground!"

NASA-Funded Scientists Detect Water on Moon's Surface that Hints at Water Below


PASADENA - NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface. Using data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon's interior, on the surface of the moon.

The findings, published Aug. 25 in Nature Geoscience, represent the first detection of this form of water from lunar orbit. Earlier studies had shown the existence of magmatic water in lunar samples returned during NASA's Apollo program.

M3 imaged the lunar impact crater Bullialdus, which lies near the lunar equator. Scientists were interested in studying this area because they could better quantify the amount of water inside the rocks due to the crater's location and the type of rocks it held. The central peak of the crater is made up of a type of rock that forms deep within the lunar crust and mantle when magma is trapped underground.

"This rock, which normally resides deep beneath the surface, was excavated from the lunar depths by the impact that formed Bullialdus crater," said Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.

"Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl - a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom -- which is evidence that the rocks in this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface," Klima said.

In 2009, M3 provided the first mineralogical map of the lunar surface and discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. This water is thought to be a thin layer formed from solar wind hitting the moon's surface. Bullialdus crater is in a region with an unfavorable environment for solar wind to produce significant amounts of water on the surface.

"NASA missions like Lunar Prospector and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite and instruments like M3 have gathered crucial data that fundamentally changed our understanding of whether water exists on the surface of the moon," said S. Pete Worden, center director at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Similarly, we hope that upcoming NASA missions such as the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, will change our understanding of the lunar sky."

The detection of internal water from orbit means scientists can begin to test some of the findings from sample studies in a broader context, including in regions that are far from where the Apollo sites are clustered on the near side of the moon. For many years, researchers believed that the rocks from the moon were bone-dry and any water detected in the Apollo samples had to be contamination from Earth.

"Now that we have detected water that is likely from the interior of the moon, we can start to compare this water with other characteristics of the lunar surface," said Klima. "This internal magmatic water also provides clues about the moon's volcanic processes and internal composition, which helps us address questions about how the moon formed, and how magmatic processes changed as it cooled."

The Moon Mineralogy Mapper was selected as a Mission of Opportunity through the NASA Discovery Program. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., designed and built the Moon Mineralogy Mapper and is home to its project manager, Mary White. JPL managed the program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Carle Pieters of Brown University, Providence, R.I., was the principal investigator. Joshua Cahill and David Lawrence of APL and Justin Hagerty of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Ariz., co-authored the paper. The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was constructed, launched, and is operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-262

[bryant.coleman]

Who is having this sort of money?

After discussions with potential suppliers for each component and close examination, Mars One estimates the cost of putting the first four people on Mars at six billion US$. The six billion figure is the cost of all the hardware combined, plus the operational expenditures, plus margins. For every next manned mission, Mars One estimates the costs at four billion US$.

[bryant.coleman]

This is a disadvantage of the moon. Mars has a persistent (albeit thin) atmosphere, the radiation dose on the surface is not significant. They would only need shielding on the outward trip.

As I have already stated, a one-way trip to Mars will take 18 months. I don't know whether the human body can endure that much cosmic radiation. No one has ever been exposed for that long.

[Nemo1024]

So why not just call it a HUMAN roadmap? All this nationalistic pride is getting on my nerves.

What if China decides to annex Vladivostok in retaliation for Russia's refusal to allow them to put "Made in China" stickers on the Russian rockets? How can scientists and mathematicians work in such a tense environment?

Mine as well. We are in complete agreement there. I see the future of space exploration only as a joint human venture.

The title of the thread comes from the nature of news announcement in the OP. I am glad that the discussion evolved to cover a much wider aspect.

[dogechode]

This is a disadvantage of the moon. Mars has a persistent (albeit thin) atmosphere, the radiation dose on the surface is not significant. They would only need shielding on the outward trip.

As I have already stated, a one-way trip to Mars will take 18 months. I don't know whether the human body can endure that much cosmic radiation. No one has ever been exposed for that long.

I don't know where you keep getting these ideas. First, they aren't going to send them across the galaxy in a plastic bubble, whatever ship they use would obviously be shielded. You keep saying they're going to get exposed to radiation like that hasn't been thoroughly discussed and addressed. The point is there would be MORE of a radiation problem on the moon.

Because of the dangers from Cosmic radiation, the would-be settlers to Mars and Moon would be forced to wear space-suits all the time. How they are going to do better physiologically, when they are forced to wear the suits 24*7, continuously for many years?

They would do better (psychologically and physiologically) on Mars than they would on the moon. Living in low gravity is not fun. Imagine eating, drinking, moving around, getting exercise, working in an environment where everything has to be strapped down, even taking a dump - in almost no gravity. Yeah not fun.

[Wilikon]

Last year, China announced that it plans to established a manned colony on the Moon as well. I wonder if the two nations would collaborate in this endeavour.

So why not just call it a HUMAN roadmap? All this nationalistic pride is getting on my nerves.

What if China decides to annex Vladivostok in retaliation for Russia's refusal to allow them to put "Made in China" stickers on the Russian rockets? How can scientists and mathematicians work in such a tense environment?

The HUMAN Olympiad? The HUMAN World Cup? The HUMAN Eurovision? All examples nationalistic pride.

[dogechode]

If it was a joint project they could call it the "International -----" like they did with the space station.

We tend to call things like this by the country that is behind it because we are all still at each others' throats and countries distrust each other (sadly, with good reason.) Everyone is paranoid that if the Russians or Chinese or Americans build a base on the moon they will use it as a military installation.