Colonizing Mars

[nthunder]

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

[dogechode]

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...

[r34tr783tr78]

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.

[coinits]

Marscoin!

To the Martian Moon!

[Unluckyduck]

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 .  I'm very interested to see if any of this will happen within my lifetime though.

[sdp]

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

[TaunSew]

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.


 

[jaberwock]

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

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.  

[TaunSew]

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

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.

[jaberwock]

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.


 

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.

[TaunSew]

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.


 

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.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

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...

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.

[DannyElfman]

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

[coinits]

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

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

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

[deebob]

I`d still stay on this earth.

Despite its dying and what not lol.

[DAYAGO]

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.

[Quartx]

One meteor impact = gg