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How Will We Get Off Mars?

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Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#51

Post by maerF0x0 »

lisper wrote: post #25

This is probably not going to be a very popular position but I'm going to say it anyway: there is no rational reason to bring a human back from Mars. In fact, there are precious few rational reasons to send a human to Mars to begin with. Robot technology has advanced to the point where they can do all the science better than we can. The only reason to send humans to Mars is to colonize, and if we're going to think se…

I think your position is extremely defensible. I'd suggest that we should be sending many robots to Mars in order to bootstrap an economy of sorts. Things like food production, shelter etc could all be done by robots before the first human arrives. The first humans could arrive to crops ready to harvest, fully constructed compounds/shelters. IMO we should be sending robots and supplies now (just as big of payloads of fuel, tools, robots, food) as we can. Later we send people who can continue to build w/ what was previously sent.

Sadly its not a popular exercise to say "We're spending billions to send a bunch of solar panels to mars, though no one will use them for decades..."

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#52

Post by Pinckney »

Nadya wrote: post #46
mattstreet wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that such a priority for people? Why can't we just worry about taking better care of the people we have NOW?

We could treat everyone like millionaires and that wouldn't make an ounce of difference to anyone if our entire species went extinct. Absolutely no treatment we can give to one another prevents a catastrophic event from wiping us all out. A catastrophic event isn't going to stop and think "Oh hey, humans are treating each other nicely. Maybe I shouldn't wipe them all out?"

Why is the perpetuation of Homo Sapiens a moral imperative?

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#53

Post by teddyh »

lisper wrote: post #25

This is probably not going to be a very popular position but I'm going to say it anyway: there is no rational reason to bring a human back from Mars. In fact, there are precious few rational reasons to send a human to Mars to begin with. Robot technology has advanced to the point where they can do all the science better than we can. The only reason to send humans to Mars is to colonize, and if we're going to think se…

“If scientific knowledge was all we were after, then the Federation would have built a fleet of probes, not starships. Exploration is about seeing things with your own eyes.”

— Captain Kathryn Janeway, One Small Step, Star Trek Voyager Season 6, Episode 8

(Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8751282)

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#54

Post by crpatino »

Nadya wrote: post #30
lisper wrote: post #25

This is probably not going to be a very popular position but I'm going to say it anyway: there is no rational reason to bring a human back from Mars. In fact, there are precious few rational reasons to send a human to Mars to begin with. Robot technology has advanced to the point where they can do all the science better than we can. The only reason to send humans to Mars is to colonize, and if we're going to think se…

>if we're going to think seriously about colonizing Mars, we ought to think seriously about colonizing the arctic and antarctic first. And with this you completely miss the reason why we need to colonize away from our planet. What if a catastrophic event completely destroyed all life on Earth - the poles included? All of humanity. Wiped out in a single event. Getting people onto Mars is the first step to making sure…

Let's assume life insurance would cost half of my salary, and pay merely 5 years of my current salary in the case of my untimely demise. I feel healthy enough and confident enough to find a cheaper plan an put the difference in government bonds, so that my family is not 100% unprotected but have my future self - who will probably be still alive - collect most of the benefits in a decade or so.

Colonizing the Artic/Antartic is way cheaper than Mars, and would help us pick most of the low hanging fruit research for a fraction of the cost. We can always do Mars later if that is the way history turned out.

Not to mention that there are much more dire and certain risks today, which will likely cause huge loss of life and property (like climate change, or resource depletion, or geopolitical instability). But because those are not extinction level events, people do not freak out about them and little mitigation is being done.

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#55

Post by Mvandenbergh »

arrrg wrote: post #9

I always thought that the Lunar Module† was the single coolest piece of technology of the Apollo program. (Sorry Saturn V, raw power doesn’t really do it for me and beyond that you are mostly … boring.) It’s such an astonishing accomplishment to build something so lightweight, so complex, so versatile in such a short amount of time. It’s astonishing that it came together at all. And worked! Every single time, even be…

The Lunar Module is the only real space-ship we've ever built. Everything else has been essentially designed around getting into or out of Earth's gravity and atmosphere.

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#56

Post by lawpoop »

bashinator wrote: post #49
lisper wrote: post #25

This is probably not going to be a very popular position but I'm going to say it anyway: there is no rational reason to bring a human back from Mars. In fact, there are precious few rational reasons to send a human to Mars to begin with. Robot technology has advanced to the point where they can do all the science better than we can. The only reason to send humans to Mars is to colonize, and if we're going to think se…

I believe Bill Nye put it this way - a human geologist can do the same work as our current Mars rovers, but 100-1000x faster. So what takes a week for a rover might take a few minutes for a human walking on the surface.

And cost how much more? More than 1000x more? It's probably economically worth it to just send probes. Better yet, swarms of mini-probes: http://news.mit.edu/2006/microbots

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#57

Post by lawpoop »

Pinckney wrote: post #52
Nadya wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could treat everyone like millionaires and that wouldn't make an ounce of difference to anyone if our entire species went extinct. Absolutely no treatment we can give to one another prevents a catastrophic event from wiping us all out. A catastrophic event isn't going to stop and think "Oh hey, humans are treating each other nicely. Maybe I shouldn't wipe them all out?"

Why is the perpetuation of Homo Sapiens a moral imperative?

The people who think going to Mars is a good idea will go to Mars, procreate, and slowly fill the galaxy. They will out-compete the Earth-bounders. Darwinian evolution.

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#58

Post by Nadya »

Pinckney wrote: post #52
Nadya wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could treat everyone like millionaires and that wouldn't make an ounce of difference to anyone if our entire species went extinct. Absolutely no treatment we can give to one another prevents a catastrophic event from wiping us all out. A catastrophic event isn't going to stop and think "Oh hey, humans are treating each other nicely. Maybe I shouldn't wipe them all out?"

Why is the perpetuation of Homo Sapiens a moral imperative?

Why is being nice to others a moral imperative? In fact - why should any decision be based off morals?

The continuation and survival of the human race is the top priority among a large population of people. Some contribute by researching new medicines (Why do this?), others improve quality of life for others (Why do this?), others have children (Why do this?), and others look for a way to get us away from a potentially doomed planet in case of disaster scenarios. They all have the same reasoning - just different methods.

Morals are subjective to a population. The majority population of humanity has decided that continuation of "us" is a "good thing".

Of course, one could argue things would be better off if humanity went extinct. But that isn't in humanities' best interests (read: survival), so people generally wouldn't agree with you.

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#59

Post by Mvandenbergh »

ams6110 wrote: post #2

I think the first humans on mars will go with the understanding that it's a one-way trip. And there will no doubt be people willing to sign on for that.

Unless they're almost entirely self sufficient very early on, that means an open ended spending commitment by whoever is running the programme. You can't cancel the programme because the colonists will die.

Re: How Will We Get Off Mars?

#60

Post by Pinckney »

lawpoop wrote: post #57
Pinckney wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the perpetuation of Homo Sapiens a moral imperative?

The people who think going to Mars is a good idea will go to Mars, procreate, and slowly fill the galaxy. They will out-compete the Earth-bounders. Darwinian evolution.

And this should affect my behavior why?

If I cared about perpetuating my DNA, I'd donate to sperm banks to produce more genetic offspring than I have any hope of supporting on my own. From the Darwinian perspective, I would be regarded as enormously successful.

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