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How settling Mars could create a new human species

nautil.us

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Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#71

Post by gnode »

hourislate wrote: post #30

It looks like we have to overcome the technological hurdles of creating gravity and some kind of shielding (invisible) that can protect humans from radiation. Steady power would be required. Curious if wind power could be used. If Musk could send a rocket to Mars that was basically a huge wind turbine that would anchor itself and unfold its blades, couldn't it create enough power to provide for a small contingent of…

Artificial gravity can be created with a centrifuge, and pretty much anything with mass will shield you from radiation. Currently making a centrifugal spacecraft lined with radiation shielding would be too costly. The cost efficiency of rapidly reusable spacecraft could make such solutions to these problems affordable.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#72

Post by molsongolden »

mmanfrin wrote: post #41

Yes, but they will be closer to Earthers than the Belters will be, sa sa? ( The Expanse covers ideas like this; inner planets (Earth and Mars) are more like-now human, but those who grew up on space stations and asteroids, aka 'Belters', are physically different, taller, lankier)

Awesome to see this in the comments. The Expanse does a neat job of working through some socio-political thought experiments.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#73

Post by Damian_Reloaded »

wyager wrote: post #37
dfar1 wrote: post #9

The idea of colonizing another planets is so surreal it makes me wish I would live another 100 years. Having mars as our launch pad, I wonder where we could go from there.

Strictly speaking, it should be possible for humans to go interstellar using current technology. Practically speaking, it's not, due to the partial nuclear test ban treaty. Here's a good start to that Wikipedia hole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propu...

The problem with interstellar travel is that the distances are so huge that there is a high probability of having a catastrophic crash. Particularly at the speeds required.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#74

Post by qbrass »

SixSigma wrote: post #52
wyager wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking, it should be possible for humans to go interstellar using current technology. Practically speaking, it's not, due to the partial nuclear test ban treaty. Here's a good start to that Wikipedia hole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propu...

What about when Mars declares independence from Earth and develops nuclear capability ?

Earth's politicians scapegoat the Martians for being the cause of all their problems, then strike first once they discover them working on nukes.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#75

Post by AJ007 »

mc32 wrote: post #3

A different question altogether, but interesting none the less, let's say Russia or China get to colonize Mars first, then let's say they find a safe way to thrive there. could they then by extension manage new colonization of Mars the same way we colonized earth? That is the colonizer could regulate who might get to further colonize Mars --ie require a kind of interplanetary visa (if we allow many people from many p…

Given the success rate of holding on to local colonies nearby on earth, my guess is it won't last and Mars would become independent at some point.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#76

Post by jack9 »

fao_ wrote: post #31
jack9 wrote: post #28

This is pretty backwards. We will genetically engineer humans to live on Mars. This is the only way it can work. Any genetic drift would be optimized and changed by the same biotechnology, so there's no chance that a new species would be created in less than a millenia.

Genetically engineering someone to live on Mars could itself create enough of a difference that a new species could be created

Yes, but that wasn't covered by the article. The title references post-speciation.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#77

Post by edblarney »

Damian_Reloaded wrote: post #69
edblarney wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living on Mars = living inside a crapped space your entire life and never being able to breathe fresh air, or take a walk outside. Maybe in 1000 years Mars will be nice. I think until then - nice for a short visit. Living in a box would get tiring very, very quickly.

VR is going to help in this regard. Will VR be able to be a good replacement for a walk over the forest? I think it will. I didn't need VR to trade my outside activities for indoor, climatized comfy online ones. Although it's probably true that spending years inside a submarine isn't for everyone.

"Will VR be able to be a good replacement for a walk over the forest?"

Maybe in 200 years, when it's neurologically attached to our brains.

Until them, no :)

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#78

Post by Damian_Reloaded »

amorphid wrote: post #33

Could Mars ever be terraformed to the point a human, or human derivative, could operate comfortably in the open atmosphere? It seems pretty cold, air pressure is low, and there's little-to-no protection from solar radiation.

Giving Mars an atmosphere is pretty much out of the question. Even digging a 20km deep hole in Hellas Planitia to achieve a pressure above the Armstrong limit is more plausible.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#79

Post by martey »

wyager wrote: post #70
martey wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of that article deals with interplanetary travel. The only reference to interstellar travel is in the "Theoretical Applications" section. If you look at the chart in that section, you will note that the two theoretical spacecraft are using 300 thousand or 30 million bombs. This is a problem, since estimates of current worldwide nuclear weapon stockpiles range between 10 to 15 thousand. I think https://en.wikiped…

I know. That's why I said Project Orion was only the start of a Wikipedia hole.

My point is that you explicitly claimed that human interstellar travel is possible with current nuclear propulsion methods. Project Orion doesn't support this claim (since Dyson's models require a number of nuclear weapons several orders of magnitude larger that current stockpiles). Other similar projects don't support this claim either, since they use unmanned spacecraft. I referenced the Stross blog posts because finding a reasonable propulsion system is only one new technology that needs to be invented before human interstellar travel is possible.

If you have other sources (Wikipedia articles or otherwise) that suggest differently, please feel free to post them.

Re: How settling Mars could create a new human species

#80

Post by qbrass »

tomp wrote: post #49
azdle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the Outer Space Treaty [1]: > The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet.[3] Art. II of the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". However, the State that launches a space object reta…

This treaty only binds the governments that signed it, i.e. only the governments of Earth. If people colonize Mars, couldn't they create a new (local) government that would then be able to claim sovereignty of the planet?

It's no different than making your yard a sovereignty. Nobody else on Earth has to recognize it, and it's up to you to defend it from anyone willing to take it for themselves.
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