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Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

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Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#81

Post by sebazzz »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #71
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #4

Things I know about Mars: >No oceans >No plants >No phytoplankton >Massive planetwide dust storms lasting several months >Average surface temperatures at or below freezing >Space suit required Things I know about Earth: >Drinking water falls from the sky >Food grows on trees >Breathable atmosphere >Clothing optional in most areas >I can feel actual sunlight on my face every day

To be fair, most of your Earth facts don't apply to the more inhospitable areas of Earth, where people live anyway. The Sahara and the Arctic both feature a breathable atmosphere. The Arctic is missing the other four items. The Sahara will let you feel sunlight on your face if you want, but it isn't really recommended. "Breathable atmosphere" is a much bigger deal than everything else.

True, and heat. We can tolerate heat better than cold, also from a technical perspective. Heat can be used for energy production as well.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#82

Post by richardknop »

rohit2412 wrote: post #63
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well people often argue that part of the reason we're making this planet inhabitable is because there are too many people on it, so they have a fanciful notion of moving some of those excess people to another planet. which is sort of nonsensical. However spreading your species across two self-supporting planets makes a planet ending catastrophe less likely to destroy your species. The knowledge gained from any large…

I doubt outside of gamma ray bursts if anything can actually wipe out all humanity. And even then, a nuclear bunker on the Earth is far more habitable than any non settlement. In fact, I'll argue that any money spent on vanity Mars settlements is going to save more lives in a calamity if it is spent helping developing countries lift people out of poverty. > although I have to think it should be easy enough to see how…

Meteor or comet strike can easily wipe us all out just as it did Dinosaurs. And new science is suggesting impacts such as the one that killed off dinosaurs are more frequent than previously thought. So a big one (not necessarily as big as to completely end life on Earth but with potential to kills hundreds of millions if not billions of people and/or at the very least end our civilisation and set us back hundreds of years) could be happening every couple of tens of thousands of years instead of hundreds of millions of years as previously thought.

And smaller impacts that might not completely wipe us off but could cause millions of casualties are possibly even more frequent. Something like Tunguska meteor can potentially kill millions of people if it hits a big metropolis given our current population density. If it hits Tokyo or New York instead of middle of nowhere in Siberia, it would be devastating.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#83

Post by otabdeveloper1 »

ElBarto wrote: post #46
njarboe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things I know about Mars: No established legal or social framework. Things I know about Earth: Probability of finding a place to be left alone with a small group of like minded people. 0 A certain type of person is interested in living a life where they have a large amount of control over the political and social systems they live with. The American frontier was an ideal place for such people to move to. Many took ad…

The upper atmosphere of Venus is actually the closest to Earth conditions we have in the solar system. Just float around in an airtight habitat. Gravity is the same as on Earth, pressure is the same, temperature is 25C. You literally only need to be airtight to keep the noxious atmosphere at bay.

Another benefit is that getting to Venus is a lot cheaper than getting to Mars.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#84

Post by patricklouys »

coldtea wrote: post #73
patricklouys wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where do you get additional resources?

By closed-system agriculture and farming and so on. Why, where would you get them on Mars?

From the ground. Building materials etc.

If you want to build a closed system, it doesn't make sense to put it into a gravity well.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#85

Post by grey-area »

verelo wrote: post #6
dymk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely terraforming a barren wasteland is going to be easier than terraforming a (relative) oasis of life! But in all seriousness, the point of colonizing Mars is not to be a replacement for Earth (although redundancy is quite motivating). It's because colonization and population growth has been our MO for the last 200,000 years.

But, why fixate on turning one planet into “habitable” while we do the opposite to the one we are already on? I’d like to see us address those issues of society first before we spread our influence across the literal galaxy.

I’d like to see us address those issues of society first

Those problems cannot be solved - finding balance is a continual process and part of being human, they will always be with us.

Also what impact have you made on those issues on Earth? Far less than Musk with Tesla and Solar City I’d wager. It’s easy to commentate on decisions others make, and hard to make real progress.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#86

Post by newnewpdro »

coldtea wrote: post #76
brigade wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're arguing species-level survival, really we're going to survive longer than that, short of a meteor strike or maybe nuclear war. Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion year…

> Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. Why? Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily, and they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did.

I think it's mostly because the same abilities enabling us to do so much long-term (self-)destruction in slow motion will enable at least some of us to always be able to conquer the immediate threats to survival.

No other species on the planet has attained a comparable ability to bend the environment to its needs like we have. Everything's had to evolve to live in differing conditions. We start fires, invent and build air conditioners, etc.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#87

Post by richardknop »

rohit2412 wrote: post #59
short_sells_poo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a school of thought that it is only a matter of time until an asteroid or or supervolcano causes another extinction event and unless humanity develops mass spacefaring and colonization capabilities, it won't matter how well we cared for our planet. I think both efforts are absolutely necessary for the survival of our species.

1) humans aren't going extinct, given how much we can change our environment to our comfort, human species will survive meteorites and volcanoes. And even if we do, a self sufficient colony in a nuclear bunker or in Antarctica or on the surface of the ocean is likely to survive these events too. Being spacefaring makes no sense for survival, it does for science, but not for survival. projects 2) I would argue that pu…

How do you suggest human species to survive a big impact of meteor or comet? Something like the one in Younger Dryas which ended the ice age (11-12k ago). Tsunamis tall several hundreds of feet wiping out all coastal areas (where most people live as those are most comfortable areas), huge earthquakes and fires that burn down majority of fauna overnight.

Then followed by a plunge in temperature that will be the last nail in the coffin of whatever agricultural capability we have left after most of the civilisation was washed away. It seems difficult for me to imagine how we could survive that. I agree that it probably wouldn't kill of entire species but it would definitely end the modern civilisation and set the survivors back hundreds/thousands of years.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#88

Post by biffq »

coldtea wrote: post #74
ryanSrich wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to start somewhere that isn’t earth. Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expect to survive that long. Starting development now to understand terraforming and building out the primitives that allow for it in the future is something we owe to generations to come.

> Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expect to survive that long. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

Hello I just wanted to say that out of the infinite numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal, human.

“If u breathin u achievin”

  ㅓㅁ.먀 - ㅌ

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#89

Post by richardknop »

thecopy wrote: post #67
onion2k wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No established legal or social framework. Not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

And where are the weapons to enforce this? - "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"

If you can get to Mars then the US military can certainly do so. The government would certainly deploy some power structures (police force and/or soldiers) on Mars once a sizeable colony is built there (let's say couple hundred colonists that can self sustain themselves). To keep order and enforce laws and potentially, if the colony grows enough to have a functioning economy, to collect taxes.

Re: Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

#90

Post by coldtea »

biffq wrote: post #88
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interstellar travel over the next 100-1000 years will be a requirement for the next 5000-10000 years if humans expect to survive that long. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

Hello I just wanted to say that out of the infinite numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal, human. “If u breathin u achievin” ㅓㅁ.먀 - ㅌ

>Hello I just wanted to say out of the incredible numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal.

Numerical odds are not the same as laws of nature like e.g. the speed of light or the economics of the energy required and so on. Odds are quite low to win the lottery too, but someone always does. Few have travelled faster than the speed of light though (superman comes to mind), or any other of the many physical limitations to overcome.

And the fact that we went from carriages to planes doesn't guarantee any continuous growth to interstellar travel. Not the fact that we're "ingenious" (whatever that means) or that we "really want it".

Plus, I'm not even sure about the odds being that low (for all we know life can also be easy to develop over time as long as they have some basic conditions, similar to which we know tons of planets in the universe to have).

But sure, no actual on-topic arguments needed, whatever keeps the faith alive...

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