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Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

phys.org

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

#91

Post by setquk »

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...

I agree with this entirely. I don't think we will be jumping in starships and shooting ourselves all over the universe.

I think some form of self replicating technology we create will be dispatched en masse into the universe where it will float around for millions of years relying as much on probability as anything and blindly utilise resources as it goes. It will have no intelligence, just programmed to reproduce itself. And we will be the scurge of the universe.

I don't think 5-10k years is a major risk and doesn't require interstellar travel. I think we have closer problems on the horizon to deal with.

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

#92

Post by TomMarius »

fyfy18 wrote: post #77
TomMarius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO there is plenty of space left on Earth - oceans, deserts... Not saying that we should colonize all Earth, but IMO it'll happen way before any significant Mars population due to costs.

Its also worth mentioning there are plenty of places on Earth with pretty hospitable environments, it's not just deserts and the article circle. Yes cities are overcrowded, but that's just because people go there for jobs. My wife's grandmother lives in a remote part of Eastern Europe, the nearest small town with a supermarket is half an hour drive away and the nearest neighbour is a few km away. She (aged 78) grows…

Yes, agreed! There is so much space left, I really don't see any overpopulation (that's not isolated to certain places) happening anytime soon.

However these places lack the advantages like no government. Oceans are ideal for that, deserts less so.

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

#93

Post by richardknop »

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?

It's easier and much more efficient to get resources such as raw materials and metals from the ground. Being in the air without option of landing means you are completely dependent on import of raw materials to repair/expand your habitat. Very inefficient as well as not economical.

It might be cheaper to get to Venus than to Mars but on Mars you can actually start mining and building factories on the ground. At some point, it becomes much cheaper and more economical. It's just the initial hurdle of getting there with enough stuff and people to start a colony which can self sustain itself and grow.

Once you have brought enough initial stuff to Mars, you get to a point where you can start extracting materials from the ground and free up all the cargo in the ships for just people and perhaps some special items you still cannot manufacture on Mars. But majority of cargo space is freed up.

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

#94

Post by rimliu »

biffq wrote: post #37
enraged_camel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But surely terraforming a barren wasteland is going to be easier than terraforming a (relative) oasis of life! Actually, terraforming a barren wasteland might indeed be easier than preventing the oasis we have from being turned into a barren wasteland.

Bc u guys are pretending not to know that everything we are doing to destroy earth could terraform mars. Thankfully an inviolable astronomical honor code not only preserves the native conditions of another planet, it prevents countries from having a destructive proxy war on the planet to try to invasively experiment and “reform” it to their own ends. Anyway, space junk in the Earth’s orbit was also a very dangerous p…

You could not destroy Earth even if you tried. You can have some success in killing most of the humans and some other life forms.

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

#95

Post by MaxBarraclough »

coldtea wrote: post #72
thecopy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You think they'd let random "mavericks" go there without a police and guns and laws? The whole reason of spending trillions to get people there would be to exploit and control the shit out of the place...

We can put that another way: the odds of a populated Mars being an anarchist utopia are nil. Politics and power dynamics would remain.

Moving planets doesn't let you escape power-structures, and anarchism is still stupid - you still have to hope you get a good power-structure.

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

#96

Post by rimliu »

njarboe wrote: post #44
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

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…

I would not mind if all misanthropes went somewhere else and left humans on Earth alone.

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

#97

Post by richardknop »

cbkeller wrote: post #75
Sniffnoy wrote: post #34

Mightn't this indicate that life on Mars is less , not more, likely than we thought? Respiration is complicated, so I would expect any life that might have existed on Mars to be anaerobic. If there's actually enough oxygen to support aerobic life, that doesn't bode well for any anaerobic life, does it?

Geologist here. I would tend to agree, considering that present-day oxidizing conditions on mars are generally thought to be due to photolysis and hydrogen loss, not life/photosynthesis, e.g.: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2013.0999 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910350... Heck, Mars is so oxidized it has soils that are 0.5% perchorate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate…

What are the current thoughts on what caused oceans on Mars to disappear (with some remainder concentrating in ice caps)? Was it some impact of a really big meteor/comet? It is accepted that Mars used to have liquid water oceans and rivers in the past, correct? You can see geological remains of rivers and oceans, for example, quite clearly on Mars.

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

#98

Post by jacobush »

sebazzz wrote: post #81
thaumasiotes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From a technical perspective, no. It's easier to heat a dwelling from -100 degrees Celsius than to cool a dwelling from boiling, or above, temperatures.

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

#99

Post by fuscy »

I never understood why colonizing Mars is needed.

Even if a meteorite hits Earth or Yellowstone erupts, Earth would be more "hospitable" to life than any other planet in our solar system because Earth has a lot of resources that are right under our noses: breathable atmosphere, radiation shielding, easily mined metals and organic matter.

It's much easier to build and maintain a bio-dome in the Sahara desert, Arctic region, Cheyenne mountains or underwater than on Mars.

Earth at it's worst is much better than anywhere else in our solar system.

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