Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by skriticos2 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:45 AM UTC

fuscy wrote: post #99

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 r…

I concur. It's an interesting endeavour though - which mashes well with humanities impulse to progress and push the boundaries. Not everybody cares about that, but there are enough dreamers that marvel about humanity becoming an space faring civilization. The demand for science fiction is proof of that.

However, I personally don't understand why everyone wants to land on a dirtball that has a fraction of earths gravity. It will be crippling for the human physiology and pretty much precludes travel back to earth after a few generations of adaption.

I'd much prefer to build rotating orbital space stations that provide 1G centrifugal force. Easier on the body, better view out the window and no need to enter/escape gravity wells all the time. The dirtballs can be colonized by robots that don't care about gravity that much and can harvest resources for the stations.

Not that I have a say about this at all.

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

#142

Post by ianai » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:48 AM UTC

raducu wrote: post #121

fuscy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are terribly designed for space exploration: die quickly, require sustenance, can't handle high G forces, can't handle radiation. I always believed that if humanity is to colonize something, it would be through robots that do all the exploring and mining for us.

What's wrong with low G tolerance for interstellar travel? If speed of light is ~3 10^8, 1G ~ 10m/s^2, you would need (ignoring reletivistic effects) 3 10^7 seconds to reach the speed of light. There are 86400 seconds in a day, so you would need ~347 days to reach the speed of light if you were accelerating at 1G, were it not for relativistic effects.

Except relativistic effects are at play and iirc we don’t have “permanent” acceleration tech.

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

#143

Post by patricklouys » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:48 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #113

richardknop wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Assuming you overcome all the other difficulties and have a colony on Venus' skies, what prevents you from having ships that can go to…

Check out what happened to the Venera landers. It's really hostile at the surface.

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

#144

Post by ianai » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:52 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #101

fuscy wrote: post #99

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 r…

I can't see any path to colonising the galaxy that doesn't start with colonising the solar system. It's always going to be a long term project, there are always going to be things on earth that look like more immediate priorities, but I want humanity to spread among the stars, and if we don't start now then when?

more and more it sounds like the raw materials we need are available in the places we’d like to colonize - except energy. I’m starting to wonder whether once we have moved past fossil fuels if colonization beyond earth becomes dramatically easier.

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

#145

Post by Mankrik » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:54 AM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #35

jamesrcole wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a fresh start allows us to try out different ways of running societies and escape established structures. It's so hard to change things in established systems. I think there's pretty good historical evidence of this. The establishment of the USA is an example. It can be a good way to, over time, enact change within the established societies. A similar argument can be made that the unique technological challen…

I live in the central pacific. Out here, ecological collapse is real and happening now. >Massive coral die off from ocean acidification. >Rising sea levels salinating farm lands. >Rising sea levels causing saltwater contamination of aquifers. >Falling fish populations due to above factors as well as over fishing and pollution And then we have the space-people telling us that Terraformed Mars is achievable/desirable/a…

Perhaps taking your frustration out on the people who don't even believe climate change is real, and not the people looking to move humanity towards the stars would be more productive at getting people to care about these issues. Not the ones who have dedicated their careers to a certain scientific pursuit.

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

#146

Post by Mankrik » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 10:55 AM UTC

blhack wrote: post #9

verelo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because mars is a dev server. Earth is prod.

Mars is the remote backup, but it's empty. Now that's a terrifying thought.

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

#147

Post by Faark » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:00 AM UTC

fuscy wrote: post #99

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 r…

Others already mentioned benefits for us currently living humans.

Long term it is also interesting from an evolutionary aspect. Humans communities on earth are less and less isolated from each other, making it near impossible to evolve in different directions. That increases the risk of getting stuck in a bad local optimum.

Gravity well's are an isolating factor. Living on mars will require a highly isolated economy producing essential goods. Once that prove of concept exist can it be reproduced everywhere else in the solar system (or beyond).

Those communities would not be subject to many of the tragedy of the commons situations we have here on earth with our shared ecosystem. No climate change. No plastic in water. No gene manipulation. Hell, you can even build a space station for only white people, if you are into that. Down the line, we'll see what works best.

Earth being that highly interconnected / -depended makes it more peaceful than ever, so war might become a problem again. Communication is still somewhat easy, so working together will likely still be beneficial.

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

#148

Post by netcan » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

fuscy wrote: post #99

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 r…

I don't think you can really "justify" extraterrestrial colonization on critical, legible, practical grounds. There is no roi.

The real, immediate reasons are inspiration related. Some of that gets very practical, though it's always at least speculative. Technological spillover, for example, can be justification in itself. Earthen solidarity is maybe another, and I do actually think that the existence of a few of us elsewhere helps form the concept of "us." Both of these are "on mission" in the sense that they might be key to human survival.

Anyway... Mars colonization is a horizon goal. It's something to focus our minds. Practical activities are dictated by minor goals (eg visit Mars, generate energy locally, etc). A self sustainable mars colony that can survive earths vogon destruction is so far ahead that it's more of a symbol than anything.

We didn't have true practical reasons for going to the moon, or for the ISS either. The main reason is (imo) that space faring is a human mission, for its own sake.

No matter what though, I dont think space faring is something you could sell to your conservative money manager. It's imagination dependant (and inspiring)... a job for da Vinci, not Medici.

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

#149

Post by nkozyra » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:11 AM UTC

Faark wrote: post #147

fuscy wrote: post #99

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 r…

Others already mentioned benefits for us currently living humans. Long term it is also interesting from an evolutionary aspect. Humans communities on earth are less and less isolated from each other, making it near impossible to evolve in different directions. That increases the risk of getting stuck in a bad local optimum. Gravity well's are an isolating factor. Living on mars will require a highly isolated economy…

> That increases the risk of getting stuck in a bad local optimum.

This is an important concern, but I don't think it really improves on a space colony. To make it habitable the pool would be limited by size - and worse - by heavily controlled environment.

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

#150

Post by lmm » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:48 AM UTC

ianai wrote: post #142

raducu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with low G tolerance for interstellar travel? If speed of light is ~3 10^8, 1G ~ 10m/s^2, you would need (ignoring reletivistic effects) 3 10^7 seconds to reach the speed of light. There are 86400 seconds in a day, so you would need ~347 days to reach the speed of light if you were accelerating at 1G, were it not for relativistic effects.

Except relativistic effects are at play and iirc we don’t have “permanent” acceleration tech.

> iirc we don’t have “permanent” acceleration tech

Which is exactly why low G-tolerance doesn't matter. You have a limited amount of delta-V, whether you apply it all in one go or spread out over a year makes little difference given the timescales that are already involved in interstellar travel.