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Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

gizmodo.com

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Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#51

Post by jandrese »

cbanek wrote: post #22
zeristor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s one of the things I’m curious about regarding the Curiousity rover’s RTG. How efficient is convection cooling in order to maintain the thermal gradient to generate electricity? It has radiator fins, so I assume that’s the main form of cooling over radiation; but with such a thin atmosphere I wouldn’t have that it could take away that much heat.

Many deep space probes in vacuum have RTG's as well (like Voyager), and they can radiate the heat just fine. Also, over time of course the amount of power and heat they generate lessens.

Isn't the power reduction due to radioactive decay of the fuel? Not that the radiators become less effective over time.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#52

Post by david-gpu »

nolok wrote: post #28
tectonic wrote: post #10

Yes, and 640K of memory should be enough for anybody.

Difference being that one was not actually said by Gates: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the--640k--quo...

Besides, it's a reasonable thing to say in specific contexts. Never understood why it is used to ridicule.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#53

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

rndmize wrote: post #26

The fastest and easiest way to colonize space is to advance cybernetics to being able to transfer a human brain into a machine one. At that point, you can custom-build any kind of machine body designed for pretty much any environment, saving the trouble of adapting to the new environment through genetics (messy, slow, difficult to test) or bringing the environment with you (terraforming, purpose-build earth-like faci…

"Transfering" a human mind isn't necessary. If we can create a machine mind capable of similar cognition to a human one, then that's close enough. It will effectively be our offspring.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#54

Post by colordrops »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #39
nolok wrote: post #7

The way I see it, there are two goals to human space travels. The first, very distant one, is to seed ourselves among the stars to avoid being erased from existence by anything that would threaten our existence on earth, from man made cataclysm to natural event. The second, with much more immediate result on a human scale, is that every time we face such a challenge it's only an opportunity for us to develop a new te…

I can get behind that, but really we ought to colonize Antarctica first (as in, with a self-sustaining colony). It's a much easier target and still presents significant challenges.

There isn't the forcing function of being really hard to get there, so it doesn't interest people to build self contained habitations on earth. It was tried a few times without much success, for example with the Biosphere project.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#55

Post by jandrese »

jpm_sd wrote: post #46

This is a really well-written, thorough article. Here's another way to think about it: Before we try to colonize Mars, we should try colonizing Canada. It's warmer than Mars! It has air and water, so it should be easy! And yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/Fi...

Or we could colonize the southern Pacific ocean. It's virtually empty of human habitation and although a permanent colony will be difficult to establish, it's still orders of magnitude cheaper and easier than Mars.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#56

Post by danbruc »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #34
ashtonbaker wrote: post #8

> Air pressure on Mars is very low; at 600 Pascals, it’s only about 0.6 percent that of Earth. > The thin atmosphere also means that heat cannot be retained at the surface. > Once temperatures get below the -40 degrees F/C mark, people who aren’t properly dressed for the occasion can expect hypothermia to set in within about five to seven minutes. Such a thin atmosphere will not transfer heat as effectively as it doe…

help me wrap my head around that. If you’re in -40 in a low pressure atmosphere, it doesn’t cool you down faster because there’s less mass for your heat to transfer to? Does that mean things don’t cool down in a vacuum? Is there a weird curve where by at some point having less cold gas arounds you means you’ll cool down faster instead of slower?

Heat transfer happens by heat conduction and heat radiation, so even in a vacuum you will radiate heat away in the form of infrared photons, at least if the vacuum is not at a higher temperature. Heat radiation is however a less efficient process then heat transfer in a sufficiently dense environment. That is also an issue for spacecrafts, they need rather large radiators to radiate away excess heat into space.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#57

Post by antisthenes »

jpm_sd wrote: post #46

This is a really well-written, thorough article. Here's another way to think about it: Before we try to colonize Mars, we should try colonizing Canada. It's warmer than Mars! It has air and water, so it should be easy! And yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada#/media/Fi...

Just gotta wait another 50 years or so for the free terraforming effects of AGW!

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#58

Post by jandrese »

adamsb6 wrote: post #32

One possible motive for large numbers of people to colonize Mars: escaping the control of Earth governments. It’s like seasteading except that when you get up to something the governments really don’t like the cost of intervening is extraordinarily high. On Mars we can build our society of genetically engineered supermen that engage in plural marriage, ritual funerary cannabilism, and telekinesis.

I'm not sure I want to live in a colony that's some 1%er Libertarian's personal playground with no rule of law beyond what he sets. Turns out most laws were written for a reason, and going through the pain of re-discovering the reason for said laws over and over again doesn't sound like much fun.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#59

Post by dahdum »

It brings up many interesting challenges and unknowns of living on Mars, but it comes across as a naysayer's rant. Humans are capable of (and perhaps wired for) incredible personal sacrifices for the sake of exploration and progress.

Nothing in the article will stop individuals from trying, only government policy can stop that.

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