Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 138 posts

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#101

Post by thinkpad20 »

Not to be "that guy," but I think the real reason we'll never colonize Mars is simply that we're going to run out of time. Climate collapse and/or nuclear war will probably set in long before we have the technology or wherewithal to terraform a planet millions of miles away. We may be only a decade or two from severe environmental catastrophe, which makes the prospect of Mars colonization pretty far-fetched at best.

To be clear, I don't think studying this is a waste of time. On the off chance that we get there, that'll be great (setting aside the concerns of this article of course). It just gives me a sense of a terminally ill person planning their retirement. Sorry to be the downer here.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#102

Post by paulcole »

nolok wrote: post #25
paulcole wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of Elon Musk.

Honestly talking about him and his companies is very controversial on HN between the for and against, but I would disagree with you; on almost every PR and marketing pieces and talks he tends to take insane shortcuts.

> he tends to take insane shortcuts

Here on HN we say that is a feature not a bug lol.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#103

Post by danbruc »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #100
danbruc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also no perfect vacuum exists which renders this rather irrelevant for discussing what happens in real situations. I also did some reading to figure out the correct terminology - it is certainly correct to say that a perfect vacuum has no thermodynamic temperature as it is defined by the state of motion of the particles making up the system you want to assign a temperature to, however I am still not convinced that it…

Yes, vacuum has no temperature. The energy of any radiation that may be going through a vacuum at a given instant is not a property of the vacuum (and is not an actual temperature). I'll leave it here as I think I have repeated the same thing enough though I am not sure it has been heard.

You keep repeating a point I never disagreed with, a perfect vacuum has no thermodynamic temperature. My issue with that is that I think it is a too narrow viewpoint for the comment I initially replied to. If one understands temperature as what a thermometer measures, then the temperature of a vacuum will be the temperature of its walls, it will not magically show »undefined« because you insist that temperature means thermodynamic temperature.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#104

Post by aidenn0 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #91
aidenn0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you are talking about extrasolar planets: Outer space is far less hospitable than mars, and the timeframes involved in getting to even very close stars means living aboard the ships traveling there for an extended period of time.

> timeframes involved in getting to even very close stars means living aboard the ships traveling there for an extended period of time At our current level of technology. Colonizing Mars is likely 50-100 years away, within that time frame it's very conceivable that we might develop the ability to travel between stars quickly.

There are only 11 stars within 10 light years. None of the exoplanets yet discovered around them are expected to be more habitable than Mars.

This puts a hard lower boundary of 10 years for travel to an earth-like exoplanet. If we limit the craft's acceleration to 1g, add a couple of extra years (about a year to hit 0.9c at 1g acceleration, and then the same amount of time to slow down on the other end).

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#105

Post by microtherion »

cr0sh wrote: post #76
mr_crankypants wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly think that both of those are weak reasons. The first is a problem for other generations; on our own time scale we should focus on the problems that affect us on our own time scale. The second is just not compelling; space exploration is hardly the only endeavor that produces spinoff technology, and it's far from certain that it's the best or most productive way to do so. There has only ever been one goal t…

I honestly think the first one mentioned will become a "primary" reason as soon as the first largish "came from the direction of the sun" doomsday asteroid slams into us, and makes us rethink some of our priorities. Assuming we survive the event - and assuming it isn't "The Killer Event". You know - something largish that takes out 3-4 major cities, and we didn't see until much too late (like the near-space flyby we…

It's really hard to conceive of any disaster which would leave Earth less habitable than Mars.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#106

Post by jonathlee »

jandrese wrote: post #58
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.

That was a reference to Robert Heinlein's book, "Stranger in a Strange Land".

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#107

Post by mytailorisrich »

danbruc wrote: post #103
mytailorisrich wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, vacuum has no temperature. The energy of any radiation that may be going through a vacuum at a given instant is not a property of the vacuum (and is not an actual temperature). I'll leave it here as I think I have repeated the same thing enough though I am not sure it has been heard.

You keep repeating a point I never disagreed with, a perfect vacuum has no thermodynamic temperature . My issue with that is that I think it is a too narrow viewpoint for the comment I initially replied to. If one understands temperature as what a thermometer measures, then the temperature of a vacuum will be the temperature of its walls, it will not magically show »undefined« because you insist that temperature mean…

You say you don't disagree but you keep disagreeing...

I made a simple, yet fundamental statement. It's either true or false. There is no need to argue as if you had to out-do me in any way.

Vacuum cannot have a temperature. This follows immediately from the definitions.

This also means that the temperature of a vacuum's "walls", by which I'm guessing you mean particles in 'contact' with the vacuum, is just the temperature of these particles. It's not an indication of any "vacuum temperature".

Have a nice day.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#108

Post by 7952 »

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…

Being able to sustain human life with minimal inputs is a ridiculously useful trick if we can pull it off. It could be an answer to environmental threats. learning how to survive on Mars could teach us how to live on earth.

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#109

Post by Balgair »

colordrops wrote: post #54
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be fair, Biosphere was a bit of a planning disaster. It was not meant to be a trial run for a self-sustaining greenhouse per se. It was more of a 'save the earth in a nano-way' project. They had a rainforest section, a desert section, etc. They did learn a LOT about plant biology, weather interactions, and microbiota, though mostly via failure, which was still SUPER useful.

However, just building something like Biosphere was incredibly difficult and laor intensive. Trying to do that constuction on Mars would be a LOT more difficult still.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

Re: Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

#110

Post by Balgair »

nolok wrote: post #48
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sadly what I know of humanity tells me that we won't do that without ruining it to drill for resources like oil, so I say let's leave at least one place untouched back here on earth until we have a backup plan somewhere.

Who knows! Antartica used to be super moist and wet, so the oil resources may be there. I mean, if you can find a way to get under the mile of ice, there is likely to be a lot of resources just sitting there for the taking. It is an entire virgin contient afterall.
Post reply on HN