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James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

spiegel.de

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Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#151

Post by jkqwzsoo »

LinuxBender wrote: post #99

This topic comes up a lot and I know it excites investors, but I have yet to see a viable plan for kick-starting the magnetic field on Mars. No magnetic field means no way to have an atmosphere, water or life and everyone has to stay in caves or incredibly durable modules indefinitely. The only O2 and H2O is what you bring with you or produce in the modules. The only reason I could see doing this is if we knew of imp…

Your statement is a little hard to refute because I don’t know what you’ll admit as “viable”, but here’s a recent proposal which doesn’t require the magnetosphere actually being located on Mars:

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmo...

And I guarantee you that this isn’t the only proposal that has been worked out.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#152

Post by jcranmer »

londons_explore wrote: post #118
emiliobumachar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please spell out how would nuclear MAD stop working? The way I see it, the Mars base could be ignored for MAD purposes unless it's self sufficient and large enough to be considered civilizational survival. By the point it can no longer be ignored, the other side will just aim a couple nukes at it - what will the colonists do, move the base in months? (Also, tangentially, I don't think the whole transit time…

> what will the colonists do, move the base in months? Yes. If you knew that your city would be destroyed in 6 months, you'd build a new one elsewhere. People on earth don't have that privilege due to not having 6 months notice.

How long do you think it takes to build a city?

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#153

Post by fifnir »

pritovido wrote: post #35
JshWright wrote: post #10

> I mean, nowadays, I think middle class and fairly wealthy people don't die of cancer. Sounds like James Lovelock has been pretty lucky in his experience with cancer...

The paradox with cancer is that is grows much faster on young, healthy bodies than on old ones.

Why is that paradoxical? Of course cells will proliferate faster in a younger body's environment

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#154

Post by war1025 »

Krasnol wrote: post #97
luckylion wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that interviews are usually edited ("for brevity"), and especially in Der Spiegel of 2020 (as opposed to, say, 1980), I wouldn't be suprised if they heavily edited it.

It's not like they put words in his mouth...

It's a pretty well documented fact that people get misquoted all the time by journalists.

Not quite Gell-Mann amnesia, but something close.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#155

Post by goatlover »

russdill wrote: post #136
goatlover wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magnetic field is needed to protect life on Mars from radiation. It's one of the bigger problems in terraforming the planet.

The atmosphere is what blocks radiation, not the magnetosphere.

https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/magnetosph...

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#156

Post by rsync »

Razengan wrote: post #50

I had never even heard of a “James Lovelock” before now, and after skimming the comments here, my desire to know about him went from zero to negative. On the subject of Mars etc., how are billionaires, especially the older ones, not already bored with all that Earth has to offer? Surely they must have experienced everything, natural and manmade, and crave for something more than the accumulation of wealth by now.

"I had never even heard of a “James Lovelock” before now, and after skimming the comments here, my desire to know about him went from zero to negative."

Although I question the conclusions, I feel that having read his original work "The Gaia Hypothesis"[1] is required to be broadly literate in our age.

It's a short book.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#157

Post by m4rtink »

hyperpallium wrote: post #125

For typical cataclysms, Earth is still a hell of lot more survivable than anywhere on Mars. But for a really big one, the only solution is to be somewhere else when it happens. A Mars colony is a first step.

Also, one thing people often overlook - as you settle more places / build more habitats, you are unlocking the vast resources of the Solar System.

These might give you a hand if any single of the settlements (including Earth) get into trouble. This could range from preventing the disaster in the first place (nearby ship deflecting a potential impactor) to helping the survivors (medical supplies being dropped from orbit, habitat with failing life support being evacuated).

Self sustaining off-Earth settlements go way beyond just "oops, Earth is gone, at least someone is still left".

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#158

Post by njb311 »

me_me_me wrote: post #132
keanzu wrote: post #55

Perhaps it might have been possible in some long distant past to underestimate Elon Musk and write him off as a crazy person. That time is gone. If Musk appears to be doing something crazy you've not understood it. > It’s crazy, completely crazy. Elon Musk has read too much science fiction. He got carried away with it. If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars. And all they would lear…

> If I were in his position, I would not waste my fortune on colonizing Mars I might not like Musk and most of his ideas seems bit out there, or like hyper-loop pure bs, but... At least he is doing something with that wealth as oppose to other billionaires who are only growing and hoarding it.

I've been excited by the potential of hyperloop since the first time I heard about it maybe 30-40 years ago. The idea isn't new - there have been pneumatic trains in the 1800s and at least a design for a vacuum train in the early 1900s - it is the engineering challenges that have held it back. I'm sure these challenges would require no less effort to solve than projects like travelling to Mars, but the outcome would benefit more of mankind and would create something truly amazing (until it's been around for a while and then it would seem no more amazing than a laser printer).

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#159

Post by keanzu »

wrsh07 wrote: post #80
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JFK sold us on space because "we choose to do these things because they are hard." It was an aspirational exploratory message. The reality is that we are in space because it is required for great power contests. I'm mired in space as a DoD executive, so I promise you space - at least inside the GEO orbits - is extremely practical. Starlink is honestly amazing. Mars though? I've steel-manned that one and I don't see i…

Is that true of nuclear winter or a major impact event? Wouldn't either of those render the Earth temporarily uninhabitable? Is the argument that it would be easy enough to build on Earth places to survive such events rather than going to Mars?

The only thing that I can think of to make Mars a better option than Earth is if Earth is struck by some truly gigantic asteroid. But it would have to be big enough to seriously damage a 1,000 trillion metric ton ball (we'll take it as given that the Earth isn't flat) of iron. Merely stripping the atmosphere wouldn't be enough - you need to fundamentally compromise the structural integrity of the planet to make it as unlivable as Mars.

Re: James Lovelock: 'I Would Not Waste My Fortune on Colonizing Mars'

#160

Post by jkqwzsoo »

rsync wrote: post #148
nixarn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Mars has an atmosphere unlike the moon, it has water in some form and quantity and has approximately the same length of the day as Earth, plus it has gravity much closer to Earth than what the moon has.

"plus it has gravity much closer to Earth than what the moon has ..." But still, I believe, only 1/3 of the gravity that the Earth has. This is the insurmountable problem with human habitation of Mars - we would need to become, in many ways, a different species in order to withstand the very greatly reduced gravity - and humans, as we know them, would succumb to all manner of disease and physical maladies until that…

> This is the insurmountable problem with human habitation of Mars - we would need to become, in many ways, a different species in order to withstand the very greatly reduced gravity - and humans, as we know them, would succumb to all manner of disease and physical maladies until that transition (millenia ?) took place.

Well, you don’t know that humans can’t survive indefinitely at 1/3 gee. I know that because no one knows that, so let’s not speculate on what the threshold gravity would be before we need to “become a different species” would be.

But I’ll admit, unlike radiation and resource concerns, gravity is something we’re never going to overcome. If humans can’t thrive at 1/3 gee, we will never permanently colonize any terrestrial body in our solar system. However, given the range of adaptations humans present, e.g. to extreme altitude, continuous saltwater diving, or long-distance running, I’m willing to bet we can handle, and adapt to, reduced (not micro) gravity.

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