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

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

#111

Post by scotty79 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:23 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…

> ... when I'm not even sure my family will be able to grow food on our land in 40 years.

I'm sorry. You won't. It won't get better. Please move before everyone starts moving.

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

#112

Post by adrianN » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:28 AM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #104

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 never understood why colonizing Mars is needed. Correct, but short-sighted. However much Earth has, we'll quickly gobble it all up. To quote Bartlett : "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Allen_Bartlett ) The only way out is up, and the first stepping stone is the Moon, next is Mars.

Neverending exponential growth is not possible through space colonization. We can grow at most as the surface area of a sphere that expands at the speed of light, realistically much slower.

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

#113

Post by coldtea » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:28 AM UTC

richardknop wrote: post #93

coldtea wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 the ground, get stuff, and come back?

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

#114

Post by dagw » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:28 AM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #104

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 never understood why colonizing Mars is needed. Correct, but short-sighted. However much Earth has, we'll quickly gobble it all up. To quote Bartlett : "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Allen_Bartlett ) The only way out is up, and the first stepping stone is the Moon, next is Mars.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

In which case the second greatest must be to assume that all growth is exponential.

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

#115

Post by ainiriand » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:29 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…

It is a very good point but consider Mars as a stepping point with very different conditions from the ones you can find on the desert. Gravity for example. Isolation, communication difficulties, technological difficulties that we need to overcome if we are to colonize other parts of the solar system.

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

#116

Post by adrianN » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:29 AM UTC

richardknop wrote: post #97

cbkeller wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mars gravitiy is not strong enough causing it to very slowly lose gases to the solar wind. Water vapor included.

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

#117

Post by wklauss » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:31 AM UTC

fuscy wrote: post #105

lmm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Humans were terribly designed to cross the Atlantic by swimming as well, but we designed boats so eventually we did.

Yes, robots are a cheaper and more reliable way to explore and extract resources but I doubt mankind will be happy with just that. We like to explore, and expand, and face challenges so I'd bet that no matter the setbacks or price tag, we will eventually prefer to do this things in person.

As an alternative: we could even redesign ourselves for space exploration if needed be.

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

#118

Post by adrianN » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:32 AM UTC

brigade wrote: post #28

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.

If you're arguing species-level survival, really we're going to survive longer than that, short of a meteor strike or maybe nuclear war. Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion year…

I think the important part is the survival of a technological civilization. It's unclear whether we'd ever manage to reach the current level of development again if we happened to lose it for a few generations.

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

#119

Post by alex_duf » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:35 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 never understood why colonizing Mars is needed.

Personally I see quite a few positive things behind colonising Mars.

I think it's not about having a "backup", it's not about resources (or in a really long time) it's about the challenge.

If we can put our best engineers to solve how we re-use and recycle water, how we grow crops in extreme condition, how to control the O2 CO2 cycle (at a larger scale than on the space station), how to engineer a space craft that survive such harsh conditions we will end up with:

- technology to help our crops on earth

- technology to help with our water crisis

- technology to build sturdier structures

- international collaboration, that usually keep engineers from working on mass weaponry (The USA/Russian space program is actually motivated by exactly that: keeping the rocket scientists busy instead of working on ICBMs)

Mars just happen to be a goal silly enough that we'll get interesting discoveries and advances that I can't even foresee.

Another way to keep engineers busy and force international collaboration is to have a common threat. For that I believe the asteroid threat is both a real enough threat and a good subject to work collaboratively.

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

#120

Post by dagw » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:36 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #76

brigade wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're arguing species-level survival, really we're going to survive longer than that, short of a meteor strike or maybe nuclear war. Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion year…

> Sure, 99% of the population might die, the equator could become uninhabitable, and we might lose advanced tech in the ensuing wars, but it'll take much more than climate change to completely wipe out homo sapiens. Why? Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily, and they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did.

Tons of other species have been wiped out very easily

Most of them due to an external force they could not begin to comprehend actively or accidentally trying to kill them (ie humans). Also we are on the whole smarter, more creative and better with tools than they where.

they didn't even contribute to their own demise as much as we did.

The fact the we actively contributed to our (potential) demise gives us a massive head start in that we understand and can see the problem coming in a way no other species could. Realistically anything that could wipe out humans would have to be something so completely alien and beyond our current understanding or control that we cannot even currently imagine it. Basically anything we can comprehend we can control for and counter.