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

Mars likely to have enough oxygen to support life: study

phys.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 217 posts

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

#161

Post by ichik »

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…

The same reason you do hello world before proceeding to more complex software engineering.

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

#162

Post by known »

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…

http://www.basicknowledge101.com/subjects/space.html has interesting details about Earth e.g. Earth day was only 6 hours long 4.5 Billion years ago

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

#163

Post by bproven »

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…

Sort of agree - BUT I would think that colonizing the moon would be a better bet than Mars (for now). Less travel, easier to supply and we can still prove out stations, growing food etc

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

#164

Post by coldtea »

adrianN wrote: post #122
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

Nuclear pulse propulsion[1] was deemed doable with 1960's technology and can accelerate several hundred tons of payload enough to reach the nearest stars in a couple of generations. This doesn't require any magic, just lots of money and nukes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

It also requires:

1) the ability to avoid debris at those speeds (which would obliterate the ship) 2) to survive radiation, 3) the nearest stars to be of value life-support wise, 4) a couple of generations to pass, 5) us not to hear back from the mission for years upon arrival,

So, a more far-fetched version of solar system exploration, with the next steps even further...

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

#165

Post by clomond »

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 there is contention in saying that it is a better place to live than earth in any circumstance.

Rather, I think it is the power of the process of a global collaboration in what would be the most exciting adventure for humanity in a generation. Us embarking on such an adventure would lead (I think the majority) of people to consider the importance of a "global" perspective and would probably be good for people to treat others better and make countries less likely to kill each other over seemingly "trivial" matters.

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

#166

Post by mcbits »

wongarsu wrote: post #123
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.

Astronauts have traveled further on the moon on the three missions that included the Lunar Roving Vehicle than all our mars rovers managed combined. If you give a mars rover a command, it takes an average of 12 minutes for that command to reach mars, and another 12 minutes for the confirmation to come back. That makes remote control very hard, and we aren't all that good with autonomous robots. So until we figure tha…

The rovers we've sent to Mars weren't designed to travel great distances. Autonomous rovers built for maximum travel distance would be pretty easy except for supplying them with enough energy and protecting their delicate parts from the elements. Both problems are harder for humans, even on a one-way mission.

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

#167

Post by qbrass »

lmm wrote: post #108
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…

> We do need to be colonizing other stars within a quarter billion years or so though. The sun won't last forever! If we don't start now, when? It's the kind of thing that you can always put off for another million years.

We should have done it a million years ago. Once we had fire and the ability to sharpen rocks, there's no excuse not to start colonizing the galaxy.

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

#168

Post by v_lisivka »

coldtea wrote: post #74
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.

> 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. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

Hey, we already doing interstellar travel. At some point, we will reach an another star and even another galaxy (Andromeda).

Also, there is lot of planet size bodies between us and nearest stars. I expect 10 planets with mass of Jupiter between Solar system and Alpha Centaur system, or 1000 planets with mass of Earth. We can colonize them one by one.

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

#169

Post by qbrass »

biffq wrote: post #88
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Given the mechanics, interstellar travel will most likely always be a pipe dream, because techies still have to believe to some fairy tales... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/the_myth...

Hello I just wanted to say that out of the infinite numerical odds of you not existing, you are sentient, alive, breathing, and sharing someone’s journal, human. “If u breathin u achievin” ㅓㅁ.먀 - ㅌ

The irony is being alive and breathing are impediments to traveling the galaxy. Sentience is kind of a hassle when you have long spans of travel time, as well.
Post reply on HN