Comments on: My case for Mars

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:46:50 +0000

Thanks all for this very interesting and inspiring thread.

1) The threat of extinquishing ourselves is rather closer than we are ought to believe: http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html
The amount of spent fuel rods in the Fukushima Daiichi reactor #4 that gets fully exposed to the elements when the building would collapse — by e.g. another earthquake — will have an enourmous impact on the ‘livability’ of our planet
2) You all state there are enourmous risks when we would start our first MMSC attemps, yet without any doubt tonnes of people are willing to take the opportunity to part with Earth life and go on this adventure, and to really contribute to the development of mankind.
3) Excellent idea of considering Venus as another option for colonization. At 50 km in the atmosphere, we are at 88% g, at a 1 bar atmospheric pressure and a reasonable temperature (75°C). Summing this up, sounds like paradise compared to even Mars.
I reckon that we can easily capture Sulfuric Acid from the atmoshpere and use the hydrogen proceeds to produce water.

My 2 cents — hope this thread will revive.

By: Stuart Eves

Stuart Eves — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:26:31 +0000

Suggest that further unmanned missions are justified first to determine the origin of the methane in Mars’ atmosphere. If it were to be established that it was a result of biological activity, the planetary protection considerations might need to feature more prominently.

By: GaryChurch

GaryChurch — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:36:30 +0000

then we may as well just stop this discussion and go back to watching American Idol while we wait for our inevitable extinction.

check out comment 17 Brandon

http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2012/01/everybody-has-won-…ve-prizes/

By: flashgordon

flashgordon — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:24:07 +0000

Your arguements are not much more than what Robert Zubrin has written already; a plan that no government seems willing to fund.

I’m not overly worried; seems to me that nanomanufacturing will come about sooner than later; prices will drop.

By: flashgordon

flashgordon — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:22:01 +0000

No, we’ll just go in a dark ages for awhile.

By: Brandon Larson

Brandon Larson — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:02:40 +0000

Everybody wants to get back to the cheap access to LEO, but this is a classic catch-22 problem. Without a place to go, the economy of scale necessary to bring launch costs down will not develop, and without lower launch costs, there will be no place to go to drive the higher launch rates. My idea is to simply kick start the whole process by minimizing the cost of the initial push into space. A few people have brought up alternatives for habitat construction, and that is what I am researching. Imagine a cement factory that can be carried on a single Falcon Heavy flight, allowing the construction of multiple habitats with local materials. Another Falcon Heavy flight to carry all of the equipment needed for electrolytic metal extraction, and you have most of the industrial capacity needed for an advance party of colonists to begin construction. The issue of resupply came up, and that is why it needs to be as self sufficient as possible from the start. Realistically, just how far away is the Moon when you consider launch preparation into the picture? It is much more than three days, and could easily be months when you consider the time to prepare a launch and hope everything works right.

All of the big mega projects like a circular train for gravity and carving out asteroids sounds great, and may be possible after, and only after a significant industrial infrastructure is established out there. Mars is not the only option out there, but I think that it may hold the best hope for an early start to colonizing space.

I would also like to see some more research done on the caves found on Mars. They may be more practical than my “Anthill” habitat that I am working on, and they can be sealed using the same cement I am researching. This stuff sticks to just about anything and would be perfect for walling off a cave entrance.

Steven, thanks for confirming my suspicions about Martian dust. It sounds like it can’t be much worse than the dust we dealt with in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a thick layer of fine powder that got everywhere, but it was manageable with some basic housekeeping.

I know everyone has different ideas about how to best colonize space. Nobody will know for certain what works until somebody tries it, and we need to start somewhere. It will be difficult and dangerous, and the first colonists will suffer a lot of hardship. Some of them will probably die trying to establish a colony. If we are not willing to take those risks and accept these hardships, then we may as well just stop this discussion and go back to watching American Idol while we wait for our inevitable extinction.

By: Thucydides

Thucydides — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:54:43 +0000

What is the alternative to Mars or the Moon? NEO’s.

Near Earth Objects are energetically closer than even the Moon, have water and usable materials for building and life support, and can be turned into long term space stations.

Virtually all the objections of the Moon and Mars can be answered, energy is easily available and even gravity can be “tweaked” by adjusting the rotation of the NEO.

Frankly a true space civilization needs to be founded in space, not the planets.

By: Astro

Astro — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:46:51 +0000

A well written article, and you make some good points. The main problem is the idea of using current technology to get to (and from) Mars. It’s a non-starter. We need to develop a technology where we can maintain a constant (small, like only 0.1 g) acceleration of the spacecraft to get there. That can cut the travel time to a mere 21 days during Mars’ opposition. Mid-flight refueling may be needed; but 21 days nearly eliminates the issues of solar flares, long-term weightlessness and spacecraft reliability.
ON A different subject: Your website design needs some work. Reading white letters on a black background is very hard on the eyes. Waay too much contrast. Make the background a charcoal gray and the readability will vastly improve.

By: flashgordon

flashgordon — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:39:20 +0000

The moon could be advantageous using reusable SpaceX technology because we could just station a space station in orbit. The space station would have both food and manufacturing modules. We could go up and down a low gravity well of the moon; mine it for resources(we could go to mars and mine the martian asteroid moons also!). The space station would also have either tethers(probably at first), or 2001 cylinders for artificial gravity. Just with reusable cheap rockets allows us to live on space stations instead of trying to live on the surface of these worlds. Hence, the moon, and asteroids are better places to be than Mars!

By: flashgordon

flashgordon — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:27:04 +0000

I should stress the SpaceX making a lunar colony practical a little more. It can make for the economic growth which would allow for more mars supplies that can be used for repairs on mars. What SpaceX has done is huge.