Life On Mars?

[jazzy_dave]

As awesome as life on Mars could be I believe mostly self sustainable space stations would be a far more useful. These space stations could do research or even be massive production plants probably for various types of energy. Mars trips are cool for smaller space shuttles but the cost seems far too great to really colonize the planet effectively. What do you think of the idea of colonizing Mars?

Just one major problem with Mars , apart from others, is that it doesn't have enough nitrogen. Colonists there would develop severe protein deficiency and die. Titan may be a safer bet, except for it being even further away. Discuss.

Comments

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Whether or not actually colonizing Mars works out to be a feasible idea (I'm guessing it won't be; too harsh an environment, but science fiction has a pesky way of becoming science fact, so who knows what sort of developments will occur in creating artificial habitats), space exploration must continue for the survival of our species, because no matter how careful we are with our own planet, the elephant in the room is the simple matter of the sun having a limited lifespan. Right now that lifespan feels infinite, but it's not. It has roughly 5 billion years before it becomes a red giant, but it will fail to sustain life for humans in roughly 1 billion years. Nothing about space, nor the Earth's place in it, is a fixed variable. Orbits shift, suns die, asteroids hit, volcanoes erupt and create ice ages... all of which are completely natural occurrences that happen regardless of how careful we (finally? hopefully??) become as stewards of our planet or our species.

Mankind, like any other species, has the will to live and endure and has the unique potential to look into the future and create livable environments (as opposed to even the higher primates or intelligent mammals like elephants or dolphins, all of which are unable to perform those higher cognitive tasks). Finding a way off this planet and to another is vital (perhaps even to the survival of some of Earth's other species--imagine if you will a sort of space ark. Flight of fancy for now and loads of reasons why it might to be wise to fiddle with other planets' ecosystems by introducing new species, but since we're speculating anyway, why not). Mars is the logical next step for now; Titan after that (or before if scientists can find faster ways to travel). If we're ever to reach any near Earth planets that *are* hospitable to humans (and there's surely some out there), we have to figure out how to make waystations within our own solar system. (And a side benefit of figuring out how to live on Mars in artificial habitats might be that we'll figure out a way to live on Earth even if the sun doesn't get big enough to actually consume the planet like it probably will Mercury and Venus.)

But even before manned flights to Mars or Titan occur, one of the more crucial next steps is figuring out effective radiation shielding for space vehicles. The ISS is protected from solar and cosmic radiation by the earth's magnetosphere. A ship to Mars would need its own shielding. Colonization is step #4000312... we're perhaps on step #152.

(sorry for the long comment; this is a passion of mine!)

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I read an interesting thing a few days ago that proposed instead of trying to colonize Mars, to build a space station on one of its moons. The concept is to cut the lag time for directing robotic probes on Mars from hours to 40 seconds. I think that's an excellent idea.

We may have the ability to build a habitat on Mars, but I think the supply chain would be awfully thin and one disruption in that chain could potentially doom it. And with politicians being as penurious as they are, we're less likely to build-in the multiple redundancies that something like that would require.

We definitely need to explore space more. Why political conservatives can't see the return on investment on the money put in to the space program I do not know, I'm guessing it's because it's not owned by a friend of theirs. I personally think we as a whole have matured enough to survive as a race in space, we're too focused on "I've got mine, screw you!" right now.

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

No don't apologize, it was fascinating to read.