Will we be on Mars in 2066?

[Hueij]

2066? Do they allow 111 year olds to be astronauts by then?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Why climb the highest mountain, and then stubbornly try to live on it despite it being a completely inhospitable environment?

That sounds like something you would do

[Winston]

John Glenn was 77 on his second flight, so who knows?

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by Winston
I would think that a good deal of the raw materials would have to come from a suitable asteroid

We don't need no stinkin' 'roids! We already have one, it's called the moon. It takes much less energy to launch from the moon, possibly with solar power (it's 6x as strong as on Earth, no atmosphere. First build a solar panel manufacturing complex on the moon, which can grow exponentially, starting with minimal power and materials from earth, use it to build a mass driver, magnetic catapult from the moon. You don't even need to launch it into geosynchonous orbit, just into an orbit that will be geosychnorous in a year or two. You may also have reusable solar sails or ion rockets that rendevous with your lunar material, then once the material is in geosynchonous orbit, the solar sails or engines just pick up more materials. In orbit, you have a "lunar cement" factory that puts together your asteriods. That factory could also have been constructed on the moon.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Wycoff
This poll isn't about Mars colonization, it's about a manned Mars mission.

Okay, now you're changing your tune, but whatever. Let's put it this way, then: "Why spend millions upon millions of dollars in public funds to climb the highest mountain, when the public derives little or no benefit from it?"

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Their sats don't use true nuclear power though, do they? I can't imagine someone fitting an actual reactor onto a satellite... I assume they use something like the Voyager probes did.

Probably this kind of Reactor:

Viking:
"Once on the surface the probe was powered by the heat given off by the natural radioactive decay of plutonium dioxide which is converted into electricity much like a mini nuclear generator."

http://library.thinkquest.org/28327/html/exploration/satellites/viking.html

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Elok


Okay, now you're changing your tune, but whatever. Let's put it this way, then: "Why spend millions upon millions of dollars in public funds to climb the highest mountain, when the public derives little or no benefit from it?"

It won't be as cheap as millions, it will probably be in the hundreds of billions range. But it would be worth it.

[Kuciwalker]

Probably this kind of Reactor:

That's what I was talking about. We've launched plenty of probes and satellites with that kind of power supply.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Elok
Okay, now you're changing your tune, but whatever.

No, I'm not. I'm talking about space research and exploration in general. My first post was in regards to a manned Mars mission, not Mars colonization, in which I mentioned the political problems in pushing for a Mars mission specifically and space exploration in general. That's what this poll is about

You then asked why we would want to leave this planet.

I pointed to this as an example of the political liabilities inherent in advocating space exploration and research.

I didn't respond to your next post, because I didn't think I'd have to. It didn't really say anything. You asked and answered your own question, and then made a sarcastic comment about warp drive.

Overall, I'm saying that our survival may depend on leaving this planet one day. Could be a doomsday meteor, could be exhaustion of resources, could be trouble with the sun, could be many reasons. That's why I support space exploration and research in general.

Right now, the thought of leaving the solar system is a pipe dream. However, what we will be able to do after 1,000 years of research? 10,000 years? 1 million years?Mars Missions and such represent our first steps of something greater and more important.

Space exploration shouldn't be given number one priority, but it shouldn't be ignored. I find the general attitude of "what's so great out there?" To be short sighted and frustrating.

EDIT: I do apologize for my first response to you, though. I didn't mean it to be insulting; it reads worse than I thought it would. I'm not saying that you have an invalid point, I just disagree with you.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


That sounds like something you would do

Maybe so, now that you mention it. But climbing a mountain and doing the tibetan monk routine is a personal journey that does not require stupid amounts of expeniture, culturual attention, and pollution to achieve.

[Zkribbler]

I am doubtful.

Mars is a lot like Antarctica, only without breathable air or water. We won't settle it anymore that we've settled Antarctica.

There might possibiy be some science stations (I hope) but no colonies.

[Elok]

No apology necessary; I take vigorous statements as a given in any debate worth having. But what I meant by that first response is that space is a big fat shut door to us. Barring a massive revolution in physics, we have no means of reaching planets outside our solar system, and the planets within our solar system don't seem to be worth the expenditure of resources it would take to get humans to them. No matter how drained of resources Earth gets, it will always have plentiful water in some form, along with its ideal location in terms of distance from the sun and a reasonable amount of oxygen. And ozone depletion or not, we've still got a wonderful shield against cosmic rays here, plus the kind of gravity we're accustomed to.

As for the other planets, do any of them have enriched uranium, plutonium, or tritium? Or any other enormously valuable/useful resources? As far as I know, they're common rock through and through, with more valuable minerals such as aluminum and iron so well mixed in that it would take a considerable investment in energy to extract and use them. And moving people to other planets and setting up viable colonies on their patently inhospitable surfaces would itself be a tremendous expenditure of resources.

Now, we could someday discover some breakthrough in physics which allows faster-than-light travel. But is there any reason to suppose that it would bear any resemblance to our current means of travel? All the theories I've heard, grossly improbable as they sound, are a good deal removed from hydrogen combustion. Faster-then-light travel which actually works might be even more different. Keeping up the space program for the sake of that would be like breeding newer and stronger horses in preparation for the invention of the steam engine.

I don't think we should cut out the space program entirely, but we should concentrate on things that are generally useful, like maintaining bodily health in a weightless environment and developing artificial ecologies. As opposed to trying to adapt specifically to an environment which is a good deal less viable than the middle of the Sahara, or the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Or even trying to go there using technologies which would be useless for genuinely useful missions which might theoretically happen later.

In the meantime, if we want to be able to leave this planet for the stars, we should fund, idunno, quantum physics, maybe. I don't know physics well enough to say for sure, but that particular branch always seemed to me to ignore the usual restrictions (i.e., the obstacles to space travel).

[Zkribbler]

I once did the math on how long it would take to reach Alpha Centauri by accellerating at 1 G half way there and then decellerating at 1 G for the last half of the trip. It took 8 years. --Which is doable for the astronauts.

Of course, we don't have any fuel that will last for 8 years. And there is no sign of any habitable planets around Alpha Centauri.

But we could get to nearby stars, someday, if we really wanted to badly enough.

[DanS]

Unlike the moon, there's not much difference between visiting Mars and colonizing Mars. The Moon takes 6 days round trip. Mars takes at least 18 months round-trip.

It's a matter of putting pounds of stuff in Earth orbit cheaply. Mars can either be eminently economical or impossibly expensive. Depends on the way you endeavor to do it.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Elok
Barring a massive revolution in physics, we have no means of reaching planets outside our solar system, and the planets within our solar system don't seem to be worth the expenditure of resources it would take to get humans to them.

I don't think that they'd be worth substantially colonizing any time soon (probably never), but I do think they're worth visiting. If we could set up scientific stations on Mars & some of the outer moons, we could learn more about the formation of the solar system, we'd learn more about the human body in sub-Earth gravity, we'd possibly find rich veins of mineral resources worth mining, maybe we'd even find some evidence of ancient microbial life, and we'd learn how humans could survive years away from Earth. Also, those outpost could be a species saver if something terrible did happen. They'd be a slim hope, but a hope nonetheless.

No matter how drained of resources Earth gets, it will always have plentiful water in some form, along with its ideal location in terms of distance from the sun and a reasonable amount of oxygen. And ozone depletion or not, we've still got a wonderful shield against cosmic rays here, plus the kind of gravity we're accustomed to.

True. Looking at the very long term, though, it could be possible to reposition the planets. Maybe it would eventually be worthwhile to bump Venus into an Earth-like orbit. We could even use Mercury for a moon if necessary. That's farfetched to the point of sounding absurd right now, but it could be feasible and worthwhile in the far future.

Keeping up the space program for the sake of that would be like breeding newer and stronger horses in preparation for the invention of the steam engine.

I don't think we should cut out the space program entirely, but we should concentrate on things that are generally useful, like maintaining bodily health in a weightless environment and developing artificial ecologies.

As you acknowledge, these are very good reasons to keep the space program around. These types of missions help to lay the ground work for space faring society. I guess where we differ is that I'd include some limited planetary settlement for scientific study (much like the Antarctic stations) in this as useful goals.

Rather than breeding horses, I think that what we're doing is inventing the wheel. We're just starting to learn what it takes to travel in space. We need a wide variety of experiences. We won't use rockets to leave the solar system, but the knowledge that we gain through such missions would be useful in ways unrelated to propulsion research. As you say, improvements in propulsion will almost certainly come from somewhere other than actual space missions. Regardless, I believe the other benefits gained from space missions are too important to pass up.

In the meantime, if we want to be able to leave this planet for the stars, we should fund, idunno, quantum physics, maybe. I don't know physics well enough to say for sure, but that particular branch always seemed to me to ignore the usual restrictions (i.e., the obstacles to space travel).

I agree. We need to do more to subsidize theoretical research. I think that funding scientific research is one of the most important things that a modern government can do. Scientific research shouldn't be the number one priority, but it should occupy a prominent position amongst our national priorities.