5 Reasons Going to Mars is a Terrible Idea

[Gary Childress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQ1bKd7Los

Sounds like a suicide mission if anyone ever tries it. Alas, I think space exploration will maybe forever be a fantasy in the minds of the Asimovs, Sagans, Vernes, Lowells et al.

[HexHammer]

Sounds like a suicide mission if anyone ever tries it.

They should send robots up first to establish a colony, then humans when they see it works and doesn't cut off here and there.

[henry quirk]

...of what's been foisted by humans, on humans, since before we climbed down out of the trees.

Fuck that noise.

We need to get up and out.

Earth is gettin' 'smaller' by the day...downright claustrophobic...we need to spread out and get ourselves out from under the other guy's heel.

Up and out is where vast resources are...havin' easy access to those resources is sayin' 'good bye' to a great deal of natural scarcity and a substantial 'fuck you!' to folks who promote scarcity.

Elbow room and plenty: the twin drives behind every exploration, explotation, conquest, settlement.

We have the means; we just need to shore up the will.

[Gary Childress]

The reasons basically have to do with the frailty of the human body when placed outside of the environment (Earth) which we evolved on. Mars has radiation, poisonous soil, and lower gravity, all of which would wreck havoc on the physical well being of any human who tried to stay there for any extended period of time. I mean, maybe someday they'll develop artificial bodies, including organs that can withstand such conditions but that will basically leave space travel to cyborgs and not normal human beings.

[Arising_uk]

Ha! Me and the caveman agree although looks like you might need a bit of good ol' communitarianism to achieve it HQ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQ1bKd7Los

Sounds like a suicide mission if anyone ever tries it. Alas, I think space exploration will maybe forever be a fantasy in the minds of the Asimovs, Sagans, Vernes, Lowells et al.

Not really, if the Test Ban Treaty hadn't been signed Dyson, et al, thought they'd have got you there by now in comfort and in a few weeks and Saturn in months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_O ... ropulsion)
Still, an interesting fact is that this was once classified then declassified and apparently now according to his son its been reclassified, wonder why?

[Greta]

Gary, I agree that it's unrealistic for the same reasons - we can't survive there. Radiation, aridness, dust, toxins, extreme cold and planetary dust storms make Mars a terrific place for advanced mobile robots.

Imagine that people could be sent out there. How many can conceivably be sent in one craft? No way could we make a dent in the crowds of Earth with 350,000 more being born per day. Crowd control is looking like Mother Nature's job.

[Lacewing]

Elbow room and plenty: the twin drives behind every exploration, explotation, conquest, settlement.

What's the drive behind those who stand rigid and bitch about everything?

I'm curious, and I figure you will know.

[henry quirk]

Lace, you wrote...

"What's the drive behind those who stand rigid and bitch about everything?"

Hell if I know. I bitch about everything, and I'm as rigid as get out, but I move (forward mostly...and I'd really like to move up & out).

"I'm curious, and I figure you will know."

Nope. I got no clue what motivates people any more. I used to think everyone was at least motivated by the need to self-preserve, but not any more. Too many examples of otherwise reasonable folks choosin' slow suicide (let's all just hunker down on Earth and put all that space travel folderol away...let's survive in a shrinking closet [it's safe]...let's not get up and out [cuz it's initially dangerous, expensive]).

Me: I wanna mine pitchblende out of a hunk of rock in the neighborhood of Neptune. I wanna feel, in my bones, the rapid pulse of fusing deuterium pushin' me through the vacuum. I wanna hang in the middle of a solar-mirror inflated iron asteroid watchin' kids play micro-g tag.

Too many chimpanzees runnin' the show, not enough humans callin' the shots...the other side of the forest is forbidden, lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

[Walker]

Why go to Mars when deserted Antarctica, Siberia and Northern Canada offer better amenities at a relative bargain basement cost?

Building colonies on the ocean floor would be easier than Mars, and it would eliminate worries not only about climate, but weather.

[Arising_uk]

Why go to Mars when deserted Antarctica, Siberia and Northern Canada offer better amenities at a relative bargain basement cost?

Material resources.

Building colonies on the ocean floor would be easier than Mars, and it would eliminate worries not only about climate, but weather.

It's a mistake to think we'll be colonizing unhospitible planets, orbitals and asteriods may be the way to go with planofoming a long-term plan.

[Lacewing]

Too many examples of otherwise reasonable folks choosin' slow suicide (let's all just hunker down on Earth and put all that space travel folderol away...let's survive in a shrinking closet [it's safe]...let's not get up and out [cuz it's initially dangerous, expensive]).

I don't think that's an accurate categorization. There are countless different perspectives not focused in that way at all. I love space and exploration, while I also love the Earth and all of the comfort and bounty it provides. I'm guessing that things will balance out at some point -- an over-arching self-regulating system on levels we humanoids may not comprehend -- and hopefully we might realize the value of devoting our energy to evolving mentally, so that we can make better choices from a broader spectrum.

Me: I wanna mine pitchblende out of a hunk of rock in the neighborhood of Neptune. I wanna feel, in my bones, the rapid pulse of fusing deuterium pushin' me through the vacuum. I wanna hang in the middle of a solar-mirror inflated iron asteroid watchin' kids play micro-g tag.

Very ambitious for a caveman.

[henry quirk]

I is an ambitious knuckledragger.

[gaffo]

...of what's been foisted by humans, on humans, since before we climbed down out of the trees.

Fuck that noise.

We need to get up and out.

to where?

all in reach are hellholes.

outside of our solarsytem is too far and not reachable - even assuming other (trillions of)earths out there.

[Scott Mayers]

Reason 6: The energy per person unit costs to colonize Mars would far supersede the same costs that could be used to nuke half the world's people to make way for new empty spaces for people here on Earth to fill in. ....even if we have to wait a century for the radiation to reach safe levels for us to move in.

Although science 'trek' ideas are cool to dream up, even for some odd reason to find new places for the posterity of our genes lacks sense. Personally, if I ran into a real space ship like the star ship Enterprise, I'd excise the Holodeck and scrap the rest of it.

[Logik]

Screw Mars! A far more likely strategy is Moon base -> O'Neill colony.

Launching things against Earth's gravity requires A LOT of energy and a mission to Mars requires a LOT of resources/provisions.
Even if we got to Mars - we are going to starve unless we have regular re-supplies from Moon/O'Neill base.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder