Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

[BBadger]

I would be happy if they placed a WEBcam on the moon.

See the problem is that the Moon is a really boring place. After one day-night cycle you would have seen nearly everything the webcam would ever show.

[burner von braun]

I would be happy if they placed a WEBcam on the moon.

See the problem is that the Moon is a really boring place. After one day-night cycle you would have seen nearly everything the webcam would ever show.

I think it might be more beneficial to have a 'webcam' on the moon that consistently tracks the earth and shows us our entire planet as a whole, as it exists in space. Earth would appear to go through phases similar to what we see on the moon, and better still, the view would serve to better reveal our sense of place, an extraordinary little planet where life has actually been able to form, grow, think and look back upon itself.

[Wrath]

Air? Crews have been breathing in space aboard the ISS for almost sixteen years. Submariners lurking about with their nuclear weapons don’t seem to mind providing their own air at all.

I’m curious to see the effects (if any) of martian micro-gravity on the human body and the radiation found beyond low earth orbit, although Elon had something to say about the latter.

My feel on the radiation thing is there’s certainly some risk of radiation, but it’s not deadly. There would be some slight increased risk of cancer but it’s, I think, relatively minor. You need to have some shielding typically if a solar flare or sort of a big, any kind of a sort of solar storm you’d want to basically point the rear of the rocket at the sun and maximize your shielding effect and have the passengers cluster around a column of water. But I think radiation risk there is relatively small. Once you’re on Mars obviously you cut your radiation in half just because you’ve got the planet shielding you, and then there’s at least some atmosphere, and I think then what you could construct over time is an artificial magnetic field to deflect high energy particles. So actually the radiation thing is often brought up but I think it’s not too big of a deal.

Artificial magnetic field? Just... wow.

The cost of everything put into space thus far has been based on single-use rocket technology. When this whole Mars Colonial Transporter business got started the word was $500,000 per flight, now after yesterday’s announcement they’re talking as low as $100,000 after everything is up and running. That’s a hundred stacks for you, your campmates, and three hundred tons of gear to the surface of Mars. What’s three hundred tons anyways? Is that mining equipment? A foundry?

And what, pray tell, is of any value on Mars or Venus, or the Moon that can't be harvested for cheaper and in greater quantities back here on Earth? A bunch of rocks? Helium?

Peace. Unless the robots we’ve sent there have gone to war Mars is at peace. Anyone who goes isn’t going to have to (directly) deal with all the political drama too common nowadays (although how long that lasts is another question entirely). Sure they’ll struggle to survive, and survival won’t be certain, but they’ll get a blank canvas to do with what they will.

At first it’ll be empty and simple, then the art will get bigger, until finally everyone starts in with how Mars just isn’t the same anymore & start eyeing Europa.

[burner von braun]

To follow up my previous post, there is this observatory, the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which likely does better science taking photos every 2 hours or so, but I guess I'm sort of infatuated by the idea of near real-time video sent from the moon.

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

[BBadger]

Air? Crews have been breathing in space aboard the ISS for almost sixteen years. Submariners lurking about with their nuclear weapons don’t seem to mind providing their own air at all.

What a life! Then you get to live a life of boredom among the red rocks and a bunker-sized accommodations.

These new Martians ought to spend a couple years hanging out in a pod in the middle of a barren desert and see how they like it. Just hang out, not really do anything because what are you even going to do besides walk around?

And what, pray tell, is of any value on Mars or Venus, or the Moon that can't be harvested for cheaper and in greater quantities back here on Earth? A bunch of rocks? Helium?

Peace. Unless the robots we’ve sent there have gone to war Mars is at peace. Anyone who goes isn’t going to have to (directly) deal with all the political drama too common nowadays (although how long that lasts is another question entirely). Sure they’ll struggle to survive, and survival won’t be certain, but they’ll get a blank canvas to do with what they will.

At first it’ll be empty and simple, then the art will get bigger, until finally everyone starts in with how Mars just isn’t the same anymore & start eyeing Europa.

Peace?! That's it? Puh-leeze. That's as silly a reason as I've ever heard. You can find "peace" by just turning off the TV and your connection to the Internet. You can march off to Alaska and disappear into the forests for years and nobody will know. "Peace" is everywhere and doesn't require a one-way flight to a barren wasteland to hang out in a pod.

[Wrath]

Peace?! That's it? Puh-leeze. That's as silly a reason as I've ever heard.

What if people don't get off your case though? What of you want to celebrate your visions on mushrooms? Tired of people tripping on who you marry? Maybe everyone around you is too socially liberal & you're afraid God will send you to hell if you don't dip out, quick!

...bunker-sized accommodations... ...hang out in a pod...

Three hundred tons per ship. Thousands of ships.

That might start out with bunkers & pods, but I'll bet it'll end up more like a dome the size of Rod's Road, then a dome the size of Black Rock City.

It's an engineering challenge to say the least but, with the electric cars & landing rockets, dude seems like he's on a roll.

[burner von braun]

These new Martians ought to spend a couple years hanging out in a pod in the middle of a barren desert and see how they like it. Just hang out, not really do anything because what are you even going to do..

The problems that inevitably arise within the social dynamics framework are no small issue either.

[Wrath]

what are you even going to do

Starcraft 2 comes to mind.

[GreyCoyote]

Can we go back to the part where people go out there to do art? Maybe add some EDM? Because if we didnt have to deal with the BLM dweebs, that sounds like a seriously cool place to burn. Lots of space and dust. Decorated space suits. Oxygen lounges.

Burners in space. It could be a thing! You can see it now: Microgravity monday. Solar flare Friday. Someone would do a reactor pulse sequence to the Mario Bros theme...

"Read the back of your Mars passport, Citizen"

[Captain Goddammit]

Except you can't get a wooden man to burn in a no-oxygen atmosphere. You can't get a joint lit either.
So that's out.

[lucky420]

I'm glad I'll be dead by then

[Wrath]

If there are people who bring boats and planes to build at a desert campout, I'm sure there are people willing to build martian habitats large enough to burn the man in.

With fireworks.

[BBadger]

Peace?! That's it? Puh-leeze. That's as silly a reason as I've ever heard.

What if people don't get off your case though? What of you want to celebrate your visions on mushrooms? Tired of people tripping on who you marry? Maybe everyone around you is too socially liberal & you're afraid God will send you to hell if you don't dip out, quick!

Now imagine being stuck with those same people in bunker-sized living space for the rest of eternity. At least on Earth you can pack your bags up and drive or fly somewhere else.


"Oh hey man, the only other people who ponied up to live on Mars along with you are: a professional narcissist businessman, a right-wing messageboard conspiracy theorist, an proselytizing vegan who is demanding (but won't get) only organic food, a Moonie evangelist, a hippie someone else paid to keep off planet Earth that we haven't told that he can't bring his someone else's weed aboard, and some first-year Burner who won't shut the hell up about her experience and thinks this will be the same."

<slides you a gun>

"Just in case. There's only one bullet."

"For the hippie..?"

"Um, that wasn't who I was thinking, but it's your call. God speed!"

Three hundred tons per ship. Thousands of ships.

That might start out with bunkers & pods, but I'll bet it'll end up more like a dome the size of Rod's Road, then a dome the size of Black Rock City.

That's a very heavy pie in the sky!

Don't get me wrong: I'm not wishing Musk failure, even if that would make me correct on the above counts. I just think it's a shamed to waste these kinds of resources on housing humans in inhospitable places just to house them (not even just for entertainment like at BM). I'd rather these ships be used to construct superscalar telescopes or send large probes to the furthest reaches of our solar system or beyond. Those would be much better uses of resources than essentially sending 300-ton RVs to Mars so people can waste away on a dead, cold planet doing essentially nothing. This is the ultimate plug-and-play profligacy.

[Token]

That's how you fund the thing.

Eternal reality tv stream with the 16 minute time lag sprinkled with Thunderdome.

I think it's a real winner.

[burner von braun]

Solar flare Friday.

I see what you did there GC, haha!

[BBadger]

"This is the true story, of seven strangers, who paid for the privilege of living in a space pod, sit around together, and have their lives taped for the rest of their lives. Find out what happens, when people stop being polite, cabin fever starts setting in, and shit starts getting real… The Mars World!”

[Wrath]

I doubt forever will catch on, especially at first. More likely something along the lines of two year terms. It'll totally end up on TV though. Who’s choosing to stay, who’s getting voted off, etc.

[maladroit]

Except you can't get a wooden man to burn in a no-oxygen atmosphere. You can't get a joint lit either.
So that's out.

Dude it's a carbon dioxide atmosphere with a couple percent of argon. Make a Man with high voltage electrodes and strike an arc, it'll be awesome.

And welding outside would be a joy.

[GreyCoyote]

"This is the true story, of seven strangers, who paid for the privilege of living in a space pod, sit around together, and have their lives taped for the rest of their lives. Find out what happens, when people stop being polite, cabin fever starts setting in, and shit starts getting real… The Mars World!”

"Donner... Party of 7..."
"Donner... Party of 6...."
"Donner... Party of 5....."

[Traveller in Time]

What, no pyrotechnicians here?

I am all for the discharges outside of a tube. Any idea how a rocket manages to ride on a flame? Just 'add' some oxygen to the solids, not unlike in fireworks.

Best bet for housing on Mars I have heard of are the volcanic tubes under Olympus Mons 'just' seal some of them off, pressurize and we are home.

What is it with Burningman and Mars? Over the years the combination keeps popping up.

Hmm, camping at a Lagrange point would also be radical. Where do I stick these lag screws?

[maladroit]

Best chance for this working is for all you acidheads to take AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN out there next year. At least one of you is bound to discover the teachable secret of teleportation and synthesis of materials from nothing.

[Token]

Best chance for this working is for all you acidheads to take AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN out there next year. At least one of you is bound to discover the teachable secret of teleportation and synthesis of materials from nothing.

But we already have that on the Starship Enterprise!

Why not use that?

[DoctorIknow]

“Living”on Mars? Really????

I liked Arthur Clarke's idea of using Earth’s and Moon’s natural (and created) resources to build hundreds space elevators (also called space tethers for anyone wanting to research) and connect them…:Sorry, I can't find one artists conception of what that might look like....

Several space elevators lead to a giant "circumterran" space station that encircles Earth at geostationary altitude. The analogy with a wheel is evident: the space station itself is the wheel rim, Earth is the axle, and the six equidistant space elevators the spokes.
Arthur’s idea was that Earth become a garden paradise, with only a minimal population to maintain it. The rest of the human population of Earth would be living in the “wheel” and take vacations on planet earth.

Sort of like going to Burning Man once a year, which is enough for me!

Lots of research happening with nano tech, and excluding the fantasy of Arthur Clarke, we simply have to stop poking holes in our delicate atmosphere with all these rockets that increase by numbers every year, and a space tether can haul everything up there and make rockets obsolete.

Projecting current research in carbon nanotubes and similar technologies, the IAA estimates that a pilot project could plausibly deliver packages to an altitude of 1000 kilometers (621 miles) as soon as 2025. With continued research and the help of a successful LEO (low Earth orbit; anywhere between an altitude of 100 and 1200 miles) elevator, they predict a 100,000-kilometer (62,137-mile) successor will stretch well past geosynchronous orbit just a decade after that.

[Captain Goddammit]

Best bet for housing on Mars I have heard of are the volcanic tubes under Olympus Mons 'just' seal some of them off, pressurize and we are home.

A sealed cave on an alien planet... yep, sounds livable to me. I volunteer you to go.

[Traveller in Time]

'Scotty, one to beam down.'

[some seeing eye]

I encourage the OP to contribute to new topics. We are all smart and experimental here!

It takes very, very, very, very large amounts of carbon climate-changing energy to launch into orbit or beyond.

Peeps in space or on planets are a fine aspirational narrative. Experiment even. Practical to save the species - never could work from a physics standpoint,

[666isMONEY]

Makes me think Elon Musk is insane, Biosphere II didn't work, Mars is like west Texas, no one wants to live there.

I'm skeptical about his battery factory too: not enough lithium, too expensive . . . my sister is an expert on peak oil and she's very pessimistic, predicts collapse soon, glut in oil and natural gas is very temporary. Life as we're living it is unsustainable.

[GreyCoyote]

A sealed cave on an alien planet... yep, sounds livable to me. I volunteer you to go.

This strikes me as kinda funny coming from the guy who once looked at a giant dust bowl in the middle of the desert, then at an old boat, and said "yep! Gotta do it!!!". (And he's been driving it around ever since looking like a slightly satanic version of Dick Cabot. Ask him about the mermaids he caught this year... Go on.... Ask him...)

Capt: Mysterious and improbable things happen. Just ask Noah... Or take a look at Unjon Harley!

[Captain Goddammit]

take a look at Unjon Harley

That's the worst idea I've ever heard!

[666isMONEY]