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Mars One: Dutch initiative to colonize Mars as early as 2023

Alex

what will it be next?
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    • Seen Dec 30, 2022
    A team of Dutch researchers, led by Bas Landsorp, have planned the first human settlement on the alien planet Mars, as early as 2023. The plan is simple:

    • 2016: Communication sattelite sent to Mars
    • 2018: Rover will be sent to find best settlement location
    • Rover will prepare settlement and life support for 4 years
    • Sept. 2022: 4 humans will be sent on 7-month trip to Mars
    • April 2023: The first human colony lands on Mars

    It's a pretty interesting initiative. The group plans to be privately funded, which I think is the right idea. I somehow don't see the Dutch population agreeing with their tax dollars funding this farfetched plan.

    I don't think I'm the only one who's skeptical about colonization by 2023. The likelihood of finding 4 people who are willing to settle on Mars for the rest of their lives seems pretty slim. I'd be down to go for like a week but doesn't seem like there'd be much to do out there on the red planet.

    But, if they can manage to pull this off, I would be very impressed.

    Mars One Introduction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6QoEEGySGm4

    Mars One Website: https://mars-one.com/
     
    I dont know how this is going to work this early. We're talking about humans going to live on another planet that they werent born on. 11 years is no where ner enough time to prepare for this in my opinion. How do we know we can actually live on Mars or any other planet? I dont see many people wanting to do so. It could be dangerous to live there. Questions like how people will get food, water and Oxygen come to mind. People cant just expect to live on another world the same way, their entire way of life will have to change.
     
    I agree, this seems extremely ambitious in just 11 years, but who knows? As for food and air, they can pack a lot of food into a tiny amount of space, it just won't taste good. Air could be supplied by plants? I feel like the only people who would be willing to go are older people. I definitely woudn't want to go while I was still young...
    Overall though, this sounds pretty darn amazing.
     
    At least they're taking initiative. 'Bout damn time someone bothered to really try this idea.
     
    I think it's entirely possible, even plausible. We can do a lot scientifically within a short period of time if we're motivated. We already know a ton about Mars (the alkaline soil would be great for growing asparagus, apparently) and about long-term living in enclosed spaces, psychologically and environmentally. It seems like the only reason we'd need to wait this long is to make sure that the "settlement" is ready for them, whatever that means.

    I hope they go through with this.
     
    It's an interesting idea and it's something that's always fun to think about. I like the idea of humanity seeing how far it can take itself.
     
    It would be really amazing if this works. I think it is entirely plausible. Now that the space program is starting to be privatized, things may move much faster.

    Even though I'm young, and love my family, I would probably go there if given an offer.
     
    I don't understand why people would want to waste their money on this initiative. I hope this is not funded by their government or mine. There is no reason why a government should fund this program and cut from programs that actually provide assistance like healthcare, defense, education, among many other important institutions.

    Oh wait, they are "privately funded". That is certainly possible, if you are Bill Gates. The money can't just appear out of thin air, if this does get off the ground, the money will come right of tax-payers pockets, whether it be directly or indirectly since there is not return on the expenditures (maybe they will make a reality TV show). On the website, they don't even touch on the subject of funding, nor do they have any confirmed technology suppliers-they only have "prospective" suppliers.This is just an unorganized and grandiose group of nut-jobs.

    All-in-all, science should have one purpose - helping people, helping the economy or helping the planet, anything else is a waste of time and resources; we cannot even figure out how to cure cancer, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Heart Disease, and other malignant diseases.
     
    Will it work? I don't know? Is it realistic? Probably not.

    But, I think it will be good (provided they don't go bankrupt or something) I don't like that America has grounded NASA for the time being. Dream big. Back in yesteryear, the end-goal was the Moon. Then the space-station. Think of the advancements in technology made that enabled that to happen. How those technologies were then adapted to benefit us beyond the space program.

    Fuel innovation and good things happen.
     
    I don't understand why people would want to waste their money on this initiative. I hope this is not funded by their government or mine. There is no reason why a government should fund this program and cut from programs that actually provide assistance like healthcare, defense, education, among many other important institutions.

    Oh wait, they are "privately funded". That is certainly possible, if you are Bill Gates. The money can't just appear out of thin air, if this does get off the ground, the money will come right of tax-payers pockets, whether it be directly or indirectly since there is not return on the expenditures (maybe they will make a reality TV show). On the website, they don't even touch on the subject of funding, nor do they have any confirmed technology suppliers-they only have "prospective" suppliers.This is just an unorganized and grandiose group of nut-jobs.

    All-in-all, science should have one purpose - helping people, helping the economy or helping the planet, anything else is a waste of time and resources; we cannot even figure out how to cure cancer, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Heart Disease, and other malignant diseases.

    If they can pull of self-sufficient human colonies on another planet, that will help the Earth as less people will be on it and we'd be able to spread out to other planets. Therefore, this is legitimate science by your standards. Not that your standards are correct in any way - there's also simply the pursuit of knowledge and pushing the boundaries of the human race, which is a completely valid reason for any scientific work.
     


    If they can pull of self-sufficient human colonies on another planet, that will help the Earth as less people will be on it and we'd be able to spread out to other planets. Therefore, this is legitimate science by your standards. Not that your standards are correct in any way - there's also simply the pursuit of knowledge and pushing the boundaries of the human race, which is a completely valid reason for any scientific work.

    There aren't any resources on Mars. They would never be completely self sufficient. The cost in resources and money to colonize another planet with several millions of people would outweigh the small benefit of displacing a relatively small portion of the population. The resources will still have to be shipped to Mars as well. The transportation of resources will also require resources for fuel and spacecraft technology. Basically, we will have less resources than we would have without the colonization. BTW, plenty of people are starving in this world as it is. So, it does not mold to the standards of what purposeful science is; Mars One does not help the planet, humans, or the global economy (it does the exact opposite).

    'The purpose' of "Pushing the boundaries of the human race" is not legitimate when the planet and humans suffer from the repercussions.
     
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    Ice is on Mars.

    Water check.

    Greenhouses for food. Or, Aeroponics grown food.

    Food check.

    Mars has water and food can be easily grown, which are essential resources.

    While I'll agree that the monetary cost to colinize it will be great, I see this like building a new town/city on earth except in much larger scale.

    As for the cost, history has shown us that as technology advances it will get smaller, more efficient, and cheaper to produce. I see space travel the same, as it advances the technology will become more efficient and cheaper fuel alernatives, or cheaper methods to produce the current fuel, will be discovered.
     
    Ice is on Mars.

    Water check.

    Greenhouses for food. Or, Aeroponics grown food.

    Food check.

    Mars has water and food can be easily grown, which are essential resources.

    While I'll agree that the monetary cost to colinize it will be great, I see this like building a new town/city on earth except in much larger scale.

    As for the cost, history has shown us that as technology advances it will get smaller, more efficient, and cheaper to produce. I see space travel the same, as it advances the technology will become more efficient and cheaper fuel alernatives, or cheaper methods to produce the current fuel, will be discovered.



    The Ice on mars is either dry ice or chemically altered from that of fresh water ice that is mixed into the soil composed of clay, sulfates, salts, among other compounds.

    "Dry Ice is frozen carbon dioxide. Unlike most solids, it does not melt into a liquid, but instead changes directly into a gas. This process is called sublimation." -NASA

    "most of this ice water is locked up in the chemical structure of minerals, such as clay and sulfates." - NASA

    The harvesting of liquid fresh water on Mars would require an ample amount of resources which would have to be imported from the Earth since the water is both frozen and mixed in with salt and soil compounds. Chemical conversion at a large scale would cost several millions, if not billions of dollars a year in order to create enough fresh water for drinking.

    The resources for creating this "greenhouse" would cost a lot of money for the infrastructure alone. According to NASA, Mars only receives 36% of the sunlight in which the Earth does. Therefore the plants would not grow as abundantly. Also, there is that need for the essential resource of water, which would need to undergo physical and chemical conversions before use. Which means more resources for building the infrastructure of a conversion plant, and the energy needed to run it.

    The heating of the living areas costs money and resources. That heating energy will heavily rely on Earth's resources. What about electricity? Given that there is about a third as much sunlight reaching Mars, solar panels will be obsolete, and would have to be installed and maintained via external assistance and resources from Earth. So more energy resources would have to be imported to Mars from Earth.

    ...And then there is the amount of resources going into the infrastructure of the spacecrafts, the operators, technicians, and astronauts to run them, and the exorbitant amount of fuel...Imagine how frequently resources will be needed on Mars; that is a lot of trips and resources down the drain for a round-trip lasting over a year per space shuttle.

    Life on Mars cannot in any way, shape, or form be "self-sufficient" without readily available resources. This is only a few instances of essential resources that cannot be cultivated without continual assistance from Earth and its resources.

    The Earth is already hard-pressed for the amount of resources that we have already used. There is no legitimate reason why we should risk our planet's survival for a grandiose scheme that serves no important purpose to life on Earth.
     
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    There aren't any resources on Mars. They would never be completely self sufficient. The cost in resources and money to colonize another planet with several millions of people would outweigh the small benefit of displacing a relatively small portion of the population. The resources will still have to be shipped to Mars as well. The transportation of resources will also require resources for fuel and spacecraft technology. Basically, we will have less resources than we would have without the colonization. BTW, plenty of people are starving in this world as it is. So, it does not mold to the standards of what purposeful science is; Mars One does not help the planet, humans, or the global economy (it does the exact opposite).

    'The purpose' of "Pushing the boundaries of the human race" is not legitimate when the planet and humans suffer from the repercussions.
    Technology and resources (or rather, the lac of these things) aren't the only thing that are keeping people in poverty and starvation. People who suffer like that are living in places that don't have the infrastructure, political organizations, etc. to keep them sustainably healthy. No amount of food is going to help if they live under corrupt governments who take all the aid for themselves and when a new road can't be used because of roaming thugs. We might as well use our resources for things like space travel because you never know what advances might come from it.
     
    There aren't any resources on Mars. They would never be completely self sufficient. The cost in resources and money to colonize another planet with several millions of people would outweigh the small benefit of displacing a relatively small portion of the population. The resources will still have to be shipped to Mars as well. The transportation of resources will also require resources for fuel and spacecraft technology. Basically, we will have less resources than we would have without the colonization. BTW, plenty of people are starving in this world as it is. So, it does not mold to the standards of what purposeful science is; Mars One does not help the planet, humans, or the global economy (it does the exact opposite).

    'The purpose' of "Pushing the boundaries of the human race" is not legitimate when the planet and humans suffer from the repercussions.

    Yes, and all the Europeans who discovered the New World were just wasting their time as well, because at that time no one could have told them about what they would find, so it would have seemed pointless to them, especially since they believes the earth was flat so the people they funded would just never return. I guess if you ran the world we would all still be in Europe, lol.

    In addition, the ability to create spaceships that can travel efficiently and cheaply would revolutionize the budding industry of space tourism. What a shocker, it comes back to the economy. Flight-related advances made from this kind of research can also be applied to airplanes, making air travel cheaper for the average person. Same goes for fuel innovations that can come as a result of space research.

    Finally, if this ends up being taken from taxpayer's dollars in some way, as you seem to think it will, you're welcome to move to a country that is not using taxpayer dollars to fund it, and complain then. As of now, it's being proposed using private funding. Once you begin to try to tell people where to spend their own money, it comes back to things such as "why do you spend money on internet when people are starving?"
     
    The harvesting of liquid fresh water on Mars would require an ample amount of resources which would have to be imported from the Earth since the water is both frozen and mixed in with salt and soil compounds. Chemical conversion at a large scale would cost several millions, if not billions of dollars a year in order to create enough fresh water for drinking.

    Water reclamation will reduce the cost.

    The resources for creating this "greenhouse" would cost a lot of money for the infrastructure alone. According to NASA, Mars only receives 36% of the sunlight in which the Earth does. Therefore the plants would not grow as abundantly. Also, there is that need for the essential resource of water, which would need to undergo physical and chemical conversions before use. Which means more resources for building the infrastructure of a conversion plant, and the energy needed to run it.

    Usage of Aeroponics would reduce the amount of water needed.

    The heating of the living areas costs money and resources. That heating energy will heavily rely on Earth's resources. What about electricity? Given that there is about a third as much sunlight reaching Mars, solar panels will be obsolete, and would have to be installed and maintained via external assistance and resources from Earth. So more energy resources would have to be imported to Mars from Earth.

    More likely, future technology will solve most of this isssue. Even still, you seem to expect that everyone will want to jump on a spaceship and go to Mars. They won't. Inital settlement would be small scale, so even with reduced collection rates todays solar panels could generate enough power.

    The Earth is already hard-pressed for the amount of resources that we have already used. There is no legitimate reason why we should risk our planet's survival for a grandiose scheme that serves no important purpose to life on Earth.

    Which is the exact reason why we need to expand, to search out new sources of resources. In business they say you have to spend money to make money. In this case, it's you have to use resources to get resources.

    I'm willing to bet that you'll be joining these lists in 50 or so years.

    https://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/stoopid.lis
    https://listverse.com/2007/10/28/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/

    Edit

    I do, somewhat, agree with him though. We shouldn't start colonizing Mars immediately. We should start with the Moon first, THEN make our way to Mars.
     
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    Technology and resources (or rather, the lac of these things) aren't the only thing that are keeping people in poverty and starvation. People who suffer like that are living in places that don't have the infrastructure, political organizations, etc. to keep them sustainably healthy. No amount of food is going to help if they live under corrupt governments who take all the aid for themselves and when a new road can't be used because of roaming thugs. We might as well use our resources for things like space travel because you never know what advances might come from it.

    Since people are starving and in poverty on Earth, we might as well exhaust more resources on this baseless initiative?

    People are impoverished and malnourished in the industrialized nations like the United States.

    @ Toujours, the internet is not analogous to Mars colonization. The internet is beneficial to society.

    The fact that the Earth is round is important because it is important to understand the physics of our planet. Another in-analogous and irrelevant comparison.

    Stick to the facts, we are wasting resources for no purpose for life on Earth.

    Recreational Space travel is different from Mars colonization. The people who colonize the planet will staying their for the rest of their life, and we will be wasting our resources for them to upkeep their existence as I thoroughly stated. The waste in sheer resources is an upset to the economy. Just because someone can "afford" the resources doesn't mean it's not a "waste" of non-recyclable resources.

    @X

    We would be using a disproportional amount of resources to the amount of resources gained. It's an irresponsible and inefficient use of resources, since we would suffer a MASSIVE net loss of resources if we were to colonize space opposed if we did not. We do not have the technology for cheap space travel among many other things necessary for affordable planetary colonization.

    I am not talking about in the future, I am talking about the relative present. For all we know, we could teleport in the future. We should not count on it though if failure means dire consequences.
     
    @ Toujours, the internet is not analogous to Mars colonization. The internet is beneficial to society.

    It's not beneficial to society for you in particular to be on the internet. It would be more beneficial to the starving people if you used that money to buy them food every week.

    The fact that the Earth is round is important because it is important to understand the physics of our planet. Another in-analogous and irrelevant comparison.

    I think you're getting a little confused here. Yes, now we know why that was an important discovery to make. We know the huge effect it has on the world. But it wasn't the same in the past, when these projects were accepted. They were allowed to go explore, even with the majority of people still believing the world was flat so if they went too far they would fall off and not come back, basically wasting their money. Finding the edges of the plate of the Earth was beneficial to no one, and only became beneficial once they discovered the New World, which no one expected. So to claim that you as a layperson know all the possibilities of space travel and what the benefits are is rather arrogant of you.

    Stick to the facts, we are wasting resources for no purpose for life on Earth.

    Recreational Space travel is different from Mars colonization. The people who colonize the planet will staying their for the rest of their life, and we will be wasting our resources for them to upkeep their existence as I thoroughly stated. The waste in sheer resources is an upset to the economy. Just because someone can "afford" the resources doesn't mean it's not a "waste" of non-recyclable resources.

    You missed the point of that. The research towards colonization will involve building more efficient spaceships, to ferry people and initial supplies back and forth. This will extend the leaps forward to other areas of progress. It's about cause-and-effect, and looking beyond your narrow viewpoint of what the world's potential is. I know it may blow your mind and make you deny it vehemently, but you are not the smartest person in the world when it comes to whether space travel is beneficial or not, and even the smartest people in the world often can't predict the benefits that come from it.

    As far as personal money goes; it's their money. I don't know how this is a difficult concept to grasp...it doesn't matter that they have a lot of it, it's theirs to invest wherever they please. If they want to invest it in buying a lot of food, water, and solar panels and shipping them off to Mars, why are you the Mars police telling them that as a random person on the internet, they shouldn't be allowed to use their own money the way they choose?

    Edit: In addition, a large portion of their money will go towards hiring engineers to craft the ship and the colony, hiring workers to build it, probably offering some kind of incentive for people going to live there, hiring farmers to work the food and scientists to free the water, a godsend of employment in a stagnating economy.
     


    It's not beneficial to society for you in particular to be on the internet. It would be more beneficial to the starving people if you used that money to buy them food every week.



    I think you're getting a little confused here. Yes, now we know why that was an important discovery to make. We know the huge effect it has on the world. But it wasn't the same in the past, when these projects were accepted. They were allowed to go explore, even with the majority of people still believing the world was flat so if they went too far they would fall off and not come back, basically wasting their money. Finding the edges of the plate of the Earth was beneficial to no one, and only became beneficial once they discovered the New World, which no one expected. So to claim that you as a layperson know all the possibilities of space travel and what the benefits are is rather arrogant of you.



    You missed the point of that. The research towards colonization will involve building more efficient spaceships, to ferry people and initial supplies back and forth. This will extend the leaps forward to other areas of progress. It's about cause-and-effect, and looking beyond your narrow viewpoint of what the world's potential is. I know it may blow your mind and make you deny it vehemently, but you are not the smartest person in the world when it comes to whether space travel is beneficial or not, and even the smartest people in the world often can't predict the benefits that come from it.

    As far as personal money goes; it's their money. I don't know how this is a difficult concept to grasp...it doesn't matter that they have a lot of it, it's theirs to invest wherever they please. If they want to invest it in buying a lot of food, water, and solar panels and shipping them off to Mars, why are you the Mars police telling them that as a random person on the internet, they shouldn't be allowed to use their own money the way they choose?

    Edit: In addition, a large portion of their money will go towards hiring engineers to craft the ship and the colony, hiring workers to build it, probably offering some kind of incentive for people going to live there, hiring farmers to work the food and scientists to free the water, a godsend of employment in a stagnating economy.

    How is the internet not beneficial? I, as an individual, buy things, sell things, coordinated events, send important documents, among many other import uses. The internet is a MAJOR portion of our global economy, government, communication, educational resources, non-profit organizations, among many other functions. Each individual plays a role in multiple functions listed. Space exploration does none of these things. Therefore, this is an irrelevant analogy.

    The Flat Earth/America's Discovery analogy is also irrelevant. Those who traveled to the Americas did not know what they were going to find; it would be equivalent if they had the technology to analyze the materials of the America's and generate images of the terrain. However, we have sent land exploration rovers to Mars, so we know what is expected to be found. The premise that your argument DEPENDS on is that we know very little of what types of resources, and therefore, benefits we will find on Mars. We know exactly what minerals and compounds compose the planet, it consists of very few usable resources that requires more resources in order to excavate them. Not to mention, the Americas were abundant with various resources.

    "As far as personal money goes; it's their money. I don't know how this is a difficult concept to grasp...it doesn't matter that they have a lot of it, it's theirs to invest wherever they please. If they want to invest it in buying a lot of food, water, and solar panels and shipping them off to Mars, why are you the Mars police telling them that as a random person on the internet, they shouldn't be allowed to use their own money the way they choose?"

    By applying the logic that anyone has the right to buy as much natural resources and use those resources to their liking, there are unintended consequences. By this, I would have a legitimate interest in purchasing millions of tons of trees, petroleum, among other resources and ship them into a box into Saturn, purely by following the provided logic. The reason why this is not acceptable is that resources are scarce enough on earth, if these resources are being exported out of our planet, regardless if any individual or group can afford them, the planet's resources are being depleted. Of course a large portion of our resources would be required to build another civilization on Mars, with no net benefit to the planet.

    Also, this idea that people have this unlimited amount of "personal money" that they are willing and are able to pay thousands of workers with no financial return is an unlikely one. This is possible if the group gets subsidies from the government and receives other types of tax dollars to take care of expenditures via lobbying, as well as their associated companies that have received tax payer dollars via lobbying. Not one tax payer dollar should be spent on this project. Let's say there were 25000 workers on this project, and estimate the cost to pay each worker around an average of 75,000 dollars; that would cost over a billion dollars, that doesn't even cover the costs for billions (if not trillions) of dollars worth of petroleum and gasses, metal materials, lab materials, space shuttle materials, living quarters, land rovers, water extraction plants, space suits, planting materials, electricity, plumbing, heating systems, solar panels, greenhouses, among hundreds of other needed components. No one would is just going to invest this amount of money into this program from their "personal wealth". This money WOULD come out of tax payers money in some form, it is a naive notion to think otherwise. Therefore, this cost could potentially be detrimental to the economy with deficits and decrease the amount of service the government provides or increase the amount of taxes.

    "I don't understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp?"

    "I know it may blow your mind and make you deny it vehemently, but you are not the smartest person in the world."

    "So to claim that you as a layperson know all the possibilities of space travel and what the benefits are is rather arrogant of you."


    Sidenote*
    Please don't try to condescend to me, those who are not confident in their knowledge of issues tend to side-step points by resorting to irrelevant analogies or irreverent insults which are not pertinent to the many variables at hand; the Ad Hominem approach does the exact opposite to solidify arguments, and is a catalyst for hostile discussions. Please reserve blatantly rude comments for another site - thanks. Next time I will simply not reply.
     
    We would be using a disproportional amount of resources to the amount of resources gained. It's an irresponsible and inefficient use of resources, since we would suffer a MASSIVE net loss of resources if we were to colonize space opposed if we did not. We do not have the technology for cheap space travel among many other things necessary for affordable planetary colonization.

    I am not talking about in the future, I am talking about the relative present. For all we know, we could teleport in the future. We should not count on it though if failure means dire consequences.

    At first yes, it would be disproportionate. This is, of course, the costs of setting up a new colony away from the established supply lines.

    A decade is the reletive present? No. It's not. A year or two is. A decade isn't.

    Technological progression, overall, ISN'T linear. You can't draw a line and say 'this is how things will develop.' History shows us that there are some events that will speed up technological progression, to way beyond what would be expected (Even if, at that time, you have extremely high expectations for how technology will progress.) War is the spokes-event for this. During War, technology has always progressed at a extremely high rate, during the time that the war lasts.

    The other example of a massive technological increase during a short period of time is the Space Race. We wanted, no, HAD to one up the Soviets.

    I see this as another opportunity for a massive technological increase. Just look at a list of technology that was created due to space race. And them, just think about what technology will come of this space race.

    Yes, this at first will be a waste of resources. I'm not going to dispute that, although I do think that you are overstating just how much resources will be needed. But, although it will take a large amount of resources, the technology creating during this time will be more then worth the cost.

    The prime example is medical technology. It advanced leaps and bounds due to us wanting to, safely, get to the moon. Imagine just how much more it will advance because we want to get to Mars. If it advances much like it did in the space race, then it's going to be more then worth the resources needed. (And I'm not even accounting for all the other, non-medical advances, that will emerge from this.)

    Edit
    I just hope that we don't find any 'recent' (Past... oh... 50k or so years ago) Alien ruins on Mars, whose creators just vanished for no apparent reason. Because if thats the case, we'll all be pretty much screwed.
     
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