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

[Sir Codin]

"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.

She is at least somewhat right, though, in that respect. You do make some articulate and well thought out points, which I can respect. Still, your writing reads like that of a pious, coffee-drinking pseudo-intellectual, which continually irritated me. Even your rebuttal to her comments came off as condescending.

Way I see it, we have a couple choices, maybe more:
Either a) we take a chance, blow a bunch of money, and see where off-Earth colonization gets us or b) we sit here and deplete Earth's resources further. Either way, there's going to be inconveniences.

 

[Illuminaughty]

She is at least somewhat right, though, in that respect. You do make some articulate and well thought out points, which I can respect. Still, your writing reads like that of a pious, coffee-drinking pseudo-intellectual, which continually irritated me. Even your rebuttal to her comments came off as condescending.

Way I see it, we have a couple choices, maybe more:
Either a) we take a chance, blow a bunch of money, and see where off-Earth colonization gets us or b) we sit here and deplete Earth's resources further. Either way, there's going to be inconveniences.

Since I do not resort to insults and logically articulate my arguments well, I am condescending? The whole point is using personal attack in order to dismantle another person's argument is illogical and immature. We see Ad Hominem tactics used in politics in order to draw away focus from the importance of the issues, and place the focus on the character of the person. I am not arrogant, hubris, narrow-minded, irritating, incompetent or any of the other personal statements made about me based off a few posts I have composed. I would not base claims like those against other people who have posted, especially since I do not know them personally. And that is all I am going to say about this completely off-topic discussion.


The two options given are not the exclusive options. In any regard, Mars does not have much to offer as far as resources. Secondly, we have a tremendous amount of alternative energy resources to those that are non-reusable, there is no reason why we cannot develop and innovate new technologies to harness more efficiently solar, wind, or hydroelectric energy for instance.

 

[Mr. X]

More land isn't a resource?

This is a post I made a while back on a topic about Terraforming other planets. Applys to this, specifically about resources and why, despite conserving them, we will eventually run out.

https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=7088216&postcount=19

 

[Illuminaughty]

^ But in order to use that resource of land, it will cost a tremendous about of resources on Earth. One alternative could be colonizing the ocean, 70% of the Earth's surface is water. We would save much more resources than resorting to Mars colonization, and saving resources is in the best interest of our planet. Not to mention, these civilizations could be just as self-sufficient as any other civilization on Earth.

 

[Mr. X]

Theoretically though, a colony on another planet would be safer then a underwater city.

At least with the colony you can seperate the buildings, and have people use enviroment suits when moving between them. If one building gets damaged, its not going to destroy everything.

You get your underwater city damaged, odd's are that the majority or the entirety will be a loss.

Even then, just the pressure from being underwater could cause health issues, possiably more so then living in a lower gravity.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see a couple of underwater cities, but its at most a temporary measure. Colonies on other planets WILL have to happen.

 

[Illuminaughty]

Theoretically though, a colony on another planet would be safer then a underwater city.

At least with the colony you can seperate the buildings, and have people use enviroment suits when moving between them. If one building gets damaged, its not going to destroy everything.

You get your underwater city damaged, odd's are that the majority or the entirety will be a loss.

Even then, just the pressure from being underwater could cause health issues, possiably more so then living in a lower gravity.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see a couple of underwater cities, but its at most a temporary measure. Colonies on other planets WILL have to happen.

I was referring to colonization of the surface of the ocean-not underwater. Cruise boats, for example, can boast upwards of 6,000 people, often referred to as a floating cities.

 

[Sir Codin]

^ But in order to use that resource of land, it will cost a tremendous about of resources on Earth. One alternative could be colonizing the ocean, 70% of the Earth's surface is water. We would save much more resources than resorting to Mars colonization, and saving resources is in the best interest of our planet. Not to mention, these civilizations could be just as self-sufficient as any other civilization on Earth.

I do agree colonizing the ocean would presently be more efficient than heading to Mars. But here's something that perturbs me; how much more resources are we going to be saving in the long run? If our current population remains stagnant, then yes, the amount of resources we save by not funding this mission would probably be more beneficial to us in the long run. But the human population won't remain stagnant; it's going to continue to increase. We already have too high of a population to remain sustainable in even the most basic sense of the word and colonizing the ocean (surface or sub-surface) probably isn't going to help us for very long, not to mention the technology to build and maintain surface and underwater cities would probably be just as much of an initial burden as space-travel. It may sound like a long shot, but even with the initial burden on finances and resources, spreading our population to different worlds can be a viable option to solving the crisis of overpopulation. Of course, there can be problems like the Founder Effect leading to inbreeding, but that might be solved using gene flow.

Mars does have some valuable resources that contain or can be converted to oxygen, nitrogen, water. It's not like some people haven't thought this through; in fact there's a whole article on Wikipedia dedicated to listing proposed methods of terra-forming the surface of Mars and moving to try and discover new innovations for making this a reality.

Now, what you say is a possibility; it might end in failure, end up being a total waste of resources, and we'd be worse off than we already are. But if successful, this could mean the first step towards interplanetary travel and colonization.

It reminds me of this quote from Fight Club (get used to it; I quote that movie A LOT):

"Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing."


It could end in failure or success, but if we don't try, then the amount of resources we save now might not matter in the long run.

 

[Illuminaughty]

I do agree colonizing the ocean would presently be more efficient than heading to Mars. But here's something that perturbs me; how much more resources are we going to be saving in the long run? If our current population remains stagnant, then yes, the amount of resources we save by not funding this mission would probably be more beneficial to us in the long run. But the human population won't remain stagnant; it's going to continue to increase. We already have too high of a population to remain sustainable in even the most basic sense of the word and colonizing the ocean (surface or sub-surface) is going to help us for long, not to mention the technology to build and maintain surface and underwater cities would probably be just as much of an initial burden as space-travel. It may sound like a long shot, but even with the initial burden on finances and resources, spreading our population to different worlds can be a viable option to solving the crisis of overpopulation. Of course, there can be problems like the Founder Effect leading to inbreeding, but that might be solved using gene flow.

Mars does have some valuable resources that contain or can be converted to oxygen, nitrogen, water. It's not like some people haven't thought this through; in fact there's a whole article on Wikipedia dedicated to listing proposed methods of terra-forming the surface of Mars and moving to try and discover new innovations for making this a reality.

What you keep saying can be a possibility; it might end in failure and we'd be worse off than we already are. But if successful, this could mean the first step towards interplanetary travel and colonization.

It reminds me of this quote from Fight Club (get used to it; I quote that movie A LOT):

"Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing."


It could end in failure or success, but if we don't try, then the amount of resources we save now might not matter in the long run.

This requires a disproportionate amount of resources in order to harvest an incredibly lesser amount of resources. Therefore, there will actually be a net loss of resources.

Again, I never mentioned "underwater cities". We have already invented cruise ships that can host over 6,000 people. The amount of resources needed to host a large amount of people on the ocean opposed to the resources needed to host a large amount of people on the Mars is incredibly less.

I am not saying it is urgent either, but if and when the resource of "land" becomes depleted, it is the best option of the two in reserving the remaining resources the Earth has.

 

[Mr. X]

I was referring to colonization of the surface of the ocean-not underwater. Cruise boats, for example, can boast upwards of 6,000 people, often referred to as a floating cities.

Even then, a hull breech in certian areas and the ship is good as screwed, as are most/all of the people onboard. Not to mention pirate attacks. (Then again, you could always have armed speedboats defending them.)

Storm season would bring complete hell upon them though.

 

[Illuminaughty]

Even then, a hull breech in certian and the ship is good as screwed, as are most/all of the people onboard. Not to mention pirate attacks. (Then again, you could always have armed speedboats defending them.)

A hull breach is not certain by any means. Cruise-boats have limited security since they are recreational. However, cruise-boats are not synonymous with a civilization settled on the ocean.

These types of structures would be civilizations with defense systems that are similar to any other nation or territory.

 

[Sir Codin]

This requires a disproportionate amount of resources in order to harvest an incredibly lesser amount of resources. Therefore, there will actually be a net loss of resources.

Again, I never mentioned "underwater cities". We have already invented cruise ships that can host over 6,000 people. The amount of resources needed to host a large amount of people on the ocean opposed to the resources needed to host a large amount of people on the Mars is incredibly less.

I am not saying it is urgent either, but if and when the resource of "land" becomes depleted, it is the best option of the two in reserving the remaining resources the Earth has.

And who's to say we'd stop at Mars; if terra-forming Mars is a success, we'd have better knowledge on how to colonize other worlds, not to mention the end result being that having a significant portion of our population on another planet would give Earth a chance to recover natural resources should the Mars terra-formation prove successful enough to yield the possibility of self-sufficiency.

Also, I know you didn't mention underwater cities, but that'd certainly be where we'd likely go next if we overrun the ocean surface. Cruise ships also require a lot of fuel to keep running and afloat, so how much would whole colonies on the surface would take. Sure, space-ships require fuel as well, but the materials needed to create rocket fuel can be found on Mars and created with current technology, although one proposed method for lessening initial resources spent in this endeavor is to send a fueling probe to Mars and having it build reserves for a significant amount of time before human colonization is taken into effect. The whole point of establishing a colony on another planet is to find a way not to take resources from Earth forever, but to reach a point where the colony has terra-formed enough of the planet to grow their own food, create their own water, even establish an atmosphere, ergo becoming self-sufficient.

If a colony can become self-sufficient and host a considerable portion of the population, that would give time and opportunity for the original habitat to recover, which is beneficial in the long run, provided we find some way to limit population growth on both worlds.

 

[Illuminaughty]

And who's to say we'd stop at Mars; if terra-forming Mars is a success, we'd have better knowledge on how to colonize other worlds, not to mention the end result of having a significant portion of our population on another planet would give Earth a chance to recover natural resources should Mars terra-formation prove successful enough to yield the possibility of self-sufficiency.

Also, I know you didn't mention underwater cities, but that'd certain be where we'd likely go next if we overrun the ocean surface. Cruise ships also require a lot of fuel to keep running and afloat, so how much would whole colonies on the surface would take. Sure, space-ships require fuel as well, but the materials needed to create rocket fuel can be found on Mars and created with current technology, although one proposed method for lessening initial resources spent in this endeavor is to send a fueling probe to Mars and having it build reserves for a significant amount of time before human colonization is taken into effect. The whole point of establishing a colony on another planet is to find a way not to take resources from Earth forever, but to reach a point where the colony has terra-formed enough of the planet to grow their own food, create their own water, even establish an atmosphere, ergo becoming self-sufficient.

If a colony can become self-sufficient and host a considerable portion of the population, that would give time and opportunity for the original habitat to recover, which is beneficial in the long run, provided we find some way to limit population growth on both worlds.

I repeat for the third time, cruise boats are not synonymous with the infrastructure or function of a what a ocean civilization consists of. It was an example given to demonstrate that humans have already been able to host large amounts of people on the ocean's surface. These civilization are capable of self-sufficiency since the infrastructure is not mobile, and requires no more resources to run than other civilizations, it's presumed to be stationary.


Again, resources on Mars require resources on Earth in order to harvest them.
Read the post I made about water conversion. We will end up exhausting more resources than we are excavating. Also, the soil of Mars is not arable for plant life nor can we construct a new atmosphere. Although growing plants is possible, there is a need of water in order to harvest them. Which has been established as an arduous and costly process that requires persistent imports from Earth in order to maintain a conversion plant. If the only gain from this colonization is land, the cost of our planet's resources is not worth it. Especially since we could turn to a more efficient solution such as ocean surface colonization. More land, and less expending of resources than Mars.

 

[Mr. X]

Again, resources on Mars require resources on Earth in order to harvest them.
Read the post I made about water conversion. We will end up exhausting more resources than we are excavating.

Future methods will use less resources to excevate/whatever. And its not going to be a drain forever. I'd think that self sufficency would be the priority, so it would be worked towards ASAP.

Also, the soil of Mars is not arable for plant life nor can we construct a new atmosphere.

Look at our planet, look at all the diffrient habitats. The similar thing between them is that they all have something growing on them. And with how genetic engineering could advance, if we don't have something that is a perfect match (or even a partial match) to Marses enviroment then we can just modify some to work.

Colorization of other planets will be new science essentially. The methods for it aren't going to be established, and no one will see the use of it until some point in the future.

Although growing plants is possible, there is a need of water in order to harvest them. Which has been established as an arduous and costly process that requires persistent imports from Earth in order to maintain a conversion plant.

Didn't you just say that its not suitable for plant life?

I'll give you this though. It will be costly at first to transport water. It's incentive for scientific advancement really. (As in, a reason to make space travel more efficient)

Even then, your over stating the problem. We'll have small scale farming of Mars land but for the initial decade or so the majority of food will be grown by Aeroponics.

If the only gain from this colonization is land, the cost of our planet's resources is not worth it. Especially since we could turn to a more efficient solution such as ocean surface colonization. More land, and less expending of resources than Mars.

The technological leap that will come from it is worth it.

As I said earlier, while above or under water cities is a good idea, its at most a temporary measure. Eventually, we will have to look to other planets. And personally, I'd rather that we look into this now instead of in the future when something like this could be our only chance of survival.

Do I think we should go straight to Mars? No. We should look into the Moon first, at least for harvesting resources for Mars and as a launch point (Lower gravity, less fuel needed) for going to Mars.

My timeline would look somewhat like this one, although the Moon would be in place of Mars, and Mars would follow 5 years after the moon gets its first colony.

 

[Shiny Celebi]

I want to be optomistic about this but considering humans and their tendencey to destroy, waste and overpopulate I cant see an off world colony solving any of our current problems. People dont change very easily. We'll just have another planet to do the same things we did to Earth on.

 

[Illuminaughty]

Didn't you just say that its not suitable for plant life?

Nope. I said the soil was not arable.

Water is still needed for other plant growth techniques.

 

[Sir Codin]

Ocean colonization and space colonization are both viable methods for spreading ourselves out, waste of resources or no. I do think both are an inevitability...provided we don't nuke ourselves to hell and back before we really undertake both endeavors, which, given humanity's tendency to distrust each other, is probably more likely, which depresses the hell out of me.

 

[Gliese]

As has already been said, a colony on Mars would require tons of resources to start with, but once the colony becomes self-sustaining, it will become beneficial.

However, I will agree with Illuminaughty that it won't benefit Earth in terms of resources. Any resources will be used by the people on Mars, although they could find materials that are rare on Earth and send them back.

The biggest immediate benefit will be the technological advances the project would give us. Many of the technologies we have today are because of the Space Race, and that was only a few trips into orbit and to the Moon. The technological advances we would make in colonizing Mars would almost certainly more than compensate for whatever resources we lose in the process.


Another benefit that I'm surprised nobody had pointed out yet, is the long-term survival of the human race. By setting up self-sustaining civilizations on other worlds, we ensure our survival in the face of a Mass Extinction Event, such as an asteroid or super-volcano. Such an event is almost certain to happen at some point in the future, and it would be stupid of us to wait until it is a few months or years away to try this. No matter how good we take care of it, we should not put all of our eggs in a single planetary basket.

 

[Euonymus]

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

good luck with that

 

[Sir Codin]

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

good luck with that

I think that's why they put that there. They're obviously expecting delays.

 

[Livewire]

Imagine if they could terra form while they're there. That opens up an entirely new can of worms. Given time, you wouldn't need all the space gear, if Mars gets an atmosphere. It's still technically in the 'Goldilocks' zone capable of supporting life.

inb4 they find aliens like Prometheus.