this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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Do people really think we'll colonize mars soon?
Colonizing the bottom of the ocean would be orders of magnitude cheaper, and more practical. Same with Antarctica. And there's a reason we don't do that.
I hate to sound anal, but I don't think the public appreciates how monumentally difficult space travel is, and how it gets exponentially worse with every ounce you have to carry. Even with theoretical, morally questionable tech like fission fragment drives or whatever.
Pressure is way harder to deal with than a vacuum, not that i think mars is happening any time soon
Both have unique challenges, but overall brucethemoose is right about the overall cost comparison. For instance, we could easily have a "space elevator" equivalent to the bottom of the ocean, it'd be a fraction of the cost of maintaining a freight network to mars. Pressure is hard to deal with, but not as difficult as it is to get shit out of a gravity well as dense as Earth.
The main point is the usable resources. You'd have a damn near infinite source of usable resources at the bottom of the ocean meanwhile on Mars everything would need to be scavenged or shipped.
The ocean is a lot closer though, which helps
Hey.
I love doing fully realistic space flight simulators in virtual reality -- programs that run at 18-30 FPS from the sheer computational load of doing physics calculations and accurate particle collisions of light, gas flow exchanges, liquids , and such in real time.
I'm nuts and the idea of being alone on a desolate planet in a space suit is highly relaxing for me:
I did the "solo" Mars scenario.
Even with the ability to quick save and load, and manipulate the environmental conditions to be completely in my favor (best possible landing spot, best weather, optimal genetic splicing and variation for plants), I died.
Everyone who goes to Mars -- is going to die.
The moon is a different story, and a testing grounds to see if humanity has what it takes.
Recently, they cancelled an unmanned rover whose sole purpose was to go look at some moon ice, due to budget cuts.
That should give you a sense of our overall preparation level for Mars.
Astrophysicists do have quick save and load. They run a bajillion simulations, calculations, and scenarios before they ever touch a single bolt. You're not doing that in your game, nor is it likely that you're an astrophysicist. Some of the most highly competent people in the world work on these projects, and they plan for decades before they launch a mission. Yes, shit happens, but the chances are pretty high that they already accounted for any shit that could happen.
We successfully sent people to the moon and back when the most powerful computers in the world filled an entire room, and were literally millions of times less powerful than the phone I'm writing this on. Material science and manufacturing processes are also considerably more advanced now.
Putting a person on Mars will certainly be a daunting challenge, but I don't think it's one that is insurmountable. The biggest challenge is the fact that they operate on shoestring budgets compared to other major industries. Musk won't have anything to do with the actual real planning of a Mars mission. As a matter of fact, Space X has an entire department that is dedicated to keeping him away from projects.
PS: what's that game called? I want to play it!
It's:
Take on Mars (VorpX) And Occupy Mars (Unreal Engine VR Hooks Mod)
They are both quite buggy and made by tiny teams because spaceflight/exoplanet simulation is a niche genre (See: No Man's Sky for an example of a popular arcade-like simulator)
I'd offer you some tips on how to approach your first Mars mission, but given that I'm likely not an astrophysicist, I'll let you figure that part out on your own :P
Haha! Thanks for the recommendations. I'm definitely going to check those out.
Didn't they "lose" the documentation of the moon landing, and that's why we can't go back atm? Like 60 years later we still couldn't retro engineer it?
The physics calculations aren't what makes it run at 30fps; it's more the graphic rendering. Physics are easy to do. Making them look nice isn't.
What?
Physics calculations are renowned for using simplifications to approximate results.
That doesn't work for space. One cannot assume an object is a perfect sphere experiencing no friction and have any hope of success. And that's just the first of many forces that are dropped to make the math easy.
Mars Virgin cant even Matt Damon into space.
lol
Didn't we all do the solo mars mission during covid?
Colonizing the bottom of the ocean would be harder than colonizing Mars. Not that either is a great idea, but just saying.
Dealing with the immense pressure would be harder. Getting the materials to the bottom of the ocean would be trivial compared to getting them to Mars.
new zealand did it
Spaceships in many ways are safer than sitting at the bottom of a ditch with 7 miles of water sitting on top of you at 30,000 atmospheres of pressure.
It's also darker at the bottom of the ocean than in space.
Again... it's hard to appreciate how insanely difficult space travel is.
Just as an example, the lower stages of rockets are kind of like coke cans in terms of how much fuel they carry vs the actual machine itself. The engineering is insane. Just dropping a big chassis into the ocean in so much cheaper its hilarious.
Yes, space travel is insanely difficult.
But there is a reason why we still have not discovered the majority of the ocean. Because it is even more difficult.
I'm not aware of any reason on why we'd want to colonize the bottom of the ocean, but there's many reasons to want to become a multi-planetary species. Space exploration has also lead to many technologies being used in everyday life today.
What's morally questionable about fission fragment drives?
This multi-planetary species thing just won’t work. The most likely scenario is that we fail. However, if we succeed the species will split very quickly on account of Mars’ unique evolutionary environment. You would get earth humans and Mars humans, and knowing our nature as a peaceful species, I am pretty sure we’d wipe each other out in no time.
That wouldn't happen for an extremely long time. It will be many generations before Mars would be self sufficient enough that they could wage war on Earth. I don't feel like that's enough of a possibility to not even try colonizing another planet.
Yes but it's a fantasy. The scenario where mars would be truly independant of earth is basically impossible without the far more likely reality:
If we survive that long, we won't be squishy humans anymore. Uploaded, AI, genetically engineered biotech, take your pick, but shuttling regular humans around this century just doesn't make sense.
Going to the moon was a fantasy at one point. I just don't see any downsides to trying to become multi-planetary. Even if it fails there would still be technology developed in pursuit of that goal that helps life on earth.
There is a big difference between a scientific mission and a self sustaining presence.
The later is still so far off that, as was said, other technological "paths" are decades, if not centuries, closer. If we survive on Earth that long.
What I am getting at is that viewing Mars colonization as a means to preserve human life is absolutely nuts. It's literally impossible in a reasonable timeframe, even with speculative technology/engineering, without changing humanity to the point that the whole fantasy changes anyway.
Oh and on FF drives, fhey're kind of messy and risk pollution if they fail near earth (though not nearly as much as other nuclear designs). It's fine for scientific missions, but becomes much more eyebrow raising en masse for a Mars colonization type effort.
IIRC the fissile material needs to be relatively high grade.
I don't know if I quite agree with that being a morale issue. But that same logic nuclear reactors are immoral because if they blow up they can cause a lot of harm.
I do agree that it is a little sketchy for human flight, but they wouldn't use it if there was a significant chance of it harming the people on board.
This is spaceflight. There is always a tremendous chance of harm to people on board, even with speculative nuclear technology to get the spacecraft a little less like thin paper bags.
I would highly recommend reading up on Project Rho, on somewhat feasable near term technologies if we can just figure out the engineering: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
They're awesome, and I hope they get funded. But it will also dispell any illusuion you have of spaceflight being remotely practical on a large scale.
We should strive for being a space fairing species. Except these corporations are more likely to turn our moon into a billboard we can see on earth.
CHA
Spoon!
CHING! 🤑
I always was optimistic when I was young but the older I get the more I realise why we will not have fucking flying cars, Mars colonisation