Why colonize Mars and not the Moon?

[rootone]

Why not build a HUGE space station off planet earth.

Because it would be hugely expensive to supply and maintain unless it produced something valuable that could not be done on Earth.

 

[stefan r]

Because it would be hugely expensive to supply and maintain unless it produced something valuable that could not be done on Earth.

The colony ship needs to produce colony ships.

 

[Jim777]

The cost of colonizing Mars or the Moon will be huge, but in the end we may have NOTHING for our money and efforts. It could be a colossal failure due to the unknown risks that will be actually involved. A HUGE Space Station/Colonizing Space Ship will give us the time to deal with living in space, and working in space, and raising a family in space. It has to be constructed in space because it will be too HUGE to ever get off the planet, if buit on Earth. It will have to accommodate thousands of doctors, engineers, astrophysicists, welders, mechanics, machinists, metal fabricators, cooks. It will have to be a City in Space, and when it is completed, and colonized to the point that it is self-sustaining, it will take years, maybe decades, before all the 'bugs' are out and then it can move out of the nesting place above Mother Earth toward the Asteroid Belt to begin mining operations to get the necessary materials that are needed to build more Space Colonies. Workers will use smaller work vessels to land on the asteroid predetermined to begin mining raw ore, and smelters, whether on the Mother Ship or built on the Asteroid will convert the raw materials into a material or materials they can machine into parts for the new stations or repair the Mother Ship if damaged while on it's journey there.

 

[anorlunda]

A HUGE Space Station/Colonizing Space Ship

SF writers will point out that we already have one of those, called Earth.

 

[sophiecentaur]

SF writers will point out that we already have one of those, called Earth.

The difference for Earth is that the conditions were just right for us to survive with very little conscious effort. Our nature has been to 'improve' things and it has worked in as far as the human population has increased and increased. Nonetheless, I think it is still true to say that we rely more on what Earth is doing for us than on what we are actually doing. Our agriculture only works because farming has replaced existing species of flora and fauna to produce more food than was available from the indigenous organisms of a few millennia ago. The rest is still 'laid on' for us.
Any other environment in the form of a massive spaceship or a nearby planet would need more work than most people could imagine, to make it more than just barely habitable. I can't help feeling that an environment with a significant gravity field would be easier to develop on - despite being a long way from Earth. The species on which we rely (all except microbes) are mostly suited to 1g. Every plant or animal would need to be developed specially to cope without its reliance on geotropism. You'd even need to be giving cows a daily workout if their meat were to be what we like to eat on Earth.

 

[256bits]

Any other environment in the form of a massive spaceship or a nearby planet would need more work than most people could imagine,

I think you have said a mouthful there.
The Earth is one massive recycling unit, geological and biological..
with a major energy input from an outside source ( sun ) that we did not have to engineer, and needs no maintenance. reliability.
We can collect some of that energy directly ( solar panels ), indirectly ( hydro electric ), or from stored sources ( petroleum, coal ).
What is not "mentioned" is the energy from the sun that heats the earth, grows the vegetation, cycles the atmosphere and water,...
What is also not mentioned is that on Earth for more resources, we just dig a hole in the ground and extract.

I like the idea of a spaceship colony, it is interesting, no doubt about that. We may get there some day.
With present technology,
It lacks though a 100% proof in the pudding energy source, and an adequate supply of "cheap" resources.
How much is enough? Probability analysis - not sure I would trust a long trip ride on "chances are ... "

A planet - already 809 posts.

 

[anorlunda]

The difference for Earth is that the conditions were just right for us to survive with very little conscious effort. Our nature has been to 'improve' things and it has worked in as far as the human population has increased and increased. Nonetheless, I think it is still true to say that we rely more on what Earth is doing for us than on what we are actually doing. Our agriculture only works because farming has replaced existing species of flora and fauna to produce more food than was available from the indigenous organisms of a few millennia ago. The rest is still 'laid on' for us.

@sophiecentaur , what you said opens the door to another huge side track; that our future must abandon biology. All hail The Technological Singularity. But this thread is already too old and tired.

 

[sophiecentaur]

that our future must abandon biology.

Wow. That's adding another few millennia, I would think. I could never say never about such a development but I would have to ask why and what would be the advantage? We're back to the old body / mind dissociation thing. Unfortunately (for proponents of the split), the more they look into memory and consciousness, the more we seem to be tightly associated with our bodies.

 

[zwierz]

"Why colonize Mars and not the Moon?"

did not you know? because Mars has turbinium

 

[sophiecentaur]

Good to introduce that film at this point in the conversation. Firstly, doesn't Arnie look young?
Secondly, it shows a highly dysfunctional situation on both Earth and Mars. It surprises me that the Colony Enthusiasts don't see that as a possible future for such an exercise. Pretty much every other venture has turned out a bit that way.
Sci Fi is always being used for arguments in favour of space escapades. Here's an argument in the other direction and it's certainly not the only one.

 

[anorlunda]

That's adding another few millennia

Not everyone agrees. Some proponents think we can singularitize (do you like my new word?) faster than putting the first man on Mars.

[/PLAIN]
At the 2012 Singularity Summit, Stuart Armstrong did a study of artificial general intelligence (AGI) predictions by experts and found a wide range of predicted dates, with a median value of 2040.

Do you remember Arthur C. Clarke's classic novel "Childhood's End?" He was very early discussing this in 1953.

 

[sophiecentaur]

singularitize (do you like my new word?)

yes. It carries with it all the caveats that come with the singularities in our Physics.
I read Childhood's End years ago. I must go at it again.
2040! I could almost be alive still at that time. OMG

 

[nikkkom]

Why not build a HUGE space station off planet Earth and then another and then another, if survival and colonization are the goals.

Every last gram of this "HUGE space station", all the air, all water, all food (and/or soil and water to grow food from) will need to be brought from Earth.

I take it you did not even bother to read the thread before posting.