Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

Discussion in 'Science' started by Lil Mike, Aug 1, 2019.

  1. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Actually it is my opinion as stated, I am not in the habit of making things up and pretending they are real like some others. My opinion however is based on research and current trends as well as historical evaluation of the ways in which our species has developed in the technology age.
     
  2. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Stop lying, You said WILL in capital letters with no opinion indicated.

    Why are you lying about Mars?
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2019
  3. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okay little man, perhaps I was not clear enough in stating my post was opinion. That is likely because it was intended for people who understand communications rather than fabricate their lives to feel better about what they are. As far as my wife....she IS perfect in my opinion and is an actual woman vs. novella wet dreams. I recommend you step down before I actually bother to think on how to damage your persona.
     
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  4. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    We still have to answer the question of "why".

    We can explore the heck out of Mars without humans being there.

    Given the stupdneous expense (hugely more than any unmanned mission), human danger and lack of need, this seems like a project best left for a time that we know why we're doing it and have more experience in protecting against radiation, etc.
     
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  5. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    For much the same reason Vikings crossed the Atlantic...We explore new places inherently as a species. There will always be risks and people who take them...it is what we do.
     
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  6. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Compared to Mars, resupplying a few bases on Antarctica is relatively cheap and easy. We are in no way at the point where we could build a self sustaining colony on Antarctica. Until we can build totally self sufficient biospheres on Earth that will work in Antarctica, in the oceans, or deserts, we are in no way capable of doing it on the moon or Mars.
     
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  7. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    We didn't know a lot about the moon when JFK sent us in that direction. I remember them landing a probe on the moon and not knowing if it would sink under lunar dust. They developed the technology as they went along.I kept tabs with my weekly reader.
     
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  8. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    We know a lot about Mars. We've had robotic rovers running around for years. The problems come with what we do know already.

    We can surely do it. But is it worth you personally and every American paying $20,000 to see it happen?
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2019
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  9. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Heh, I was reading my Weekly Reader too!
     
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  10. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Me too.

    Oh wait, that might have been a little early. You guys must be old. :D
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2019
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  11. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    I support the Venus project rather than the Mars one, for the same reasons previously outlined... Mars is too small to successfully retain a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, while Venus is almost the size of Earth. However, someone pointed out recently that Venus has another problem that may make permanent settlement there highly problematic, too... no magnetic field. The earth's magnetic field shields the planet's surface from most of the most damaging solar radiation. Venus, being much closer to the sun and having no magnetic field, is bombarded with heavy doses of radiation against which the human body has no defense. So even if we successfully terraform Venus to have a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere (I suggest weather balloon-supported trays of simple plants in the upper atmosphere to convert the carbon dioxide to carbon and O2), that won't decrease the amount of radiation hitting the surface, and may actually increase it as the CO2 clouds in the upper atmosphere decrease. A magnetic field being the result of a liquid iron core, I'm not sure there's any way to duplicate the effects of a magnetic field on a planetary scale.

    Now the pessimistic view on why I agree with the article but for different reasons: Western culture is on the decline and no other culture seems to be in any way remotely similar. If the Muslims take over, science and space exploration will be suppressed as contrary to the Koran and the fact that humans ever went to the moon will be denigrated as a myth and a fable. If the robots/AI take over, science and space exploration will essentially be stopped because AI will have no interest in exploring the unknown. If the Chinese take over, they may advance as far as the moon, but that's as far as they will go because their culture looks backwards, not forwards. Plus you have the dysgenic effect of swarms of third-worlders overrunning the United States and most of the other Western nations, dragging down IQ levels and making redistribution schemes far more popular than space exploration. Each new advancement in technology requires the very highest IQ people available, but with each step down the IQ ladder you go, the fewer and fewer of those high IQ people who are born. Very high IQ people themselves being highly unlikely to a) reproduce and b) produce similarly high IQ offspring when they do reproduce (see Stephen Hawking's kids), each new generation of very high IQ people has to come from the general population. A low IQ population does not produce enough high IQ people to keep technology going. This is why technology introduced to African populations does not increase their standard of living immediately. They just don't have the IQ necessary to keep the technology going.

    Now the more optimistic view, though I'm more cautious about this part: Americans seem to be pushing back against the encroachments from third-worlders and Muslims generally, and we may actually start to see some changes in immigration law at some point, allowing things to settle down and the population to stabilize. This would allow for the existing low IQ populations to be integrated into the general population, which would decrease it some, but still allow for a high enough general population to keep technology going. Some pockets of America, the Mormons, Amish, etc., still produce large numbers of new kids and thereby supply the lack from the more secular parts of the country. These kids don't always go into math and science, but they do get taught Western culture and values, one of which is exploration of the unknown. And reaching out into space and settling other planets is definitely exploration of the unknown. So we may get there yet.
     
  12. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Ok, but we can explore Mars in detail without shipping a human there.

    We have vast ability to explore without sending ships.

    We've even done initial exploration of asteroids, Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter and their moons. The money spent on sending a human to Mars isn't going to be a comparable return on dollars spent exploring this solar system.

    I agree with you that at some point it's highly likely we'll have bases in various places outside of Earth's gravity. But, there are more interesting targets for exploration at present.
     
  13. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    The average temperature on Venus is 864 degrees Fahrenheit
     
  14. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Well, we don't know how much of gestation or subsequent development depends on gravity to get an outcome such as we have on Earth.

    It could be that those who grow up with little gravity won't have the capacity to live on Earth, for example.
     
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  15. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    Right, which is why we need to convert the carbon dioxide to oxygen starting in the upper atmosphere, where the air is thinner and the temperature lower. The earth's early atmosphere was very similar to Venus's, but we had two and then three things going for us Venus didn't: liquid water, which took some of the carbon out of the atmosphere; a moon, which caused a lot more volcanism in earth's early history; and then plant life, which changed the roughly 95% carbon dioxide atmosphere to 20% oxygen and 75% nitrogen. We can't do anything about the water or the moon, but we can introduce plant life.
     
  16. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    That's pretty much a given, considering how much bone density loss astronauts experience in zero g in just six months on the space station. A kid who grew up on Mars would be crushed by earth's gravity.
     
  17. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is important to consider the private financial angle here...Individuals and companies will obviously play a prominent role and will profit vs. cost taxpayers.
     
  18. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    No it would not. Opponents of manned space ventures are always floating the "trillions of dollars" arguments as a means of opposing them.
     
  19. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Who says a child on Mars has to return to Earth? Or would even want to.
     
  20. xwsmithx

    xwsmithx Well-Known Member

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    For the same reason we want to go to Mars, obviously, curiosity.

    I wonder if a child born on Mars would grow 10' tall under the lower gravity.
     
  21. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Yea, like how not having gravity confuses plant seeds so they can not germinate.

    I largely laugh at that section, as it generally tends to believe that life is stupid and suicidal, and is unable to survive anywhere but on terra firma. Yet we have seen multiple experiments where all kinds of things form plants to spiders are able to adapt to life in even zero gravity just fine.

    Heck, even fish are able to adapt and swim about in zero gravity, let alone the fractional gravity of another planet. So the idea that humans would reach Mars, only to have pregnancies more or less spontaneously fail is something I find rather silly.

    Of course, I believe mars will never be "inhabitable" simply because the core has largely solidified, and there are no radiation belts to keep out interstellar radiation, and to stop any atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar winds.

    Things far more relevant than that silly claim about a baby dropping in the womb.
     
  22. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well we don't have the experimental data on raising babies in space. Let's see how that goes with other mammals first.
     
  23. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Doesn't work that way.
     
  24. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    The bulk of the planet blocks half the cosmic radiation at any one time. And solar wind does not "strip away atmosphere". You can produce ozone gases by the way.
     
  25. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    we may change the human genetics and create a new human more adapted to life on mars, never know

    in fact we may of come from mars, it may of at one time had an atmosphere and this is where we escaped too, no way to know for sure
     
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