Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: headdie on March 07, 2015, 09:19:21 am
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Ok so been chewing over this for a few days. I am working on a little thought experiment as a game concept on what, A) Scientific and Technological adaptations would be needed to survive on Mars, B) What would be needed to thrive on Mars, C) lastly what developments would be easier on Mars than here?
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For B) A complete understanding of what it takes to build a completely self-sufficient and stable environment that supports human life, which has heavy implications for A. In addition, there's a need to develop tech to get a sufficient number of canned monkeys to Mars, together with all infrastructure necessary to do useful things once there.
The only development that is easier on Mars than it would be on Earth is the construction of an orbital beanstalk. Pretty much everything else, with the small exception of asphyxiating, is infinitely easier on Earth or in LEO.
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First, lets assume that money is not a problem, there is sufficient reason to colonize mars, that space travel has advanced to the point where we can send ships to mars with relative ease and Mar's water deposits are near limitless.
The way I see it, to live on another planet there has to be technology that can do one of these 3 things, terraform the planet, create a dome to live under or create an large network of underground tunnels. If we're sticking to reality, terraforming is practically impossible and the dome idea imo has too many potential flaws But, a series of underground tunnels that connect rooms and halls carved out in stone that could be sealed off individually if something goes wrong, with a secondary set of tunnels networked to transport goods is not an impossible idea, London basically created a small underground city during the 20th century over the course of WW2 and the cold war, send a few automated mining robots to mars and after a few months you'd have yourself a human friendly habitat.
Potentially in the future with GM crops and lab grown meat, we will be able to have food produced locally on other planets, but this food can't just grow from nothing, it would require water and energy. Assuming mars does have accessible water deposits capable of sustaining a population, you have both water and hydrogen as fuel for energy, which could also be sublimated with solar power.
---Beyond this line let's say we have magic sci-fi technology---
For me the real issue seems to be breathable air, it may be possible to create some using water and Mar's own atmosphere, but it would require a lot of work to do so. You could say that people who live on mars have been genetically of technologically altered to make their lungs more capable of processing mass produced air.
Since this is for a game I'll throw in what I think is a neat idea, dense bodies (insert yo mama joke here). Mar's gravity is about 1/3 of earth's, to counteract this you either duct tape some rocks to yourself, or alter the body to be more dense to make up for the weakened gravity. That would make it so Martians wouldn't be able to live on earth since the increase gravity would crush them. Then again we have magic sci-fi technology so you could create a gravity bubble or something using a device that amplifies the effect of the higgs field (that gives things mass).
Finally, as for developments easier on mars than earth, construction and travel may be easier due to a lower gravity, but other than that, there isn't much.
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Interesting.
Perhaps this will help, I am imagining things in a near future type setting so certainly to begin with minimal voodoo science, though as is the nature of Sci-Fi such technologies will become increasingly needed
In the grand scheme of things I imagine a 3 stage development.
Firstly is to create a survivable habitat for the initial population which will act as the nucleus which will pave the way for additional population from Earth so building a technical, scientific and production base that can support the initial expansion, so perhaps the underground structures as mentioned before would be best with some kind of mobile facilities for exploration and resource gathering
The Second phase is building the infrastructure to support an increasing population migrating from Earth so would be the thriving phase either by large scale underground communities, Domed surface cities, ongoing terminating effort, and/or a genetic solution
The Third phase being that once the population is growing in a sustainable manner then resources and efforts can be devoted to adding to humanity as a whole, while this will happen regardless during the earlier phases during this phase research into less critical fields can be more actively perused, leading into some of the end game scenarios.
Obviously the more plausible the technologies the better, hence this thread.
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At work so can't go into detail, but this is an interest of mine so I'll post later.
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Maybe do it Underground, then domes, then terraform, one for each stage, and the technology gets more magic as it goes along? I like the whole concept but stage 3 is missing the key component of adding to humanity, what can we do on mars that we can't on earth? All I can really think of is construction, living space and maybe mining. Potentially Mars could have a resource we don't have / have run out of on earth but that seems a little cliche, however cliche isn't always a bad thing if the gameplay is good enough. With the Dome idea, I think putting them in craters would 1) Be logical and 2) Look awesome.
http://images.amcnetworks.com/ifc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/cowboy-bebop.jpg
Btw I think Mars has tectonic plates, which could be another way of getting energy on Mars
EDIT: Just a thought, if you're going for semi-believable technologies, how about applying the principles of particle acceleration to space ships? The LHC can make particles go as fast as 0.999999991 c (3m/s slower than light) using magnets. I mean sure the pure Gs would cause peoples faces to melt off but that's just details. Maybe to avoid face meltage, just apply it to cargo transports which could be automated. With current technology it takes about 7 months to reach Mars so you could either incorporate the time lag into the game or phase it out with sci-fi technology.
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EDIT: Just a thought, if you're going for semi-believable technologies, how about applying the principles of particle acceleration to space ships? The LHC can make particles go as fast as 0.999999991 c (3m/s slower than light) using magnets. I mean sure the pure Gs would cause peoples faces to melt off but that's just details. Maybe to avoid face meltage, just apply it to cargo transports which could be automated. With current technology it takes about 7 months to reach Mars so you could either incorporate the time lag into the game or phase it out with sci-fi technology.
Small issue: How would you decelerate?
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if ksp has taught me anything it's that aerobraking is limitless free delta-v with no downsides
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KSP, as usual, taught you wrong. Everything that has to do with atmosphere is downright ridiculous without mods. Try that in 1.0 (or FAR+DRE, if you're not scared of mods) and you'll either not be able to stop, smack into a mountain or burn up. Aerobraking is great, and you can do a lot with it, but it has its limits and is not as efficient in a real atmosphere as in KSP's "souposphere". Not to mention you have to worry about the heat, which is substantial at high velocities. At high enough speed, you will zip through the atmosphere (assuming you don't burn up, which is more likely), no matter how low you go.
In general, an idea of using a mass driver for trans-Mars injection is incredibly far fetched. You're either firing the projectile too fast to be able to stop it, or are launching it into a Hohmann transfer orbit which has awful transit times and depends on launch windows. Also, if you can build a mass driver like this, you probably can manage a fusion drive as well, or at least a nuclear lightbulb. You're better off with a 0.1G torchship, which would reduce transit time to 12 days (your average transatlantic freighter takes longer to cross). It does take over a million m/s of delta-V, but if you've got a fusion drive, (with exhaust velocity up to 8 times that), it's a non-issue. Oh, and if you do it right, the thing will be able to fly in atmosphere by pumping air instead of hydrogen through the engines (essentially using air as free reaction mass. You'll even get a thrust boost, since air is heavier than hydrogen).
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Yeah I forgot all of my reentry physics, I was too swept up in the imagery of Fedex parcels rocketing down from a LOE like the Moon Shot in Borderlands 2. I know the accelerator idea is ridiculous, but I like it. Maybe it would work better as some kind of projectile weapon in space to fire at incoming ships.
If this colonization of Mars was planned well enough, it could be done with space travel technology today, it'd just take a long time and Mars wouldn't be able to rely on outside help that wasn't pre-planned 8 months in advance.
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If this colonization of Mars was planned well enough, it could be done with space travel technology today, it'd just take a long time and Mars wouldn't be able to rely on outside help that wasn't pre-planned 8 months in advance.
Yer thats part of the challenge of the early game, your arrival population and resource will be all you have to work with until a self sufficient base is established for resources and no additional population for probably several years as like with probe missions today populated missions to Mars takes years to plan, assemble and launch with single use vehicles until space transit technology progresses to make return journeys viable.
Maybe do it Underground, then domes, then terraform, one for each stage, and the technology gets more magic as it goes along? I like the whole concept but stage 3 is missing the key component of adding to humanity, what can we do on mars that we can't on earth? All I can really think of is construction, living space and maybe mining. Potentially Mars could have a resource we don't have / have run out of on earth but that seems a little cliche, however cliche isn't always a bad thing if the gameplay is good enough. With the Dome idea, I think putting them in craters would 1) Be logical and 2) Look awesome.
http://images.amcnetworks.com/ifc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/cowboy-bebop.jpg
Been reading Kim Stanley Robinson, part of the inspiration for this, and crater domes was the line I was thinking, at least early on.
Btw I think Mars has tectonic plates, which could be another way of getting energy on Mars
I thought due to the cooling of Mars' core that Mars was currently Tectonically stable?
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How serious are we talking? If the answer is "fairly", I would suggest looking at this:
The MIT-authored "Mars One Feasibility Study" (http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20One%20Feasibility%20Analysis%20IAC14.pdf) (.pdf)
I don't feel like going into detail (that's what the study is for), but I can summarize what I feel are the most salient points, plus my own musings:
a) Resupply / rescue are Things That Will Not Happen. A "simple" Luna colony would need to hold out for several days in an emergency situation, assuming a relief mission were immediately ready to launch. A trip to Mars involves approximately a year of transit once the planetary transfer windows are aligned, which itself doesn't happen instantly. I personally mostly rule out re-supply missions because past a certain number of flights, the sheer mass of spare parts you're sending will equal the mass of new equipment.
ergo,
b) Pretty much everything needed for survival would eventually need to come from Mars' resources; alternatively- "they're on their own".
However on paper, Mars offers all the resources needed for human survival and permanent colonization.
*The atmosphere, though thin, contains carbon dioxide gas. This can be processed into liquid hydrocarbons (gasoline, polymer feedstocks) through the Fischer-Tropsch Process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process), which also produces water, albeit at significant energy cost. I'll get into technology barriers in a bit.
*Water ice exists as soil permafrost and as polar ice caps. Electrolysis results in oxygen and hydrogen, which has several potential uses (fuel cells, fusion reactor, chemical feedstock...).
*Martian soil is red due to presence of iron oxide. Barring the discovery of convenient ore seams, it should theoretically be possible to refine and smelt martian soil for iron metal.
*No idea if Martian soil is good for growing crops, but hydroponic techniques don't care.
taking this onboard,
c) We can conceptualize the technologies that would be required to exploit these resources and put down permanent roots.
*Electrical energy is an absolute must. Solar power is still an option, but will be less effective owing to Mars' greater distance from the sun. Preferable solutions include miniaturized fission reactors, fuel-cell systems, or possibly a fusion device. The more power we can bring, the better- we'll need a lot of juice to refine resources.
*Small-scale and rugged extraction and refining systems need to be developed. In "the biz", these devices are known as In-Situ Resource Utilization systems (ISRU). Some basic engineering has been done in this technology branch, but it is nowhere near ready for deployment.
*Finally, we need a solution to actually convert refined materials into usable widgets. 3d-printing systems show a lot of promise, but we still need highly rugged devices that are capable of working with multiple materials, including metal, AND subordinate gadgets that can still work with cruder engineering tolerances- we simply won't be doing precision work with low-quality metal half an AU from earth, and our whole engineering system needs to account for this.
I'm not addressing the economic costs because it would be self-evidently colossal.
In general, my take is that the initial establishment would be the hardest part. Once resource deposits are located, unexpected hazards surmounted, and LOCAL re-supply systems in place, it becomes a lot easier to move forward. Oh and things that would be easier? Well the reduced gravity would throw some curveballs into general engineering and construction, which could go either way, but human adaptation/development in permanent low-gravity is a complete X factor right now.
Frankly, we aren't ready to settle on Mars yet. I can envision what we'd need, and a day when we can go for it, but this is not the time. If I were the God-Director of the Human Space Program, I'd pull back on these dreams of Mars colonies. Sure, I could endorse a temporary visit, but we really should be shaking down our extraterrestrial colonization systems on the Moon.
Ed: huehue I didn't actually read the thread and some of these things have been addressed already. Ah well, I collected it all more effectively. :p
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A guy I worked with is on that list of 100 candidates from Mars One. Dude is absolutely crazy, and not just because he thinks going to mars in 10 years is a good idea.
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A guy I worked with is on that list of 100 candidates from Mars One. Dude is absolutely crazy, and not just because he thinks going to mars in 10 years is a good idea.
Or that you can accomplish an $80 billion job with a $6 billion budget and you can't even get remotely enough investors for that much.
Yet another example of why the private sector is useless when you're dealing with the absolute bleeding edge of tech development. The only entities with that much resources to throw at a project and that much willingness to wait for any economic gain are the US and Chinese governments.
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Make that just the Chinese. :) The US government seems to consider the space program to be rather low priority and will happily cut its funding if it needs it for something else. With the help from SpaceX, it might make it, but its the Chinese who are making real progress on that front.
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In this Game scenario however, maybe the need to colonize Mars outweighs the cost, otherwise this Planetery Colonization simulator will just be a bunch of people on Earth saying it's too expensive :P
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Stuff
Thanks for that IronBeer, still a lot to think about there and when I get a moment that study looks like it might be very handy
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Thanks for that IronBeer, still a lot to think about there and when I get a moment that study looks like it might be very handy
One important thing I somehow forgot: nitrogen is kind of scarce on Mars. The study makes reference to this, IIRC.
Careful environmental sealing and waste recycling would help slow the loss, but unless there's a local source, nitrogen is the one material that may actually need to be shipped in periodically.
Bluh just checked wikipedia, says that nitrogen is about a 2% component of the atmosphere. Martian air is already pretty thin, but nitrogen IS present, and it can be recovered assuming you bring the necessary equipment. Still, just wanted to touch on nitrogen here since I forgot it in my main post- the most immediate uses will be in fertilizer and flameproofing of pressurized envrionments.
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hmmm, ok
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[longwinded missing of point]
you are aware, dragon, of this earth thing we call sarcasm? i understand that it burns up easily on transit to dragonworld
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the most immediate uses will be in fertilizer and flameproofing of pressurized envrionments.
Is it actually needed for flameproofing? If you have a pure oxygen atmosphere at 0.2 bar it shouldn't cause any increase in flammability, since the partial pressures are the same.
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0.2 bar might not work for breathing. NASA pressurizes its space suits with pure oxygen at 32.4kPa (about 0.32 bar), and this is the absolute minimum (if it wasn't, they'd likely have gone lower). Also, it's not only about partial pressures. Oxygen+nitrogen mix is apparently less flammable than pure oxygen, even at reduced pressures. Martian habitat would likely have atmosphere composition similar to the ISS.
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0.2 bar might not work for breathing. NASA pressurizes its space suits with pure oxygen at 32.4kPa (about 0.32 bar), and this is the absolute minimum (if it wasn't, they'd likely have gone lower). Also, it's not only about partial pressures. Oxygen+nitrogen mix is apparently less flammable than pure oxygen, even at reduced pressures. Martian habitat would likely have atmosphere composition similar to the ISS.
I presume this works because the human body only takes in a small amount of the available oxygen at sea level so with a monitored breathing environment you can reduce the atmo pressure thus reduce the mass needed for life support
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As far as pressures go, earlier spacecraft used lower pressures with a higher oxygen percentage since it reduced the mass required to contain that atmosphere, if the hull is lighter, you can put more in it for a given rocket. Spacesuits use the low pressure since it requires less effort to move (at sea level pressures, you wouldn't be able to move at all, but even with the reduced pressure, they are still hard to move). The reason you can't go much lower has little to do with breathing and more to do with the fact, your body requires a certain amount of pressure pushing back against it. To low and you risk discomfort and even injury.
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that makes sence
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As far as pressures go, earlier spacecraft used lower pressures with a higher oxygen percentage since it reduced the mass required to contain that atmosphere, if the hull is lighter, you can put more in it for a given rocket. Spacesuits use the low pressure since it requires less effort to move (at sea level pressures, you wouldn't be able to move at all, but even with the reduced pressure, they are still hard to move). The reason you can't go much lower has little to do with breathing and more to do with the fact, your body requires a certain amount of pressure pushing back against it. To low and you risk discomfort and even injury.
I'm sceptical. Most of the human body is incompressible, and the air spaces that aren't are very easily equalised. Technical divers can move from tens of atmospheres down to one over the course of several hours with minimal ill-effects (and most of the risks are from things like narcosis and decompression sickness which just don't exist in a low-pressure oxygen environment), I don't see why living at 0.2 atmospheres would be unsafe.
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Probably for the same reasons you can go into water with only an oxygen mask, but you can't do the same in space. Human body is incompressible, but it can (and will) swell up if the pressure outside is too low. Those are not the same thing, resistance to compression is different from resistance to expansion. You could likely get away with 0.2 atmospheres if you wore a biosuit to provide pressure (this is the kind of suit does allow you to go out into space with just an oxygen mask and earplugs, while being fairly unencumbering), but if you want a true shirtsleeve environment, you need at least 0.32 atm at least.
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Space station crew actually have to spend a bit of time in the airlock before a spacewalk to remove some of the nitrogen from their bodies. Even if that pressure is above the armstrong limit, the reduce pressure does lead to increased evaporation and outgassing, so it IS still possible to get the bends.
Probably for the same reasons you can go into water with only an oxygen mask, but you can't do the same in space. Human body is incompressible, but it can (and will) swell up if the pressure outside is too low. Those are not the same thing, resistance to compression is different from resistance to expansion. You could likely get away with 0.2 atmospheres if you wore a biosuit to provide pressure (this is the kind of suit does allow you to go out into space with just an oxygen mask and earplugs, while being fairly unencumbering), but if you want a true shirtsleeve environment, you need at least 0.32 atm at least.
Going out with just an air-mask and earplugs doesn't sound safe to me at all, what if the earplugs leak? then you're looking at a ruptured eardrum, and where's the eye protection? The mechanical counter-pressure suits they are working on right now tend to have a bubble helmet and pressurized boots and gloves (since it's proving difficult to provide sufficient counter-pressure to the digits; yes ladies and gentlemen, space gloves still suck)
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in an environment like Mars I imagine that needing a heavy glove and boot setup would in some ways help with insulating and maintaining comfortable temperatures over the finger joints for manipulating objects and with the feet to thermally separate the wear's suit from the ground. Also heavy/weighted boots may help with mobility by providing movement resistance which is more familiar and helping the person to stay upright in a stumbling/tripping situation as it would shift their center of balance downwards
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Space station crew actually have to spend a bit of time in the airlock before a spacewalk to remove some of the nitrogen from their bodies. Even if that pressure is above the armstrong limit, the reduce pressure does lead to increased evaporation and outgassing, so it IS still possible to get the bends.
This is because they maintain a normal sea level atmospheric pressure inside the station. If you lowered the pressure (or lived in airlock-grade air), they wouldn't have to pre-breath.
Going out with just an air-mask and earplugs doesn't sound safe to me at all, what if the earplugs leak? then you're looking at a ruptured eardrum, and where's the eye protection? The mechanical counter-pressure suits they are working on right now tend to have a bubble helmet and pressurized boots and gloves (since it's proving difficult to provide sufficient counter-pressure to the digits; yes ladies and gentlemen, space gloves still suck)
Yes, you'd certainly want googles and very good earplugs, at the very least. You would survive, given that, even though it would likely not be comfortable. That you can doesn't mean you should. For a non-emergency EVA, a full helmet, gloves and boots would definitely be preferable.
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If you have time to put on a space suit, you have time for the helmet too. If not, you don't want to breathe anyways, since without counter-pressure on at least your chest, your lungs would over-expand and rupture if there were gas in them. That said, you will be conscious for a minute in hard vacuum, so you could totally do the Dave Bowman thing and jump from ship to ship.
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Space station crew actually have to spend a bit of time in the airlock before a spacewalk to remove some of the nitrogen from their bodies. Even if that pressure is above the armstrong limit, the reduce pressure does lead to increased evaporation and outgassing, so it IS still possible to get the bends.
Not if the environment is pure oxygen with no inert gas, and you exclusively use it at low pressures. As for your claims that it would be physiologically damaging, the Apollo astronauts spent extended times in suits at .26 bar, and lived for days in cabins pressurised to .33 bar.
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If you have time to put on a space suit, you have time for the helmet too. If not, you don't want to breathe anyways, since without counter-pressure on at least your chest, your lungs would over-expand and rupture if there were gas in them. That said, you will be conscious for a minute in hard vacuum, so you could totally do the Dave Bowman thing and jump from ship to ship.
The idea with biosuits is that you don't need to put them on. You wear those as underwear on a daily basis. They're light and unencumbering (though the latter part is not perfected yet), so assuming they can be made comfortable enough (another thing we're working on), they could be used that way. It'd be an excellent way of providing at least some protection to astronauts in case of an emergency.
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I don't know if that was mentioned here, but I was playing Doom 3 recently, and they had some nice scientific solutions.
For instance, use of Mars atmosphere, to seperate oxygen and hydrogen... and with these two, you have air, water, fuel... pretty much basics for survival on other planet. Of course that was done with some SCI-FI developed engineering... but it isn't as much out of reality (I think).
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No one is going to Mars. It's a waste of time compared to taking advantage of the Moon for orbital construction first and de-orbiting a lot of satellites in the process.
We need to clean up Earth's orbital zone before we go planting people on Mars.
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No one is going to Mars. It's a waste of time compared to taking advantage of the Moon for orbital construction first and de-orbiting a lot of satellites in the process.
We need to clean up Earth's orbital zone before we go planting people on Mars.
very strongly disagree
While it is not as immediate as some think, it will happen. While the Moon is closer so easier to support from Earth it has a much smaller habitation and resource potential. Mars also possesses an atmosphere which contains elements that can be harvested for life support and potentially transformed with outside input into one that is human viable. The Moon is a good point for developing technologies and techniques that would be useful in the early days of Mars but ultimately the Moon be little more than an island like the UK compared to the continents like Eurasia of planets like Mars.
Yes the investment, Particularly in Time will be massive for Mars, the return for humanity is massively more than the Moon will ever offer.
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No one is going to Mars. It's a waste of time compared to taking advantage of the Moon for orbital construction first and de-orbiting a lot of satellites in the process.
We need to clean up Earth's orbital zone before we go planting people on Mars.
Better that our virtual tax dollars send canned primates to space then wasting then on local government stupid. Despite space programs being a "waste" how much more is wasted across the board by governments overall? Just ask the F-35 program XP. For all the "no bueno" stances, I've yet to see a coherent response to what we call corruption and waste. For all the hullabaloo about the expense of space travel, I think it's a better waste than letting governments bleeding money left and right for a chorus of reasons you can make an operatic epic out of it.
Less welfare, less defense spending, and more accidents and mishaps as we conquer Mars!
Though I'd say one element would be building the proper infrastructure to get to Mars. Imagine a part of the game is in Earth orbit building the infrastructure, space elevators, and other orbital facilities, and even using the Moon as a part of larger strategic jumping pad to mars. Half of the battle is just building the engine of colonization - imagine that orbital windows, Hoffman orbits, are yes, SPAAAAACE! are vital parts of shipping, resupplying, and send more monkeys its way.
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We should colonize Mars after we've successfully colonized central Nevada.
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You only say that cause you don't want people sticking flags in you. :p
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Before any colonization is attempted, we should build self-sufficient habitats here on Earth. By that I mean habitats that would recycle everything including air and only require energy to run for years, like Biosphere. Such technology would be very important for any deep space missions and could have many spin-offs here on Earth, too.
The next stage would be trying it out on the Moon.
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Recycling air is simple easy, so is recycling water (and human waste even), spaceships/stations have been doing it for decades. The real hang ups are food production and dealing with garbage.
Also the problem with the Moon is it is effectively a detour on the way to Mars. It won't help us develop anything new we couldn't already figure out already before going to Mars (why test habitats on the moon if the first step is testing on Earth anyways. After that you go to LEO for a bit), and it doesn't actually have all that good of a selection of the resources needed to sustain life. Decent for mining, I suppose, but it's still less fuel to take a Hohmann to and from an asteroid to mine stuff), but there's little water there, and nothing much in the way o materials needed to create life support gases.
If you're really interested in space colonization, check out what Buzz Aldrin has been up to lately. The second man on the Moon says, "screw going back there, get your ass to Mars"
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Recycling air is simple easy, so is recycling water (and human waste even), spaceships/stations have been doing it for decades.
Are you sure? Because ISS does not recycle everything, they vent CO2 and H2 overboard. I agree that food is the biggest hangup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_ecological_life_support_system
In an ideal world I would support an ambitious Mars colonization program as it is the most direct way. But we dont live in one and manned space exploration is going to be severely limited by funding and current technology. We simply will not have the money to colonize Mars anytime soon. Even a flag and footprint mission is quite farfetched, and thats not even colonization. Attempting to do a Mars mission without having the needed funds and experience is the surest way to waste another few decades of manned exploration without accomplishing much.
However, a permanently manned base on the Moon is feasible while still being quite an ambitious goal. And it is colonization, we would undeniably learn a lot about how to colonize Mars or any other body by practicing it on the Moon. Baby steps first.
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Since this is a game set in the future, the baby steps could have already been made, we can skip straight to the fun part.