Colonizing Mars

[Moontanman]

Some how it takes the whole pioneer thing out of it, a new planet should be a bunch of tough types taming the wilderness. Not huddled around a bunch of machines in a airless desert. .... oh well I guess Heinlein's "Farmer in the Sky" is still to far from reality to ever be realized.......

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Some how it takes the whole pioneer thing out of it, a new planet should be a bunch of tough types taming the wilderness. Not huddled around a bunch of machines in a airless desert. .... oh well I guess Heinlein's "Farmer in the Sky" is still to far from reality to ever be realized.......

I guess you’re right.

In years of discussion at hypography, and decades on the larger internet and science and science enthusiast communities, I think the consensus among the best informed is that, if long term human habitation of Mars occurs (which, IMHO, is not unlikely), “huddled around a bunch of machines in a airless desert” (or, better, I think, “huddled in a bunch of machines buried under a few meters under an airless desert”) is more likely to be a more accurate description than Heinlen’s high-tech hardscrabble surface-dwelling homesteaders. Or, in Kim Stanly Robinson’s Mars trilogy terms, Red Mars rather than Green or Blue Mars.

For all practical purposes, the surface of Mars is as human-friendly as the surface of the Moon, with the added problem of atmosphere enought to assure that dry dust get into nearly everything, including machinery in which it’s most unwelcome – cases in point the major issue complicating past, present, and future Mars machinery, dust scratching of the surfaces of photovoltaic panels. To quote Elton John (a hypography first for me, I think ) “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise a kid…” – though, given humankind’s proven propensity for raising kids in everyplace deemed unsuitable, I optimistically expect he’s wrong.

The reason for the informed consensus against a green/blue Mars is, in short, lack of volatiles – gaseous nitrogen, oxygen, and important trace molecules such as water. Being formed of the same primordial stuff as the other inner planets (Earth and Venus), Mars once had them, and a thicker atmosphere, but due primarily to its lower mass (about 11% of Earth’s, 13% of Venus’s), and to a lesser extent, it’s lack of a protective magnetosphere, quickly lost them.

Practically all scientifically plausible plans for making the surface of Mars human-friendly – the subject of another current thread, “Terraforming Mars” – involve importing great quantities of volatiles, primarily H and O in the form of icy comets, asteroids, or small moons. Such are literally plans for moving worlds, requiring space engineering on a scale dwarfing manned missions to Mars.

With all due respect to KSR’s books, which I read and loved in the 1990s, his work, in which terraforming Mars was accomplished primarily through the use of genetically engineered plants, is, I think, essentially sociologically-based soft SF, similar to Herbert’s Dune series, not hard SF on the subject of terraforming.

Given these realities, I think we need to seriously consider whether, even if enabling technology and economics are present, it’s likely large numbers of humans will truly colonize Mars in the near future (next few centuries) as real estate – that is, ordinary people go and reproduce there simply for a place to live. I’m optimistically confident that, when feasible, scientists will be eager to live on Mars to study it, much as they are now to visit inhospitable places on Earth, such as deep deserts and the polar regions, and possibly even tourists be eager to visit for the same reasons a few tourists are to visit the less inhabited place on Earth, but suspect that their numbers won’t exceed a few thousand.

The main reason I doubt that Mars will be truly colonized in the near future, is that the technology required to make such a thing possible appears to me to also make it possible to live and reproduce nearly anywhere in the solar system, such as near-Earth space and on or near asteroids. And, once it’s possible to practically live in such profoundly inhospitable places, why would anyone choose to live at the bottom of a gravity well similar to the one human kind has spent the recent century of two striving to climb out of?

Though the history of human kind is commonly portrayed as being primarily the progressive acquisition of real estate, its history of true relevance to scenarios including space colonization is primarily the acquisition and efficient use of mechanical power. Even assuming advanced future engineering accomplishments such as space elevators and other much more efficient means of traveling up and down out of and into planetary gravity wells, the important places in the future of humankind will, I think, be mostly up and out of gravity wells, rather than at the bottoms of them.

I posted about this in more detail a few years ago in the “Colonizing the Solar System” thread, specifically in post such as “Relevance of space elevators in a 1,000,000 times more energy rich civilization”.

[Eclipse Now]

Yeah, but even though a Mars settler might be a fully trained astronaut, nuclear scientist, medical entrepreneur or construction engineer, leaving behind the comforts of mother Earth for a cold, airless Mars seems incredibly "tough" to me. Gosh, don't they have some guys just sitting in a simulated capsule right now doing simulated tasks for about 6 months, just to see if human beings are psychologically "tough" enough for the cramped trip there? Let alone knowing that you were probably there for good, and would never see a blue sky again.

That's got to impact on you.... aren't we programmed for blue skies from our million year trip out of the trees into the Savannah?

[Eclipse Now]

Hi Craig, cool threads to check out sometime I can "play". Thanks for linking to those!

why would anyone choose to live at the bottom of a gravity well similar to the one human kind has spent the recent century of two striving to climb out of?

To go surfing, rock climbing, make love on a beach, go on a bush walk, watch a proper sunset, and do all that fun "planet stuff" we are hard-wired to do? I take your point on the economics of being in space harvesting all those asteroids etc, but there's something appealing about breathing so called "fresh air" and going on a "nature" walk. Savannah stuff.

[Moontanman]

Craig, great post, I'd rep you if I could, see this thread for my take on orbiting colonies.

Orbiting Toroidal Space Colonies

Enow, most of those things would be doable in a really large orbiting toroidal colony. If indeed you were born on said colony you would find ways to get those thrill via available options in your colony. Since it would be all you ever knew humans are more than adaptable to find ways to enjoy themselves. See the above thread for details.

[Eclipse Now]

But those colonies & meteorites don't really go together?

Unless we invent SUPER-strong shielding, they would have to be in a Greg Bear "Eon" styled hollowed out asteroid to protect against micro-meteorites, and that would then make the solar energy harvesting cycle more complicated than in the original design of the space colonies.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Eclipse Now

But those colonies & meteorites don't really go together?

Unless we invent SUPER-strong shielding, they would have to be in a Greg Bear "Eon" styled hollowed out asteroid to protect against micro-meteorites, and that would then make the solar energy harvesting cycle more complicated than in the original design of the space colonies.

Nope, check out the thread I suggested Enow for answers to meteorites, shielding for tiny ones, high energy lasers for larger ones and move the colony for really large ones. meteors don't come in huge thick swarms of meteors. Even the flimsy international space station survives meteor showers.

[Eclipse Now]

And if the lasers don't work? I am interested in the concept of those space colonies, but take a risk mitigation approach. If the chance of something happening is tiny, but the consequences are unimaginably horrible, then that tiny chance takes on far more weight. Even if there's only a 1% chance of nuclear war this century, shouldn't we be trying to disarm every nuke on the planet the way Obama wants? If there is a 5% chance you're going to die of some disease, then they'll close the airports and take all sorts of precautions. (The swine flu only seems to have a 3 to 5% fatality rate and yet they have been getting pretty serious about it.) So the probability might be small, but because the consequences are so serious you kind of want to plan around it.

Even if there's only a 1% chance that a largish meteorite will penetrate the laser defence system and crack open the habitat, do 50 thousand people really want to live with the threat of at any moment watching themselves and their children asphyxiate to death?

I think people instinctively know that we rely on 'ecosystem services' here on planet earth. A bit too much rubbish? Don't worry, an ecosystem somewhere will cover it up and degrade it. A bit too much pollution emitted that year? It's a big world, and (until recently) we could take the atmosphere's capacity to absorb our smoke and rubbish for granted.

People sense the fragility of our own constructions in space. A bit too many meteorites to deal with? Don't worry, we have 10 km's of atmosphere overhead for it to burn up in... except when you don't and you're relying on hi-tech lasers. What could possibly go wrong?

(Having said that, I really hope we find a spongy new "nano-smart-material" that might, in an emergency, allow a meteorite that survives the lasers to smash through the colony, even smash through buildings etc inside the colony, and go through it and out the other side... and then re-heal the open wounds to space, saving the rest of the colony. Sure the impact area would be horrific for those nearby, but would the rest of the colony survive? I just can't imagine a material strong enough to actually stop the bigger meteorites travelling so incredibly fast, but if we can prevent the seal to space being permanently broken there might be hope for some on the colony? Or would the heat generated by such a strike kill everyone inside anyway? Eewwwww.)

So I'm not totally against space habitats, but think writing off terraforming Mars as a dream does not do justice to the many, many people that would rather live on a terraformed Mars than on a fragile space colony.

[Moontanman]

I think you vastly over estimate the meteor problem, the ISS has no meteor protection at all and it survives meteor showers quite well. In the vacuum of space a high energy laser system would be very effective and more than one layer of defense should do the job quite well. A meteor too big to use the lasers on would be detected via radar far ahead of time and colony it's self could simply be moved out of the way. A colony on mars would be fragile as well and meteors far smaller than what can hit the Earth are not stopped by the thin atmoshere of Mars.

[Eclipse Now]

A Space habitat would be vastly bigger, and hold vastly more people, and therefore according to risk calculation formulae I've seen, probably attract vastly higher risk indexes on the admittedly smallish x% chance of ABSOLUTE DISASTER happening.

My comparison with Mars was about a significantly thickened atmosphere due to terraforming projects. As I said in this post, some are projecting significant steps in terraforming could be done in around 100 years.