Moving to Mars?
- Thread starter gozpel
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holy king
Deity
i'd take two tickets to paradise.
Synobun
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No. There is no feasible way to maintain an actual colony on Mars, all you would achieve is a small base which in reality can be more compared to a prison than an escape from Earth.
History_Buff
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Seeing as I'm not a trained astronaut, no, not now. There's a lot of groundwork that needs to be done first. Though that could easily be done inside of two or three decades if the political will existed. By then I would certainly be willing to consider it.
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
I think I read some article it's possible to 'terraform' Mars. But definitely not with the technology we have at the moment. So no, I'm not going to a by moments fiery, by moments ice cold piece of brown rock.
Save_Ferris
Admiring Myself
Does Mars have wifi?
History_Buff
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It's entirely possible, it'll just take a while.
But terraforming is not a prerequisite to human habitation. It should be entirely possible to build large scale habitable structures and live there well before any terraforming is complete.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
23F highs are fiery?
Ailedhoo
wonderer
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Who needs wifi when Mars has a greater thing: ROCK OPERA!
Link to video.
On a pratical note: we will need to one day think about the creation of a space colony to reach the greatest stages of our evolution as a species via spreading through the dark sea.
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
Oh, uh, apologies. I thought max temperature was 90°C, apparently it's a lot lower.
I like your avatar, by the way
squadbroken
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I don't have any relevant scientific training but I would gladly go to Mars if I was offered the chance, even if it was one-way. It would be utterly fascinating.
Save_Ferris
Admiring Myself
For the first few months, yes.
I assume it would. On the down side, your computers will be destroyed pretty quickly by radiation. Even if you live deep in a cave, you're looking at a pretty large lag time (up to 22 minutes) when you communicate with Earth.
Of course, the radiation frying your computers is probably a secondary concern to what it'll do to your body. You'll age something stupid like 20 years for every year on Mars. So enjoy the 2-3 (Earth) years you have there.
All that said...
...
I think I'd go.
History_Buff
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The radiation isn't that bad. It's comparable to the Earth's upper atmosphere really. Throw some sandbags on top of your shelter, or dig a big hole, and you'll be fine.
I'd go to Mars, but I've heard the infrastructure is pretty much nonexistent.
History_Buff
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It's a Randian paradise. Stuff a group of them up there and we'll have railroads to the space-coal in no time!
Eh... incorrect about the comparison to Earth. The issue isn't the very thin atmosphere but the lack of a strong magnetic field. Despite being twice as far from the sun, in orbit around Mars you receive 2-3 times the radiation exposure as you do on the ISS. That's not going to be dissipated much on the surface.
A much larger issue is any solar flares that passed by Mars. I wouldn't want to be there for that without some serious shielding. The again, I'm not sure why I'm assuming you have the technology and money to get to Mars but not the foresight to build adequate shielding. Probably not as big a problem as I first thought, but if something went wrong... somewhat scary.
Isn't this supposed to be a one-way ticket? I doubt the radiation is enough to actually kill anyone outright, and who cares about cancer if you're not going back anyway?
You're right, it's probably more ethical to send Randroids before we send humans.History Buff said:
History_Buff
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Having checked my numbers, you're right, it is quite a bit more than that, but still nothing to worry about. A quick wikipedia check says that average radiation doses on the ISS are around 150 mSV. Estimated doses for an approximate 900 day Mars mission (180 days travel each way, 550 day surface occupation) is about 520 mSV. So about 40% more radiation that you'd see on an ISS stay of about the same length, but that's still not very much exposure: it's a 1% increased cancer risk over 30 years.
That does somewhat disregard solar flares, but solar flares are fairly weak all in all; particles on the order of millions of volts. You could shield against those easily just be being in the middle of the spacecraft, surrounded by the vast amount of supplies you need to drag with you. 30 mSV exposure probably.
It could be one way, but it really doesn't have to be. In the case of the first few missions (that you'll need to build up any sort of base), it will almost certainly be return trip.
holy king
Deity
because somehow, not dying of cancer is only an aspirable goal on earth and not on mars?
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