Moon first, then Mars.

Or we could try establishing civilization on Earth first.

ditto, per @James Riley.

Put it on the back side of the moon so we won't have to look at the mess they will surely make. I do not want to look up at the moon and see a big AMAZON or HILTON advertising blinking off ad on. The back side also has the advantage of being shielded from earth's radio noise, so it would be a good place for radio astronomy.

The back side of the moon has geology which is dissimilar to the front side (or so I have heard). We should study that.

Just the fact that we can get to the moon in at least 3 days, and not at least 6 months, counts for a lot.

No problem on earth can better be solved on the moon.

[T]ry establishing civilization on Earth first. — James Riley

:up:

Given that humanity is pretty close to sending at least one person to Mars, should we really consider trying to establish a colony on Mars? — Don Wade

Yes.

Or, should we try to establish a colony on the moon first?

Not first, simultaneously. (Mining asteroids will require both for launch and resource processing infrastructure sites. :point: )

Or, have we learned that (being human), and looking at our past history of trying to establish colonies, can we justify the effort of trying to establish a colony anywhere in space?

Sure we can.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills ..." ~JFK

Everyone who says that we should focus on Earth is correct. It is not controversial and is evident.

What I'd like to point out, that does bother me quite a bit, is that there need be no mutual exclusivity between discovering and exploring space vs. taking care of things in Earth. What we as a society spend on Space related stuff is NEGLIBILE, compared to all the waste going to banks, military, etc. etc.

Keep in mind that NASA's budget, for instance is 0.5% of the US budget. That's nothing given how much money is used.

Having said this, maybe not a settlement on Mars, but having a concept of how to have many people survive in space for years, might be worth it. Not to mention all the wonder stuff with new telescopes and robots giving us priceless information on our universe.

It's often presented as if it's because we spend money on space that we don't have nice things here on Earth, which is just false. Space exploration is a human miracle.

Everyone who says that we should focus on Earth is correct. It is not controversial and is evident. — Manuel

Then how can we leave our politics back on Earth, or should we just assume that our politics goes with us? History tells us that building colonies on a new land just means more of the same, but a lot harder to control. How do we control colonies on Mars?

I said that a colony on Mars might not be the best medium term goal for space exploration, because of several quite severe complications associated with such a project as of today.

Maybe in some years it could be feasible. Maybe.

The politics is not possible to remove anywhere. I'd happily bump up NASA's budget to 2%-4% of GDP, and slash military spending 50%. This still guarantees the strongest army in the world by vast quantities and frees up money for people in need.

Besides fascinating priceless info, we might learn practical things here on Earth by continuing space exploration.

But any massive space program involving lots of people will involve politics, if a concrete actionable plan arises, then we can talk about political organizations and the like.

Mars shmars :razz: : https://thedebrief.org/darpa-funded-researchers-accidentally-create-the-worlds-first-warp-bubble/

where would humanity go if we had a warp drive?

where would humanity go if we had a warp drive? — The Opposite

A good question. But, until we have one, we will probably continue to use old-style rocket propulsion. That still leaves the question: Should we even try to colonize space - or maybe just send robots with AR and VR technology?

where would humanity go if we had a warp drive? — The Opposite

Where no man has gone before, of course! Seriously though, I don't know. If we could go to the past, I'd be hip on the Pleistocene. But even if we could find an Eden planet in the present, be it ever so humble . . . In other words, I love the Earth. I think it would be great if Elon Musk, et al, would take about 7 billion people with him.

I could do a Lewis and Clark thing, but I don't want to put in the school time, engineering and all that to go to space.

I watched a short clip where this woman tells Elon Musk how his Mars colonization plan is interplanetary (duh!) but not international (only US engineers/scientists are on the team). The lady's comment is in the same vein as UK's prince William's on William Shatner's space adventure a coupla months ago: Solve earth's problems first! Colonizing other planets comes second. Ironic that a British royal should be averse to colonization given the English were a colonial power, the largest the world had ever seen.

Anyway, from a fighter pilot's point of view, to hit the enemy plane with your cannons/machine guns, you need to fire not at the bogey but in front of it (lead).

I'm convinced that colonising other planets is a fantasy. Mars is totally inhospitable to any form of life as we know it. Mars has a very thin atmosphere; it has no magnetic field to help protect its surface from radiation from the sun or galactic cosmic rays; it has no breathable air and the average surface temperature is a deadly 80 degrees below zero. Anyone living there would have to occupy a totally artificial environment imported at enormous cost from Earth.

We have a well-equipped spaceship that could potentially sustain us for millions of years more on our long journey through space, but it's dangerously over-heated and resource-depleted. And that is Spaceship Earth. Our only hope is to tend to it if we want to survive.

My two bit(coin)s:

Earth's moon, Mars, & asteroid mining are not the end-all-be-all of space exploration. I think what should happen (though probably won't even if we survive long enough ...) more or less is this :point: :nerd:

Should we even try to colonize space - or maybe just send robots with AR and VR technology? — Don Wade

Send AI-driven robots to build underground space habitats (to start with) on Luna and Mars and maybe the moon-like asteroid Ceres. Meatbag payloads (i.e. mission specialists & megamillionaire / billionaire tourists) to follow years later for short duration stays rather than long duration or permanent stays (due to hazards of prolonged hard radiation surface exposure and bone-loss / heart-enlarging degenerative low gravity). I'm betting on our 'intelligent' machines to "colonize" this solar system and over the next few centuries spread an interplanetary (& Lagrange) network of habitats from Venus to the Kuiper Belt for endless pilgrimages of visitors from Earth.

:up:

A and D look to me as the least problematic or most attainable for a short term project, D in so far as shielding technology is concerned.

The James Webb telescope, due to launch in a few days, includes shields that will block virtually all sunlight to prevent it being fried by the sun, as it's going to deploy quite a bit removed from Earth.

I think we're going to be quite surprised to see what it discovers.

I'm convinced that colonising other planets is a fantasy. Mars is totally inhospitable to any form of life as we know it. Mars has a very thin atmosphere; it has no magnetic field to help protect its surface from radiation from the sun or galactic cosmic rays; it has no breathable air and the average surface temperature is a deadly 80 degrees below zero. Anyone living there would have to occupy a totally artificial environment imported at enormous cost from Earth.

We have a well-equipped spaceship that could potentially sustain us for millions of years more on our long journey through space, but it's dangerously over-heated and resource-depleted. And that is Spaceship Earth. Our only hope is to tend to it if we want to survive. — Wayfarer

I totally agree!

Send AI-driven robots to build underground space habitats (to start with) on Luna and Mars and maybe the moon-like asteroid Ceres. Meatbag payloads (i.e. mission specialists & megamillionaire / billionaire tourists) to follow years later for short duration stays rather than long duration or permanent stays (due to hazards of prolonged hard radiation surface exposure and bone-loss / heart-enlarging degenerative low gravity). I'm betting on our 'intelligent' machines to "colonize" this solar system and over the next few centuries spread an interplanetary (& L5) network of habitats from Venus to the Kuiper Belt for endless pilgrimages of visitors from Earth. — 180 Proof

I'm reminded of some of the "survival-games" you can play on a computer - such as "medieval dynasty". With that in mind, what would we need - to not only survive, but to prosper and raise a family? Gravity (equal to Earth's 1-G), radiation protection equal to Earth's (near sea-level). (I don't think anyone would want to raise a family in conditions less than what we have on Earth.) Those conditions can be met today with artificial systems, but they are not easy, and I'm still not convinced anyone would want to raise a family (anywhere in space - except on Earth) in even those conditions. If you can't realistically raise a family at any location, (even if you would like to visit), then it's really difficult to justify the effort to form a colony there.

Humans should colonize mars. Until such a landscape is explored and studied we can never know either way, and colonization will be the first step to performing that task.

O'Neill Cylinders look better to me as habitats, but require a lot of mass. Maybe moon first, space elevator on the moon as a way to get mass into space. I don't know. Isaac Arthur does a great channel on this stuff. What about digging underground on the moon?

EDIT: to answer the question, world government first, then moon, then elsewhere

Colonizing Mars would probably open up a can of worms as it would expose another vector for domination of humans by both other humans and technology.

If the center of human civilization is on Earth and you're 200 million miles away on Mars, and some big criminal operation starts happening there, Earth won't be able to do anything about it. It would be extremely easy for a small group of people to hijack the colony and put it under a military junta. Imagine: just a few perverts with guns get to Mars, and they decide to kill all of the men and create a harem with the women as sex slaves. Or, say a rich guy sets up a little station on Mars where he traffics children to the super rich a la Epstein. Perhaps Mars could be used as a political concentration camp, or a black ops base where illegal and unethical experiments are done, etc etc etc.

What is Earth going to do about that? Call the space cops? In order to prevent these things from happening, you would need to have lots of people and infrastructure in place, which takes time, and presupposes that these things don't happen in the mean time.

History has taught us that when an empire does not have the technological means to maintain control over the colonies, these colonies start to assert their independence. It happened with the Roman Empire, it happened with the Merovingians, it happened with the British Empire...and it will happen again with Mars, unless there comes some technological advancement that gives people the means of rapid communication and transportation across space.

And if a colony were developed, it would only be possible by a tremendous technological effort, requiring strict human obedience. Human would exist in order to keep the colony alive, not the other way around.

:up: :nerd:

My thoughts exactly. Earthlings (baseline, unmodified by extensive biotech / nanotech) cannot live in space, only visit briefly if they intend to ever return alive (healthy) to Earth.

Or, have we learned that (being human), and looking at our past history of trying to establish colonies, can we justify the effort of trying to establish a colony anywhere in space? — Don Wade

First of all, I don't think you can establish a colony on Mars. Colony is a political and economic move done by a government under one nation. If Mars could be "colonized", all nations should have an equal shot at it. So the entire Earth colonizing Mars.

When you say "our past history", did you have a specific country in mind?

Or we could try establishing civilization on Earth first — James Riley

Ok, but what do you give our chances of achieving it on earth? Perhaps on the moon or Mars, with the threat of dramatic and irrecoverable death overshadowing any potential disagreements, some sort of functional civilization could occur as we would be required to work together to stay alive. The immediacy of potential death would eliminate the "break off on my own" approach.

Earthlings (baseline, unmodified by extensive biotech / nanotech) cannot live in space, only visit briefly if they intend to return alive (healthy) to Earth. — 180 Proof

Well, I mean, I know of some guy around here, like to throw knowledge around. I'd say that one can try to experiment living in space for a long time for memento mori. :joke:



Speculation here is pretty wild. I mean, the International Space Station worked relatively well for some time. But it seems to me that on practical affairs, we'd want to make the space travel we currently do, more comfortable and suitable for us.

Hell, going to Mars would take like 7 months in very close quarters with people you'd eventually want to kill or something.

Self sufficiency is still a long ways away on this planet, never mind Mars.

But this is crazy rambling really, I mean, we can't freakin' get together to beat a quite (comparatively) weakish virus (in terms of % death rates).

Doing something significant in Mars or the Moon, seems impossible....

Doing something significant in Mars or the Moon, seems impossible.... — Manuel

I agree. We are pretty close to having the technology to send men (or maybe even women) back to the moon, or go to mars. However, we don't seem to be even close to getting along well enough as humans to trust ourselves to even plan on how to establishing a colony - on the moon, or mars.

With that being said - and if there is "intelligent life" anywhere else in the Universe - and they also developed some form of spaceflight - maybe that's why they didn't try to colonize either. The very basic tenants of life (to eat other life, or to be eaten by by other life) would be enough to keep intelligent life forms from trying to establish colonies. It seems intelligent life forms simply cannot trust itself. Any comments?

I mean, the only evidence we have of intelligent life is here, with us being the only creatures capable of explicit reflexive consciousness. So if there is intelligent life out there, something of which I'm not nearly as confident as I used to be, then it would stand to reason that it would similar to us in several important respects.

One of those similarities, one would guess, are the basic needs of life. I don't know if we can or cannot trust ourselves.

I'm under the impression now that size matters. Once you're speaking about massive cities with tens of millions of people, sustained political organization seems ever more difficult, as we can see now.

But even this would not be the biggest difficulty, it's simply that space is so damn big. It would take 4.3 light years just to reach our nearest neighboring star system.

Andromeda, the nearest galaxy, would take 2.5 million years, travelling at the speed of light to get to. That's just too much.

But even this would not be the biggest difficulty, it's simply that space is so damn big. It would take 4.3 light years just to reach our nearest neighboring star system.

Andromeda, the nearest galaxy, would take 2.5 million years, travelling at the speed of light to get to. That's just too much. — Manuel

Distance not only works against us - it can also work for us.

Right, yeah if humans can't even get their shit together on Earth then it's hard to see how it would be any better on Mars.

But it seems to me that on practical affairs, we'd want to make the space travel we currently do, more comfortable and suitable for us.

Hell, going to Mars would take like 7 months in very close quarters with people you'd eventually want to kill or something. — Manuel

The conditions of people on the frontier of the American wild west were often miserable and extremely dangerous. Space ("the final frontier") would be even more so.

If Mars or anywhere else is to be colonized, it will probably be the poor, disenfranchised and/or insane that will be the first group to go. The rich will stay at home until it's demonstrated to be safer and more comfortable than on Earth (or in their private orbital station above Earth).

Perhaps. But with distance comes time. Time is not with us.



What you say makes sense. The thing is, who would front the money?

You'd have to have a high percentage of trained people being sent anywhere in space, to be prepared for how to deal with upcoming challenges. So you can train the poor and disenfranchised, but the money is key.

The rich will do whatever they can. Either a remote luxury island, a bunker or a space hotel.

I suppose we have to go by "baby steps", next big thing is going to be the James Webb telescope. That's going to be really informative. One can only hope all goes well in launch and in destination.

The rich will do whatever they can. Either a remote luxury island, a bunker or a space hotel. — Manuel

Eventually, IMO, many billionaires (trillionaires) with their help/thralls will fuck off to asteroid terreria.

I suppose we have to go by "baby steps", next big thing is going to be the James Webb telescope. That's going to be really informative. One can only hope all goes well in launch and in destination.

:100: :up:

A colony on The Moon would make little sense given that humans cannot create artificial gravity. A base to jump off from makes sense, but I would see it as automated not run by humans as they couldn’t stay there for long periods (years) without a lot of difficulty. That said, the proximity to Earth would be a huge advantage over Mars. Also, I imagine some adventurous types would be thrilled to colonise The Moon too, so a preliminary base would make sense. The goal of Mars is uncharted territory but I expect - as Musk plans - they’ll be some kind of Moonbase that will test out some of the tech to be used on Mars and this will be the launchpad to get to Mars.

Mars has to colonised. I’m saddened someone hasn’t landed on Mars already as I expected it to have happened by now. Now there are private companies around competing it is only a matter of time. Elon Musk seems 100% driven towards getting to Mars and everything he does is based on this goal. As long as he says alive I think we’ll be there soon enough.

For longterm stability and independence Mars has much more going for it purely due to the gravity. Most of the first colonists will likely die/suffer a lot, but many (including myself) would happily take the risk. Should we go? Sure! Why the hell not? What good reason is there not to explore and stretch the human story to see what can be achieved? Every adventure opens up new avenues for humanity as a whole.

I still believe I’ll live long enough to see humans land on Mars (or at least attempt to!).