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Settlement? Sure, some day. But not to live in a box, rebreathing air that someone else just exhaled.
We beathe each other's exhaled breathe everyday, already.
No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.
Hamlet Act V Scene 1
Elsewhere Shakespeare writes about great kings being food for worms, which are eaten by fish, which are eaten by peasants.
Here or Mars? Makes no difference.
= = =
Early settlers didn't have to worry about whether there would be enough oxygen to breathe, carbon dioxide and monoxide toxicity, ventilation systems breaking down filling the dome with the smell of manure from the ranch, a sudden problem with the hydroponics that means some people are chosen to starve to death, electrical shorts in the wires that lead to the outside solar panels, nuclear reactor waste, the taste of grey water... You want to subject children to this? It's a lot of work, nothing much to buy. No trips to Disneyland.
More Michael Griffin:
We are all the descendants of people who left known and familiar places to strike out for the risky promise of better places, in an unbroken chain going back to a small corner of east Africa. Concerning the settlement of the American West, it has been said that "the cowards never started, and the weaklings died on the way." But this has been true of every human migration; we are all the descendants of those who chose to explore and to settle new lands, and who survived the experience.
Edited By BWhite on 1115669360
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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I still don't see how you think it's a good thing to settle an asteroid?
Some people now live in boxes in alleys but we don't praise them for settling new lands. We consider them losers who couldn't handle life on the real earth.
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I still don't see how you think it's a good thing to settle an asteroid?
Some people now live in boxes in alleys but we don't praise them for settling new lands. We consider them losers who couldn't handle life on the real earth.
More people. The resources within the asteroid belt far exceed what could ever be mined on any planet.
Improved standards of living for hundreds of billions of people living at one time. Instead of one Einstein or Hawking alive per human generation maybe there are six or seven alive at one time and they collaborate.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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More people? We have wide open spaces in many countries now. Australia is mostly uninhabited, Canada, parts of the US, Northern Africa too.
Asteroid resources? Just when do you see us going to get these asteroid resources? What year? Also I'm curious when you think this settlement of mars is going to take place. Do you think NASA is going to put out a call for families willing to pick up and go to mars, leaving everything behind?
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In the end it comes down to what we really want to do in space. And this is a personal opinion as well as a consideration for what is best for Humanity not to mention what best suits the long term goals of the country that does it.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Yes, that is true. I think the idea of settling mars just to live in domes is risky, costly, and not a smart step until we really have better technology to reduce the risk.
Certainly astronauts, then scientists will make it to mars. We may even have a permanent science outpost there. At some point we may put terraformers on mars. I would imagine that a space mirror would pretty much take care of itself and the super greenhouse factories would mostly be automated but someone has to go get the regolith to put into them and someone has to maintain and fix the machines. A relatively small work force, maybe as many as a hundred. Workers would probably live in domes and stay on mars for up to 1 year before returning home to the earth.
I couldn't imagine anyone moving their family there permanently. They couldn't pay me enough.
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Dook,
I did a typing error not 2199 for the 50,000+ humans but 2099 to 2101 the end of 21st century and the start of 22nd century.
For every human in space we will have upwards of 5 times ( 250,000+ ) in robotic systems from construction, mining, food processing, cargo transports, probes and more. With the combined human and robotic resources in the right places the interplanetary economy would be self-sustaining and would grow into the next century.
But to get to these levels of human and non-human resources in space we need to create the foundations and infrastructure to support them in orbit, on the moon, on mars and beyond and the transportation routes between the planetary bodies and the mining vessels for asteroid mining and mineral processing. There is alot of work ahead to get off this planet in a meaningful way.
Dook, the advancement of the human spirit, knowledge and society are based on experiences of humans not at arms-length viewing but the first hand experience. That is why we need to go to space, if we don't we become the small race of humans that never went anywhere, never experience first hand the universe and the close minded society.
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Okay man, I'm tired of saying the same old things over and over again. You can believe that 50,000 humans will be in space in 94 years if you want but we'll be lucky to have a small manned mission to mars by 2030.
There are smart ways of doing things and not so smart ways. Human knowledge advances either way, just the dumb ones don't live to see the rest of us learn from them.
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Yes, that is true. I think the idea of settling mars just to live in domes is risky, costly, and not a smart step until we really have better technology to reduce the risk.
Certainly astronauts, then scientists will make it to mars. We may even have a permanent science outpost there. At some point we may put terraformers on mars. I would imagine that a space mirror would pretty much take care of itself and the super greenhouse factories would mostly be automated but someone has to go get the regolith to put into them and someone has to maintain and fix the machines. A relatively small work force, maybe as many as a hundred. Workers would probably live in domes and stay on mars for up to 1 year before returning home to the earth.
I couldn't imagine anyone moving their family there permanently. They couldn't pay me enough.
For us to start terraforming Mars we will have had to have a large space infrastructure in space. Nothing less as we are talking about the single biggest engineering project that mankind has ever done. Personel required to do this will be large and we can talk about populations of 50,000 plus to do all the work that has to be done.
To put into space the large mirror that is a soletta array and you will see that it is not feasible to be done from Earth or Mars and that only probably the use of asteroidal material will allow such a creation. And a soletta array is one of the easiest and effective means of starting to terraform Mars.
If as an engineer and you where asked to work on this great project but the minimum length of time you where going to be away was 3 years would you not want your family to go with you. It was common in the twentieth century for the big engineering projects to employ large amounts of people but for them to bring there families. On Mars it will have to be the same, we cannot expect anything except this.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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I found a reference that says platinum ore if often magnetic so simply pouring lunar regolith over a series of magnets should separate it but they would also grab other magnetic elements like iron oxide, nickel, and cobalt.
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Grypd,
That's right, with families we need all the other infrastructure for society - schools, shops, entertainment, administration, tele-robotics, mining, food processing and more.
We would need settlement programs that would assist in the training of spouses for alternative positions than currently working on earth, If they have the required skills they will be moved to their primary occupation.
As a society going into space we need a strategy or road map to create the settlements in LEO, Moon , Mars and beyond. I do think we need to start now to develop that roadmap for the settlement and creation of the interplanetary economy for a 100 year timeline.
1. How to extend the earth economy ? and what in the Earth Space Economy ? and where the income from orbital space come from ?.
2. How to create a Lunar economy and extend that to earth and combine the two bodies into a single marketplace ?
3. How to create a Martian economy and extend that to earth and Moon and combine the three bodies into a single marketplace ?
These are the questions to answer because they will give the answer to who, when, where , how We expand our economy into a part of a large interplanetary economy of these three bodies.
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Magnets won't separate metal from metal, and that's the problem with nickel-iron meteorite: we're talking about an "ore" of pure metal that happens to include 1 part in 3,000 to 1 part in 30,000 platinum (and a few other rare metals as well).
Dook, I don't think people will take children to Mars; the radiation and weightlessness are too hazardous. I suspect child will be born on Mars. By the time the technology to take children to Mars has gotten advanced and safe enough, Mars will be a bigger place anyway.
I think even a relatively small base will be much safer than you think. People will have to stay on Mars 26 months between flights unless we develop MUCH more advanced engines. Most likely the base will always have an extra twenty-six months of supplies on hand in case a supply vehicle fails. Environmental management (I don't call it life support if it involves lots of greenhouses and recycling; you are dealing with an entire environment that has to be maintained and supported) will always be designed to produce a certain extra margin; if you have 100 people it will be designed to support 125, for example. Mars bases will not be a single unit, either. If you have a base consisting of greenhouses able to feed six people each, you will have extras. If the base consists of habs able to house a dozen peeple, you'll always have extras. Furthermore, the base needs to be made out of units that are appropriate for its scale. You don't build a base for 100 people out of units able to house six or to house 100. If you are using six-person units, there are too many of them to manage and maintain efficiently; and a single 100-person unit is putting all your eggs in one basket. As a base expands you want to build it of units that are perhaps a quarter or a fifth the size of the total population and you always need at least one extra in case of failure.
Planned this way, a Mars base can be quite safe. If one hab has an air leak, you evacuate it and use the backup until it's fixed.
I doubt bases will be filled with body odor and the smell of manure. Those are not that hard to handle if you have the energy; Mars has plenty of air and water, after all, so you can purge the air in the units periodically if they have a build up of something (say, a few parts per million of nitrogen oxides).
As soon as Mars has a few dozen people, your base won't be tiny. Human habitations need about fifty square meters per person, minimum; one hundred is better. If you have 50 square meters per person and a base of 50 people, you have 2500 square meters of space, which is the equivalent of about 12 suburban American houses (assuming each house is 2000 square feet or 200 square meters). That's a lot of space for little kids to run around in. Such a base would also have about 2,500 to 5,000 square meters of greenhouses, which would always be fun to run around in and hide in (for an hour or so a day; not too long because of the radiation). So I could see relatively small Mars bases--perhaps 15 or 20 years after the first arrivals--being big enough and safe enough to raise kids.
Sure , they can't go to Disneyland (except via virtual reality). But there are a lot of Earth kid--a lot of AMERICAN kids--who can't. In many areas of Asia families raise children on small houseboats. Talk about dangerous! My 20-month old just fell into our fishpond in the back yard on Sunday (I pulled him right out, of course) but I can't imagine the danger of raising kids on a little leaky houseboat! Mars will be safer than that!
As for Antarctica: there are indeed families at some of the bases during the summer, but not in the winter when it's pitch dark and the population shrinks to a tenth of the summer level (and most of them drink a lot).
-- RobS
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The magnets would pick up iron ore, much more of it than platinum. After that I don't know the best way to separate the two on the moon.
Everyone here at the Mars Society Forums doesn't care one bit about science or even about a human mission to mars. Your main goal is human settlement outside of the earth regardless of the place. The moon? Asteroids? Martin even wants to develop the outer planets. You even fight Mars Direct because it doesn't take enough people to mars soon enough even though Zubrin's plans detail constant mars landings. And his plan was the most aggressive plan to get there ever. Fighting it is shooting down your own aggressive space plans.
These settlement ideas are a complete disregard for the technology and science we still need in order to do these things more successfully. We don't even know if we can grow food on mars and you want a base with hundreds of people? That's not the smart way to do things.
You are all trying to convince me that this is an urgent priority, that we need to settle space now but the one question you haven't been able to answer is-why? To help mankind? NASA's robots can do it all with less cost and without risk to human life. The giant earth destroying asteroid-just isn't a credible argument. Platinum? Maybe but we only need a very small base for that. The reasons just dont stand up to scrutiny so why do you all want human settlement of space?
If we try to settle space it's not going to be like Star Trek, it's going to be like the ISS. If we build a moon base it's going to be like living in a single wide mobile home, only you can't go outside unless you are in a pressure suit. If we settle mars it's going to be like living in a double wide mobile home. This is the level of our technology.
You say everything at the bases will be fine, no worries, nothing will ever break, no funny smells, the plants will always thrive, plenty of food and air and water for everyone. Sounds like a paradise.
The earth is the real paradise, space is a huge wasteland full of radiation and temperatures extremes, the moon is a dull grey lifeless blob, mars is a cold empty Sahara, and asteroids are rocks. You think moving humans out to these things to permanently live is in any way a good thing?
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Everyone here at the Mars Society Forums doesn't care one bit about science or even about a human mission to mars.
*Okay, now you're starting to piss me off.
You definitely do NOT speak for me on this count.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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I found a reference that says platinum ore if often magnetic so simply pouring lunar regolith over a series of magnets should separate it but they would also grab other magnetic elements like iron oxide, nickel, and cobalt.
We have already seen (on Mars actually) that what we are going to be looking for is concentrated asteroidal materials on the Moon. The metal class asteroid will due to the lack of an atmosphere come down solid and will likely be found on the Moon in one area with little if any spreading out and likely to be sitting there whole.
The best way to think of them as solid lumps of metal. There are other asteroidal impacts that also would be worth looking for as some of the C class have high increased metal content and the carbaceous bit will certainly be of use.
The regolith has other many uses and most of these uses do lend themselves to automation or direct Earthside control. With power from the sun it means a lunar base could operate even without a human crew present and the actual base could be improved and enlarged without too much requirement of structural modules sent from Earth.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Cindy: Then why haven't you spoken up? There are many posts about building a base on the moon just to get the platinum before the damn Chinese get to it and others that say we need to move 50,000 people off the planet as soon as possible and you have said nothing. This moon base and settlement will all be at a cost of real, pure, science.
Grypd: You are saying that all of the platinum on the moon is in one location? If platinum comes from asteroid impacts and the moon is covered with asteroid impacts then that means the platinum is spread out.
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Cindy: Then why haven't you spoken up? There are many posts about building a base on the moon just to get the platinum before the damn Chinese get to it and others that say we need to move 50,000 people off the planet as soon as possible and you have said nothing. This moon base and settlement will all be at a cost of real, pure, science.
1. I'm not interested in settling the Moon and so don't follow threads devoted to the topic faithfully.
2. I work 11 to 12 hours a day.
3. I keep track of half a dozen science/astronomy web sites throughout the day, and post items of interest.
And, again, settling the Moon isn't of interest to me and I only follow such threads sporadically.
I took specific exception to your comment about science and Mars. -That- is the basis of my most recent comment.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Everyone here at the Mars Society Forums doesn't care one bit about science or even about a human mission to mars.
*Okay, now you're starting to piss me off.
You definitely do NOT speak for me on this count.
--Cindy
Actually, I like the Mars Direct architecture.
Mars quasi-Direct using 2 shuttle C to assemble the Mars transit ship and 1 EELV-CEV to ferry the crew might be better. More total mission mass and cost savings from not doing the Ares.
I am also far from convinced that honet-to-God RLVs are as economical as some seem to think but that is a purely amateur opinion.
I also think that a 100% science only Mars mission would be slaughtered on Capitol Hill. Lunar platinum and settlement (remember that Griffin dreams of settlement) are the types of activities that can motivate those who are not science-only people.
Even Zubrin wants to use MD vessels to return to the Moon, with early deployment of lunar LOX production and direct flights.
I favor those ideas as well.
But for me science is the frosting and settlement is the cake.
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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Actually, I like the Mars Direct architecture.
Mars quasi-Direct using 2 shuttle C to assemble the Mars transit ship and 1 EELV-CEV to ferry the crew might be better. More total mission mass and cost savings from not doing the Ares.
I am also far from convinced that honet-to-God RLVs are as economical as some seem to think but that is a purely amateur opinion.
I also think that a 100% science only Mars mission would be slaughtered on Capitol Hill. Lunar platinum and settlement (remember that Griffin dreams of settlement) are the types of activities that can motivate those who are not science-only people.
Even Zubrin wants to use MD vessels to return to the Moon, with early deployment of lunar LOX production and direct flights.
I favor those ideas as well.
But for me science is the frosting and settlement is the cake.
Cindy: My apologies. You do always put science first.
BWhite:
I'm not sure what you mean when yo say that a 100% science only mission to mars would be slaughtered by Capital Hill. Every mission to mars so far has been science only and they did nothing to stop them.
Are you suggesting that congress would only allow a human mission to mars if it included settlement?
The general public may get wide eyed when scientists talk about living in space stations, on the moon, or on mars but that is because of science fiction fantasy movies and books.
A fully terraformed mars is the cake.
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Actually, I like the Mars Direct architecture.
Mars quasi-Direct using 2 shuttle C to assemble the Mars transit ship and 1 EELV-CEV to ferry the crew might be better. More total mission mass and cost savings from not doing the Ares.
I am also far from convinced that honet-to-God RLVs are as economical as some seem to think but that is a purely amateur opinion.
I also think that a 100% science only Mars mission would be slaughtered on Capitol Hill. Lunar platinum and settlement (remember that Griffin dreams of settlement) are the types of activities that can motivate those who are not science-only people.
Even Zubrin wants to use MD vessels to return to the Moon, with early deployment of lunar LOX production and direct flights.
I favor those ideas as well.
But for me science is the frosting and settlement is the cake.
Cindy: My apologies. You do always put science first.
BWhite:
I'm not sure what you mean when yo say that a 100% science only mission to mars would be slaughtered by Capital Hill. Every mission to mars so far has been science only and they did nothing to stop them.Are you suggesting that congress would only allow a human mission to mars if it included settlement?
The general public may get wide eyed when scientists talk about living in space stations, on the moon, or on mars but that is because of science fiction fantasy movies and books.
A fully terraformed mars is the cake.
Robotic missions are science only. I support more of those.
$50 billion for scientists to fly to Mars and collect rocks without being part of a larger plan for a permanent human presence in space will not gain political traction, in my opinion.
Last August, I attended the Mars Society convention in Chicago. A great many of the presentations were about how to live on Mars permanently.
Edited By BWhite on 1115753622
Give someone a sufficient [b][i]why[/i][/b] and they can endure just about any [b][i]how[/i][/b]
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Congress will do no such thing. The ISS isn't about human settlement, neither will the CEV be, nor are the robots to Venus, Voyager, the space shuttle...
Congress will keep it's nose out of NASA's business because the President is the boss, not congress. If the President changes his mind tomorrow and cancels the space shuttle, ISS, and the CEV to go to mars then that's what is going to happen.
Mars Direct IS about long term human missions to mars.
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Congress will keep it's nose out of NASA's business because the President is the boss, not congress. If the President changes his mind tomorrow and cancels the space shuttle, ISS, and the CEV to go to mars then that's what is going to happen.
When have Congress ever kept its nose out of the president business?
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Grypd: You are saying that all of the platinum on the moon is in one location? If platinum comes from asteroid impacts and the moon is covered with asteroid impacts then that means the platinum is spread out.
Lol we just have to find the right craters dont we. Heh, when we find one we will be busy extracting for years. Actually it does bring the point up that we know more about Mars than we do about our closest neighbour. Most of what we know came from the limited Luna/Apollo samples and now the most recent set of probes. And these probes have really been technology demonstrators with a science aim.
Still it will need a proper mineral resources probe one specially designed for the purpose. We already know of 3 minerals/Chemicals that the Moon has that the Earth does not. I really wonder what else can be found and what can be found on the other planets. Not that im stating we should go and build mining bases across the solar system just curious as to what could be found.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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I have to say this I honestly dont actually know what the ISS is for apart from a political make work situation and to tie up all those spare Russian engineers from making missiles for all and sundry.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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My dear Dook, this Forum is a cacaphony of voices and positions, not one. I have a Master's degree in planetary geology and did my Masters thesis work on Martian craters. I am most definitely in favor of science. I am also in favor of eventual settlement of the place. I am skeptical about terraforming; maybe it'll happen, but it'll be a task to consider seriously in the next century.
Sometimes I post on the earliest stage of Martian settlement, sometimes a later stage, and sometimes on a very much later stage. My postings have signposts about this in them. Perhaps Mars will have 50,000 or five million people on it some day, but not this century, and maybe not the next. Humanity has a long history stretching out before it unless we destroy ourselves, so I am confident Mars will be settled. But in the 21st century? Not the first half, I think. I am not so sure about the second half.
Since I write novels about Mars, I inevitable speed up things for dramatic effect. But that also means I have thought about some of the practical issues of settlements of a few thousand people on Mars.
I don't know what will happen with platinum on the moon or Mars. I doubt we'll "settle" the outer solar system. Even Titan strikes me as pretty inhospitable and not worth the hassle. But I bet in 200 or 300 years there will be people living in the Saturnian system more or less permanently, just as there are communities on tiny and remote islands of the Earth's oceans.
-- RobS
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