1) I think we should avoid using antarctica since people merely need to point to treaties that have been signed preventing...2) I personally don't take any talk of Mars colonization seriously by groups who are not doing such 'colony demonstrators' here on earth. I think it is just so obviously necessary, and incredibly cheap compared to space flight. If you are not doing this you are just doing PRThis doesn't mean I do not take SpaceX seriously. I think Elon Musk has been very clear that his contribution is to revolutionize the launch industry
Quote from: scienceguy on 07/14/2014 12:27 amIf people start mining asteroids in the main belt (which they may do because there are lots of precious metals there), Phobos and Deimos will be good stopover points. And a colony on Mars could support those Phobos and Deimos stopover points better than Earth.Direct flights from Earth would make more sense. synodic periods are shorter and transit times (for Hohmann orbits) only slightly longer (Earth - Ceres 1.84 years, Mars - Ceres 1.57 years. from Jerry Pournelle's A Step Farther Out).
If people start mining asteroids in the main belt (which they may do because there are lots of precious metals there), Phobos and Deimos will be good stopover points. And a colony on Mars could support those Phobos and Deimos stopover points better than Earth.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 07/14/2014 03:04 amBoth Chile and Argentina (two non-rich developing countries) have colonization projects on Antarctica with schools, churches, babies being born, etc. Sure, they're small, but they exist.I wonder how many more times you'll have to repeat this until people stop posting the false claim that no-one wants to colonize Antarctica.. and therefore no-one wants to colonize Mars - which is already patently obvious as there's a long line of people waiting to go. I've heard of never letting facts get in the way of a good argument, but this has got to be the twelfth time you've presented the facts and still threads like this one keep getting created.Thanks for being more patient than seems warranted, at least to me.
Both Chile and Argentina (two non-rich developing countries) have colonization projects on Antarctica with schools, churches, babies being born, etc. Sure, they're small, but they exist.
Quote from: QuantumG on 07/14/2014 03:15 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 07/14/2014 03:04 amBoth Chile and Argentina (two non-rich developing countries) have colonization projects on Antarctica with schools, churches, babies being born, etc. Sure, they're small, but they exist.I wonder how many more times you'll have to repeat this until people stop posting the false claim that no-one wants to colonize Antarctica.. and therefore no-one wants to colonize Mars - which is already patently obvious as there's a long line of people waiting to go. I've heard of never letting facts get in the way of a good argument, but this has got to be the twelfth time you've presented the facts and still threads like this one keep getting created.Thanks for being more patient than seems warranted, at least to me.Firstly, I haven't read every thread on every part of this forum, mostly having lurked around the SpaceX parts previously. I prefixed my OP with 'hope this is in the right place and not too much of a dupe', it was subsequently moved here from SpaceX general. So sorry if folk are having to repeat themselves! Just blame the noob.That said, I think this argument is disingenuous for two reasons. 1. I know the treaty is preventing the legal settlement of Antarctica *now* but that there was plenty of time before the treaty came into force in 1961 when there was a conspicuous absence of large scale migration and settling attempts by wealthy individuals (you could even say, back then, that there was more impetus for those kind of people to migrate, with the ever-present threat of nuclear war, Antarctica might be considered to be nicely out of the way). 2. The Chilean and Argentinian villages are heavily government-supported boon-doggles intended to assert ownership of their claim - 'it's been settled by our people' (their claim overlaps with Argentina's and The Brits'). This is not a reasonable example of spontaneous migration to Antarctica that disproves my original point; unless the settlement popped up spontaneously, funded by a lot of wealthy private people who just wanted to go and live there, it doesn't count as a comparator for the motivation that is proposed to mass colonise Mars. The Martian equivalent of those villages would be a e.g. US government funded 'colony' with citizens picked to go and live there for a few years at a time, for reasons of claiming it for America. This is clearly not what is being promoted as the support behind 1000s of colonists going to Mars. It might be a very real reason for different countries to get lots of people up there though. We've relied on tacit conflict to motivate us to reach humanity expanding achievements in the past, why not now?I realise I may be coming off a little negative, so I'll try and come up with a non-cold-war style pathway for colonisation:If early government research bases finds some large high-grade diamond deposit (or something else of high value and low weight that can easily be exported), possibly that could draw more people for exploitation, who then improve their living environment and need services to the point that still more people come to provide those. At this point everyone on Mars is the employee of government or a corporation. Eventually life on Mars will look like a developing frontier society rather than a barren rock of hazard and maybe then the wealthy retiree/private entrepreneur crowd might start to spend their money to move there. But I don't think they will be the pioneers.
Everyone knows there's lots and lots of people who'd love to be involved in colonizing Mars
No worries, Nine.While I've heard the Antarctica argument before, I've never heard it refuted on those grounds before, and I've been hanging around here for a while. I guess I missed it too.For that matter, there are 20 responses before you were told off, all of them oblivious to the question's alleged futility...That said, it is still not a good analogy, for the reasons stated above. Antarctica is basically too close for the concept of a colony to really makes sense. It's like the oil fields of the Arctic. You don't need colonies to lay claims over them, as they are within military range of existing "colonies" such as the US and Russia.And still some countries, as pointed out, are trying to colonize there. (Interestingly, countries that cannot project military force for thousands of miles)
Quote from: meekGee on 07/14/2014 06:24 amNo worries, Nine.While I've heard the Antarctica argument before, I've never heard it refuted on those grounds before, and I've been hanging around here for a while. I guess I missed it too.For that matter, there are 20 responses before you were told off, all of them oblivious to the question's alleged futility...That said, it is still not a good analogy, for the reasons stated above. Antarctica is basically too close for the concept of a colony to really makes sense. It's like the oil fields of the Arctic. You don't need colonies to lay claims over them, as they are within military range of existing "colonies" such as the US and Russia.And still some countries, as pointed out, are trying to colonize there. (Interestingly, countries that cannot project military force for thousands of miles)Thanks meekGee! Reassured I'm not micturating windwards!I still contend that there are no examples on Earth of a large group wealthy private individuals choosing to leave luxury, family and semi-assured longevity behind in favour of a hard, limited life in a harsh environment. Poor economic migrants yes. Occasional eccentric rich people yes. People moved there, either avowedly or not, by governments, yes. But not 1000s of 1-5%ers spending large chunks of wealth to be millions of miles from friends & loved ones, luxury, golf courses and advanced hospitals.I think you are right though, the main possible flaw in my logic is the pitfall of the 'uniformitarian' approach; assuming what goes for Earth-based examples is what will go for another whole planet. We of course have no idea really of what the actual self-funding demand will be, and won't have until we are a lot closer to being able to move people there. Perhaps for this reason the Antarctica argument is something of a strawman. I certainly hope so.
I still contend that there are no examples on Earth of a large group wealthy private individuals choosing to leave luxury, family and semi-assured longevity behind in favour of a hard, limited life in a harsh environment.
npThe scenario of " 1000s of 1-5%ers spending large chunks of wealth to be millions of miles from friends & loved ones, luxury, golf courses and advanced hospitals." was never one of my favorites, and I didn't see it as one of the prominent ideas in this forum.
Quote from: Nine_thermidor on 07/14/2014 07:04 amI still contend that there are no examples on Earth of a large group wealthy private individuals choosing to leave luxury, family and semi-assured longevity behind in favour of a hard, limited life in a harsh environment. Read "Amana: The Community of True Inspiration" by Bertha H. M Shambaugh. History of rich people who moved from a developed society to the Americas to get away from such dastardly things as compulsory schooling and taxes, formed a colony, then moved again when the railroad brought civilization to their doorstep - a problem they managed to solve for a time in their new location by buying the railroad station. They were sued repeatedly for being too good at building wealth - the general belief at the time being that religious organizations should be charitable - and won.
Anyway, I'd be surprised if the altruistic 'protect the species' angle will prove to be a sufficient motivating factor to achieve migration on the scale of what is being envisioned.
Quote from: meekGee on 07/14/2014 07:09 amnpThe scenario of " 1000s of 1-5%ers spending large chunks of wealth to be millions of miles from friends & loved ones, luxury, golf courses and advanced hospitals." was never one of my favorites, and I didn't see it as one of the prominent ideas in this forum.This is why this discussion was originally posed in SpaceX general. I was specifically trying to compare the Musk vision for Mars colonisation via private wealthy paying passengers with the lack of such behaviour in Antarctica, because that is the case that Elon has made repeatedly as the business case for transporting people to Mars. Maybe I should have hung a few extra mentions of SpaceX around the title/intro...here it looks like I'm saying Mars colonisation can never happen because millionairs don't want to play golf there, which is not my meaning at all!
Fair enough, I wasn't aware of that example, sounds interesting. The process didn't continue though presumably?
Quote from: Nine_thermidor on 07/14/2014 07:24 amQuote from: meekGee on 07/14/2014 07:09 amnpThe scenario of " 1000s of 1-5%ers spending large chunks of wealth to be millions of miles from friends & loved ones, luxury, golf courses and advanced hospitals." was never one of my favorites, and I didn't see it as one of the prominent ideas in this forum.This is why this discussion was originally posed in SpaceX general. I was specifically trying to compare the Musk vision for Mars colonisation via private wealthy paying passengers with the lack of such behaviour in Antarctica, because that is the case that Elon has made repeatedly as the business case for transporting people to Mars. Maybe I should have hung a few extra mentions of SpaceX around the title/intro...here it looks like I'm saying Mars colonisation can never happen because millionairs don't want to play golf there, which is not my meaning at all! :)Musk referred to $500k ticket price as a threshold beyond which colonization will take off.$500k can be your indebtedness for the company that paid your ticket, since you can pay that off in just a few years worth of work.It is also a reasonable amount for a company to invest in an individual it is sending off to Mars to do work for it, so really, no indebtedness needed.I actually find this number unnecessarily low. If Alcoa wants to start producing Aluminum on Mars, it will have to send some equipment and a basic crew. This investment will include crew transport, equipment development, equipment transport, and crew upkeep. I think a few million dollars will get lost in that total.I'd like to see a point where companies can try setting up a presence on Mars for even $1B. There are plenty of companies that will take that kind of gamble on a new strategic direction. There are many companies that make >$1B/quarter, and so can take $1-2B, over 5-10 years, as a trial balloon.... Not to mention if the price-to-play gets closer to $100M. I don't see the need for $0.5M ticket price to achieve that. That number is for stage 2 or 3, where individuals go on a whim, and then it's really not that big a deal to get $500k, part in cash, part in deferred wages for whoever is going to employ you there.
Quote from: meekGee on 07/14/2014 07:09 amnpThe scenario of " 1000s of 1-5%ers spending large chunks of wealth to be millions of miles from friends & loved ones, luxury, golf courses and advanced hospitals." was never one of my favorites, and I didn't see it as one of the prominent ideas in this forum.This is why this discussion was originally posed in SpaceX general. I was specifically trying to compare the Musk vision for Mars colonisation via private wealthy paying passengers with the lack of such behaviour in Antarctica, because that is the case that Elon has made repeatedly as the business case for transporting people to Mars. Maybe I should have hung a few extra mentions of SpaceX around the title/intro...here it looks like I'm saying Mars colonisation can never happen because millionairs don't want to play golf there, which is not my meaning at all! :)
What you're describing sounds a lot like a ponzi scheme. The colonists don't have to pay their own way because they'll be fronted the money by the companies, and the only ultimate source of income for the companies is from the colonists. It sounds like a perpetual motion machine where more energy comes out than goes in without there being any source of energy inside.