What if Mars is the wrong path for Human exploration?

[gdelottle]

more than the reduced Mars gravity, what seems to me to be all to prove is the psychological capability of a human being to live for years, without a real alternative, in a confined, artificial environment with reduced solar brightness and distorted colors. Even more from birth.

IMHO this is the elephant in the room of every no-return mission plan, emphasis on no-return, above and beyond all other issues like radiations, etc. Personally, I am very surprised by the lack of consideration given to this aspect of planetary colonization projects, and experiments such as those performed on the ground by NASA and ESA, because of limited duration, do not really address the issue.

Note also that the majority of both real and simulated pictures from the Mars environment are compensated or plain wrong in brightness and chroma. .

[TrevorMonty]

more than the reduced Mars gravity, what seems to me to be all to prove is the psychological capability of a human being to live for years, without a real alternative, in a confined, artificial environment with reduced solar brightness and distorted colors. Even more from birth.

The image portrayed of colonising Mars is people walking around in vast openess in spacesuit. Reality is colonizes will spend all their time in pressurised habitats underground. With occasional visits to  rooms with windows and maybe excursions in pressurized rovers.

Given cost and effort in using space suit doubt most people would ever use one. Pressurized rovers will be expensive to import and maintain so used sparingly.

Same applies to moon but at least return trips to earth is easier even if very expensive.

[DanClemmensen]

Given cost and effort in using space suit doubt most people would ever use one.

You are extrapolating from today's suits, which have a tiny market. If every colonist needs a custom suit that lasts an average of ten years, the market becomes larger, leading to reduced cost and increased innovation. This would probably not kick in until the suits are being produced on Mars.

[VSECOTSPE]

Our species has never settled any of the extreme environments on Earth.  We’ve never lived entire lives and raised new generations underground, underwater, on the open ocean, on mountaintops with thin air, or in Antarctica.  We have visited these environments — colonized them — for research, work/resources, and/or adventure.  But we’ve never settled in any of these places, for all of human history.

Given that, I’m very, very skeptical that our species will truly settle any of the other, even more extreme environment in our solar system.  If we don’t live for decades and raise children in subterranean environments on Earth, then it’s hard to see that happening on the Moon or Mars, no matter how many lunar lava tubes we find and how much Martian city artwork appears in Musk slideshows.  If we don’t live for decades and raise children in metal cans under the Earth’s oceans, then it’s hard to see that happening in LEO or any other location in free space.  If we don’t live for decades and raise children on the Earth’s open oceans or at the altitudes of its highest mountains, then it’s hard to see that happening in the clouds of Venus or other planets and moons in our solar system.

I think someday we’ll have Antarctic-like research stations on the Moon or Mars.  I think someday we’ll have the microgravity industrial facility equivalent of open ocean oil rigs.  I think someday we’ll float in the clouds of Venus like we scale the Himalayas for adventure.  These will be places we’ll visit for weeks, months, or a couple years.

But we need to be really sober about the likelihood of our species truly settling — living out entire lives and raising generations — in these environments.  We don’t do that on Earth, and I don’t think we’ll do it out there.

The things that might change that likelihood — O’Neill-scale space stations, terraforming, changing our genome, artificial consciousness — are in the far-off realm of sci-fi fantasy and not being worked towards today by NASA or any other major institution.

FWIW...

[Greg Hullender]

Our species has never settled any of the extreme environments on Earth.  We’ve never lived entire lives and raised new generations underground, underwater, on the open ocean, on mountaintops with thin air, or in Antarctica. . . Given that, I’m very, very skeptical that our species will truly settle any of the other, even more extreme environment in our solar system.

Agree. I'm surprised more people don't bring this up. I usually say, "Heck--we've barely colonized Canada (the northern part, anyway); what makes you think we'll colonize the moon?"

I could see a couple of things that might change that. The first is building really large, enclosed environments that create much of the feel of being outdoors on Earth. E.g. dome over a crater to create a few square miles of enclosed area. (With, I guess, really bight LED lights.) The second is really long travel times that force people to stay at a base long enough to start thinking of it as home. (Or to accidentally have children there.) For example, a Mars base would likely benefit from a semi-permanent staff, simply because the time and expense of sending people there.

If you had both of these factors--a habitat that's big enough to let you feel like you're outdoors plus a schedule that means people need to stay there for several years to justify the trip--then I think it's possible that a base might evolve into a colony.

But I still wouldn't bet on it.

[DanClemmensen]

Our species has never settled any of the extreme environments on Earth.  We’ve never lived entire lives and raised new generations underground, underwater, on the open ocean, on mountaintops with thin air, or in Antarctica. . . Given that, I’m very, very skeptical that our species will truly settle any of the other, even more extreme environment in our solar system.

Agree. I'm surprised more people don't bring this up. I usually say, "Heck--we've barely colonized Canada (the northern part, anyway); what makes you think we'll colonize the moon?"

I could see a couple of things that might change that. The first is building really large, enclosed environments that create much of the feel of being outdoors on Earth. E.g. dome over a crater to create a few square miles of enclosed area. (With, I guess, really bight LED lights.) The second is really long travel times that force people to stay at a base long enough to start thinking of it as home. (Or to accidentally have children there.) For example, a Mars base would likely benefit from a semi-permanent staff, simply because the time and expense of sending people there.

If you had both of these factors--a habitat that's big enough to let you feel like you're outdoors plus a schedule that means people need to stay there for several years to justify the trip--then I think it's possible that a base might evolve into a colony.

But I still wouldn't bet on it.

Two other (remote) possibilities relate to Earth's environment. If Humanity somehow finally gets really serious about preserving or improving the environment, we may impose limits on population, resource extraction, and "pollution", however defined. If so, population expansion will need to occur elsewhere. Alternatively, Humanity may make such a mess of the Earth that we are forced to go elsewhere.

I think Humanity will be replaced by some form of superintelligence before either of these occur, but this raises an additional possibility: some form of Humanity leaves Earth to try to survive in the face of the superintelligence. I doubt we have enough time for this.

[chopsticks]

<snip>

I don't disagree with this at all, but one thing that might differentiate planetary settlement a bit is the fact that it's a lot more difficult and harder to get to (and come back) than the locations mentioned here on Earth. If there's an emergency at the south pole, they can fly someone in (happened before even I winter) but on Mars for example, that will be impossible and the people there will have to deal with it. Perhaps this aspect of separation will foster a stronger sense of independency from Earth and help to promote more of a self-reliant mindset. Just throwing it out there..

[zubenelgenubi]

Moderator:

I spend 2.5 days off of the forum and this happens.

No, we are not advocating Homo sapiens omnicide, while simultaneously defaming libertarians.  Original post and two replies removed.

And on Christmas Eve of all days.  Get some help, please!

[gdelottle]

Our species has never settled any of the extreme environments on Earth.  We’ve never lived entire lives and raised new generations underground, underwater, on the open ocean, on mountaintops with thin air, or in Antarctica.  We have visited these environments — colonized them — for research, work/resources, and/or adventure.  But we’ve never settled in any of these places, for all of human history.

I think that all comes to the economical sustainability of those environment that IMVHO is still to be demonstrated. In the case of Mars, in addition to this, there is also the problem that many resources available, let's say, freely and in an at least theoretically sustainable way on Earth are not. I'm talking about air, water, sun (at the right level), things that in all cases were available to past settlers and were key to their success.

Above all, as I pointed out in my previous post, it is all to prove that human psychology is capable of permanently adapting to life in an enclosed, artificial, artificially lit environment, where obvious things like a run in the park or the rain or a hike in the mountains are impossible or very expensive to accomplish. I remember, for example, that whatever progress will be made on EVA suits, many people who have tried pressurized suits suffered from claustrophobia.

It must be added that in that environment, a single armed madman, who on earth might bring localized damage, could have very serious and generalized consequences if not impossible to recover from, specially on the long term. Especially given that while in today's space ventures the personnel are highly specialized and very small in numbers anyway, in that case they would be ordinary people, perhaps attracted by the extraordinariness of the mission, but who have not fully assessed the psychological difficulties over the long term.

In a nutshell: exploration, with some personnel turnover - as in the title of this thread - yes, sure. Colonization, I have doubts...

I hope I am wrong but, again, it is all to be proven...

[JohnFornaro]

According to Gerard O'Neill, creating a 10,000-person station would cost about the same as the Apollo program at the time.

I'm reading "Space Resources" [SR], by McKay, et al, NASA SP509, and O'Neill is quoted often in that 1992 discussion.  Every cost estimate that they made in SR regarding the "commercialization" or "colonization" of space is woefully short of what the costs will be, and every forward looking moment in time that they predicted has not come to be.

[JohnFornaro]

We don't even know if space stations like the O'Neill cylinders or Stanford torus are practical to build, or even possible to build.

Well, we are finding out, as you know, that even an amateur analysis of the practical issues regarding building such stations quickly hones in on the scale of the problem.

[JohnFornaro]

There are no unsolvable problems with Martian, Lunar, Jovian(moon) colonies.

Nor with space stations.

[JohnFornaro]

3) Sure you can't mine on them, but nothing stopping you from slowly bringing asteroids around to mine from. Plus railgun stuff from the moon? Who knows

That is the fallacy in your argument.

That is harder than doing things on Mars or the Moon.

And supporting the rail gun on the moon would take a colony, so what is the point of sending the material away from the moon and just use it there.

Without getting sidetracked into the difference between a "colony" and a "base", the point of sending construction material from the moon to a space station is obvious.  The moon's gravity well is much smaller than Earth's and in one sense would be less expensive than launching the necessary materials from Earth.  The cost of building that lunar base and the necessary infrastructure may outweigh the delta-vee savings, true, but if the intention of creating an off-world economy for humanity can be allowed, those up front costs would need to be paid.

The OP is not as well written as it could have been.  There is a strong argument that Mars is the wrong path for Human exploration in the first place; humanity should stay on planet.

[JohnFornaro]

We have no moral right to ruin another planet. Get all of us into orbit asap and don't get stuck down the dead ends that are gravity wells.

Huh.  Never heard this argument before.   I guess it's OK to ruin asteroids to get the materials for a gravity well-less space station?  Or are you saying we should just stay in our own gravity well and behave?

[JohnFornaro]

The downside to asteroid resources is that asteroids are tumbling and spinning, sometimes really fast.  And they’re heavy, so we’re talking about a lot of momentum.  Even small ones are usually beyond the capabilities of today’s spacecraft to dump momentum, de-spin, and control.

As I mentioned above, I'm reading "Space Resources" by McKay et al, NASA SP-509, 1992.  There is asteroidal analysis thruout the book, but the authors gloss over the problem of de-spinning the asteroids.

TransAstra proposes a method to catch and process the special case of spherical, non-rotating asteroids, but has yet to satisfactorily demonstrate an ability to despin a massive rotating asteroid.



In any case, the amount of material needed to create the first O'Neill cylinder, which is a ring BTW, is in the order of millions of tons of material, which needs to come from somewhere.

[JohnFornaro]

Moderator:

I spend 2.5 days off of the forum and this happens.

No, we are not advocating Homo sapiens omnicide, while simultaneously defaming libertarians.  Original post and two replies removed.

And on Christmas Eve of all days.  Get some help, please!

Dang!  I miss all hte good convos! 

Happy New Year!

[spacenut]

In zero G, astronauts have to move very slowly.  Every action has an opposite reaction.  Construction will be very very slow.  Mars gravity will allow faster construction of most anything.  Moon, not so much as it is too close to zero G. 

  There is no reason you have to move any slower in zero g. You need attachments so you don't torque things around. I think by far the reason spacewalks take a long time to do things is the fact there is no air and people have to wear bulky spacesuits with heavy thermal and micro-meteoroid requirements. If you had a large pressurized interior space with good attachment systems to couple what you are working on to the outer walls I see no reason you can't move as fast as on Earth, and you could certainly have much more efficient work holding. Look at the guys running around in Skylab.

The first astronaut, a Russian, to space walk, moved too quickly and spun out of control.  He worked real hard to get back into his spacecraft.  Astronauts have to move slowly in zero G to avoid spinning out of control.  If they don't move slowly, they get exhausted fighing against counter reactions.  You have to move slower in space.  Even quality space movies show the astronauts moving slowly in space.  With gravity, they have the movements tempered by the opposite reaction, so they can move faster.  It is not because of bulky spacesuits, it is because of spinning out of control. 

[Robotbeat]

I actually think it wouldn’t be too hard to make a 10,000 person space station. The problem is doing it in the way ONeill envisioned is completely impractical. Food production via agriculture is some of the lowest productivity uses of land that there is, and doing so at full 1gee gravity and high pressure is kind of insane.

Make food in vats with chemicals synthesized via solar power. Make a space station at, say, 1/3rd gee. Instead of 8km in diameter, which is a massive waste of pressurized volume, make it a torus or a far smaller diameter cylinder or bolo so the volume per surface area ratio isn’t so insane. Way cheaper ways to do all this.

In fact, for a long cylinder, the minimum mass per surface area needed to maintain pressure forces is directly proportional to the diameter. So an 8km diameter cylinder requires 100 times the amount of structural material per unit surface area than an 80m diameter cylinder. 80m diameter is feasible even from a Coriolis Force perspective if you just operate at one-third gravity. (PLUS the fact that there’s directly less structural material needed due to lower artificial gravity and lower centrifugal force.)

So at the enormous scale O’Neill imagined, it may very well be just crazy infeasible. But at 80m it may be perfectly feasible because we’re talking

I live in a house of about 100m^2 floor area with 4 other humans, per person that’s 20m^2. To make enough living space for 10,000 people, that’s 80,000m^2, or two counter-rotating cylinders each 160m long and 80m in diameter, plus the end caps. At 100MPa/(g/cc) useful specific strength (assume 400MPa/(g/cc) plus a factor of safety of about 4), that’s just 1000 tonnes of structural material, or about 100kg per person… not counting stresses for centrifugal forces (which depend on what you place inside the cylinders). Scaled up to the 8km diameter, you’d be talking 10000kg of high quality structural material per person. At $1000/kg of high quality structural material to orbit (about the same as a rocket stage or airplane cabin), you’re talking $10,000 per person for the 80m diameter version and $1 million for the 8km version.

That’s just minimum area. If we assume everyone would want 10 times their house space to include yard, transport, job, parks, etc, then you’re talking $100k and $10M, respectively (JUST for high quality structure for pressure vessel purposes).

The only way the large scale version works is by handwaving the costs of high quality structural material. Even if we have access to unlimited asteroid or lunar regolith, this stuff is essentially like gravel or dirt. Turning dirt into high quality structural material is not free. We can use it for shielding or even volatiles like oxygen, but to turn it into pressure vessel material is incredibly non-trivial and expensive.

[Welsh Dragon]

EDIT: never mind, it's not worth the argument

[Welsh Dragon]

EDIT: never mind, it's not worth the argument