Colonizing Mars makes absolutely no sense and it's fascinating to watch otherwise rational people with decent science educations contort themselves into believing otherwise just for the sci-fi trope of living on Mars.<p>Mars's atmosphere is the worst of both worlds. It's of absolutely no use to build a breathable atmosphere. It's just enough to complicate landing and to cover all your equipment in dust when there are planetary-wise dust storms. The ground is poison. Energy production is an issue. Low gravity is a problem. It's a long way from Earth. Terraforming Mars is a fantasy.<p>Now compare this to the Moon. Inhabitants can remain in real-time contact with Earth. Getting there is far easier and quicker. You can cover large areas with solar panels that will generate way more energy and won't get covered in dust. There's evidence of extensive lava tunnels that can be pressurized and inhabited without the need for massive excavation.<p>The only real issue with the Moon where Mars actually wins is day length. Mars has almost a normal Earth-like day length. The Moon is tidally locked to Earth on a 28 day orbit so has... a 28 Earth day "Moon day".<p>You see this same psychology at play every time some fringe scientist comes up with another completely unworkable idea for FTL travel (warp drives,, wormholes, etc).<p>But really living in another gravity well doesn't mmake much sense in any case. It's further compolication for not a lot of gain. I firmly believe humanity's future is in orbitals (aka an incremental Dyson Swarm). This approach has so much more going for it, except perhaps the added protection of living deep underground on a planet or Moon.
The Moon is kind of glossed over but it’s not as bad as it sounds.<p>There are peaks of (near) eternal light at the poles. Put up a tower there with solar collectors and you have power. Nuclear power works too and there is probably fissile material on the Moon if it can be found.<p>It’s only a few days away, meaning it’s close enough for people to come and go and supplies to be sent in an emergency. It’s also close enough for tourism while Mars is definitely not barring fusion rockets or something.<p>Magnetic or gun launch from the Lunar surface could export minerals from the Moon to Earth, another possible industry that could at least offset the cost.<p>There are some compelling scientific and industrial possibilities.<p>For science the Moon would make an amazing place to build massive telescopes. The low gravity would make huge structures easier to build too.<p>Spacecraft could be built on the Moon and launched into space easily, making it an ideal place to construct really huge craft that would probably be needed for any serious forays elsewhere. Nuclear powered launch from the Moon is fine too unlike Earth where this would be an environmental disaster.<p>The environment on the Moon is a bit harsher than Mars but not as much as it first appears. There is water and probably lots of minerals. A vacuum isn’t that much worse than the thin wispy Martian air. The dust may be more abrasive but otherwise is probably not much worse.<p>Edit: peaks of eternal light:<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light</a>
Some factual mistakes in the Article.<p>The USSR landed a probe on mars, the unimagetivelly called Mars 3, it's mission was aborted in less than 2 minutes due to communication failure, but it acchieved a successful landing, and was actually the first one to do so succesfuly.<p>Its predecessor, Mars 2 reached mars, but crash landed, but have the honor of being the first man made object to land on mars surface.
I don’t see why people are so excited about Mars.<p>1. For one there’s the perchlorates. Basically the dust is poison.<p>2. After that, there’s pressure or I suppose the lack there of basically You might as well be in space.<p>3. Solar panels don’t work for shit on Mars, because it’s so much further away in the inverse square law is a bastard.<p>4. It’s a long ass way away.<p>5. The lower gravity has implications long term for having babies.<p>Like, I think we should explore space, and become a multi planetary species, but I don’t know that Mars is the place for a viable long-term colony. I’m much more partial to Venus-cloud-cities or something similar.
<a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/insight/" rel="nofollow">https://science.nasa.gov/mission/insight/</a><p>> The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) was a NASA Discovery Program mission that placed a single geophysical lander on Mars to study its deep interior. But InSight was more than a Mars mission. It addressed one of the most fundamental issues of planetary science: understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago. The mission ended in December 2022 after more than four years of collecting unique science on Mars.<p>In case you wanted to find out what happens next.
I wonder if you could make a huge steel balloon float in the Venusian atmosphere.<p>You'd run into problems with the atmospheric acid eating away at the skin, but I wonder if you can at least float high enough to have a pleasant outdoor temperature.<p>At least the Sun wouldn't appear tiny and cold as from Mars!<p><a href="https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsts/14/1/14_1_11/_article/-char/ja/" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsts/14/1/14_1_11/_arti...</a>
Surely the best place in terms of hospitality is Earth. But Mars, with all its problems, is likely still second. Likely.<p>We can deal with all martian problems.<p>1. Perchlorates in the soil? You can deal with them, say, chemically if you need some patch on Mars which is more Earth-like. After al you don't need to have the whole Mars immediately fertile.<p>2. Low pressure? Yes, but it's still better than vacuum, so spacesuits could be simpler, and also the cold atmosphere won't freeze you as much.<p>3. Far from Earth so Sun is too dim for solar batteries? Then take more of those batteries, they are becoming good, cheap and even light.<p>4. Far away from Earth? Yes, true - but we can survive for the year to get from here to there, and we routinely had ISS missions for half a year, comparing to ~9 months flight with today's technologies from Earth to Mars.<p>5. Low gravity on Mars and weightlessness in flight? Some are optimistic about artificial gravity during flights or even on the surface, and if we don't yet consider permanent settlements, it's imaginable to live a couple of years in that artificial gravity, and come back in a relatively good shape.<p>0. Radiation? How about better shielding for spacecrafts for the flights - both using e.g. water onboard and plasma clouds around, so different kinds of radiation would be at least reduced. Just like with artificial gravity, there are much more questions than answers in these areas, but at least we have physically plausible ideas. On the surface we can use underground houses - even with centrifuges.
On the same theme, A City On Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (of SMBC fame) is a humorous yet an in-depth pragmatic look at why space colonization will suck.<p>Summarizing: space will kill you fast, moon will grind you down with the regolith, and Mars will poison you. There are some interesting bits about international/space laws and treaties too.
They didn't even cover the chemical composition and harsh structure of the regolith, which makes converting it to soil impossibly difficult and probably a good source of novel lung diseases. Or the low gravity resulting in issues for long term habitants. Or the length of the Martian day being annoyingly close to but not exactly 24 hours which will fuck up some rhythms. Or the general mineral paucity. Or the distance. Or or or.<p>Mars is incredibly cool as a science fiction destination, but I'd much rather see us target near earth asteroids as space habitats first.
Operating in the asteroid belt may be more useful. Good access to water, carbon, some nitrogen, and metal resources, so all the basics are available. Robots are probably going to be doing most of the work. Maybe with some on-site human presence, maybe not. It's not clear anyone will live there, but mining operations are likely.
We will achieve artificial general intelligence before any sort of permanent Mars settlement is meaningfully viable. It would make sense to develop the capacity to terraform the Earth out of climate change before worrying about making Mars habitable anyway.